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The true, tall tale of a freed slave who worked on a railroad. | John Henry and the Railroad

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For the slaves that didn't make it to the new world, the castle was the last place they ever saw on land. Up to 1,000 males and 500 females were crammed and shackled in the castles dank. There were dreadful conditions in the dank, the floor was covered in human waste, very little light, no space to lie down, etc. And once the slaves stepped foot in the castle, they could spend up to 3 months held captave in these conditions.

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Take a close look at the coast of Ghana, and you will find myriad ancient castles and forts. Marking the beginning of the slaves' perilous journey during the era of the slave trade, these fortresses were the last memory slaves had of their homeland before being shipped off across the Atlantic, never to return again. Read more about the shocking history of Ghana's slave fortresses and their significance to modern-day Ghana...

Between 1482 and 1786, clusters of castles and forts were erected along the 500 kilometer-long coastline of Ghana between Keta in the East and Beyin in the west. Back then, Ghana was called the Gold Coast due to its vast quantities of gold, and these strongholds served as fortified trading posts offering protection from other foreign settlers and threats from the African population.

Placed strategically as links in the trade routes established by the Portuguese in the 15th century, who were the first settlers on the Gold Coast, the forts thereafter were seized, attacked, exchanged, sold and abandoned during almost four centuries of struggle between European powers for domination over the Gold Coast.

As early as the 1500s, the settlers' interest turned to the slave trade in light of the growing demand for human labor in the New World (the Americas and the Caribbean). From holding gold, ivory and other wares, the castles gradually imprisoned slaves, who were reduced to yet another commodity. The majestic fortresses along Ghana's breathtaking coast housed dark dungeons, overflowing with misery and despair, right up until the slave trade was gradually abolished by each of the colonial powers in the first half of the 1800s. But by this point, the irreversible and immeasurable damage was done, and from West Africa alone it is estimated that six million slaves had been shipped to other countries. About 10-15% perished at sea during the so-called Middle Passage, never reaching their final destination.

The castles were the ultimate stop in many ways. They provided the last experience that men and women had in their homeland before their final departure. For those who didn't make it to the new world, the castles were the last place they ever saw on land. The last shreds of hope would wither away with every day of captivity in the castle. On the seaboard side of the coastal slave castles, was 'the door of no return', a portal through which the slaves were lowered into boats, and then loaded like cargo onto big slaving ships further out at sea, never to set foot in their homeland again and with a final goodbye to the freedom they once knew.

One of the most famous castles in Ghana's dark episode of slavery is the Cape Coast Castle. It began as a trade lodge constructed by the Portuguese in 1555 on a part of the Gold Coast, which later became known as the Cape Coast. In 1653, following Sweden's conquest of the Cape Coast, the Swedish Africa Company constructed a permanent wooden fortress for trade in timber and gold. A decade later, the fort was reconstructed in stone when the Danes seized power from the Swedish.

The fort then passed through the hands of the Dutch and even a local Fetu chief at some point, before being conquered by the British in 1664. Over the years the fort was increasingly used for the developing slave trade, which came to a peak in the 18th century. By 1700, the fort had been transformed into a castle and also served as the headquarters of the British colonial governor.

Up to 1,000 male and 500 female slaves were shackled and crammed in the castle's dank, poorly ventilated dungeons, with no space to lie down and very little light. Without water or sanitation, the floor of the dungeon was littered with human waste and many captives fell seriously ill. The men were separated from the women, and the captors regularly raped the helpless women. The castle also featured confinement cells - small pitch-black spaces for prisoners who revolted or were seen as rebellious. Once the slaves set foot in the castle, they could spend up to three months in captivity under these dreadful conditions before being shipped off to the New World.

An environment of harsh contrasts, the castle also had some extravagant chambers, devoid of the stench and misery of the dungeons, only a couple of meters below. For example, the British governor and officers' quarters were spacious and airy, with beautiful parquet floors and scenic views of the blue waters of Atlantic. There was also a chapel in the castle enclosure for the officers, traders and their families as they went about their normal day-to-day life completely detached from the unfathomable human suffering they were consciously inflicting.

The castle's involvement with slavery eventually stopped as a result of Britain's ban on the slave trade. Cape Coast Castle went back to its previous function as an essential site for (non-human) commodity trade, after which it was turned into an army training facility. In 1957, when Ghana became the first African state to regain independence from British colonial rule, the ownership of the Cape Coast Castle was transferred to the new government and subsequently to the Ghana Museums and Monuments Board. The castle only underwent considerable restoration work in the early 1990s with the help of donor funds, and is currently a well-visited museum and historical site.
Watch the video of the Obama family's Visit to the Cape Coast Castle:
Another famous slave castle is the Elmina Castle (often called St. George's Castle), situated in the town of Elmina about 13 kilometers from the Cape Coast Castle. Known as the oldest European structure in Ghana, the castle's construction began in 1482 following the arrival of the Portuguese on the Gold Coast in 1471, and served to protect the Portuguese settlement area, named São Jorge da Mina (St. George of the Mines).

Over the decades, various parts of the Castle were rebuilt, with trade remaining its main focus. However, by the 17th century most of this trade was in people. In 1637, the Dutch seized control of the Gold Coast and continued to use the Elmina Castle as a place to 'store' slaves until their departure. The Dutch made some substantial changes to the Castle, such as setting up a marketplace where slaves could be auctioned. The conditions were similar to that of the neighboring Cape Coast Castle. In the dungeons light could only enter through the doorways or a few small holes at either end of the ceiling. Any revolt was harshly disciplined. Men were sent to the condemned cell with no lighting and were starved to death, while women were beaten and chained to cannon balls in the courtyard. Mindful of possible attacks, the Dutch built a bastion, Fort Coenraadsburg (also known as St. Jago), on the hill opposite Elmina Castle, which overlooked its big brother's house of horrors.

Under the rule of the Dutch West Indies Company, around 30,000 slaves a year passed through Elmina's door of no return, right up until 1814 when the Dutch slave trade was abolished, seven years after the British. Ceded to the British in 1872, Elmina Castle was hardly in use until Ghana's independence. Thereafter it became a training center for Ghanaian police recruits and surprisingly a school for some time, before also being converted into a history museum.

Other castles and forts that remain include Fort Christiansborg (or Osu Castle), the Ussher Fort and Fort James. Besides museums, some fortresses have been transformed into government offices, prisons, and guesthouses while others are nothing more than abandoned stone ruins with a few walls standing. UNESCO has declared many of these castles and forts World Heritage sites of great historical importance. However, due to limited funding, preservation has been limited and the sites continue to deteriorate.
Watch a UNESCO documentary on the Forts and Castles on the Ghanaian Coast:
Today 30-odd surviving forts, castles and former trading posts can be found along Ghana's coast, many bearing witness to the largest (forced) migration in history and to the atrocities humanity is capable of committing. Castles such as Elmina, Cape Coast and Ussher Fort have been turned into museums and offer guided tours. Somewhat moving, these tours literally walk visitors through the history of slave castles, bringing to life the heartbreaking experiences of the slaves.

Extremely popular among African American tourists who want to find out more about their heritage, nowadays the castles are also welcoming more and more local Ghanaians interested in learning about the slave period in their country. More than just museums, these castles are filled with haunting histories, revealing the horrors of the slave trade. By serving as strong reminder of Ghana's dark history, the castles continue to pay respect to the millions of people who languished at the hands of slavers. They are far from forgotten, even in the 21st century.

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Ghana's Slave Castles: The Shocking Story of the Ghanaian Cape Coast

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Take a close look at the coast of Ghana, and you will find myriad ancient castles and forts. Marking the beginning of the slaves' perilous journey during the era of the slave trade, these fortresses were the last memory slaves had of their homeland before being shipped off across the Atlantic, never to return again.

