Walk through the overgrown paths of Cape Coast’s European War Cemetery, and the truth rises from the stones. Between 1824 and 1905, this ground became more than a military burial site. Here lie soldiers of Black and White regiments, yes — but also Catholic sisters, young novices, and even boys as young as seven. Their graves tell a story the official Church has long ignored: that women, not just men, carried the burden of building Catholicism on the Gold Coast.
The Sisters of Our Lady of the Apostles (O.L.A.) arrived in Elmina in 1883 and Cape Coast soon after. They opened schools, cared for orphans, and nursed the sick in the shadow of Cape Coast Castle. They lived in conditions as harsh as the slave dungeons themselves — damp, fever‑ridden, and overcrowded. Many died within months of arrival.
Yet their graves remain: Sister Patience (d. 1885), Sister Zenon (d. 1896), Sister Gnadeus (d. 1892), just to name a few. These women were the backbone of the mission, teaching Fante girls their first ABCs, tending the sick, and laying the foundations of Catholic education in Ghana. Without them, the Church in Cape Coast would not exist.
And yet, visit the Archdiocese of Cape Coast’s official website today, and you will see only men. Group photographs of reverend fathers and bishops, jubilees, anniversaries — but not a single mention of the sisters who died in service. The Catholic Church celebrates its establishment as an Apostolic Prefecture in 1879 as if it were a male conquest alone.
This is erasure. The sisters are absent from the archives, absent from the commemorations, absent from the Church’s own narrative. Their graves are the only testimony left — silent stones that speak louder than the glossy photos of self‑celebration.
UNESCO and the Ghana Museums and Monuments Board (GMMB) have also failed to document or preserve this cemetery. No verified register exists online or in archives. Many stones are broken, half‑buried, or illegible. The women who gave their lives to the mission have been left to fade into weeds and silence.
Only in 2025, through new PRIVATE fieldwork and original PRIVATE research, have their names begun to return. Each headstone, cross, and fragment of inscription is being carefully documented, photographed, and transcribed.
This work is restoring dignity to the forgotten dead — and rewriting the Church’s origin story.
The Catholic Church in Cape Coast did not rise from the efforts of smiling reverend fathers alone. It was built on the sweat, sacrifice, and graves of women — sisters who taught, nursed, and died young in service. Their burial ground is not a footnote; it is the foundation.
To ignore them is to falsify history. To remember them is to restore truth.
Rest in peace, Rev. Sisters of Cape Coast. Your names are spoken again, your stories are told, and your legacy is reclaimed. ✝️🌿