Brandenburger Gold Coast

In May 1682, the German colonization of Africa began when the newly founded Brandenburg African Company (BAC, in German Brandenburgisch-Afrikanische Compagnie), a company that administered the colony, which had been granted a charter by Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg (core of the later Kingdom of Prussia), established a small West African colony consisting of two Gold Coast settlements on the Gulf of Guinea, around Cape Three Points in present Ghana: • Groß Friedrichsburg, also called Hollandia, now Pokesu: (1682–1717), which became the capital • Fort Dorothea, also called Accada, Governors during the Brandenburger era • May 1682 – 1683 – Philip Peterson Blonck • 1683–1684 – Nathaniel Dillinger • 1684–1686 – • 1686–1691 – Johann Niemann == Prussian Gold Coast ==

On 15 January 1701, the small colony was renamed Prussian Gold Coast Settlements, in connection with the founding of the Kingdom of Prussia, which formally took place three days later, when Frederick III, Elector of Brandenburg and Duke of Prussia, crowned himself King in Prussia (after which he became known as Frederick I of Prussia). From 1711 to April 1712, the Dutch occupied Fort Dorothea. In 1717, the Prussian Gold Coast colony was physically abandoned by Prussia; from then until 1724, John Konny (in Dutch Jan Conny) occupied Groß Friedrichsburg, despite the sale of the colony to the Dutch in 1721. Governors during the Prussian era • 1701–1704 – Adriaan Grobbe • 1704–1706 – Johann Münz • 1706–1709 – Heinrich Lamy • 1709–1710 – Frans de Lange • 1710–1716 – Nicholas Dubois • 1716–1717 – Anton Günther van der Menden == Ambitions of the colony ==

Prussia was the last major European power, and first German state, to enter transatlantic trade. It was relatively isolated from major European trade hubs at the time, so the incentive existed to enter transatlantic trade and fortify the Prussian economy. The colony was founded for many reasons, mainly: for Prussia to increase its gold reserves, to supply slaves for Prussia's entry in the Atlantic slave trade, and to engage in gum arabic and ostrich feathers trade. Yet shortly after its founding, it was soon realized that the greatest profits could only be made from human cargo trade as gold had eventually run scarce in the area, so the focus of the colony was put almost exclusively on trading slaves. Prussia also leased part of the island Saint Thomas in the Caribbean (present-day part of the U.S. Virgin Islands) from the Kingdom of Denmark as a colony to which it could transport slaves, and thus a transatlantic trade between the Prussian Gold Coast and the Caribbean was born. == Sale to the Dutch ==

In 1721, after 39 years of Prussian rule, Frederick William I of Prussia sold the colony to the Dutch West India Company for 7,200 ducats and 12 enslaved boys in gold chains. Frederick William I had no personal ties to the colony and saw it as a drain on his kingdom's resources. The Dutch West India Company subsequently renamed the colony "Hollandia" and integrated it into the Dutch Gold Coast. By this time the Brandenburg African Company had lost all but one of its ships at the colony due to Dutch and French seizures, and competition primarily with a growing Dutch presence in the area lowered Prussian revenues. Prussia's slave output was, at its peak, less than a quarter of their Dutch counterparts. Resources going into the colony were restricted as it neared its end. == See also ==