St George’s Castle, a Unesco heritage site, was built by the Portuguese in 1482, and captured by the Dutch in 1637. From then until they ceded it to the British in 1872, it served as the African headquarters of the Dutch West Indies Company.
It was expanded when slaves replaced gold as the major object of commerce, and the storerooms were converted into dungeons. The informative tour (included in the entry fee) takes you to the grim dungeons, punishment cells, Door of No Return and the turret room where the British imprisoned the Ashanti king, Prempeh I, for four years. Later, soldiers of the Royal West African Frontier Force trained at the castle.
These days there are palm trees growing in the (dry) moat. The Portuguese church, converted into slave auctioning rooms by the Protestant Dutch, houses a museum with simple but super-informative displays on the history and culture of Elmina.
