Adina Sommer
Antique and Contemporary Art
Winzerer Str. 154
80797 München
telephone
+49 89 3000 2214
fax
+49 89 3000 2213
business hours:
by appointment
Adina Sommer`s Rare Antique Maps and Contemporary Art
Cape Coast Castle, a British Settlement on the Gold Coast Africa.
| Article ID | AF0404 |
| Artist | Barrow (1764-1848) |
| Sir John Barrow, was an English statesman and writer. In 1797, Barrow accompanied Lord Macartney as private secretary in his important and delicate mission to settle the government of the newly acquired colony of the Cape of Good Hope. Barrow was entrusted with the task of reconciling the Boer settlers and the native Black population and of reporting on the country in the interior. In the course of the trip, he visited all parts of the colony; when he returned, he was appointed auditor-general of public accounts. He then decided to settle in South Africa, married, and bought a house in 1800 in Cape Town. However, the surrender of the colony at the peace of Amiens (1802) upset this plan. During his travels through South Africa, Barrow compiled copious notes and sketches of the countryside that he was traversing. The outcome of his journeys was a map which, despite its numerous errors, was the first published modern map of the southern parts of the Cape Colony.[4] William John Burchell (1781–1863) was particularly scathing: "As to the miserable thing called a map, which has been prefixed to Mr. Barrow’s quarto, I perfectly agree with Professor Lichtenstein, that it is so defective that it can seldom be found of any use." | |
| Title | Cape Coast Castle, a British Settlement on the Gold Coast Africa. |
| Year | dated 1806 |
| Description | View of the Cape Coast at the Gold Coast of Ghana in Africa, with decorative offshore ships. Cape Coast Castle is one of about forty slave castle or large commercial forts, built on the Gold Coast of West Africa (now Ghana) by European traders. It was originally built by the Swedes for trade in timber and gold, but later used in the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Other Ghanaian slave castles include Elmina Castle and Fort Christiansborg. They were used to hold slaves before they were loaded onto ships and sold in the Americas, especially the Caribbean. This “gate of no return” was the last stop before crossing the Atlantic Ocean. The Gold Coast was a British colony on the Gulf of Guinea in west Africa that became the independent nation of Ghana in 1957. The first Europeans to arrive at the coast were the Portuguese in 1471. They encountered a variety of African kingdoms, some of which controlled substantial deposits of gold in the soil. In 1482, the Portuguese built the Castle of Elmina, the first European settlement on the Gold Coast. From here they traded slaves, gold, knives, beads, mirrors, rum and guns. News of the successful trading spread quickly, and eventually British, Dutch, Danish, Prussian and Swedish traders arrived as well. The European traders built several forts along the coastline. The Gold Coast had long been a name for the region used by Europeans because of the large gold resources found in the area. The slave trade was the principal exchange for many years. The British Gold Coast was formed in 1867 after the British government abolished the African Company of Merchants in 1821 and seized privately held lands along the coast |
| The first inhabitants of Ghana were members of the Sango or Sangoan culture - named after the first locations in Sango Bay on the Ugandan side of Lake Victoria. The population strata in Ghana and Togo, which are now considered to be autochthonous, are essentially groups who immigrated in large groups from the north or northeast to the areas south of the savannah belt of Togo and Ghana from the 9th and 10th centuries. This migratory movement was triggered by a change in the climate, which was associated with changes in the vegetation of the savannah areas. The modern state of Ghana takes its name from the ancient Kingdom of Ghana, which was geographically located a few thousand kilometers northwest and has no ethnic or historical connection to the current state of Ghana. In the pre-colonial period there were several large empires or federations on the territory of the present-day state. The first of these states, the empires of Dagomba, Mamprusi or Gonja, arose in the savannah region in northern Ghana and was culturally shaped by the empire of the Mossi further north and by Islam. Around 1600 the Ashanti Empire began to rise in central Ghana to become the dominant power in all of present-day Ghana. On the Gold Coast, the fortified settlements of European powers (Portuguese, English, Dutch, Brandenburgers, Swedes, Danes) have been lined up in a density like in no other area of Africa since the 17th century. Around 1820 the Colonial Office took over the British trading post on the Gold Coast. An agreement was reached between the British and the Fanti to defend themselves against the Ashanti from inland. In 1874 the British declared the coastal strip a crown colony. In 1957 the British crown colony Gold Coast and British Togoland became independent under the name Ghana. | |
| Place of Publication | London |
| Dimensions (cm) | 43,5 x 55,5 |
| Condition | Tear on the right side perfectly restored |
| Coloring | original colored |
| Technique | Copper print- Aquatinta |
Reproduction:
210.00 €
( A reproduction can be ordered individually on request. )