I discovered a treasure of a bookshop yesterday in NW DC called Busboys and Poets - probably the best collection of progressive books I have come across in one single place. With the added bonus of coffee, couch, apple macs, poetry nights and trendy food, Busboys looked like one of the “hottest” places to hang out for DC’s coolist people. After only 30 minutes I already had a collection of a dozen books to buy but had to reduce this down to three for starters - Insurgency Online - a study of web activism using case studies from the Irish Republican Socialist Movement (IRSM) , the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) and the Movimiento Revolucionario Tupac Amaru (MRTA Peru); Ngugi wa Thiong’o Speaks: Interviews with the Kenyan Writer” and The Aftermath of Slavery: Transisitions and Transformations in Southeaster Nigeria”. My father should have written this one as a quick glance through it reiterates many of the stories he has told me over the years on the nature and form of slavery in what is today the Niger Delta and the immediate hinterland - Igobland, and the impact of the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade on those communities and how they adapted to changes.

On my way out I picked up a leaflet about an organised trip and conference to Goree Island with an excursion to Juffre the Gambian ancestral home of Alex Haley. Reading the leaflet and the website reminded me of an article I read a while back by Saidiya Hartman called “Time of Slavery” in which she discusses the commodification of Elmina Castle and collective slave memories from the Diaspora. The plaque on the entrance to the castle reads

“In everlasting memory of the anguish of our ancestors. May those who died rest in peace. May those who return find their roots. May humanity never again perpetrate such injustice against humanity. We the living vow to uphold this.”

I was taken to Elmina Castle as a child but I cannot remember going in - I don’t think we did. When I was older, I remember my first visit to Badagry near the Nigerian / Benin border where there is a small slave museum. The crazy thing was, I went there not to see the slave museum but to attend a birthday party someone had organised at a restaurant near the town. Somehow looking back it seems almost sacrilegious to have a birthday party next door to a slave museum. Also in Badagry is the first Anglican Mission house - slavery ended and the missionaries moved in to wrought more havoc on people’s lives.

In a search for Elmina castle on google, the first site is the Ontario Black History Society which describes the castle as “a tourist attraction”.

Today, Elmina Castle is a tourist attraction and World Heritage Monument in Cape Coast, Ghana. This hasn’t always been the case. Looking at the castle from the outside, nothing can ever prepare the unsuspecting visitor or tourist emotionally to hear about the tales of horror and atrocities that went on beyond those walls.

If one defines a “tourist attraction” as a place people go to visit as part of a recreational activity then how sad and inappropriate is it to describe Elmina as a “tourist attraction”. Looking up tourism on a Wiki page I discovered that under “niche” tourism you have specific types such as “dark tourism - includes travel to sites associated with death and suffering” which seems very appropriate for Elmina Castle and Goree Island. Note the term “dark” as usual used to describe something awful like slavery which in the case of these two “tourist attractions” was the slavery of Black people. At this point I am not sure where I am heading with this post so I am going to stop. If you are really interested in knowing what other forms of “niche” tourism exist then check the wiki

Tags: Slavery; Nigeria; Slavery; Elmina Castle