Archaeological finds demonstrate a human presence in the area extending back at least 50,000 years. A gradual shift from hunting and gathering to agriculture began about 5000 years ago with the cultivation of yams in the forest zone surrounding the Togo Mountains and millet in the savanna to the north and south. On the country's northern plateaus, livestock herding has supplemented agriculture since prehistoric times, as has fishing along the Atlantic coast.

The area of present-day Togo never developed the strong state structures characteristic of Asante to the west or Dahomey to the east. Although some of its peoples repeatedly fell under the domination of neighboring kingdoms, the southern Ewe region as well as the territories of the Gurma, Kabre, and other groups in the north remained divided among numerous small chiefdoms. While the neighboring kingdoms participated in the export of gold and slaves, the Togolese peoples retained a subsistence economy.

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The Portuguese first visited the Togo coast during the late 15th century. Other Europeans, including the Dutch, English, French, and Danish, arrived by the 17th century, when the demand for slaves in the Americas began to dominate commercial relations. Local rulers exchanged slaves for firearms, which they used to maintain power and conduct more raids. Soon, the southern and central parts of Togo fell prey to slave raiders from the neighboring Asante and Dahomey states, and northern regions fell under the domination of the kingdoms of Mamprusi and Dagomba, centered in what is today northern Ghana. Much of the trade in Ewe slaves operated through ports just outside present-day Togo, such as Whydah to the east and Keta to the west, but some of the trade flowed through Petit Popo, now known as Aneho —the only significant port on the Togolese coast until the colonial period. By the 18th century, Denmark dominated the trade along the Togolese coast. The Danes prohibited the slave trade in 1802 and withdrew from the area in 1850.

Meanwhile, the region attracted missionaries. From the 18th century onward, Danes sponsored Protestant missionaries in the region, many of them German-speaking. During the 1850s the North German Mission Society, based in Bremen, became the dominant Christian organization in Togolese territory, and during the 1860s a number of German merchants, also based in Bremen, set up operations on the Togolese coast.

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