⌂ Atlas ☰ Read as a page The thread: How did one Portuguese castle become a coast of rival European forts — and who decided which of them stayed?
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Key

The Akan and coastal states The Portuguese The Dutch The English The Swedish company The Danes bond — succession, office, alliance conflict — war, revolt, prosecution

Sources & method

  1. Treaty of Asebu and Fort Nassau at Mouri, 1610–1612 (after A. van Dantzig, Forts and Castles of Ghana, 1980, and M. Doortmont, 2001) — source
  2. The 1625 attack on Elmina: Amersfoort's alliances, the captain's gifts, the ambush (after M. Meuwese, Brothers in Arms, Partners in Trade, 2012, pp. 289–296) — source
  3. R. Law, 'The Government of Fante in the Seventeenth Century', Journal of African History 54 (2013): the Dutch–Fante treaty of 31 March 1624 and the Braffo's office — source
  4. Digital Kormantin (University of Rochester), history timeline: Asebu's invitation, Crispe and de Groot, the Kormantin lodge, the 1637 campaign — source
  5. Fante Confederacy — Wikipedia (K. Y. Daaku, Trade and Politics on the Gold Coast, 1970: Ambro the Brafo, the Dutch guard ship at Kormantse) — source
  6. Battle of Elmina (1637) — Wikipedia (Coine's expedition from Brazil, St Jago hill, the surrender terms) — source
  7. Treaty of Axim, 17 February 1642 — Wikipedia (the chiefs' courts, the ounce of gold per ship, the sons as surety) — source
  8. Y. Deffontaine, Guerre et société au royaume de Fetu (1471–1720), IFRA 1993, ch. IV: Bodema, Acrosan and the forts at Cape Coast, 1650–1660 — source
  9. Capture of Carolusborg (1658) — Wikipedia (after Nørregård, Danish Settlements in West Africa, 1966) — source
  10. Hendrik Carloff — Wikipedia (service with the Dutch, the Swedes and the Danes) — source
  11. T. C. McCaskie, 'Denkyira in the Making of Asante c. 1660–1720', Journal of African History 48 (2007): Denkyira's defeat of Adanse, c. 1659 — source
  12. Akwamu Empire — Wikipedia (I. Wilks 1957 on the Dutch map of 1629) — source
Method. The chain of people follows a sourced account of the polity, 1600–1660; every claim the narration makes was checked against the sources above. Borders: historical-basemaps (A. Ourednik, GPL-3.0), the c.1600 snapshot, simplified — schematic, the right states in roughly the right places. Territorial changes: modern provinces (Natural Earth) or later snapshots standing in for historical ones. Portraits: each credited with its author, licence and source on the readable page. Relief: Esri World Physical Map. Narration: Azure neural voice.
A narrated polity atlas · 1600–1660

The Gold Coast, 1600–1660

How did one Portuguese castle become a coast of rival European forts — and who decided which of them stayed?
Scroll to drive the map, or press begin for the narrated film. Scrub backward and everything un-draws.
or read it as a page, with still maps