Fort James

Fort James (also known as James Fort) is located in Accra, Ghana. It was erected by the Royal African Company of England (RAC) in 1673 as a gold and slave trading post along the shores of the then-Gold Coast, where it joined the Dutch Fort Crêvecoeur (1649) and the Danish Fort Christiansborg (1652).

Fort James was most likely named for James, Duke of York, afterward King James II, who was Governor of the RAC at the time it was erected, and after whom the nearby Accra town of Jamestown is also called.

The fort is located near the Jamestown Lighthouse and used as a prison from the colonial period until 2008. Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s first president, was imprisoned in Fort James with regular criminals from 1950 to 1951.