Accra: History
=== Accra Kingdom ===
By the 15th century, the kingdom of Accra ruled the area from the capital at Ayawaso.
Initially, Accra was not the most prominent trading centre; the trading hubs were the ports at Ada and Prampram, along with the inland centres of Dodowa and Akuse. A Portuguese fort was destroyed by the local inhabitants in 1576; trade afterwards was conducted on the beaches. The Dutch later built the nearby Fort Crèvecœur while the British and the Swedes built James Fort and Christiansborg castles, respectively, in the 17th century.
By 1646 the kingdom was a regional power, bolstered by European trade. It depended on the goodwill of the rising Akwamu Kingdom, which controlled the trade routes in the interior. A dispute in 1646 escalated to war when Accra invaded Larteh. At the same time, Accra was weakened by a civil war.
In 1677 Akwamuhene Ansa Sasraku, using the circumcision of a visiting Akwamu prince as pretext, attacked Accra. He sacked Ayawaso and beheaded the king, Okai Koi. The king's son, Ofori, retreated to 'Small Accra', the town that had grown up under the walls of Fort Crèvecœur. Ansa Sasraku's attempts to finish off the Accrans were defeated by the guns of the Danish Fort Christianborg. Ofori and his people survived for years, until the Akwamu fomented a rebellion amongst the Danish garrison, and the fort was turned over to the Portuguese. Ansa Sasraku returned in 1681, burning Osu town and Small Accra and chasing Ofori to exile in Fetu. As Akwamu continued to expand, strips of land east and west were added to the Accra province.
Britain gradually acquired the interests of all other countries beginning in 1851, when Denmark sold Christiansborg (which they had acquired from the Swedes) and their other forts to the British. The Netherlands was the last to sell out, in 1871. In 1873, after decades of tension between the British and Ashantis, the British captured Kumasi, destroying portions of the city. The British then captured Accra in 1874, and in 1877, at the end of the second Anglo-Asante War, Accra replaced Cape Coast as the capital of the British Gold Coast. This decision was made because Accra had a drier climate relative to Cape Coast. Until this time, the settlement of Accra was confined between Ussher Fort to the east and the Korle Lagoon to the west.
As the newly established Gold Coast's administrative functions were moved to Accra (1877), an influx of British colonial administrators and European settlers grew around the Christiansborg (what later is Osu, Ministries, Ridge, Labone, and Cantonments) began, and the city began to expand to accommodate the new residents. Victoriaborg was formed in the 19th century as an exclusively European residential neighbourhood, located to the east of the city limits of the time. The boundaries of Accra were further stretched in 1908, after a bubonic plague epidemic. This expansion entailed the creation of a native-only neighbourhood, intended to accommodate members of the native population as a means of relieving congestion problems in the overcrowded city centre. Adabraka was thus established to the north of the city.
In 1918, the Grand Orange Lodge of Ghana was established in Accra to oversee and govern the local Ghanaian Orange Lodges. The Ghanaian Orange Order focus on evangelism, positive values and youth development. They have Orange parades in the city, such as the 12th of July parade. …