The House of Slaves was reconstructed and opened as a museum in 1962 largely through the work of Boubacar Joseph Ndiaye (1922 – 2009).[3] Ndiaye was an advocate of both the memorial and proclamation that slaves were held in the building in great numbers and from here transported directly to the Americas.[2] Eventually becoming curator of the Museum, Ndiaye claimed that more than a million slaves passed through the doors of the house. This belief has made the house both a tourist attraction and the site for state visits by world leaders to Senegal.[2]