Object description

Fort Sekondi, also Fort George, was an English fort on the Gold Coast , built in 1682 at Sekondi , next to the Dutch Fort Orange, which had been built in 1642. This first building was small, according to William Claridge: "[...] at Sekondi [...] Captain Henry Nurse, Agent for the English Company, also built a fort there a few years later. Both these buildings were of about the same size and only a gun-shot apart", and, "The Dutch Fort Orange was a very small place, being merely a square white house in a yard, mounting eight or ten guns on a terrace on the roof. The first English fort had been a very similar building [...]". This fort was destroyed on 1 June 1698, during the Dutch-Komenda war, and reduced to blackened outer walls. Although denied by the Dutch, reports and letters sent at the time indicated that the Dutch instigated the attack and that some plundered goods were taken to Castle Orange next-door. Attempts were made to rebuild it in 1700, though these had to be abandoned because of hostility from the indigenous population.