Fort Apollonia
*Fort Apollonia was established on this date in 1655. It was used during the Middle Passage; its name, Apollonia, was given by a Portuguese explorer who sighted the place on the Feast of Saint Apollonia on this month and day in History.
The Swedes established a trading post at Apollonia as part of the Swedish Gold Coast between 1655 and 1657. In 1691, a British trading post was erected at this site, which, between 1768 and 1770, was extended into a fort. After the abolition of the slave trade, the Fort was abandoned in 1819, but it was again occupied from 1836 onward. The Fort is in Beyin; Ghana was transferred to the Dutch as part of a large trade of forts between Britain and the Netherlands in 1868. It was renamed Fort Willem III after King William III of the Netherlands.
Four years later, however, in April 1872, the Fort was again transferred to the United Kingdom, along with the entire Dutch Gold Coast, as per the Gold Coast Treaty of 1871. After the British bombed the Fort in 1873 on the attack of Beyin on account of its coalition with the Ashanti. It was rehabilitated in 1962 and completed in 1968 by the Ghana Museums and Monuments Board. Fort Apollonia was reopened in 2010.
