Hendrik Carloff

Anomabu castle. The Dutch began construction on Anomabo’s first lodge in 1639 or 1640 (not pictured). After the arrival of the Dutch Commander, Arent Jacobsz van der Graeff (1557-1642), the lodge was soon completed under his supervision. Ten or twelve years later the Swedes captured it. Danish forces took the lodge in 1657 under Caerloff, and the Dutch recaptured it in 1660. When the second Dutch-Anglo war ended in 1667 (Treaty of Breda), the British gained a foothold in Anomabo and had begun building Fort Charles by 1672 or 1673 (on the present-day location of Fort William). An early Anomabo chief, perhaps Eno or Eno Besi, inhabited the Dutch lodge at this time and declared it his palace.[1]

Henry Carloff or Henrik Caerloff , and several other variants (Finland ?, 1621/22-?, after 1684) began his career as a cabin boy, but rose to a soldier, clerk, auditor, payroll administrator, Commander and Director of the Dutch West India Company. He then joined the pseudo Swedish Africa Company and the pseudo Danish Africa Company on the Gold Coast. After a lawsuit in which he witnessed he threw himself on the slave trade. In the years 1676 and 1677 he was the Governor of Tobago.

Life

There is not much known about the youth of the Hendrik Carloff. He was either born in Rostock, the Swedish/Polish Pillau [2] or Finland as he stated himself, but did not mention a town. In 1637 he was employed by the Dutch West India Company in Dutch Brazil, first as a soldier and then as a writer. Late May 1641 John Maurice of Nassau-Siegen sent an expedition of 21 ships with 2145 soldiers to Luanda. They arrived in August and October in Sao Tomé was conquered, so the Portuguese reign in Africa was temporarily broken. From 1645-1649 he served at Fort Elmina and Fort Nassau (Ghana) in Accra. In 1648 he managed to pry a commitment from the chief of the Efutu on the purchase of land. With a feigned illness Carloff went back to Europe in the hope someone might be interested in his plan.

After twelve years with the WIC he offered his service to Louis de Geer who shortly afterwards founded the pseudo Swedish Africa Company in Hamburg. He was hired for three years as commander and director at a salary of one hundred guilders and an ounce of gold per month to cover the charges. He was embarking on the Elbe and thence sailed to Africa. He arrived at the Gold Coast on April 22. Carloff signed a contract for the purchase of land with the chief of Efutu. There was a conflict with the Company of Merchants Trading to Guinea negotiating with Henniqua, a cousin of King of the Fetu about a British trading post. May 28, 1650 was a memorable event. Both Sweden and the British signed a treaty with the chief. The English obtained for only half a year the right to trade.[3]

In 1650 Carloff occupied Butre, Annemabo in 1651 and Orsou in 1652. On his return in September 1652 Carloff and his ship Christina were seized and taken to Plymouth. His ship was transporting about twenty bags of gold and 6,500 elephant teeth.[4] The gold rings, necklaces and bracelets were taken to the Tower of London. Meanwhile his men started building Fort Carolusborg and the conquest of Tacorary in 1653. In Sweden Carloff was promoted to general and knighted on May 3, 1654 under the name Carloffer. It seems he occupied Jumore (Fort Apollonia) and Cabo in 1655. In 1656 Fort Batenstein was recaptured by the Dutch. Johann Philipp von Krusenstjerna (1626–1659) took over the post of governor. Carloff left annoyed the colony and deserted to Denmark on March 27, 1657.

References

  1. ↑ Courtnay Micots, “African Coastal Elite Architecture: Cultural Authentication during the Colonial Period in Anomabo, Ghana” (Ph.D. diss., University of Florida, 2010), 137, 390-393.)
  2. ↑ Der Aufbau der Kolonialreiche edited by Matthias Meyn, Thomas Beck
  3. ↑ R. Porter: The Crispe Family and the African Trade in the seventeenth Century, p. ?. In: Journal of African History. 9, 1, 1968, ISSN 0021-8537
  4. ↑ http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=55252&strquery=Caarloff