Africa, Europe, and the Age of Exploration

Direct and indirect trading contacts between Europe and sub-Saharan Africa have been in existence since at least the first few centuries CE. However, European contacts only intensified from the early part of the fifteenth century. Under the sponsorship of Prince Henry the Navigator (1394-1460), various Portuguese-led voyages of exploration to the West African coast took place during the 1430s to 1480s, and in 1487-88, Bartolomeau Dias’ vessel arrived at the Cape of Good Hope, staying there briefly before returning to Lisbon. He was followed a decade later by Vasco de Gama, whose fleet of three ships rounded the Cape in 1497, and moved north along the East African seaboard over the coming months, stopping at Mombasa and Malindi, before setting sail across the Indian Ocean. By c. 1530 there were Portuguese, British, French, and Dutch outposts on the Gold Coast, and by 1652 a Dutch colony at the Cape, by which time Danish and Swedish traders were also active along the West African seaboard.

Initially, access to Guinea gold was the main objective behind Portuguese activity along the West African coast and this lead rapidly to the establishment of a fortified settlement on the coast of what is now Ghana in 1482, close to a preexisting Akan settlement. Known initially as Castle Siio Jorge da Mina, the fortress and trading post that grew up around it eventually came to be called Elmina (i. e., ‘the mine’, after its proximity to the gold mines inland). It was the first and largest European trading post to be built in the region. It was captured by the Dutch in 1637, and later ceded to the British in 1872, only to be destroyed the following year by a British military force following a dispute with the local inhabitants over its control. The settlement was then abandoned. There is extensive documentation, in a variety of forms, including maps and illustrations as well as written accounts and archival sources, concerning Elmina. These indicate that over time the population of Elmina became increasingly heterogeneous, as Dyula and Mande traders from further north, along with members of different ethnic groups in Elmina’s hinterland, were drawn to the settlement adding to the indigenous Akan population. At times there was also a sizable slave population, drawn from throughout the region, as well as a range of Europeans of different nationalities and a growing mulatto community. As well as attempting to define the spatial extent and the settlement and architectural history of Elmina, archaeological research at the site has focused on tracing the evidence for cultural change and continuity. Somewhat surprisingly, given the economic importance of Elmina, its role as a trading entrepcot and the increasingly diverse origins of its population, local cultural traditions appear to have been more resilient than might have been expected. Ancestral rituals, the use of space in houses, domestic building technologies, and local foodways, all exhibit considerable continuity over almost 400 years of occupation. This is not to deny change - at the time of its destruction, Elmina was a far more urban, cosmopolitan place linked to the wider world through trade and international politics, and home to new social classes of Africans, than had been the case when the Portuguese arrived. The detailed analyses of artifact and building traditions, burial practices and related evidence, nevertheless, do caution against the simple assumption that significant material culture change, and especially the increased presence of goods of foreign manufacture, necessarily equates with culture change.