Fort Amsterdam, a World Legacy Site is a former slave fort in Kormantin, Central region, Ghana.
It was built by the English between 1638 and 1645 as Fort Cormantin or Post Courmantyne, and was captured by admiral Michiel de Ruyter of the Dutch West India Company in 1665, in striking back for the capture of a few Dutch posts by the English Admiral Holmes in 1664.
It was therefore made a part of the Dutch Gold Coast and remained such until the fortification was traded with the British in 1868.
The Fortification is found at Abandze ,on the north-east of Cape Coast in the Mfantseman District of the Central Region of Ghana. Early in 1782, Captain Thomas Shirley in the 50-gun ship Leander and the sloop-of-war Alligator sailed to the Dutch Gold Coast.
This was amid the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War in which Britain was at war with The Netherlands. Shirley captured the little Dutch fortifications at Moree (Fort Nassau – 20 weapons), Kormantin (Courmantyne or – 32 guns), Apam (Fort Lijdzaamheid or Fort Patience – 22
Senya Beraku (Fort Goede Hoop – 18 guns), and Accra (Fort Crêvecoeur or Ussher Fort – 32 guns).
In 1811, the people of Anomabo , who happened to be allies of the British attacked the fort, leaving it in ruins. It was unoccupied from then until its restoration in 1951 by the Ghana Museums and Monuments Board.
The town of Abandze has grown around the site of the fort today.
SOURCES
http://www.ghanamuseums.org/forts/fort-amsterdam.php
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Amsterdam,_Ghana
