For a time the castles in both Elmina and Cape Coast served as 'slave castles.' St Georges Castle in Elmina, the older of the two, was first built to store wares for trading by the Portuguese but that quickly changed to holding Africans in subhuman conditions, waiting to be shipped to destinations in the Americas. We had guided tours with others at both castles, viewing the male and female slave dungeons, the doors of no return from which the captives were walked out to waiting ships after months inside the dungeons, the living, entertaining, worshipping and trading quarters and halls that were above the slave dungeons and used by the Europeans. Both castles are now World Heritage Sites. According to one source, Michelle Obama considers Cape Coast her ancestral home. When she and BO visited Ghana in July 2009 they left this plaque at the castle in Cape Coast.
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