Remembrance Ceremony bombardment of Anomansa

This year marks 148 years since the British navy and army bombarded the original town of Elmina (Anomansa) on Friday 13th of June 1873. On the eve of his arrest by British forces in March 1873, the Ɛdenahen (King of Elmina) Nana Kobina Gyan (reigned 1869–1896) defiantly stated the reasons why his town and his people could not allow the British flag to fly over Elmina Castle and why they could not allow British officers to occupy it. He did so in a meeting inside the castle with the military commander of the local British forces, who demanded that the king sign a document pledging allegiance to the British government:

This Castle belonged to the Dutch Govt. before, and the people of Elmina were free men; they are not my slaves to compel them to do anything. When [British] Governor Pope Hennessy came to take this castle he did not consult me before the English flag was hoisted; if he had considered me as the king he would have done so … The king was then asked to take the oath of allegiance and sign the paper before him; he got very vexed and excited, struck the table with his fist, and said, ‘I am not afraid of your power. You may hang me if you like. I will not sign any paper. Myself and some of the people of Elmina have taken fetish oath to oppose the English government coming to Elmina, and we have not broken that oath yet’.

Nana Kobina Gyan I

For his resistance the British arrested and then deported Nana Kobina Gyan I to Sierra Leone before bombing the town and its people into ultimate submission on 13th June 1873.

There  will be a wreath laying ceremony at the grounds of the old town (opposite the Elmina Slave Dungeons)