Dutch Capture of Elmina Castle (1637): Gold Coast Changes Hands

The Dutch capture of Elmina Castle on 29 August 1637 ended more than 150 years of Portuguese control over the most important European fortress in West Africa. Forces of the Dutch West India Company (WIC), sent from Dutch-occupied Brazil, besieged the castle and forced its small garrison to surrender. Elmina then became the centre of Dutch trade in gold and enslaved people on the Gold Coast of present-day Ghana.

Background

Portugal had built São Jorge da Mina at Elmina in 1482 to control the gold trade of the coast (see Elmina Castle). From the 1590s Dutch merchants broke the Portuguese monopoly by trading along the shore from ships and small posts, and in 1612 they built Fort Nassau at Mouri, a few dozen kilometres to the east.

The rivalry was part of a wider war. The Dutch Republic was fighting Spain, whose king also ruled Portugal from 1580 to 1640, in the long conflict that grew out of the Dutch Revolt. The WIC, chartered in 1621, was designed to attack Iberian trade and colonies in the Atlantic. Dutch assaults on Elmina in 1596 and 1625 both failed; in 1625 the landing force was ambushed and lost hundreds of men.

By the mid-1630s the WIC held much of north-eastern Brazil, with its sugar plantations worked by enslaved Africans. Its governor there, Johan Maurits of Nassau-Siegen, wanted a reliable supply of captives and saw Elmina as the key to West Africa.

The siege of 1637

Johan Maurits sent a fleet of nine ships carrying roughly 800 soldiers to the Gold Coast in mid-1637. Under the command of Colonel Hans Coin, the troops landed further along the coast, near Komenda, and marched towards the castle, joined by African allies who were hostile to the Portuguese and to the people of Elmina town, who supported them.

The decisive move was the capture of the hill of São Tiago (St Jago), which overlooks the castle from across the Benya lagoon. The Portuguese had never fortified it properly. Once Dutch guns were placed on the hill they could fire down into the fortress. The garrison was small, short of supplies and had little hope of relief from Lisbon. After a brief bombardment its commander agreed terms, and the Portuguese surrendered on 29 August 1637 and were allowed to leave.

Why the castle fell so quickly

Elmina had resisted two earlier Dutch attacks, so its rapid surrender in 1637 needs explaining. By then the Portuguese position on the Gold Coast had been weakened for decades. Dutch traders offered better goods at lower prices, and many African merchants and rulers preferred to deal with them. The Portuguese garrison depended on supplies sent from Lisbon, which came irregularly while the Iberian crowns were stretched by wars in Europe, Brazil and Asia.

African politics mattered too. The rulers of neighbouring states such as Eguafo and Fetu had their own disputes with the Portuguese and with the people of Elmina town, and their support gave the Dutch guides, porters and fighting men. The Dutch also learned from their failure in 1625, when they had been ambushed on the march; this time they secured the high ground before attacking.

Consequences

The Dutch made Elmina the headquarters of their Gold Coast possessions, ruled by a director-general. In 1642 they took Portugal’s last important fort on the coast, at Axim, ending Portuguese power there. Later in the 17th century they built Fort Coenraadsburg on the hill of St Jago to make sure no enemy could repeat their own tactic.

Elmina’s role changed over time. Gold remained valuable, but the castle increasingly served the Atlantic slave trade. Captives were held in its dungeons before being shipped to Brazil, the Caribbean and Suriname. Historians estimate that Dutch ships carried roughly 550,000 to 600,000 enslaved Africans across the Atlantic between the early 17th and early 19th centuries, a significant share of them from the Gold Coast (see Middle Passage).

The Dutch stayed at Elmina far longer than they stayed in Brazil, which Portugal recovered by 1654. In 1872 the Netherlands handed its Gold Coast forts, including Elmina, to Britain under a treaty signed the year before. The British fort at Cape Coast Castle, only a short distance to the east, had long been Elmina’s chief rival.

Timeline

• 1482: Portugal begins building São Jorge da Mina at Elmina.
• 1596: First Dutch attack on Elmina fails.
• 1612: The Dutch build Fort Nassau at Mouri.
• 1625: A larger Dutch assault under Jan Dirckszoon Lam ends in defeat.
• 1637, mid-year: Johan Maurits sends an expedition from Brazil.
• 1637, 29 August: The Portuguese garrison of Elmina surrenders.
• 1642: The Dutch capture Axim, Portugal’s last major Gold Coast fort.
• 1872: The Dutch transfer Elmina to Britain.

Why it matters

The fall of Elmina shifted the balance of European power in West Africa from Portugal to the Netherlands and tied the Gold Coast closely to the plantation economies of the Americas. The castle that changed hands in 1637 went on to hold many thousands of captives, and it is now a museum and memorial to the victims of the slave trade.