From Chains to Freedom : July 11, 2013

Molly & Shaye

Hear the laughter and calls of the people.  Smell the sweet salty mix of ocean in the air.  Feel the warm sun against your skin.  Enter the large doors of a white-washed castle, elegant on its own but the added beauty of the palm trees and ocean make the immensity of the castle breath-taking.  

Suddenly, it is all gone.  The beauty of this castle dissolves and the place you are taken to is full of darkness; you are crowded, you cannot see, and you now must wait up to three months to prove you are strong enough to travel across the Atlantic to be a slave.

Today, our team only experienced the slightest connection to the feeling of the thousands of slaves who transited through Elmina Castle on the Gold Coast of Ghana.  We were locked in prison cells to understand the depth of the inner feeling of being trapped physically. Those who rebelled and were condemned to death by their captors were placed in the Death Cell (often several at a time) and were left locked in until the last person died.  One of our team members could not even stand in the room for a minute; she had had enough.  This feeling of discomfort was all the slaves were able to know.  They were kept for months in cramped dungeons with no windows, no bathrooms, meals of gruel once daily and were often called on to be raped by the Governor or soldiers.   

When their months of confinement had passed and slaves were to be taken away, their final humiliation in Africa was walking through the Door of No Return.  This was the narrow doorway in the depths of the castle from which  they left Ghana on a boat, never again to see their homeland.

In the midst of receiving all of this despairing information, we were able to commemorate the lives of those who had passed through this depressing door when our Ghanaian tour guide asked us to all sing “Amazing Grace.”  A sense of peace swept over the room that was once filled with such utter despair and darkness and a glimmer of hope rang out in the place the hopeless had passed through.  The beauty of the song was that the slaves too sang the same one.  We became one with those who passed before us.

Visiting Elmina cemented yet another connection between Ghana and Charleston for the team.  Being locked in the dungeon brought back our own memories of the dungeon in downtown Charleston where slaves waited to be sold.  We were at the place from where the slaves made their way to our home.  It is sad that a place of such beauty was used for such mistreatment, but our new knowledge is restoring the castle.  

 As our guide told us, “The castle now belongs to Ghana; we hope it will always stay that way.” 

We want to leave you with the words on the plaque at Elmina that visitors can read as they leave:

In everlasting memory of our ancestors, may those who died rest in peace. May those who return find their roots. May humanity never again perpetrate such injustice against humanity. We the living vow to uphold this.