February 14, 2005: Headlines: COS - Sierra Leone: Anthropology:
African American Issues: Slavery: Providence Journal Bulletin:
With the from the University of Sierra Leone, Opala opened an
archaeology lab in 1977 and began unearthing more artifacts in
sites around the village of Bumbuna (Part 2)   By Admin1 (admin)
(pool-141-157-21-200.balt.east.verizon.net - on Friday, February
18, 2005 - 9:27 pm: Edit Post     Priscilla: A slave story
01:00 AM EST on Monday, February 14, 2005  Journal Staff Writer
* * *  Peace Corps worker Joseph Opala went to Africa to help
villagers grow rice.  On a hill cleared by farmers, the 24-year-
old anthropologist found something else: pottery shards and
stone tools in the dirt above the Rokel River.  Looking further,
he found glass beads and broken bits of tobacco pipes.  What
were European beads and colonial pipes doing in the rice fields
of Sierra Leone?  "Ultimately, it dawned on me," he says. "I was
on a major slave route."  Opala was standing on an 18th-century
footpath use