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Willie and Robert moved to Harlem from Alabama for a better life. They realized however that things were different than they thought. Willie has a hard time getting a job in the city and Robert gets pressured by the city. He chooses to act like a rich white male and ends up losing his marriage because of it.

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This is where Effia was born and lived in a Fante village. Her mother who isn't her real mom beats her often. She marries James a british governer while she is captive in a ship but not taken as a slave.
-VV

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In pratt city marcus and majorie return to find someone who knew marcus's great father H and learn about his heritage. When they arrived in pratt city they had met a blind man who had known marcus great grand father and then they were able to learn about his heritage.

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The cape coast castle is an important setting because Esi was kept there before being sold as a slave and going to the US. Many people died inside the Cape Coast Castles dungeon.

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Canada is where a lot of slaves and even just black people living in the north would try to escape too. This was because in the states during slavery even if you were a runaway slave and made it to the north you could still be returned to the south.

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The Ashanti Region, Ghana is were Esi is from. People from this village were often taken as slaves. When they were captured they would often be taken to the castle and be put in the dungeons.

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London, UK is were Effia and James sent their son Quey to live. He was sent to London for six years and left all of his friends and family back in Ghana. When he returned from London a lot changed over the time he was gone.

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Akua grew up with white people. She was close and understood they were the same as she was. Akua continued to like the fetish man although she hated the Missionary. She grew up and was familiar with white people. When the white man stubbled into Akua's village, she saw him as a person. The villagers saw him as a threat to their land and freedom. Distance creates fear. The villagers were distant and did not know much about white people. This made them fearful of what white people have done to them in the past. Akua was not distant from white people. She grew up with them and understood they all did not mean harm upon the tribes. Akua was not fearful.

The quote above summarizes the fear the villager have that lead them to kill the white man. The villagers feared the white man was going to bring destruction.

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The Atlantic Ocean was the ocean that Esi was brought across on. This ocean had routes known as slave trade routes. The ships carried hundreds of slaves that were clustered together. Many slaves died along the voyage.

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 (AC) Fugitive Slave Act (Kojo) Baltimore, MD

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 (AC) Fugitive Slave Act (Kojo) Baltimore, MD

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The fugitive slave act was a terrifying and horrible law that allowed slave owners from the south to search northern states for runaway slaves. This act is displayed with the abduction of Anna.

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Kojo was brought North to Baltimore, Mayland by Ma Aku when he was an infant. In Baltimore, Kojo met Anna. He noticed her because he noticed her butt. This part of the story shows that sexism still occurred in African American culture. Sexism was also prevalent in Ghana, when the woman were meant to become pregnant and serve their husbands. Sexual abuse is also areason "Maame" fled Effia's home village. This shows that being a black woman, was still in many ways, more difficult then being a black man. (Although I would not know for sure because I am not in that position myself. I am not saying black men were not treated horribly. I am saying black woman were still mistreated by black men.)

(The graph above shows on average black men make more money hourly than black woman.)

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Between the 16th and 19th century Africa was plagued with slavery from the west coast to the east coast of Africa. These Slaves would be shipped all across the world to be used for manual labor or as servants. Slavery has always been a bad part of the worlds history. Towards the end of the 19th century, slavery ended in the majority parts of the world.

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in 1492 Columbus discovered the americas. He enslaved Native Americans and brought over slaves from Africa to work in the mines to find gold. The majority of the slaves were killed by disease, worked to death, or killed by spaniards.

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Ness was enslaved in Alabama. There are no records of a Thomas Allen Stockham plantation like the plantation mentioned in the book. Although, the Black Belt region was a popular location for cotton farming plantations. The Black Belt region was known for its rich, dark soil. This region includes 17 counties around the central part of Alabama, including Montgomery.

Ness encounters Pinky at the Stockham plantation. The other woman and TimTam wanted Pinky to speak. Ness, either out of lack of care or of empathy, did not care if Pinky spoke. Ness did not judge Pinky, like a mother figure.

Black Belt Website -http://encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/h-2458

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In this chapter, Anna, the wife of Kojo, is taken off of the streets of Baltimore due to the fugitive slave act. Anna was pregnant at the time and was never seen by Kojo or her children ever again. The fugitive slave act stated that any slaves that have successfully run to the north can get recaptured and put back in slavery. Kojo always made sure that Anna had her free papers with her, but that didn't matter when she was taken.

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https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-ushistory/chapter/slavery-in-the-u-s/
Up until and even after the civil war and even after slaves were horribly mistreated. In the chapter Nesse, Gyasi really highlights this showing how terribly Nesse and the other slaves that were working for the Devil were treated.

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Slave codes and slaveholder practices often denied slaves autonomy over their familial relationships. Describe the formation of slave families as presented by John W. Blassingame in his book The Slave Community Key Points Slave owners sometimes encouraged monogamous relationships among slaves, but often separated couples through sales.

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The slave trade route crossed the Atlantic Ocean. Hundreds of slaves are crammed into an extremely uncomfortable ship naked and unable to move. Many die along the journey to their destination. Esi, an individual that lived in a dungeon for quite some time and was raped several time, was brought across the Atlantic Ocean and sold to a plantation.

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This location signifies where H worked. He worked in the mines that held harsh health conditions. Although he was free he still had to go through harsh labor in the mines. Many black men worked in the mines because it was a job for low class citizens and many black individuals could not get high paying jobs due to their skin color.

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Canada. Canada was were many of the slaves that were worried about the Fugitive Slave Act left for. The ex. slaves or even just black citizens that were free were worried due to the intense injustice and racism shown by the government.

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Canada. Canada was were many of the slaves that were worried about the Fugitive Slave Act left for. The ex. slaves or even just black citizens that were free were worried due to the intense injustice and racism shown by the government.

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Caribbean. The caribbean was where many of the slaves that were brought from Africa and Ghana were taken, along with Europe and southern USA. 

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Caribbean. The caribbean was where many of the slaves that were brought from Africa and Ghana were taken, along with Europe and southern USA. 

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Majorie, daughter of Yaw and granddaughter of "crazy woman" lives in Alabama. In this chapter Majorie meets a boy named Graham. She eventually meets someone named Marcus, Sonny's son. They travel to the Asante empire together, which was actively in the slave trade in the 18th century (Britannica).

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The people of Ashanti are known as fierce fighters. They are persistent and brave. KF

https://www.africancraftsmarket.com/african-tribes/ashanti-people.html

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Explore the vibrant culture of the Ashati people through our curated selection of traditional crafts, unique artworks, and authentic regional products. Discover the essence of Ashati heritage and support local artisans in our online store.

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James, Quey's son, lives in a farmland area in Ghana. He moved to this area so he could live his own life and pick who he wanted to marry, Akosua. This was uncommon in this time as most men didn't have a choice on who they could married but were forced to marry someone, as well as didn't marry for love (Marriage children and Homelife in the 1700s).

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The Ashanti Tribe uses special names. The names of the children are based on gender and the day of the week. This relates to the book because the list of names includes some of the names from characters in the book. -KF
https://www.teniandtayo.com/post/the-ashanti-tribe-5-interesting-facts

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The Ashanti live in central Ghana in the Rain forests of West Africa. They are a major ethnic group of the Akans (Ashanti and Fanti) in Ghana. Ghana is a fairly new nation, barely more than 50 years old. It was previously called the Gold Coast.

