The Danish Gold Coast ( or Dansk Guinea) comprised the colonies that Denmark–Norway controlled in Africa as a part of the Gold Coast (roughly present-day southeast Ghana), which is on the Gulf of Guinea. It was colonized by the Dano-Norwegian fleet, first under indirect rule by the Danish West India Company (a chartered company), later as a crown colony of the kingdom of Denmark-Norway. The area under Danish influence was over 10,000 square kilometres, with an estimated population of approximately 40,000 in 1837.
The five Danish forts were sold to the United Kingdom in 1850. Denmark had wanted to sell these colonies for some time as the expenses required to run the colonies had increased following the abolition of slavery. Although Britain was also struggling with rising costs, it sought to purchase them to reduce French and Belgian influence in the region, as well as to further curtail the slave trade that still operated there. The purchased settlements and forts were later incorporated into the British Gold Coast.
History
Early Danish efforts on the Gold Coast Scandinavian participation in trade and settlement along the Gold Coast began relatively late compared to other Western European powers. Denmark–Norway and Sweden were geographically distant from West Africa and only entered the region after Portuguese, Dutch, and English interests were already established. Once they did, their presence contributed to growing rivalry between the two Scandinavian kingdoms.
It is likely that individual Scandinavian sailors had taken part in earlier Portuguese or Dutch expeditions along the West African coast, and some may even have engaged in piracy or private trading. However, such activities were typically undocumented, particularly when secrecy was required to avoid detection by rival European powers.
The first attempt to organize a state-backed Scandinavian trading enterprise was strongly influenced by Dutch commercial ideas. A central figure was the Dutch merchant Willem Usselinx, who had played a key role in founding the Dutch West India Company in 1621. After losing influence within that company, Usselinx sought support elsewhere. He initially approached King Christian IV of Denmark without success, then turned to King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, who responded more favorably, by authorizing him to found a chartered company for Swedish trade with Africa and the Americas.
Consequently, a separate initiative was undertaken by a merchant syndicate led by Johan de Willum, which sought royal authorization to exclusively engage in trade with the West Indies, Brazil, Virginia, and the Guinea coast—regions already exploited by merchants from other European states. However this failed. A renewed Danish effort followed in 1636, when Christian IV authorized the brothers Johan and Gédért Braem and their associates to create a Guinea and Africa Company. Compared to earlier ventures, this company enjoyed more favorable terms, including a twelve-year exemption from customs duties and the right to admit foreign investors, along with assurances of further advantages if the enterprise proved viable. Even so, the economic strain affecting Denmark in the final years of Christian IV’s reign prevented the company from succeeding. This is contrasted with the success of the Swedes, which saw the establishment of the Swedish Gold Coast in 1650.
Early years (1658-1665) An opportunity to for the Danes to establish themselves on the Gold Coast and eject the Swedes appeared in the person of Hendrik Carloff, a former employee of the Swedish Africa Company. After being accused by the Swedes of conducting unauthorized private commerce and weakened by the death of his patron Louis de Geer resigned from Swedish service in 1656 and left the country. When hostilities erupted between Denmark and Sweden, he turned to the Danish crown and, in August 1657, obtained a letter of marque empowering him to capture Fort Carlsborg and attack Swedish interests in Guinea at his own cost.
Under this agreement, Carloff was granted broad autonomy: he could capture Swedish ships, keep most of the proceeds, and dispose of former Swedish forts himself the Danish King wished not to keep them. He sailed from Glückstadt in December 1657 and reached the Gold Coast in January 1658. Lacking sufficient forces, he secured assistance from the Dutch at Axim and sought support from local African leaders, particularly Acrosan (Johan Classen), a senior official of the Fetu kingdom. By invoking prior promises to transfer the fort to him, promising debt relief, and offering rewards, Carloff won over the native Africans. With this support he managed to capture all Swedish forts by February 1658. After raising the Danish flag and leaving a Dutchman called Samuel Schmidt in command of Fort Carlsborg, alongside 40 men, Carloff returned to Denmark. This however caused immediate controversy, as the Swedes demanded that Carloff be arrested and the Gold Coast be handed back to them in accordance with the Treaty of Roskilde. Carloff fled and the Danes refused to hand over the forts, causing a resumption in hostilities between Denmark and Sweden. This issue would not be solved until the treaty of Copenhagen in 1660, where Sweden got 400,000 rixdollars as compensation for their losses.
However on the Gold Coast the situation was different. After repelling a Swedish attempt to retake the Fort Carlsborg the commander Schmidt abandoned it, selling it and all Danish stations to the Dutch in 1659. This angered the King of Fetu, who ordered Johan Classen to retake the fort, which he did after a six week siege in 1660. He then handed it back on December 10, 1660 to the Swedish Africa Company. The fort was retaken by the Dutch in 1663 after the natives stopped supporting the Swedes and finally taken by the English in 1664, who made it the capital of their forts on the Gold Coast. Also during this period a Danish expedition sent by the newly established Danish West India Company managed to acquire Fort Fredriksborg from the King of Fetu in December 1659. They also acquired Cong Heights from the King of Sabu. However the Heights were conquered by the Dutch in 1661, who continued to harass Danish interests in the region. These actions were protested by the Danes in both England and France. This led to the dispatch of an English fleet led by Admiral Robert Holmes to conquer Dutch possessions on the Gold Coast, conquering Fort Carlsborg with the assistance of the Danes on May 1664. After this conquest they renamed the fort Cape Coast Castle and maintained good relations with the Danes of Fort Fredriksborg.
