Early Modern
Cape Coast Castle: Slave Fort on Ghana's Gold Coast
The castle became the British headquarters on the Gold Coast and one of the largest slave-holding forts in West Africa; it is now a museum and UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Region
Africa
Early Modern
First Khoikhoi-Dutch War (1659-1660): Conflict at the Cape
The war ended without a clear military victory, but the Dutch kept the disputed grazing land and the Khoikhoi of the Peninsula lost access to it.
Early Modern
Royal African Company: England's Monopoly Slave-Trading Company
The company built England's slave-trading network in West Africa and shipped more enslaved Africans than any other single English institution, but lost its monopoly in 1698 and was dissolved in 1752.
Early Modern
Battle of Mbwila (1665): Portugal Defeats the Kingdom of Kongo
Portuguese victory; King António I was killed, and Kongo slid into decades of civil war, though Portugal did not conquer it.
Early Modern
Castle of Good Hope (1666): South Africa's Oldest Building
The Dutch East India Company built a stone pentagonal fortress that served as the seat of government at the Cape for well over a century.
Early Modern
Bunce Island: The British Slave Castle in Sierra Leone
Tens of thousands of Africans were shipped from the island into Atlantic slavery, many of them to the rice plantations of South Carolina and Georgia.
Early Modern
Changamire Dombo and the Rozvi Empire: Driving Out the Portuguese
Dombo's Rozvi forces defeated the Portuguese, destroyed their inland trading posts and founded a state that dominated the plateau until the 1830s.
Early Modern
Huguenot Settlers at the Cape (1688): French Refugees in Africa
About 200 French Protestant refugees settled at the Cape, quickly merged into the Dutch-speaking settler population and left a lasting mark on family names and farms.
Early Modern
Siege of Fort Jesus (1696-1698): Oman Takes Mombasa from Portugal
Omani forces captured Fort Jesus after a 33-month siege, ending Portuguese rule on the Swahili coast north of Mozambique.
Early Modern
Osei Tutu and the Golden Stool: Founding of the Asante Empire
The Asante states united under Osei Tutu, defeated Denkyira and became the dominant power of the Gold Coast interior.
Early Modern
Kimpa Vita and the Antonian Movement in Kongo (1704-1706)
Kimpa Vita was burned as a heretic in 1706, but her followers' reoccupation of São Salvador helped Pedro IV reunite Kongo by 1709.
Early Modern
Futa Jallon Jihad (c. 1725): Founding of a Fulani Islamic State
A Fulani-led Islamic state, the imamate of Futa Jallon, was founded with its capital at Timbo and lasted until French conquest in the 1890s.