Written Stories
Richter Fort: A Site of Enslavement and Contested Histories in the Heart of Osu, Accra
Located on 28th February Road, on the main road towards La, near the now demolished Total Service Station, sits a white-painted staircase centered in a residential compound.
The staircase leads to nowhere, yet the façade of the entryway to the compound suggests a past life of grandeur.
These are the remaining features of what was once known as Richter’s House (now commonly known as Richter Fort), the early 19th century home of Henrich Richter in the Danish settlement of Osu.
Henrich Richter and Danish Presence in Gold Coast
Henrich Richter is considered one of the most prominent merchants from the first half of the 19th century, during the Danish ruling era of the Gold Coast. Born on 30th August 1785, he was the first son of the white Danish settler Johan Emanuel Richter (b. 1740 – d. 1817) and the ‘mulatta’ Anna Barbara Kühberg (d. 1794), the daughter of interim Danish Governor Frantz Joachim Kühberg (1768-1769) and his mulatta wife Lene Kühberg. Henrich came from a long line of Danish people, who started occupying the coast of the Gulf of Guinea in the 17th century.
Heinrich’s father, Johan Emanuel Richter, settled in the Gold Coast in 1782 and became a private slave trader in 1789, having obtained a license from the Dutch West India Company to trade human beings to the West Indies. During his time on the Coast, he became the Commandant of Fort Prinsensten and Fredensborg, and was appointed Governor in December 1816 until his death on 5th October 1817. Following this, his son Henrich inherited his assets in the Gold Coast and outstanding payments from the Danish Government in the sum of about £2,000 (equivalent to over £194,580.00 in today’s money) during a trip to Copenhagen. With such wealth and political connections, Henrich Richter became a prominent merchant and Euro-African politician. He traded with Africans in gold and ivory, enslaved people, and was an advisor in multiple capacities to the Danish administration at Fort Christiansborg (also known today as Osu Castle).
The Richter Fort
While the inscription on the façade states 1809, historical records show that Henrich Richter moved to Richter House in early 1829. Undoubtably, his wealth allowed him to have such property, but the considerable size of the house has led some to suggest it may have been an auxiliary fort to the Danish headquarters of Christiansborg. Oral accounts suggest the same.
The house was at the intersection of roads, laid and paid for by Henrich, which connected British Accra (Jamestown) on the west and Danish Accra (Osu) on the east. It was lavishly built, and functioned as a business site, both political and commercial, and residential site, hosting Danish high society on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Henrich retained over 200 people for his trade and domestic work, some employed and some enslaved, including five cooks.
Henrich lived at Richter House with his children, servants, and captives from the Asante Kingdom’s Battle of Dodowa of 1826, including a 13 year old girl named Sewah (probably ‘Serwaa’). Among the captives were Akua Pusuwa, the wife of Asantehene Osei Yaw Akoto, and her daughter, with whom Henrich had his first son (Robert Wilhelm) in 1831.
Contested histories and their present past
Richter Fort is recognised by the Ghana Museums and Monuments Board as a monument of national importance, although only few features remain today.
This structure, as a site of enslavement, power, and creation of mixed heritage by way of European and African presence, has produce contested histories of ownership and legitimacy.
In 2011, the Accra High Court delivered a judgement on a legal challenge brought by Ernest Richter, a descendant of Henrich, against Emmanuel George Awuku, to establish ownership of the House. The case was resolved in February 2015 at the Accra Court of Appeal, with ownership assigned to Ernest Richter and his family. On the day the court bailiff was serving notice to the residents of the House, who had been accountable to Emmanuel George Awuku as the owner, I was visiting the site. After the last Richter left the House, it had been the home of people who, although claim to be descendants of Henrich Richter, are not recognised as legitimate descendants and are seen as ‘squatters.’ During my visit, I witnessed distressed and appalled residents at the news they had to leave the House. In an assertive manner, an elderly woman, born and raised in the House, expressed discontent at how her side of the Richter family had been treated over the years. While there is no evidence, as claimed, that she is a descendant of Henrich Richter by blood, or that she acquired the name by virtue of her ancestors and family living there, it was unsettling to bear witness to how the past was shaping the present.
