Keta: History
Keta was an important trading post between the 14th and the late 20th centuries. The Somey Ewes were the original people of the Keta area. Keta was settled by the Anlo Ewe, a sub-group of the Ewe people who, in the 17th century, migrated to the area from Ketu, in Benin via Adja Tado and Notsie in Togo. Awanyedor and Akaga, who were sons of Torgbui Wenya - the founder of the Anlo State, left Anloga to found Keta as a fishing village.
The town attracted the interest of the Danish, because they felt they could establish a base here without interference from rival European nations. Their first initiative was to place a factory at Keta to sell alcohol. Following the Anlo-Danish War (the Sagbadre War of 1784), the Danes later built a fort in Keta (Fort Prizenstein = "Prince’s Stone Fort"). That enabled Keta to flourish in commerce. However, the Danes' efforts to exert any power beyond the range of the guns located in the fort proved to be ineffective.
In June 1790, a Danish official was killed at Agorko near Denu in retaliation for him killing the chief of Keta years earlier. Lacking any effective military forces, the Danes hired the Anloga people to punish the Keta people. Initially, Anloga and Keta agreed to stage a mock battle after which the Anloga would burn a few Keta houses and then share the money provided by the Danes. But the mock fight somehow turned into a real battle, leaving a legacy of enmity between Anloga and Keta. The civil war between Keta and Anloga in the year 1794, initiated by the Danes, culminated in the defeat of Keta. This substantially weakened the Anlo people.
Faced with the threat of war between Peki and an alliance of the Ashanti and the Akwamu, the North German Missionary Society (also known as the Bremen Missionaries) moved the focus of their activities from Peki to Keta. Their missionaries, Dauble and Plessing, landed at nearby Dzelukofe on September 2, 1853.
Historically Keta was also known as Quittah or Agudzeawo ("Easterners" in old Ewe) and was assigned B27 as a postal mark.
From 1874 Hausa Constabulary were based at Keta, and soon there grew to be a community of Hausa traders in the town.
The author, and then colonial Civil Servant, R. Austin Freeman served as a medical officer (Assistant Surgeon) here in 1887 during which an epidemic of black water fever killed forty per cent of the European population.
In 1917, the first Orange Lodge in Ghana was founded. It was named "Pride of Keta, LOL 891". It was founded by R. E. Sharlley, a Ghanaian postal worker who learned about Orangeism during the First World War and contacted the Grand Orange Lodge in England for affiliation. Sharlley’s initiative led to the formation of the lodge under the authority of the Orange Order, marking the beginning of organised Orangeism in Ghana.
The lodge played a key role in the early spread of the Orange Order across Ghana, contributing to the formation of additional lodges and ultimately the establishment of a national governing body, the Grand Lodge of Ghana, in 1918. Ghana’s Orange lodges, including Pride of Keta, traditionally drew membership from educated Christian communities and maintained the Order’s fraternal practices while adapting to local cultural contexts.