A Walk Through Old Osu

26 April 2023. Sometimes the best adventures are last minute decisions. I have not explored Accra or Ghana as much as I would like. I could make plenty of excuses, but it’s a waste of time and space. I’d rather just resolve to do better. Knowing this, and rested from a vacation to tropical São Tomé, I read the weekly community newsletter on a Tuesday afternoon looking for an opportunity to explore. There it was, “The Ghana Bead Society (GBS) is hosting a walking tour through Old Osu given by Professor H. Wellington on Wednesday – contact Felicia for details.” Luckily, there was still room in the tour.

Finding my Way

The meeting point on the flyer said, “Wulff House just after the Castle Roundabout.” I searched the internet. Nothing on google maps for “Wulff House,” but an article extract titled “There Is a House on Castle Drive: The Story of Wulff Joseph Wulff” by Selena Axelrod Winsnes appeared, so I figured I would go to the Castle Roundabout and stay on Castle Drive until I saw a tour. I did an image search to see if I could get an image of the house and found a great Google Arts and History page about the house and its history. Sure enough, as I came out of the circle on Castle Drive, on the left across from an open lawn, I saw a group of women – members of the GBS – surrounding a man with dark glasses and a hat – Professor Wellington.

Professor Wellington is an engaging gentleman. He introduced himself as our Tour Companion instead of tour guide. He spent most of his career an architect, urban planner and professor of architecture, but in retirement teaches in the archeological department at the University of Ghana. Dr. Wellington’s book, Stones Tell Stories at Osu, is the basis of our tour.

We were eleven women of various nationalities plus the professor. It was a perfect day – gusty, cool breezes from the Gulf of Guinea and overcast skies. Walking weather. Though we met at Wulff House, our first stop was Osu Castle. Since the castle is a working government installation, interior tours are difficult to get. Instead, Professor Wellington gave us a history of the castle and what we could see from the West Gate.

Osu Castle (Christiansborg Castle)

During the Danish-Norwegian period, Chistiansborg Castle—or Fort Christiansborg—was a prison and holding dungeon for the approximately 1.5 million enslaved people who passed through on their journey to the Americas. On the west side, newer construction obscures the early castle. Instead we see buildings built after the 1957 independence and, a little further in, buildings built by the British when they moved the colonial capital from Cape Coast to Accra. 

After a short introduction to the castle, Professor Wellington showed us where a Danish cemetery once existed just outside the castle gate. This is where Danish, Norwegians and other Europeans who died during their service were buried. When the castle became the seat of government for the newly independent Ghana, the bodies were exhumed. Dr. Wellington has been unable to determine the disposition these remains. The headstones were moved to the open green space across the street from Wulff House, now called the Danish Cemetery.

The Danish Cemetery

We walked back to the Danish Cemetery where some of my fellow tourists expressed  dismay at the condition of the site. The walls incorporating the headstone are overgrown. Litter covers the chipped stone tiles that form the base of a cross erected to commemorate the location of the landing of the Basel Missionaries (a location more in the spirit of the landing than the reality which was on the opposite side of the castle). It is a decaying site in a beautiful setting. More than one of our number commented that if we don’t preserve the history we will forget it. I agree, but the slave castles are on the UNESCO world heritage list for this reason.

The Ebenezer Presbyterian Church funded the memorial, and often societies and individuals don’t include the cost of maintenance and repair in the gift. Priorities change and funds are limited. I would like to see a well-cared-for site, but I know that poverty, unemployment and inflation are limiting factors in caring for the site. Unless a private benefactor takes on the responsibility, I can foresee no improvement in the memorial’s state.

The Watchtower

Before moving on to the house Mr. Wulff built, Professor Wellington directed our attention west, down the coastline past Black Star Square. Both Ussher Fort and Jamestown Light are visible in the distance. From the Portuguese explorers’ first landings on the coast, several European powers sought control of this area at different times. In addition to the Portuguese, Norwegian-Danish, and British groups already mentioned, the Swedish and Dutch had a long presence in the area at a series of forts.

The Dutch, from what is now Ussher Fort, had tried to take Fort Christiansborg which was protected by a watchtower whose ruins are barely visible today. Professor Wellington mentioned that he would like to undertake an archeological study of the area, but he has not found funding yet. Locals have recycled most of the stones from the tower into buildings around Osu, but there may be more to learn from artifacts buried beneath the surface. 

