There is something menacing about the way the Atlantic Ocean crashes against the murky sand of the Ghanaian coastline, giving it an eerie and treacherous demeanour. Despite the heat, I shiver as we speed along the rubbish strewn shore, the harbour town of Elmina beckoning in the distance.
Threatening clouds of the wet season hang heavily on the horizon, and powerful white-water crashes against the rocks over which a stark and imposing castle looms. The drive to Elmina is a sombre one.
Our taxi speeds along a highway which shoots like an arrow between the sea and a string of densely bundled mud huts. The inhabitants, obviously in the grip of a seamless cycle of poverty which plagues much of West Africa, spill out of their windowless abodes to cook, giving the air a smoky hue. Burned out wrecks of taxis and mini-vans appear on the highway’s edge from time to time, adding to the eerie atmosphere.
As we reach the outskirts of Elmina, we encounter a herd of goats which quickly brings the taxi to a halt, and we decide to walk last kilometre or so into town. My husband and I soon find ourselves sharing the road into town not only with goats, but an excited throng of children on their way home from school. One of the smallest comes to introduce himself and we soon have a new friend, Samuel, who proudly escorts us through the village.
Elmina, a small fishing community in Ghana’s Central Region, is a colourful town straddling a tranquil harbour, approximately 250km west of Accra, the nation’s capital. When the Portuguese moored here in 1482, seeking gold and ivory, they found themselves with the perfect location to build what is now known as St George’s Castle: a sturdy and whitewashed structure used to secure and facilitate their mercantile activities.
The Portuguese, however, soon began to use the castle for what they discovered to be a far more valuable trade: the slave trade. For centuries afterwards, this became a drawcard for the Dutch and English, resulting in a tragedy of massive proportions for generations of West Africans.
With the castle in the distance, Samuel takes my hand and accompanies us through Elmina’s muddy main street. The thoroughfare is lined with spot bars consisting of a few chairs and tables and a fridge full of local beer. We pass numerous merchant stalls selling smoked fish, colourful wax cloth, plastic bags full of fresh drinking water, and mobile phones. Such merchant trade, coupled with the working fishing harbour and tourism generated by the castle, represents the bulk of Elmina’s meagre economy.
The quiet urban clutter is sporadically interrupted by smaller remnants of the colonial past, such as a Dutch-built church and bell tower, seemingly ill-fitted to its more humble surrounds of tumble-down houses made from tin and mud. However, like the castle, these vestiges are irrevocably intertwined with the town’s history.
As we reach the castle, Samuel waves goodbye and runs off into the chaotic collection of fishermen tending to their nets. One of them is his father. Pirogues, traditional Ghanaian fishing boats, line the hard red sand beneath the castle, stacked side by side like match sticks. This is Samuel’s modest existence, though his beautiful smile betrays the poverty and hardships which he must endure each day.
We continue up the street until we are in the castle’s shadow. Looking up, it is hard not to appreciate the building’s languid beauty. The peeling whitewashed walls, topped with chipped terracotta tiles, exude only a hint of what one imagines must have been its former grandeur. The general state of aged degradation, though not disrepair, is an apt reminder that this colonial relic, as well as the events which occurred here, belong well and truly in the past.
Upon entering the castle, we join a small group of visitors. Our allocated tour guide, Charles, is a passionate but subdued Ghanaian, and extremely knowledgeable about the castle and its history.
As we wander into the courtyard, which is cocooned by the castle’s towering facades, there is nothing obviously exceptional about the building. In fact, it almost resembles any other European castle of the same era, albeit in more tropical surrounds. As with many dark secrets, however, we are soon to discover that the most sordid parts are very well hidden.
As we marvel at the aesthetic beauty of the rustically withering walls, Charles leads us into one of the cells.
“If you spend a few minutes in here, you will better appreciate the amount of air and light within,” says Charles, as he locks the door.
He is right. Standing in the dank and suffocating dimness of the cell, peering through the iron bars standing between us and the courtyard, it suddenly becomes much easier to imagine what went on here.
“Over the course of around 200 years it is estimated that more than 200 million West Africans were captured, imprisoned and shipped out to various colonies in the Americas,” explains Charles, as we contemplate life in the cell. “The vast majority never returned to these shores. Generations of families were stolen and sold, like cattle, and those who survived the treacherous journey across the Atlantic were doomed to spend their lives as slaves to a foreign master in a foreign land.”
Charles unlocks the cell door and we pass through the courtyard in sober reflection. He shows us the church in which the Portuguese, the Dutch, and then the English, worshipped and prayed.
“It happens to be on top of some of the cells, where hundreds of slaves were kept at any given time, wallowing in their own filth and misery,” says Charles.
We also see the balcony from which the castle’s Governor gazed down upon the captive women.
“He used to carefully select a woman who pleased him enough to be sent to him, via a private trap-door, later that night,” says Charles, drawing gasps of disgust from the group.
We have gone remarkably quiet, burdened by the realisation of the horrors which unfolded here. Finally, Charles leads us to a tiny door through which we climb in almost complete darkness. We find ourselves standing before ‘the door of no return’: a tall, narrow opening in an exterior wall through which one can see the sway of distant palms and the endless horizon of the Atlantic.
As I peer out the door, which is just wide enough for one very slender, or emaciated, person to fit through, an overwhelming sense of sadness sweeps over me, and I am grateful for the darkness around me. I try to comprehend the fear, indignity and helplessness which must have been felt by those who had been forced through this very door hundreds of years ago, destined for ships and an existence of servitude, never again to set foot in Africa. The group lingers for a while, pensive, before emerging into the stark brightness of the courtyard.
Standing in the glaring sunshine, I am relieved to be out of that room and away from the weight of the past which hangs so heavily in the damp air. I cannot shake, however, the grim sentiment evoked by standing in front of a portal which, for so many, signalled the end of a free existence. This feeling stays with me long after leaving.
“Thank you for coming,” says Charles, as we make our way out of the castle. “It is vital to come here in order to understand the magnitude of the tragedy witnessed by this place. Understanding will ensure that such things never happen again.”
As we meander thoughtfully back through the streets of Elmina, I glance over my shoulder at the castle, domineering and omnipresent in its waterfront locale. There truly is something menacing about the way the Atlantic crashes against the murky sand of the coastline. Now, I understand why.
