Africans were brought to Charles Town on the Middle Passage, first as "servants", then as slaves. Ethnic groups transported here included especially Wolof, Yoruba, Fulani, Igbo, Malinke, and other people of the Windward Coast. An estimated 40% of the total 400,000 Africans transported and sold as slaves into North America are estimated to have landed at Sullivan's Island, just off the port of Charles Town; it is described as a "hellish Ellis Island of sorts .... Today nothing commemorates that ugly fact but a simple bench, established by the author Toni Morrison using private funds."