Gold Coast (British colony)

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This article is about the British colony in west Africa, 1821-1957. For other uses, see Gold Coast

Gold Coast was the name of a British colony on the Gulf of Guinea in west Africa that became the independent nation of Ghana in 1957.

The first Europeans to arrive at the coast were the Portuguese, in 1471. On their arrival, they found a group of kingdoms of different tribes, and lots of gold in the soil. In 1482, the Portuguese built the first castle in the Gold Coast. They used it to trade gold, in exchange for cloth, knives, beads, mirrors, rum and guns. News spread quickly, and eventually, English, Dane, German and Swedish traders arrived too. These European traders built several forts along the coastlines. The Gold Coast was formed in 1821 when the British government took over privately held lands along the coast. Gold Coast had long been a name for the region used by Europeans, due to the large gold resources to be found in the area, although slave trade was the main trade for a number of years. In 1872, the Dutch lost interest in the coast and gave up their forts to the British.

Britain steadily expanded the colony through wars with local kingdoms, the Ashanti Confederacy and other European countries which had colonies in the region. The British's main problem was the Asanti people who controlled much of Ghana before the Europeans arrived and are still today the most powerful tribe in Ghana. During the First Anglo-Ashanti war (1863-1864) the two groups fought because of a disagreement over an Asanti chief and slavery. Tensions increased in 1874 during the Second Asanti War (1873-1874) when the British sacked the Asanti capital of Kumasi. The third Asanti War(1893-1894) occurred because the new Asanti asantehene, ruler of the Asanti, wanted to exercise his new title. From 1895-1896 the British and Asanti fought in the fourth and final Asanti War, where the Asanti fought for and lost their independence. In 1900 the Asanti Uprising occurred and resulted in the Asanti capture and, shortly after, loss of Kumasi. This was due to an attempt to steal the Golden Stool, the asentehene's throne. At the end of this last of the Asanti Wars the Asanti people became a protectorate on 1 January 1902.

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By 1901, all of the Gold Coast was a British colony, with its kingdoms and tribes forming a single unit. Various natural resources — such as gold, metal ores, diamonds, ivory, pepper, timber, corn and cocoa — were shipped from the Gold Coast by the British. The British Colonisers built railways and a complicated transport infrastructure which formed the basis for the transport infrastructure in modern-day Ghana. Western hospitals and schools were also built, an attempt by the British to export what were then modern day amenities to the people of the Empire.

However, by 1945, demands for more autonomy by the Gold Coast population were beginning to arise, in the wake of the end of the Second World War and the beginnings of the decolonisation process across the world.

In 1946, British Togoland, the Ashanti protectorate, and the Fante protectorate were merged with the Gold Coast to create one colony, which became known as the Gold Coast. In 1957 the colony gained independence under the name of Ghana.