Edmund Abaka

Edmund Abaka is a Ghanaian-born American photographer and historian of Africa at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida.

Abaka is a Fulbright scholar.

Early life and education Abaka was born in Ghana and pursued his undergraduate studies at the University of Cape Coast. He later moved to Canada for graduate education, completing a master’s degree and subsequently earning his Ph.D. in African history at York University in 1998. His doctoral research centered on African economic history, particularly the trade in kola nuts in Asante and the Gold Coast.

His later scholarship has increasingly turned toward the study of slavery and memory, with a particular emphasis on the architecture and lived experiences tied to forts, castles, and dungeons along the Atlantic coast.

He has highlighted the role of “castle slaves” enslaved Africans forced to work within these structures—whose stories remain less documented in historical records.

Selected publications "Kola is God's Gift": Agricultural Production, Export Initiatives and the Kola Industry of Asante and the Gold Coast, c. 1820–1950. Ohio University Press, Athens, 2005. (Western African Studies) Culture And Customs of Ethiopia. 2007 House of Slaves and "Door of No Return": Gold Coast/Ghana Slave Forts, Castles & Dungeons and the Atlantic Slave Trade. University of Wisconsin Press W. E. B. Du Bois on Africa (edited with Eugene F. Provenzo)