This article is about the specific polity British Gold Coast and therefore only includes events related to its territory and not to its possessions or colonies. If you are interested in the possession, this is the link to the article about the nation which includes all possessions as well as all the different incarnations of the nation.
If you are looking for the page with the statistics about this polity you can find it here:All Statistics
From the XVI century the coast of modern-day Ghana (then known as Gold Coast) was colonized by several European countries that created forts, trading posts and finally colonies. By 1867 all European colonies were absorbed by the British Gold Coast. The British went then to systematically annex all the territories in the interior of Ghana. It achieved independence as Dominion of Ghana in 1957.
Establishment
January 1632: Fort Amsterdam, the first British fort on the Gold Coast, was captured in 1665 by Engel de Ruyter, a Dutch naval commander known for his successful military campaigns in West Africa. The territory then went to the British Gold Coast.
Chronology
Interactive Chronologies with maps are available in the section Changes Navigation
Was a revolution in England and Scotland that led to the deposition of Catholic King James II.
November 1688: By November 1688 William of Orange, who was Stadtholder of the Netherlands, and his wife Mary, were in control of England and Wales. They would later become King and Queen of Great Britain.
Were a series of wars from 1694 until 1700 largely between the Dutch West India Company and the English Royal African Company in present-day Ghana, over trade rights.
May 1700: At the end of the komenda wars, the british took de facto over the Eguafo kingdom. British-supported mercenary force moved upon Eguafo and on May 9, 1700, Takyi Kuma was named the new king of Eguafo.
Was the war of independence of the United States of America (at the time the Thirteen Colonies) against Great Britain.
3.1.Fourth Anglo-Dutch War
Was a conflict between the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Dutch Republic during the American Revolutionary War.
January 1783: The Dutch Republic only managed to seize Fort Sekondi from the British.
May 1784: The Treaty of Paris of 1784 was signed between Great Britain and the Netherlands, ending the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War. As a result, Fort Sekondi in the British Gold Coast was returned to the Dutch, as stipulated in the treaty.
Was a war fought between the Ashanti Empire and the Fante Confederacy.
January 1812: The Ashanti captured a Dutch fort and a British fort at Apam and Tantamkweri respectively.
Were a series of wars between the British Empire and the Ashanti Empire (in present-day Ghana) that resulted in the latter becoming a British protectorate.
5.1.First Anglo-Ashanti War
Was a war between the British Empire and the Ashanti Empire of modern-day Ghana.
August 1824: On 7 August, the Ashanti army appeared and attacked the centre of the British line where the best troops were held.
September 1824: The novelty of the weapons, the explosions, rocket trails, and grievous wounds caused by flying metal shards caused the Ashanti retreat from the British territory.
January 1832: In 1831, the Pra River was accepted as the border between the British Gold Coast and the Ashanti Empire in a treaty.
5.2.Second Anglo-Ashanti War
Was a war between the British Empire and the Ashanti Empire of modern-day Ghana.
January 1865: Ashanti forces leave the territories they conquered during the Second Anglo-Ashanti War.
5.3.Third Anglo-Ashanti War
Was a war between the British Empire and the Ashanti Empire of modern-day Ghana.
February 1874: In 1874, the British forces, led by Governor Sir Garnet Wolseley, captured Kumasi, the capital of the Ashanti Empire. The Ashanti people abandoned the city to avoid further conflict with the British Gold Coast.
February 1874: The British leave Kumasi, the capital of the Ashanti Empire, after a brief occupation.
August 1874: The Ashanti signed the Treaty of Fomena in July 1874 to end the Third Anglo-Ashanti War.
5.4.Fourth Anglo-Ashanti War
Was a war between the British Empire and the Ashanti Empire of modern-day Ghana. The Ashanti Empire became a British Protectorate.
February 1896: Ashanti Empire becomes a british protectorate. Asantehene Agyeman Prempeh was unable or unwilling to pay the 50,000 ounces of gold so was arrested and deposed. He was forced to sign a treaty of protection, and with other Ashanti leaders was sent into exile in the Seychelles.
