The Ewe people had cordial relations with colonial-era European traders. However, in 1784, they warred with Danish colonial interests as Denmark attempted to establish coastal forts in Ewe regions for its officials and merchants. The Ewes were both victims of slave raiding and trade, as well slave sellers to European slave merchants and ships. Politically structured as chiefdoms, the Ewe people were frequently at war with each other, raided other clans within the Ewe people as well as in Ashantiland, and they sold the captives as slaves.