That cargo is gold, and the Gold Coast becomes the European name for this part of Africa. The trade in gold with the Europeans makes possible the development in the early 17th century of Akwamu, the first African state to control an extensive part of the coast.
During the 18th century the dominance of Akwamu is replaced by that of a much more powerful group, the Ashanti, with their capital inland at Kumasi. By this time the British, Dutch and Danes are the main European traders on this part of the coast, and the most valuable commodity for export is not gold but slaves.
Trading slaves for muskets, among other western commodities, the Ashanti acquire great local power. Their king, the Asantehene, enthroned on a traditional golden stool, holds sway over the entire central region of modern Ghana. But the Ashanti suffer a series of major blows between 1804 and 1814, when the Danes, British and Dutch each in turn outlaw the slave trade
The resulting tension leads to warfare in the 1820s (with the defeat of a British force in 1824) and again in the 1870s. In 1874 a British army briefly occupies Kumasi.
In 1901, taking effect from 1 January 1902, Ashanti is declared a British crown colony. The regions further north become at the same time the Protectorate of the Northern Territories of the Gold Coast.
The colonial years are relatively prosperous and untroubled. At first little is done to involve the African population in the political processes of the colony. But in the years immediately after World War II events move so fast that the Gold Coast becomes the first colony in sub-Saharan Africa to win its independence. The turning point is the return home in 1947 of Kwame Nkrumah after twelve years of study and radical politics in the USA and Britain.
Nkrumah is invited back to the Gold Coast to become general secretary of the United Gold Coast Convention, an organization campaigning for self-government. The UGCC has won the right (in 1946) for an African majority in the colony's legislative assembly, but the fight is now on for a share in executive power.
Nkrumah rapidly extends the movement's popular base, with the result that there are widespread riots in February 1948. The older UGCC leaders are alarmed by this (and by their brief arrest with Nkrumah). A split within the movement leads to Nkrumah founding in June 1949 the Convention People's Party, committed to immediate self-government.
From January 1950 Nkrumah organizes a campaign of nonviolent protests and strikes, which lands him back in gaol. But in the colony's first general election, in February 1951, the CPP wins convincingly even in the absence of its leader. Nkrumah is released from prison to join the government. In 1952 he becomes prime minister.
During the years of preparation for independence the neighbouring British Togo votes, in a 1956 plebiscite, to merge with the Gold Coast. It is therefore a slightly extended territory which becomes independent in 1957 under Nkrumah's leadership. A new name of great resonance in African history is adopted - Ghana (although the ancient kingdom of that name was far to the north, in present-day Mali).
Independence: from1957
Nkrumah, well aware of his status at the head of the first west African nation to emerge from colonialism, dreams of leading the continent into a Marxist future. This requires a republic, which Ghana becomes in 1960 with Nkrumah as president for life. It also needs only one political party, the CPP. However Nkrumah's authoritarian rule, combined with a collapse in the nation's economy, prompts a coup when the president is away in China in 1966 (he goes into exile in Guinea).
It is the first of several such coups in Ghana's short history, but the nation remains true to the hope of democracy. In four decades Ghana establishes as many new republics.
Culled from http://www.historyworld.net/
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