February 1896: Colonel Sir Francis Scott left Cape Coast with the main expeditionary force of British and West Indian troops, Maxim guns and 75mm artillery in December 1895, and travelling along the remnants of the 1874 road arrived in Kumasi in January 1896.
Was a Convention between Great Britain and the Netherlands for an Interchange of Territory on the Gold Coast of Africa in which all Dutch forts to the east of Elmina were handed over to Britain.
March 1867: In 1867, the Convention between Great Britain and the Netherlands for an Interchange of Territory on the Gold Coast of Africa was signed, in which all Dutch forts to the east of Elmina were handed over to Britain.
March 1867: The British forts west of Elmina were handed over to the Netherlands.
January 1641: In 1560 the Portuguese founded Fort São Francisco Xavier, in modern Osu, district of Accra.
January 1647: English trading post of Fort Egya was built in 1647.
January 1648: Fort Egya (today: Egya) conquered by the Dutch.
May 1664: Robert Holmes conquered the Swedish Gold Coast colony.
January 1665: Fort Egya was demolished in 1665 by the British after they had recaptured it in the year before.
January 1666: Fort Amsterdam, on the Gold Coast, was captured in 1665 by Engel de Ruyter.
July 1667: When the second Anglo-Dutch war ended in 1667 with the Treaty of Breda, the English gained a foothold in Anomabo.
January 1674: Fort James is located in Accra, Ghana. It was built by the Royal African Company of England as a trading post for both gold and slaves in 1673.
January 1681: Fort Christiansborg, located in present-day Osu, was occupied by the Portuguese in 1680.
January 1683: Fort Sekondi, also Fort George, was an English fort on the Gold Coast, built in 1682 at Sekondi.
January 1684: The British began building Fort Metl Cross (today: Dixcove, Ghana) in 1683.
January 1695: Fort Winneba was a military structure designed to facilitate the slave trade. It was built in 1694 by the Royal African Company on the Gold Coast, in modern-day Ghana.
January 1699: Fort Komenda was established between 1695 and 1698 at Komenda, in contemporary Ghana.
March 1702: As William III of England was also the de facto ruler of the Dutch Republic (as Stadtholder of Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Guelders, and Overijssel in the Dutch Republic), the Personal Union between Netherlands and Great Britain ended at his death.
January 1709: Before 1708 the chiefdom of Anomabu was established in Ghana, possibly by Nana Eno who became its first king.
January 1728: Fort Tantumquery is a military structure designed to facilitate the slave trade. The Royal African Company built it in the 1720s, at Otuam in the Mfantsiman Municipal District, Central Region, Ghana.
January 1783: In 1782, the Danish Gold Coast, a Danish colony in Africa, was occupied by the British. This occupation lasted until 1785. The Danish Gold Coast was eventually transferred to British control as part of the Treaty of Kiel in 1814.
January 1786: During the period of 1782 to 1785, the Danish Gold Coast was under British occupation. This was a result of the Anglo-Danish War, which ended with the Treaty of Paris in 1783. The British forces were led by Admiral Sir Charles Middleton and Major General Robert Howe.
January 1801: Gã was partitioned between the Europeans.
January 1812: Fort Goede Hoop (today: Senya Beraku) was occupied by the local Akim between 1811 and 1816.
January 1817: The Dutch Gold Coast regained control of Fort Goede Hoop in 1816, marking the end of Akim occupation.
January 1833: Assiakoley I becomes the first king of the chiefdom of Abgodrafo.
January 1833: In 1832, Nana Kwaku Ackah gained control of nr 5 on the map, which belonged to Western Nzima. Nana Kwaku Ackah was a prominent leader in the region during this time period, exerting influence over the territory until 1848.
January 1834: In 1833, the Peki (or Krepi) state was founded in present-day Ghana.
January 1835: Sidol (d. c.1834) becomes the first king of the chiefdom of Togo.
March 1850: All of Denmark's Danish Gold Coast Territorial Settlements and forts of the Kingdom of Denmark were sold to Britain and incorporated into the British Gold Coast.
January 1851: Establishment of Asogli in Ghana.
