Ghana (Cherry, Plum, and Chrysanthemum)

Ghana, officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa and a member state of the African Union. It is bordered by Ivory Coast to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, Dahomey to the east and the Gulf of Guinea to the south. The word Ghana means "Warrior King" and is derived from the ancient Ghana Empire.

Early history
There is archaeological evidence showing that humans have lived in present-day Ghana since the Bronze Age. However, until the 11th century, the majority of modern Ghana's area was largely unoccupied. Although the area of present-day Ghana has experienced many population movements, the major ethnic groups in Ghana today were firmly settled by the 16th century.

From the 13th century, numerous groups emerged from what is believed to have been the Bonoman area, to create several Akan States, mainly based on gold trading. These states included Denkyira, Akwamu, and Akyem.

By the 19th century, most of modern Ghanaian territory was included in the Empire of Ashanti, one of the most influential states in sub-Saharan Africa prior to colonial rule. The Ashanti government operated first as a loose network, and eventually as a centralized kingdom with an advanced, highly specialized bureaucracy centred in Kumasi. It is said that at its peak, the Asantehene could field 500,000 troops, and it had some degree of military influence over all of its neighbors. The population of the Ashanti kingdom was about a third-enslaved.

Colonialism
Early European contact by the Portuguese, who came to Ghana in the 15th century, focused on the extensive availability of gold. The Portuguese first landed at a coastal city inhabited by the Fante nation-state, and named the place Elmina. In 1481, King John II of Portugal commissioned Diogo d'Azambuja to build Elmina Castle, which was completed in 3 years.

By 1598, the Dutch had joined them, building forts at Komeda and Kormantsi. In 1617, they captured the Olnini Castle from the Portuguese, and Axim in 1642 (Fort St Anthony). Other European traders had joined in by the mid-17th century, largely English, Danes and Swedes. English merchants, impressed with the gold resources in the area, named it the Gold Coast, while French merchants, impressed with the jewellery worn by the coastal people, named the area to the west "Côte d'Ivoire", or Ivory Coast.

More than thirty forts and castles were built by the Portuguese, Dutch, British and Spanish merchants. The Gold Coast was known for centuries as 'The White Man's Grave', because many of the Europeans who went there died of malaria and other tropical diseases.

British rule
After the Dutch withdrew in 1874, Britain made the Gold Coast a protectorate. Following conquest by the British in 1896 until independence in March 1957, the territory of modern Ghana, excluding the Volta Region (British Togoland), was known as the Gold Coast.

Many wars occurred between the colonial powers and the various nation-states in the area, including the 1806 Ashanti–Fante War, and the continuous struggle by the Ashanti against the British in many wars. The Ashanti defeated the British a few times, but eventually lost with the Ashanti-British War in the early 1900s. Even under colonial rule, the chiefs and people often resisted the policies of the British; however, moves toward decolonization intensified after World War II.

Independence struggle
At the time, many political organisations in the Gold Coast already advocated the political reforms and opposition toward the colonial administration. However, none of them seek drastic or revolutionary change on the matters of self-government. The manner in which politics were then conducted was to change after Kwame Nkrumah created the Gold Coast branch of the ICAAP in 1945.

Kwame Nkrumah was born at Nkroful in the Nzema area in October 10, 1909 and educated in Catholic schools at Half Assin and at Achimota School. He received further training in the United States at Lincoln University and at the University of Pennsylvania. Later in London, Nkrumah became active in the International Conference of All-African Peoples during mid-1940s. Nkrumah was organized and participated in the Fifth Pan-African Congress in Manchester, the United Kingdom in 1945 and became one of the signatories of the Declaration against the Imperialism and the Capitalism in Africa.

Nkrumah elected as the General-Secretary of the Sitting Committee of the ICAAP in 1944 and sent to the Gold Coast to found and organize the Accra Committee of the International Conference of All-African Peoples in December 1, 1945. The Accra Committee of the ICAAP was the first nationalist movement in the Gold Coast with the aim of self-government "in the shortest possible time."