Post Abolition of slavery Following the 1792 decree abolishing Denmark's participation in the Atlantic slave trade (implemented in 1803),Hopkins, Daniel. "The Danish Guinea Coast Forts, Denmark’s Abolition of the Atlantic Slave Trade, and African Colonial Policy, 1788–1850." Forts, Castles and Society in West Africa. Brill, 2018. 148-169. the purpose of their forts on the Guinea coast became uncertain. Previously, these outposts had served solely for the slave trade, with no real impact beyond isolated trading activities.Daniel Hopkins, Peter Thonning and Denmark’s Guinea Commission: A Study in Nineteenth-century African Colonial Geography (Leiden: Brill, 2013).Per O. Hernæs, Slaves, Danes, and African Coast Society (Trondheim: University of Trondheim, 1995), 129–303. Colonial planners, recognising their limited knowledge of the surrounding territories (as evidenced by requests for detailed information),Nørregård, Georg. Danish Settlements in West Africa, 1658–1850. Translated by Sigurd Mammen. Boston: Boston University Press, 1966, 120–122. sought for other options. This shift coincided with growing abolitionist sentiment and the desire to establish plantation colonies in Africa to produce tropical commodities such as sugar and coffee.Selena Axelrod Winsnes (trans.), Letters on West Africa and the Slave Trade: Paul Erdmann Isert’s Journey to Guinea and the Caribbean Islands in Columbia (1788) (Oxford: Oxford University Press for the British Academy, 1992), 190.Daniel Hopkins, ‘The Danish Ban on the Atlantic Slave Trade and Denmark’s African Colonial Ambitions, 1787–1807, Itinerario 25 (2001): 154–184, 156–159.
Debate arose over the most suitable locations for these new agricultural endeavours.Joseph Evans Loftin, Jr., The Abolition of the Danish Atlantic Slave Trade (Doctoral Thesis: Louisiana State University, 1977), 128–129 The fertile Volta River region and the Akuapem Hills emerged as frontrunners, with the Council on the Guinea Coast even resisting orders to close outlying forts, fearing negative consequences for trade and security. The Slave Trade Commission ultimately favoured the Volta region for plantations, while rescinding the closure order in 1799.Hopkins, "The Danish Guinea Coast Forts", 2018. 155ff. This back-and-forth illustrates the continuing uncertainty surrounding the future of the forts and the challenges Denmark faced in adapting its colonial strategy in the wake of the abolition of the slave trade.
Internal disagreements within the Danish administration further complicated the future of the forts. Evaluations by Peter Thonning and Governor Wrisberg revealed opposing views on inland and coastal plantation projects.Hopkins, Daniel. "Danish natural history and African colonialism at the close of the eighteenth century: Peter Thonning's ‘scientific journey’to the Guinea Coast, 1799–1803." Archives of Natural History 26.3 (1999): 369-418.. The Coastal Council even suggested a temporary continuation of the slave trade to facilitate the establishment of these ventures.Hopkins, "The Danish Guinea Coast Forts", 2018. 159ff. This reflects the challenges Denmark faced - limited geographical knowledge, internal disagreements over strategy and the impact of the Napoleonic Wars, which further hampered colonial efforts.
In the post-Napolenic-war period, Peter Thonning, now focused on cost reduction, proposed new inland fortifications. This shift reflects Denmark's continuing difficulties in adapting its colonial strategy without the slave trade. Figures such as Thonning envisioned inland plantation ventures that required good relations with powerful African states such as Asante.Kea, R. A. (1967). Ashanti-Danish Relations: 1780-1831 (Doctoral dissertation, Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana), 470-471. Others, however, advocated a more limited role for the forts, focusing on trade and defence.Hopkins, "The Danish Guinea Coast Forts", 2018. 164ff. The Guinea Commission, led by Thonning, explored inland colonies, but ultimately failed to convince a cost-conscious Danish government.Hopkins, "The Danish Guinea Coast Forts", 2018. 162ff. King Christian VIII even sought to sell the forts altogether . The arrival of Governor Carstensen in 1842 briefly revived interest in a more active colonial approach, with plantations at Akuapem and annual visits by warships to project power.Hopkins, "The Danish Guinea Coast Forts", 2018. 166ff.
However, Denmark's waning enthusiasm for colonialism and financial constraints ultimately led to the sale of the forts to Great Britain in 1850, marking the end of its colonial ambitions in Africa.Hopkins, "The Danish Guinea Coast Forts", 2018. 167ff. On 30 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.
This period reveals the internal struggles within the Danish administration and the unfulfilled ambitions that marked Denmark's brief venture into African colonialism.
The title of its chief colonial administrator was opperhoved (singular; sometimes rendered in English as station chief) since 1658, only in 1766 upgraded to Governor.
Danish slave trade