Many inhabitants of the Gold Coast area are striving to consolidate their newly acquired territories and to settle into a secure and permanent environment wWhen the first Europeans arrive in the late fifteenth century.

Several African immigrant groups have yet to establish firm ascendancy over earlier occupants of their territories, and considerable displacement and secondary migrations are in progress.

Ivor Wilks, a leading historian of Ghana, has observed that Akan purchases of slaves from Portuguese traders operating from the Congo region augmented the labor needed for the state formation that is characteristic of this period.

Unlike the Akan groups of the interior, the major coastal groups, such as the Fante, Ewe, and Ga, are for the most part settled in their homelands.

The Portuguese are the first to arrive.

By 1471, under the patronage of Prince Henry the Navigator, they have reached the area that is to become known as the Gold Coast.

Europeans know the area as the source of gold that reaches Muslim North Africa by way of trade routes across the Sahara.

The initial Portuguese interest in trading for gold, ivory, and pepper increases so much that in 1482 the Portuguese build their first permanent trading post on the western coast of present-day Ghana.

This fortress, Elmina Castle, constructed to protect Portuguese trade from European competitors and hostile Africans, still stands.