Cape Coast: History
=== Early settlement ===
The origin of the indigenous inhabitants of the settlement is thought to share similarities to those of Edina, as Cape Coast became the principal town of the Fetu Kingdom. "Fetu" was an old Guan (Etsii) kingdom that had its paramountcy located 10 miles (16 km) north of Cape Coast. That particular site is known nowadays as Effutu. [2]:
At a point in time, a market, known at the time as Ogua, grew and developed into an active commercial centre. Because of this growth, the King of Fetu appointed a chief to represent the settlement. The market drew the attention of William Towerson, the first documented English navigator to have reached the Guinea coast, who touched land in 1555.
Trade grew between the people of Fetu and the Europeans. Sometime in 1650, a plot of land was bought from the King of Fetu by Hendrik Carloff, acting for Dutch privateers working against the Dutch West India Company. In 1655, a fort was built on the site of Carolusborg under the hands of the Swedes [7]. It switched hands several times before 1664, when it was captured from the Dutch by a joint English and Dutch force.
After the attack, the English named Cape Coast the headquarters of the Royal African Company [a] in 1678. The Danes acquired a plot on top of a hill that was located about 1,000 metres (3,300 ft) northeast of the fort. While Cape Coast Castle was being built, the Danish built a fort on their land, known as Fort Frederiksborg. The fort was later bought by the English.
For half a century, the English maintained Frederiksborg as a fortified outpost of the castle and renamed it Fort Royal, but by the middle of the 18th century, the outpost had been abandoned. Other forts were built during this time, such as Phipps Tower, which was later abandoned and is now managed by the Ghana Museums and Monuments Board [2]:
The Napoleonic Wars at the beginning of the 19th century and the political unrest in the Gold Coast region as a result of the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade by Denmark and Britain were contributing factors in the Asante invasion of the coast in 1806. Cape Coast itself avoided the attack, but the confidence of the townspeople in the British ability to protect them against the Asante plummeted [2]:
More forts were built, such as Smith's Tower on top of Dawson Hill and Fort McCarthy [2]:
Cape Coast was threatened a second time by the Asante in 1824 after British troops under Charles MacCarthy were defeated. The town had been largely burnt down in 1817, slowing down its economy.
Before the building of the Sekondi Harbour in the 1890s, the town was the most important anchorage in the county. Trading during the time was at its peak, but after 1850, the year the British acquired Danish possessions, conditions turned sour. Trade declined, rivalry with the Dutch reached new heights, and Asante pressures escalated.
The capital of the Gold Coast was transferred from Cape Coast to Accra in 1877. This, along with many other causes, resulted in irreversible damage to the town's economy. The 1880s saw a minor boom in its economy with the gold rush. …