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Here is where Marcus and Majorie met. Because they met they both got over their fears. Marcus and the fear of water and Majorie her fear of fire. Dana Goedken

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Many former slaves fled to Canada during the time of the fugitive slave act so they could be free. This was talked about and mentioned a few different times in Homegoing. Canada was the end of the line, as this article put it, to the many many routes on the underground railroad.
https://canadaalive.wordpress.com/2013/01/01/end-of-the-line-canada-and-the-underground-railroad/

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This is where Maame was approximately. She was a slave here and also a wife to a big man. She had two kids who were Essi and Effia.-Dana Goedken

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Cape Coast Castle, Victoria Road, Cape Coast, Ghana

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Cape Coast Castle, Victoria Road, Cape Coast, Ghana

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Cape Coast Castle, Victoria Road, Cape Coast, Ghana

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Cape coast castle is very significant in this book and has to do with James, Effias husband. It is where they live and is where Esi is held captive in the dungeons. James has a lot to do with this because it is where he realized he is haunted seeing the woman in the dungeons especially Esi.

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Marjorie grows up in Alabama where she struggles to fit in because everyone around her is white. She also deals with people stereotyping her and people assume she doesn't know English since she is from another country. She is also judged for speaking like a white person even though she is black. She mentions that there are black students when she returns from Ghana but explains that they are a different type of black.

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This where Esi and Effia lives start but quickly change as they split , and end up in the same place far from home without knowing it. It is a very significant and important place in this book because it is how this family tree and generations started and where the family heritage originated from.

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When the hunger for humans exceeded the supply from war, the coastal warriors took greater risks, informing on one another and forging deeper into the forests to kidnap villagers from their huts. People began disfiguring themselves to escape capture: "Northerners, who were most frequently captured, could have upwards of 20 scars on their faces, making them too ugly to sell." The native people began calling the white man "Abro ni" - wicked one, the one who harms - for devising the trans-Atlantic trade that had pitted them against one another, and made their bodies worth more, it seemed, than the gold for which the coast had been named.

Some showed contempt for those who were doing the Europeans' dirty work. A young woman rebuffs James, saying she "will not shake the hand of a Fante slaver." The betrayals cast a shadow and raised enduring questions of what might have happened had the Africans stood together against the Europeans. "Everyone was responsible," James tells the village. "We all were . . . we all are."

Word spread about what had become of the stolen ones - that they were held in a slave castle on the coast and taken across the sea. Those who remained could not comprehend the evil. "The way they treat the slaves in America," James overhears his father say after reading of the brutality in the American South. "It is unfathomable. Unfathomable. We do not have slavery like that here. Not like that."

Both branches of the family suffered for centuries. One side endured missing relations, war with the British, eventual colonization. The other: torture and whips, Civil War, chain gangs, lynchings, Jim Crow. And night terrors afflicted the entire line. In antebellum Baltimore, Beulah, Esi's great-granddaughter, "would wake herself up to the sound of her own screams or she'd have scratches along her arms from where she'd fought invisible battles. Other days she slept still as death, tears streaming down her face." In West Africa, near the turn of the 19th century, one of Effia's descendants dreams of fire "shaped like a woman holding two babies to her heart."

The West African chapters are the heart of the book, a deep channeling of multilayered humanity. Gyasi evokes what was lost to those who were sold away - the sense of individual and collective identity, a wealth of rituals and customs they'd be whipped for trying to retain in America. In the mother country, life's losses and turning points were a time of communal recognition: The death of an Asante king was mourned for 40 days, weeklong puberty rites celebrated a girl's first menstrual cycle. Identity and intimacy were bound up in language; a servant girl in mid-20th-century Ghana is shown speaking labored English to her employer, until he tells her to speak their own language. "We hear enough English here," he says, and she breaks into Twi with relief. Thus begins one of the book's lovelier courtships. But on a slave plantation in Mississippi, Esi tries to teach her young daughter, Ness, their native tongue and is given five lashes for every Twi word the girl speaks. Later, little Ness is sold off without warning or ceremony or permission to grieve.

The American chapters are full of harrowing scenes - gruesome whippings, torture, condemnation to the Alabama coal mines. There is even fear in freedom. In a section in Baltimore, we see the Fugitive Slave Act going into force, exposing any black person in the North to kidnapping and re-enslavement. Beulah's father, who had remembered "the days of running through forests and living under floorboards" to escape bondage, gathers his children and makes them practice showing their papers to any white person who might demand to see them "without any back talk, always silently," in the way that African-American parents today give "the talk" to their children in preparation for interaction with the police.

In the first, magical half of the novel, Gyasi walks assuredly through the terrain of Alex Haley, Solomon Northup and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in her intimate rendering of the human heart battered by the forces of conquest and history. The spell breaks as the narrative moves into the present and begins to be populated by familiar characters and themes: a single mother who finds solace in the church; a man who chooses to pass into the white world; their son, a drug addict who's done jail time. Gyasi seems more interested in broadly exploring American social ills rather than immersing us in the lives of her characters.

More disappointingly, the lyricism and depth of the scenes in West Africa give way to the coarser language and surface descriptions of life in America: West African men are shown courting their women, while, for a 19th-century African-American man: "It was the butt that had done it. . . . He'd seen it coming around Strawberry Alley and had followed it four whole blocks." As the characters on the West African side of the family talk of breaking free of colonialism, inspired in part by the gains being made by the civil rights movement, the dialogue on this side of the Atlantic runs more to: "We got so many roaches and rats, we got to keep the toothbrushes in the fridge," or a single mother haranguing her son: "You's a hardheaded fool. . . . You need to stop spendin' time in jail and start spendin' it with your kids. That's what you need to do." And there is a jarring moment when the last of the West African line, a young girl named Marjorie, immigrates to America with her parents, settling in Huntsville, Ala. (as did Gyasi's family). There, she learns that the people who look like her "were not the same kind of black that she was." The only African-American student we meet is a girl named Tisha, who ridicules the studious Ghanaian. "Why you reading that book?" Tisha asks her. When Marjorie stammers that she has to read it for class, Tisha makes fun of her. "I have to read it for class," Tisha says, mimicking her accent. "You sound like a white girl." It is dispiriting to encounter such a worn-out cliché - that African-Americans are hostile to reading and education - in a work of such beauty.

Given all that the stolen had survived, I longed to hear parallel wisdom on both sides of this human tragedy. But, on the whole, African-Americans are shown as passive, boats buffeted by the currents. Rarely do we see the richness of their lives - the organized resistance, the faith in the face of near hopeless odds, the creativity and ritual that grew out of hardship. Still, the great, aching gift of the novel is that it offers, in its own way, the very thing that enslavement denied its descendants: the possibility of imagining the connection between the broken threads of their origins.

One is left to ponder the words of Akua, an old Asante woman and one of Effia's descendants, as she speaks across eras and oceans: "There are people who have done wrong because they could not see the result of the wrong," she tells her estranged son. "Evil begets evil. It grows. It transmutes, so that sometimes you cannot see that the evil in the world began as the evil in your home." The curse of enslavement, she says, is "like a fisherman casting a net into the water. He keeps only the one or two fish that he needs to feed himself and puts the rest in the water thinking that their lives will go back to normal. No one forgets that they were once captive, even if they are now free."

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Isabel Wilkerson Reviews Yaa Gyasi's 'Homegoing'

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When the hunger for humans exceeded the supply from war, the coastal warriors took greater risks, informing on one another and forging deeper into the forests to kidnap villagers from their huts. People began disfiguring themselves to escape capture: "Northerners, who were most frequently captured, could have upwards of 20 scars on their faces, making them too ugly to sell."

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Esi was kept in the castle before she was sold and sent to the United States. The castles dungeon was an awful place to be kept there was no space and it was very gross. Many people died in the Dungan.

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This is where Kojo's story takes place. He is the son of Ness and Sam, and he married Anna and had 8 kids. Eventually, a law is passed which allows slaves that had previously escaped to be recaptured. Soon after this is passed, Anna goes missing. She had already been freed by her master, but it is assumed that she was captured regardless.

