How does a country that has never been a colonial power come to have a national emblem made from cocoa? The case of the Basler Handelsgesellschaft illustrates the global interconnectedness of the Swiss economy. It was the Basler Handelsgesellschaft, founded in 1859 as a joint-stock company by the Basler Mission, that shipped the first sack of Ghanaian cocoa to Europe in 1893. By 1911, the British colony of Gold Coast had become the largest cocoa producer in the world, and many African plantation owners, businessmen, and chiefs achieved prosperity. However, the Swiss company, conceived as a development project, was part of a cartel of European trading companies for half a century, which not only suppressed cocoa prices for Ghanaian farmers but also hindered emerging African traders from exporting cocoa to Europe independently.