User:Kwabran/sandbox/Assin Manso Slave River Site

Assin Manso Ancestral Slave River Park was one of the largest slave markets for gathering people to sell into slavery during the infamous trans-Atlantic slave trade. It is especially worth seeing as a prelude to viewing Cape Coast slave castle since you will be following the route taken by the ancestors of many African Americans.

It was the final link in the slavery route from northern Ghana and was known to have been the largest slave market for the merchant supplying slaves on the forts and castles on the coast.

Trans – Atlantic slave trade came about when people were needed to work on agricultural and mines since the Europeans are not suitable to the climate and not able to survive the tropical disease during the agricultural and mines work. Trans – Atlantic slave trade because, already manufactured goods (tobacco, spirits, beads, cloths, guns etc.) were taken from Europe to Africa in exchange of human beings. Then the exchanged goods (human beings) are shipped to work on plantations and mines. The merchants then return to Europe with the produce from the slave’s labor plantations (cloths, sugar, tobacco, etc.). The transport of the slaves from Africa to America forms the middle passage of the triangular trade.

Ancestral Graveyard
Assin Manso served as the place where slaves had their last bath on their journey. It also has the site where the returned remains of 2 diasporans (Lady Crystal from Jamaica and Carson from New York) were re-buried. The Emancipation day durbar together with the visit to the slave river as well as laying of wreaths at the graves of returnees are thus held annually on August 1 to commemorate and climax the celebrations.

Assin Manso After passing Cape Coast and Elmina, the first stage of the journey is Assin Manso, a town that, according to W. E. F. Ward, served as one of the largest eighteenth-century slave markets (Ward 1966:88). Ward’s book The History of Ghana and his reference to Assin Manso as the ‘great depot’ through which the Asante sent their slaves down to the coast, is regularly used by tour guides as proof for the status of Assin Manso as a major slave market. This use of the written word is quite telling with regard to the dynamics of representation that I am discussing here. Writing, even by a British historian, is often regarded as an authorization of oral tradition(s). Yet such scholarly verification is not the only source by which a historical narrative is inscribed onto a place: Performative aspects and active spatial reformations are as important in this meaning-making process. In 1998, Assin Manso was re-inscribed onto the map of African-diasporic historical imagination through the reburial of two slave ancestors (one from Jamaica, one from the United States) as part of the Emancipation Day ceremony. A central aspect of the iconography through which Assin Manso asserts its status as an important pilgrimage site is the existence of the Nnonkonsuo (or Slave River). Here, it is claimed, slaves took their last bath on African soil before being marched down to the slave castles of Elmina and Cape Coast along the coast.25 Since the initial event, Diasporan travellers have come every year to the river to establish a closer linkage with their ancestors

THE LAST BATH
On the way to the coastal dungeon, the slave merchants stopped at the DONKOR NSUO, ”the slave river”, in Assin Manso. Captured Africans were allowed to recuperate there after their long journey. Here, they were well fed and rested for several days or weeks. The merchants knew they could guarantee higher prices if they appeared healthy and strong. DONKO NSUO is where the captives would take their last bath in waters of their native land. The Portuguese began the inhumane practice of branding. They would use a red, hot branding iron to burn an identifying nark onto the skin of captives. The burns mark would leave a scar on the shoulder, the breast or the upper arm to show ownership. Other times branding was used to show that proper duty had been paid. When it was time to leave, they were sorted, leaving the weak ones behind chained trees, where the unthinkable happened. The stronger captives continued walking for approximately 40 miles to Cape Coast Castle, still shacked and chained.

I had caught wind of the Ancestral Slave River Park in Assin Manso in Ghana. I had no idea about this waterway park and its location, so I arranged with my co-writer to visit the spot, so we can have more subtleties of this wonderful tourism site before publication.

The inclination here is diverse as the greenery speaks to your spirit. As one of the biggest slave markets for social affair individuals to sell into slavery during the infamous transoceanic slave trade, Assin Manso Ancestral Slave River Park has pulled in numerous people from varying backgrounds especially the African American population to this spot.

Indeed, guests come here to educate themselves and to think back about how the entire tribal slave occurred, and what really the purpose for this stream park was all about.

It merits visiting this place, as it as a prelude to reviewing Cape Coast slave stronghold since you will be following the course taken by the progenitors of numerous African Americans.

Assin Manso Ancestral Slave River Park was the last connection in the bondage course from northern Ghana and was known to have been the biggest slave market for the dealer providing slaves on the fortifications and palaces on the coast.

Trans – Atlantic slave trade came about when people were expected to chip away agriculture and mines since the Europeans were not suitable to the atmosphere and not ready to endure the tropical illness during the farming and mines work.

Trans – Atlantic slave trade had products like tobacco, spirits, beads, fabrics, firearms and so forth) taken from Europe to Africa in return of humans. At that point, the traded products (ie. the people) were delivered to take a shot at farms and mines.

