World Heritage – Elmina Castle

Elmina Castle was actually called St. George’s by the Portuguese. It is the oldest European built structure still standing in sub-Saharan Africa. It is also a designated World Heritage Monument under UNESCO. Elmina Castle is most known for being the first European slave-trading post in all of sub-Saharan Africa. According to the history books, the Dutch first used it as such in 1637 after they captured it from the Portuguese. Local history however says that the castle had been used for holding enslaved people by the Portuguese themselves initially. In the 1800s the British took over the castle and the slave trade.

Admission to Elmina Castle includes a guided tour. There is a rate for Ghanaians that is 10 times cheaper than that for tourists. Since we were with Daddy, he insisted we were Ghanaian and thus we paid the Ghanaian rate. Otherwise I would have had to argue that in spite of my accent not being Ghanaian I own no other passport but a Ghanaian passport. Admission fee is also higher if you plan to take photographs. I don’t remember the actual amount but it’s on the order of $5 if that for tourist rate.

I appreciated that there is a rate for Ghanaian people that is affordable and I was impressed that at least half of the visitors there that day were Ghanaian. I have heard that some people, namely Black people of the Diaspora who see themselves as making a homecoming and expect to be welcomed as such, have issues with being charged a higher price. But really, the tourist rate is not that much money and as a museum Elmina Castle needs funds for upkeep. No, I’m not being hypocritical!

The tour begins on the lower level – the slave dungeons. Both the male and female dungeons would have been packed with unbelievable numbers of enslaved people in atrocious conditions.

Apparently, the floors are now several inches higher than when they were first built because of the accumulation of human excrement and other dirt. The enslaved people were let out into the courtyard for about an hour or less daily. The women were let out longer.

Why? Overlooking the courtyard was the Governor’s Balcony. From here, the governor and then his men afterwards would stand and choose a woman to be raped that night.

She would be brought up to his bedroom, which in comparison to the dungeons were luxury suites, through a staircase leading up to a trapdoor.

There was no such thing as refusal or consent. Indeed, we were shown chains in the middle of the courtyard where women would be chained and made to stand under the hot sun without any water for disobedience.

The children that were conceived from these rapes where actually schooled by the Europeans and used as assistants e.g. translators in the slave trade. Indeed, Cape Coast is known for its vast number of lighter skinned Ghanaians and its abundance Ghanaians with European last names.

The Door of No Return is the infamous portal through which enslaved people would embark on the Middle Passage. It is estimated by the 18th century, 30,000 African people on their way to both North and South America passed through Elmina’s Door of No Return each year.

What must it have felt like? To have been captured at home or while out and about whether as spoils of war or through specific slave raids? To then be shackled and made to walk long distances not knowing if you would ever see your family again? To then arrive at a foreign destination and be shoved into a dark dungeon with 200+ other people speaking languages different from your own, eating, sleeping, defecating, festering, dying in the same spot? This, for days or months on end not knowing what your fate is to be.

What must it have felt like as a woman knowing that the precious few minutes of daily fresh air came at the price of possibly being chosen to be raped?

What must it have felt like to one day be shoved through a tiny opening and made to walk towards the vast ocean, which you may have never seen before if you did not grow up on the coast, to board a large ship, where you would be packed like sardines, making your stay in the dungeon seem like a 5-star hotel experience, where for the next few weeks to months you would once again eat, sleep, defecate, fester and die in the same spot while the ship made its way to lands unbeknownst to you? To the eastern seaboard of the Americas and the Caribbean islands where a whole new hell would begin for you were you lucky enough to survive the trip? All this and there are those who have the nerve to tell African-Americans that this is old history and that they need to get over it.

On the tour, we see Fort St. Jago in the distance. This fort was built by the Portuguese after the local paramount chief had been converted to Christianity in 1503. It was originally a church but when the Dutch defeated the Portuguese, they used it as an outlook to prevent attacks We also see the old Portuguese church in the middle of the Elmina castle courtyard  which when the Dutch arrived, they refused to pray in so they built their own church. The Dutch also refused to use the Portuguese kitchen and built their own.

Our tour group consisted of mostly Ghanaians and a few Diasporan Black people. Some of the other groups had European visitors. Our tour guide admitted that he changed how he presented his information based on the racial/ethnic makeup of his tour group. I can’t say I fault him. It may be a UNESCO World Heritage site, but all the tour guides are Ghanaian. So whose history is he to share? Elmina and the African slave trade history from the perspective of the local African whose ancestors may have helped capture fellow Africans, or may be offspring of the European rape of African women, or who just didn’t really care about what was going on in the castle. Or, is the tour guide to provide the history from the perspective of the Black people of the Diaspora who have returned to reconnect with their lost ancestors and who are possibly seeking an apology from their African brethren. Or should he tell it from the perspective of the European who can acknowledge that the African slave trade “was a bad thing”, but cannot differentiate it from slavery of antiquity and who rather want to point out all the good that has come of it – Christianity, civilization, etc.