Slave Raid Enacted

Tankara (U/W), July 28, GNA - A re-enactment of the raids and capturing into slavery of the people of Wechiaw by the 18th century notorious Slave Raiders, Samori and Babatu was enacted on Monday as part of activities marking this year's observance of Emancipation Day in the Upper West Region.

The Youth of Wechiaw Traditional Area staged the play based on oral history passed on from generation to generation. It portrayed the brutish and dehumanising modus operandi of Samori and Babatu.

The Northern, Upper East and Upper West Regions were the sources of supply of the majority of the slaves that was shipped from the then Gold Coast to work on plantations in the Caribbean and Americas.

Madam Victoria Manful, Executive Director of the Ghana Tourists Board, and a small number of tourists including those from the Diaspora watched the re-enactment.

Naa Danyagiri Walamani, Chief of Tokali in the Wechiaw Traditional Area, who briefed the tourists on the activities of the Slave Raiders in the area, said apart the capture of able-bodied men and women, those who were lucky to escape lived under harsh and difficult conditions since the raiders plundered their valuable property including foodstuffs and livestock.

Naa Walamani quipped: "In spite of the bitterness the remembrance of the slave trade evokes it also serves as a lesson to humanity to see and treat each other as equals, and work to avoid a recurrence of slavery in any other form."

Other areas in the Region to be visited by the tourist include the Slave Defence Wall at Gwollu in the Sissala District.

Madam Manful said the inclusion of Northern Ghana in the celebration of the Emancipation Day this year was on experimental basis, adding that next year would see the observance of the Day in the North on a grand scale.

The tourists had earlier gone on a pleasure boat ride on the Black Volta.