Danish possessions on the Gold Coast

Christiansborg Fortress near Accra was the seat of the Swedish, Danish and British governors and is still the seat of the government of Ghana today

Mulatto constable of the Danish-Guinean artillery

Danish settlements on the coast of today's Ghana , formerly known as the Gold Coast , existed from 1658 to 1850. The Danish possessions, however, were mainly forts and trading factories , so that the Danish Gold Coast was not actually a colony.

history

As part of the Second Northern War , Denmark and Sweden again waged war against each other from 1657. From 1658 the Danes in West Africa gradually conquered all Swedish possessions on the Gold Coast , which Sweden had only acquired from the Portuguese and Dutch in 1650. Fort Carolusborg (today Cape Coast Castle ) was the last Swedish fortress to fall into Danish hands, but it was lost to the English in 1664.

The Danish West India Company was founded in 1671 for the slave trade between its properties in West Africa, Europe and the Caribbean, and in 1750 all of the company's Danish properties on the Gold Coast were converted into a Danish crown colony . The capital was - as it was under Swedish rule - Fort Christiansborg in what is now the Ghanaian capital Accra . As part of Britain's struggle against the Russian-Danish policy of armed neutrality , the colony was occupied by the British in 1782–1785.

With the ban on the slave trade and slavery in the first half of the 19th century and the increasing resistance of the Ashanti and Akwamu in the African hinterland, Denmark lost interest in the Gold Coast and sold its West African possessions to Great Britain for £ 10,000 in 1850.

The fortresses and other bases in the course of time in detail

(The last estates ceded to Great Britain in 1850 are marked in yellow)

place	fortress	Foundation (conquest)	Task (sales)	Comments
Accra	Fort Christiansborg	1658	1850	Swedish before 1658, Portuguese occupied from 1680–1682, sold to Great Britain in 1850
Ada	Fort Kongensteen	1784	1850	Sold to Great Britain in 1850
Amanful	Fort Frederiksborg	1658	1685	after 1685 English
Anomabu	Fort William	1658	1674	Swedish before 1658, English after 1674
Cape Coast	Fort Carolusborg	1659	1661	before 1659 Swedish, 1661 Dutch
Cong	Cong Heights	1659	1661	before 1659 Dutch, 1661 destroyed by Dutch
Keta	Fort Prinzenstein	1784	1850	before 1780 Dutch, sold to Great Britain in 1850
Old Ningo	Fort Fredensborg	1784	1850	Sold to Great Britain in 1850
Sekondi-Takoradi	Fort Witsen	1658	1659	Swedish before 1658, abandoned in 1659
Teshie	Fort Augustaborg	1787	1850	Sold to Great Britain in 1850