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In 1791 Haiti had a rebelion lead by Slaves. The revolt lasted until 1805 and the Slaves won because the horrible conditions forced them to act with violence.

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Over 5 million slaves where brought to the Caribbean. Close to half of them where brought to the British Caribbean.

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Cape Coast Castle, Victoria Road, Cape Coast, Ghana

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This is one of the most important structures in Homegoing. It represents the way out of the country, whether by choice or more often force. It is also where some people from nearby villages lived, more often women who married men in the castle. This group of women includes Effia, who is one of the most important characters from Homegoing as she the ancestor of many of the other characters in the story.

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After the Fugitive slave act many slaves ecaped to canada across the Niagara River between the 1850´s and 1860´s.

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H got arrested for "looking" at a white woman. He was sent to Pratt City to work in the coal mines instead of jail time. After his enslavement was over he decided to remain living in their for a little while. Pratt City was popular at the time because of the mining industry. - Elizabeth Chapman

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London is where James and Effia sent their son Quey to school. England was a country that was very involved in the slave trade. England bought many groups of slaves from Ghana and other parts of Africa. - Elizabeth Chapman

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Here marcus and Majorie met, here with there trips to ghana and their friend ship they found out they are related thru maame and there heritage.

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Cape Coast Castle, Victoria Road, Cape Coast, Ghana

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Cape Coast Castle, Victoria Road, Cape Coast, Ghana

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Cape Coast Castle, Victoria Road, Cape Coast, Ghana

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The Cape Coast Castle is where Effia lives with James after they get married. While her half sister Esi is being held as a slave in the dungeons under the castle. The women that were slaves under the castle were treated badly. They were not given their basic needs such as food and water. - Elizabeth Chapman

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In August of 1619 it is believed that the first slave were brought the colony of Virginia (but it is likely that captured Africans were in North America as early as the 1400s and on modern day United states as early as 1526). According to the documentation of John Rolfe there were "20 and odd" slaves on board. It is believed that they were abducted for the kingdom of Ndongo, which is in current day Angola.

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Pratt city was the mining town in which H soon retired after his enslavement. Pratt city became the home of their family for a short period of time, and was very popular in terms of the mining industry.

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Harlem was where Willie and Robert moved to seek better opportunities and is where Willie hoped to be a singer. But at Harlem, they struggled to find jobs, as Willie got turned down as a singer. This shows how racism and injustice can affect people's lives drastically for the worst. Also, Willie and Robert split up due to Robert having troubles during his times in Harlem. However, they eventually remarried.

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Fanteland is where Effia was born and grew up for the majority of her life.

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The city of Tulsa, Oklahoma was a prospering city with a large population of African-American people. It was considered the Black Wall Street, as it was a very wealthy city which was extreme unusual since the African-American population held a big chunk of the wealth. This led to a mob of white people backed and supplied by law enforcement burning down the entire city.

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Since Ness was one of the many slaves who served as a cotton picker in Alabama I wanted to see just how many people where enslaved in the state alone. Turns out that during the secession over 435,000 people where enslaved.

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Slavery existed in Alabama even before it became a state. Beginning in the territorial period in the early nineteenth century, the institution expanded, coinciding with the development and growth of plantation agriculture. Slavery in the United States was a labor system that depended upon captive Africans who were held by their owners as legal property in a state of permanent bondage. Most enslaved individuals in Alabama were born into enslavement in other states and brought into the area as part of the South's internal slave trade. Although the living conditions and work required of slaves varied widely across the state, the patterns and variations in Alabama broadly reflected the slave experience elsewhere in the Deep South.

By the antebellum period, Alabama had evolved into a slave society, which is characterized by the proliferation and defense of the institution that shaped much of the state's economy, politics, and culture. The defense of slavery played a significant role in Alabama's secession from the Union in 1861. The collapse of the Confederate States of America and the end of the American Civil War (1861-1865) resulted in the emancipation of the state's enslaved population.
The Development of Slavery in Alabama
As of statehood in 1819, slaves accounted for more than 30 percent of Alabama's approximately 128,000 inhabitants. The slave population more than doubled during the 1820s and again during the 1830s. When Alabama seceded from the Union in 1861, the state's 435,080 slaves made up 45 percent of the total population. The largest numbers of slaves were held in bondage in counties located in either the Tennessee River Valley or the Black Belt region. Slavery, however, existed in every county.

Alabama gained statehood during a period when cotton production was spreading throughout the South. Most of Alabama's antebellum-era settlers originated from areas such as eastern Georgia and western South Carolina. Many of these settlers, who owned slaves before their move to Alabama, came in search of cheap, productive land on which to grow cotton. Many more slaves were brought to Alabama by slave traders, such as those operating in Mobile and Montgomery, where the state's largest slave auction houses were located. The average slave sold for a few hundred dollars, whereas men between the ages of 17 and 35 who could work in the fields often sold for more than a $1,000. Auctions were themselves traumatic and degrading events, as people being sold were put on display before an audience of white men and sold to the highest bidder.
Labor
Slavery expanded along with commercial agriculture to satisfy shortages of cheap controllable field workers. Slaves on large plantations typically worked in large groups known as gangs, which were supervised by enslaved drivers and white overseers. During the antebellum period, the position of overseer developed into a professional trade dominated by non-slaveholding whites.

The majority of slaves in Alabama, however, labored on modest farms, and the typical Alabama slaveholder owned fewer than five slaves. Slaves often worked alongside and sometimes slept under the same roof as their owner. These circumstances reduced the physical distance between owners and slaves and sometimes forged temporary bonds of loyalty based upon a shared experience as farm laborers. Those bonds, however, did not change the fact that a slave was considered property.

The enslaved performed work according to age, gender, and physical condition. Able-bodied men and some women worked as plow-hands. Slaves usually began working in the fields between the ages of eight and twelve. Most women, however, hoed weeds, which was less strenuous than plowing. Children and elderly or disabled slaves tended livestock and maintained the yard around the plantation house. A small number of slaves acquired skills such as blacksmithing, masonry, and carpentry. Typically, slaves were in the fields before sunrise every day of the week except Sunday and worked until sunset: Saturdays often involved a half-day's labor. Before retiring to their cabins for the evening, slaves chopped wood, repaired tools, and tended vegetable gardens, among other tasks. The spring planting and the fall harvest seasons were strenuous times when slaves labored 14 or more hours daily.

Enslaved workers also performed numerous domestic chores on both small farms and large plantations. Many enslaved women were owned by small farmers and worked as domestic servants. Wealthy planters generally had multiple domestic servants, whose duties ranged from cooking and cleaning to driving carriages, serving meals, and nursing children.

A small number of slaves worked in Alabama's rising industrial sector. Textile manufacturers such as the Hobbs brothers used slave labor in their Limestone County factory. In Huntsville, slaves operated the Bell Factory's 100 looms and 3,000 spindles. Iron manufacturing pioneers Horace Ware and Moses Stroup trained slaves to work their furnaces. Slaves also worked as coal miners, harbor pilots, and railroad brakemen. In an extraordinary example, engineer John Godwin appointed slaves, including Horace King, to supervise, sometimes independently, the construction of several bridge projects in Alabama. King's engineering talents helped him earn his freedom in 1846.
Material Conditions
During the antebellum period, the material conditions of most slaves in Alabama improved in comparison with their colonial-era ancestors. This improvement partly resulted from the closure of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade in 1808, which forced slaveholders to create conditions in which the region's slave population would continue to expand internally without the continued importation of African slaves. Thus, owners had to provide slaves with better rations and keep them healthier because with external supplies cut off, replacements were not as readily available. Slaves received a weekly allotment of a peck (eight quarts) of cornmeal and two-and-a-half to four pounds of pork. Slave clothing was utilitarian. Plantation owners typically issued clothing twice annually. Most of the clothing was made from coarse cotton materials or sometimes wool. Slaves lived in small cabins that measured less than 300 square feet of living space and were generally inhabited by a single family. Located close to the fields, the cabins typically were built out of roughly hewn logs. Some cabins had wood plank floors, but most had only dirt floors.
Family
The family was a fundamental survival mechanism that helped slaves cope with the horrors of their circumstances. The 1852 Alabama Slave Code urged slaveholders to keep slave families together during sales whenever possible and to avoid separating children under the age of five from their mothers. Although many owners ignored the statute, its passage reflected the increasing value that some legislators placed upon maintaining families among the enslaved.

