Book launch: Anthology ‘Denmark as a global player 17th-20th century – Colonial possessions and historical responsibility’
A guest article by Bea Lundt
Contemporary significance of the subject: Denmark as a colonial power and the responsibility of Schleswig-Holstein
This year, the Kiel-based Solivagus Verlag published the anthology “Denmark as a Global Player 17th-20th Century. Colonial possessions and historical responsibility“. In the introduction, the two editors, Florian Jungmann and Martin Krieger, recall various events that have triggered an increased remembrance of the colonial era in recent years: the ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement, the discussion around Michael Rothberg’s thesis of a ‘multidirectional memory’, the demands for the restitution of looted cultural assets. The memory of Denmark’s time as an imperial power and its responsibility for colonial crimes in the conquered countries had largely receded and is currently being revived. For Schleswig-Holstein, 2017 was a milestone year, commemorating the 100th anniversary of the sale of the Danish West Indies to the United States. In the fjord town of Flensburg, too, questions about the warlike seizure of foreign territories and the irresponsible exploitation and self-enrichment of the colonial economy were raised with new clarity. The focus was on the trade in enslaved people in the overseas colonies and the lasting significance of the kidnapping of Africans, which created a diaspora in the Americas. “Norway and Schleswig-Holstein also played a part in a ‘Danish’ colonial history” (p. 10), the editors note.
Flensburg and the so-called Transatlantic Triangular Trade
The city of Flensburg in particular benefited from the so-called transatlantic triangular trade: Goods were shipped from Schleswig-Holstein to the west coast of Africa, then known as the Guinea Coast. Amongst other regions, there was a stretch of coast that was particularly coveted by European traders, who called it the ‘Gold Coast’ after discovering its rich gold deposits.
Based agreements with local ethnic groups, particularly the Fanti on the coast and the Ashanti further inland, who had formed a large royal dominion, goods from Europe were exchanged for people dragged from the interior to the coast and enslaved. During the period of Danish involvement, they were taken to the overseas plantations of the Danish Virgin Islands. It was a very dangerous journey and many did not survive. The first Danish slave ship reached St Thomas in 1676, where the Africans were forced to grow sugar cane, which in turn was transported by sea, mainly in the form of concentrated molasses, to northern Germany, where it was used to make rum. Flensburg owes its wealth to this product, and the pride taken in it is deeply rooted in the city’s history, identity and self-image. But what is largely unacknowledged is that the labour of enslaved people was the basis of this development. According to Michael Zeuske, Denmark is responsible for 111,041 people who were deported from Africa as slaves. Some of them resisted and tried to escape from the plantations. In 1733, there was an uprising on St John’s Island, which was bloodily put down by French troops.
In 1850, the Danes sold their plantations and castles on the Guinea Coast to the British. This formally ended Danish activities on the Gold Coast. The British adopted the name “Gold Coast” when they finally won the dispute between the various European trading companies and powers over this rich land, and formally declared the coastal region their Crown Colony in 1878. The north of the region remained a British protectorate until 1887, when it was also added to the colonial territory. After the country gained independence from British colonial rule in 1957 and various parts of the country were united and it adopted the name ‘Ghana’.
The castles of Ghana
First, some background on the ‘castles’: Europeans landed on the coast of West Africa and, from 1482 onwards, had many monumental buildings built there – for accommodation, storage, administration and defence against other European powers on the coast. Cannons faced the sea. Markets were held in the spacious courtyards, where goods were traded and exchanged. There were also the governor’s offices, a school and a church. Immediately below were the cellars, which were used as dungeons for the slaves. People from the African hinterland – men and women separately – were gathered there and crowded together until the ships arrived on which they were loaded. They were escorted onto the deck through a narrow gate known as the ‘door of no return’. The trade in enslaved people proved more profitable than that in goods, and a number of European powers became involved, but it was also widespread in Africa. There were a number of large and small castles with different functions. They often changed hands and the enslaved people were deported to different regions of North and Latin America.
Today, all of these castles along the Ghanaian coast are UNESCO World Heritage Sites and some can be visited. Among them is Cape Coast Castle with its huge dungeons, the central location for the Gold Coast, which served as a collection point, transshipment centre and shipping point for enslaved people. This fort was built by the Dutch in 1637, then passed into Swedish hands and, during the official colonial period, into British hands. A ‘German’ fort can also be seen in Ghana: the Electorate of Brandenburg’s Groß Friedrichsburg, built in 1683. My contribution to this volume focuses on the main Danish base: Christiansborg or Osu Castle, built in 1661.
About the contents of the volume
The anthology contains contributions that deal with this suppressed history of Denmark. First, they report on the conditions, structures and actors. Other essays focus on the colonial period in the North Atlantic (Greenland, Iceland), India (Tranquebar, Serampore, etc.) as well as in present-day Ghana and the US Virgin Islands. Some of the authors come from the respective countries and present source studies and archaeological results of scientific memory work on site. Five articles deal with Schleswig-Holstein’s involvement with the enslaved people deported from Ghana:
These include an article by Ulrich van der Heyden on a central figure in the organised exploitation and his career: the wealthy merchant Heinrich Ludwig von Schimmelmann, plantation owner on St. Croix.