Wulff House aka Friedriche Minze

We walked across the street to where we began. The words Fredriche Minze  – German for Frederick’s Mine – welcomed us at the entrance to Wulff J. Wulff’s house. Mr. Wulff, born in 1809 and arriving in Osu in 1836, was an administrator for the Danish at Fort Christiansborg. He was a Jewish man who encountered bigotry and discrimination within the walls of the castle to such an extent that he sought and gained permission to move out into the village. There, he met and married Sara Malm, a woman from a prominent local family, and had three children. His daughter, Wilhilmene, married a British man named Cochrane, and the Wulff-Cochrane family still owns the home today. In fact, we were able to meet two family members during our tour. 

In 1840, on Sara’s family’s land, Wulff constructed his house with store rooms below and living space above opening onto a courtyard behind. Unfortunately, he died only two years after completing the house in December 1842. In his will, Wulff deeded the house to his wife and children and requested to be buried in the home following the traditions of the Ga people. The Danish-Norwegian government accepted his will, and his family buried him in one of the ground floor rooms. He asked for no marker for his grave, but there, in the floor, is a small square slab of blue stone surrounded by red bricks. Next to it lies a larger, rectangular field of red brick. 

Eureka!

Professor Wellington told us this story. Records indicate that Wulff requested a traditional Ga burial. The Ga bury their dead in a standing position to preserve space. So, historians have assumed that the smaller square grave was his. A few years ago, the professor collected a supporting datapoint. The Norwegian ambassador at the time had asked Professor Wellington if he could locate a piece of blue stone at Osu castle. The Ambassador’s uncle – generations removed, of course – had worked at a quarry providing Norwegian blue stone for building the castle.

It was the professor’s “eureka” moment. The Danish-Norwegians had marked the grave with a blank square slab of blue stone matching that used to build the castle. The larger, rectangular bricks likely cover a double grave – the earlier housing the remains of Wulff’s daughter, Wilhilmene, and the later one his wife, Sara. Once again, Dr. Wellington sees an opportunity for further archeological research using lidar, but the funding, as yet, escapes him.

Reaching the Eastern Wall

We said farewell to the Wulff-Cochrane family and walked into the village behind the house. Here is a warren of uneven footpaths and unpaved roads passing old stone houses and wooden shops. After several turns, we find ourselves on a larger track running between the castle walls on one side and a stream on the other. On the other side of the castle wall, we can see the trees of the castle garden. The track is dusty, but shaded. The river is lined with concrete, like a tiny version of the Los Angeles River, and flowing with water and refuse. As we turn the corner to the beach, on our left, we see the plastic buyback area where locals can turn in recyclables in exchange for food and necessities. 

We arrive on the east side of the castle below the walls. This is where the Basel Missionaries landed. It is here that the Professor hopes to one day place a replica of Ghanaian artist Bright Bimpong’s 1998 sculpture titled Freedom to close the circle on the history of the Danish slave trade. Currently, replicas of this sculpture are on each of the three U.S. Virgin Islands – formerly the Danish West Indies – and in Copenhagen. 

The Beach of No Return

We can see the native rocks that form the foundation of the castle jutting to the sea. The water is an angry grey-green reflecting the overcast sky. The breeze remains strong and cool. The sand is soft, but covered with mismatched shoes and plastic washed in from the sea, blown down from the trash heaps, or perhaps both. To the east, we can see the fishing village with its colorful boats. From here, the Danish part of the castle is visible. Here is the door of no return where captives exited from their holding cells to go down to the water and enter boats – not unlike those we see resting on the beach of Osu’s fishing village – on their way to the slave ships anchored at sea. 

The captives spent up to six months waiting in the dungeons. Many of them came from the interior and had never heard the ocean. The waves are thunderous and the sounds beating against the rocks and the walls of the castle must have added to the terror of the people trapped in the dark cells. 

