Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, General Research and Reference Division Division

Élisée Reclus, The Earth and Its Inhabitants, Africa, vol. III (New York: D. Appleton, 1890–1893)

One of more than forty slave "castles" on the Gold Coast, Cape Coast castle was built as a trade lodge by the Dutch in 1630 on an abandoned edifice erected earlier by the Portuguese. It fell to the Swedes, then to the British, and was rebuilt in the eighteenth century. The fortress was used as a depot for captives before their transfer to the Americas. It is now a museum.