Migrants from the ancient kingdom of Ghana to the northwest may have settled present-day Ghana, although they shouldn't be confused. First contact with Europeans took place  when the Portuguese reached West Africa in the early 1400s. They soon made trade relations with the people of the Gold Coast. The West African slave trade began in the mid-1400s, when the Portuguese brought   some Africans to meet their own labor shortage. The Portuguese built Elmina Castle on the coast in 1482. The Dutch saw the profits of slave trading, conquered the Portuguese bases in West Africa, and by 1642 they controlled the Gold Coast forts. Between 1500 and 1870, an estimated 10 million slaves left Africa, about 19 percent of them from the Gold Coast.

    The British, who from about 1660 were the chief competitors of the Dutch, greatly increased their involvement in the Gold Coast after 1850. By 1874 they had practically broken the authority of traditional African rulers, and by 1898 the boundaries of the British Gold Coast were made. The British developed the infrastructure of the colony in an effort to lure British private investments to the area.

The emergence of an educated African elite, combined with a changed world opinion, ultimately led to independence. In 1947 the British- and American-educated Kwame NKRUMAH organized a nationalist party. The colony gained full independence in 1957, with Nkrumah as president, but his one-party regime was overthrown by the army in 1966. The military ruled until 1979, when elections were held. Civilian president Hilla Limann was accused of corruption and deposed in December 1981 by Jerry RAWLINGS, the young army officer who had overseen the 1979 return to civilian rule. Ruling as head of the Provisional National Defense Council, Rawlings instituted free-market reforms. Rawlings won presidential elections held in November 1992 under a multiparty constitution approved earlier that year. Legislative elections were held in December, and the country returned to civilian rule on Jan. 7, 1993. In 1994 the government declared a state of emergency in northern Ghana following an outbreak of ethnic violence there.

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