The Gold Road has provided a Gold and Goods lesson complete with interactive Powerpoint that we recommend that you utilize in order to provide a comprehensive overview for students to be able to respond to:
- Why is gold desired?
- How have humans used gold?
- Who benefited from gold wealth?
As an extension to this activity and to begin to move students towards an understanding of how excursions to the region for gold later significantly impacted the people and the land you may opt to show students Elmina Castle. This castle was the (meaning “The mine” to signify “gold mine” in Portuguese) was the first European castle on the continent, built by the Portuguese in search of gold and in connection to further excursions to the region in search of gold.
Elmina Castle was later claimed by both the Dutch and the English and ultimately became a post used to imprison and “trade” enslaved Africans as the “goods”. Built for easy access to the sea, the castle featured a door facing the water that came to be known as the “door of no return” for those who walked through it and were forced to board vessels. By most accounts, more than 30,000 enslaved people passed through Elmina Castle each year for nearly three hundred years.
- This number of enslaved people and the size and scope of Elmina Castle is hard to visualize.
- It is recommended that you share a media clip to provide additional context. A recommended clip is Stepping through Ghana’s Door of No Return by CNN
- It is also recommended that you provide students a quiet opportunity to reflect or journal after learning about Elmina Castle