Journey to Elmina
It sits on a ridge along the Guinea coastline overlooking the town of Elmina, its river and beach. Over the past five hundred years it has been owned by four nations. The Portuguese built it to trade in spices, the Dutch converted it to trade people, the British used it as a police-training base and the Ghanaians now hold it in trust for the world as a site to hold memories.
It is St. George Castle, better known as Elmina Castle, the machine that collected, held and dispatched more than 80,000 Africans for transportation to the Americas over a period that lasted more than 200 years.
It helped to generate untold wealth for traders, but the benefits on the hill did not trickle down to the town of Elmina. Aside from the castle, Elmina also boasts the military base of St. Jago, offshore fishing banks and a navigable river. It never suffered from natural catastrophes, such as hurricanes or earthquakes, but opportunity passed it by, and it has remained a small fishing town that carries the hallmarks of poverty.
The road to Elmina has been trod by many Jamaicans. The Cape Coast tourist board staff, local tour guides and taxi operators are familiar with our people. There is even a small hotel outside of Elmina called the Almond Tree Hotel, unmistakably Caribbean with its bright colours and small garden, and I am told that it is owned by Jamaicans. People who asked my nationality were surprised by my appearance - they say that most of the Jamaicans who made the journey to Cape Coast to pay respect to the ancestors and to give thanks for life were Rastafarians. Like most pilgrimages are, the journey for me was arduous and for the greater part, lonely. It is simpler to stay in New York and pay for a round trip to Jamaica, including arranging for a climb to Blue Mountain Peak, than it is to travel from Accra to Elmina return.
It started with a visit to the municipal bus station to purchase a one-way ticket on an air-conditioned coach to Cape Coast for the first service at 4:00a.m. the following day. I roused my regular taxi driver by phone at 2:00, hustled him at 3:00, got help from my host and the security guard to bargain down his price, and we got there for check-in just after 3:30 – he said that he was late because of traffic on the road. The coach ride was about three hours long, and half of the journey felt as if we were going through Yallahs Fording as most of the road paving has been scarificed in preparation for repairs. Arriving in Cape Coast Town I had a cold breakfast and hot coffee at the Cape Coast Hotel and walked to the Ghana Tourist Board where office clerk Michael Buabengpobie had come in one hour early to be my host for the day. Thanks to him I was able to return to Accra the same evening. I had asked for a return ticket when I was in Accra and was told that I had to buy it in the Cape. I asked a few minutes after arriving and the cashier told me to come back an hour before departure. When we got there an hour before, she said that it was sold out but a few words from Michael produced the valuable ticket. He explained that cashiers hold tickets for their friends, and he was her friend. But that was to come. With him negotiating cost, we boarded a taxi that did the 20-minute journey to Elmina, past neat villages of earth and concrete brick with coconut thatch roofs, no indoor plumbing, but served with electricity. A tour had just started when we reached the castle and I joined them just as they entered the female slave yard.
This is white castle on a hill, but not one where any fairytale princess could live. It had been modified over the centuries to emerge as a sophisticated machine for the business of slave handling. The only women who lived in this castle were for sale, and I was now standing in the place where I wanted to reflect, to pray - to weep perhaps, but the situation was not right. My fellow visitors, who numbered 14, were a mix of European-descended British, Australians and Americans and one Ghanaian raised in the UK. They were on joy ride around West Africa, and in-between capturing images on camera and video, they were very interested in facts and figures and wanted to know if the public had access to original records on the castle. They were not irreverent, and it was not my business to impose the residual aching of the creolised on others. My job was to carry out a duty on behalf of my family and friends who might never make this pilgrimage to a spot that best represents our lost heritage. I understand now why a man can do the hajj on behalf of others, and why he has to take it seriously and to do it properly. But here I was, ill-prepared with not even a head covering to guard against sacrilege. However, the time had come and in a cell where 100 women would have lived and died during a three month holding period - in a room where 40 schoolgirls could sit and do a lesson if it were not for the smell in the walls ceiling and floor – in a room underneath where the Dutch etched Psalm 132 vs 13 “For the Lord has chosen Zion; he hath desired it for his habitation,” into a stone tablet in the wall and held church – several thousands of women had lain in fear of their fate, living in their filth, being taken out to the courtyard and washed down before being sent to serve the pleasures of the senior workers in the fort – in one of those rooms I lagged behind, took out a bottle of white rum and gave a libation in the best way that I could. Some of my fellow visitors saw and more must have smelled, but they held their eyes straight. Michael my guide said that he understood the reasoning behind libation, but that he was a Christian now.
