Fort Amsterdam

Abandze, Ghana, Ghana

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Fort Amsterdam is a historic former slave fort located in Abandze (also called Kormantin-Abandze), a coastal town in Ghana’s Central Region, on a hill overlooking a coconut palm beach northeast of Cape Coast.

Originally built by the English between 1638 and 1645 as Fort Cormantin (or Fort Courmantyne), it holds a unique place in history as the first British fort constructed on the African continent, serving primarily as a trading post for gold and merchant goods rather than initially for the slave trade.

Dutch Admiral Michiel Adriaensz De Ruyter captured the fort in 1665 after a long and bloody battle during retaliation for English captures of Dutch forts, reconstructed it, and renamed it Fort Amsterdam, making it part of the Dutch Gold Coast until it was traded back to the British in 1868.