Cape Coast

The Fante town of Oguaa grew on a rocky shore where a small lagoon and a landing beach made trade possible. The Portuguese traded here from the late fifteenth century, and in 1653 the Swedish Africa Company built a lodge called Carolusborg on the headland. It changed hands repeatedly — Danish, Dutch, local Fante rulers, and from 1664 English — and under the Royal African Company and its successors it grew into Cape Coast Castle, the headquarters of British trade on the Gold Coast. For a century and a half captives brought down from the interior were held in its dungeons before being shipped across the Atlantic.

After Britain abolished its slave trade in 1807 the castle became the centre of a different kind of authority. Cape Coast was the capital of the British Gold Coast until the seat of government moved to Accra in 1877, and Fante merchants, clergymen and lawyers made the town the intellectual centre of the colony. The Fante Confederacy, an alliance of coastal states that became a constitutional confederation in 1868 in an early attempt at self-government, drew on the town's merchants and lawyers, and Methodist and Anglican missions founded the boarding schools — Mfantsipim in 1876, Adisadel in 1910, Wesley Girls' among them — that educated much of Ghana's later leadership.

The move of government to Accra, and of trade to the deep-water harbours at Takoradi and Tema, left the town without its old business. It settled into the roles it still holds: a school and university town, a fishing port and, since the castle was restored and opened as a museum in the 1990s, the main place in Ghana where the history of the Atlantic slave trade is told.

Cape Coast is Fante, and the Fante way of organising a town is still visible. The Oguaa traditional state has its paramount chief, the Omanhene, and the town is divided among seven Asafo companies, the old militia groups whose appliqué flags, shrines and posts stand in their quarters and whose rivalries surface at festivals. Fetu Afahye, on the first Saturday of September, brings out the palanquins, the drums, the durbar of chiefs and a week of celebrations.

Education is the other identity. The rivalry between Mfantsipim, Adisadel, St Augustine's and Wesley Girls' runs through Ghanaian public life, and old students' associations, speech days and inter-school sport fill the calendar. The University of Cape Coast adds several thousand students to a small town, with the cultural and nightlife that follows.

The castle gives the town a particular weight. Visitors from the United States, the Caribbean and Britain come as descendants rather than tourists, and naming ceremonies, libations and wreath-layings are held at the dungeons and at the Assin Manso river inland. Methodism arrived early and remains strong, Christianity is the dominant faith, and traditional priests and shrines continue alongside it. Manners are formal and unhurried: greetings first, the right hand used for giving and receiving, respect shown to elders and chiefs.

About 190,000 people lived in the Cape Coast metropolitan district at the 2021 count, up from 108,000 at the 2010 census, many of them students, and the town's rhythm follows the school and university terms as much as the seasons. It is the capital of the Central Region, so government offices and the regional hospital are significant employers, along with the university, the schools and the trade that serves them.

Fishing is the other pillar. Canoe crews launch before dawn from the beach below the castle, the catch is auctioned on the sand, and women buy, smoke and carry it to markets inland. Catches have fallen over recent decades, and the pressure on the fishery, the cost of fuel for outboard motors and coastal erosion along the shore are constant worries. Tourism supports guides, drivers, guesthouses and craft sellers, and is concentrated on the castle and the road to Kakum.

Most people live inland from the old core, at Pedu, Abura and Kwaprow, and commute in shared taxis. Days begin early with church or school, the market peaks mid-morning, and evenings are spent at drinking spots and food stalls along the main streets. Weekends belong to funerals, church and football, and the Central Region's poverty relative to Accra is a steady topic.

Cape Coast eats Fante food, which means fish in almost everything. Fante kenkey, maize dough fermented and steamed in plantain leaves, is the staple, eaten with fried or smoked fish, raw ground pepper and shito. Banku, the softer maize-and-cassava dough, goes with grilled tilapia or okro stew, and fufu pounded from cassava and plantain is served in light soup, groundnut soup or abenkwan, the palm-nut soup.

Fante fante, a fish stew cooked in palm oil with pepper and onions, is the dish most associated with this coast, and etsew, plain boiled rice with fish stew, and abom, a ground vegetable relish, appear on chop-bar menus. Smoked herring and anchovy from the ovens along the beach flavour soups and stews across Ghana, and salted, dried fish is a Fante speciality in its own right.

Street food fills the evenings: waakye in the morning, khebab skewers, kelewele, fried yam with pepper sauce, roasted plantain with groundnuts, and bofrot, the sweet fried dough balls sold from glass boxes. Sobolo, the hibiscus drink, fresh coconut water and palm wine from the villages inland are the usual drinks, with akpeteshie poured at ceremonies and wakes.