15 days in Ghana - Triangular trade

There was something about standing in the five by five metre dungeons, where slaves were stored in chains in preparation to be shipped overseas. At any one time, up to 200 slaves were crammed together in the tiny cells.

There was a small crease in the cement floor sloping downhill, which served as a sewerage system to gather the urine, faeces and vomit in one corner. Most West African slaves who made it to the Americas (and other continents) spent a couple of months in these cells, one of which we saw in Ghana’s Cape Coast.

Many died in the cell, or on the journey. Those chosen to be sold overseas went through a gate leading to the ships, nicknamed the ‘Door of No Return’. The dungeons under the fort were protected by cannons (which also served to protect the important trading routes), with several nations, including Sweden, England, Portugal and the Dutch taking charge at various times during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

The forts along the Ghanaian coast were part of the Triangular Trade of slaves, sugar and rum between West Africa, the West Indies and the Americas. Slaves grew the sugar, which was used to produce rum, which in turn was traded for more slaves. And so the cycle went.

Our Ghanaian guide told us there was plenty of blame to go round, including the Arab slave caravans, Christian countries and the African tribes which raided and sold fellow Africans into slavery in exchange for cloth, beads and rum.

As a side point, I’ve been reading about some of the key abolitionists of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Along with the well-known British politician William Wilberforce, it’s worth having a look at the role of James Ramsay and David Livingstone (from ‘Dr Livingstone I presume’ fame), for those interested in this sad period.

As I mentioned, there was something about that five by five metre cell. But mere words on a blog would never do it justice.

Jon