Thousands of Diasporans are expected to visit Ghana this year for the Joseph Project and Panafest events of July and August. Already, the slave castles of the Central Region are a pilgrimage point for many hundreds of slave-trade descendants. But how are they met when they come to discover their roots? Mary Morgan looks at the uncomfortable marriage between two estranged peoples - those who went, and those left behind – and what is being done to bring them back together.
INSIDE CAPE COAST CASTLE, Dakri Brown shakes his head, overwhelmed. "There's so much to do, so much to do… Where do we start?”
We have reached the end of our tour of the former slave castle: myself, and a group of African Americans from Houston, Texas. We have been down into the male dungeon, deep under ground, and seen the tiny peep holes through which the inmates had their only breath of air, their only contact with the world outside. In the female dungeon, we were told how the women were routinely taken for 'baths" and raped by the various officers at the Castle. Those discovered pregnant once on board were useless since no one would buy them; so their arms and legs were tied and they were thrown overboard, into the snapping jaws of the sharks which trailed the ship. At the Gate of Return, several of the group stand in tears – THESE are the doors through which their ancestors, centuries back, may well have passed, with no question of a return ticket for them. By the time we reach the Cell – the tiny, airtight capsule into which up to 30 rebellious slaves would have been locked up at a time and left to suffocate – there is not a dry eye in the group.
I follow at a respectful distance; their journey is one in which I can not take part. I know my roots.
For Dakri, a 31-year-old Christian musician, the tour has been more than just a history lesson or a cultural excursion. It has also been about more than just a search for identity, a reconnection with his personal past and his family’s slave ancestry. “Now I have been here, I am asking myself, ‘What now?’” he says. Startled by the chilling reality of the human cargo which passed through the Castle, shaken by the sight of the poor fishing communities beneath the Castle walls, juxtaposed against his own comfortable position as a tourist, he is seeing his ‘homeland’ Africa in a way he never thought of it before and, in the first moments following that jolt of realisation, he is passionate to make a difference.
Dakri is part of a gospel music ensemble called “Israel: A new breed”, who were in Ghana for the Praise Ghana concert in Accra on Friday March 23. All of them had been to Africa before, none of them to Ghana, and the opportunity to visit the slave castles and touch roots with their past was a highlight and motivation of the two-week visit. It has not been a disappointment.
Israel Houghton is another “Israel” performer. Although his ancestors were from Jamaica, and before that South Africa, almost all slaves leaving the African continent passed through the slave ports and castles of West Africa – with the vast majority of those centred in the area which is now Ghana.
“Right now, I am a bag of emotions,” he says as the tour came to an end. “There is a lot that can’t be defined, that I can’t immediately feel.
“I feel great that I did make it here – to see what my forefathers had to endure, and I feel such an overwhelming gratitude that they made it [to the Americas], to make a way for me to come back.”
Another member, Daniel, says that for him the visit really brought history alive. “Truthfully, I had forgotten most of what I learned in High School about the slave trade,” he says. Now, 10, 15 years later, his memory has been shaken, throttled back to life. “It is one thing to hear about it; and quite another to be here.”
The experience has been an educational and exploratory one for all of them, learning about the past and also about themselves: “I think there is a problem of partial truth in America,” says Dakri. “Most African Americans see Africa as one slate. They are not really aware about their history, about slavery, or about Africa today. I would say that maybe 30 percent of African Americans are actively engaged with their history – if that.”
The others, he says, “don’t want to know, they don’t think in retrospect; they are okay to be ignorant.”
Danielle Stephens, 32, thought that she was aware of her heritage before she travelled to Ghana. “But I realised I was just proud to be black American. I grew up knowing about the civil rights struggles in the 1960s and I was influenced by that, my identity and pride stemmed from that. It is only now that I am really finding out what it means to be African American.”
A sense of belonging, a sense of home, thousands of miles away from Texas in the slave castles of West Africa.
OUTSIDE THE CASTLE, I was interested to find out what these returning ‘brothers and sisters’ – African descendants from North America, the Caribbean, Europe – mean to the local people, who daily see them arrive and leave. To what extent are they accepted as family; to what extent can they ever ‘find their roots’ and feel a belonging amongst the people of a continent they left centuries before? To what extent, even, do people understand their quest for a lost identity?
For some, there remains a perception of a Diasporan visitor far less empathetic than those I have encountered so far; a misconception, perhaps, which serves to prove true complaints of lack of contact and misunderstanding cited by local people.
I meet a group of young male artists working just along from the Castle – drum makers, painters, sculptors. Clearly Rastafarian influenced and disillusioned with the West, like a growing number of the town’s youth, these men call themselves the Jahowa Foundation, a youth organisation set up with the aim of getting young people together to help themselves (“because Government is not helping us” they say).
The number of local artisans in Cape Coast has multiplied in recent years as visitor numbers to the town have also escalated; the majority of their custom goes to foreigners, but for these young men the result has not been entirely positive, and they have also grown disillusioned with their African brothers and sisters visiting from overseas.
