CHRISTIANBORG CASTLE-ACCRA

161 DENMARK           1679 PORTUGAL        1850 BRITAIN

Christiansborg Castle is unique among the castles and forts as it served as Government House during various periods in the 19th and 20th centuries and continuous to play that role today.

The building of the first lodge in the 17th century at Ursu or Osu is attributed to the Swedish African Company. In 1657, the Swedish headquarters at Carolusburg Castle, Cape Coast was captured by the Danish  Guinea Company led by Heindrick Caelof who himself was formally the Swedish Africa Company’s Commanding Director.

This resulted in all Swedish establishments including Osu lodge passing into the hands of the Danish Africa Company. Caerlof defected to the Dutch in 1659. The Danish Commander of Carolusburg was tricked into believing that Denmark had been conquered. He therefore sold Carolusburg to the Dutch and with it the former Swedish establishment including Osu lodge. The Ga Paramount Chief Okaikoi, disgusted with their trickery, asked the Dutch to leave Osu. In 1661, Jost Cramer, Danish governor of Fredericksborg, near Cape Coast, acquired land from Chief Okaikoi for 3,200 gold florins. The Danes built a stone fort to replace the earthen lodge and named it Chiristiansborg (Christian’s for trees) after the former King of Denmark, Christian IV who had died in 1648.

In 169, Peder Bolt, a Greek who was deputy commandant at Christiansborg instigated the murder of the Danish commandant Johan Ulrich and sold the castle to Julian de Campo Baretto, governor of the Portuguese Island of Sao Thome. The Portuguese rename the castle “St. Francis Xavier”, garrisoned it, constructed a Roman Catholic Chapel in it and made architectural improvements on the bastions. However, the Portuguese were unpopular in Ga-land and unable to withstand English and Dutch trade competition. They thus resold the castle to the Danes in 1683. Two years later, when Fort Fredericksborg was sold to the English, Christiansborg become the Danish headquarters.

At this time, the warlike Akwamu were in control of the Accra region. In 1693, a notable Akwamu trader, Asameni, formerly a cook in Danish service, led some Akwamu customers to the castle ostensibly to trade. The castle factor and staff were tricked and overpowered. The commandant, Nicolaus Janssen, severely wounded took refuge at the Dutch Fort Creve Coeur. Asameni acquired booty worth 1,400 marks in gold. He assumed the governorship of the castle and donned the Danish governors uniform.

Above the castle, he flew a blue flag with the image of an African warrior brandishing a dagger. Asameni invited captains of privately-owned English and Dutch ships to trade with him and he entertained them lavishly, his castles guns booming salute to them. In June 1694, however, two Danish ships arrived to redeem the castles, taking with him the keys which henceforth became part of the Akwamu stool property.

The 18th Century witnessed a new burst of Danish fort-building. From Teshi eastward as far as Keta, they built a chain of subordinate forts and lodges which enhanced the importance of Christiansborg. At this time, trade in gold from Akyem and elsewhere was on the increase at the castle, much gold was exported by the Danes and minted in ducats bore the icon of the castle and the superscription “Christiansborg”. Nevertheless, the trade in slaves market at Osu, (the auctioneers platform is still visible in extent old houses) and driven through a dark tunnel to the castles dungeons to await shipment.

In 1788, the Danes at Christiansborg, disgusted with the slave trade. Initiated development of plantations in the Akuapem escarpment area for cultivation of coffee, cotton, etc, as export crops in place of slaves. The scheme proved to be unsuccessful. With Denmark’s abolition of the slave trade in 1803, general trade decline set in at Christiansborg.   In 1850, all Danish possessions on the Gold Coast were sold to Britain and the Danes left.

Architecturally, the early 18th century Christiansborg Castle was partly anachronistic featuring a pointed diminutive southeast bastion and an equally archaic northeast bastion. It became necessary to rebuild these. In addition, new powerful bastions were built in the southwest and northwest areas, new store rooms and garrison quarters were constructed and internal building were renovated…………… read more from Prof
Akwando’s Book

FORT GOOD HOPE – SENYA BERAKU

1705 NETHERLANDS       1868 BRITAIN

Thanks to their establishment of a lodge at Senya Beraku in 1667, the Dutch entered into a long-standing relationship with the Agona State. It chief subsequently requested the Dutch to build a permanent fort at Beraku. The Dutch accepted the invitations because of the prospect of a trade boom in gold, ivory and slaves emanating from the Akyem kingdom located in the hinter-land beyond Agona, and also because private traders were taking advantage of the absence of any Dutch forts in the area between Accra and Apam.

