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Sometimes a pilgrim's destination can be more symbol than historical fact. The Door of No Return on Senegal's Gorée Island, for example, has come to represent one of the cruelest episodes in human history — the enslavement by Europeans and Americans of some 12 million Africans. But Gorée was not, as is claimed by its overseer and island guides, the main departure point for those sold into slavery between the 15th and 19th centuries, and departing slaves likely never walked through the door at all. Gorée was one of hundreds of slaving posts dotting Africa's west coast from modern-day Senegal south to Angola. Those slaves who did pass through the island — at least 26,000 were recorded — were actually loaded onto boats at a beach about 300 m away. The red-washed House of Slaves, in which The Door of No Return is located, was one of many places on the island that kept slaves both for domestic use and to sell to visiting ships. Even though the door is more conceit than fact, Gorée stands as a powerful historical symbol. Which is why, for millions of Africans in the black diaspora, a trip to the island is something every black person outside Africa "has to do," says Jenice View, 45, a middle school teacher from Washington, D.C., who last week made the pilgrimage with her family and friends. "There's an unusual human need to have a sacred place. This is ours."

It is difficult not to feel emotion entering the House of Slaves, no matter what your color. Since I'm a white Australian, some of my ancestors perhaps faced a similar harrowing internment, lengthy trip across the ocean and forced labor. But those first convicts had at least been found guilty of a crime, even if it was something trivial. The Africans stolen from their homes had done nothing wrong. Standing in the doorway looking out at the ocean, the Atlantic gently lapping at the rocks below, I imagined the ships leaving. The people shackled inside must have known they would never see their homes and families again. The sense of loss must have been excruciating. Some were so desperate they jumped overboard to their deaths rather than endure it.

Slavery had existed in Africa for centuries by 1441, when Portuguese sailor Antam Gonçalvez came ashore somewhere along the west coast and captured a dozen people to take home as slaves. Gorée, a palm-covered outcrop 3 km from the Senegalese mainland, was already inhabited when the Portuguese arrived three years later. The first slave was shipped from the island in 1536 and the House of Slaves was built in 1776. Over four centuries, millions of Africans were bought and shipped as slaves to Europe and North America. The trade made inhuman economic sense. A ship loaded with cloth, glass, guns and alcohol left Europe for Africa, where the cargo fetched as many slaves as the ship could hold. Then the ship turned west for a 6-to-12-week journey to the Americas, where the slaves were sold and the ship was loaded with sugar, gold or tobacco for Europe. "It was extremely lucrative for nearly everybody involved: the Europeans, the African slavers, the settlers in America," says Senegalese historian Abdoulaye Camara, a professor of archeology at the University Cheikh Anta Diop of Dakar and the curator of a museum on Gorée. "The only people who suffered were the slaves and their families."

For many black Americans, visiting Gorée is a spiritual experience. The return to Africa, says View, "is a way of acknowledging our survival in North America and our ability to come back." View spent a few months in Senegal in 1981, "but didn't have the guts to go to the slave castle. I wasn't ready." Twenty-three years later she and her family said a few prayers and called on their ancestors for strength. "It's very important to come back to your roots and appreciate all that has come before," says her daughter Ava Danville, 16. Some leave mementos of their visit — the people of the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe presented the islanders with a statue of a slave breaking his chains; another visitor left the simple words never again scrawled on the wall of one of the cells.

Over the past three decades, Joseph Ndiaye, a local man who has dedicated much of his life to restoring the house (and perpetuating The Door of No Return myth), has guided thousands of visitors through the buildings, including Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, Pope John Paul II and Nelson Mandela. "It's like a concentration camp," he says. "People can never forget Gorée." The government has helped turn Gorée into a slave memorial; in 1978 unesco named it a World Heritage Site. The slave castles of Ghana are just as chilling as Gorée, and standing on the beach at Ouidah in Benin it is easy to imagine people shuffling across the sand to waiting boats. Yet the House of Slaves is powerful, not because millions of slaves actually left through The Door of No Return, but because Africa's descendants have made this their place to honor them. As Ndiaye says, "This place is a symbol, a home of memories."

• The end point on a journey of self-discovery for thousands of descendants of African slaves