This chapter explores the principal consequences of the incorporation of Fanteland (the coast between the Pra River and Accra) into the transatlantic slave trade in the eighteenth century. It should be stated from the outset that any trade in human captives, and indeed slavery itself, is reprehensible. It would be inappropriate and inaccurate to suggest that the transatlantic slave trade was a boon to any African population. Nevertheless, a variety of conditions that were created by the slave trade opened up opportunities for economic growth and state formation in southern Ghana, and these developments must be included in any serious analysis of southern Ghana’s history. This chapter seeks to explain how the coastal population made the transatlantic trade work to its advantage, bearing in mind that the effects of the trade were filtered and spread through a prism of regional and local conditions. The ports of Cape Coast, Elmina, Accra, and Anomabo were truly “Atlantic” ports, where local circumstances were unique but regional and transatlantic developments shaped everyday life.

The people known as the Fante of the Gold Coast had a distinct reputation in the eighteenth-century Atlantic World. European traders knew them as a people well-practiced in Atlantic trade. On one hand, Fantes were sought after as workers in African ports and aboard slave ships because of their knowledge and experience in transatlantic commerce. On the other hand, these same African people were regarded by Europeans as notorious swindlers, able to use their knowledge of Atlantic commercial practices to deceive foreign traders. One British agent summarized this view, commenting that “the leopard may change his spots but no Fante Man can be otherwise than a villain.” Whether it was a quality that cast them in an attractive or sinister light, the people known as Fantes in the eighteenth century clearly demonstrated their mastery of international commerce in the era of the slave trade. The Atlantic creoles of the Ghana coast, schooled for generations in the international gold trade, conducted trade and diplomacy in particular ways that established and perpetuated this reputation for exploiting Atlantic trade.