Brandenburger Gold Coast

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
• 1682–1688	Frederick William
• 1688–1713	Frederick I
• 1713–1721	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

The Brandenburger Gold Coast, later Prussian Gold Coast, was a part of the Gold Coast. The Brandenburg colony existed from 1682 to 1721, when King Frederick William I of Prussia sold it for 7200 ducats to the Dutch Republic.

Brandenburger Gold Coast

In May 1682 the German colonization of Africa began when the newly founded Brandenburg African Company (German: Brandenburgisch-Afrikanische Compagnie (de), which had been granted a charter by Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg (core of the later Prussian kingdom), 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, now Pokesu: (1682–1717), which became the capital
• Fort Dorothea, also called Accada, now Akwida: (April 1684–1687, 1698–1711, April 1712–1717), which in 1687–1698 the Dutch occupied

German governors during the Brandenburger era

• May 1682–1683 – Philip Peterson Blonck
• 1683–1684 – Nathaniel Dillinger
• 1684–1686 – Karl Konstantin von Schnitter
• 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 Prussian kingdom, 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 again. In 1717 the colony was physically abandoned by Prussia, so that from 1717 to 1724 John Konny (in Dutch: Jan Conny) was able to occupy Groß Friedrichsburg, from 1721 in opposition to Dutch rule.

In 1721 the rights to the colony were sold to the Dutch, who renamed it Hollandia, as part of their larger Dutch Gold Coast colony.

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

See also

• Princes Town, Ghana
• German colonial projects before 1871

References

• 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)