The History of Ghana in 10 minutes
Welcome to Displore and Thanks for watching, as you all know it is always a pleasure presenting to you the beautiful countries of Africa. In today’s video we are looking at the history of Ghana in 10 minutes. The Republic of Ghana is named after the medieval West African Ghana Empire. The empire became known in Europe and Arabia as the Ghana Empire after the title of its Emperor, the Ghana. The Empire appears to have broken up following the 1076 conquest by the Almoravid General Abu-Bakr Ibn-Umar. A reduced kingdom continued to exist after Almoravid rule ended, and the kingdom was later incorporated into subsequent Sahelian empires, such as the Mali Empire several centuries later. Geographically, the ancient Ghana Empire was approximately800km north and west of the modern state of Ghana, and controlled territories in the area of the Senegal River and east towards the Niger rivers, in modern Senegal, Mauritania and Mali. Ghana is today known as the gold Coast of Africa and the history of this great African nation is an important part of its present and future. Hence, without much ado, here is the history of Ghana in 10 minutes.
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Little is known of the small African kingdoms in the region between the Tano and Volta rivers until the arrival of Europeans in the 15th century. Portuguese navigators, working their way down the west African coast, reach this area in 1471 and build a fortress at Elmina in 1482. But others follow fast. As early as 1492 a French buccaneer, marauding off the coast, deprives a Portuguese ship of its precious cargo.That cargo was gold, and the Gold Coast becomes the European name for this part of Africa. The trade in gold with the Europeans makes possible the development in the early 17th century of Akwamu, the first African state to control an extensive part of the coast.During the 18th century the dominance of Akwamu is replaced by that of a much more powerful group, the Ashanti, with their capital inland at Kumasi. By this time the British, Dutch and Danes are the main European traders on this part of the coast, and the most valuable commodity for export was not gold but slaves.
Trading slaves for muskets, among other western commodities, the Ashanti acquire great local power. Their king, the Asantehene, enthroned on a traditional golden stool, holds sway over the entire central region of modern Ghana. But the Ashanti suffer a series of major blows between 1804 and 1814, when the Danes, British and Dutch each in turn outlaw the slave trade.The resulting tension leads to warfare in the 1820s with the defeat of a British force in 1824 and again in the 1870s. In 1874 a British army briefly occupies Kumasi.
Meanwhile, in the coastal regions, the British are gradually emerging as the main European power. The Danish fortresses including the impressive Christiansburg castle in Accra are bought by the British government in 1850. The last Dutch merchants abandon the coast in 1870. And in 1874 the southern regions are formally proclaimed a British colony, under the name Gold Coast. But it takes another three decades before the Ashanti kingdom, and its dependencies in the north, are finally brought under British control.In 1901, taking effect from 1 January 1902, Ashanti is declared a British crown colony. The regions further north become at the same time the Protectorate of the Northern Territories of the Gold Coast.
The colonial years are relatively prosperous and untroubled. At first little is done to involve the African population in the political processes of the colony. But in the years immediately after World War II events move so fast that the Gold Coast becomes the first colony in sub-Saharan Africa to win its independence. The turning point is the return home in 1947 of Kwame Nkrumah after twelve years of study and radical politics in the USA and Britain.
Nkrumah is invited back to the Gold Coast to become general secretary of the United Gold Coast Convention, an organization campaigning for self-government. The UGCC has won the right in 1946 for an African majority in the colony's legislative assembly, but the fight is now on for a share in executive power.Nkrumah rapidly extends the movement's popular base, with the result that there are widespread riots in February 1948. The older UGCC leaders are alarmed by this and by their brief arrest with Nkrumah. A split within the movement leads to Nkrumah founding in June 1949 the Convention People's Party, committed to immediate self-government.From January 1950 Nkrumah organizes a campaign of nonviolent protests and strikes, which lands him back in jail. But in the colony's first general election, in February 1951, the CPP wins convincingly even in the absence of its leader. Nkrumah is released from prison to join the government and in 1952 he becomes prime minister.