The history of the Richter Fort shines light on some of the actors of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and the social and economic entanglement of those born out of the development of a new ethnic identity (Euro-Africans). Through the 2015 legal battle at the Accra Court of Appeal, it also provides a foundation in the Ghanaian context for how historical records can be leveraged to assert ownership over historical sites and create belonging. Yet, it also makes one wonder if history and its preservation, through the construction of a museum or heritage site – as it is the intention of the Richter family – warrants displacing and rendering people homeless. This phenomenon is not new historically; but, one may argue that this House provides us an opportunity to reflect on what it means to create and curate inequitable sites of heritage, which become devoid of the multiple layers of its biography.
Bibliography
Ipsen, Pernille. Daughters of the Trade: Atlantic Slavers and Interracial Marriage on the Gold Coast. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 2015.
Justesen, Ole. “Henrich Richter 1785 - 1849: Trader and Politician in the Danish Settlements on the Gold Coast.” Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana New Series, no. 7 (2003): 93–192. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41406700.
Footnotes
[1] Mulattoes and Mulattresses were people of Euro-African descent, born out of, initially, interracial relationships between junior colonial officers and Ga women. The practice of interracial relationships and marriages on the Gold Coast, as outlined by Ipsen (2015: 1-3), “began shortly after Europeans started trading in the area in the seventeenth century and continued in Osu for generations after the official Danish slave trade was abolished in 1803. The practice was called “cassare” or “calisare”— for setting up house— and both the word and the practice were inherited from earlier Portuguese traders in West Africa. […] Entangled as they were in both the local history of the slave- trading towns in West Africa and the larger history of the European colonial system, the cassare marriages in Osu functioned as loaded transfer points of power.” This power facilitated and cemented the trade of human beings on the Gold Coast.
[2] Ole Justesen, “Henrich Richter 1785 - 1849: Trader and Politician in the Danish Settlements on the Gold Coast,” Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana New Series, no. 7 (2003): 93–192, https://www.jstor.org/stable/41406700; Pernille Ipsen, Daughters of the Trade: Atlantic Slavers and Interracial Marriage on the Gold Coast (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 2015).
[3]Ipsen, Daughters of the Trade: Atlantic Slavers and Interracial Marriage on the Gold Coast, 21.
[4] While in Copenhagen he married Amelie Wilhelmine Nicole Hein, a white Danish woman, whom he left in Denmark while returning to the Gold Coast. She requested a divorce in 1823. They were granted consent for divorce in 1830. There is no evidence they had children.
[5]Justesen, “Henrich Richter 1785 - 1849: Trader and Politician in the Danish Settlements on the Gold Coast.”
[6] Justesen states in page 127 that it is not clear whether the site of the house was built before 1829. The inscription may be referring to the date of construction of the site.
[7] Justesen, “Henrich Richter 1785 - 1849: Trader and Politician in the Danish Settlements on the Gold Coast,” 128.
[8] “Very likely the house functioned both as a merchant's house for those African traders from the interior, who had been inveigled into trading with him by his own agents stationed in the interior, and as a wholesale house, able to receive merchandise from the commercial vessels. At the same time it enabled him to welcome the captains of the vessels, his trading colleagues and competitors from the coast in a suitably imposing setting, and to entertain them and the visiting African politicians and European officials … Richter gave dazzling parties where wines and champagne were served in abundance to accompany the many courses.” (Justesen, 155, 156)
[9] Robert Wilhelm, who was born out of wedlock, was the grandson of the Asantehene. The literature states that Akua Pusuwa’s daughter was H. Richter’s ‘concubine’, therefore suggesting a consensual relationship. However, the power dynamic between the two points to a non-consensual relationship. Akua Pusuwa’s daughter was reportedly named Mahnu or Manuh (probably ‘Maanu’, the name of a female second born in Twi).
[10] “This matter is about a claim to ownership of land between two distinct families; that is the original Richter Family and the Richter Family that developed following the auction of some Richter properties. The original Richter Family was represented by the plaintiff/respondent and the Richter Family that developed is represented by the first defendant/ appellant.” (Ernest Richter v. Emmanuel George Awuku (2015) JELR 69048 (CA) COURT OF APPEAL, CIVIL APPEAL NO. H1/48/2014)