Flora Consumed in Accra, Ghana, in the 16th Century and Today

• Autor(a) principal: Madaleno, Isabel Maria
• Data de Publicação: 2020
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositórios Científicos de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (RCAAP)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10451/45928
• topic: Flora; Accra; Ghana

Contacts between Western African peoples and Europeans were closer from the second half of the 15th century onwards. The presence of valuable mineral resources gave Ghanaian territory the name of Gold Coast, which is more abundant of indentations, and natural ports than the remaining African coastline. Freshwater resources are widely available, even though littoral areas, where Accra was founded, only register 806.8 millimetres of rainfall per annum (WMO, 2018). The main water body that feeds electricity to the capital city is the Akosombo dam built “across the Volta River (…) blamed for the erosion of the Volta delta near Keta and the nearby coast of Togo”. Besides, “harbour works at Tema, constructed in about 1955, ten years before the dam was complete may be responsible for the erosion (…) of Accra” coastline (Grove, 1994, p. 12). These were the places that the three masts’ Portuguese caravels explored in 1471. Portuguese sailors reached Fernado Pó and S. Tomé islands, and crossed the Equator soon after, giving way to slavery and rich tropical commodities trade from Western Africa to Europe, and later to the Americas (Goes, 1567, Nguah and Kugbey, 2015). On 19th January 1482, king Afonso V ordered a Castle be built (S. Jorge da Mina or St. George) which today is the so-called Elmina Heritage Site, located west of Accra, a project given to Diogo of Azambuja (Resende, 1770). The Portuguese inhabited the gold trading post for 155 years; in 1637, the Dutch West Indies Company captured St. George’s Castle, replacing the former settlers; in 1672, the English created the Royal African Company to control the coastal areas spreading from the Sahara to the Cape of Good Hope. It was during the 17th century that trade definitely shifted from gold to slaves. In 1872, due to a decline in profits, the Dutch sold Elmina to the British, who dominated Ghanaian coastline until 1957 (Nghuah and Kugbey, 2015), year of independence.