Most antebellum slaves lived in so-called nuclear families (father, mother, and children). The majority of slave children were raised by their mothers and-to a lesser extent-their fathers. Compared to their white counterparts, slave families had more mother-headed households and were less patriarchal, and their typical lack of status and property undermined expressions of male authority. Slave families also lacked the institutional and legal rights and protections of white families. Some owners also undermined parental roles regarding familial affection, discipline, and religion. O. J. McCann, a Jefferson County slaveholder, recalled that he cajoled slave children by giving them special treats such as cornbread and cups of milk that their enslaved parents could not provide.
Religion
Evangelical Christianity dominated the religious life of Alabama's slave population. During Alabama's territorial period, slaveholders were only marginally interested in efforts to Christianize slaves. Attitudes began to change during the mid-eighteenth century, however, when large percentages of slaves converted to Christianity as a result of the Great Awakening (a period of religious fervor that swept the American colonies in the 1730s and 1740s). Decades later, during the Second Great Awakening (c.1790-1840), a brand of evangelical Christianity spread among southern slaveholders that was inspired by revivals targeting both masters and slaves. Like their white owners, the majority of slaves in Alabama were Baptists and Methodists. In 1808, the African Huntsville Church was founded, and by 1849 its membership rolls had swelled to more than 400 slaves. Similar independent black churches existed elsewhere in Alabama. White churches routinely baptized and extended membership to slaves. Antebellum churches often had segregated seating areas for black worshipers. The spread of evangelical Christianity among slaves was influenced by sermons delivered by preachers who warned slaveholders to promote the faith among their slaves or risk damnation. Slaveholders were equally motivated to spread Christianity among their slaves in response to northern abolitionists who criticized the morality of Christian believers who owned slaves.
Resistance
No slave rebellions took place in Alabama; most acts of resistance took a more passive or clandestine form. Common acts of daily resistance included faking illness, breaking tools, and running away. State newspapers such as the Mobile Register regularly published advertisements placed by white owners seeking the capture and return of runaway slaves, yet few slaves actually gained their freedom by running away. Most runaway slaves sought temporary relief from their work and often did not travel far from their home plantation or farm.

Only on rare occasions did slaves resist their bondage violently. Slaves occasionally physically attacked their owners or overseers. Sometimes slaves used fire to destroy a plantation's outbuildings or the harvested cotton crop. Such incidents were exceptional, however. Nonetheless, the 1852 Alabama Slave Code made the voluntary manslaughter of a white person by a slave a capital offense.
Punishment
Slaveowners used a variety of punishments to discipline and dominate slaves. Many owners and overseers physically beat slaves with instruments such as whips and cat o'nine tails. Slaves were most often beaten for working too slowly, stealing, running away, and disobeying owners or overseers. Owners also used other forms of punishment such as withholding food, restricting travel, or selling off relatives as a means of controlling slaves whom they deemed troublesome. Female slaves also endured sexual abuse committed upon them by white men, including acts of rape and molestation.
Slavery and Alabama Politics
During the antebellum period, Alabama politicians such as William Lowndes Yancey and J. L. M. Curry actively defended the right to expand slavery into areas acquired by the United States through the Louisiana Purchase (1803) and Mexican War (1846-48). In 1848, state Democrats issued the Alabama Platform in response to the Wilmot Proviso, a piece of legislation that proposed excluding slavery from any newly acquired territory resulting from the Mexican War. The Alabama Platform aimed to ban state Democrats from supporting any presidential candidate who favored the Wilmot Proviso or popular sovereignty-the right of territorial legislatures to determine the status of slavery before statehood. The national Democratic Party failed to adopt the Alabama Platform on two occasions-1848 and 1860-a reflection of the state's limited national political influence. During the 1860 Democratic National Convention held in Charleston, South Carolina, delegates from Alabama and six other slave states, under Yancey's leadership, walked out of the meeting in protest of the party's nomination of Sen. Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois. Pro-slavery proponents saw Douglas's Freeport Doctrine, which argued that slavery could not exist in a territory without police regulations to protect it, as a threat to slavery. Alabama's support for the preservation and expansion of slavery ultimately led the state to secede from the United States following the election of Republican Party presidential candidate Abraham Lincoln in 1860. Lincoln's platform, that slavery should be prohibited from expanding into areas of the country where it did not currently exist, alarmed southern slaveholders. At the time of Alabama's secession, more than 435,000 slaves were held in bondage in Alabama.
Conclusion
The outcome of the American Civil War ended slavery in Alabama. The Thirteenth Amendment permanently abolished slavery in the United States in 1865. Alabama freedpeople welcomed emancipation but endured continuing hardships because of the prevailing and pervasive racial prejudices of the state's white inhabitants. Alabama's antebellum-era slave codes were replaced by a social and legal system of separating citizens on the basis of race that remained intact through the mid-twentieth century. The racist ideology that had once excused the actions of the state's slaveholders survived the Civil War and emancipation and carried over in the form of an array of Jim Crow laws that trampled upon the civil liberties of African Americans until they were overturned during the civil rights movement.

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Slavery existed in Alabama even before it became a state. Beginning in the territorial period in the early nineteenth century, the institution expanded, coinciding with the development and growth of plantation agriculture. Slavery in the United States was a labor system that depended upon captive Africans who were held by their owners as legal property [...]

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https://www.jstor.org/stable/40929645
In the early 1700 when white men came over to africa, a large majority of people were sold into slavery, however quite a few African women were sold into marriage to white men.

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Africans and Slave Marriages in Eighteenth-century Rio de Janeiro on JSTOR

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Flávto dos Santos Gomes, Africans and Slave Marriages in Eighteenth-century Rio de Janeiro, The Americas, Vol. 67, No. 2 (October 2010), pp. 153-184

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Thomas Allan Stockhams plantation

this is wear Ness spends most of her life after being born in America. She once tries to escape with her husband Sam. They both get caught and brought back to where Sam is hung. And Ness spends the rest of her life there

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In this chapter, H was a free slave and lived in Pratt city. The white people and the people of color formed a union declaring more pay for working in the mine. The outcome ended up being positive, as they made a little more money for working in the coal mine. "The Union is named after its declared goal of preserving the United States as a constitutional union. "Union" is used in the U.S. Constitution to refer to the founding formation of the people, and to the states in union" (Wikipedia).

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This was the ocean that Esi was brought across when she was sold into slavery during the slave trade.

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The slave ships had to trek across the Atlantic ocean to move slaves to the US. Many slaves died on the ships due to to many people not enough food and water.

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The Fante were located close to Cape Coast, Ghana. Unlike the Asante they believe in a Extreme creator, a god.

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Where the Asante people lived.-Alex Tj

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These castles and dungeons where in use from about 1480 to the late 1700s. The ships landed on the coast along 500 kilometers of land in differing places to go to one of the many slave castles at the time. https://theculturetrip.com/africa/ghana/articles/ghana-s-slave-castles-the-shocking-story-of-the-ghanaian-cape-coast/

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Take a close look at the coast of Ghana, and you will find myriad ancient castles and forts. Marking the beginning of the slaves' perilous journey during the era of the slave trade, these fortresses were the last memory slaves had of their homeland before being shipped off across the Atlantic, never to return again. Read more about the shocking history of Ghana's slave fortresses and their significance to modern-day Ghana...

