Ussher Fort Slave Museum and Documentary Centre
Museum of colonial life and the slave trade.
Looming on your right as you leave Jamestown along the coastal road is the puzzlingly spelt Ussher Fort, built by the Dutch in the 1640s and initially named Fort Crevecoeur, before a later British administration rechristened it. A former slave-holding area, like Jamestown Fort, it was used as a prison until the 1990s and has undergone a Unesco-funded restoration to preserve it as a reminder of Ghana’s past. It has a rich history of having been a trade post, slave dungeon, a police post and a prison. It was also used for military detention and served as a court-martial unit, and a refugee camp for both Liberians and South Sudanese in 2005. It’s now open for tours. At the museum, visitors explore exhibits that chronicle trade routes, enslavement tools (shackles, branding irons), paintings/drawings of both traditional life and African-European encounters, and perhaps the most documented slave ship that passed through the Gold Coast en route to St. Croix, the Fredensborg. Admission; GH¢20.00 Ghanaian Adult, GH¢ 80.00 for foreigners
