Gold Coast was a British colony in West Africa that existed from 1821 to 1957, with Accra serving as its capital. Portugal was the first to settle the region, exploring it after 1471, and they acquired slaves and gold from the region. Soon, traders from England, the United Provinces, Sweden, Denmark, and Prussia arrived and built several forts along the coastline. In 1821, the British government withdrew the charter of its African Company of Merchants and seized privately held lands along the coast, purchasing the Danish Gold Coast in 1850 and the Dutch Gold Coast in 1872. The colony was expanded through war with the Ashanti Empire and the Fante Confederacy; in 1902, following years of warfare, the last of the Ashanti became a British protectorate. The British exported gold, metal ores, diamonds, ivory, pepper, timber, grain, and cocoa from the colony, and the colonists also built railways and a complex infrastructure to support the shipment of such commodity goods. After World War II, the native population demanded more autonomy, and British Togoland, the Ashanti protectorate, and the Fante protectorate were merged into one colony in 1956, gaining independence as Ghana a year later.
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