Ghana tourism makes the most of its slave history

Saturday, August 24, 2019

In a clearing at the turnoff to Assin Manso, a billboard shows two slaves of African origin in loincloths. Their arms and legs chained. Next to them the following words –“Never Again!”

This is “slave river,” where captured Ghanaians surrendered to a final bath before they were being shipped across the Atlantic into slavery centuries back, never to return to the land of their birth. Presently, for the descendants, it is a place of sober homecoming of those who spent their lives as someone else’s property.

The reputation of the site has increased in all these years, 400 years after the trade in Africans to the English colonies of America started. This month’s anniversary of the first Africans to come to Virginia has caused a rush of interest in ancestral tourism, with people from the United States, the Caribbean and Europe seeking out their roots in West Africa.
“Ten years ago, no one went to the Slave River, but this year has been massive,” said Awuracy Butler, who runs a company called Butler Tours.

She explained that businesses have almost doubled in 2019, which has been touted as the Year of Return for the African diaspora tracing their family history. The rise in the number of tourists has compelled her to hire more vehicles, she said.

“Everyone wants to add the slave river to their tour,” she said. The coastal forts where they spent their last days in Ghana in suffocating conditions are also increasingly popular, she said.

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