Return and No Return

Over the weekend that we were in Takoradi, our host Christian took us on two outings to see some wonderful and important sites.  We wanted to take the entire magazine editorial board of students with us on Saturday, but because of the vehicle available to us, we were only able to take one, the editor-in-chief, Irene.  Together, we visited Kakum National Park and took a canopy walk in the rainforest.

 Here, Irene and Bonnee embark on another leg of the canopy walk.  They're stepping off a platform that surrounds one of the trees from which the walk is suspended.

I'd never been on a canopy walk before--this is the first one built anywhere in Africa.  It feels a lot like crossing a swinging bridge.

Ms. Bonnee Breese making it to the end of the walk!

The park was beautiful, but the highlight of the day for me was our visit to Cape Coast Castle.  First built by the Swedes in the mid-1600s, the site was used by various European merchants as a site for buying and selling West African resources.  The castle came under the control of the British in the late 17th century, and the most important period of its history involves its use as a place to house, sell, and ultimately ship human beings from all over West Africa to Europe and the Americas as slaves.  For me, visiting the castle was an important step in understanding the global nature of the history of racism in the U.S.

 Here's a view of the sea from the castle.

 Our excellent guide, Sebastian, stands here at the entrance to one of the dungeons where slaves were kept.  Merchants bought slaves as they were brought into the castle from various parts of West Africa.  Since all the slaves were being housed together, they had to be branded with the initials of the merchants who owned them.  The slaves were packed into five rooms that are perhaps 20' x 20' with up to 250 people in each room.  They slept and defecated on the floor and were led out twice a day to eat.

 Many African Americans who visit the castle leave notes, flowers or wreaths in the dungeons to honor ancestors.  Here, Sebastian holds up the remains of an arrangement left by Michelle Obama when she and her family visited the castle in 2009.

With Irene, Bonnee and Christian at Cape Coast Castle.

 This is one of the portals through which soldiers could look down to the tunnel used to transport slaves from the dungeons to the sea.

Here is the "Door of No Return," the last place that slaves were on African soil before being loaded on small boats to row out to the slave ships.

On the day we visited, fishermen mended their nets and children played on the spot where Africans boarded slave ships.

Sometime in the 1990's a group of African Americans came to the castle and mounted this plaque  on the other side of the door of no return, as a symbol of their freedom to return to the lands of their ancestors.

Sebastian told us that this plaque at the castle was installed by Ashanti chiefs as an acknowledgement and apology for their tribe's role in the slave trade.