Apam

Fort Patience — Fort Lijdzaamheid in Dutch, or Fort Leydsaemheyt in seventeenth-century spelling — began in 1697 as a stone trading lodge, built by the Dutch at the request of the King of Acron, whose small state sat between the British-aligned Fante and Agona kingdoms. The Dutch West India Company was wary of a fort in an area of minimal trade and agreed only on condition that it be built cheaply. The Acron were not pleased. They wanted something impressive enough to deter their neighbours, and they repeatedly held up the work, threatening to expel the Dutch if the fortifications were not extended. It took five years to finish, which is how the fort got its name.

Between 1701 and 1721 the Dutch reinforced the lodge into a proper fortification, adding demi-bastions on the northwest and southeast. It sits on a craggy promontory just south of the township, with a commanding view of Apam's harbour to the north and the Gulf of Guinea coast to the south, east and west. In 1782, during war between Britain and the Netherlands, Captain Thomas Shirley's squadron captured it along with the Dutch forts at Moree, Kormantin, Senya Beraku and Accra. Later it served as a police station and a post office, and today it is used as a rest house. It is part of the group of Ghanaian forts and castles inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1979 for their testimony to European pre-colonial and colonial influence in West Africa — a group that also carries the memory of the slave trade, in which these coastal posts later played a significant part. Fort Patience is smaller and less restored than Elmina or Cape Coast, and it asks for patience in return: come for the architecture, the view and the quiet, not for a polished museum.

Apam was a major port before independence, but once Tema was built, shipping here was forbidden, and the town turned decisively to the sea. Fishing is the main industry, and the harbour and fish market below the fort are the working heart of Gomoa West. Boats land baskets of snapper, crabs and rays, and traders like Evelyn Akorful sell what comes ashore to pay school fees and household bills. The catch is not what it was: older residents remember guitarfish — esene, a flattened relative of sharks and rays — being everywhere, catchable in minutes with hook and line, while today large ones have almost vanished. Conservationists now work with Apam's fishermen on a locally managed marine area, mapping the habitat of the critically endangered guitarfish with GPS trackers and developing snail farming as an alternative livelihood. It is a reminder that this is not a heritage town with a fishing backdrop; it is a fishing town that happens to have a fort.

Apam also has a salt-winning industry, with the Benyah Lagoon worked for salt, and it is a major town in the Gomoa Akyempem Paramountcy. The current chief is Nana Ekow Payne.

The most striking structure in Apam is not the fort. The Apam Posuban, built by the town's No. 1 Asafo company, is a fortified concrete shrine of the kind found only along Ghana's central coast — the name comes from a corrupted form of the English word 'post' and the Fante 'ban', meaning fortification. Asafo are traditional warrior groups in Akan culture, organised by lineal descent, whose historic role was the defence of the state; among the coastal Fante they developed an especially elaborate social and artistic tradition, including figurative flag banners and these shrines.

Posubans serve as military and religious posts and as meeting grounds. They are where companies gather for guidance and ceremony, where chiefs and elders offer prayers and libations, and where the community marks festivals, weddings and funerals. Their concrete facades are painted in bright colours and decorated with sculptures and scenes that carry proverbs, historical events and moral lessons. Apam traditionally has two Asafo companies, Tuafo and Denstifo, each headed by a superior captain, the Supi, with a captain, the Safohen, beneath him. The Apam shrine is among the largest in the country, and it is a living place of ritual rather than an exhibit — approach it as a guest, and ask before photographing.