On February 15, 2023, the Archbishop of Canterbury went to a fortress built in the 17th century on Ghana’s Cape Coast, where Africans who were held as slaves were housed before being transferred to the Americas aboard British slave ships.
The Anglican Primates of West Africa and the West Indies also joined the Archbishop at a neighbouring Christ Church Anglican Cathedral Service of Reflection and Reconciliation.
Built initially by the Swedish in the 1650s, Cape Coast Castle then came under Danish, Dutch, and English control before becoming the center of British colonial government for the Gold Coast colony in the 1660s.
The majority of Cape Coast Castle’s trade during the 18th century involved African prisoners who were being transported to the Americas to be sold as slaves.
The Castle served as a “great emporium” of the British slave trade for much of the 18th century.
The subterranean dungeons, often known as “slave holes,” were where Africans who had been seized from their homes—often hundreds of miles away—were kept with inadequate ventilation and no windows before being transported across the Atlantic during the tour led by the Archbishop and Mrs. Caroline Welby.
“It was profoundly moving and humbling to visit Cape Coast Castle today with my brother Archbishops from Ghana and Jamaica. It was a reminder that the abomination of transatlantic chattel slavery was blasphemy: those who imprisoned men and women in those dungeons saw them as less than human.
“It is to the Church of England’s eternal shame that it did not always follow Christ’s teaching to give life. It is a stain on the wider church that some Christians did not see their brothers and sisters as created in the image of God, but as objects to be exploited.
“Our response must begin on our knees in prayer and repentance. In calling on the God who blesses the broken, the reviled and those who mourn. In looking to God who transforms, redeems and reconciles.
“But our response does not end there. We are called to transform unjust structures, to pursue peace and reconciliation, to live out the Beatitudes in big ways and small.”
With Archbishop Howard Gregory, the Anglican Primate of the West Indies, Archbishop Cyril Kobina Ben-Smith, the Primate of the Anglican Church of the Province of West Africa, and ordained and lay members of the international Anglican Consultative Council (ACC), which is currently meeting in Accra, the Archbishop toured Cape Coast Castle.
The Church Commissioners of England’s recent report on its endowment’s historical ties to transatlantic chattel slavery was followed by the Archbishop’s visit today.
In response to the findings, the Church Commissioners have committed to £100 million of funding to a programme of impact investment, research and engagement. The impact investment fund will invest particularly in communities impacted by historic transatlantic slavery.