The Ghanaian archaeologist Wazi Apoh and his colleague Benedicta Gokah report on the cooperation between the Danes and indigenous ethnic groups, which also resulted in the adoption of cultural elements such as building with stone. The stones burned in Schleswig-Holstein were transported on ships. In addition to the ruins of various castles, they are analysing oral testimonies that highlight the activities of the Ghanaian population in adopting, defending, processing and integrating elements of Danish culture.
David Akwasi Mensah Abrampah focuses on the plantations established during the Danish colonial period in present-day Ghana, particularly in Dodowa. In 1803, the slave trade by sea was officially banned by Denmark in order to avoid the high losses incurred on overseas voyages. The enslaved people were therefore used as local labour. The author speaks of more than thirty forts and plantations that are currently being excavated and researched. As a result of the plantations, the trade in enslaved people within West Africa flourished again after the ban and a wealthy African merchant elite emerged.
Ulla Lunn describes the vestiges of Danish colonialism in what are now the US Virgin Islands. On St Thomas, for example, ‘a multinational European colonial society was established […] whose wealth was based on the exploitation of thousands and thousands of slaves brought from Africa to grow sugar cane’ (253). This wealth manifested itself above all in the construction of castles and houses, as well as in the development of highly skilled craft techniques, which were taught to some “artisan slaves” (260) who were then able to buy their freedom: the main skills involved were bricklaying and woodworking.
My contribution on the colonial actors in the Danish castle Fort Christiansborg (Osu Castle) in Accra
My own contribution to this book is dedicated to Fort Christiansborg, the seat of the Danish colonial administration in Accra for about 200 years. The building is a representative structure on the Atlantic Ocean, towering over Accra and visually recognisable as the seat of power. The fort was briefly occupied by an indigenous ethnic group, later by the British, and independent Ghana initially chose the premises as the seat of government for its presidents. It is commonly referred to in Ghana as ‘Osu Castle’, after the district with which it is closely associated. In addition to its political importance as an administrative centre, it was also the main trading centre for the various European owners, as the inhabitants of the castle were largely paid by the Danes in goods that they sold to Africans. The castle also had cellars, originally used to store goods, but later used as slave dungeons and prisons.
I have analysed first-person documents (diaries and letters) written by Danes who worked for the Danish colonial power, lived and worked there until the building was sold to the British in 1850. These sources date from the 17th to 19th centuries. They have been translated from Danish into English, extensively annotated and published in Accra to make them accessible to local people. There is great interest in who lived in Osu Castle and how these foreigners described their stay, the local people and their activities.
They are two Protestant clergymen who had a completely different view of the slave trade, a lawyer who drew up the contracts with the Africans, and finally the last Danish governor in Accra, who had to deal with the sale. As actors in the colonial trade, they vividly describe the country and its people as they perceived them. They comment on economic and political developments and, in some cases, on the issue of colonialism and the slave trade. They provide deep insights into the mostly openly racist mentality of the occupiers, but also, in some cases, into their protests against the official colonial policy or the inhumanity of the slave traders.
Frequent serious illness and many deaths were part of everyday life at the castle. Life largely took place between sickbay, unscrupulous self-enrichment, binge drinking and acts of brutality towards the indigenous people and, above all, the enslaved. Colonial officials lived in the castle with numerous women, known as ‘concubines’, who ran the household for them. A priest describes the uninhibited sex life of the Danes and criticises it harshly, but also complains about the polygamy of the Africans. The sources are silent on how these partners were recruited and treated, but it can be assumed that sexualised violence was involved, based on the structural superiority of the Danes. None of the authors of my sources say anything about what happened to the African women and the many children the Danes fathered with them when they finished their service in the field after a few years and returned to their wives in Denmark, nor do the sources provide any information about emotional relationships. Nevertheless, a number of children, known as ‘mulattos’, were educated at the castle, especially the boys, and then employed as scribes, translators, etc. Some were sent to Copenhagen to study.
But there is also the story of the Danish Jew, Wulff Joseph Wulff, who, after completing his term as a lawyer at Osu Castle, built a magnificent house in the Osu district, settled there, married his long-time ‘Mulatinde’ as a Christian, acknowledged the paternity of her children and set up business with her. In his notes he says she nursed him through his many illnesses over the years and raves about her intelligence, education and reliability. There is a drawing he made of her. After his early death, she proved to be an able businesswoman; the couple’s many descendants are considered part of Ghana’s elite. He is also mentioned in the essay by David Akwasi Mensah Abrampah in this volume.
Finally, I will look at the cultural memory of the Danish presence in present-day Ghana: ‘Stones tell Stories in Osu’, a volume by Henry Nii-Adziri Wellington, a professor of architecture at the University of Ghana, which has been reprinted several times and is highly regarded. It also contains a genealogical table of the families that can be traced back to Danes and Norwegians who are still part of the Ghanaian upper class today.
Information on the anthology:
Florian Jungmann & Martin Krieger (Ed.):
Dänemark als globaler Akteur 17.-20. Jahrhundert.
Koloniale Besitzungen und historische Verantwortung.
Solivagus Verlag Praeteritum Kiel 2024
ISBN: 978-3-947064-15-1
The anthology can be ordered here.