University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh mSTORlCAL-ARCHAEOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS AT THE FREDERIKSGAV E PLANTATION, GHANA: A CASE STUDY OF SLAVERY AND PLANTATION LIFE ON A NINETEENTH CENTURY DANISH PLANTATION ON THE GOLD COAST YAW BREDWA -MENSAH This thesis is submitted to the University of Ghana, LegoD in partial fulfillment of the requirement for tbe award of Doctor of Philosophy degree in African Archaeology. ~ January 2002 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh HISTORICAL-ARCHAEOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS AT THE FREDERIKSGAV E PLANTATION, GHANA: A CASE STUDY OF SLAVERY AND PLANTATION LIFE ON A NINETEENTH CENTURY DANISH PLANTATION ON THE GOLD COAST YAW BREDWA-MENSAH This thesis is submitted to the Universi in partial fulfillment of the req?irement for~h~fa :,~~~a~;:::or of Philosophy degree ID African Archaeology. © January 2002 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh DECLARATION I hereby declare that except for references to other works, which have been duly acknowledged, this thesis is the result of my own original research undertaken under supervision and that this study has not been presented either in whole or in part, for another degree elsewhere. The thesis is therefore approved. ~ ____ c-4 ................ ...........$ ..................... .. Yaw Bredwa - Mensah, Candidate .................. ~. .............................. . J. R. Anquandah, Professor Thesis S~ervisor . l: .............. .... :-'iJ. ...e .~~ .... .. ";: .................... .. L. B. Crossland, Senior Lecturer ........ HHHK~ s~.ti~;L~;~;~;·HH. Thesis Advisor Department of Archaeology, University of Ghana, Legon, Accra. 2002 ii University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh DEDICATION This work is dedicated to the memory of the enslaved Men, Women and Children whose history is the subject matter of this study and to the millions who were uprooted and transplanted in the enslaved world of the African Diaspora. iii University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Chapter Declaration ............................................................................................... .ii Dedication ............................................................................................... .iii Table of Contents ..................................................................................... .iv List of Maps ............................................................................................. .ix List of Figures ............................ ··················· .... ·· ....................................... x List of Plates ............................................................................................. xi List of Tables ........................................................................................... xiii Acknowledgements ................................................................................. xiv Abstract of the Dissertation ..................................................................... xix I. Introduction ........................................................................................................... 1 Research Objectives .................................................................................. 3 Historical Archaeology in Africa: a review .............................................. 5 The Geographical and Cultural Setting .................................................. .14 Review of Literature on the Danish Trade and Agriculture Venture on the Gold Coast ....................................................................... 16 Theoretical Perspective ............................................................................ 25 Organization of Research Results ............................................................ 29 II. The Danish Plantations on the Gold Coast .......................................................... 32 Acquisition of Land for the Plantations ................................................... 33 Historical Development of the Danish Plantations .................................. 35 iv University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh The Early Plantations: 1788-1811 ........................................................... 38 Frederiksnopel .......................................................................................... 38 Frederikssted ............................................................................................ 40 Frederiksberg ........................................................................................... 42 Ejebo ........................................................................................................ 42 Bibease ..................................................................................................... 45 Dakobi ...................................................................................................... 47 The Late Plantations: 1820-1850 ............................................................. 54 De Forenede Brf21dre ................................................................................. 57 Den Nye Preve ........................................................................................ .59 Myretuen .................................................................................................. 61 Abokobi .................................................................................................... 64 Forsynet. ................................................................................................... 64 Adanse and Boi ........................................................................................ 65 Ill. From Fort Slaves to Plantation Slaves ................................................................. 70 Danish Settlements on the Gold Coast ..................................................... 71 The Danish African Trade in the 18th and 19th Centuries ........................ 80 The External Slave Trade ......................................................................... 84 The Internal Slave Trade .......................................................................... 94 The Transfonnation of Fort Slaves to Plantation Slaves ......................... 