In fact, there is a clear up-swell of resentment towards visiting Diasporans amongst this particular group, despite their avowed Pan-Africanist creed and calls for African unity. “We just see them as rich – they come here in their air-conditioned buses and stay in the four and five-star hotels,” says Patrick Stone, 24. “They don’t do repatriation; they see and then they leave. And when they come, they ignore the black Africans. The white Americans are more friendly than the black Americans.”
Patrick’s views are somewhat extreme, his anger almost venomous, and even his co-foundation members try to take the edge off what he is saying. Dennis Blessing, the group President, explains that a number of Africans from the United States and Caribbean have even moved back to the area, and become part of the local community. Their problem is not with all visiting Diasporans, he quickly points out.
In part, it is the fault of the tour companies that visiting Disaporans interact so little with local people, he goes on – often, visitors do not even stay the night in Cape Coast, but arrive early in the morning and leave soon after. There is little chance of breaking through this tense barrier of unfamiliarity and misunderstanding, if there are so few opportunities for the two sides to coincide.
This lack of contact can lead to a lack of rapport and even resentment, as voiced by a minority of local people. “We classify them as whites,” says James Biney, the Chief Regional Vendor of newspapers, who works outside the Castle. “That is the level of difference between our culture and theirs. They come here to learn from us, their roots are from here – but they don’t even speak our language. The barriers are still big, and they need to be broken down.”
Sometimes this arms-length arrangement and division is even encouraged by local authorities, a group at close-by Elmina had told me the day before. I was surprised by Alex Cudjoe, 26, who was at Elmina Castle for the commemorative concert to mark 200 years since the abolition of the slave trade in the United Kingdom. “We should welcome visitors so that they like our town, and we don’t feel bad welcoming them. There is no bad feeling. But our chiefs don’t want us to speak to our brothers and sisters, and they feel very unhappy when we welcome them,” he said.
The Edina Traditional Council was actually a co-organiser of the concert event and is heavily involved with initiatives to develop the tourism industry in the area; to attract more visiting Diasporans. The perception of tension is nonetheless an interesting one, and must only go to strengthen any suspicion or discomfort which already exists in the relationship between Ghanaian and visitor. Indeed, in Elmina the problem is particularly acute; with only two hotels in the small town and few facilities for tourists, few are the visitors who stay for more than a few hours, or who wander more than a few hundred metres from the historic Castle.
Meanwhile, the distance and estrangement between visiting Africans from the Diaspora, and local Ghanaians, is heightened by the non-reciprocal travel requirements of their respective countries, according to Blessing in Cape Coast.
“Those people can come here and walk around freely; but it is so difficult for us to get a visa to the US or the UK or whatever, that many of us will never go.” Blessed, 27, has in fact travelled to Germany, Belgium and Holland, as well as Cote d’Ivoire, although he would never like to live outside Africa, he says. Even for those entering Ghana, visa requirements serve to create false barriers between people in his opinion – for how can someone feel African when they have to fight for a piece of paper to allow them to enter? “We feel they are different, they feel we are different, when really we should all be brothers and sisters.”
Speaking last week with The Saturday Statesman, Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey, Minister of Tourism and Diasporan Affairs, announced plans for a new Diasporan visa which could break down at least part of this problem. Available to visiting diasporans, the visa will act as a life-time pass to visit Ghana, with no need for fresh visa applications every time. It should be available by July this year, when a large influx of African Americans is expected in the country for the Joseph Project and the Pan African Festival of Theatre Arts events.
Blessing also explains that many local people feel an expectation on their visitors from the Diaspora to be giving back to the local community; but too often they see little evidence of this happening.
“If black Americans like to come back home, they need to do some kind of project,” he told me. “There are lots of projects here owned by white people or Lebanese.”
This expectation was certainly apparent in the many conversations I had with other people around the Castle. Owusu Osei works on the gate at the Cape Coast Traditional Council. He says that the number of visiting Disaporans has increased exponentially over the last decade or two, but that so far the town has seen little of the benefits which ought to have come with this increase. “They just come and see – they ought to be doing more,” he says. Alex Cudjoe spoke of the hope of many young people they will find someone to ‘adopt’ or sponsor them through education.
Richard Rynsap Godson, 17, is one of a number of children who hangs around outside the entrance to the Castle, selling goods and speaking to the visitors. He carries with him a small roll of paintings, which sell for around ˘50,000 each – or whatever he can get from them. Some days, he doesn’t sell any at all – so far, today has been one of them. He can also act as an impromptu guide for people who want to find their way around the town, he says, and will generally turn his hand to anything which might make some money.
I ask him where he lives. “Everywhere”– an answer which translates to nowhere in particular, it turns out.
Richard moved to Cape Coast several years ago with his mother, who is originally from Upper East Region. After completing two years of Junior Secondary School, he was forced to drop out due to “financial problems” he says. He is desperate to finish his education, and luckily for him, he now has a chance of doing so. One year ago, Richard met an African American man from New York, who has become his godfather and financial sponsor (and is in fact due to arrive in Ghana soon, for his first visit since he and Richard met).
“He phones me, he sends me clothes and books and money,” Richard tells me. Many of the youth outside the Castle are hopeful of finding similar financial godparents, and several of them brandish sponsorship cards for football teams and schools at the frequent visitors.