The dealers at that point got back to Europe with the produce from the slave's work farms (fabrics, sugar, tobacco, and so forth) The transportation of the slaves from Africa to America frames the center entry of the three-sided trade.

In your journey to see everything at the Ancestral Slave River Park, you will undoubtedly observe an Ancestral Graveyard (The Memorial Wall of Return) where most Africans write their names on the wall demonstrating they have discovered their root.

There is a memorial which honors some conspicuous individuals who were engaged with bondage. Unfortunately, during that 'agonizing' period, the captured Africans had to travel shoeless, through the cruel hedge and over harsh territory for several miles and made a beeline for the Gold Coast Dungeon.

They endured abuse, as they were famished and beaten into consistence by the employed drivers of the slave dealer. They were frequently attacked by wild creatures, however unfit to battle or run since they stayed shackled and binded. Numerous lives and spirits were lost along this dangerous excursion.

The slaves were constantly permitted by the Portuguese to stop at a joint called Donkor Nsuo in a real sense signifying 'The Slave River' at Assign Manso. They were allowed to cool off there after their long excursion. They feed and rest for a few days or weeks. Interestingly, this is the place where the hostages would take their last bath in waters of their local land.

Actually, the Portuguese dispensed to the African slaves coldhearted practices. They would use a red, hot marking iron to consume a recognizing nark onto the skin of the slaves. The consumes imprint would leave a scar on their shoulders, the bosom or the upper arm to show ownership.

When the time is due to leave, they were arranged, leaving the frail ones behind binded trees, where the inconceivable occurred. The more grounded slaves kept walking for around 40 miles to Cape Coast Castle, actually shacked and binded.

It's consistently an emotional experience when you get to the Ancestral Slave River Park yet in addition worth considering the visit a prelude to seeing the Cape Coast slave stronghold. A visit to Ghana's Ancestral Slave River Park, which is situated at Assin Manso is an absolute necessity for anybody.

It's a serene spot to consider Black history and Slave exchange history. Also, get ready to buy a packaged river water for the records to signify that you went to the Slave River Park in Ghana.

Getting to Assin Manso is just 2 and half hours from the city, Accra. Assin Manso is a town in the Central Region of Ghana. It is found 40 kilometers along the Cape Coast Kumasi roadway (Yamransa intersection). The Assin Manso Slave Market site is a relic linked to the slave route and appeals to thousands of travellers who troop to the site.

The tombstones of two enslaved Africans who lived in Jamaica and New York and were re-interred can also be found there.

The Slave River (the point where enslaved Africans had their bath before being sold to the slave traders) is a place you need to see.

ASSIN MANSO, GHANA (Reuters) - In a clearing at the turnoff to Assin Manso, a billboard depicts two African slaves in loincloths, their arms and legs in chains. Beside them are the words, “Never Again!” This is “slave river,” where captured Ghanaians submitted to a final bath before being shipped across the Atlantic into slavery centuries ago, never to return to the land of their birth. Today, it is a place of somber homecoming for the descendants of those who spent their lives as someone else’s property.

The popularity of the site has swelled this year, 400 years after the trade in Africans to the English colonies of America began. This month’s anniversary of the first Africans to arrive in 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 said business has nearly doubled this year, which has been touted as the Year of Return for the African diaspora tracing their family history. The number of tourists has forced 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.

The increase in tourism has been an economic boon for Ghana, which unlike other West African countries has aggressively marketed its “heritage” offerings for the anniversary.

Officials see it as an opportunity to entice some much-needed foreign investment into the economy, dogged in recent years by high inflation and public debt that has needed an International Monetary Fund lending program to fix.

The Ghana Tourism Authority expects 500,000 visitors this year, up from 350,000 in 2018. Of those, 45,000 are estimated to be seeking their ancestral roots, a 42% increase from last year.

On a recent day in the capital, Accra, a delegation of tribal elders and a representative of the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre welcomed a tour group at a hotel in the city.

At an event in a low-ceilinged hotel conference room, the tour guide encouraged the visitors to sing a hymn in a local language, gently chiding them for not yet knowing the tune. “You are Ghanaians now,” he said.

Members of the group, who were mostly African American, went up to the front one by one to pose with a smiling tourism ministry official or one of the robe-clad elders as they received an official certificate of participation. The investment representative launched into a lengthy power-point presentation focused on the need for investment in Ghana’s cocoa sector and the minimum capital requirements for joint ventures.

With an average spend of $1,850 per tourist, the tourism authority expects this year’s revenues to top $925 million, a 50% increase from 2018, which it hopes to sustain over the next three years at least.

The amount is dwarfed by Ghana’s $2-billion cocoa industry but is considered essential in a country of 28 million people who mostly live in poverty.

Anthony Bouadi, a tour guide at Cape Coast Castle, a fortress where the captives were kept until they were sent on ships over the Atlantic, said he believes the site will change the lives of those who visit.

“The moment you get to know your history, it is going to change you,” he said. “We are encouraging our brothers and sisters from the U.S., from the Caribbean from Europe to come back to their Motherland Africa to get to know the culture … and whatever the ancestors went through.”

