Wednesday 31 January 2007

Cape Coast Castle

Pen, Holly and I had a well deserved weekend away. We took a trip to Cape Coast, site of a prominent slave castle fort about a two hour drive from Budu. There are 'forts' all along the West African coast line, but the rocky shores of 'The Gold Coast' (as it was known), lent itself naturally to construction, over 50 and also 3 major castles were built/re built by the Dutch, Portuguese, British, Swedes, Danes through the 16th & 17th centuries. Originally trading posts for other commodities, eventually due to economics, the trade in Slaves became more lucrative and the 'Slave triangle' dominated until the abolitionist movement succeeded in the early 19th C. At cape Coast Castle we were guided through what can only be described as small dungeons where, at any one time, hundreds of men, women and children were held in spaces as small as 15ft square. I thought I was kind of prepared for the experience. I knew already about the scratches on the walls and the recent excavation that discovered the floors were actually 3 feet of human excrement. I knew that they had little or no light or air, i knew that the 'condemned cell' was where those that were too unhealthy to travel were taken to be murdered. I didn't know that most of the population of West Africa and beyond was enslaved, that figures of 12 million+ are sketchy as the children weren't counted. I didn't know that traditional African religious shrines were decimated to build these forts (I saw a rebuilt, working Tabin(?) shrine in the place of what was the tunnel to the ships). Moreover, what i hadn't considered was that my name of 'Johnson' may not just be a given slave owner's name but could've been the name inherited by my Great ... Grandfather by his white father, a British soldier - I may be a descendant of not just slaves, but slave guards or slave owners. A visit to Auschwitz would evoke those images we've seen taken by their liberators of skeletal bodies piled high - there you would see the boxes of spectacles, the mounds of shoes. Here at Cape Coast Castle your imagination is left to fill in those pictures. I, for my own health remained detached, not allowing those images to stay in my mind. My emotions remained in check only shaking twice:
It's strange being in the company of academics when at home I am always with creatives, we are a different breed. creatives process situations emotionally then rationality follows, the girls are the opposite - Holly is an immigration lawyer and Pen a student gaining her master's degree in international affairs; very bright young women, both of whom have a fascination with Africa. So, my rational travelling companions cyclically and without pause discuss the details of the genocide of slavery, the politics of the time, the resulting global effects, competing with each other over their knowledge of figures of death, who was or wasn't to blame, time lines and geography - I had to say, "Please! Can we not talk about it for a while. Being here is enough, my stomach hurts". i was having a physically emotional reaction to the place, for me it was reality not theory, i need to reflect and not debate.
The other evocation of emotion I experienced was walking through 'The Door of No Return' It's name says it all. (as a gesture they have put a plaque on the other side reading 'Door of Return' for the descendants of those taken to symbolically come home). As the guide opened the large grey wooden doors that would have led directly onto waiting boats to load the slaves onto ships, we were released from the cold, damp, dark and oppressive atmosphere of the castle and throw, not into further fear, but into a brilliant sunshine of bluest sky, between us and the sea the beach was invisible with a thronging mass of Africans; preparing their fishing boats, sewing and folding nets, baskets thrown and carried high, children splashing naked in the Saturday sea busy with freedom and happiness. All were going about their business loudly, seemingly without care. Behind the door was silence and the past with it's shadows, here was noise, laughter, chatter and the future. Here, I've used the word 'overwhelming' often, and yet always appropriately.
Of course slavery has had a part in human history since man first felt the pangs of ego and ownership - but the Slave Triangle of goods/guns for people, people for goods, goods for wealth was different; these slaves were regarded as non-human, every genocide needs a lack of empathy and an animalisation of it's victims. The guide at Cape Coast Castle was keen not to lay blame singularly, history is always complex than memory allows, but the colonisation of Africacan be found at the roots of conflicts and civil wars today - Sierra Leone, Liberia, Rwanda, Ivory Coast, Togo, South Africa ... etc., etc. Where one man believes his skin tone, his faith, his intelligence, is higher, better, more right than another's - that this gives him the right to more land, more goods, more wealth than another, is all a reflection of ego, a need for comparative or disparitive identity. Bloody men! x

1 comment:

ralph stone said...

Really well written and evocative! I always believed it starts as soon as one person or group is labelled as 'other', that is all that is required. It is all predictable, rapid and downhill from there.