Why Ghana is called the Gold Coast?

Ghana officially named the Republic of Ghana, is a West African country situated near the coast of the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean. It has 239,567 km2 of land area and 31 million of population. The country has witnessed many empires & colonial era. Later, the country has gained the status of an independent country. Recently it has gained the term 4th republic because it is trying to establish its democracy for the 4th time.

Ghana has been termed as the Gold Coast of Africa because of the huge treasury of gold during the Portuguese colonial era. Although the original gold coast is located in the southern states of modern Ghana, it started expanding just after the Yaa Asantewaa war in 1901. Today’s Ghana has been formulated by joining central parts, northern parts, and Volta region with the Gold Coast. This article is the extract from information available on various online newspapers on Ghana.

History

Europeans had established their colonies in the region in late 1482. After centuries, a lot of trading companies & European empires had come along to set up their position & factories. They were meant to settle a large number of subjects with the exchange of established colonies. But they started exploiting resources in the region to get into power. They even started exploiting the people as well.

The Portuguese were the first people who had come to claim the gold coast. Later, in the late 16th century the dutch people had arrived & changed turned the Portuguese colony into the dutch gold coast. They had stayed in the region until the late 19th century before the gold coast was taken by the British people.

A London commercial expert had put a reference witness in the year of 1774 that the king of the guinea had a pure gold reserve of 30 pounds of weight. After that, the British had taken all over the gold coast by 1871. They had captured a vast amount of land after the Anglo-Ashanti war for the gold natural gold reserve. Later in 1957, the territory was comprised into an independent dominion, which is called Ghana today, within the commonwealth of nations of Britain.

Etymology & position

The gold coast is referred to as the area is situated along the Gulf of Guinea in West Africa & is naturally enriched with gold, petroleum, natural gas & sweet crude oil, etc. There were plenty of other regions, such as the pepper coast, the Slave Coast, Grain Coast, along with the gold coast. They were named after the main export resources back in the colonial era.

Earlier uses of the term gold coast were referred to the coastal regions only. Later, the inner parts of the regions which are far away from the coastal area were also mentioned as the gold coast. The gold is situated in the middle of Ivory Coast & Slave Coast, the region is now known as Ghana.

How it has become the Gold-Coast?

The crown established the royal trading company in 1752 & sent for trading in Africa. Later it replaced the African company of merchants. A century later, the British people had withdrawn their charter & seized all the private lands along the coast. In 1821, the colonial government had established the British gold coast colony after taking over the remaining land from other European countries.

British colony had been rapidly expanding through the invasion of local kingdoms, precisely the Ashanti region. In 1901, the British had established a colony that was an amalgamation of the entire region of the gold coast, with all the kingdoms considering as a single unit.

The British started exploiting all the natural resources reserved in the country, such as gold, metal ores, diamond. Timber, pepper, cocoa, grains, etc. In the colonial era, several transportation systems were established to develop the trading facilities & shipment of commodities.

Ghana, which was called the gold coast earlier because of its trading nature due to the colonial rule, was a country naturally blessed with natural resources & a few precious resources. That led to the invasion of the British people later along with other European countries. The country today is constituted by other regions that were earlier not part of the gold coast.