The surge of visitors is part of a global phenomenon: Airbnb data shows a five-fold increase in people traveling to places connected to their ancestry worldwide since 2014.

U.S. genetics company African Ancestry says its sales of DNA tests tripled after last year’s release of the superhero film “Black Panther,” an Afro-centric blockbuster with a predominantly black cast. The company is launching an ancestry-based travel service later this year.

To make the most of the moment, Ghana will host a mass “ancestry reveal” on Friday. More than 80 African American participants, including the head of the NAACP, will learn their genetic history, touted as the largest ceremony of its kind in Africa’s history.

Ghana has long encouraged its diaspora to return and has strong links with the African American community. Malcolm X visited in the 1960s and spent time with the American poet and civil rights activist Maya Angelou, who lived there at the time. The prominent black writer and activist W.E.B. Du Bois settled and died in Ghana. Since, many other ordinary African American families have returned.

But questions remain about whether the heightened interest in Ghana can be sustained after the anniversary. Bad roads, a cumbersome visa application process and expensive flights could stem the number of visitors in the long term.

“The government has a huge responsibility,” said Peter Appiah, head of research and publicity at the Centre for National Culture in Kumasi, Ghana’s second-largest city.

“If we want to sustain this tempo,” he said, “then we need to do a lot more in terms of social infrastructure.”

MASSIVE YEAR
At Assin Manso, a group of visitors removed their shoes and walked barefoot down a path to the muddy river that runs through a bamboo grove.

Together they placed their hands in the water, then waded in to offer prayers in thanks for the opportunity to return.

“I can’t even get my head around people coming from a land like this and being snatched,” said Miriam Allen, a 62-year-old retired urban planner from New York, clutching a box of tissues and choking back tears.

“This is a good place and a bad place. A good place to know your ancestors, but to know what those white people did to us. I can’t …” she said, breaking off.

On most tours, Assin Manso marks one of the final stops on a country-wide swing in which groups take part in Ashanti rituals, meet local chiefs and trace the grueling route captured slaves took from the country’s northern hinterland out to the coast.

The forts that still dot Ghana’s coast are a reminder of what slaves endured.

At the Cape Coast Castle, rusted old cannons point out to sea from the ramparts, angled skyward, away from locals playing football on the beach below.

The government is committed to its upkeep - on a recent visit, workers were repainting the high white walls.

In forts like this one, slaves experienced their last days on African soil crammed in steaming-hot dungeons without light - and where tourists are now returning in droves.

“I have seen a lot of people - they really are coming,” said Bouadi, the guide at the castle, who now does up to six tours a day compared with three last year. Each tour has doubled in size, he said, to around 40 people.

He tries to help his family when he can, using the extra money he earns to pay their water and electricity bills.

“Tourism organizations in Ghana are having to hire more people,” he said. “If people earn more, they can pay for school fees; it boosts the local economy and reduces poverty.”

Ghana’s efforts stand in stark contrast to other West African countries with rich histories of their own that are little known outside the continent.

Despite a collection of slave sites, including the picturesque but haunting Goree Island, where tourists can visit old slave quarters and its “door of no return,” Senegal does not appear to have harnessed the potential like Ghana. Neither has Benin or Nigeria.

In Nigeria, the main sites commemorating the slave trade are three small museums along a road in the coastal town of Badagry. Artifacts including chains used to shackle slaves are spread across the museums, two of which are small single-story buildings with corrugated iron roofs.Foreign tourists are rare at the site, and a large proportion of visitors are schoolchildren on tours. The poor state of local roads, dotted with potholes, make it hard to visit Badagry: The 65-kilometer (40-mile) journey from the country’s largest city, Lagos, takes around three hours.”As far as I know, only Ghana has made such a significant effort in terms of programs and activities,” said Shanelle Haile, a doctoral student at Brown University in Rhode Island who was in Ghana to study diaspora engagement surrounding the anniversary.

“Now that we’re here and we’ve done the events and the activities, it’s really moving and it’s a powerful experience,” she said. “I just hope that more African Americans learn and hear about it.”

Additional reporting by Edward McAllister in Dakar; Christian Akorlie in Accra; and Afolabi Sotunde in Badagry, Nigeria.; Writing by Edward McAllister; Editing by Alexandra Zavis and Kari Howard

Assin Manso is a town in the Central Region of Ghana, located along the Cape Coast – Kumasi highway in the Central region. Assin Manso Ancestral Slave River Park was one of the largest slave markets for gathering people to sell into slavery during the infamous trans-Atlantic slave trade.

It was the final link in the slavery route from northern Ghana and was known to have been the largest slave market for merchants supplying slaves on the forts and castles on the coast.

https://www.google.com/maps/@5.5240368,-1.1685361,3a,75y,21.39h,84.28t/data=!3m9!1e1!3m7!1s4EdHSgznCexO7jA7mk2bYw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!9m2!1b1!2i50