The impotent cannons of Osu Christiansborg Castle
Photograph by David Kojo Derban
๐ง๐ต๐ฒ ๐๐ผ๐บ๐ฏ๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ฑ๐บ๐ฒ๐ป๐ ๐ผ๐ณ ๐ข๐๐ ๐ญ๐ด๐ฑ๐ฐ
By the year 1840, the town of Osu on the Gold Coast, 3 miles to the east of Jamestown, was a prosperous, quiet town. Although not as busy and vibrant as Jamestown, it was still an important trans-Atlantic trading hub in its own right. From the early 17th century, the town had developed socio-economic relations with the huge Christiansborg Castle, situated on the cliff overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. Built by the Danes in 1661, it had been the epicentre of Euro-African trade. European merchants using the castle as a trade base brought copper, silver, textiles, beads, rum, and tobacco to the Coast. These were exchanged for gold, gold dust, palm oil, and ivory through African agents and dealers in Osu who profited greatly from the trade. Soon, other European items dominated the trade. A constant supply of European weapons, muskets, rifles, and ammunition fuelled inter-tribal wars, which generated a seemingly unending supply of enslaved Africans captured from wars and raids. Till this day, the slave dungeons of the Christiansborg castle evoke haunted memories of centuries of this trade. With the abolition and decline of the slave trade from 1806, the castle gradually shed its dark and brutal reputation and later took on a new role as an administrative center of British colonial rule at the end of the century.
From its mighty bastions, one could see the rows of coconut palm trees lining the rough, undulating coastline to the east, towards the neighboring town of Labadi. The Osu township, at the time, was situated west of the castle and much closer to it than it is today. It was a fairly prosperous settlement of indigenous earth-wall homes of the local Ga people, dotted with the clearly identifiable, magnificent stone structures. These belonged to a small but wealthy, influential elite Euro-African families, a product of two centuries of marriages between Danish merchants and Ga women from Osu. The Lutterodts, Hesses, Lokkos, Richters, Engmanns, Holms, Larsens, Reimers, Hansens, Malms, Quists, Swanikers, Shandorfs, Fleischers, Wulffs, and Brocks were all prominent Ga Danish families of the time.
Peaceful Osu had more educated natives, now under the religious influence of the Basel Missionaries, who had earlier arrived in 1830 to set up a Mission school in the castle, a church, a library, and later trading enterprises in the Osu community. Even though Christianity and education slowly became a seed for a new society, both Ga-Danish and the locals proudly kept their African traditional values.
The Ga Danish houses, constructed of stone masonry and wood craftsmanship, symbolized the wealth of Atlantic trade. They were large two-story multifamily structures with courtyards and covered wells. The ground floor housed business premises, while the first floor had living rooms and bedrooms with verandas. Interiors were furnished with European oak furniture. Some families lived in stately homes with fort-like walls and servant quarters.
Wealthy Osu locals, nobles, or royals traded in gold, metals, and ran blacksmith enterprises. They lived in earth brick courtyard homes. Ordinary Ga menfolk were mostly fishermen, bringing food from the ocean. Others were farmers who lived on the plains of Pantang and Oyarifa, at the foot of the Akuapem hills, bringing maize, yams, palm oil, fruits, and vegetables to the Osu market.
By 1846, the struggle for dominance among European nations along the Gold Coast began to favor the British, who were increasingly asserting superior control over the coast. The Portuguese had long since left the Gold Coast for good. In 1850, the Danes finally folded their flags and sold off their government possessions to the British. The Danish governor and old merchants bade their African families farewell and sailed home. The British now took full control of the Gold Coast. However, the relations between the British and the Osu people set off on a sour note right from the very start. The British had taken over as lords of the land without even inviting a single member of the Osu royal houses or distinguished Ga -Danish families to the handover ceremony at the castle. Thus, an inflammable atmosphere of intimidation by the British and a hostile countenance from the Osu locals hung over Osu.
For the next two years, British merchants did not set up business within the Osu township, preferring to trade within the confines of the Christiansborg castle. Trade relations between the wealthy Ga Danish families and the English were rather cold, often resulting in disappointing profits for the British merchants. The British merchants and soldiers on patrol dealt cautiously with the domestic matters of the Osu natives.
Among all the indigenous women on the coast of West Africa, Ga women of the Gold Coast were the most physically attractive. The alluring smiles and charming eyes of the dark and smooth-skinned Ga maidens had put the Dutch and Danes under a spell for centuries. To add to their natural beauty, they were reputed to be resourceful and entrepreneurial, making them indispensable partners and managers of Afro-European business on the coast. And even though they were especially more attentive to the health needs and general well-being of their European husbands, instructions from London strictly discouraged interracial marriage.
