Andreas Riis

Andreas Riis (12 January 1804 – 13 January 1854) was a Danish minister and pioneer missionary who is widely regarded by historians as the founder of the Gold Coast branch of the Basel Evangelical Missionary Society. A resident of the Gold Coast from 1832 to 1845, Riis played a critical role in the recruitment of 24 West Indian missionaries from Jamaica and Antigua in 1843 to aid the work of the mission in formal education, agriculture and the propagation of the Gospel in colonial Ghana. As the first Basel missionary in Akropong in 1835, he laid the groundwork for the first mission house, eventually resulting in the founding of the first Christian church there which later became the Christ Presbyterian Church, Akropong.