Dispatches from Ghana V: Slave Castle
How could they do it? How could they treat human begins as animals, as worse than animals, abusing them to the point of death, then jamming those who survived into the lower decks of ships for a weeks-long journey that would kill even more of them? Forget the inhumanity of it: who treats valuable stock like that? I was not asking these questions, though I could have. I raise them whenever I contemplate the evil my people—white European colonists—visited upon first the indigenous population of the New World, then upon countless millions of Africans. Last night, as we gathered for a banquet to mark the end of the International Body Music Festival, I heard these questions from a fellow IBMF attendee who, hours after the final cultural event of our week in Ghana, could not put it out of her mind. Visiting Elmina, one of many slave castles on the coast of west Africa, is a shattering experience. The old buildings, some dating to the 16 th century, are maintain...