February 13, 2007
Day 503
A statue at the slave museum.
I was finally able to look at the slave museum I had heard so much about. Located in the UNESCO heritage area, I walked past it yesterday, but it was closed. The museum had a few interesting statues from Africa, but it was really small and not worth waiting around a day to visit. The most interesting thing about it was that it was located in the same building where slaves used to wait to be sold. It only had a couple windows, which were really just slits in the walls, so the conditions must have been miserable.
After my short visit, I decided I might as well go to the visual arts museum as well. The main exhibits there were the tiles which can be seen on many of the buildings in the area. They provide an effective means of protecting buildings from the heat and humidity of Sao Luis, so they were a standard since the old days when France ruled the area. The museum also had lot of interesting paintings by artists from the area. It gave me an idea of what life must have been like in the city hundreds of years ago.
Slave Museum Photos
Art Museum Photos