January 1869: In 1868 Denkyira entered the Fante Confederacy to fight for Great Britain against the alliance of the Asante Empire and the Dutch people.
January 1869: The chiefdom of Gomoa in Ghana is established in c. 1868. Its first king was Ortabil.
January 1872: In 1871, the Dutch sold all their trade possessions on the Gold Coast to the British.
April 1872: In February of that year, a treaty had been signed with the United Kingdom, under which terms the whole colony was to be ceded for a sum of 46,939.62 Dutch guilders. On 6 April 1872, after ratification of the treaty by parliament, Elmina was formally handed over to Britain.
January 1874: The British successfully exploited rivalries among members of Fante Confederacy, and it disbanded in 1873.
January 1875: Britain annexed the whole region south of the Asante empire as the Gold Coast crown colony.
January 1881: Sekondi was established.
July 1884: On July 5, 1884, Plakkoo, the baton bearer (= deputy) of King Mlapa III, who had probably died by then, and the German commissioner Gustav Nachtigal signed a "protection treaty". With this, individual places in today's Togo were declared a "German protected area".
July 1886: The border between the Gold Coast (now Ghana) and Togo was defined through a treaty between Great Britain and Germany in 1886.
January 1887: From 1886 the northern hinterland of Togo was conquered by Germans, some of it by force.
January 1889: In 1888, Ludwig Wolf, a German explorer and colonial administrator, founded the Bismarckburg station in German Togo. This station was named after Otto von Bismarck, the Chancellor of the German Empire at the time.
January 1889: In 1888, the Kingdom of Dagbon was partitioned between the German Empire and British Empire. This division was a result of the colonial ambitions of Otto von Bismarck for Germany and the expansion of British influence in the western part of the kingdom, which eventually became part of the British Gold Coast.
January 1891: The German Misahöhe station was founded in 1890.
January 1896: In 1894/95, the colonial officer Hans Gruner led an expedition to the lower Niger on behalf of the German Togo Committee to conclude protection treaties with the Kingdoms there.
January 1897: The British became interested in the broad areas north of Asante, known generally as the Northern Territories. This interest was prompted primarily by the need to forestall the French and the Germans, who had been making rapid advances in the surrounding areas. British officials had first penetrated the area in the 1880s, and after 1896 protection was extended to northern areas whose trade with the coast had been controlled by Asante.
April 1897: In connection with the Anglo-French tensions around Bondoukou and the areas on the Black Volta, the British established the Protectorate of the Northern Territories of the Gold Coast in early 1897 to prevent the French and Germans from occupying the lands north of Asante in the fight against the privateer kings.
January 1900: By 1899 German Togoland covered modern-day Togo and the Volta Region of Ghana, with the exception of the Salaga region.
January 1900: Akyem Abuakwa became a British protectorate integrated in the British Gold Coast.
February 1900: The so-called Salaga area was divided between Germany and Great Britain with the Samoa Treaty of 1899.
January 1902: The British controlled whole modern-day Ghana by 1901.
January 1902: From 1901 the Mamprusi Kingdom was under British protectorate.
January 1914: Border agreements of the Conference of Berlin (1884) were applied to the borders of German Togo and the British Gold Coast.
December 1956: During the decolonization of Africa, a plebiscite was organised in British Togoland in May 1956 to decide the future of the territory. A majority of voters taking part voted to merge the territory with the neighbouring Gold Coast, a British Crown colony. On 13 December 1956, the United Nations General Assembly passed General Assembly resolution 1044 on "The future of Togoland under British administration". By that resolution, the UN acknowledged the outcome of the plebiscite held in the Territory which was a majority in favour of unity with Gold Coast.
March 1957: British rule ended in 1957, when the Ghana Independence Act 1957 transformed the British Crown Colony of the Gold Coast into the independent Dominion of Ghana.
Disestablishment
March 1957: British rule ended in 1957, when the Ghana Independence Act 1957 transformed the British Crown Colony of the Gold Coast into the independent Dominion of Ghana.
Selected Sources
Israel, J. I. (1995): The Dutch Republic: Its Rise, Greatness, and Fall, Clarendon Press, pp. 959-960
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British Gold Coast
