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September Issue |
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Photography and text by Stephen Osmond
 |  Inside a cell for male prisoners at Fort Appolonia in Beyin, western Ghana. The castle was built by the British in 1753 and used to hold enslaved Africans prior to transportation.
 hey came creeping around the castle wall: three oddly masked, obsequious intruders carrying gifts, alcohol, and concealed weapons. The king and his carefree court soon overcame their alarm and began to share the presents. The strangers went away. Later, the villagers found other gifts that had been left behind. The alcohol took its toll. When everyone was asleep, the slavers returned, shackled the unsuspecting victims, and woke them roughly. The wailing people were threatened with guns and beatings, then marched off to their doom.
This little pantomime, played out for tourists within the forbidding walls of Cape Coast  | Three armed "white" men nonchalantly approach during a reenactment at Cape Coast Castle.
Castle Castle, elicited chuckles from nearby Ghanaians. African Americans in the audience were dismayed by the laughter. I found myself struck by the gulf in perceptions.
Cape Coast Castle was one of the largest centers of the slave trade on the Gold Coast (now Ghana). Hundreds of thousands of captured Africans were once held in appalling conditions behind its thick stone walls. The captives were crowded into a pitiless dungeon and kept in darkness for months, with minimal food and neither sanitation nor exercise. Eventually survivors would be marched through the "Door of No Return," out of the castle, and into the bowels of a waiting slave ship. Many would not survive the perilous sea journey, and perhaps none had any idea of what was happening. Their lives, their identities, their every human right, had been stripped from them forever.
The jocularity of the satire in the cold courtyard could be appreciated by the African audience. Slavery was an admittedly ugly chapter in their history, but their cultures had continued unbroken through this era. The captives sold into slavery were essentially forgotten. But for African Americans the silly drama touched raw, if deeply buried, emotions. The experience | Men of the village fall into the trap. As they get drunk, the slavers emerge from hiding. Soon the befuddled villagers are clapped in irons.
of being within the castle walls, of retracing the enslaved people's steps through the dungeons and narrow prison passageways, caused an emotional catharsis I can only imagine. It touched on the central trauma and mystery within their personal and cultural identities. Coming to Africa was to return "home," but it was also to confront a historic atrocity--and even a sense of rejection--that still impacts their daily lives.
The slave trade preexisted the arrival of Europeans in this area. Africans commonly enslaved and sold captives they had taken from other villages, but European traders turned the practice into a massive business. For three hundred years, millions of Africans were torn from their homes and transported out of the continent. Consequently, Ghana's coastline is dotted with slave castles like Cape Coast Castle. Many are preserved as historic buildings, and they attract considerable tourist business. Indeed, Ghana can boast some excellent modern tourism facilities, like the chain of Golden Beach Hotels and resorts, natural and historic attractions, and cultural and regional diversity. These forbidding colonial fortresses nevertheless provide one of the most compelling reasons for many Americans to tour the country.
In recognition of Africa's shattered heritage, and the need to rebuild a sense of common identity among all people of African descent, Ghana now celebrates Emancipation Day (commemorating the British abolition of slavery in 1834 and the American in 1865) each August, and  | Fishing boats beneath the rusting guns on the walls of Cape Coast Castle.
Panafest, a biennial festival of Pan-African heritage, which will be held this month. The presence of African-American visitors during these events provides a sense of common healing and homecoming, rebinding of physical and spiritual ties. "We must break forever the myth of 'No Return,' " writes Abraham Padi of Silicon Tours in Accra. "And we must pay tribute to our ancestors' resilience. They finally attained their freedom. Today the chains are no more. Now we must restore the broken walls, heal the deep cuts, knit together the torn threads."
Ghanaians and African Americans alike live in the shadow of the colonial slave castles. Every visitor who returns to the "motherland" and freely passes through the castles' gates dispels those shadows. Beyond the confines of these once dreadful places, the descendants of the diaspora now reunite. And perhaps, the organizers of Panafest believe, out of the unity between African peoples from the Old and New Worlds can come the foundation of a continent's development and progress in this new millennium.
Stephen Osmond is associate senior editor of the Culture section. He wishes to thank Ghana Airways, Golden Beach Hotels, Nomad Africa Travel (AIMS Ghana), and Silicon Tours of Accra for their assistance. For hotel information, see www.goldenbeachhotels.net For travel and tour information, please contact Nomad at aimsgh@africaonline.com.gh or visit www.NomadAfrica.com Contact Silicon Tours at silicon@ghana.com or view www.silicontours.com
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