The Second of Two.

This post is the second of two from Sunday and yet I feel this single post should really be divided into two.

Having had an early start for church I returned to the hotel and had some time to put together some thoughts and rest up a bit prior to my afternoon journey to  Abokabi and Frederiksgave.

Abokabi is a town on the outskirts of Accra. It started life as a town for refugees escaping from the British bombardment of the coast in response to the locals refusal to pay a new tax in 1854.

Much of the town is owned by the Presbyterian Church of Ghana and they have built a school, medical facilities and a Women's Center for those who live there now.

The place has a very different feel to downtown Accra. It feels peaceful and their is far less traffic. The Presbyterian Church continues to play a significant role in the local community and it is the church who elects the local chief, a life long role that unlike other chieftain roles in Ghana is not hereditary.

Frederiksgave is the site of an old Danish plantation that has served several purposes over time. It was a post where enslaved people stopped on their way to the coast, it was a plantation that grew items such as tobacco and coffee, and it became a retreat place for Danish leaders feeling the need to escape the pressures of the Osu coast with it's intense heat and trade in human beings.

The buildings seen in  my photos have been restored by archaeologists and the site is now a center of a common heritage project designed to raise awareness of Ghanaian history.

If you want to find out more about this site and the Danish involvement in the slave trade the link below will take you to a PDF that gives a comprehensive history.

Danish Involvement in the Slave Trade