Portugal Builds Elmina Castle on the Gold Coast
A fortress raised to protect the gold trade becomes, within decades, a hub for a very different and much darker trade
Quick facts
- Builder
- Diogo de Azambuja, for King John II of Portugal
- Location
- Elmina, Gold Coast (present-day Ghana)
- Original purpose
- Gold trade
- Later use
- Holding site in the transatlantic slave trade
What happened
By 1471, Portuguese ships had reached the stretch of West African coast that traded so much gold that they named it the Gold Coast. To protect the trade from European rivals, King John II sent Diogo de Azambuja with ten ships, 500 soldiers and servants, and 100 stonemasons and carpenters, along with pre-cut stone shipped from Portugal, to build a permanent fort. The fleet arrived on 19 January 1482. Azambuja negotiated with the local Akan chief, Kwamin Ansah, who was reluctant to allow a permanent European settlement but agreed after gifts and pressure. The result, Castelo de Sao Jorge da Mina (St. George of the Mine Castle), became the first European trading post on the Gulf of Guinea and the oldest European building still standing in sub-Saharan Africa.
Why it matters
Elmina started as a gold trading post, but its fortified harbor and holding cells made it one of the sites the transatlantic slave trade later used to hold captives before shipment across the Atlantic, a use that continued under the Dutch after they seized the castle in 1637. The fort is a physical link between the Portuguese exploration that opened West Africa to European traders and the slave trade that followed.
How we know
EBSCO's Research Starters entry on Elmina details Azambuja's fleet, the negotiation with Kwamin Ansah, and the castle's later role in the slave trade, drawing on the historical record of Portuguese and Dutch colonial administration there.
Sources
- EBSCO Research Starters. Elmina · General sourceebsco.com · Cited as a "reference" source (no stronger domain match). · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
- BlackPast. El Mina, Sao Jorge da Mina · General sourceblackpast.org · Cited as a "reference" source (no stronger domain match). · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
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