Fort Prinzenstein

Fort Prinzenstein is a castle placed at Keta, Ghana which turned into used within the slave trade. Many such forts have been constructed in Africa, but Prinzenstein is one of the few that lie east of the Volta River. It becomes first of all constructed by means of Danish traders in 1784 for protective functions in a war in opposition to the Anlo Ewe and to keep the area secure from other colonial powers.

The Dutch West India Company had constructed Fort Singelenburgh at the site of the contemporary citadel in 1734; however the Dutch deserted the citadel in 1737, probably because of the Dutch siding with the defeated Akwamu within the Akyem-Akwamu war. The Danish had advanced a presence in Keta, the industrial capital of the Anlo people. However, in 1783 when the Anlo people pillaged the neighborhood Danish agent, the Governor of Christiansborg raised an army drawn from human beings with a lifestyle of antipathy towards the Anlo: the Ada, Akwapim, Ga and Krobo. The Danes have been for that reason able to defeat the Anlo and impose a treaty in 1784 which allowed them to construct Fort Prinzenstein and obliged the Anlo to trade most effective with them.