Date Written: 31 January 2011
Cape Coast Castle, Cape Coast, Ghana
After visiting Elmina, we moved on to Cape Coast Castle, about 15km east. Surrounded by a town of roughly 60,000 as well as a large public university, it had a different feel than Elmina which is located in a smaller town with a less developed tourist infrastructure. Cape Coast is the former administrative capitol of the Gold Coast colony and was primarily in British hands although a smaller, previous fortification on the same spot changed from the Swedes to the Danes and finally to the British all within an eighteen year period.
Inside, one is greeted by whitewash and cannons, carronades and copious amounts of ammunition. We began our tour by watching a 35 minute video on the history of the African people, a video whose production dates back to the early 1990’s (although funded by USAID and with assistance from the Smithsonian).
I was pleased to discover a plague unveiled during our President’s (and family) visit to Ghana in July of 2009.
In 1830 when a Royal Navy captain took over governorship of Cape Coast, he was appalled to find that the slave trade was still ongoing in a clandestine manner, in the very castle in which he was to governor the colony. Thus, he ordered the tunnels to be shut off from the sea in order to put a stop to such a vile practice. This captain ended up dying of malaria and was buried on the castle grounds. His wife came to bury him and discovered that he had a lover, and in jealousy, killed herself. The wife was buried here as well.
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