Commerce and Conflict: Portuguese–African–Dutch Entanglements on West Africa’s Gold Coast, 1596–1700

Africa was an early, critical Atlantic and global sphere of exploitation for the Portuguese and Dutch alike. Unlike in Brazil, Portugal failed to reclaim its Gold Coast bases, yet the Dutch loss and Portuguese restoration of Brazil significantly shaped developments in Dutch Guinea. This paper examines a critical site of Dutch-Portuguese global conflict, from the earliest 1590s Dutch attempts to capture Elmina (Portugal’s main base) through the castle’s capture in 1637 and then into a Dutch-Brazilian rapprochement in the late seventeenth century. Relations with mother countries and particularly commercial and political engagement with coastal and interior African states, I argue, were paramount in Dutch victory, but also the WIC’s struggle (mirroring earlier Portuguese efforts) to maintain a trade monopoly against other European interlopers. Over time, growing American demand for enslaved workers reoriented Dutch use of its constellation of Gold Coast forts and led to direct trade with Portuguese shipping.