Colonization 1415

Time periods

European powers first seized ports and forts along Africa’s coasts, tying the continent into oceanic trade networks that included gold, ivory, and the trafficking of enslaved Africans. Control was uneven and contested; African rulers and communities negotiated, resisted, and sometimes allied with European powers.

Region focus

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Gold Coast & West African Coast

Forts, trading posts, and shifting claims along the Atlantic coast.

Overview

From the 1400s, Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, British, and other European powers built fortified posts along the West African coast. These sites became hubs for trading gold, then increasingly for the forced export of enslaved Africans. African leaders made strategic alliances, resisted incursions, and navigated the violence and profit of this expanding Atlantic system.

Key dates from this region

1415 – Portugal conquers Ceuta, a North African port, marking an early foothold for European expansion into African spaces.
1482 – São Jorge da Mina (Elmina Castle) is built on the Gold Coast, becoming a major center of Portuguese trade in gold and, later, enslaved people.
1874 – Britain declares the Gold Coast a British colony as European competition along the coast intensifies.

Primary source spotlight

Elmina Castle visual record (c. 18th century) – a contemporary image of the coastal fort that anchored Portuguese and later Dutch and British trade.
General Act of the Berlin Conference (1885) – treaty clauses in which European powers claimed the right to “effective occupation” over African territories, without African representation.

When reading these sources, consider whose voices are present, whose are missing, and how power is expressed in maps, drawings, and legal language.