On our first day in Ghana, we hired a taxi driver to take us to the town of Elmina to visit the Cape Coast Castle and Slave Dungeon. It was a very moving experience for us. The injustice and evil of the whole concept of slavery is appalling in and of itself, but to stand on the concrete floor of the rooms where thousands of men and women were tortured and died over the course of many years; to open closed doors and breathe in air that–to this day–contains faint traces of urine and death; to pace out a 30′ by 12′ room where 250 of the largest and strongest black men of Africa were crammed and forced to live in filth and darkness for two or three months at a time; to learn that strong African women had their own dungeons with no special provisions made for them even during their menstrual cycles; to see the church built on top of the dungeons and imagine that while singing, dancing, and hallelujahs were heard above, down below human beings were weeping and dying; to walk through the Door of No Return and imagine the shackled slaves being shipped away from their families and roots forever. As if all that is not horrible enough, these men and women did not even understand why they were being held captive, nor were they aware that they would soon cross the ocean in a similarly inhuman condition only to be sold to another human being on the shores of the Americas.
Even as our hearts were heavy with the lessons and history of the slave trade, our tour guide, Frances, was a bright spot and ray of hope. Frances is studying tourism at the Cape Coast University, and he volunteers his time to give guided tours of the slave dungeons when he’s not in class. Like almost everyone we met in Ghana, Frances was welcoming and friendly, full of hope and promise, and excited about what the future holds for both him and the entire Ghanaian nation. He ended our tour by reading a plaque in the wall, quickly summarizing the whole reason that the slave dungeons are open to the public. We end this post with that as well, as we can’t say it any better using our own words.
