Misplaced Pages

#652347

33-683: Elmina ( Fante : Edina) is a town and the capital of the Komenda/Edina/Eguafo/Abirem District on the south coast of Ghana in the Central Region . It is situated on a bay on the Atlantic Ocean , 12.2 km (7.6 mi) west of Cape Coast . Elmina was the first European settlement in West Africa and it has a population of 33,576 people, as of 2013. The current Municipality chief of Elmina

66-457: A $ 93 million rehabilitation project began, improving the harbour's infrastructure to help with increasing demand. It was completed in May 2020. Although fishing activities are largely artisanal, the town account for 15% of Ghana's total fish output. About 75% of the population's livelihood is reliant on fishing or related activities. Most of the population is religious, coming in at around 91.7% with

99-646: A Portuguese naval victory, followed by the official recognition by the Catholic Monarchs of Portuguese sovereignty over most of the West African territories in dispute embodied in the Treaty of Alcáçovas , 1479. This was the first colonial war among European powers. Many more would come. The town grew around São Jorge da Mina Castle , built by the Portuguese Diogo de Azambuja in 1482 on

132-480: A main one from April to June and a lesser one from September to November and two dry seasons, a typical West African dry season from December to February due to the harmattan wind, and a less typical dry season from mid-July to mid-September with less hot temperatures and abundant fog due to the northward extension of the Benguela Current . Elmina is home to the annual Bakatue Festival , a celebration of

165-560: A massive project to improve many aspects of the town, consisting of water drainage and waste management helping to improve the health of the citizens, repairing the fishing industry and harbour of within Elmina, tourism and economic development, improved health services, and improved educational services. Tourism in the town is regulated by the Central Region Development Commission (CEDECOM), where

198-554: A relatively phonemic orthography. It uses the following letters to indicate the following phonemes: Fante makes heavy use of digraphs , including ky (/tɕ/), gy (/dʑ/), hy (/ɕ/), tw (/tɕʷ/), dw (/dʑʷ/), hw (/ɕʷ/), and kw (/kʷ/). However, labialization is symbolized in other labialized consonants either with ⟨u⟩, e.g. pue (/pʷei/), bue (/bʷei/), tue (/tʷei/), hue (/hʷei/), huan (/hʷan/), guan (/gʷan/), nua (/nʷia/), and sua (/sʷia/); or with ⟨o⟩, e.g. soer (/sʷer/), soe (/sʷei/), and noa (/nʷia/). Furthermore,

231-660: A stream and settling there, he exchanged the word "M'enya", which means "I have found or got it". The exact origins of Elmina, however, are conflicted. In 1478, during the War of the Castilian Succession , a Castilian armada of 35 caravels and a Portuguese fleet fought a large naval battle near Elmina for the control of the Guinea trade (gold, slaves, ivory and melegueta pepper ), the Battle of Guinea . The war ended with

264-409: A word, nor are /o/ and /ʊ/. Second, if disambiguation is necessary, vowel digraphs may be used: ⟨ie⟩ to mean /e/ and ⟨uo⟩ to mean /o/. Thus /moko/ "pepper" is spelled muoko , while /mʊkʊ/ "I sit" is spelled muko . Nasalization is marked with the diacritic ⟨ ̃⟩, but is only used when distinguishing "one of two or more words of the same spelling but different meanings which contain a nasal vowel", and

297-629: Is Solomon Ebo Appiah. When the Portuguese, after first coming in contact with the Gold Coast , struck an agreement with the King of Elmina to build the São Jorge da Mina Castle in the 1470s, the settlement grew to become an important centre of commerce and trade in the region. Nowadays, Elmina shows strong influences from Europe in its culture and people. Prior to the arrival of the Portuguese,

330-713: Is appointed by the president of Ghana and approved by the town council, the Komenda/Edina/Eguafo/Abirem Municipal Assembly . The current municipal chief of Elmina is Hon. Solomon Ebo Appiah. Elmina is located about 12.2 km (7.6 mi) from Cape Coast . The town is located in the Komenda/Edina/Eguafo/Abirem Municipal of the Western Region , which covers a land area of 452.5 km (174.7 sq mi). The municipality borders

363-513: Is omitted when there is no danger of ambiguity. The diacritic may also be included on the wrong vowel, as in the word kẽka , where it is the second syllable that actually receives the nasalization. Battle of Elmina (1637) 18th century 19th century 20th century The Battle of Elmina in 1637 was a military engagement between the Portuguese and the Dutch that culminated with

