Mandred Henry was a health care sales rep from Hartford whom people often stopped on the street, saying he was a dead ringer for Morgan Freeman. Throughout his life he identified strongly with his African-American background. He was president of the local N.A.A.C.P. chapter. He remembered his mother keeping her grandmother’s slavery manumission papers in her top drawer.
But his awareness of his origins went back further than that. As a child he heard stories from his father of a distant ancestor who grew up among a cattle-herding tribe in West Africa in the 1700s. This ancestor was captured by enemy tribesman as a boy, sold into slavery and eventually wound up in New England, where he bought his freedom, then that of his sons and his wife. That ancestor, Venture Smith, was a colossus of a man, physically and otherwise, who defied slavery at its very height, becoming a landowner and businessman in the early days of the American republic.
Venture Smith’s renown was great enough that his sons passed on the story of their father to their children, and they to theirs. Mandred Henry in his turn told his children of their ancestor. He dreamed of traveling to Africa himself and completing the circle of the African-American experience.
Mandred Henry, who died in 2007, never made it, but last September three of his children, along with a granddaughter and a great-grandson, did, in a remarkable trip that took them to the slave fort where their ancestor was held and that culminated in a ceremonial gathering with the elders of the village where he was sold into slavery. I tagged along because I am researching Venture Smith for a book, and took part in an experience that I now feel every American should have a chance to duplicate, so woven is it into the country’s soul.
Ghana, where our journey took us, is sometimes called Africa Light by veteran travelers to the continent. To a first-timer, it doesn’t feel so light. A wall of stimuli rises up to greet you as you leave the airport and head into town: dust, scrub, heat, blinding sunlight, roving goats, hellbent traffic, throngs of vendors bearing their wares on their heads, crowding your vehicle at every stop, offering chocolate, feminine products, yams, everything. Give it a minute, though, and Accra, the sprawling capital, comes into some kind of focus. People are deeply friendly. And of course it helps enormously that, thanks to Britain’s long colonization, almost everyone speaks English.
Our trip came about through a Switzerland-based historical preservationist named Chandler Saint, who, after working for several years to maintain sites related to Venture Smith’s life in New England, turned his attention to the three-century-old slave fort from which Smith left Africa. Mr. Saint had been in contact for some time with the chiefs of the town of Anomabo, 100 miles west of Accra along the infamous Gold Coast, to develop its ruined fort for tourism. But he needed traction, something that would jump-start the project.
He thought of bringing some of Venture Smith’s American descendants to the place. He had made contact with many of them in 2007 as part of an effort to use the former slave’s DNA to trace his exact origins. Mr. Saint broached the idea to some of the descendants, encouraged them to raise money for the trip and promised to set everything up. “We just had to say yes,” Angi Perron, one of Mandred Henry’s daughters, said. “For my dad, the idea of going to Africa was so special.”
As it happened, Mr. Saint’s organizational abilities did not match his enthusiasm. Practically the only information he gave me about the trip was the name of a hotel in Accra — and that I got only the day before my departure. On arrival, I discovered that no one else from the party was checked in, so I spent the day familiarizing myself with the capital.
Accra is a sprawling city, with ferocious energy. I quickly learned the truth of what my acquaintance Ama van Dantzig, a Ghanaian-Dutch social entrepreneur, told me: “There isn’t much cultural activity, theater and things like that. Street life — that’s where it’s happening.” Accra is the capital of the West African music scene, and recent innovations — “hiplife,” a combination of hip-hop and Ghanaian traditions, and a dance called Al Qaeda, where you look like you’re trying to hold onto your bombs — play out in clubs that spill onto the streets.
The closest thing to a neighborhood with an identity that I came across was Jamestown, the oldest part of Accra, whose blocks of shanties, fronted by stalls with plantains and kebabs cooking over open fires and selling everything from motorcycles to plastic baggies of water, are dominated by the English-built fort and lighthouse at the beach. Otherwise, this city of more than two million sprawls and ranges, an endless succession of low concrete-block buildings with corrugated metal roofs.
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At the Crystal Palm Hotel (4 Street-Tesano, 14th South Loop; crystalpalmhotels.com.gh) in Accra, rates for a standard double start at 170 Ghanaian cedi, or $55 at 3.13 cedi to the dollar. The main hotel is modern and clean, but several of our party were put in the “annex,” which was dingy. The hotel is in the residential neighborhood of Tesano, quieter than most of Accra but also farther from main sites.
Breezy and comfortable beachside bungalows at the Anomabo Beach Resort (anomabo2.digitafrica.com) start at 264 cedi.
What to See
The easiest way to get from Accra to the slave forts at Anomabo, Elmina or Cape Coast is to have your hotel arrange a car and driver. Otherwise, you can contact a tour operator. One that I used is a Dutch-run company called Ghana Vakantie, or Ghana Vacation (ghanavakantie.nl). I was charged $40 for the trip from the airport to Accra, and $70 for a car and driver for the day.
Where to Eat
The food in Ghana is filling and quite good. Dishes often include cassava, rice, yam or plantain. The national dish is “red red,” rice cooked with black-eyed peas and red palm oil. Expect to pay the equivalent of about $7 to $10 for dinner.
La Tawala Beach Resort (933 Jomo Street, Accra) has a beachside bar and restaurant. Try the chicken and french fries, or “red fish” (red snapper).
Mabel’s Table, on the road between Cape Coast and Elmina, serves African and Western fare.
A version of this article appears in print on February 1, 2015, on page TR1 of the New York edition with the headline: On Slavery’s Doorstep. Order Reprints| Today’s Paper|Subscribe
