46 Atlantic African, American, and European Backgrounds to Contact, Commerce, and Enslavementrule over the Asante and Fante nations. Aft er World War
I, the British colonial government obtained its fi nal terri-
tory from parts of German Togoland, which brought all of
present-day Ghana under colonial rule.
On March 6, 1957, under the leadership of Kwame
Nkrumah, people in the Gold Coast gained their indepen-
dence. Nkrumah renamed the region Ghana aft er the west-
ern Sudanic kingdom.
See also: Atlantic Slave Trade; Coromantee; Elmina; King-
dom of Asante; Nkrumah, KwameZawadi I. BarskileBibliography
Gomez, Michael. Exchanging Our Country Marks: Th e Trans-
formation of African Identities in the Colonial and Antebel-
lum South. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press,
1998.
Hartman, Saidiya V. Lose Your Mother: A Journey along the Atlan-
tic Slave Route. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007.
Kea, Ray A. Settlements, Trade, and Polities in the Seventeenth-
Century Gold Coast. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Univer-
sity Press, 1982.
Ward, W. E. F. A History of the Gold Coast. London: G. Allen and
Unwin, 1948.Gorée Island
Gorée is a 45-acre island off the west coast of the African na-
tion of Senegal. As a result of its convenient location (at the
entrance to the Middle Passage), Gorée became the center
of the European slave trade from 16th century to the 19th
century. Th roughout this time, it was ruled in succession by
the Portuguese, Dutch, English, and French. Gorée Island
was used as a holding ground for slaves before they were
sold. Millions of Africans were captured and brought to
Gorée before being shipped across the Atlantic to landown-
ers in South America, North America, and the Caribbean.
Given what we now know about the immensity of the slave
trade, millions of Africans went to the House of Slaves, the
main holding area, and passed through the Door of No Re-
turn before being sent across the Middle Passage.
Th e main structure on Gorée, the House of Slaves, was
built by the Dutch in 1777. In the House of Slaves, up to 30
men would be shackled and forced into an eight-square-
foot room to sit for days until they were sold. Children were
separated from their mothers and piled into cells specifi cally18th century with the emergence of European interests in
the New World, humans replaced gold as the main export
from this region. Captives from the Gold Coast were highly
valued in parts of North America such as Jamaica and
South Carolina.
Th e Akan controlled the gold trade by the 14th cen-
tury, exchanging cloth, kola nuts, and salt with Mus-
lim traders from the north. Th e focus of the northern
gold trade changed with the arrival of the Portuguese in
- Attracted to the large quantity of gold in this re-
gion, the Portuguese labeled the area “Costa d’Mina.” Th ey
traded fi rearms and captives from other parts of Africa for
gold. In 1482, the Portuguese established their fi rst trading
post, São Jorge. Soon aft er, other European nations such as
France, the Netherlands, and Great Britain built their own
posts along the coast.
Th e increasing demand from European nations with
New World colonies shift ed the trade from gold to human
captives. Th e fi rearms supplied by Europeans aided the
growth of the slave trade by provoking wars of conquest
and, consequently, more captives.
During the 17th and 18th centuries, European traders
identifi ed Africans exported from this region as “Kroman-
tine.” Th e term, also seen as “Coromantin” and “Caraman-
tee,” refers to an English trading post and a commercial
village located on the coast. Th e English as well as the
Dutch preferred captives from the Gold Coast because they
were considered good farmers and domestic servants. Th e
Dutch enslaved large numbers of captives from this region
in Suriname, while the English shipped their prisoners to
the West Indies and South Carolina.
Th e structure of the trade and politics on the Gold
Coast changed again in the early 19th century aft er Euro-
pean nations abolished the slave trade. European nations
resumed their interest in gold, while the Asante and Fante
(subgroups of the Akan) nations fought wars for territorial
control. Th e British gradually dominated the region by cre-
ating a protectorate over the Fante states in 1844, battling
the Asante in a series of wars, and declaring the Gold Coast
a Crown colony in 1874. Th e Asante refused to acknowl-
edge the British treaty of protection and in 1896, the British
exiled the Asante king, Prempeh I, and formally annexed
the Asante nation and northern territories. Aft er a British
attempt to obtain the Golden Stool, an Asante symbol of au-
thority, Yaa Asantewaa led the nation in a fi nal uprising that
resulted in Asante defeat. In 1901 the British had colonial