Accra - History

History

The word Accra is believed to be derived from the Akan word nkran, meaning "ants", a reference to the numerous anthills seen in the countryside around Accra. The city was first settled in the 15th century, when the Ga people migrated there from their previous settlement at Ayawaso, 10 miles (16 km) north of Accra. The site was advantageous due to its distance from the Ga's main rivals, the Akwamu people. Initially, Accra was not the most prominent trading centre; the trade hubs of the time were the ports at Ada and Prampram, along with the inland centres of Dodowa and Akusa. However, Accra gained status as a centre for the slave trade with the Europeans who had built the nearby outposts of James Fort and Ussher Fort. By the 17th century, the Portuguese, followed by the Swedish, Dutch, French, British and Danish, had constructed forts in the town. Such activity went on in Accra until the abolition of the slave trade in 1807.

In the 1850s, Denmark sold Christiansborg and their other forts to the British. In 1873, after decades of tension between the British and the Asante people of central Ghana, the British attacked and virtually destroyed the Asante capital of Kumasi, and officially declared Ghana a crown colony. The British then captured Accra in 1874, and in 1877, at the end of the second Anglo-Asante War, Accra replaced Cape Coast as the capital of the British Gold Coast colony. This decision was made because Accra had a drier climate relative to Cape Coast, and was not home to the tsetse fly, thus allowing the use of animal transport. Until this time, the settlement of Accra was confined between Ussher Fort to the east and the Korle Lagoon to the west.

As the colony's administrative functions were moved to Accra, an influx of British colonists began, and the city began to expand to accommodate the new residents. Victoriaborg was formed in the late nineteenth century as an exclusive European residential neighborhood, located to the east of the city limits of the time. The boundaries of Accra were further stretched in 1908, following an outbreak of the bubonic plague. This expansion entailed the creation of a native-only neighbourhood, intended to accommodate members of the native population as a means of relieving congestion problems in the overcrowded city centre. Adabraka was thus established to the north of the city centre to serve as an enclave for the town's Muslim population.

One of the most influential decisions in the history of the city was that of building the Accra-Kumasi railway in 1908. This was to connect Accra, the country's foremost port at that time, with Ghana's main cocoa-producing regions. In 1923 the railway was completed, and by 1924 cocoa was Ghana's largest export. Accra was the main exporter of cocoa until 1928; this was one of the main reasons for its rapid growth.

The British government heavily influenced the shape that Accra took during this period. For example, racial segregation of neighborhoods was mandated by law until 1923, and all new buildings were required to be built out of stone or concrete. Despite these regulations, the British government was very hesitant to invest any large amount of money into the city to maintain its infrastructure or improve public works. This did not change until the governorship of Sir Frederick Gordon Guggisberg.

Among the achievements of Guggisberg was the building of a bridge across the Korle Lagoon in 1923, which opened the land west of the lagoon for settlement. Guggisberg also oversaw the building of hospitals and schools. Such improvements led to an increase in Accra’s population due to the migration of rural dwellers into the city, and the immigration of increasing numbers of British businessmen and administrators.