The Archives

The ArchivesPlacesCape Coast Castle

Cape Coast Castle

The Royal African Company's chief Gold Coast fort and administrative seat, described by William Smith and John Atkins, and the site of the Admiralty court that tried the men captured from Bartholomew Roberts's ships in 1722.

Also writtenCarolusborg (the Swedish fort of 1653, named for Charles X)

William Smith arrived in Cape Coast Road on 18 February 1727 and stayed on Royal African Company business until 23 March. He called the castle the English place of greatest consequence on the Guinea coast. John Atkins, who had called there with the naval squadron in 1721 and 1722, likewise described Cape Corso as the Company's chief fort.5

The castle Smith drew

Smith placed the castle on a large rock that projected into the sea as a headland. He reported that the Portuguese had founded it about 1610 and that the Dutch later enlarged it. That origin story is his account, written more than a century after the date he gives; it is evidence for what an English Company surveyor believed, not the last word on the sequence of European occupation.6

Inside, the parade formed a quadrangle twenty feet above the rock and stood open on the eastern side towards the sea. A platform carried thirteen heavy cannon. The arrangement gave an open view towards Queen Anne's Point and the ships in Anamaboe Road.7

The town beside the fort was large and populous in Smith's description. He singled out fishing as its inhabitants' main work in peacetime and described fleets of canoes going out during the dry season. The town was a community in its own right, rather than an appendage that can be reduced to the European walls.8

A Company headquarters

Smith says government had sometimes rested in one Captain-General over the English Gold Coast settlements and sometimes in three men. Atkins lists the establishment he encountered: a Director General, two merchants, a secretary, chaplain, surgeon, factors, writers, artisans and soldiers. The buildings held their offices and quarters, and spaces in which enslaved Africans were confined before sale and forced transportation.9,10

The Admiralty court of 1722

The printed proceedings head the case as an Admiralty court held at Cabo Corso Castle on 28 March 1722 for the trial of pirates taken in the Royal Fortune and Ranger. Captain Mungo Herdman presided. The commission was read, Herdman and the other members were sworn, and the prisoners from the Ranger were called first.11,12

The individual accusations, defences, acquittals and convictions belong to the Archive's Cape Coast trial record. Here their importance is architectural and administrative: the Company's headquarters supplied the secure custody, officers and legal setting in which the naval capture off Cape Lopez became a mass prosecution.

What the evidence does not settle

Smith's survey gives a detailed English view of the castle in 1727, but his account does not settle its earlier Portuguese, Swedish, Danish, Dutch and English chronology. The company archives of those states and a specialist history of the forts must do that. The printed trial establishes that the court sat here, while its damaged OCR and commercial publication need checking against the commission and proceedings in the Admiralty papers. The Royal African Company papers in T 70 would supply the castle's establishment, accounts and a fuller record of the enslaved people confined and trafficked through it.

What the evidence does not settle

Cape Coast trial numbers

  • Numbers tried, hanged and reprieved vary between sourcesConfirmed

Royal African Company chief resident, 1722

  • Exact title of RAC's 1722 chief resident is unclear

Danish and Dutch control dates

  • Danish and Dutch control dates in the 1650s-60s are contested

Each line is one question with its own grade, taken from the register where a claim carries it. Nothing here is graded as a whole.

Sources for this record

Every statement above that rests on a checked claim carries a small number; the numbers lead here. Each entry gives what is claimed, how far the record supports it, and where it comes from.

