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First established as a trade settlement, the castle later became one of the most important stops on the route of the Atlantic slave trade. The Dutch seized the fort from the Portuguese in 1637, after an unsuccessful attempt in 1596, and took over all of the Portuguese Gold Coast in 1642. The slave trade continued under the Dutch until 1814.
The later importance of the city for the slave trade was based on its function as a transit station for deported people from the 17th century onwards. In 1486 Elmina was granted Portuguese town rights. According to individual sources, the city rights only referred to the fortress there and not to the African settlement.
From their seat of power at the fortress of São Jorge da Mina (located in modern Elmina), the Portuguese commanded a vast internal slave trade, creating a slave network that would expand after the end of Portuguese colonialism in the region. [3] The primary export of the colony was gold, which was obtained through barter with the local ...
The original Portuguese interest was gold, with 8,000 ounces shipped to Lisbon from 1487 to 1489, 22,500 ounces from 1494 to 1496, and 26,000 ounces by the start of the sixteenth century. [7] Later, the port expanded to include tens of thousands of slaves channeled through the trading post of Elmina, ten to twelve thousand from 1500 to 1535 alone.
A slave fort or slave castle was a fortification designed to provide a defensible area in which enslaved victims would be kept until ships were ready to embark them and forcibly migrate them during the atlantic slave trade. [1] A slave fort was a militarized factory (trading post) which evolved at locations where the slave trade played a ...
The Battle of Elmina in 1637 was a military engagement between the Portuguese and the Dutch that culminated with the capture of the historical St. George of Elmina Fort by the latter. In 1637, the Dutch West India Company detached nine ships from the forces attacking the Portuguese in Brazil to send them against the Portuguese in Fort Elmina.
São Jorge da Mina (Elmina Castle) In 1481, Diogo was appointed by John II as captain of a fleet consisting of nine caravels and two ships with 600 soldiers and 100 masons and carpenters. They were sent, along with the necessary stone and other materials, to construct a fortress called São Jorge da Mina at the Gulf of Guinea in the Portuguese ...
Some of the forts were in Portuguese hands for a brief period - often a few years before the Portuguese were expelled, while others were held for centuries. Portuguese explorers have discovered many lands and the sea routes in the 15th–18th centuries during the Age of Discovery. Along the way they built outposts and fortresses, many of which ...