Ghana was known as the Gold Coast before March 1957. The Portuguese discovered so much gold between the rivers Ankobra and Volta when they came to Ghana in the 15th century that they named the area Mina, which means “mine.” Later on, the English colonists claimed the Gold Coast as their own.
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The Dutch joined them in 1598, and forts were built at Komenda and Kormantsil. They took the fortress from the Portuguese in 1637 and the town of Axim from the Portuguese in 1642. (Fort St Anthony). By the mid-eighteenth century, other European tradesmen had joined in.
The English, Danes, and Swedes were among them. Fortifications built by Dutch, British, and Danish merchants dot the shoreline.
What was Ghana called before the Gold Coast?
The Dutch and the British were the only traders left by the late nineteenth century. When the Dutch left in 1874, the British declared the Gold Coast a crown colony.
The Gold Coast was Africa’s first British colony to gain independence. The country’s name was changed to Ghana after independence, and Kwame Nkrumah was the first president. Ghana is located in the Gulf of Guinea in West Africa.
Cote d’Ivoire, Togo, and Burkina Faso are its neighbours, and Accra is the capital. Ghana is named after an ancient kingdom located about 100 kilometres northwest of the modern-day country.
According to archaeological remains unearthed in the coastal zone, the area has been inhabited since the Early Bronze Age (ca. 4000 B.C.) according to archaeological remains, but these societies, which relied on fishing in the vast lagoons and rivers, left little trace.
Archaeological evidence suggests that central Ghana was populated as early as 3,000 to 4,000 years ago, north of the forest zone.
According to oral history and other sources, some of Ghana’s citizens’ ancestors arrived in this area as early as the ninth century A.D., and migration from the north and east continued after that.
The emergence and disintegration of a series of major governments in western Sudan contributed to these migrations.
The trans-Saharan trade that helped kingdoms expand in western Sudan also led to the development of links with territories in northern contemporary Ghana and the forest to the south.
The town of Jenné in the empire of Mali, for example, had developed trading contacts with ethnic groups in the savannah woodland areas of the northern two-thirds of the Volta Basin in Ghana by the thirteenth century.
The Dyula, Muslim traders who negotiated with the ancestors of the Akan-speaking peoples who controlled the majority of the country’s southern half, were also based in Jenné.
Although the monarchs were not usually Muslims, they either brought or welcomed Muslims as scribes and healers, and Muslims also played an important role in the trade that connected southern and northern Ghana. Islam had a significant influence in the north as a result of their existence.
Even among the Asante to the south, Muslim influence has been noted, spread by traders and clergy. Despite the fact that most Ghanaians preserved their traditional beliefs, the Muslims brought with them some abilities, such as writing, as well as beliefs and practices that became part of the culture of the peoples with whom they resided.
A number of people who were not incorporated into the Muslim-influenced states of Gonja, Mamprusi, and Dagomba and the southernmost outposts of the Mossi Kingdoms lived in a broad belt of the rugged country between
the northern boundaries of these entities and the southernmost outposts of the Mossi Kingdoms. The Sisal, Kasena, Kusase, and Talensi, agriculturalists closely connected to the Mossi, were among these peoples.
Rather than creating centralised nations, they lived in so-called segmented societies, which were linked by blood connections and ruled by clan chiefs.
Trade between the Akan nations to the south and the Mossi Kingdoms to the north passed through their homelands, exposing them to Islamic influence and the wrath of their more powerful neighbours.
Although the monarchs were not usually Muslims, they either brought or welcomed Muslims as scribes and healers, and Muslims also played an important role in the trade that connected southern and northern Ghana. Islam had a significant influence in the north as a result of their existence.