Sierra Leone participated in the transatlantic slave trade, but it was neither a major nor a highly significant departure point.

The area was part of what historians refer to as the Windward Coast (or Upper Guinea–Windward coastal zone), encompassing Liberia, areas of present-day Ivory Coast, and more broadly, the Upper Guinea coast, including Guinea.

This region primarily exported enslaved Africans through coastal raids, inland warfare, trade intermediaries along river and coastal routes, and European trading posts and forts, although these were fewer compared to other regions.

Sierra Leone was not a significant region in terms of total volume. The main departure areas in the Atlantic system included the Bight of Benin (present-day Benin and nearby areas), the Bight of Biafra (now southeastern Nigeria), and the Gold Coast (modern Ghana).

These regions collectively accounted for a much larger share of enslaved people transported to the Americas, especially during the 18th-century peak.

Several factors limited Sierra Leone’s relative share, including fewer large, centralized states linked to export networks compared to other regions, geography that led to uneven and prolonged large-scale coastal trade, and shifting European trading priorities that favored higher-volume ports.

The territory has historical sites associated with the transatlantic slave trade, including memorials sometimes referred to as a “Door of No Return.”

The best-known site is Bunce Island, a British slave-trading fort in the Sierra Leone River estuary near Freetown. From the 1600s to the early 1800s, enslaved Africans were imprisoned there before being shipped primarily to North America and the Caribbean.