Fort Orange (Dutch: Fort Oranje) was built as a trading post on the Dutch Gold Coast in 1642, near Sekondi in the Western Region of Ghana. Its original purpose was to function as a lodge for a while during the 1670s and that was before it was used as a trading post.
The trading post was enlarged into a fort in 1690 which was later joined by an English Fort Sekondi in 1682. It was sold with the rest of the Dutch Gold Coast to the United Kingdom in 1872.
Fort Orange built as a trading post on the Dutch Gold Coast in 1642, near Sekondi.
The Dutch fortress, Fort Orange is located a few metres off Sekondi’s harbour, in the Western Region.
The 1670s which were also years of intense European competition for the wealth of the Gold Coast, the English built a succession of forts and lodges within gunning range of Dutch fortresses, to weaken the Dutch stronghold on the coast.
After this lodge was attacked by the indigenous people, an attack by the Ahtantas in September 1694, it was reconstructed into a much more fortified fort by 1704. Unsurprisingly, the fort’s cannons were mainly directed at the nearby British trading lodge.
Since it was taken by the British in 1872, ‘Fort Oranje’, as it was called by the Dutch, has been used as a lighthouse, and is now a naval base for the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority.
