Slave Castles, Ghana

Dripping, soaking with sweat, we move through heavy, dank, musty air saturated with organic penetrating odors. Descending into the dungeons we step over hand laid brick channels, made from ballast aboard Portuguese ships, to govern the general direction of once-flowing liquids. Standing in three and a half centuries of compacted human waste, never once cleaned, we try not to dwell on it. Our cramped chamber is plunged into darkness as the lone bulb goes out. We may be standing in similar positions and heat but the dimness of our conditions don’t come close to replicating the experience for the 200 terrified souls who will know this as their home for three months. The only time they will leave the room will be if they get sick and die, or if they make it on to a ship bound for another kind of hell.

It’s not easy to visit these places. But it is important to ground ourselves in the truth. We can’t know our culture’s origin story, and the extent of its transgressions, if we don’t open ourselves to the whole of it. Men of Europe—Portugal, England, Holland, Germany, and others—built castles in far off lands. They lived above in comfortable accommodations, and built their churches at the center—never mind what happened down below, in the dungeons. For 542 years at places like St. George’s Castle, the foundation was carved for the cause of so much poverty, suffering, and injustice in our world. And it is still happening.Read more