In 1705-06, as a preliminary stage prior to building a four-sided fort, the Dutch constructed a small triangular fort on a promontory located near a cove where there was a good landing beach. As the fort appealed to presage great expectations, the Dutch named it “De Goede Hoop” meaning “Good Hope”. The triangular fort had three bastions located at the southwest, southeast and northeast corners, with a long diagonal curtain wall between the southeast and northeast bastions. An apartment building was erected behind the south curtain.  Meanwhile, the expected gold trade boom from Akyem did not materialise.

However, the trade in slaves expanded considerably due partly to the increase in prisoners from inter-ethnic wars in the area involving Asante, Akyem, Akwamu etc. By 1715, the forts limited size could not cope with the volume of slave trade…………… read more from Prof
Akwando’s Book

FORT  PATIENCE  - APAM

1697 NETHERLAND            1868 BRITAIN

In the late 17th century, the small state of Acron-sandwiched between the lager Britain allies of Agona and Fante-sought to have a strong fort built on its territory to defend it in case of attack. The Dutch, while willing to erect a fort at Apam, were in no position to build a large one. Building of the fort commenced in 1697 on the summit of a promontory close to a sheltered beach and bay. However, disagreement between the two sides concerning the form of the fort delayed its completion until 1702. Hence the name they gave to the fort-Lijdzaam-heid, meaning patience.

The initial structure was a “small two-storey house”. Between 1701 and 1721, this was strengthened with two demi-bastions at diametrically opposite corners.

The northwest bastion was solid while the southeast bastions was hallowed and used as a male slave prison. (There was also a small female prison underneath the two story building).

A small courtyard and spur in front of the two-storey building had ranged round it apartments for various fort officers, store rooms, a guard room etc. Two large service yards were built as adjuncts to the main fort complex and included kitchens and the “Orange Hall” for receptions or “palavers”. Initially the economy of Fort Patience showed good promise. It was reported in November 1705, that two Dutch ships, the peynenburgh and the Christina, had loaded a total of nearly 900 slaves at Apam, Beraku and Accra within two months……………… read more from Prof
Akwando’s Book

FORT WILLIAM – ANOMABU

1753-70 BRITAIN

Anomabu became the focus of intense European trade rivalry in the 17th and 18th centuries, partly because of its easy access to a rich hinterland and partly because the local Anomabu were themselves powerful and astute traders. From the middle of the 17th century, European companies vied with each other in the quest for rights to establish and maintain a trading post at Anomabu. The earliest lodge was built in 1640 by the Dutch using earthwork, changed hands four times- from the Dutch to Swedes, then to the Danes, back to the Dutch and finally to the English.

In 1674, the English built a small fort using more durable materials and called it Charles, after the reigning monarch King Charles II. However, it was abandoned in order to concentrate efforts and cost of Fort Carolusburg at Cape Coast. Even though the English demolished Fort Charles in 1731 to prevent its capture and use by another European company, the French sneaked in and built a fort where Fort Charles once stood.

In 1698, the English Royal African Company “licensed” ship captains not in its employment upon the payment of a 10% “affiliation fee” to enable them to trade in its areas of monopoly. There followed a flood of “Ten Percenters” trading at English forts, often outnumbering the company’s own ships. Anomabu became a popular haunt of “ten percenters”, (until their licensing was stopped in 1712), exporting vast numbers of slaves.

Dutch director-general at Elmina, Engelgraaf Robbertsz, quoting an English captain on Anomabu Slave trade exports stated in 1717: “From January1702 to August 1708 they took to Barbados, Jamaica a total of not less than 30,141 slaves and in this figure are not included transactions made for other ships sailing to such Islands as Nevis, Montserrat, St. Christopher, for the South Sea Company, the New Netherlands and others which outnumber considerably, and of which Annemaboe alone could provide about one third”.

