Kwa

The Kwa group gathers the Akan of the forests and Gold Coast of what is now Ghana with the Gbe-speaking Ewe, Aja and Fon to the east. The Portuguese reached the coast in 1482 and built Elmina Castle to buy Akan gold, which the Bono state sent south through Begho.

The Aja say they came from Tado and the Ewe from Notsie; about 1600 three Aja brothers divided the land between Allada, Little Ardra and Abomey. In 1701 the Asante king Osei Tutu defeated Denkyira and founded the Asante Empire. The Fon kingdom of Dahomey took Allada in 1724 and Whydah in 1727.