Ussher Fort

Accra, Ghana, Ghana

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Ussher Fort is a historic fort located in Jamestown, Accra, Ghana, originally built by the Dutch in 1649 as Fort Crèvecœur (also spelled Crevecoeur) on a rocky point between two lagoons.

The fort was later transferred to the British in 1868 after an earthquake damaged it, partly reconstructed, and renamed Ussher Fort in honor of Herbert Taylor Ussher, the British administrator who facilitated the territory exchange.

Throughout its history, the fort served multiple functions including a Dutch trading post, a slave dungeon for the transatlantic slave trade, a police post, a prison until 1993, military detention facility, court-martial unit, and even a refugee camp for Liberians and South Sudanese in 2005. Notably, Ghana's first president Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, a key figure in the independence struggle, was imprisoned there during the colonial era.

Today, Ussher Fort houses a museum of slavery (though temporarily closed in 2014) and the offices of the Monuments Division of the Ghana Museums and Monuments Board, and it is part of the UNESCO World Heritage serial property "Forts and Castles, Volta, Greater Accra, Central and Western Regions" inscribed in 1979.