White Slave Huts

They were built in 1850 to house the enslaved men and women who cut and carried salt, and each one sleeps two to six people in a space you have to stoop to enter.

Before they were built, the workers walked to Rincon at the north end of the island and back each week — some thirty kilometres each way. The huts were an improvement on that, which is the measure of the conditions. They face the sea, the doorway is the only opening besides a small rear window, and there is nothing else to them.

Go and look inside; standing in one for a moment says more than any of the text around it. There is no charge, no guide and no interpretation on site. Fifteen minutes, and they belong on the same drive as the salt pans and the lighthouse — the whole history is on one road.