Dutch or English?
Pages often mix up the two Komenda forts, or describe one with the other's dates. Vredenburgh is the Dutch fort; the English fort is a separate building nearby. Check which one a source actually means.
Header Photo - at Richter Fort Osu, Accra
Ghana-Net.com · Central Region · Komenda
Two European forts on one stretch of beach, close enough to shout across. The Dutch built Vredenburgh, the English built theirs next door, and in the 1690s the rivalry turned into a war — one that was decided not by the Europeans, but by the African rulers and merchants they depended on.
Komenda is a fishing town between Elmina and Shama, and it has something no other town on this coast has in quite the same way: the remains of two rival European forts, a Dutch one and an English one, a short walk apart.
The Dutch fort is Vredenburgh — "fort of peace", which turned out to be the wrong name. It was built by the Dutch West India Company in the 1680s, and the English answered with a fort of their own almost within gunshot. For the rest of the century Komenda was the most contested few hundred metres of the Gold Coast.
Both forts are covered together on our dedicated site, The Two Forts of Komenda. This page focuses on the Dutch fort and the war it was built into.
The Komenda Wars of the 1690s are usually told as a Dutch–English conflict. That is the least interesting way to tell them.
Komenda lay in the state of Eguafo, and the country behind it controlled trade routes to the gold-producing interior. Whoever held the goodwill of Eguafo and its merchants held the trade. The Dutch and the English each tried to buy that goodwill, arm their allies, and turn local rivalries against the other side.
From around 1694 the rivalry became open war. It was fought largely by African armies — Eguafo, its neighbours, and forces paid or armed by each European company — with shifting alliances, assassinations and changes of ruler along the way. It dragged on until around 1700.
The real lesson of Komenda. The European forts on this coast were not colonies. The companies depended on local rulers for land, trade, labour and safety, and they could not win a war here without African allies. At Komenda, the African side largely decided who won — which is exactly why the tourist version of these forts rarely tells the story.
The best-known figure of the Komenda Wars was not European. John Cabess was a Komenda merchant and power broker who worked with the English — and who became, for years, the man the English at Komenda could not do without.
He was a trader in his own right, with his own followers, his own interests, and a clear view of what the English needed from him. The English company's position at Komenda rested to a large extent on him, and at times he acted less like an ally than a partner who set terms.
Like John Conny at Princes Town, he is a reminder that the most powerful men on this coast in the late 1600s were often Africans who knew exactly how much the Europeans needed them.
Cabess and Conny were merchants in the Atlantic trade, and that included the trade in people. Both stories are about African power — not about innocence. For the wider picture, see Who Sold Whom.
Peace at Komenda did not mean prosperity. Both forts carried on, and both declined.
Through the eighteenth century Vredenburgh remained a Dutch trading post, taking part in the gold trade and the Atlantic slave trade like every fort on this shore. It was damaged, repaired, and eventually left to decay as the Dutch position on the coast weakened.
In 1868 Britain and the Netherlands exchanged forts to straighten out their borders, and the Dutch posts east of Elmina, Komenda among them, passed to the British. In 1872 the Dutch left the Gold Coast altogether. By then Vredenburgh was already a ruin.
For the British side of the story, see British Forts & Castles in Ghana; for the scale of the trade, The Forgotten Giants of the Atlantic Slave Trade.
Komenda is confusing even in good sources, mostly because there are two forts and several spellings.
Pages often mix up the two Komenda forts, or describe one with the other's dates. Vredenburgh is the Dutch fort; the English fort is a separate building nearby. Check which one a source actually means.
Construction dates differ between accounts, all within the 1680s. This page gives the decade rather than pretend to a single year the sources do not agree on.
Vredenburg and Vredenburgh are both in use, and the town appears as Komenda, Commenda and Kommenda. They all refer to the same place.
West along the coastal road past Elmina, then off the main road to Komenda. Roughly 30 kilometres — under an hour, traffic allowing.
Trotro or shared taxi from Cape Coast or Elmina towards Komenda. Ask in town for the forts — everyone knows them, even if not by their European names.
Elmina Castle and Fort Coenraadsburg on the way, and Fort San Sebastian at Shama further west.
Cape Coast or Elmina, both close. Options on ghanahotels.biz; flights into the country on ghanaflights.info.
The regional capital is Cape Coast. Komenda is an easy half-day from there, and fits between Elmina and the Western Region.
Check before travelling. Ghana Museums and Monuments Board, 2 Barnes Road, Adabraka, Accra: +233 302 221633 or +233 302 221635.
No tour we know of stops at Komenda, but it is a short hop from Elmina. The castle tours below cover Cape Coast and Elmina; add Komenda on your own afterwards.
Bookings through this widget earn us a commission at no extra cost to you. No operator has paid to appear on this page.
The central coast has the densest cluster of forts in Ghana. Komenda sits right in the middle.
Our dedicated site on both forts — the Dutch Vredenburgh and the English fort next door.
The oldest European building in sub-Saharan Africa, and the Dutch headquarters on this coast from 1637.
On St Jago hill directly opposite Elmina Castle. The best view of the castle is from up here.
Ghana's third-oldest European fort, above the mouth of the Pra. Almost nobody visits.
The seat of British administration and the largest slave-holding dungeons on the coast.
Forest and canopy walkway inland from Cape Coast — the break most people need after the castles.
All of them, in order: Forts and Castles of Ghana — the complete directory, fort by fort.
There is less to see at Komenda than at Elmina, and more to understand. Two ruined forts on one beach explain the Gold Coast better than any restored castle: Europeans competing for trade they could not control, and African rulers and merchants deciding who got it.
Do it on the way from Elmina to the west, with an hour to walk between the two forts. Nobody else will be there.
Verified: 26 September 2026. The construction of Vredenburgh in the 1680s, the Komenda Wars of roughly 1694 to 1700, the 1868 Anglo-Dutch exchange and the Dutch departure of 1872 follow standard reference accounts of the Gold Coast forts. The role of John Cabess is given in general terms as it appears in the historical literature. Corrections welcome and will be published in full.