111 IV. The Frederiksgave Plantation .............................................................................. 113 Location and Historical Background of the Frederiksgave Plantation ................................................................................................. 113 v University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Demographic Patterns on the Frederiksgave Plantation .......................... 118 Archaeological Investigations at the Frederiksgave Plantation .....•......... 123 Surface Survey ......................................................................................... 124 Excavations at the Slave Village .............................................................. 131 Stratigraphy .............................................................................................. 132 Depositional History and Chronology of Occupation ............................. 137 V. European Trade Goods at Frederiksgave ............................... ·· .................. · ...... ··.141 Ceramics ................................................. ,. ............................................... 142 Smoking Pipes ......................................................................................... 153 Cowry Shells ............................................................................................ 160 FirearmsIW eaponry .................................................................................. 162 Glass ......................................................................................................... 169 Building Construction Hardware ............................................................. 177 Brass Objects ........................................................................................... 17 9 Farm Tools ............................................................................................... 181 Knives ...................................................................................................... 181 Slate and Slate Pencils ............................................................................. 183 Beads ........................................................................................................ 186 European Trade Beads ............................................................................. 186 Stone Beads .............................................................................................. 186 Glass Beads .............................................................................................. 187 Drawn Glass Beads .................................................................................. 188 vi University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Moulded Glass Beads .............................................................................. 192 Wound Glass Beads ..................................... ·········••··• .............................. 193 Clothing .................................................................................................... 196 VI. African Material Culture at Frederiksgave ........................................................ 199 Locally-produced Pottery ......................................................................... 199 KukwEi Group of Vessels ........................................................................ 208 KukwEilDidiS£Il ........................................................................................ 209 Wonu KukwEilKwansEn ........................................................................... 209 Tsofa Kuk\VEilAduro lcukuo ...................................... ········ .. ··· .. ·· .. ·· .. ··· ..... 211 KaI Ap::lClyowa Group of Vessels ............................................................. 211 Ka ............................................................................................................. 211 Ap::lClyowa ................................................................................................ 215 GbE Group of Vessels .............................................................................. 215 Did::l .......................................................................................................... 216 Tsumli GbE .............................................................................................. 219 Fanyaa GbE ............................................................................................... 219 SaasEn ....................................................................................................... 219 Lilolilo .................................................................................................... 223 Micaceous Ware ....................................................................................... 223 Observations about the Frederiksgave Plantation Pottery ....................... 224 Faunal Remains ........................................................................................ 226 Lithics ...................................................................................................... 230 vii University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Brass Objects ........................................................................................... 233 Beads ........................................................................................................ 235 Stone Beads .............................................................................................. 235 Shell Beads ............................................................................................... 237 Powder Glass Beads ................................................................................. 240 Pottery Discs ............................................................................................ 240 VI. Discussion: Global Encounters and Slave Lifeways on the Frederiksgave Plantation ............................................................................................................. 244 The Intersection of Daily Life on the Frederiksgave Plantation with Global Processes ............................................................. 250 Slave control and Resistance ................................................................... 268 VIII. Summary and Conclusions ............................................................................... 