Elmina castle

Elmina Castle.

While staying on the coast of Ghana, my daughter Rosie and I set aside a day for exploring the historic  Elmina Castle, with the help of tour guide Gideon and some useful written and picture exhibits in the military barracks, once the castle’s Catholic chapel.

Elmina castle, with high straight white walls, fixtures and features in black, has an appearance of elegance, peace and calm which belies its history. In three layers, with the airy spacious accommodation for the Governor and associates on the upper floor, the officers’ rooms, military barracks, kitchens services and places for religious worship in the middle and the dark storage dungeons beneath, a tour of each circuit in turn contrasts the lives and very different status of the occupants.

Elmina castle from the beach- photo- internet.

Within the castle- the governor's residence overlooks one side of the enclosed courtyard. The entrances to the dungeons are through low doors at the ground level.

Built by the Portuguese in 1482 from imported pre- fabricated sections, it is the oldest European building south of the Sahara. It first served to protect the trading port on what became known as The Portuguese Gold Coast, a tenth of the world’s gold being exported from this area annually in the 15^th century.

16th century map of West Africa showing  Amina- "a mine". (Wikipedia)

Within two hundred years trade had shifted and cargoes of captured West African slaves, first exported out of Elmina, became far more valuable commodities for the new colonies of Brazil, claimed by the Portuguese, and later also parts of the Caribbean claimed by the Dutch, who seized control of Elmina castle in 1637. By the 18th century, 30,000 slaves on their way to North and South America passed through Elmina's Door of No Return each year. The slaves came from northern interior tribes, captured and traded by particular African chiefs and kings who moved from the lesser rewards of dealing with Arab merchants. Thus Elmina played its part in what some scholars call The African Holocaust.

The Door of No Return- lead straight to awaiting small rowing boats, taking slaves to the larger ships. Photo- internet. 

As visitors to the castle, we were encouraged to imagine the different  conditions experienced by the slaves, as they awaited transportation, by the officer and service classes and by the governor and captain of guards, controlling the operations.

Males and females were separated, each slave dehumanised, a nameless commodity with no reference to kinship or marriage, locked into low ceiling stone dungeons, some 300 per room, measuring about 30 feet by 12 feet, any light and fresh air creeping through few narrow barred window spaces. Diseases of dirty water supplies, poor sanitation, insect bites and fetid air were rife. 

This dungeon would hold three hundred slaves.

The women’s courtyard could be viewed from a higher gallery, where the governor would take his pick of suitable concubines to satisfy his lust. Refusal to cooperate with any command was punished by chaining a cannonball to the foot and leaving a woman out in the courtyard, exposed to the merciless heat of the sun until she submitted. 

View of the women's exercise yard, from the governor's balcony.  Beneath the wooden trapdoor is the  well supplying water. (now disused). Any woman refusing to obey an order would be brought out, chained to a cannonball and left in the heat until she submitted.

Male punishment was singular- the offender was taken to the death cell, an alternative door of no return.