Pre-colonial times
The oldest traces of settlement in Ghana are around 30,000 to 40,000 years old and were discovered near Tema on the coast. Further archaeological finds in the Brong-Ahafo region near the river Black Volta indicate a culture that dates from around 1700 to 1500 BC. existed and is called the Kintampo culture. In the 14th century, the Kingdom of the Mossi existed in northern Ghana, which was replaced by the Kingdom of the Gondja in the 16th century. Towards the end of the 17th century, the mighty Ashanti Empire emerged from a union of Akan tribes (until the British subjugated it at the end of the 19th century).
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Colonization
When the Portuguese landed on the Atlantic coast as the first Europeans in 1471, they named the area in accordance with the reason for their presence as the Gold Coast. Gold trading also attracted other European countries and numerous trading bases were established over the next few years and decades, which soon expanded their business to the lucrative area of human trafficking. This flourished until its ban in 1807. A few years after the ban, the British government took over the private British trading companies and founded the Crown Colony of Gold Coast in 1874. In 1900, after 30 years of war, the rioting Ashanti tribes in the northern hinterland were finally fought down, their ruler Kwaku Dwa III. what captured. The Ashanti areas were connected to the land, 1922 was also colonized West Togo.
Independence
According to AbbreviationFinder, foreign rule lasted until 1957, when Ghana, under President Kwame Nkrumah, became the first country in colonial Africa to free itself. The Republic of Ghana was proclaimed in 1960. President Kwame Nkrumah’s reign lasted until 1966, when he was disempowered by a military coup. A number of civil and military governments came off in the following 15 years without being able to solve the country’s economic and social problems.
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In 1981, Jerry Rawlings took over with the help of the military for the second time after 1979. In 1983 he initiated an economic restructuring program that was partially successful, for example by lowering the inflation rate. After Rawlings initially banned all parties in 1981, a slow process of democratization began in the early 1990s. Nevertheless, opponents of the dissent and opposition were repeatedly oppressed. Ghana received a new constitution in 1993 based on that of the United States; the ban on parties was lifted. In 1992 Rawlings was democratically elected president and remained in office for two terms until 2000. Opposition leader John Kufuor was elected new president in 2000 in free and secret elections. For the first time in the history of the state there was a democratic change.Kufour was confirmed in office in the 2004 elections. In January 2009, John Atta Mills (NDC) took over the presidency; he died in July 2012. John Dramani Mahama (NDC) joined his remaining term. He was able to achieve a majority in the first round of the presidential election in December 2012 and was thus confirmed as president for the next four years (inauguration in January 2013).