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Updated: June 8, 2025
Yesterday, we went on a shopping excursion down the river, our "hansom" being a long narrow sort of canoe, propelled and dexterously steered by four or five paddlers, whose mode of digging along by means of their heart-shaped blades reminded me not a little of the Kroo boys paddling a fish-canoe off Elmina on the Gold Coast.
The castle itself was originally strong, and was still in sufficiently good repair to resist any attack that the enemy were likely to make upon it, but the town was entirely incapable of defence; and had the Ashantis pushed on after their victory, there can be little doubt that both Cape Coast and Elmina would have fallen into their hands.
By the native customs he who conquers a chief entitled to such a payment becomes the heir of that payment, and one time the King of Ashanti upon the strength of his conquest of the Fantis set up a claim of proprietorship over Cape Coast and the other British forts. Of a similar nature was the claim of the Ashantis upon Elmina.
In 1873, this black potentate having made alliances with the chiefs of other tribes, sent a large Ashantee force across the Prah, with the avowed intention of capturing Elmina, which he asserted the Dutch had no right to dispose of to the English. Destroying the Fanti villages in their course, they advanced to within a few days' march of Cape Coast Castle.
The English government had been loath to embark upon such an expedition, but a petition which had been sent home by the English and native traders at Sierra Leone and Elmina had shown how great was the peril which threatened the colony, and it had been felt that unless an effort was made the British would be driven altogether from their hold of the coast.
The prosecution which he instigated against Mrs. Elmina Slenker, of Virginia, resulted in her acquittal. The N. Y. Evening Post says, "If there is to be a prosecution in this Knoedler case, and these prints should send some one to jail, we for our part think Anthony Comstock should be the man."
The Portuguese in the meantime continued to extend their discoveries in another quarter, for in 1471, they reached the Gold Coast, when dazzled by the importance and splendour of the commodity, the commerce of which gave name to that region, they built the fort of Elmina or The Mine, making it the capital of their possessions on that part of the continent.
One of Sir Garnet Wolseley's first exploits was a well-conducted attack on several of the villages in the neighbourhood of Elmina held by the Ashantees. Keeping his plan secret until the moment the march was commenced, he was able to surprise the enemy, who, however, stood their ground until put to flight by the rockets and the Snider rifle.
Hornby was advised that a parcel of stones had been despatched by the Elmina Castle, and it appeared that the parcel was an unusually large one and contained stones of exceptional size and value. Under these circumstances Mr. Reuben was sent down to the docks at an early hour in the hope the ship might arrive in time for the stones to be lodged in the bank at once.
Akimfoo was occupied without resistance, but the Ashantis fought hard in Ampene, but were driven out of the town into the bush, from which the British force was too small to drive them, and therefore returned to Elmina, having marched twenty-two miles, a prodigious journey in such a climate for heavily armed Europeans. The effect produced among the Ashantis by the day's fighting was immense.
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