ABSTRACT
In December 1828 the first Basel missionaries arrived at Christiansburg, the Danish headquarters in the Gold Coast; the first Wesleyan missionary reached Cape Coast. Though they attracted little attention at the time, these two events turned out to be as important as some of the more stirring events of European contact with the country. With them Christian missions first struck root in the Gold Coast. When the Wesleyan mission began its operations on the Coast the forts and settlements were under a merchant administration and the small community of merchants were virtually the sole legatees of what British influence there had been in the protected territories. In the period up to 1850 the Basel and Wesleyan missions worked in the Danish and English spheres of influence respectively and their relations were primarily with the specific local authorities and merchant communities in their respective areas.
