In 1717, the flagship of the infamous pirate Samuel Bellamy sank off the US East Coast. On board: gold jewelry and nuggets from the West African Gold Coast. Using modern analytical methods, researchers have now dispelled a colonial prejudice about this Akan gold: the Akan are said to have mixed their gold with silver, copper and other admixtures and thus deceived the Europeans. But the analyzes show something different.
Gold deposits in West Africa aroused desire among European colonial rulers and traders for centuries. Above all, the deposits in the so-called Ashanti Belt in what is now Ghana gave this area the nickname Gold Coast. As early as the 15th century, the Portuguese established their first settlements in this approximately 550 kilometer long coastal strip, followed in the following centuries by trading posts and forts from other European countries, which acquired slaves, gold and other goods there.
Was the Akan gold stretched?
Gold was particularly popular among the Akan, a large ethnic group in West Africa. Gold extraction and processing was central to their culture; they made jewelry from the metal and produced kakras, a type of gold nuggets that were common as a means of exchange and payment along the Gold Coast. However, European traders valued less the craftsmanship of the Akan jewelry and saw them primarily as having gold value. They shipped the Akan gold and melted it down in Europe.
However, there was also mistrust about the quality of Akan gold: “A recurring theme in early European sources is the view that Akan traders often issued stretched, less valuable material than high-quality gold,” write Tobias Skowronek of the University of Bonn and his colleagues. According to the accusation, the gold is often mixed with silver and copper, and even sand is sometimes mixed in with fraudulent intent. However, these reports were rarely neutral as they were written from the perspective of European traders.
Pirate wreck as a contemporary witness
Skowronek and his team have now used state-of-the-art technology and a spectacular site to check whether these allegations were justified – a sunken pirate ship. In 1717, the flagship “Whydah” of the infamous pirate Samuel “Black Sam” Bellamy sank off the coast of Massachusetts in a storm. This ship had sailed a few months earlier from the Gold Coast of Africa to Jamaica, where the pirate had captured it. Since the pirates brought their previous loot onto the Whydah, the wreck contained an enormous hoard of gold coins, nuggets and jewelry, including 300 pieces of Akan gold. The researchers have now examined some of them to determine their composition using various analytical methods.
The result: Akan gold shows no signs of systematic stretching. On the contrary: Some samples consist of almost 100 percent pure gold. However, the content of impurities varies considerably between individual pieces; some pieces contained up to 25 percent silver, as the analyzes showed. However, this is not due to intentional admixture by the Akan, as Skowronek and his colleagues determined. “Instead, the composition of the traded gold is consistent with the silver-rich geological deposits of the Ashanti Gold Belt,” the team said. These gold deposits had a naturally highly variable silver content.
The accusation was unfounded
Accordingly, the accusation that the Akan gold was intentionally stretched by adding silver or copper is most likely unfounded. However, because the European traders did not know the geological background, they suspected fraud. This tale of “false gold” has been repeated unchecked and continually embellished for centuries. Only modern analytical methods have helped to unmask centuries-old colonial prejudices and to re-evaluate the history of West African trade.
Source: Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn; Specialist article: npj heritage science, doi: 10.1038/s40494-026-02441-7