Elmina Case Study

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The site of study is the port city of Elmina, which traded hands between the Portuguese, Dutch, and British over a period of about 400 years. This site is off the coast of Ghana in Africa and straddles the Gulf of Guinea. It is known that Elmina started in the hands of the Portuguese in 1482 as a trading settlement and later transformed into a major stop along the Atlantic slave trade. It then shifted into Dutch hands in 1637 and the slave trade continued under them until 1814. Elmina and much of the Gold Coast shifted into British hands in 1872. This project attempts to establish an economic relationship between Elmina, the Americas, and Europe before, during, and after the slave trade, and study the effect of cultural mixing between the …show more content…

Understanding how the different cultures merged and morphed during this time can be even more difficult. Surveying and excavating a site such as Elmina in Africa, can make this task less daunting. Its history as a trade center and a major slave trade port can give us a unique insight into African and European relations. This information can give modern people an idea of what the slave trade was like in Africa, what it did to the people, and how they reacted to it. It can also be a step in identifying the reason the slave trade was so popular at the time. Racist sentiments throughout the European nations weren’t the only thing that kept the slave trade going for as long as it did. Economic stability in the trade was a major part of its success. Culture played a vital role in everyday life for these people, and the more it is understood, the more it can show us about Portuguese, Dutch, and British colonialism. New information may be uncovered here, and it has the potential to shine a new light on modern day understanding of colonialism, the slave trade, and the indigenous people in

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