@ Gwyneth, October 21
It is St. George Castle, better known as Elmina Castle, the machine that collected, held and dispatched more than 80,000 Africans for transportation to the Americas over a period that lasted more than 200 years.
It helped to generate untold wealth for traders, but the benefits on the hill did not trickle down to the town of Elmina. Aside from the castle, Elmina also boasts the military base of St. Jago, offshore fishing banks and a navigable river. It never suffered from natural catastrophes, such as hurricanes or earthquakes, but opportunity passed it by, and it has remained a small fishing town that carries the hallmarks of poverty.
The road to Elmina has been trod by many Jamaicans. The Cape Coast tourist board staff, local tour guides and taxi operators are familiar with our people. There is even a small hotel outside of Elmina called the Almond Tree Hotel, unmistakably Caribbean with its bright colours and small garden, and I am told that it is owned by Jamaicans. People who asked my nationality were surprised by my appearance - they say that most of the Jamaicans who made the journey to Cape Coast to pay respect to the ancestors and to give thanks for life were Rastafarians. Like most pilgrimages are, the journey for me was arduous and for the greater part, lonely. It is simpler to stay in New York and pay for a round trip to Jamaica, including arranging for a climb to Blue Mountain Peak, than it is to travel from Accra to Elmina return.
It started with a visit to the municipal bus station to purchase a one-way ticket on an air-conditioned coach to Cape Coast for the first service at 4:00a.m. the following day. I roused my regular taxi driver by phone at 2:00, hustled him at 3:00, got help from my host and the security guard to bargain down his price, and we got there for check-in just after 3:30 – he said that he was late because of traffic on the road. The coach ride was about three hours long, and half of the journey felt as if we were going through Yallahs Fording as most of the road paving has been scarificed in preparation for repairs. Arriving in Cape Coast Town I had a cold breakfast and hot coffee at the Cape Coast Hotel and walked to the Ghana Tourist Board where office clerk Michael Buabengpobie had come in one hour early to be my host for the day. Thanks to him I was able to return to Accra the same evening. I had asked for a return ticket when I was in Accra and was told that I had to buy it in the Cape. I asked a few minutes after arriving and the cashier told me to come back an hour before departure. When we got there an hour before, she said that it was sold out but a few words from Michael produced the valuable ticket. He explained that cashiers hold tickets for their friends, and he was her friend. But that was to come. With him negotiating cost, we boarded a taxi that did the 20-minute journey to Elmina, past neat villages of earth and concrete brick with coconut thatch roofs, no indoor plumbing, but served with electricity. A tour had just started when we reached the castle and I joined them just as they entered the female slave yard.
This is white castle on a hill, but not one where any fairytale princess could live. It had been modified over the centuries to emerge as a sophisticated machine for the business of slave handling. The only women who lived in this castle were for sale, and I was now standing in the place where I wanted to reflect, to pray - to weep perhaps, but the situation was not right. My fellow visitors, who numbered 14, were a mix of European-descended British, Australians and Americans and one Ghanaian raised in the UK. They were on joy ride around West Africa, and in-between capturing images on camera and video, they were very interested in facts and figures and wanted to know if the public had access to original records on the castle. They were not irreverent, and it was not my business to impose the residual aching of the creolised on others. My job was to carry out a duty on behalf of my family and friends who might never make this pilgrimage to a spot that best represents our lost heritage. I understand now why a man can do the hajj on behalf of others, and why he has to take it seriously and to do it properly. But here I was, ill-prepared with not even a head covering to guard against sacrilege. However, the time had come and in a cell where 100 women would have lived and died during a three month holding period - in a room where 40 schoolgirls could sit and do a lesson if it were not for the smell in the walls ceiling and floor – in a room underneath where the Dutch etched Psalm 132 vs 13 “For the Lord has chosen Zion; he hath desired it for his habitation,” into a stone tablet in the wall and held church – several thousands of women had lain in fear of their fate, living in their filth, being taken out to the courtyard and washed down before being sent to serve the pleasures of the senior workers in the fort – in one of those rooms I lagged behind, took out a bottle of white rum and gave a libation in the best way that I could. Some of my fellow visitors saw and more must have smelled, but they held their eyes straight. Michael my guide said that he understood the reasoning behind libation, but that he was a Christian now.
@ Gwyneth, October 21
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