SECTION 10

#1732765064653

396-1060: Is spoken by more than 6 million people in Ghana primarily in the Central and Western Regions. It is also widely spoken in Tema, where majority of the people in that city are native Fante speakers who were settled after the new port was built. One striking characteristic of the Fante dialect is the level of English influence, including English loanwords and anglicized forms of native names, due both to British colonial influence and "to fill lexical and semantic gaps, for reasons of simplicity and also for prestige". Examples of such borrowings include rɛkɔso ("records"), rɔba "rubber", nɔma ("number"), kolapuse "collapse", and dɛkuleti "decorate". Native names are occasionally anglicized, such as "Mεnsa" becoming "Mensah" or "Atta" becoming "Arthur". The name "Fante" has two possible etymologies, both in reference to

429-420: Is taught in primary and secondary schools. Many Fantes are bilingual or bidialectal and most can speak Twi . Notable speakers include Cardinal Peter Appiah Turkson , Jane Naana Opoku-Agyemang , former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan , and former Ghanaian presidents Kwame Nkrumah and John Atta Mills . Maya Angelou learned Fante as an adult during her stay in Ghana. Today Fante

462-469: Is the common dialect of the Fante people , whose communities each have their own subdialects , namely Agona, Anomabo, Abura and Gomoa, all of which are mutually intelligible. Schacter and Fromkin describe two main Fante dialect groups: Fante 1, which uses a syllable-final /w/ and thus distinguishes kaw ("dance") and ka ("bite"); and Fante 2, where these words are homophonous. A standardized form of Fante

495-758: The Gulf of Guinea to the south, the Cape Coast Metropolitan towards the east, the Twifo/Hemang/Lower Denkyira District to the north and the Mpohor district and the Wassa East District towards the west and northwest. Like most of Ghana, Elmina has a tropical savanna climate ( Köppen Aw ) with consistently hot weather year-round. Typically for the far south of the country, there are two rainy seasons,

528-648: The Asante rose to power in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, and the Fante-Asante dichotomy only developed in the latter part of the 18th century, while the name "Fante" is much older. The true etymology is unknown. Of these vowels, five may be nasalized: /ĩ/, /ɪ̃/, /ã/, /ũ/, and /ʊ̃/. Fante exhibits vowel harmony , where all vowels in a word belong to one of the two sets /i e o u a/ or /ɪ ɛ ɔ ʊ a/. Fante, like all other varieties of Akan, has two contrastive tones, high tone (H) and low tone (L). Fante has

561-648: The Cape of Good Hope on their way to India. After years of Portuguese commerce on the Elmina Coast, the Dutch learned of the profitable activity taking place through Barent Eriksz of Medemblik , one of the earliest traders and Guinea navigators. Ericksz learned about trading on the Elmina coast while he was a prisoner on Principe and subsequently became a major resource to the Dutch in terms of providing geographical and trading information. The Dutch West India Company captured Elmina in 1637 ; in subsequent centuries it

594-504: The Sweet River towards the Portuguese fort, bringing 800 soldiers and three days worth of provisions. A hill named St. Jago dominated the fort which Coine determined needed be taken if they were to take the fort. However, 1,000 natives allied to the Portuguese were at the base of it, preventing the Dutch from seizing it. Coine sent four companies of fusiliers after it, but they were annihilated. A second Dutch detachment that attacked

627-477: The affricates /ts/ and /dz/, but are allophonic with t and d in those subdialects which do not distinguish them. Fante is the only dialect of Akan to distinguish /ts/ and /dz/ from /t/ and /d/, and is therefore the only dialect whose alphabet contains the letter ⟨z⟩. Although ⟨e⟩ and ⟨o⟩ can represent multiple phonemes each, Fante orthography uses two strategies to distinguish them. First, Fante vowel harmony means /e/ and /ɪ/ are not likely to appear together in

660-402: The attempt. He dispatched a group of grenadiers up the hill, but before they could attack a chamade was sounded and two messengers were sent out by the Portuguese to negotiate a surrender. The surrender allowed the governor, the garrison and all Portuguese citizens to leave, without swords or any other weapons, on a boat to the island of St. Thomas . The Dutch would be allowed take all that

693-402: The biggest religion being Christianity (85.3%). Of this, 28.4% are Pentecostal / Charismatic , 20.9% are other Christians, 18.2% are Catholics and 17.8% are Protestant . Christianity is followed by Islam, traditional African religions , and other religions. Although the town itself doesn't have a mayor, the municipal does have a mayor–council form of government . The mayor (executive chief)

