 |
| Slave Trade |
 |
|
Slave Castles
|
GHANA'S SLAVING PAST, long regarded as too sensitive to even discuss,
is now becoming a lively issue. A group of Ghanaians, led by lawyers
and tribal chiefs, have convened an Africa-wide meeting to seek `retribution
and compensation for the crime of slavery'.
Using the example of recent successes for Jews whose property was
confiscated by the Nazis, they cite the misery of millions of African
slaves and their descendants, and have called on Western bankers and
governments to compensate them by at least lifting the burden of Third
World debt. But, as more is discovered about the realities of the
tragic trade, some Ghanaians are beginning to wonder how much of the
blame for the centuries of slavery should be shared by Africans themselves.
Elmina Castle, the most famous of Ghana's slaving castles, sits astride
a rocky promontory at one end of a palm-fringed bay on the coast of
Ghana. It was built by the Portuguese before Columbus discovered America.
Indeed, it is thought that Columbus may himself have sailed as a deck-hand
on one of the ships in the convoy that carried the building materials
for the new castle on what was then known as the Guinea coast.
This great pile of whitewashed walls and battlements, dating from
1482, is the oldest European building in tropical Africa. It is one
of about thirty surviving castles, forts and trading posts that still
bear witness to four centuries of the presence of Europeans trading
in gold, ivory - and slaves.
At the height of the slave trade there were over sixty such strongholds
crammed together on a stretch of coast less than 300 miles long. The
remains of about thirty can still be seen today. They are one of Ghana's
most distinctive features, a unique collective historical monument.
Elmina is one of the castles that has been rescued from crumbling
into the sea, while others, built by the Dutch, Prussians, French
and British, are variously used as police stations, prisons, post
offices, lighthouses, schools and official residences.
Clearly visible from the ramparts of Elmina is the outline of another
great castle in the distance, Cape Coast, built by the Swedes in 1653.
Some of these competitive fortresses were almost within cannon-shot
of each other. Many changed hands, and, by the end of the nineteenth
century, after the abolition of slavery, the British had either conquered
or bought out the trading interests of all the other European nations
and set up the Gold Coast colony. The Danish-built Fort Osu, dating
from 1661, became the British seat of colonial government in 1873,
and is today the official home of the president of Ghana.
Lust for gold drew the Portuguese to this part Of West Africa. Alluvial
deposits and mines in the hinterland became an important source of
raw material for the royal mints in Lisbon. Slaves were needed to
work the mines and at first the Portuguese imported them from other
areas of Africa. But, in the 16th century they began using slaves
caught on the Gold Coast. As the historian Albert van Dantzig points
out: `Nearly all the forts were built with the consent, sometimes
at the urgent request, of the local chiefs and people. The forts were
built to keep other European traders away and it was on the side of
the sea that they had their strongest defence.'
Elmina's dominance of the Gold Coast trade lasted until 1637 when
the Dutch drove out the Portuguese and expanded their own slave trade.
They greatly added to the castle, using bricks and timber brought
from Amsterdam, creating a larger courtyard overlooked by a new range
of rooms. They turned the late medieval Portuguese church in the courtyard
into a slave market.
The merchants and administrators, adherents of the Dutch Reformed
Church, had refused to worship where Catholics had prayed before,
and built their own chapel in another part of the castle.
Cape Coast Castle and Elmina, both well-preserved and the centre of
a burgeoning tourist trade, offer another surprise - streets lined
with European houses, public buildings and churches dating from the
early nineteenth century, and in some cases from the eighteenth century.
But many of the surviving houses are almost derelict, and a wall of
one fine merchant's house in Elmina, decorated with arches and columns,
collapsed the night before I went to see it. However, like the castles,
historic buildings like these are beginning to attract a trickle of
funds to save them. US Aid and Conservation International are helping
to fund the restoration of the British Governor's mansion in Cape
Coast, and at Elmina the Americans are supporting the `Save Elmina
Association', which offers maintenance grants to owners of historic
properties. Excavations by James Anquandah, professor of archaeology
at Ghana University, have revealed the influence of `castle culture'
on the towns in the shadow of their walls from the earliest times.
He reports: `We found pencils and slates, even ink bottles still filled
with ink, confirming the existence of schools set up by European missionaries.
Metal working was one of many trades taught by the Europeans; we found
large quantities of brass objects, marking the beginnings of a jewellery
trade.' In Cape Coast Castle, the Smithsonian Institute helped set
up a Museum of Slaving which now caters to an increasing number of
African Americans - the descendants of slaves who arrive in search
of their roots. Visitors weep as they come out of the dungeons at
Cape Coast Castle, having seen where hundreds of slaves were kept
in gloom and damp before the Atlantic crossing to America or the Caribbean
islands. The guides take them along a tunnel to what was known as
`the gate of no return'. A narrow slit in the castle wall, only wide
enough for one at a time, opened onto the sea, the waiting ships,
and another ordeal. Another revelation is the process by which the
slaves were acquired. Recent research by Dr Akosua Perbi of the University
of
Ghana has shown a substantial African involvement in the trade. Typically,
after an inter-tribal war, the prisoners taken by the winning side
were sold to the castles. Then there were traders arriving at the
Gold Coast from the north with slaves. Individuals also kidnapped
people to sell them into slavery. Dr Perbi's research has revealed
that some African traders supplied as many as 15,000 slaves per year
to European merchants. Several African-Americans who have decided
to settle in their ancestral continent live near the castles and take
an active interest in their preservation. When tourist authorities
opened cafes and bars inside the castles and started to clean and
whitewash the dungeons, African-Americans staged a sit-in in protest
at what they saw as a desecration of a shrine to the tragic crime
of slavery. The authorities backed down: the cafes were moved and
the paint pots put away.
|
|
|
Copyright: Magazine: History Today, August 1999
|
|
