Ghana occupies a central position in the story of slavery and its legacies. Europeans initially called this space “Gold Coast”, in recognition of its wealth and importance in expanding global trade. From the late 15th to the 19th century, forts initially established by the Portuguese, and later by the Dutch, Danes, Swedes, and British to support trade in gold, ivory and other goods, evolved into major centres for the capture, detention, and forced transportation of Africans into slavery across the Atlantic. The more than 40 such forts on the Ghanaian coastline attest made it one of the most concentrated zones of slave trading in Africa. Forts at Elmina, Cape Coast and elsewhere were the final departure points for an estimated 1.2 to 1.8 million of the approximately 12.5 million Africans forcibly transported into enslavement in the Caribbean, Americas and elsewhere between the 16th and 19th centuries. 

Ghana’s role in this history developed through exchange between local states, leaders, and European traders. Rising European demand for enslaved labour on American and Caribbean plantations intensified local practices such as the sale of war captives, and the underpinning warfare and slave raiding. The scale and duration of these developments devastated social structures, economic and cultural life across the country, particularly northern communities that were most affected by slave raiding. Hence, while local complicity is an important part of Ghana’s slavery story, it is ultimately defined by profound and enduring social, cultural and economic harm in comparison to the wealth and hegemony presently enjoyed by former European slave trading nations.   

This understanding is central to how slavery and its legacies are understood in Ghana today. It was reinforced in Ghana’s president John Mahama’s address to the UN General Assembly on 25th March 2026 which highlighted the lasting impacts of slavery and colonialism on current local and global diparities in wealth, power, and opportunity. That same day, the UN General Assembly adopted Ghana’s resolution declaring the transatlantic slave trade one of the gravest crimes against humanity and calling for renewed international dialogue on reparatory justice. This international social justice mission aligns with our AHRC Missions project, which seeks to promote more equitable societies and futures by supporting museums, heritage institutions, researchers, and other stakeholders to provide more comprehensive accounts of slavery and its legacies 

In Ghana, the project is conducted in partnership with the Ghana Museums and Monuments Board, the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Creative Arts, and SunUptoSunDown Films. Participants are drawn from areas historically linked to slavery such as Cape Coast, Salaga, Kumasi, Assin Manso, and Accra. Particular focus is placed on engaging communities most affected by slavery and its legacies, especially those whose experiences and perspectives have been marginalised or excluded from dominant narratives.

In each location, teams of curators, academics, community leaders, filmmakers, and heritage practitioners will organise workshops using objects, ideas, and sites linked to slavery. Notable among these is set of shackles, which offers a valuable entry point for our aim to examine the meanings which the different communities’ associate with such objects, their understanding of (un)freedom, slavery and legacies and how they wish these histories to be represented. We shall draw on these insights to create experimental exhibitions and other outputs that promote more inclusive and innovative approaches to slavery memorialisation and storytelling. Connections will also be made between ideas emerging from the work in Ghana and those from other project sites in Brazil, Dominica, and the UK to collectively examine these shared themes and insights.

Filmmaking is a key component of the work. Notable in this regard is a project film which documents efforts by Ghanaian officials to repatriate a pair of shackles loaned to the International Slavery Museum in the UK. Among other themes, the film explores how different groups’ reflections on the meaning, display, and use of this item, museum loan practices, practical and other challenges involved in managing and reclaiming such culturally significant objects, and broader debates about African artefacts held in European institutions. The film is led by SunUptoSunDown Films who will collaborate with Tamo Junto Productions to combine footage from Ghana and the UK into a single documentary film. In addition, SunUptoSunDown Films will also train a group of participants in heritage filmmaking and support them to create short films on slavery and its legacies in their communities and their approaches to telling this story

An emotionally and politically charged issue such as this holds different meanings for different groups which the project must navigate. A central contestation concerns African participation in slavery. Local narratives sometimes downplay this complicity and emphasise European role, while Afro diaspora visitors tend to interpret it as betrayal that requires accountability. This reveals tension around responsibility, blame, and claims for recognition or repair. A second contestation lies in the relationship between gold and slavery. Gold trade is presented as a precursor to slavery. However, gold and enslaved people circulated together, and both trades funded each other in interconnected systems of accumulation. Gold remains central to Ghana’s economy, but continues to produce environmental harm, exploitation and inequality. This raises questions about how wealth from both mineral and human exploitation is remembered, including who laboured, who benefited, from their historical extraction to the present day.

Gender adds another layer of contestation, particularly around visibility and moral framing. Dominant narratives often centre enslaved men or male elites, overlooking women’s complex roles as enslaved persons, enslavers, intermediaries, labourers, and abolitionists. Similar contestations around recognition exist especially between northern and southern Ghana. Whereas communities in the north were most heavily affected by slave raiding and trading and remains disproportionately impacted by the adverse socio-economic effects, dominant national slavery narratives, tourism and heritage investment are largely concentrated on coastal areas. This unequal emphasis reinforces historical structures of inequality that underpinned local practices of slavery and the slave trade itself. 

There are further tensions associated with racism, racial capitalism, and global inequality. As seen in the president’s address to the UN General Assembly, sections of the population link the country’s present-day impoverishment, cultural loss, citizens’ precarious migration, labour exploitation and racial discrimination abroad to the legacies of slavery, colonialism, and continued global inequalities largely produced by European and North American countries. Many understand slavery not as a past trauma, but an ongoing system or race based inequality operating economically, socially, politically and mentally.

Another key tension is the gap between official narratives and local understandings of slavery and its legacies. State-led heritage initiatives and museum displays often present curated accounts that emphasise unity, reconciliation, and tourism. In contrast, local communities hold more complex or ambivalent perspectives shaped by lineage, stigma, and lived experience. This divergence creates tension as official narratives and activities sometimes feel imposed and disconnected from community realities. Linked this, residents of major heritage sites such as Salaga, Cape Coast, and Elmina often maintain that they see limited socio-economic benefit from the internationally recognised sites in their communities. Tourism revenues tend to flow to state institutions or external actors, while local populations bear the social and environmental costs. This informs perceptions of slavery memorialisation and heritage events as merely another form of extraction.

Diaspora engagement introduces further complexity. Ghana has actively promoted Afro diaspora return initiatives, slavery commemoration and heritage tourism since the early 1980. These create opportunities for connection and dialogue but are shaped by unequal expectations. Diaspora visitors seek belonging and repair, while local communities view them as privileged outsiders. Equally, diaspora visitors resist the commercialisation of slavery memorial sites they regard as sacred, while local residents seek greater commercialisation for livelihoods reasons. There are therefore tensions around the management and meaning of heritage sites.

These and other debates show that Ghana’s story of transatlantic slavery and its legacies remain contested and mired in complexity. The Missions project engages with these complexities to support more comprehensive understanding. 

Eltis et al (2026) https://yalebooks.co.uk/book/9780300278552/atlas-of-the-transatlantic-slave-trade/
Engman (2023) https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-anthro-052621-022531