US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Saturday paid an official visit to an island off the coast of Senegal that is one of the most recognizable symbols of the horrors of the Atlantic slave trade.

Yellen, as part of a 10-day trip to restore economic relations between the US and Africa, stopped at a symbolic building on Gori Island known as the “House of Slaves” and viewed the “Entrance of No Return” from which slaves were sent to the other side of the Atlantic.

“Gorre and the transatlantic slave trade are not just part of African history. They are also part of American history,” Yellen said.

“We know that the tragedy did not stop with the generation of people who came out of here. Even after the abolition of slavery, black Americans, many of whom trace their lineage to ports like this, throughout Africa, were denied the rights and freedoms promised to them by our Constitution.”

According to a study of the slave trade, the economic benefits gained by major countries, including the United States, from hundreds of years of unpaid slave labor could be in the tens of trillions of dollars.

In the US, African slaves and their children helped build the country’s most historic institutions, including the White House and the Capitol, according to the White House Historical Association.

Yellen was aware of the ongoing consequences of this violent past.

“Both in Africa and in the United States, although we have made tremendous strides, we are still living with the barbaric consequences of the transatlantic slave trade,” he said.

Yellen’s trip to the island was made by many dignitaries, including former US Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, and South Africa’s Nelson Mandela. Today, Gore Island has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Source: Associated Press.