Slave Castles and Ghana

The African slave trade lasted four hundred years from the 1400s to the 1800s. The greatest majority of that traffic embarked from the west coast of Africa where Africans had been held captive in European forts, today more often called slave castles. Europeans later destroyed many of the castles but others remain still, many of those in Ghana. The Photos here are from two of those castles in the Central Region of Ghana __ Elmina (1482) and Cape Coast (1665).

Much of the classic film Sankofa by Ethiopian filmmaker Haile Gerima was filmed at Cape Coast.

Over the years, many visitors from throughout the African Diaspora have found the experience to be understandably emotional. Rivers of  tears have been shed at these sites to serve as libations on the footprints of our anguished Ancestors while permanently cleansing our very African souls, both those by nature and those by nurture. These scared monuments stand as powerful reminders of our strength, determination, resourcefulness, and resilience while simutaneously serving as indestructible spiritual bridges to our past, our too often disconnected present, and our common future. 

                                           _____ Mel White

Photo Credits: L. Smith

Door of No Return - Ghana