history


 * History**

During the 11th century Ghana was divided into many different minor states, which naturally lead to a long list of different conflicts and wars. After a 100-300 years time some of them grew up as more dominant than others. These states focused on trading. The development continued through the years and in 1800, there were over 100 smaller states with Denkyira and Ashanti as the most important. Nevertheless, it wasn’t before the Europeans came to the west coast of Africa in the 15th century the development really was set on speed. Trading companies established there to get mainly gold, slaves and ivory. First it was Portuguese, Frenchmen, Netherlands, Swedish, Danish and the British. The most of them withdraw after some years, except the Frenchmen and the British. There was a lot of competition between the two of them which at last logically drew a line between two countries. The British gave their country the name: The Gold Coast. In the 20th century, political organisations started to come in to being. They fought for independency and wanted Britain to end their colonisation in the country. At last the British complied their wish of being independent gave Ghana their freedom in 1957, as the first country in this area. After lots of military coups the constitution was repealed in 1981 in addition to political parties were forbidden. Today it is 16 years since they got their first written constitution was the multi-party system was essential. 