The slave forts

Elmina is a picturesque fishing village on the coast, west of Accra. The busy and colourful fish market can be smelled from a few streets away. An intimidating place, full of locals unloading fish from the boats, chopping up and gutting anything from massive yellow fin tuna to the small tilapia fish, which is a local speciality served with a polenta called banku. No pictures I'm afraid as they are all on the camera (rather than the Blackberry).

We went on to visit the Fort St George, the oldest colonial structure in sub-Saharan Africa. Built by the Portugese in 1482, seized by the Dutch in 1637, and sold to the British in 1872. The fort is one of the infamous Ghana "slave castles", where thousands of slaves, captured in tribal wars, were brought to be shipped off to the New World. It was a harrowing place with terrible dungeons. We tried lifting the 25kg cannonball which was chained to each slave's ankle and it felt incredibly heavy. If one of them dropped it, he or she would be punished by 40 lashes. We saw The Gate of No Return through which the slaves were flung down onto waiting ships. Many thousands would not survive the journey, as conditions were so bad.

The plaque in the photo is on the wall of the courtyard. Sadly, it ignores all the human trafficking which continues around the world today.....

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