Ghana: Axim & Cape Coast Castle

With all the uncertainty and rapidly changing Covid situation, we were both very relieved to get into glorious Ghana by the skin of our teeth.

We spent a few days by the coast, getting battered by the powerful Atlantic waves in Axim, staying in a lovely bungalow in beautiful lush gardens.

In between checking distressing reports of the spread of Covid, nationwide lockdowns and border closures, we enjoyed this children’s playground.

We were actually relieved when there was a huge downpour and dramatic thunder to release the pressure of the hot and humid few days.

This was the palm tree view from the beach, just before the rain started.

We visited Cape Coast Castle, a former slave fort and dungeon.

Cape Coast Castle was the centre of the 400-year long trade in human beings. The Swedish, Portuguese, Dutch and English used this place to capture, torture, transport and kill men, women and children from all over west Africa.

People were kidnapped and made to walk in chains from as far as Cote D’Ivoire, Burkina Faso and Togo, hundreds of miles, before being held in dungeons with minimal food and water for months.

Yao (Akan name for males born on a Sunday) was the knowledgeable, clear and passionate guide who in a short space of time gave us so much information about the crimes against humanity committed here.

He described it as a holocaust and estimates of numbers of people captured and held in slavery range between 12 to 25 million.

This is the door of no return where people who had never seen the sea before were forced into the hulls of ships, away from their loved ones and taken to Brazil, the Caribbean or the USA.

The transatlantic trade in human beings involved millions in forced labour producing sugar, coffee, cocoa, gold, rubber, cotton and other products which were sold in Europe and the US, making these countries immensely wealthy at the expense of people in Africa, depriving it of its people and its natural resources.

At Cape Coast Castle there was a church directly above the cells where millions were held and tortured.

Yao was very clear and brave to point out the role of the church in allowing and justifying the trade in human beings and in colonisation. The church still plays a strong role in Ghana and some members of our tour were clearly unhappy with this criticism of the church.

A shrine which celebrates the religion of Ghana before slavery and colonisation has been created in the location where captured men would have been forced through a tunnel to the door of no return.

Our guide told us about the Year of Return 2019, Ghana, during which people from the diaspora with roots in Ghana returned and walked back through the door of no return.

He highlighted this plaque and its message that it is all of our responsibility to ensure this crime against humanity is never allowed to happen again, eloquently described on this plaque.