A London company, governed by the King's brother, shipped more enslaved Africans than any other institution in history. Its forts still stand on the coast of Ghana.
Walk along the coast of Ghana between Accra and Takoradi and you pass the ruins and white walls of more than a dozen European forts. Several of them were built or run by one London company, chartered by the King of England and governed by his brother. From offices in the City of London, the Royal African Company shipped more enslaved Africans to the Americas than any other single institution in the whole history of the transatlantic trade.
Most British visitors have never heard of it. Most Ghanaian visitors to Cape Coast Castle know its walls by heart. This page connects the two ends: the boardroom in London and the dungeons on the Gold Coast.
Behind every one of those figures was a person bought on the coast, held in a fort, branded and shipped. Many were branded on the chest with the letters RAC, or DY for the Duke of York.
The Royal African Company was not a band of adventurers on the edge of respectable society. Its governor from 1660 to 1688 was James, Duke of York, the future King James II, who was also its largest shareholder. Its investors included courtiers, peers and leading City merchants. Edward Colston of Bristol served as its deputy governor. They knew what the company did, and they invested to profit from it.
The monopoly was meant to be enforced by the Royal Navy, and the company's wealth flowed back to London as gold, ivory and returns on shares. When James fled the throne in 1688, the company lost its most powerful protector, and within a decade Parliament had opened the trade to all comers.
The company's African business ran through a chain of forts and trading posts on the coast of today's Ghana. Each one depended on agreements with the local rulers, who controlled the land, the trade routes inland and the supply of goods and captives. The Europeans were tenants on that coast, often paying rent, and they fought each other constantly over it.
Built on the site of a Swedish fort, captured by the English in 1664 and expanded by the company from the 1670s. Its headquarters in Africa, and later the seat of British government on the Gold Coast until 1877.
The first English headquarters on the Gold Coast, captured by the Dutch in 1665 and renamed Fort Amsterdam.
Built by the company in 1673 and named after the Duke of York; the Jamestown district of Accra grew up around it.
Begun by the company in 1683 and only finished years later, after long hostilities with the local population.
The forgotten English fort at Tantum.
The English fort the British blew up in 1812.
For the full picture of every fort on the coast, Portuguese, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Brandenburg and British, see the Ghana-Net guide to Ghana's forts and castles.
At Cape Coast the company drew a line between two kinds of enslaved people. "Shipping slaves" were held in chains in the dungeons beneath the castle until a ship arrived to take them across the Atlantic. "Castle slaves" lived and worked at the castle itself, as labourers, craftsmen and boatmen, and were owned by the company. Some of the castle slaves were branded with the Duke of York's initials.
Above the dungeons lived the governor and the company's officers, and the castle had its own chapel. Visitors today walk down into the men's and women's dungeons, still dark and airless, and out through the Door of No Return to the beach where the canoes waited. Few places anywhere show the distance between the people who ran the trade and the people it consumed as plainly.
The forts outlived the company. From 1752 the Company of Merchants Trading to Africa held them with a grant from Parliament, and after Britain abolished the slave trade in 1807 they were used to police the coast and to push British influence inland. In 1821 the Crown took the forts over directly.
What followed was a slow slide from trading post to colony: the Anglo-Asante wars that began in 1824, the Bond of 1844 that brought local chiefs under British law, and finally the Gold Coast Colony, governed from Cape Coast until the capital moved to Accra in 1877. That colony became independent Ghana in 1957.
Most visitors fly into Accra International Airport. James Fort is in Jamestown, Accra's old quarter, close to the lighthouse. Cape Coast is about three to four hours west of Accra by road, depending on traffic, and Elmina Castle is a short drive further on, so the two castles fit comfortably into one or two days. For flights, see flights between Africa and the UK and Ghana Flights.
A guided day trip from Accra to Cape Coast and Elmina is the easiest way to see both castles with someone who knows their history. Entrance fees for the sights on a tour are always included in the price. Tips for your guide are not included, but they are welcome.
The City that ran the company and financed the trade.
The port that broke the monopoly, and the company's deputy governor.
How Liverpool took over the trade after 1698.
Taken from this coast, he wrote one of the boldest attacks on slavery.
Every former British colony in Africa.
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