The Cape Coast Riot of 1803

Oguaa Wukuda...The Cape Coast Riot of 1803 (Another Account). 

"The Drums stopped beating on that fateful Wednesday. There are many accounts to this story, which means the British colonialists had gone to great lengths to bury it due to the huge destruction of lives and properties of Cape Coasters in this Incident. There were far too many people killed than cited. NATURAL CURE FOR ULCER 

The Swanzy Family claimed Intsin and Anaafo Supis had used fake gold dust to buy their cloth and arrested them and detained them against custom and tradition. It led to the unnecessary stand off that led to the conflagration. 

The Europeans slaughtered the Intsin and Anaafo Companies, whose Supis were in the Castle Dungeon and thus considered a sacrilege. 

The rest of the Asafo Companies began to attack Europeans in town, which led to non stop retaliatory bombing of the town. The Governor gave orders that they should not stop firing, until all the bullets and cannon balls got exhausted, killing a lot of Bentsirfo and Inkoomfo. 

The rest of the Fante Confideration had never seen such carnage, especially after the last rearguard action: On one Monday morning, when they foresaw the sea tide swelling up they planned to attack the Cape Coast Castle at dusk...Tuesdays are off days for Fishing...In the darkness of the midnight hours, the fishermen from the town, Ekon, Moree, Edina, etc rowed to the rear side of the Castle and climbed up the dangerous rugged rocky cliff and then began to climb up the slippery walls, with men carrying each other with their muskets strapped on their bodies. 

They began to climb like ants up the castle to face the White Europeans, then the Alarm blow...What happened next was unbelievable gunboat display of pillage and treachery...

The Europeans attacked those who had entered the castle in bitter exchange of gunfire, overpowered them, and saw more armed fishermen coming non stop from the sea, until hundreds were exterminated in cold blooded massacre. The blue sea turned red...

The townsfolk woke up that Wednesday morning to find with profound shock litany of corpses littered on the ocean. They wailed and picked the dead to bury amidst chanting of Asafo songs...No drums were beaten on that Wednesday and the tradition carried on for sometime...More volunteers descended from every part of the country to support the battle. 

All the Europeans including Pastors, Administrators, Traders etc were barricaded in the Cape Coast Castle. The Colonial Governor was in a disarray with their wireless messages going non stop to the Secretary of the Colonies in Britain. He asked the Quartermaster: "Do we have enough food ration for the month; he answered No'. He asked 'what about water? 'One week', he answered... 

The local people came closer to the Castle all day long singing war songs for weeks...And this led the Danes, Dutch, Prussians, and even the French Traders to negotiate with the warring factions to cease hostilities...All the true accounts of this brutal battle will still be logged in the archival records of the British, because it was one of the most recorded incident by the negotiators due to its volatile and devastating nature! 

The English Traders were trapped in the Castle for weeks until the other Europeans negotiated their release. Cape Coasters could not trust the British again, and was one of the reasons leading to eventual move of the capital to Accra...The British must compensate Cape Coaster for the carnage and losses!!!"

Credit : Kofi Amponsa Dadzie