Merchants were also to exercise even more caution in dealing with the affable but honey-lipped, older Ga Danish widows, who often sat at the helm of family mercantile businesses in Osu. It would be folly to underestimate them. It would surprise British guests invited to their homes for dinner to see what foreign culinary delights lay spread on their dining tables, displaying their typical European aristocratic heritage. However, their European blood turned thin when it came to matters of business, which often tilted heavily in favour of their African side. They were financial heavyweights with assets in land, cotton plantations, farms, and property in the countryside left as inheritance by their European fathers and husbands. With the advantage of being well educated at the Christiansborg school for children of Danish merchants, they had been trained to develop superior skills in business calculations and bookkeeping from a very young age. Some of them had fluent command of as many as five languages: Danish, English, German, Ga, and Akan. With strong European connections and relations in Cape Coast to the west of Accra, and the trade port of Keta to the east, they held considerable control of prices in the import and export trade firmly in their slender fingers. Unlike in Jamestown, British influence was greatly impeded in Osu.
After two years of tension, in 1852, the British torched the already volatile situation by announcing the imposition of a poll tax of two shillings per person in Osu, Laba di, and Teshi for development. This new proposal was met with a lot of scepticism so the King, Nortei Ababio bought time from the British by asking for time to consider. There was also suspicion that this was a crafty way for the British to raise money to develop Cape Coast. The Ga Danish merchants tried hard to convince their native cousins of the benefits of the poll tax. While some households grudgingly and sparingly paid, others simply refused to do so. In other parts of Osu, the Gรฃ-Danish tax collectors were met with hostility.
By 1854, it was obvious that the poll tax project had failed woefully. The British got increasingly angry at the Ga Danish merchants for not being able to convince the townsfolk to pay up. On the other hand, the people who had paid also argued that what they had paid so far should have been enough to at least have more street gas lamps along the dark streets of Osu or manage an improvement in postal services as had been done elsewhere. Some frustrated wealthy Ga Danish merchants who accepted to play the role of tax-collectors tried to force the locals to pay by issuing threats. Others tried to use punitive measures such as seizing the canoes of fisherfolk. This caused so much social strain that the fishermen blatantly refused to pay, accusing the Ga Danish of being motivated by self-interest.
Meetings held between the Osu elders and the British officials at Christiansborg Castle reached a roasting point, with one meeting almost ending in fisticuffs. Even the peace-loving Basel missionaries and noble Christian elders of Osu, trying to mediate between the feuding parties, often got caught in the crossfire. Any reference made to the more prosperous towns of Jamestown and Cape Coast by the British was met with a scoffing remark, โJamestown is not Osu, and Osu is not Cape Coast! Osu is Osu!โ. The British, now beginning to suspect the Ga -Danish of being in cahoots with their African brothers, interpreted this remark as a way of expressing allegiance to their Danish heritage. They started hatching a plan to purge Osu of โDanishismโ by any means necessary. Osu became a brewing pot of anti-British sentiments, mistrust, suspicion, and hatred. The elders finally flatly refused to pay as they defiantly put it, โeven if the charge was a handful of sea sand to be paid annually, we won't pay!โ. The battle line was drawn in red.
From that day onwards, peaceful Osu turned into an explosive riot scene with rebellion and insurrection burning in the bones of the Asafo (warriors). The townsfolk poured into the streets, chanting war songs in defiance of the British, bringing an end to all forms of negotiations. The Labadi and Teshie communities east of Osu rallied their Asafo warriors and crossed the lagoon to join Osu. They lit huge fires on the main streets and spent the nights jogging up and down, hooting, singing, blowing horns, firing muskets, and banging the war drums. The musically adept ones composed vulgar songs to mock the British, such as โthe impotent cannons of Christiansborg,โ alluding to the fact that those rusted cannons had not been used for a decade and were therefore incapable of being fired. This song so infuriated the British that they sent a strong warning to the people of Osu that if they dared to attack them, the people would find out in the ugliest way if the cannons were truly โimpotentโ or not. The governor at the castle quickly sent for reinforcements from Cape Coast Castle.
If the sun had the option to not to rise on the dawn of 27th August 1854, it would have chosen to stay below the horizon as it peeked from behind the dark clouds of a heavily overcast sky. A large army of fierce-looking armed Asafo warriors marched up the hill to the Christiansborg Castle, singing songs of rebellion. Leading the company was the Asafoatse (chief of the Asafo) and some men carrying pots of fire on their heads. At the sight of this fearsome crowd, the castle guards scattered for refuge behind the castle gates, raising the alarm. The Asafoatse, in a threatening tone, bellowed out a message in the local Ga language, which, when translated, meant that they would burn down the Castle and push it off the cliff into the sea with the British inside.