  1. The first substantial fort on the site was Swedish, a timber work named Carolusborg after Charles X built in 1653 by the Swedish Africa Company under Hendrik Caerloff, a former Dutch West India Company officer, by leave of the ruler of Fetu. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Heritage board documentation: Ghana Museums and Monuments Board, "Cape Coast Castle, Cape Coast (1653)," gmmb.gov.gh, accessed 2026, for the Swedish Africa Company, Hendrik Caerloff, the leave of the ruler of Fetu and the founding of Carolusborg in 1653 (Probable)
  2. On 10 February 1722 Captain Chaloner Ogle, commanding the Royal Navy fourth-rate HMS Swallow, engaged Bartholomew Roberts' squadron at Cape Lopez off the coast of present-day Gabon; Roberts was killed early in the action, and the report that his body was cast overboard by his own men before the ships were taken is Johnson's, carried as Possible on his own record; the Royal Fortune and the Ranger were captured with their crews aboard, and Ogle carried the surviving prisoners to Cape Coast Castle as the nearest seat of British authority with the means to hold and try them. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Museum account and period narrative: Royal Museums Greenwich, "Death of Bartholomew Roberts," rmg.co.uk, accessed 2026, for the action of 10 February 1722, Ogle and HMS Swallow, the death of Roberts, the capture of the Royal Fortune and the Ranger and the carriage of the prisoners to Cape Coast Castle (Confirmed). The detail that Roberts was killed by a charge of grape-shot to the throat rests largely on Charles Johnson's General History of the Pyrates (1724), is Probable, and is attributed to Johnson by name
  3. On the Royal Museums Greenwich account the Cape Coast proceedings produced the largest single batch of pirate death sentences in the records of an Admiralty court, a claim that is no stronger than Probable: fifty-four condemned, of whom fifty-two were hanged in the first weeks of April and two reprieved, the count the 1723 print tabulates and the Archive's trial record carries as Confirmed, the 'fifty-four hanged' of some accounts being the condemned figure. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Secondary accounts: Royal Museums Greenwich, "Death of Bartholomew Roberts," rmg.co.uk, accessed 2026, for the largest single batch of pirate death sentences and the numbers condemned and hanged (Probable). The exact figures are Disputed, though the range of 52 to 54 is well attested, and the claim as a whole stands at that weaker level; the "largest single batch" claim is attributed to Royal Museums Greenwich as Probable. The Archive's separate account of the trial, built on the printed record of 1723, carries the pamphlet's own tables
  4. Cape Coast Castle was inscribed in 1979, with the other forts and castles of the coast, on the UNESCO World Heritage List. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. UNESCO listing: UNESCO World Heritage Centre, "Forts and Castles, Volta, Greater Accra, Central and Western Regions," inscribed 1979, whc.unesco.org/en/list/34, for the World Heritage inscription (Confirmed)
  5. Smith reached Cape Coast Road on 18 February 1727, found several ships there and remained on Company business until 23 March, calling it the English place of greatest consequence on the Guinea coast. Very likely Strong evidence, short of proof. Period primary source or printed calendar: Smith, A New Voyage to Guinea (1744), printed p. 121, library lines 4362-4381
  6. Smith wrote that the castle stood on a large rock projecting into the sea as a headland and reported that the Portuguese had founded it about 1610 before the Dutch enlarged it. Likely More likely than not on the evidence we have. Period primary source or printed calendar: Smith, A New Voyage to Guinea (1744), printed p. 122, library lines 4387-4405
  7. Smith described the Cape Coast parade as a quadrangle twenty feet above the rock, open towards the sea, with a platform of thirteen heavy cannon. Very likely Strong evidence, short of proof. Period primary source or printed calendar: Smith, A New Voyage to Guinea (1744), printed pp. 122-123, library lines 4406-4428
  8. Smith described Cape Coast town as large and populous and wrote that fishing was its inhabitants' chief peacetime employment. Very likely Strong evidence, short of proof. Period primary source or printed calendar: Smith, A New Voyage to Guinea (1744), printed p. 123, library lines 4419-4440
  9. Smith states that Cape Coast Castle had at times been governed by a Captain-General of all English Gold Coast settlements and at other times by three governors. Very likely Strong evidence, short of proof. Period primary source or printed calendar: Smith, A New Voyage to Guinea (1744), printed pp. 125-126, library lines 4504-4524
  10. Atkins called Cape Corso the African Company's chief fort and listed a Director General, merchants, secretary, chaplain, surgeon, factors, writers, artisans and soldiers within it, with accommodation for enslaved people. Very likely Strong evidence, short of proof. Period primary source or printed calendar: Atkins, A Voyage to Guinea (1735), chronology of the African voyage, library lines 6194-6204
  11. The printed proceedings title the court as an Admiralty court held at Cabo Corso Castle on 28 March 1722 to try pirates taken in the Royal Fortune and Ranger. Very likely Strong evidence, short of proof. Period primary source or printed calendar: The Tryals of the Pyrates (1723), court heading, library lines 225-233
  12. The printed court journal records that the commission was read, the president and members were sworn, and the Ranger prisoners were brought before the court. Very likely Strong evidence, short of proof. Period primary source or printed calendar: The Tryals of the Pyrates (1723), opening of the court, library lines 230-239