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Who colonized Ghana?

West Africa — the powers that ruled Ghana, the dates, and what independence did and did not change.

In short

Who colonized Ghana?

Portugal, the Netherlands, Denmark and Britain in turn on the coast; Britain finally as the Gold Coast colony from 1874 until Ghana became the first sub-Saharan African colony to win independence on 6 March 1957.

The Ghanaian coast holds the largest concentration of European fortifications in Africa, built for gold and repurposed for the trade in human beings.

Reference

Who ruled Ghana, and when

before 1874
Asante Empire and coastal states
1482–1874
European trading forts (Portugal, Netherlands, Denmark, Britain)
1874–1957
British Gold Coast

At a glance

Key facts

Colonising powers
Portugal, Netherlands, Denmark, Britain
Independence
6 March 1957
Forts
Over thirty European castles and forts line the coast
First
First sub-Saharan African colony to gain independence
Extraction
Gold, then enslaved people, then cocoa

Chronology

Key dates

  1. 1482

    Portugal builds Elmina Castle.

  2. 1600s–1800s

    The forts become slave-trade depots.

  3. 1824–1900

    Anglo-Asante wars.

  4. 1874

    Gold Coast declared a British colony.

  5. 1948

    Accra shootings galvanise the independence movement.

  6. 1957

    Independence under Kwame Nkrumah.

Context

What the record shows

Ghana's 1957 independence set the template — and the expectations — for the wave of African decolonisation that followed.

Questions

Frequently asked

Who colonised Ghana?
Portugal, the Netherlands, Denmark and Britain held coastal forts; Britain ruled the territory as the Gold Coast colony from 1874 to 1957.
What was the Gold Coast?
The British colonial name for the territory that became Ghana, taken from the gold trade at the coastal forts.
When did Ghana become independent?
6 March 1957.

Read on

Related in the archive

References

Sources — colonial Ghana

  1. [1]Bartolomé de las Casas, Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias (Seville, 1552).
  2. [2]Noble David Cook, Born to Die: Disease and New World Conquest, 1492–1650 (Cambridge University Press, 1998).
  3. [3]Eduardo Galeano, Open Veins of Latin America (Monthly Review Press, 1971; English 1973).
  4. [4]Adam Hochschild, King Leopold's Ghost (Houghton Mifflin, 1998).
  5. [5]Thomas Pakenham, The Scramble for Africa (Random House, 1991).
  6. [6]Shashi Tharoor, Inglorious Empire: What the British Did to India (Hurst, 2017).
  7. [7]Caroline Elkins, Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya (Henry Holt, 2005).
  8. [8]Alfred W. McCoy, Policing America's Empire: The United States, the Philippines, and the Rise of the Surveillance State (Wisconsin, 2009).
  9. [9]Daniel Immerwahr, How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019).
  10. [10]Jürgen Zimmerer, "The birth of the Ostland out of the spirit of colonialism", Patterns of Prejudice 39:2 (2005), on the German South-West Africa → Holocaust lineage.
  11. [11]Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (Bogle-L'Ouverture, 1972).
  12. [12]Karl Marx, Capital, Volume I (1867), Chapter 31 ("Genesis of the Industrial Capitalist").

All works cited in good faith for documentary, educational and critical use. Errors and omissions: contact the archive.