[African Gold Coast]: [British Colonialism]:

$2,500 · Offered by William Reese Company · No longer available

[THREE ORIGINAL PENCIL SKETCHES OF 19th-CENTURY BRITISH COLONIAL BUILDINGS IN PRAMPRAM, GOLD COAST]. An attractive set of skillfully executed original pencil sketches featuring British colonial structures in Prampram, Gold Coast (present-day Ghana), likely between 1819 and 1836. The sketches are titled in pencil, as follows: "Commandant's Residence, Pam Pram, Gold Coast," "Lower Town, Pam Pram from the Upper Town," and "Abandoned Fort at Appolonia from the Beach."The Union Jack flies proudly in the foreground of the sketch of the Commandant's residence. Officially, Great Britain colonized the Gold Coast region from 1867 until the independence of Ghana in 1957, though the British had maintained and controlled forts along the West African coastline since long before 1867. Fort Appolonia, in the extreme southwestern corner of the country, had been a British trading and military outpost from 1691 until 1819, and then again from 1836 onwards, when it changed hands from the British, to the Dutch, then back to the British again. As such, if the artist here labeled Fort Appolonia as "Abandoned," he or she most likely sketched the fort during the period it was shuttered between 1819 and 1836.A fascinating trio of original sketches offering unique views from a rarely visualized period in British colonial affairs in West Africa.

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