Hedranawo Slavery Museum

The Hedzranawo Slavery Museum is a heritage museum in Hedzranawo, a historic town between Denu and Adafienu in the Ketu South Municipality of Ghana's Volta Region. It is dedicated to preserving, interpreting and sharing the history of the transatlantic slave trade and its impact on coastal Volta communities.

The museum occupies a rehabilitated brick structure that once served as an ancient European trade post, described elsewhere as a rehabilitated Danish building. Its curated exhibits include ancient bottles, ceramic plates, glass fragments, beads and other archaeological finds excavated onsite by Professor Wazi Apoh and his team from the University of Ghana, along with slavery shackles. A notable feature is an underground vault or dungeon where enslaved Africans were once confined.

The museum is linked to the Adzido Slave Memorial Centre, an extension at a site believed to have been a slave market. That site features sculptures, painted scenes, exposed foundation walls of a two-room house or barracoon, and excavated trade goods. Oral narratives hold that the trade buildings at Adzido were demolished and enslaved people freed after a treaty abolishing the trade was signed by the British and chiefs of the Three Towns — Denu, Adafienu and Hedzranawo — in 1852.

Both sites form part of the wider Coastal Volta Enslaved Route Project (CVERP) initiated by Prof. Wazi Apoh. A €90,000 grant from the Gerda Henkel Foundation was announced in 2020 for three-town tourism projects: the Hedzranawo Community Slave Museum, the Adzido Slave Market Centre and the Adafienu Palace Slave Museum. The museum opened to the public in December 2023.

The museum stands on Swanzy Road in Hedzranawo, within the Somé Traditional Area. Published map coordinates place it at approximately 6.0902, 1.1448. Opening hours are Tuesday to Friday, 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM, and Saturday to Sunday, 8:00 AM to 4:00 PM; the museum is closed on Mondays. Contact details published by the museum are +233 241 966 105 and [email protected].