The Ashanti people had controlled much of the territory of Ghana before the Europeans arrived and were often in conflict with them. Britain steadily expanded its colony through the invasion and subjection of local kingdoms as well, particularly the Ashanti and Fante confederacies. They purchased and incorporated the Danish Gold Coast in 1850 and the Dutch Gold Coast, including Fort Elmina, in 1872. In 1821, the government formed the British Gold Coast colony, after having taken over the remaining interests of other European countries. In 1821 the British government withdrew their charter and seized privately held lands along the coast. It was replaced by the African Company of Merchants, which led the British trading efforts into the early 19th century. The Royal Trading Company was established by the Crown in 1752 to lead its trading in Africa. The Dutch and British also entered the slave trade, at first supplying slaves to markets in the Caribbean and on the Caribbean coast of South America. Soon the Portuguese and Spanish began to export African slaves to the Caribbean, and North and South America. In this period, European nations began to explore and colonize the Americas. The slave trade was the principal exchange and major part of the economy for many years. The Gold Coast had long been a name for the region used by Europeans because of the large gold resources found in the area. The European traders built several forts along the coastline.
News of the successful trading spread quickly, and British, Dutch, Danish, Prussian and Swedish traders arrived as well. From here they acquired slaves and gold in trade for European goods, such as metal knives, beads, mirrors, rum, and guns. They built the Castle of Elmina, the first European settlement on the Gold Coast. In 1483, the Portuguese came to the continent for increased trade. They encountered a variety of African kingdoms, some of which controlled substantial deposits of gold in the soil. The first European explorers to arrive at the coast were the Portuguese in 1471.
These were the Gold Coast itself, Ashanti, the Northern Territories Protectorate and the British Togoland trust territory. The term Gold Coast is also often used to describe all of the four separate jurisdictions that were under the administration of the Governor of the Gold Coast. The Gold Coast was a British Crown Colony on the Gulf of Guinea in West Africa from 1821 until its independence in 1957.
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