Kingdom of Kaabu’s Secret Capital

Gunpowder magazine, Kansala, Guinea-Bissau

Ensconced in the forested interior of modern-day Guinea-Bissau, the capital of the Kingdom of Kaabu, Kansala, was the region’s best-kept secret. Although far removed from major European trade routes, the city nevertheless dominated West Africa’s Senegambia region between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. “Kaabu traded with the Europeans and was involved in the slave trade,” says archaeologist Sirio Canós-Donnay of the Spanish National