SECTION 20

#1732765064653

726-615: The capture of the historical St. George of Elmina Fort by the latter. In 1637, the Dutch West India Company detached nine ships from the forces attacking the Portuguese in Brazil to send them against the Portuguese in Fort Elmina. They appointed Colonel Hans Coine to command the fleet which consisted of a total of 1,300 men. They landed on 24 July, a short distance away from Cape Coast , and proceeded by canoe down

759-426: The digraphs ny and nw may represent /ɲ/ and /ɲʷ/, respectively, as in nya (/ɲa/) ("get"), and nwin (/ɲʷin/) ("leak"), parallelling the use of other digraphs in Fante; or they may represent two individual phonemes, /nj/ and /nw/ respectively, as in nwaba (/nwaba/) "snail". Fante also uses the digraphs ts and dz, which represent /ts/ and /dz/ in Fante subdialects that distinguish the plosives /t/ and /d/ and

792-427: The fort. After bombarding the fort for two days, he demanded the surrender of the garrison. The Portuguese governor requested a three-day truce, but Coine refused as he only had provisions for one more day. He brought more of his forces to St. Jago and continued to bombard the fort. The bombardment was ineffective, and by the next morning Coine realized that he would either have to attack the fort that very day or abandon

825-406: The neighbouring Asante people . The first states that the Fante were named for their custom of eating spinach, or efan , while the Asante ate another herb called san ; the second, that the Fante split from the Asante, receiving the name ofa-tew , "the half that separated". However, as well as being phonetically inconsistent, any connection these etymologies propose with the Asante is anachronistic:

858-429: The other side fared better, causing the natives to rout . The Portuguese and their native allies made two attempts to take back the position, but both failed. After the second failed attack, the Portuguese fell back into their redoubt at the summit of the hill. The redoubt was protected by a wooden wall on one side, and a river on the other. Coine decided to ford the river to allow a mortar and two cannon to fire upon

891-597: The principle centre of tourism is the Elmina Castle. The site, along with Fort Coenraadsburg , attracts around 100,000 tourists annually, half of whom is foreign. Due to the lack of sufficient infrastructure, the development of this sector is hindered. Elmina is home to the Elmina Fishing Harbour, the third largest fish landing site in Ghana, beaten by the Tema and Sekondi harbours. In August 2020,

924-700: The sea and the local fishing culture, held on the first Tuesday of July each year. Bakatue translated means "the opening of the lagoon" or the "draining of the Lagoon". It is celebrated to commemorate the founding of the town, Elmina by the Europeans. It is also celebrated to invoke the deity, Nana Benya's continuous protection of the state and its people. The following is a list of sister cities of Elmina, designated by Sister Cities International : 5°05′N 1°21′W  /  5.083°N 1.350°W  / 5.083; -1.350 Fante dialect Fante

957-423: The site of a town or village called Amankwakurom or Amankwa. It was Portugal's West African headquarters for trade and exploitation of African wealth. The original Portuguese interest was gold, with 8,000 ounces shipped to Lisbon from 1487 to 1489, 22,500 ounces from 1494 to 1496, and 26,000 ounces by the start of the sixteenth century. Later, the port expanded to include tens of thousands of slaves channeled through

990-523: The town was originally called Anomansah ("perpetual" or "inexhaustible drink") from its position on the peninsula between the Benya lagoon and the sea. It eventually was named after the Elmina Castle , which is also called "São Jorge da Mina". The word "Elmina" simply means "the mine". Based on oral traditions, the town was founded by Kwaa Amankwaa, a hunter who was in search of food. After discovering

1023-420: The trading post of Elmina, ten to twelve thousand from 1500 to 1535 alone. By 1479, the Portuguese were transporting slaves from as far away as Benin , who accounted for 10 percent of the trade in Elmina, and were used to clear land for tillage . Elmina is also home to Fort Coenraadsburg on St. Jago Hill, built by the Portuguese in 1555 under the name Forte de Santiago; it was used for commerce. In 1637, it

Elmina - Misplaced Pages Continue

1056-399: Was conquered and renamed by the Dutch, after they captured Elmina's main castle. Today, Elmina's main economic industry is fishing , salt production and tourism . Elmina Castle is very close to Cape Coast Castle , another historic fortress notable for its role in the transatlantic slave trade. The location of Elmina made it a significant site for re-provisioning ships headed south towards

1089-586: Was mostly used as a hub for the slave trade . The British attacked the city in 1782 , but it remained in Dutch hands until 1872, when the Dutch Gold Coast was sold to the British . The king of Ashanti , claiming to be suzerain, objected to the transfer, and initiated the third Anglo-Ashanti war of 1873–1874. Beginning in 2003, Elmina, along with foreign investors , began The Elmina Strategy 2015,

#652347