Archaeology, Memory and Representation at the Frederiksgave Plantation, Southeastern Ghana

  • Author: Yaw Bredwa-Mensah
  • Topic: Ethno-archaeology,Historical archaeology
  • Country: Ghana
  • Related Congress: 13th Congress, Dakar

Archaeological sites related to slavery and the African slave trade stand out as landmarks of humanity’s historical tragedy. In recent decades, such sites have gained the research attention of scholars as “places of remembrance” of the slave trade. Therefore, heritage management initiatives have been launched to rehabilitate, restore and promote some of these sites and their material remains. This paper focuses on one of such initiative, The Frederiksgave Plantation and Common Heritage Site Project, an international cultural heritage management and public archaeology project located at Sesemi, a small village in the foothills of the Akuapem Mountains in Ghana. The paper seeks to highlight how the project has brought into the public domain aspects of nineteenth century socio-cultural interactions between Danish planters and their enslaved African workers on the Frederiksgave Plantation. Additionally, the paper examines how the Frederiksgave plantation is remembered and represented by the combination of museum displays and site interpretations using excavated artefacts, landscape information, oral traditions and historical sources.


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