Cape Coast Castle

Cape Coast: 10/17/08
Callie, Mag, Kenz, and I set out for a getaway weekend to Cape Coast. We took an extremely B-u-MPPP-yy bus ride to the coast and made it there just in time (after dropping off our luggage at a PINK hostel--but quite the bargain for $6/night) to see Cape Coast Castle.

We arrived at the castle a few minutes before the 4:30pm--when they give the last tour--so it was perfect timing. First, we toured a historical museum and watched a short video, both briefing us on history related to the walking tour. The museum was filled with tools, craft remains, etc., but what stood out the most to me was the room that was recreated to simulate a boat that the slaves were kept captive on across the Transatlantic route from Africa to America. The boat room was dark and dingy, and the wooden floor creaked beneath my feet as I inched across each floorboard. There were wooden shelves that surrounded the perimeter of the room, one holding a dangling twine nautical rope. It felt all too real. I cannot imagine being one of the thousands of slaves crammed into a boat room like this, lying down side-by-side, ankles, wrists, and neck in chains, traveling from Africa to America in some of the most inhumane conditions. How dehumanizing.

The tour was very emotional, beautiful, eerie, and moving...It is difficult for me to comprehend HOW people (possibly even my ancestors, for that matter) could have done this? The tour guide kept repeating "Never again, never again", as he kept saying that Africa and the rest of the (white) world should unite, and never let this history repeat itself again. What breaks my heart though is the mere fact that child slavery is at this point, RIGHT NOW, still happening in Africa, even in Ghana. I read a statistic a few days ago (not sure how accurate it is or not) that 1 out of every 4 children in Ghana are sold into child slavery (poor Ghanaians in the North, for example, are allegedly selling their children to other Ghanaians, so slavery today is still happening within Africa itself--this is shocking.) Wow. Then WHY is history repeating itself, when there are huge castles to remind us of the horrifying past and WHY on Earth are we letting things like Darfur happen? It makes my heart HURT.

On the tour, we went inside the male and female dungeons, cells, the Governor's quarters/bedroom, and the "Point of No Return"--where slaves exited the castle through a small door, after being bought with goods/at a price by Europeans, and from which they boarded boats assuring they would never again return to Africa after stepping through the door.

Cannons and stacks of cannon balls lined the castle, serving as a safeguard to outsiders and invaders. In the silent breezes and dark dungeon rooms, it was as if I could hear the voices and footsteps of the innocent people that were once held hostage.
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Some history (thanks to Wikipedia--for all of you "history buffs") on Cape Coast Castle:

Cape Coast Castle, it is believed, started as a small trading fort but soon became the largest Slave Trading Post after Elmina Castle in the world.

Cape Coast Castle is a fortification in Ghana. The first timber construction on the site was erected in 1653 for the Swedish Africa Company and named Carolusborg after King Charles X of Sweden. It was later rebuilt in stone.

In April 1663 the whole Swedish Gold Coast was seized by the Danes, and integrated in the Danish Gold Coast In 1664 the Castle was conquered by the British and was extensively rebuilt by the Committee of Merchants (whose Governors administered the entire British colony) in the late 18th century. In 1844, it became the seat of the colonial Government of the British Gold Coast.

The Castle was built for the trade in timber and gold, later it was used in the trans-Atlantic slave trade. The Castle, or Castle and Dungeon, to give it its official name, was first restored in the 1920s by the British Public Works Department. In 1957, when Ghana became independent, it passed under the care of the Ghana Museums and Monuments Board (GMMB). In the early 1990s the building was restored by the Ghanaian Government, with funds from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), United States Aid for International Development [USAID], with technical assistance from the Smithsonian Institution and other NGOs.

Here's a blog that I came across with additional interesting information on the castle: http://www.moxon.net/ghana/cape_coast.html