Cape Coast Slave Castle

Now there are four of us from various Virginia community colleges. We were picked up by a representative of Sunyani Polytechnic and after a good night’s sleep in an above standard hotel we set off to drive along the coast to a slave castle at the coast. On the map above you can follow that road by locating the capital of Accra and then follow it to the west to Cape Coast Castle.

Along the way we got a good glimpse of Ghana and its people. As we reached the outskirts of Accra housing quality got poorer--shanty towns were commonplace many of which were actually built with brick. In the midst of this women calmly carried their goods with elegance and poise--one of them even carrying eggs.  

Not sure what she is carrying, looks like some bread with some filling.

Woman carrying eggs

Much of the original rain forest is gone but once in a while one can get a glimpse of what it must have been like. One of us Virginians is actually originally from Benin/Nigeria and he told us that when he grew up there still was a lot of coastal rain forest (that was roughly 45 years ago).

Cassava roots all over the place

Slave Castles

Overall, there are 40 such castles along West Africa’s coast, about 28 castles along the coast of Ghana, most of them west of the capital city, Accra. Other sites are in Senegal, Sierra Leon, Nigeria, Benin, Togo and along the Gambia River. The map below shows some of these castles.

Years ago my colleague and friend Cinder asked me to do some research on slave castles and help her doing a geographic presentation for an English class--that was actually the first time I looked at these castles more closely--so, Cindy, should you be reading this--this started my interest in the topic and it certainly was one of the motives for me to come to this particular corner of the earth.

Here now come some pictures that show you the 'highlights' of our tour of the first slave castle. From the 1600's to the early 1800s, European traders collected able-bodied people with the help of African middlemen and tribal conflict; their last destination on the African continent were those slave castles from where they were herded on board of ships to their destination in the New World.  They spoke different languages and were of many different tribes from far into the interior of the continent.

Our group waiting for the tour to begin

In the photo above we are waiting for tickets; Ghanaians get to pay $ 2.50, others $ 5 to enter the castle. 

Big square--canons for defense in the background

We started out walking along this great square towards the ‘male dungeon’, an arched opening into a holding area for people. There were five rooms, each room not larger than a standard hotel room that had to hold 200 people so that the maximum number of people the dungeon would be holding could amount to 1,000. There were some airholes high above the people but even if anybody managed to get up there they would have fallen on a cliff or into the ocean. There was no way out. 

Urinal gutter

The middle of the rooms sported urinal gutters in photo above and below and one can just imagine (or not) where the rest of human waste went. We were told that those that got sick in the holding room were not taken on board of the ships for they would have not survived the journey for sure; a loss for the slave owner. They were obviously also not returned to where they came from. 

One of the five dungeon rooms (photo above) were cleaned of most of the trodden down human waste, the others (sample below) were not. There is a clear difference in color and one can get a very strong idea on what one is standing.

From there, once the ships had arrived, the captives had to walk into a tunnel that lead downhill till they reached the door of no return. Behind that door were planks that led to boats that took them to the big slave ships that had to wait further out. 

A look into the tunnel

Once slave trade ended, the British closed the tunnel entrance from the dungeons with rocks and cement to mark the end of the slave trade. In front of this closure we found this altar—a shrine dedicated to the God of those people that had to pass through the tunnel. An animist shaman holds watch.

Some other photos:

And yours truly.