Private Slave Trade

I learned so much about Osu, Ghana, Denmark and the slave trade on this tour, but our next stop was the most unexpected—a visit to a colonial merchant’s home. In my mind, governments and large pseudo-governmental companies trafficked of enslaved peoples from the West Coast of Africa. Don’t mistake me, that is accurate, but the slave trade was a lucrative business for individuals and small, private companies as well. I’m sure this is something that those more familiar and educated already know, but I had not considered how private businesses worked directly with ship captains in the trade. I also had not specifically considered how this private trade continued on the illegal market even after the Danish abolished the slave trade in 1803. 

We walked back around the wall, and crossed a bridge to the other side of the river, into a neighborhood with more colonial houses. Professor Wellington stopped at a yellow house called Nii Okante Shikatse We. Originally it was the home and business place of a Danish administrator and slave trader. On his death, the colonial government sold his home and goods to another Dane. The second owner had married a local woman and had many family members, but though he had been quite successful, was bankrupt at the time of his death, so his assets were once again sold.

The third buyer was Nii Okante Shikatse (roughly, “the very important Okante man with lots of money”) – “We” being the Ga word for both home and family. The Okante family still owns the property and lives there. They have restored part of the home and created a museum honoring the history of their family and recounting the restoration efforts. 

Nii Okante Shikatse We

The house was a private slave house and not unique in the neighborhood beside the castle. Beside the entrance, we could see the holding cell with the original vents at the top of the wall. The large windows below were added later.  We walked into the home through the “door of no return,” the gate where goods for trade – people, gold, cattle, etc. – entered and left the compound and where captives exited on their way to the beach we had just left behind. Inside, we found a courtyard with what looked like a well in the middle. So close to the sea, any well would provide salty or brackish water. Here, the well house covers an arched cistern designed with a piped system for collecting rainwater from the roof. 

The stones used to construct the courtyard came to the Gold Coast as ballast on the ships from Europe. When the ships departed laden with people or gold, the ballast was unnecessary and the Danes instead incorporated the stones into their buildings. The old slave cells are now a living quarters, but once held space for a fifteen to twenty people. Before the abolishment of the Danish slave trade in 1803, these enslaved persons were taken from this place to the beach we had just come from to go to the sea and onward. After the Danes abolished the slave trade, there was still a black market and captives were transferred further east or south to Portuguese-controlled areas wear the trans-Atlantic Slave trade still flourished.

Achimota

In the courtyard, the professor remarked that many in Ghana did not want to talk about their past links to slavery. Having ancestors who had been slaves or ancestors that had been involved in the trade was rarely discussed. It was, as Professor Wellington said, “Achimota.” I knew this word as a name and suddenly, the context became clear. On the north side of Accra is a town, a forest reserve and a school – each called Achimota. In Ga, the phase achimota means roughly “something we all know, but do not say.” When the slave trade ended, many captives already in the system were sent to the forrest in this area, and to speak of their origin was achimota.

Still stunned by this revelation, I continued upstairs to the nascent museum and the story of the house’s restoration. Dr. Wellington pointed out the ways we can still see how the colonial Danes lived and how they intermarried with the local population. We discussed how the people of West Africa had a different understanding of slavery leading to an ignorance of what chattel slavery truly was; how internal conflict created an arms race fueled by money from the slave trade; and how the huge demand for labor in the Americas made the slave trade profitable for many local families – along with the Danish colonial merchants.  We also learned more about the Okante family, Ga culture in general, and our host’s future plans for the house and museum.

More to See

Our tour ended with a scramble to buy signed copies of Professor Wellington’s book. I was lost in my musings and missed out on an immediate copy – but hope to have mine soon. Now when I am walking through Osu and its bustling communities, I see the stones, and I know that there is so much more to learn.

More to Read

I added three books to my reading list on this tour. Of course, Dr. Wellington’s, but also a biography and letters by Mr. Wulff, and a book on the women of Osu who were the wives and daughters of slave traders and colonial administrators. 

• Stones Tell Stories at Osu: Memories of a Host Community of the Danish Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade by H. Nii-Adziri Wellington
• A Danish Jew in West Africa Wulff Joseph Wulff : Biography and Letters 1836-1842 by Wulff J. Wulff, Translated by Selena Axelrod Winsnes
• Daughters of the Trade: Atlantic Slavers and Interracial Marriage on the Gold Coast by Pernille Ipsen