Connecting the Dots: Slavery and Identity

Three weekends ago my group traveled down to Cape Coast, a beautiful coastal region of Ghana west of Accra. This area boasts gorgeous postcard-perfect scenes of palm trees lining the ocean beach and women carry bowls of pineapple on their heads for sale. It also represents the heart of the West African slave trade in the 16^th and 17^th centuries. I have not managed a post on this trip until now because it is difficult to put into words – as is obvious to me as I sit and try to write it now.

The importance of the Cape Coast Region lies in its position as the main link between the maritime trade routes of the European powers and the terrestrial trade routes through the Western Horn of Africa. Through the 1700’s, Cape Coast economy was most consumed by its role as the heart of the slave trade – up until its abolishment in 1807 by the British parliament. Most of the slaves were captured in modern-day Nigeria, Mali and Burkina Faso, but also included many other West African countries. Of the forty-something European castles/forts that line the coast of West Africa that were at some point used for the trade and shipment of slaves, 31 of them are found along Ghana’s shores.

Our first stop was in a small town called Assin Manso, an hour from Cape Coast. This used to be the most important stop along the slave trade routes. As the exhausted, dirty captives made their way towards Ghana’s coast from the interior of West Africa, this spot on the banks of the Ndonkor Nsuo (Slave River) was where the slaves were made to bathe before being rubbed down with palm oil to make them look healthy, then sold to slave traders before making their final trek to the dungeons of St. George’s and Cape Coast castles, where they awaited the ships bound for the new world.

Our next stop was at Elmina. St. George’s castle in the fishing village of Elmina represents the oldest remaining colonial building in sub-Saharan Africa, having been built by the Portuguese in 1482. Our tour took us through the male and female slave holding cells, in which 200 hundred years of feces and urine combined to raise the ground 3 and half feet from the original stone floor. It was horrible to stand in the dank dungeons which lack light and air, and imagine the terror and anguish felt by so many people. Indeed, we could actually see it, as fingernail clawings were still very distinguishable on the floor and walls. We also saw the secret trap door that took the female slave of the general’s choice up to his private quarters where he would rape her, and on the way down she would be made available to anyone who wanted “sloppy seconds.”

The most intense part for me was the “door of no return,” which apparently all such slave castles had. This door opens from the final dungeon out of the castle wall to the ocean, where small boats would ferry the captives to the giant ships waiting further out in the water. This door thus represents the end of Africa and the beginning of a long and arduous trip in which only one in four slaves would survive. It was intense to gaze out of that passage, facing towards America and all of the struggle it held in store.

After Elmina we went and did a tour of the Cape Coast Castle, a similar but even larger castle compared to St. George’s. It is reputed to be one of the largest slave-holding sites in the world during the colonial era. At any given time, the Cape Coast Castle held as many as 1500 slaves awaiting shipment to the “new world.” The castle has beautiful white-washed walls and boasts a stunning scenic view of the coast, making it all the more haunting as we descended into the claustrophobic dungeons. It was disturbing to see how similar it was built to the St. George castle in terms of the way it housed the slaves and the tunnel passageway to the door of no return.

One of the most interesting parts of these tours was observing how the context of race in the past and present was handled by the tour guides. The castles actually offer race-segregated tours (that we never actually did), which I think is an important option. One of our tour guides took the opportunity to stop our tour group and announce that he realized that those of us who are white did not directly contribute to the slave trade (awkward), while our other tour guide made a more subtle acknowledgment of the race and power equation by explaining how even before the Europeans came, Africans would enslave other Africans as trophies of war (I however find this to be an entirely off-based comparison). In any case, it was clear that all of us Americans were trying to grasp slavery and our identity within it from a different angle than that we are familiar with: looking outside of America in.

As I watched my African-American friends grapple with the truth that most of them will never actually know which country their ancestors originated from, I couldn't help but think about the basic human need for belonging and identity. Is it enough to know where you were born, and where your parents were born and possibly your grandparents? America is unique in that with the exception of Native Americans, a great number of us do not know exactly where we come from when we try to go back to the continents on which our ancestors left - by force or through the hope of a better life. When I lived in South Korea, most everyone had detailed family trees that went back hundreds and hundreds of years. Traditions are formed upon the basic knowledge of where one came from in the course of history. In comparison, I find myself a bit lost from time to time in America, as I have not attached myself to a certain religion with which to belong, nor do I feel I have a particularly strong link to my ancestors who came to America as far back as the 1600's. But I have been raised to search for such identity within myself, which I believe is one of the reasons why travel has become such an important part of my life. It is through the experiencing of other cultures, religions, traditions and history that I can gain understanding of my identity as a person - as someone trying to understand themselves through the world around them.