275 Bibliography ............................................................................................ 280 Appendix 1 ............................................................................................... 299 viii University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh LIST OF MAPS Map 1.1 Danish Plantation sites in the Akuapem Mountains ................................ 2 1.2 The Estuary of the Volta River showing the locations of Danish Plantations [Reproduced Courtesy of the Public Records Office, London] ........................................................................................ 4 1.3 Geo-political Map of Nineteenth Century Southern Ghana ................... .17 2.1 Part of an 1873 Map showing the Accra Coast and the location of Brockmang, Niels Brock's Plantation settlement in the Akuapem Mountains [Reproduced Courtesy of the National Archives, Accra] ...... 63 4.1 Location and approximate size of the Frederiksgave Plantation ............ .114 4.2 Part of Gronberg's 1837 Map showing the Frederiksgave Plantation, the Slave Village Djabing and Other Plantations .................................... 130 -t.3 Excavation Trenches at Locus A, Djabing, Frederiksgave Plantation ................................................................................................. 134 6.1 Danish Plantations in the Akuapem Mountains and the pottery making center on the Accra coast ............................................................ 20 1 ix University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2.1 Plan of the Bibease Plantation Site ................... · .... ···················· .. ··· .. · ......... .48 2.2 Plan of Dakobi (Dacubbie) Plantation House .............................................. 52 2.3 Plan of the De Forenede Bradre (United Brothers) ..................................... 60 th 3.1 Demographic pattern of the Danish Fort Community in the 18 and early 19th Centuries ................................................................................ 98 4.1 Plan of the Frederiksgave Plantation House and other structures ................ 126 4.2 Stratigraphy of Trench M-42 Locus A ........................................................ 135 4.3 Stratigraphy of Trench J-93 Locus B ........................................................... 136 5.1 Impressed makers' marks at the bases of European Ceramics .................... 146 5.2 Nineteenth and early twentieth century English and Scottish Kaolin Smoking Pipes .................................................................................. 157 5.3 Manufacturers' emblems on case bottles [Schnapps] .................................. 172 6.1 KukwtiIDidisEn-Bowls ................................................................................ 21 0 6.2 Wonu KukwEilKwansEn-Bowls .................................................................... 212 6.3 Tsofa KukwEi/Aduro kukuo-Bowls ............................................................. 213 6.4 Kat ApDyowa Group of Vessels-Bowls ...................................................... 214 6.5 GbE Group of Vessels-Jars ........ '" ................................................................ 217 6.6 Gb£ Group of Vessels-Jars ........................................................................... 218 6.7 Micaceous Wares-Bowls ............................................................................. 220 6.8 Decorative motifs on the Plantation Pottery ................................................ 221 x University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh LIST OF PLATES Plate 1.1 Extant Section of Tamarind Avenue at Pompo in the Akuapem Hills ........ 23 4.1 Ruins of the Frederiksgave Plantation Building ......................................... .l25 4.2 Blue sponged-printed European ware .......................................................... 138 5.1 Manufacturers' marks oflate 19th th and early 20 Century European earthemware .................................................................................................. 144 5.~ Nineteenth Century European ceramics ..................................................... " 149 5.3 Stonewares ................................................................................................... 151 5.4 European Smoking pipes ............................................................................. 156 5.5 European Smoking-pipes [T D Types] ........................................................ 156 5.6 Cowry Shells ............................................................................ ·. ... ·· ............. 161 5.7 Gun partslWeaponry .................................................................................... 165 5.8 Gun Accessories ........................................................................................... 166 5.9 Alcoholic Beverage Bottles ......................................................................... 171 5.10 Mineral Water and Florida Water Bottles .................................................. 175 5.11 Building Construction Hardware ............................................................... 178 5.12 Building Construction Hardware ............................................................... 178 5.13 Brass Objects ............................................................................................. 180 5.14 Fann Tools ................................................................................................. 182 5.15 Knives ....................................................................................................... 182 5.16 Slate and Slate Pencils ............................................................................... 184 5.17 European-made Beads .............................................................................. 189 5.17 European-made Beads ............................................................................... 190 xi University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 5.18 Trade Bead Card-Moses Levin Card ., ....................................................... 195 5.19 Clothing Items ................................................ · ............... · ........................... 