The building still haunts me to this day. It was old with dingey white-colored walls. You could tell it was probably a beauty during its time, but it, nevertheless, was a place of tremendous sorrow. Fort James was an English trading post for African slaves and commodities. Located in Accra, it was and still is in a very populous city of Ghana. As a kid, I remember seeing the building and how scary and imposing it was on the beach. It was very out of place, in a region full of slums. It was too large and protected. In a place full of rich African culture, there was this fort evidently European overshadowing everything.

Knowing the history of the country, though, the building fits in perfectly. It was a building of oppression. Where it housed thousands of human souls and contributed to the desolation of Africa. Hundreds of years later, it still stands tall showcasing the effects that it had and still has on Ghana and Africa today. The building wreaked havoc on the region and portrays history very well. When it was initially built, it was beautiful. However, its significance only could have existed due to the dehumanization of Africans. As time went on, it changed its function from a trading post to a prison. It still served the same function of oppression. It simply just had a new name during the era of colonization. Finally, it has become a museum. A place to remember the atrocities and the history of the nation. Crumbling and deteriorating, the fort’s presence shows how the slave trade and colonization may be done, but the impacts are still felt.

I was ten at the time that I saw the building. The people who lived around the fort went about their day as if it didn’t even exist, but I just couldn’t stop looking at it. Before my uncle even explained to me the history of the fort, I already knew its purpose. It was so evident who had built the fort and for what reasons because it was so out of place and yet so in place. After explaining, my uncle asked if I wanted to go to another city in Ghana to learn more about the European slave castles, and with a blank face, I told him “no.” I couldn’t go look at more because it was disheartening to think of all the lives lost and destroyed because a group of people were different. It hit me at that moment when I was there that history indeed happened. People were ripped from their families, put in chains, and dehumanized all for greed. And I could see it all, right there in front of me. In hindsight, I probably should have taken my uncle’s offer to go look at more buildings, but I was too young to comprehend the importance of learning the hard truths of life. Now only a little older, remembering the people swimming happily in the presence of such horrific memories has taught me that you can always find joy in life; it just takes the strength to move on.