Cape Coast Castle

Sunday was spent at Cape Coast Castle. The big deal of the day is that Obama and Michelle visited here and took the tour. They even left a wreath in the men's dungeon leading to the door of no return and have a plaque on the wall in their honor:

With the political endorsement over, the castle was an interesting but unremarkable place to visit. While the holocaust museum in DC and the Hiroshima museum in Hiroshima are meant to tell the tale of the people and individuals in both facts and emotions, the Cape Coast Castle is very sterile. The museum tells of the history of the castle from a fort to a slaving castle and then presents information about the middle passage and slave auctions, using all the same pictures as in our elementary and high school text books. The end of the museum highlights the black diaspora and those who are major historical black figures. It never takes the time to tell the story of who was lost, where they came from and where they ended up. The museum and tour are very factual in the knowledge that is presented to everyone about the slave trade but neither express the statistics of how many passed through the castle, where they came from and were sent to and who tried to fight back. The book I read before leaving was more informative than the tour guide and museum, which i found questionable. I was expecting to feel a greater sense of understanding and rage toward the failures of the past, but the whole experience was very unremarkable and was not enough to evoke any new conclusions.

Regardless of my lack of response here are some pictures:

And here is a statistic that I felt should have been included:
An estimated 1,035,600 were taken from the Gold Coast (Ghana) from the years 1650-1900.

I would also recommend reading "The Door of No Return: The History of Cape Coast Castle and the Atlantic Slave Trade" by William St. Clair since it is what i read before coming and covered a lot of different aspects of the castle.