English: Text on the panel: Bunce Island was one of the forty major European commercial forts built along the West African coast during the slave trade era. Bunce Island (originally Bence) was at the limit of navigation for ocean-going vessels, a meeting place for European traders and African merchants coming from the interior. A series of British firms operated here from about 1670, including the Royal African Company and the London Firms of Grant, Oswald & Sargent and John & Alexander Anderson. The british traders purchased slaves, gold, ivory, camwood, etc. From about 1756, they shipped slaves in large numbers to South Carolina and Georgia, where American rice planters paid high prices for slaves from the region. During its long history, Bunce Island was attacked twice by pirates (1719, 1720) and four times by the French (1659, 1704, 1779, 1794. The present fort is the last of six on this site, rebuilt following the last French attack. After parliament prohibited the Atlantic slave trade in 1807, Bunce Island was used as a saw and mill and trading post. It was abandonned about 1835. In 1948 Bunce Island was declared a national monument. Under the Authority of the Momuments and Relics Commission.