Between 1482 and 1786, clusters of castles and forts were erected along the 500 kilometer-long coastline of Ghana between Keta in the East and Beyin in the west. Back then, Ghana was called the Gold Coast due to its vast quantities of gold, and these strongholds served as fortified trading posts offering protection from other foreign settlers and threats from the African population.

Placed strategically as links in the trade routes established by the Portuguese in the 15th century, who were the first settlers on the Gold Coast, the forts thereafter were seized, attacked, exchanged, sold and abandoned during almost four centuries of struggle between European powers for domination over the Gold Coast.

As early as the 1500s, the settlers' interest turned to the slave trade in light of the growing demand for human labor in the New World (the Americas and the Caribbean). From holding gold, ivory and other wares, the castles gradually imprisoned slaves, who were reduced to yet another commodity. The majestic fortresses along Ghana's breathtaking coast housed dark dungeons, overflowing with misery and despair, right up until the slave trade was gradually abolished by each of the colonial powers in the first half of the 1800s. But by this point, the irreversible and immeasurable damage was done, and from West Africa alone it is estimated that six million slaves had been shipped to other countries. About 10-15% perished at sea during the so-called Middle Passage, never reaching their final destination.

The castles were the ultimate stop in many ways. They provided the last experience that men and women had in their homeland before their final departure. For those who didn't make it to the new world, the castles were the last place they ever saw on land. The last shreds of hope would wither away with every day of captivity in the castle. On the seaboard side of the coastal slave castles, was 'the door of no return', a portal through which the slaves were lowered into boats, and then loaded like cargo onto big slaving ships further out at sea, never to set foot in their homeland again and with a final goodbye to the freedom they once knew.

One of the most famous castles in Ghana's dark episode of slavery is the Cape Coast Castle. It began as a trade lodge constructed by the Portuguese in 1555 on a part of the Gold Coast, which later became known as the Cape Coast. In 1653, following Sweden's conquest of the Cape Coast, the Swedish Africa Company constructed a permanent wooden fortress for trade in timber and gold. A decade later, the fort was reconstructed in stone when the Danes seized power from the Swedish.

The fort then passed through the hands of the Dutch and even a local Fetu chief at some point, before being conquered by the British in 1664. Over the years the fort was increasingly used for the developing slave trade, which came to a peak in the 18th century. By 1700, the fort had been transformed into a castle and also served as the headquarters of the British colonial governor.

Up to 1,000 male and 500 female slaves were shackled and crammed in the castle's dank, poorly ventilated dungeons, with no space to lie down and very little light. Without water or sanitation, the floor of the dungeon was littered with human waste and many captives fell seriously ill. The men were separated from the women, and the captors regularly raped the helpless women. The castle also featured confinement cells - small pitch-black spaces for prisoners who revolted or were seen as rebellious. Once the slaves set foot in the castle, they could spend up to three months in captivity under these dreadful conditions before being shipped off to the New World.

An environment of harsh contrasts, the castle also had some extravagant chambers, devoid of the stench and misery of the dungeons, only a couple of meters below. For example, the British governor and officers' quarters were spacious and airy, with beautiful parquet floors and scenic views of the blue waters of Atlantic. There was also a chapel in the castle enclosure for the officers, traders and their families as they went about their normal day-to-day life completely detached from the unfathomable human suffering they were consciously inflicting.

The castle's involvement with slavery eventually stopped as a result of Britain's ban on the slave trade. Cape Coast Castle went back to its previous function as an essential site for (non-human) commodity trade, after which it was turned into an army training facility. In 1957, when Ghana became the first African state to regain independence from British colonial rule, the ownership of the Cape Coast Castle was transferred to the new government and subsequently to the Ghana Museums and Monuments Board. The castle only underwent considerable restoration work in the early 1990s with the help of donor funds, and is currently a well-visited museum and historical site.
Watch the video of the Obama family's Visit to the Cape Coast Castle:
Another famous slave castle is the Elmina Castle (often called St. George's Castle), situated in the town of Elmina about 13 kilometers from the Cape Coast Castle. Known as the oldest European structure in Ghana, the castle's construction began in 1482 following the arrival of the Portuguese on the Gold Coast in 1471, and served to protect the Portuguese settlement area, named São Jorge da Mina (St. George of the Mines).

Over the decades, various parts of the Castle were rebuilt, with trade remaining its main focus. However, by the 17th century most of this trade was in people. In 1637, the Dutch seized control of the Gold Coast and continued to use the Elmina Castle as a place to 'store' slaves until their departure. The Dutch made some substantial changes to the Castle, such as setting up a marketplace where slaves could be auctioned. The conditions were similar to that of the neighboring Cape Coast Castle. In the dungeons light could only enter through the doorways or a few small holes at either end of the ceiling. Any revolt was harshly disciplined. Men were sent to the condemned cell with no lighting and were starved to death, while women were beaten and chained to cannon balls in the courtyard. Mindful of possible attacks, the Dutch built a bastion, Fort Coenraadsburg (also known as St. Jago), on the hill opposite Elmina Castle, which overlooked its big brother's house of horrors.

Under the rule of the Dutch West Indies Company, around 30,000 slaves a year passed through Elmina's door of no return, right up until 1814 when the Dutch slave trade was abolished, seven years after the British. Ceded to the British in 1872, Elmina Castle was hardly in use until Ghana's independence. Thereafter it became a training center for Ghanaian police recruits and surprisingly a school for some time, before also being converted into a history museum.

Other castles and forts that remain include Fort Christiansborg (or Osu Castle), the Ussher Fort and Fort James. Besides museums, some fortresses have been transformed into government offices, prisons, and guesthouses while others are nothing more than abandoned stone ruins with a few walls standing. UNESCO has declared many of these castles and forts World Heritage sites of great historical importance. However, due to limited funding, preservation has been limited and the sites continue to deteriorate.
Watch a UNESCO documentary on the Forts and Castles on the Ghanaian Coast:
Today 30-odd surviving forts, castles and former trading posts can be found along Ghana's coast, many bearing witness to the largest (forced) migration in history and to the atrocities humanity is capable of committing. Castles such as Elmina, Cape Coast and Ussher Fort have been turned into museums and offer guided tours. Somewhat moving, these tours literally walk visitors through the history of slave castles, bringing to life the heartbreaking experiences of the slaves.

Extremely popular among African American tourists who want to find out more about their heritage, nowadays the castles are also welcoming more and more local Ghanaians interested in learning about the slave period in their country. More than just museums, these castles are filled with haunting histories, revealing the horrors of the slave trade. By serving as strong reminder of Ghana's dark history, the castles continue to pay respect to the millions of people who languished at the hands of slavers. They are far from forgotten, even in the 21st century.

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Ghana's Slave Castles: The Shocking Story of the Ghanaian Cape Coast

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Take a close look at the coast of Ghana, and you will find myriad ancient castles and forts. Marking the beginning of the slaves' perilous journey during the era of the slave trade, these fortresses were the last memory slaves had of their homeland before being shipped off across the Atlantic, never to return again.

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Pratt City, Alabama
Where H moved after his time mining which was a city full of ex-cons, white and black alike. In Pratt he found white and black people being neighbors which he ahadn't expirenced before.