As a final sign of defiance, the men carrying the pots dashed the pots of fire to the ground, causing the British to open fire at the Asafo on impulse. The warriors shouted the war cry and scaled the wall of the castle. A short but intense battle ensued, which left a large number of natives wounded or dead from the powerful rifles of the crack British troops from Cape Coast. The British repelled the attack and lost about 11 soldiers. After this short battle, the Asafo blocked all routes to the castle in a siege, threatening to drown anyone who dared to cross the blockade. The townsfolk of Osu began to evacuate following rumours that the British were planning a full attack from James Fort. The warriors who died in battle were given a heroโs burial with the Asafo swearing vengeance on the British.
Despite the high tensions, the Homowo festival of mid-September 1854 was still to be celebrated. โHomowoโ(meaning โto hoot at hungerโ) is an annual harvest festival, a vibrant display of Ga culture marking the Ga new year. The Homowo day of Ngorwala is usually marked with communal feasting, mutual blessing, and well-wishes. On this Monday, any disagreements and disputes between family or friends are settled and forgiven, so no animosity is carried into the new year. However, this did not apply to British-Osu relations. The relationship between the Osu people and the British was not worth a morsel of Kpekple or a teaspoonful of palm soup, a meal which would usually be shared between two feuding parties as a symbol of peace. During the celebrations, part of the Asafo army was stationed on the road between Osu and Jamestown in preparation for an attack from that direction.
On Tuesday night, there was the sound of thunder in the distance, but the sound was not a storm. Osu was now about to receive its punishment for refusing to pay the poll tax. It was taboo to fish on Tuesdays, so no one particularly took notice of a Sloop, the HMS Scourge, a 24-gun warship nicknamed in naval history as โthe destroyerโ, stealthily floating towards the shore in the dark and anchoring on the left of the castle on the morning of Wednesday, the 13th of September. While it was still not yet daylight, with lanterns still aglow, there was a terrifying thundering sound followed by the loud sound of buildings being reduced to rubble and dust.
The Asafo was caught unprepared. There on the surf was a ship engulfed in a mist of smoke. with its cannon flaps open. Suddenly, there was a rapturous spitting of cannonball fire from the side of the destroyer engulfed in gunpowder smoke that wafted toward the panic-stricken Asafo. They fired back in despair as cannonball after cannonball shot from the 36-pounder cannons of the HMS Scourge, whizzing at 80km per hour, smashing through walls, roofs, and floors. Lanterns fell, and fire engulfed the houses. In three days over 200 cannonballs turned Osu into a pile of rubble, ashes, and rising dust. The British soldiers stationed in the castle then descended on the devastated town, digging up the compounds in the hope of finding buried and forgotten gold from the slave trade era. They looted furniture and anything of value that might be left from the destruction. This raid would have gone on longer if the Basel Mission, Ga chiefs, and influential personalities from Jamestown had not interceded. The British took the sons of the chiefs as surety of good behaviour on the part of Osu.
It took years for Osu residents to trickle back slowly to rebuild a new Osu, this time away from the Christiansborg castle. The spirit of resilience and Christian community values had not left Osu. The rebuilding of Osu spurred craftsmanship through the training of masons, carpenters, furniture makers, blacksmiths, locksmiths, wheelwrights, and bookkeepers. By 1855, the Basel missionaries had set up entrepreneurial enterprises and factories, bringing life back to Osu.
Osu has grown away from the castle and the coast today. It is currently one of the vibrant business districts in Accra. When the Gold Coast's capital was relocated from Cape Coast to Accra in 1877, the Christiansborg Castle was established as the colonial seat of government. It remained so after Ghana gained its independence until 2005, when the Golden Jubilee House was built as the country's new seat of government. Thankfully, several Danish-era buildings, such as the Osu Salem Basel School, Frederichs Minde, Nii Okantey Shikatse We, and a portion of Richter Fort, are remnant heritage buildings that have survived to this day to tell the story of Osu.
๐๐ฐ๐ธ๐ป๐ผ๐๐น๐ฒ๐ฑ๐ด๐บ๐ฒ๐ป๐๐
I thank His Excellency Notse Nii Nortey Owuo IV, the Osu Mantse, president of the Osu Heritage Foundation, for bringing the events of 13th September to the fore and his supportersort for preserving Osu architectural heritage.
I would also like to acknowledge two distinguished Ga academics whose work formed the main structure of his piece: Professor Architect HNA Wellington and Dr. Herman W. von Hesse, who took time to review this piece. These two celebrated historians have done Ga Damgbe proud in their fields by keeping the history of Osu alive. This account of the bombardment of Osu and descriptions of the surviving architecture are recorded in the best-selling book Stones Tell Stories At Osu: Memories of a Community of the Danish Trans-Atlantic Slave Community by Professor H. Nii-Adziri Wellington- a must-read for all and a well-researched paper More than just an intermediary -James Bannerman and colonial spacemaking on the 19th century Gold Coast authored by W. von Hesse.
Authored by Arc David Kojo Derban