Battle of Elmina

Overview

The Battle of Elmina was a military engagement of the Dutch-Portuguese War, fought near the castle of São Jorge da Mina in the Portuguese Gold Coast in 1625. It was fought between 1,200 soldiers of the Dutch West India Company who landed and assaulted the Portuguese garrison of the castle. The garrison was reinforced by 200 African allies put in service of the governor Sottomayor by the local caciques.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Significance

The Battle of Elmina on 25 October 1625 was an engagement in the Dutch–Portuguese War in which forces of the Dutch West India Company, numbering 1,200 and commanded by Jan Dircksz Lam, confronted a Portuguese force under Fernando de Sottomayor. Elmina, on the West African coast, was a strategically significant Portuguese trading post, and Dutch efforts against it reflect the broader Dutch West India Company campaign to displace Portuguese commercial and colonial power in West Africa during this period of the wider conflict. No recorded outcome, casualties, or further operational detail survive in the available record.

Forces & casualties

Commanders (2)