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This post is tagged with: Cape Coast Castle

For nearly a century there was a lot of competition among the European nations to gain control of the strategic location of Cape Coast, with his sheltered beach in proximity to Elmina castle.

The Portuguese where the first to build a trade lodge in 1555, which they called ‘’cabo corso”, the short cape.

In 1653 the Swedish build the first permanent fort here and they called it Carolusburg, alter the Swedish king Charles X. The next decade the fort changed from Danish into local Fetu, into Dutch ownership, before English captain Holmes took the castle for what later seemed to be for good.

Jean Banbot wrote an eyewitness report about the form of the castle in the late 17th century. He wrote: ‘’the lodgings and apartments within the castle are very large and well-built of bricks, having three fronts which, with the platform on the south, almost make a quadrangle answering to the inside of the walls and foam a very handsome place of arms, well-pavell under which is a spacious mansion on place to keep the slaves in, cut out 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.’’

Later in the period between 1766-1773 the British undertook a great rehabilitation of the castle and gave it its present-day form. The new castle was built out of sandstone, doors, windows openings and vault where given brick dressings.

The base form of the castle is that of a irregular pentagon, with a polygonal bastion on each of the corners. The castle has a large pentagon shaped courtyard overlooking the ocean. The habitable accommodation area of the castle measures 3,900metresquare.

The main use of the castle was storage and selling of Gold and Slaves, its estimated that around 1700, the Royal African Company exported some 70.000 slaves per annum, to the new world. When the slavetrade was abolished in Britain in 1807 the castle became an important conduct of trade. In the period 1830-1850, the following figures of the castles average annual export recorded was, 18,000 ounces of Gold, 40-50 tons of Ivory, 80,000 pounds of Pepper, 130,000 pounds of Coffee, 35,000 bushels of Corn and some 70 tons of Camwood. Imported goods included, Cotton goods Rum, Tobacco, Guns and Ammunition.

In 1870, the castle became the headquarters of the West Indian Regiment. In recent times the castle served as a school, historical museum a head quarters of the Ghana musician Board.

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