The name of the town
Older sources write Mouri or Mori; the town is Moree today. All refer to the same place east of Cape Coast.
Header Photo - at Richter Fort Osu, Accra
Ghana-Net.com · Central Region · Mouri (Moree)
Every Dutch fort in Ghana — Elmina, Coenraadsburg, Ussher, Batenstein, all of them — goes back to this one. In 1612 the Dutch signed a treaty with the ruler of Asebu and built their first fort on the beach at Mouri. Today it is a ruin in a fishing town that most visitors drive straight past on the way from Cape Coast.
The Dutch are the longest-staying Europeans in Ghana's history: from the early 1600s to 1872. They held Elmina for more than two centuries and built or took forts from Axim to Accra. All of that started at Mouri, a fishing town a few kilometres east of Cape Coast, today usually written Moree.
Fort Nassau, built in 1612, was the first fort the Dutch established on what became the Dutch Gold Coast. It was named after the House of Orange-Nassau, the family that led the Dutch Republic.
Why it matters. Portugal had held the Gold Coast trade for more than a century from Elmina. Fort Nassau was the Dutch answer: a base of their own, close enough to Elmina to compete for its trade — and, twenty-five years later, to take it.
The Dutch did not take Mouri. They were invited — on terms.
Mouri lay in the Fante state of Asebu. Its ruler wanted a European trading partner who was not Portuguese: someone to buy gold and sell cloth, metal and guns without Elmina's monopoly. In 1612 Asebu and the Dutch signed a treaty, and the Dutch commander Jacob Clantius, the first Dutch General on the Coast, built the fort.
That is the pattern across the whole coast, and it is worth saying clearly: the European forts were built with the agreement of African rulers, who used them for their own trade and their own politics. It is also the start of the Dutch role in the Atlantic slave trade, which would become the main business of Elmina and the forts around it.
Who traded whom on this coast, and who profited: Who Sold Whom and The Forgotten Giants of the Atlantic Slave Trade.
For twenty-five years Fort Nassau was the centre of Dutch operations on the Gold Coast. From here the Dutch traded, built alliances with Fante states, and prepared to push the Portuguese out.
In 1637 they captured Elmina. The headquarters moved to the far bigger castle, and Fort Coenraadsburg went up on the hill opposite to make sure nobody did to the Dutch what the Dutch had just done to the Portuguese. From that moment Mouri was a secondary post.
Fort Nassau stayed Dutch for more than two hundred years after it stopped mattering.
During the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War, on 20 February 1781, a British naval force under Captain Thomas Shirley captured the fort, which then mounted twenty guns. It returned to the Dutch after the war and slowly decayed.
In 1868 Britain and the Netherlands exchanged forts, and the Dutch posts east of Elmina, Mouri among them, passed to the British. By the end of the century only ruins remained — parts of the guard room and the officers' quarters.
Fort Nassau is part of the UNESCO World Heritage listing of the Forts and Castles of Ghana, inscribed in 1979. The listing has not stopped the ruin from shrinking.
Older sources write Mouri or Mori; the town is Moree today. All refer to the same place east of Cape Coast.
The Dutch used the name elsewhere too, in the Americas and Asia. Search results often mix them up; check that a source is about Mouri.
A few accounts give 1611, the year of the first agreements. The treaty with Asebu and the fort are usually dated to 1612.
East along the coast road towards Anomabo and Accra, then down to Moree. A short trip — well under half an hour by taxi.
Shared taxi from Cape Coast to Moree. Ask in town for the old fort; people know it, even if not as "Nassau".
Fort William at Anomabo and Fort Amsterdam at Abandze further east, Cape Coast Castle to the west.
Cape Coast or the beach lodges towards Anomabo. Options on ghanahotels.biz; flights on ghanaflights.info.
Expect a ruin: no staff, no fee, no panels. Ask before walking through compounds, and do not climb on the walls. More on the area: Cape Coast and Central Region Beaches. Ghana Museums and Monuments Board: +233 302 221633 or +233 302 221635.
No tour we know of stops at Moree. The tours below cover Cape Coast and Elmina; Moree is a short taxi ride from either.
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Taken by the Dutch in 1637 — the move that ended Fort Nassau's time as headquarters.
The seat of British administration and the largest slave-holding dungeons on the coast.
One of the largest British forts on the coast, and the site of the 1806 battle in which the Fante and their British allies lost to the Asante.
Built by the English as Fort Kormantin, taken by the Dutch in 1665. The origin of the name Coromantee.
On St Jago hill opposite Elmina Castle, built to protect the Dutch prize won in 1637.
Where captives were washed for the last time before being marched to the coast. The inland stop most itineraries skip.
All of them, in order: Forts and Castles of Ghana.
There is not much of Fort Nassau left to see, and nothing to tell you what it was. But this is where two and a half centuries of Dutch presence in Ghana began — by treaty with an African ruler, not by conquest. If you care how Elmina became Dutch, the story starts in Moree, half an hour from Cape Coast, in a ruin almost nobody visits.
Verified: 26 September 2026. The 1612 construction under Jacob Clantius following the treaty with Asebu, the fort's role as Dutch headquarters until 1637, the British capture of 20 February 1781, Dutch possession until 1868 and the UNESCO inscription of 1979 follow standard reference accounts of Fort Nassau. The present state of the ruins is described in general terms. Corrections welcome and will be published in full.