A new "African Diaspora'' heritage trail outlining Bermuda's black historical roots was unveiled yesterday as part of a drive to attract more African American visitors.

The Department of Tourism has produced a brochure with a map listing 13 important sites and a video explaining the role slaves, originally from Africa, played in the development of the Island.

It is hoped the heritage trail will encourage African-Americans interested in discovering their "roots' and other cultural tourists to come to Bermuda.

Unveiling the trail yesterday, Tourism Minister David Allen said the brochures would also help Bermudians learn more about their history and encourage preservation of the sites included.

He said research indicated African Americans -- just five percent of the Island's visitors -- who are interested in discovering the history of their ancestors are a lucrative market.

His department is close to appointing a US marketing company to target African Americans.

He said the Progressive Labour Party had vowed to correct the "imbalance'' in the Island which had resulted in Bermuda's black or African heritage being largely overlooked in favour of European history and culture.

The brochures are available now on the Island and will be used by Tourism's overseas offices to lure cultural tourists to Bermuda.

And the seven-and-a-half minute video will be shown at the Smithsonian folk life festival in Washington DC, next month.

The Department intends to erect plaques on sites along the heritage trail.

The trail begins in St. George's with five sites of importance to Bermuda and the slave trade.

They are St. Peter's Church, with its slave graveyard; the Post Office where Methodist missionary John Stephenson was jailed in 1799 for preaching to blacks; the Old Town Historical Society Museum; the Bermudian Heritage Museum; Tucker House Museum; and Barber's Alley, where Joseph Haine Rainey, who later became the first black to win a seat in the US House of Representatives, worked.

Bermuda's first African Methodist Episcopal Church, St. John in Bailey's Bay, and St. Paul in Hamilton are featured, alongside Cobb's Hill Wesleyan Methodist Church, which was built by slaves.

Gibbet Island at Flatts Village -- where punishments, including the death penalty, were meted out during slave times -- is included in the trail, as is Crow Lane, where Sally Bassett, who was owned by a Southampton blacksmith, was burned at the stake after being accused of poisoning her granddaughter's owners.

The Royal Naval Dockyard, where American and Bermudian slaves worked with free blacks, and Commissioner's House, with its slavery exhibition, complete the trail.

The brochure also mentions the Gombeys, the origin of Cup Match and the diary of black Bermudian slave Mary Prince.

Mr. Allen said yesterday: "It is generally recognised that there is growing interest among persons of African descent in tracing their ancestry or `roots'.

"It is a fact that many African Americans have had an interest in visiting the Caribbean because of a perceived cultural and ethnic affinity, but have not identified Bermuda as having the same cultural and heritage assets.

"The Bermuda African Diaspora Heritage Trail will intrigue African American visitors and assist in the conversion of that interest into actual travel bookings.

"We have been lopsided in the past in terms of what we had to offer and I don't think a lot of African Americans knew what we had to offer.

"It is not just African Americans, it is anyone. This is human history. We think there will be a great deal of interest in terms of the American media, but it will not just be our visitors, it will allow people (here) to learn about this heritage.''