Not only did I notice the error of confusing the Indian Ocean with the Gulf of Guinea, but having lived and worked in Ghana for a year with a Ghanaian family, I noticed serveral other errors. I wrote a letter to the editor immediately upon noticing these huge mistakes, but the letter was not published. The letter follows here:
Dear Newsweek,
Turning to the last page in this week's magazine, I was delighted to see an article about Elmina Castle in Ghana, West Africa, entitled Slave Quarters. I lived as a young adult missionary in Ghana for one year, from 2006-2007, and I had the opportunity to visit other parts of the country during my time there, including Cape Coast and Elmina. Visiting Elmina Castle brought me closer to the historical connection between Ghana and the United States and made me more aware of the suffering that many thousands endured. I do not, in any way, want to diminish the author's experience or her moving account of her visit, but three major errors in the article stood out to me. The first error I noticed was the mention of Elmina Castle "sitt[ing] on top of a hill". It is not Elmnia Castle, but Fort St. Jago, which is on the hilltop overlooking the town. Elmina Castle sits on flat land next to the ocean. The second misinformation I spotted was the author's reference to "roofs peering out onto the Indian Ocean." This is a huge mistake in geography. The Indian Ocean is on the opposite side of the continent of Africa, while Elmina--and the rest of the Ghanaian coastline--looks out onto the Gulf of Guinea. Another error I saw near the end of the article was the reference to being called "ye vu", or "white visitor". This is a name from the Ewe language, and unless the author ran into someone of the Ewe tribe in Elmina, it is highly unlikely that a native of Elmina would use this term. Elmina is a town of the Fanti tribe, and Fanti is a form of the Twi language. In Fante or Twi the word for "white foreigner" would be "obrouni". I genuinely thank the author and Newsweek for this article, and I only ask that a bit more attention and respect be paid to a culutre so hospitable to one revisiting her roots.
Slave Quarters
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It takes four hours on an un-air-conditioned minibus called a tro-tros to get from Accra, the capital of Ghana, to the town of Elmina. The drive is lovely, especially when the road dances above the beautiful Cape Coast and when it enters Elmina's twisty streets lined with palm trees and hundreds of people trading fish like we buy hamburgers at McDonald's. The town's main attraction is a huge white castle that sits on top of a hill. From the road it appears so suddenly, it takes your breath away. The Elmina Castle, with its enormous white walls and red-tile roofs peering out onto the Indian Ocean, could easily be confused for some decaying Mediterranean resort. Such a pretty building—for a hellhole. Elmina Castle is actually one of 20 buildings running along the Ghanaian coast that housed African captives before they were shipped off to the New World. Which is why these buildings are more commonly, and oxymoronically, known as slave castles.
The Portuguese built Elmina Castle in 1482 as a trading post for goods bartered for local gold and gems. As demand for slaves increased in America and the Caribbean, the castle began to store a more precious and perishable trade. Although the castle is empty now, there are many reminders of its horrible past on the inside. In the middle of the courtyard stands a cast-iron ball and chain the size of a backyard barbecue; slaves who disobeyed, including women who refused to sleep with their captors, were shackled to it and left to die in the burning African sun. The castle's interior is rimmed with closet-size rooms where the Africans waited for their dock at the shore. When our guide offered my tour group a chance to get locked into a cell to experience what it might have felt like to be held there, I was the only one to decline. The tears were beginning to well up as I wandered off alone, thinking of how my ancestors would have been crammed on top of each with no room to breath, and without knowing that their lives would only get worse on the ships that would take them through the "middle passage" and across the ocean. If they made it that far.
The tour ended at a dank, dark cell that housed only a door: the "door of no return," an iron gate that led to the planks where the captives were loaded on the ships. Wreaths, flowers and other mementos surrounding the door now pay tribute to the lives that passed through it, and were changed or lost forever. As I peered through the holes in the gate and gazed at the Atlantic Ocean beyond, I realized that walking in the footsteps of my African ancestors was perhaps even more painful than I imagined it would be ever since I watched Roots as a child in the '70s. That feeling was complicated by the fact that because the history of slavery isn't taught in the Ghanaian schools, many of the children and adults I met simply thought of me as a foreigner, and what they call "ye vu"—white visitor. I felt like a stranger in a land where the people looked exactly like me. Yet I felt like a native, too. I guess going home can be like that—sadness and wonder all mixed together. That's especially true when you follow the path back to your ancestors and find yourself looking at the door of no return.
© 2009
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