Brandenburger Gold Coast

The Brandenburger Gold Coast, later Prussian Gold Coast, was a colony of Brandenburg-Prussia, later the Kingdom of Prussia, on the Gold Coast. The Brandenburg colony existed from 1682 to 1701, after which it became a Prussian colony from 1701 to 1721. In 1721, King Frederick William I of Prussia sold it for 7,200 ducats and 12 slaves to the Dutch West India Company.

Brandenburger Gold Coast Settlements
1682–1721
Flag
Location of Groß-Friedrichsburg within Gold Coast, modern-day Ghana, marked by the black dot and flag.
Inside Groß-Friedrichsburg. View in February 1884.
Status	Brandenburger colony (1682–1701) Prussian colony (1701–1721)
Capital	Groß Friedrichsburg
Common languages	German, Akan
Religion	Protestantism, Roman Catholicism, Akan religion
Elector of Brandenburg, later King of Prussia
• 1640–1688 (Founded colony in 1682)	Frederick William
• 1688–1713	Frederick I
• 1713–1740 (Sold colony to Dutch in 1721)	Frederick William I
History
• Foundation of Brandenburg African Company	May 1682
• Renamed Prussian Gold Coast Settlements	15 January 1701
• Sold to Netherlands	1721
Succeeded by Dutch Gold Coast
Today part of	Ghana

Brandenburger Gold Coast

In May 1682, the German colonization of Africa began when the newly founded Brandenburg African Company (BAC, in German Brandenburgisch-Afrikanische Compagnie), a company that administered the colony, which had been granted a royal charter by Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg (core of the later Kingdom of Prussia), established a small West African colony consisting of two Gold Coast settlements on the Gulf of Guinea, around Cape Three Points in present Ghana:

• Groß Friedrichsburg, also called Hollandia,^[1] now Pokesu: (1682–1717), which became the capital
• Fort Dorothea, also called Accada,^[1] now Akwida: (April 1684 – 1687, 1698–1711, April 1712 – 1717), which in 1687–1698 the Dutch occupied^[2]

Governors during the Brandenburger era

• May 1682 – 1683 – Philip Peterson Blonck
• 1683–1684 – Nathaniel Dillinger
• 1684–1686 – Karl Konstantin von Schnitter [de]
• 1686–1691 – Johann Niemann

Prussian Gold Coast

On 15 January 1701, the small colony was renamed Prussian Gold Coast Settlements, in connection with the founding of the Kingdom of Prussia, which formally took place three days later, when Frederick III, Elector of Brandenburg and Duke of Prussia, crowned himself King in Prussia (after which he became known as Frederick I of Prussia).

From 1711 to April 1712, the Dutch occupied Fort Dorothea. In 1717, the Prussian Gold Coast colony was physically abandoned by Prussia; from then until 1724, John Konny (in Dutch Jan Conny) occupied Groß Friedrichsburg, despite the sale of the colony to the Dutch in 1721.

Governors during the Prussian era

• 1701–1704 – Adriaan Grobbe
• 1704–1706 – Johann Münz
• 1706–1709 – Heinrich Lamy
• 1709–1710 – Frans de Lange
• 1710–1716 – Nicholas Dubois
• 1716–1717 – Anton Günther van der Menden

Ambitions of the colony

Prussia was the last major European power, and first German state, to enter transatlantic trade. It was relatively isolated from major European trade hubs at the time, so the incentive existed to enter transatlantic trade and fortify the Prussian economy.^[3]

The colony was founded for many reasons, mainly: for Prussia to increase its gold reserves,^[4] to supply slaves for Prussia's entry in the human cargo trade, and to engage in gum arabic and ostrich feathers trade. Yet shortly after its founding, it was soon realized that the greatest profits could only be made from human cargo trade as gold had eventually run scarce in the area,^[4] so the focus of the colony was put almost exclusively on trading slaves.

Prussia also leased part of the island Saint Thomas in the Caribbean (present-day part of the U.S. Virgin Islands) from the Kingdom of Denmark as a colony to which it could transport slaves, and thus a transatlantic trade between the Prussian Gold Coast and the Caribbean was born.^[5]

Sale to the Dutch

Under King Frederick William I, In 1721, after 39 years of administration, the Kingdom of Prussia sold the remaining rights to the colony to the Dutch, who renamed it Hollandia, as part of their larger Dutch Gold Coast colony. The king had no personal ties to the colony and saw it as a drain on his kingdom's resources.^[6][5] By this time the Brandenburg African Company had lost all but one of its ships at the colony due to Dutch and French plundering, and competition primarily with a growing Dutch presence in the area lowered Prussian revenues. Prussia’s slave output was, at its peak, less than a quarter of the United Netherlands'. Resources going into the colony were restricted as the colony neared its end.^[5]

See also

• Princes Town, Ghana
• German colonial projects before 1871
• John Canoe
• Junkanoo

References

1. Accada and Hollandia: p.252. New Cambridge Modern History Atlas, H.C. Darby and Harold Fullard
2. Briggs, P. (2014). Ghana. Bradt Travel Guide Series. Bradt Travel Guides. p. 257. ISBN 978-1-84162-478-5. Retrieved 16 May 2019.
3. Jones, Adam (1984). "Archival Materials on the Brandenburg African Company (1682-1721)". History in Africa. 11: 379–389. doi:10.2307/3171645. ISSN 0361-5413. JSTOR 3171645.
4. Walter, Rodney (1969). "Gold and Slaves on the Gold Coast". Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana. 10: 13–28.
5. Koslofsky, Craig; Zaugg, Roberto (16 June 2016). "Ship's Surgeon Johann Peter Oettinger: A Hinterlander in the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1682–96". Slavery Hinterland: 25–44. doi:10.1017/9781782047032.002. ISBN 978-1-78204-703-2.
6. Sutton, Angela (2014). "Competition and the Mercantile Culture of the Gold Coast Slave Trade in the Atlantic World Economy, 1620-1720". {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)

• World Statesmen.org: Ghana
• Accada and Hollandia: pg. 252. New Cambridge Modern History Atlas, H.C. Darby and Harold Fullard

External links

• Grossfriedrichsburg.de – (mostly in German language).
• Grossfriedrichsburg, a German colony in Ghana? (short documentary video)

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