Pentacost, Pastors and Palava Sauce

As an agnostic undecided in what exactly I do or do not believe in, I have always been intrigued by religion, and happy to join in on religious events/festivals of my friends in the States or around the world. During my time in Jamaica, I would go every weekend with Mummy (my host mother) to her tiny church in the mountains. As a Seventh Day Adventist, her church brethren and sistren spent much of their time being “taken by the spirit,” which I found quite intriguing and a little bit disturbing. I always managed to dodge the weekly attempt by the pastor to convert me by singing for the church members one of the religious songs I had burned in my memory from years of choir.

I suppose Easter in the Philippines last year would have to take the cake for the most insane and extreme of my religious spectating, where I watched the town drunkard allow himself to be nailed to a giant cross and paraded though the town as Jesus (which he apparently does every year on condition that the town will feed his alcohol addiction for the coming year).

Today I had another wonderful opportunity to witness a religious celebration. Auntie Lydia, one of our two wonderful translators and a still-practicing nurse-midwife, invited us all to attend her church’s Pentecost celebration. I am still a bit foggy as to exactly how it works, but I think the gist is that she is Pentecostal, and therefore attends church on Saturdays, but because today marked the Pentecost – the time when Jesus rose to heaven 50 days after his death – there was an all-day festival today (Sunday) as well.

We arrived around 10:45 and it was clear the sermon had been going on for a while. The “assembly hall” is typical for third world countries- a bare cement structure with no walls (it’s waay to hot for them) and plenty of wooden benches and plastic chairs to sit on. We sat down and I managed to pay attention to the pastor for the next 45 minutes, despite not understanding anything he said as it was in the local Twi language (with the exception of “Amen!”).

But then the uniquely Ghanaian sermon turned to something I’ve been trying to escape – American religious doctrine. An American preacher with a very strong southern drawl appearing to be about 90 years old stood up to present the key sermon. He tried to convince the church that the idea of all its members being “taken by the spirit” is “hogwash.” His incomprehensible stories about Kansas in the 1800’s were lost not only on all the church members, but those of us Americans in the audience, and felt like they dragged on as many hours as he is old. The only thing that kept my attention was that a church member had to translate everything he said from English to Twi. And somehow his Americanisms didn’t quite make it in the translations (“It’s hogwash that any person can be taken by the spirit.”) This was indeed the case, as Auntie Lydia leaned over and explained that the reason the members kept laughing was that the translator was prefacing most of his translations with “Now I don’t really have any idea what he saying, but it’s something like…”).

I was beyond thrilled when he finished the hour sermon and it was time for lunch. The next hour and a half was probably the best time I’ve had here in Ghana. We spent it playing with the approximately 100 children ages 2-12, taking photos together, playing clapping games, and hanging out. Auntie Lydia served us a delicious lunch of one of our favorite traditional Ghanaian foods – Ampesi, which is boiled yams and green plantains with Palava sauce (a spinach sauté with garden egg, which resembles a small zucchini).

After our wonderful time with the kids, we went back into the church for the singing and dancing portion of the festival. I swear, their songs last an average of 40 minutes. That’s forty minutes of dancing and swaying and yelling and parading in front of the congregation and then throwing some money in the pot and then dancing again. I thought I was going to pass out form the heat and sweat. But it was very entertaining and far better than the morning half for sure. During this loud and crazed hour, I noticed the floor covered with sleeping toddlers, which were placed on top of blankets on the floor by their mothers. I can’t imagine how tired they must have been to sleep through all the singing, stomping and clapping.

It was actually sad to leave. Everyone – especially Auntie Lydia – was so generous and inviting, and the kids were such a joy to be with after the last few weeks of intensity at the hospital. However, after the praying session I was ready to go: the four pastors took us into a back room and we stood in a circle as the four of them prayed out loud all at once, sometimes yelling out suddenly as if about to be taken by spirits (while they were praying for me, I was praying that they wouldn’t start speaking in tongues). It actually made me really nervous to be shouted at in prayers by these four men, and I certainly did not feel more relaxed afterwards. But it was a very heartfelt gesture nonetheless – although they failed, once again, to convert this pagan.

I find religion to be fascinating, absurd, and dangerous. Its ability to simultaneously instill love and hate between people has always filled me with awe. I have been fortunate in my life to have only directly experienced religion in a positive and inclusive light through the people I know and meet.