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The asante village. Effias sister, Esi is from here. People from this village were captured and taken as slaves. KF

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Where Willie and Robert lived-Alex Tjoelker

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Cape Coast Castle, Victoria Road, Cape Coast, Ghana

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Cape Coast Castle, Victoria Road, Cape Coast, Ghana

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Cape Coast Castle, Victoria Road, Cape Coast, Ghana

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In the chapter "Esi" thousands of black women are trapped in the dungeon below Cape Coast Castle in Ghana. Esi is raped by a British soldier and sold to a plantation. Her sister who she doesn't even know Effia, lives in the castle above her, living a much better life.

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Reading about all the rape and sexual assault that occurred at the times in Ghana I wanted to see what the situation is now a days. Sadly the situation is not any better, rape, sexual assault, and domestic violence are extremely under reported in Ghana due to the fact that to actually prove being raped the doctor appointments cost more that a 2 month earning for that typical Ghanaian. Since some parts of Ghana are also extremely under developed, the mentality and the way the police interacts to rape accusations are far worse than here in the US.

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ACCRA (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Reporting rape is traumatic for anyone, but having to pay two months' wages to complete the medical form prevents many in Ghana from seeking justice, said a leading actress whose campaign to waive fees has reached the presidential palace.

British-Ghanaian actress Ama K. Abebrese - who starred with Idris Elba in the award-winning 2015 drama "Beasts of No Nation" - started a petition after hearing about the prohibitive charges in the West African nation where rape convictions are rare.

The minimum doctor's fee for filling out a police medical form is 300 cedis ($52) - twice the average monthly earnings of informal workers, said Abebrese, one of Ghana's most influential TV hosts who started out as a teenager presenter in London.

"If you can't afford it, it is almost like you are denied justice on the basis of money," said Abebrese, whose petition has attracted more than 14,000 signatures in a month.

"If you don't get that medical report, essentially, the case to prosecute dies right there and then."

Rape, sexual assault and domestic violence are significantly underreported in Ghana and the police lack capacity to effectively investigate cases, which can take years to reach court, according to women's rights groups.

Community leaders sometimes negotiate for rapists to pay compensation to victims' families but they have come under fire in recent years for not taking the crime seriously enough.

Abebrese said she was hopeful that the government would scrap the medical fees after she met with Ghana's first lady Rebecca Akufo-Addo, who said the president had been made aware of the situation, and with gender minister Cynthia Morrison.

A gender ministry spokeswoman told the Thomson Reuters Foundation that they were "working on it".

Police spokeswoman Sheilla Abayie-Buckman said many people could not afford to complete the medical form.

"It is quite expensive for an ordinary person. I guess not more than 50% are able to afford (it)" said Abayie-Buckman, who was unable to provide statistics on rape reports.

JUSTICE

Doctors charge 300 to 800 cedi to fill out police medical forms and 1,000 to 2,000 cedi for giving a medical opinion for legal purposes, according to a Ghana Medical Association (GMA) document seen by the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Frank Ankobea, president of the GMA, which represents medics and sets the fees, said they were necessary to cover doctors' transport and expenses if called to court.

"Professionals charge that and it is so with all other professions," he said, adding, "the government can absorb (the cost) and make sure all these provisions are made."

Since starting the campaign, Abebrese said she has received dozens of calls from victims of sexual assault who were unable to seek justice because of the cost.

"(For) so many people, their cases were never prosecuted, it has really opened my eyes," she said.

"You think you have an idea but you have no idea the magnitude," said Abebrese, who recently called for a relationship expert who said in an interview that "every rape victim enjoys the act" to be banned from Ghanaian television.

Most Ghanaians believe that women are to blame for rape if they wear revealing clothes, according to a government survey.

Rape victims also struggle to access justice in other African countries, said Jean-Paul Murunga, a Nairobi-based programme officer for the women's rights group Equality Now.

He said that rape survivors in Kenya have to pay $10 to $15 for a medical report and free post-rape care is only available in centres run by charities in many countries.

Murunga called on African governments to live up to legally binding promises, made in a pan-African women's rights pact known as the Maputo Protocol, to ensure access to justice.

"The protocol ... obliges African states to provide budgetary and other resources for preventing and eradicating violence against women," he said. "This is yet to be realised."

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advocacy groups / pressure groups / lobbies

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judicial process / court cases / court decisions

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Rape victims 'denied justice' in Ghana by costly medical fees

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ACCRA (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Reporting rape is traumatic for anyone, but having to pay two months' wages to complete the medical form prevents many in Ghana from seeking justice, said a leading actress whose campaign to waive fees has reached the presidential palace. British-Ghanaian actress Ama K.

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Kumasi, Ghana is where most Asante people are located. The Asante believe that each inside all is made up of two elements, blood from the mother and spirt from the father.

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The slave castles in Ghana where almost always on the coast, so boats could come and go easier from the castle. The two most famous ones in Ghana where the Elmina Castle and the Cape Coast Castle.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/27/africa/ghana-elmina-castle/index.html#:~:text=In%20Ghana%2C%20two%20of%20the,humanity%20%E2%80%93%20the%20transatlantic%20slave%20trade.

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international relations and national security

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Inside Ghana's Elmina Castle is a haunting reminder of its grim past | CNN

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Elmina Castle is a truly imposing spectacle, but its ancient walls were once home to one of the most tragic and brutal periods in the history of humanity.

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Where Esi Was brought to be shipped to amarica. Also where effia lived-Alex Tj

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After the civil war, when he was "free'd" from slavery, H got arrested for looking at a white woman. He then got put in shackles and shipped down to Pratt City to work in the coal mines as labor for the jails. In the mines, H experienced injustice and horror as pit bosses hit workers until death. This shows that they weren't really "free'd", as black people across America at the time got arrested for little to no reason, just to get put into labor.

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H's chapter takes place in Alabama because he was enslaved in a coal mine. He was sentenced wrongfully to prison. He was pretty much an indentured servant. It was pretty much slavery by a different name. He got sentenced to a life in a mine for looking at a women improperly. It was forced labor with no pay even after slavery ended.

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https://www.crl.edu/focus/article/6696
in the early 1800s more and more missionaries came to Africa trying to convert people to Christianity. In the chapter Akua, she was taken in by a missionary when her mother died but he treated her horribly as well as he did others who didn't want to convert religions. The missionaries went under the reason that they were trying to *save* people but they were just hungry for power.

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Missionary work in central and southern Africa began in the early 19th century, before Europeans had colonized those regions. Missionaries were among the earliest explorers of central and southern Africa. The London Missionary Society sent David Livingstone to South Africa in 1840, where he became one of the first Europeans to traverse the continent. When Europeans began to colonize central and southern Africa toward the end of the century, international coordination featured prominently in both missionary and colonial projects.

Through the Purchase Proposal Program, the Center for Research Libraries has acquired valuable resources for the study of European missionary work and colonial administration. Recent acquisitions include two sets of official correspondence relating to Africa from the Church Missionary Society (CMS), which add to CRL's growing collection of resources from the CMS Archive (including papers relating to missions in India, East Asia, and the Americas).

Church Missionary Society Archive. Section VII. Pt. 1-2

The recently acquired sets from the Church Missionary Society Archive contain the General Secretary's papers relating to Africa from 1847 to 1950. The General Secretary, the highest official within the society, oversaw all of the organization's policy decisions. The CMS sent missions throughout Africa to places as Sierra Leone, Yoruba, Niger, and South Africa. The papers in Part 1 and 2 include topics such as the education of natives and missionaries, alcohol use among Africans, and the maintenance of missions.

