Our African Connection

Ghana is a tropical country in Western Africa and the capital is Accra. The official language is English although most Ghanaians speak African languages.  Education is free and most adults are literate.

Black Africans constitute most of the population which also includes people of Asian and European descent.

                                                           Ghana Christmas Festival

Ghana’s black Africans belong to about 100 different ethnic groups.  The Ashanti and the Fante, two closely related ethnic groups make up much of the population. They belong to a larger group of African peoples called the Akan.

Other important groups in Ghana include the Ewe, the Ga and the Mashi (Mossi)-Dagomba.

 A majority of Ghana’s people are farmers in the rural areas. In the city many hold government jobs or operate small businesses. There are modern buildings as well as houses with mud or concrete walls and thatched or tin roofs, and open courtyards.

Ghana Empire   GAH nuti was an important black trading state in West Africa from about A.D. 300’s to the mid – 1000’s. Arab camel caravans brought salt and copper from mines in the Sahara and dried fruits from North Africa to Ghana’s markets. There the products were traded for gold, Ivory, and slaves from regions South of Ghana.

Ghanaian  jewellery and leather goods were sold and traded for textiles, clothing and fine tools from Arabia and Europe.

Portuguese explorers landed in what is now Ghana in 1471. They found so much gold there that they called it ‘the Gold Coast. Later European merchants came to compete for profits in the gold and slave trades.

By 1642 the Dutch had seized all the Portuguese forts and ended Portuguese control in the Gold Coast. A large slave trade developed in the 1600’s and the Danes and English competed with the Dutch for profits.The slave trade ended in the 1860’s, and by 1872 the British had gained control of the Dutch and Danish forts. In 1874 the United Kingdom made the lands from the coast to the inland Ashanti Empire a British colony and by 1901 had made the Ashanti lands a colony.

The Gold Coast gained its independence in 1957. It took the name ‘Ghana’, the name of an ancient African kingdom.