Together with Thomas Paul Schirrmacher, President of the International Society for Human Rights (ISHR), I visited a conference in Ghana in April 2024. In addition to the capital Accra, we also visited Cape Coast Castle, one of the most important historical memorials to the intercontinental slave trade in Africa. The former “slave castle” is located about 70 kilometers from the capital and can be reached by car in about two hours from Accra.
Cape Coast Castle is one of around 35 historic forts on the Ghanaian coast. Like most of the other forts on the so-called “Gold Coast”, Cape Coast Castle served as a prison for slaves who had been captured for sale and transport to the European colonies in North and South America. They often had to wait in the dungeons of the fort for months in the cellar for the next slave ship before they were finally taken through a narrow cellar passage to the beach for loading. Cape Coast Castle has been on the UNESCO World Heritage List since 1979. Today, the Ghana Heritage Trust maintains a museum in the castle that tells the story of the slave trade on the former Gold Coast. Together we took part in a wreath-laying ceremony organized by the Global Christian Forum to commemorate the victims of slavery.
A small memorial service organized by the Global Christian Forum was also held that day in the wooden church in Cape Coast, attended by about 200 people.
The visit to Cape Coast Castle remains in one’s memory; those who had passed through the “door of no return” here never returned. Millions of people were passed through here like goods, facing a cruel fate.
Esther Schirrmacher
Bericht-Ghana