The Slaves of Pikworo: Local Histories, Transatlantic Perspectives

This article examines the trans/formation of a memorial landscape of slavery and the slave trade in Ghana's Upper East Region. It focuses on a former slave camp (Pikworo), which is closely associated with late-nineteenth-century slave raids that play an important role in local memorial and ritual practices. Recently, however, Pikworo has been represented as part of the transatlantic slave route, so as to attract an African American audience. Here, the emphasis is less on social relationships than on victimhood and resurrection. The two colliding narratives correspond to two notions of sacralization which can be translated into the idioms of continuity and closure.