Cape Coast Castle
During the Atlantic Slave Trade, over twelve
million slaves were shipped from Africa to North and South America and Europe.
That is almost like filling the state of Ohio with all the slaves that made it
across the Atlantic over many generations. How did they get that many slaves out
of Africa to Europe and the Americas?
Slave castles on the coast of West Africa played an
important part in the slave trade. The Cape Coast Castle, one of these castles,
held many slaves during the trade. The Cape Coast Castle was not originally a castle
to begin with. It was a fort constructed by the Swedes in 1653. It was built on
a big rock right by a fishing village that would become Cape Coast, Ghana. In
1665, the British took over and developed the fort into a castle. This process
took over sixty years.
Achibold Dazel was the first merchant governor of
the Cape Coast Castle. During 1667-1750 the British further enlarged the castle
and made huge profits from the castle’s trading. The most slaves they would
have in the castle at a time was about one thousand men and three hundred
women. The slave trade ended in the 1850’s, but Ghana was still controlled by
the British until July 1st 1960, when Ghana became a republic.
The Europeans got slaves through war: when the
Europeans won they captured living soldiers as prisoners/slaves. They would
also kidnap during the night. Sometimes they got slaves through money bribes,
for example they would say something like this:
“I will give you this much gold for 15 strong men from your village.”
When the
slaves got to the castle they would put them in dungeons. There were five male
dungeons with about 200 men in each. There were two female dungeons with about
150 in each. If a slave tried to escape from the castle and the guards caught
him, he would be put in a sealed cell with no food, water or light until he
died. With the female slaves, if they refused to be raped, they would put her
in a small area for five to seven days with little food and water. When the
seven days passed, they would try to rape her again. If she refused again, she
would go back in the small area for seven more days.
This past week my mom, my brother and I visited the
Cape Coast Castle. Like any person who would go there, I had many negative
feelings. I was sad when our tour guide talked about how right above the male
dungeon there was a church. Our guide (and probably the men in the dungeon) referred
to it as “heaven above hell”. The British would also not let them worship or
make noises (unless a guard or someone in charge asked them to speak) while
they were in the castle. Another thing that disturbed me was the female raping.
“The Door of No Return” also bugged me because the slaves could have met
friends at the castle and they might never see them again. I also got mad when
our guide told us that because they were right on the coast any dead bodies
would be tossed into the ocean so they did not have to deal with the odor.
My visit to the slave castle was quite amazing -
and horrible at the same time. I really hope that people will never treat
another person like this again.
