Question: John Cabess, (c. 1640s-1722) was a prominent African trader in the port city of Komenda, part of the Eguafo Kingdom, in which modern-day country, he played an active role in which series of wars from 1694 until 1700 largely between the Dutch West India Company and the British Royal African Company in the Eguafo Kingdom, over trade rights?

Context articles: African Company of Merchants
Dutch–Portuguese War
Dutch Virgin Islands
Komenda Wars
West-Indisch Huis (Amsterdam)
John Cabess
Dutch Loango-Angola
Capture of Bahia
Dutch West India Company
Treaty of Axim

The African Company of Merchants or Company of Merchants Trading to Africa was a British Chartered Company operating from 1752 to 1821 in the Gold Coast area of modern Ghana.
 This coastal area was dominated by the indigenous Fante people.
 It was established by the African Company Act 1750, and in 1752 replaced the Royal African Company.
 The latter had been established in 1660.
The Dutch–Portuguese War was an armed conflict involving Dutch forces, in the form of the Dutch East India Company and the Dutch West India Company, against the Portuguese Empire.
 Beginning in 1602, the conflict primarily involved the Dutch companies invading Portuguese colonies in the Americas, Africa, India and the Far East.
 The war can be thought of as an extension of the Eighty Years' War being fought in Europe at the time between Spain and the Netherlands, as Portugal was in a dynastic union with the Spanish Crown after the War of the Portuguese Succession, for most of the conflict.
 However, the conflict had little to do with the war in Europe and served mainly as a way for the Dutch to gain an overseas empire and control trade at the cost of the Portuguese.
 English forces also assisted the Dutch at certain points in the war (though in later decades, English and Dutch would become fierce rivals).
The Dutch Virgin Islands is the collective name for the enclaves that the Dutch West India Company had in the Virgin Islands.
 The area was ruled by a director, whose seat was not permanent.
 The main reason for starting a colony here was that it lay strategically between the Dutch colonies in the south (Netherlands Antilles, Suriname) and New Netherland.
 The Dutch West India Company was mainly affected by the competition from Denmark, England and Spain.
 In 1680 the remaining islands became a British colony.
The Komenda Wars were a series of wars from 1694 until 1700 largely between the Dutch West India Company and the British Royal African Company in the Eguafo Kingdom in the present day state of Ghana, over trade rights.
 The Dutch were trying to keep the British out of the region to maintain a trade monopoly while the British were attempting to re-establish a fort in the city of Komenda.
 The fighting included forces of the Dutch West India Company, the Royal African Company, the Eguafo Kingdom, a prince of the kingdom attempting to rise to the throne, the forces of a powerful merchant named John Cabess, other Akan tribes and kingdoms like Twifo and Denkyira.
 There were four separate periods of warfare, including a civil war in the Eguafo Kingdom, and the wars ended with the British placing Takyi Kuma into power in Eguafo.
 Because of the rapidly shifting alliances between European and African powers, historian John Thornton has found that "there is no finer example of [the] complicated combination of European rivalry merging with African rivalry then the Komenda Wars."
The West-Indisch Huis ("West India House") is the former headquarters of the Dutch West India Company in Amsterdam.
 In this building, the Dutch West India Company's governors in 1625 ordered the construction of a fort on the island of Manhattan, laying the foundations for New York City.
John Cabess (also written as John Kabes or John Cabes) (c. 1640s-1722) was a prominent African trader in the port city of Komenda, part of the Eguafo Kingdom, in modern-day Ghana.
 He was a major British ally and was a supplier to the British Royal African Company.
 As a trader, he became a strong economic and political force in the coastal region in the early 1700s, playing an active role in the Komenda Wars, the rise of the Ashanti Empire, the expansion of British involvement in West Africa, and the beginnings of large-scale Atlantic slave trade.
 Because of his combined economic and political power, historian Kwame Daaku named Cabess one of the "merchant princes" of the Gold Coast in the 1700s.
 He died in 1722, but his heirs continued to exert economic power in the port for the remainder of the 18th century.
Loango-Angola is the name for the possessions of the Dutch West India Company in contemporary Angola and the Republic of the Congo.
 Notably, the name refers to the colony that was occupied from the Portuguese between 1641 and 1648.
 After Angola was recaptured by the Portuguese in 1648, Dutch trade with Loango-Angola did not stop, however.
 From about 1670 onward, the Dutch West India Company acquired slaves from the Loango region on a regular basis, and Dutch free traders continued this practice until after 1730.
The capture of Bahia was a military engagement between Portugal (at that time, united with Spain in the Iberian Union) and the Dutch West India Company, occurred in 1624, that ended in the capture of the Brazilian city of Salvador da Bahia by the latter.
 This capture was part of the "Groot Desseyn" plan of the Dutch West India Company.
 Although the Dutch intentions were reported to the Spanish no preventive counter-action was taken by them.
Dutch West India Company (Dutch: "Geoctroyeerde Westindische Compagnie" , ] or Dutch: GWIC ; English: Chartered West India Company ) was a chartered company (known as the "WIC") of Dutch merchants as well as foreign investors.
 Among its founders was Willem Usselincx (1567–1647).
 On June 3, 1621, it was granted a for a trade monopoly in the West Indies (meaning the Caribbean) by the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands and given jurisdiction over Dutch participation in the Atlantic slave trade, Brazil, the Caribbean, and North America.
 The area where the company could operate consisted of West Africa (between the Tropic of Cancer and the Cape of Good Hope) and the Americas, which included the Pacific Ocean and the eastern part of New Guinea.
 The intended purpose of the charter was to eliminate competition, particularly Spanish or Portuguese, between the various trading posts established by the merchants.
 The company became instrumental in the largely ephemeral Dutch colonization of the Americas in the seventeenth century.
 From 1624-1654, the WIC held Portuguese territory in northeast Brazil, but they were ousted from Dutch Brazil following fierce resistance.
The Treaty of Axim was concluded between the Netherlands and the chiefs of Axim in the western region of the Gold Coast (West Africa) and signed at Fort St. Anthony near Axim on 17 February 1642.
 The treaty regulated the jurisdiction of the Netherlands and the Dutch West India Company in the town and polity of Axim after the Dutch West India Company had successfully attacked the Portuguese who were the occupants of Fort St. Anthony in the town.
 Over time, the agreement was in part superseded and replaced by new contracts and agreements.
 The treaty did remain the basis for Dutch jurisdiction and political relations between Axim and the Dutch until the latter left the Gold Coast in 1872.