Between 1753 and 1770, the English built an entirely new fort close to the former location of fort Charles. They used local as well as imported bricks and lime. The new fort was not named until the 19th century when a storey was added to it during the reign of King William IV and it was Fort William. …………… read more from Prof Akwando’s Book

CAPE COAST CASTLE – CAPE COAST

1653 SWEDEN           1665 BRITAIN

The strategic location of Cape Coast having a sheltered beach in proximity to Elmina Castle made it a great attraction to the European nations. Hence, for nearly a century, there was a ding-dong competition among the Portuguese, Dutch, Danes, Swedes and English to gain control of Cape Coast. The Portuguese built the first trade lodge in 1555 and called the local settlement “Cabo Corso”, meaning short cape, later corrupted to Cape Coast. The Swedes, led by Krufesenstjerna, built a permanent fort in 1653 and called it Carolusburg after King Charles X of Sweden. During the next 11 years, the Danes, the local Fetu chief and the Dutch each in turn captured and held Carolusburg for a time.

Finally, the English fleet led by Captain Holmes tool Carolusburg. The fort remained in English hands till the late 19th century serving as the West Africa head-quarters seat of the president of the Committee of Merchants and later as the seat of the British governor.

Jean Barbot, in a eye-witness account of the form of the late 17th century Carolusburg after it had been transformed by the English Charted Company of Royal Adventures from a fort into a castle, wrote “The lodging and apartment within the castle are very large and well-built of brick, having three fronts which with the platform on the south almost make a quadrangle answering to the inside of the walls and form a very handsome place of arms, well-paved, under which is a spacious mansion or place to keep the slave sin, cut of the rocky ground, arched and divided into several rooms so that it will conveniently contain a thousand blacks let down at an opening made for the purpose. The keeping of the slaves underground is a good security to the garrison against any insurrection.

In 1996, Professor Anqandah’s archaeological excavations at Cape Coast Castle unearthed structural remains of the 17th and 18th century Swedish and English brick fortress under the modern castles courtyard pavement. The findings retrieved included hundreds of red bricks, roof, tiles, imported European pottery, glass, beads, liquor, perfume and ointment bottles, guns parts, local pottery, indigenous milling stones, bones of cattle, sheep, fish, birds, molluscs and graves of English officers.

In the period 1766-73, the British Committee of Merchants which was responsible for the administration of British forts, undertook a major rehabilitation of the castle and gave it present-day form.

The 18th century castle was built of local quarried sandstone rock. Doors, window opening and vaults were given brick dressings. In plan, the castle has an irregular polygon shape. Its major features include a large pentagonal courtyard overlooking the sea, with one long side and two short sides enclosed by low curtain walls on the seaward side and the two landward sides enclosed by three-storey ranges of buildings. Each of the five comers of the pentagon has polygonal bastions.

The castles habitable accommodation area covers 3,900 metres square. In 1672, the English King Charles II granted a new charter to the Royal African Company for developing Guinea trade. A period of expansion of trade in gold and slaves ensured and this was reflected in the large-scale production and circulations of the famous British gold currency called the Guinea which bore the emblem of the Royal African Company. It is estimated that around 1700, the Company was exporting some 70,000 slaves per annum, to the New World. When the slave trade was abolished, the castle became important conduits for development of legitimate trade. In the period 18.30-50, the following figures of the Castle average annual exports were recorded.

18,000 ounces of gold, 40-50 tons of ivory, 80,000 pounds of coffee, 35,000 bushels of corn and some 70 tonns of cam wood. Imports were listed as including metal ware, cotton, goods, rums, tobacco, guns and ammunition. Cape Coast Castle shares honour with Elmina Castles and Christiansborg Castle as a pioneering centre for western education I modern Ghana. In the early 1750s, an Anglican Minister, Thomas Thompson, established the first primary school at Cape Coast youth, Philip Quaque to receive ministerial training in England by the British Society for the propagation of the Gospel. Quaque became chaplain and school master at Cape Coast Castle.

In 1787, a local education authority called the Terridzonian Society (T.Z.S) was founded at Cape Coast Castle under the presidency of the Governor for promoting local education. T.Z.S raised funds to expand the Cape Coast Castle school system. For the first time in Gold Coast history, children were provided with school uniforms. Cape Coast Castle was brightened with children wearing blue jackets with red cuffs and capes to which were affixed badges marked T.Z.S and they also wore trousers, shorts, black cravats and hats. It was if the 18th century English urban school had been transplanted to Cape Coast! …………… read more from Prof Akwando’s Book