For them, the Castle is a strange place – its people an enigma, an opportunity.
I TELL VISITORS of my experiences; the almost fierce expectation I detected towards visiting Diasporans to be giving back; the half-happiness, half-tension at their visiting in the first place. Is this something which has made them feel uncomfortable, I wonder, and do they feel pressurised?
“Not at all,” Dakri turns to me. “Now that I have been here, at the moment at least, I feel a burning obligation. I don’t know how somebody could come here and then deny their roots, not want to do anything.”
I also meet Malcolm Hightower, a 36-year-old social worker from Washington DC. He, like the others, barely fits the locally-conceived monster of the uncaring foreigner, who comes simply to look, leave, and forget. In fact, he has travelled with a friend to Ghana with the specific aim of visiting the castles and finding out about his slave ancestry and his African roots – his first name, Kwame, was given in honour of Ghana’s first president. Malcolm is undertaking the two-week trip without the aid of an organised travel tour, because he wants to experience the ‘real’ Ghana. “So far, people have been more than friendly. We have been received so well and made to feel so welcome,” he says.
There are others who are less enthused with the experience, however. Todd Coker, who is in his late 40s, is an African American from Pennsylvania, US. He has been in Ghana for several months, and works as the US Liaison at the Kofi Annan Peacekeeping Centre in Accra. He visited Elmina Castle with a relative; for him, the experience was less than emotional – “I had visited similar places before” – and he spoke of the “pestering” they encountered as they entered and left the building. Sometimes the allegations of coldness, unfriendliness, unwillingness to give back or to interact, stem from inherent cultural differences, he suggests.
“It can be overwhelming. Is difficult to know who is approaching you as a merchant to make a sale, or who just wants to talk. The visitor can be caught off guard, particularly someone who has not been in Ghana for very long. The practice is not common to them, and it can be an unsettling experience.”
He also describes the expectation or pressure to give as an “unreasonable” one. “You have to question, what are you doing? If people show that they are collecting for a worthwhile cause, then I am more than happy to give; but not to people who are just sitting around.”
He suggests that more clear leadership is needed, from Government or international organisations, to direct the contributions of African Diasporans make to Ghana. He also suggests that more interaction, more education, might break down the divide.
“I think it’s a case of both sides getting to know each other, and of those who visit gaining a better understanding of the situation at hand. It is difficult to make something better if you only have half a picture about what the problem is.”
BACK INSIDE, and the tour over, we head down from the Palaver Hall, the former auction hall for slaves, to the Cape Coast Children’s Library. Perhaps the inspirational work of Leo Kwame Yankson, the Chief Librarian, is more the kind of directional giving and education for which Todd is calling?
Mr Yankson has assembled a library essentially out of nothing, equipped almost solely with the donations of those who have visited. When he took over the library in 1998, it had just 90 books; now the walls of the small room are lined almost floor-to-ceiling with encyclopaedias, volumes on African history, story books.
“I was desperate to create a library where local children who can’t afford to join the public library could come and learn. I had applied for funding to various places and then I thought; why not ask the visitors?”
The response, he says, has come as a pleasant surprise. Amongst the library’s sponsors include educational institutions such as the Regis University in Denver, and a great number of church and community groups, as well as individuals. As Mr Yankson takes the “Israel: A new nation” group through his photograph album of donors, their commitment is already sealed, their contact details left, their promises heart-felt. As well as books and equipment, the library runs a school sponsorship scheme; $30 a year to pay for the food, stationary, books and transport to put a child through primary and JSS level. There are currently 150 children benefiting from the scheme around the Cape Coast and Elmina areas, and the project will soon expand to include students at the Senior Secondary and tertiary institution levels.
Now, a Castle which has for many years sat in the heart of a town, largely ignored by its townspeople, is beginning to become more relevant and more forward looking, at least for its children. An historical monument and cultural museum might not have any direct bearing on the lives of the people living in its shadows, offer any good reason to enter its walls for those too concerned with where their next meal is coming from to look too far into the past; but the opportunity for improved education quite clearly does.
“It looks as if almost every child wants to be here,” MrYankson tells me. He runs a story session on a Sunday afternoon which is well attended locally, and even as we are there several children come in to use the library. “Now, the Castle is not just a museum about the past – it is becoming an education centre for children.”
For Mr Yankson, for the group I am with, this is what it is all about – coming, seeing, and seeing what is to be done. The arrangement might be an uncomfortable one, the tensions still running deep through the veins of this former slave trade town, and along the towns and villages of Ghana’s coast, but that is because that human trade was itself an abomination, which went on for many centuries and will take many centuries to heal. In a town where donkor, slave, remains the most stinging of insults, it is little surprise that sensitivities about slavery are still tangible today. With thousands of miles of ocean brought between ‘brothers’ and ‘sisters’ hundreds of years ago, it is little surprise that the cultural rift is not yet bridged.
200 years since the abolition of slavery, however, and more people within the Diaspora are beginning to wake up to their past, and to explore their future, interlocking that ever more with the fate of Africa. Their journey might at times be a bumpy one, this journey around the Castle was one of tears, but this is all part of that long healing process.
