Cape Coast

Sorry for the pause in blogging but it is a good thing. I was traveling all last week, gathering material. It also shows I haven’t been reclusive.

I’ll start with the trip to Cape Coast two weeks ago.
We visited the slave castles. I didn’t give it much thought before going, but it turned out to be a difficult tour. There was definitely a divide between the black and white students in our group.
It wasn’t immediate, but as we moved through the chambers the suffering that is embedded in the walls and floor seeped into our minds.

Each small chamber held nearly 200 bodies. They were kept below ground in the pitch black, the only light and ventilation coming from a small hole in the ground above them. These holes were used to drop food and watch the captives’ suffering. One such hole lay at the doorstep of the chapel; churchgoers literally had to step over it to enter the place of worship, this sacred place. The weekly routine of praise & repentance took place directly above hundreds of suffering souls.
What happened below as families above sang hymns, gave thanks and prayed for acceptance into God’s kingdom?
Did the Governor’s wife divert her eyes to avoid seeing naked natives or to ignore the misery?
Was this Christianity’s introduction to the continent?

The sewage rose to a level maybe half a foot across the entire floor, where the dead also laid to rest.

I was close to tears, feeling suffocated in the punishment dungeon, but swallowed the lump because I didn’t know what everyone else would think. It’s difficult to explain, but it seemed like the white kids felt unfairly blamed; perhaps this was to disguise a twinge of guilt and embarrassment for the deeds of our ancestors. While I want to say I had nothing to do with it and therefore shouldn’t feel bad as a white person, I sympathized with the black students shedding tears, feeling a connection to the plight of their ancestors.

“The tour guide was too theatrical in his descriptions. It was terrible enough and the exaggeration wasn’t needed to visualize the conditions,” was a comment left in the guest book. I don’t think this was an appropriate statement – perhaps I didn’t have the same guide, but I wonder if the individual just felt ashamed for this crime against humanity.

I had a strange response too – I wanted it to be mentioned that Africans also contributed to the slave trade; that captives of war and disgraced clansmen were sold to the white men by fellow Africans. Weeks later I realize that black/white was not mentioned once during the tour. It was never said that white soldiers raped the black women or white men specifically raided villages to enslave black men. It was my own conscience trying to push away the guilt. I know I can’t be blamed for history, but what about the obvious segregation in our group? It’s not intentional and it’s a result of culture, not color, but why do black Americans & white Americans generally seem to have different cultures? It can’t be denied that it is a result of slavery and permissible segregation.

After the tour I felt uncomfortable around my black friends. I wanted to talk, to ask if they felt uncomfortable also and defend myself against any blame. I sat with Delia for awhile, watching the waves crash against the walls of the fort below, wondering what the enslaved thought as they listened to each wave’s crash. Normally a talkative person, Delia was obviously distressed. Finally she said, “How could they just walk over them on their way into church?”
I felt disgusted, by history, religion, and the racism that exists today.