CAPE COAST CASTLE, GHANA

This is an essay I wrote (in Spanish) for class:

Nearly everyone in the world thinks they know the horrors of slavery. However, seeing the place where their voyage of terror began gave me a very different perspective. During our visit to Ghana we visited the Cape Coast Castle. It is situated in a very beautiful place directly on the ocean. It was a perfect day, sunny with a clear blue sky. But soon our thoughts were far from the beauty of our surroundings. No, we felt the terror, the anguish, the desperation felt by those enslaved in the castle. The cells were for those who behaved badly. The number of people crowded into the cells depended upon how many people had behaved badly. They were hot, humid, and most of all DARK. Then there were the dungeons, some for men and some for women, where hundreds upon hundreds were kept. Again, they were hot, humid, and dark. About twenty feet above the ground were three very small openings which provided light and ventilation. Urine drained from a trough in the center of the rooms, and excrement piled high in troughs on each side of the rooms. The slaves were branded like cattle with hot irons in order to identify their owners. One thing I saw with much irony was a chapel directly above the dungeons!

This was just the first part of their journey to hell. When it was time to leave the castle the slaves passed through "the Door of no Return" to ships waiting to transport them to the New World. The horror of these voyages is another very sad story. Those who survived the voyage began the third part, a life of slavery at the hands of cruel masters.