Church Missionary Society and Bishop James Hannington

Five years after the Church Missionary Society was founded in 1799, the first two missionaries from the society left for Africa. "At the turn of the [19th] century [CMS] had a staff of 1,300 missionaries, 375 local clergy, 1,000 local agents and teachers and an annual income of the equivalent of £20 million." ( http://www.adammatthew-publications.co.uk/digital_guides/cms_section_VII_parts_1_and_2/Publishers-Note-Part-1.aspx)

The Church Missionary Society's Bishop James Hannington was murdered in Uganda in 1886. Hannington was later officially recognized as a martyr. His story exemplifies the various roles missionaries played in the European colonization of Africa. Eight years after Hannington was killed, Uganda became a British Protectorate. The Cooperative Africana Microform Project acquired the following publications, which were made accessible in digital format by CRL:

The Last Journals of Bishop Hannington: Being Narratives of a Journey throughPalestine in 1884 and a Journey through Masai-Land and U-Soga in 1885.
Edwin C. Dawson (1888)

Lion-Hearted: The Story of Bishop Hannington's Life Told for Boys and Girls
Edwin C. Dawson (1889)
Dawson wrote Lion-Hearted as a biography of Hannington intended for children, and included the bishop's whimsical poems and drawings. Although mostly fanciful in nature, some of the drawings reinforce racist notions of European dominance over Africans. The book could be used to study notions of instruction in Christian children's literature at the end of the 19th century. The biography also reproduces Hannington's diary entries in the weeks before he was murdered, offering a unique view into European perceptions of missionary work in Africa.

Bishop Hannington, a Missionary Hero.
William G. Berry (1935?)
Berry wrote his biography of Bishop Hannington for adults, as he attempts to place the bishop's life in the historical context of Uganda missionary work. He also features Hannington's diaries in large portions of the text. Did the story of Hannington's martyrdom capture the imagination of Europe through his tales of African adventure or his high status in the Church? Dawson's and Berry's biographies could be productively compared. Not only do their audiences differ, but Berry wrote his book more than forty years after Dawson's.

Alexander MacKay, one of the first missionaries to Uganda still present when Hannington was martyred, appears as a key figure in both of these biographies. CRL's digital collections contain several other volumes on Hannington and MacKay:

James Hannington: The Merchant's Son who was Martyred for Africa.
Charles D. Michael (1928)

The Story of the Life of MacKay of Uganda: Pioneer Missionary.
Alexina MacKay Harrison (1900)

Uganda's White Man of Work: A Story of Alexander M. MacKay.
Sophia Blanche Lyon Fahs (1913)

International Aspects of Missionary Work

Missionary work in Africa operated alongside the economic and political colonization of the continent. Although the Church Missionary Society began in England, two German Lutherans sailed for Africa in 1804 as the society's first missionaries. The missions also united across denominations. For example, a cross-denominational council of missionaries was created at a 1918 conference in Kenya. (Rosemary Keen http://www.adam-matthew-publications.co.uk/digital_guides/cms_section_VII_parts_1_and_2/Editorial-Introduction.aspx) Due to the cooperative nature of missionary work, a comparative study of missionaries from several European countries would be helpful. In addition to the English resources discussed above, CRL provides access to the following materials on colonialism, missions, and missionaries from Germany and France:
Germany

Uganda: Eine Edelfrucht am Missionsbaum der Katholischen Kirche zu Ehren derSeligen Ugandamartyrer.
Matthias Hallfell (1921)
Bishop Hannington was among several missionaries killed during service in Africa. Hallfell discusses the life and death of German Catholic missionaries in Uganda from 1878 to 1918. The circumstances and methodology of missionaries from different countries could be effectively compared on the basis on this book. France

La Mission Française Évangelique au Sud de l'Afrique: Son Origine et Son Dévelopmentjusqu'à Nos Jours.
Théophile Jousse (1889)
Jousse wrote this overview of the origins and development of French missions in South Africa to encourage the influx of more missionaries. He carefully stresses the importance of missionary work within the larger colonization of Africa. Jousse believes that Africans cannot genuinely accept European civilization before they have been converted to Christianity. The work of the missionaries then becomes a necessary precursor to the economic and political colonization of Africa. Although racism taints Jousse's arguments, he still offers interesting commentary on the interplay between religion, culture, and society.

Commission Internationale de l'Association Africaine.
International Association for the Exploration and Civilisation of Central Africa (1877)
The missions, like the rest of Europe's project to civilize Africa, depended on international cooperation. The minutes and financial records from an 1877 meeting of the International Association for the Exploration and Civilisation of Central Africa demonstrate how economic and political attempts at colonization in the late 19th century relied on coordination between European states. In a series of appendices to the international meeting, the report contains letters, constitutions, and minutes from eight national chapters of the organization, including Switzerland, Italy, France, Spain, Belgium, and Germany.

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Missionary work in central and southern Africa began in the early 19th century, before Europeans had colonized those regions. Missionaries were among the earliest explorers of central and southern Africa. The London Missionary Society sent David Livingstone to South Africa in 1840, where he became one of the first Europeans to traverse the continent.

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Pratt City is where H moved to after being freed from the mines. Here, he was able to work as a miner. The Pratt mines are some of the largest mines in Alabama.

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Sonny lived in New York and had a heroine addiction. There was a heroin epidemic in New York and sonny got caught in it and got addicted. He had a kid with another girl that was addicted and know thinking about it I'm surprised it didn't mess with the kid.

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H was only freed becuase all slaves were freed. Becuase his mother was taken into slavery the rest of her family will be slaves and sold. Dana Goedken

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Cape Coast Castle, Victoria Road, Cape Coast, Ghana

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The Cape Coast Castle is where Effia lives after she marries James. It is also where Esi is held as a slave. And later where Marjorie takes Marcus on a visit to Ghana. The Cape Coast Castle once held thousands of slaves that were sold onto slave ships. The castle is now a museum you can visit.

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Ghana is where some of the characters where separated through the slave trade. At the time the story takes place what is now Ghana was known as The Gold Coast - K.G

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Wllie- this is where Willie moves with her husband Robert and her son Carson. It is Willies dream to become a singer but realizes how hard it is as a black women. She eventually gets a job in a Jazz Club but not as a singer. After an incident in the Bathroom of the Jazz Club this is also where Willie and Robert break up their marriage.

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Is where Quey went to School. England was one of the largest countries to be in the slave trade and buying slaves from Africa. When more people moved to America, more slaves where brought to America.

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Stanford University, Serra Mall, Stanford, CA, USA

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Stanford University. Here, Marcus was at a function with his friends where his thoughts wandered to his ancestors, bringing him his continued fear of water. Even at a pool, surrounded by his friends in a safe environment, Marcus thinks of his ancestors who were put on ships to be slaves and went through the horror that so many do not understand, or can even think of. Marcus reflects on his family's past through his experience with the water. 

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Stanford University. Here, Marcus was at a function with his friends where his thoughts wandered to his ancestors, bringing him his continued fear of water. Even at a pool, surrounded by his friends in a safe environment, Marcus thinks of his ancestors who were put on ships to be slaves and went through the horror that so many do not understand, or can even think of. Marcus reflects on his family's past through his experience with the water. 

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(Gold Coast)- home of the castle and the homeland of the Asante and Fante people in Homegoing. The castle was the home for many Europeans and their native wives, swell as hundreds of Ghanan slaves held below in the dungeons.

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This is the place where Effia lived with James collins, and Esi lived there as a slave.

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After leaving pratt city Willie and her husband Robert move to harlem because of the promise of options they would be offered. For Robert it was easy to find work but for Willie her story was not the same. After three months Willie finally finds a job working as a house maid for a wealthy black family. Willies lack of ability to find a job is important because it shows what racial boundaries are being put in place in harlem dispite the promise of change.

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In the chapter "Kojo" Gyasi highlights Kojo, Anna, and Ma Aku feared the slave catchers. The Fugitive Slave Act empowered slavers in southern states to capture runaway slaves. One of the consequences was the horror of these abductions, and another consequence was the eventual entry into the Civil War.