197 6.1 Moulding and Drawing Technique of Pottery Manufacture, Manhean, Densu Valley ................................................................................ 207 6.2 Grinding Stones ........................................................................................... 232 6.3 Brass Oil Lamp ............................................................................................ 234 6.4 African-made Beads ..................................................................................... 239 7.1 Wattle and Daub Architecture ..................................................................... 256 xii University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh LIST OF TABLES Table 3.1 Danish Slave Exports from Africa to the West Indies .......•....•.•..•............... ··88 3.2 Danish Slave Exports from the Gold Coast in Relation to European Exports from the Same Region between 1660-1809 ..................................... 90 3.3 Coastal Outlets for African Slaves Purchased on the Gold Coast and Slave Coast, 1777-1789 ...............................................................•.......... 92 3.4 Danish Slave Establishment at Christiansborg in the 19th Century .............. .1 07 3.5 Sex ratios of Danish Slaves at Christiansborg in the 19th Century ................ 109 3.6 Showing the Monthly Wages of Christians borg Fort Slaves According to Their Trade and Gender ................................................................................. 110 4.1 Sex Ratios of Enslaved People on the Frederiksgave Plantation (Djabing) ........................................................................................................ 120 4.2 Showing the Ethnic Diversity of Enslaved Workers on the Frederiksgave Plantation, 1831 ...................................................................... 122 4.3 Cultural Layers of Trench J-93, Locus B and Trench M-42, Locus A, Djabing ........................................................................................................ 133 5.1 Summary of Excavated Artefacts by Analysis Category ............................... 142 5.2 Bottle Classes from the Frederiksgave Plantation site ................................... 169 5.3 Bottle Types from the Frederiksgave Plantation site ..................................... 173 6.1 Summary of Physical Properties of Soil and Pottery Samples ...................... 202 6.2 Mineralogical Composition of Soil and Pottery Samples .............................. 205 6.3 Showing Individual Species Among Excavated Vertebrates ......................... 227 6.4 Showing Individual Species Among Excavated Invertebrates ...................... 228 xiii University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The completion of this study has been possible because I have in diverse ways enjoyed the assistance and advice of many individuals. lowe a debt of gratitude to my principal thesis supervisor, Professor J. R. Anquandah, whose insightful advice inspired and spurred me on to finish this work. My sincere thanks also go to the other members of my thesis committee, L.B. Crossland and Kodzo B. Gavua for reading drafts of the manuscript and putting forward suggestions that put the work in shape. I have received immense assistance, support and encouragement as well as enjoyed the company of Henrik Jeppesen, Dean Faculty of Science, University of Copenhagen and Professors S.KA. Danso, Henrik Breuning-Madsen, Directors of the ECOLOGICAL Laboratory, University of Ghana, Legon. I thank them most sincerely for their immense help and assistance. Mr. T. W. Awadzi also deserves special recognition for his diverse contributions to the completion of this work. My appreciation also goes to Professor Ron Rochon (known among his African kinsmen as Kwabena Owusu Bempah), Associate Dean and Director School of Education, University of Wisconsin, La Crosse and his wife Lynn as well as the Faculty and Staff of the School of Education and the Department of International Education, University of Wisconsin, La Crosse for their wonderful support and assistance during my research visit to UW- La Crosse. xiv University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 'al men tI' on . made of the Faculty Staff and students of the Department of S peel IS ' Archaeology, University of Ghana for their immense contributions to the success of this work. I am most grateful once again to L.B Crossland. As Head of Department, he permitted me to be away in Copenhagen and London for a full semester to consult archival materials. I thank my teaching colleagues, who despite the heavy academic commitments shouldered my teaching load while I was away. My sincere appreciation goes to James Boachie-Ansah for sharing his thoughts about the archaeological data particularly the pottery. The Technicians and students of the Department of Archaeology, University of Ghana, Legon merit special thanks. I thank the Chief Technician, Bossman Musah Murey. The immense assistance he provided in directing excavations at the Frederiksgave plantation and in the conservation of some of the excavated materials made it possible for me to complete this work. Ishmael Sowah and Armah Tagoe drew the artefacts, maps and other illustrations. I further appreciate the assistance of Partey Okumador. I offer my deepest appreciation to all the final year undergraduate students, graduate students and National Service Teaching Assistants of the Department of Archaeology, who participated in the two seasons of fieldwork for this study. I specially thank Emmanuel Kwadwo Duku and Rev. Samuel Kofi Kankarn for their assistance. xv University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Funding for this research was provided by DANIDA from their Small Projects Grant and the ENRECA Project, Ecological Laboratory, University of Ghana as well as the A.G. Leventis Fellowship for Staff Development administered by the Graduate School, University of Ghana, Legon. Support and facilities were also provided by the Institute of Geography, University of Copenhagen and the Institute of Archaeology, University College London. Without the support of these institutions, it would not have been possible to undertake archival research in Denmark and Britain. My appreciation goes to the following individuals at the Institute of Archaeology, London: Professor Peter Ucko, Director of the Institute, Dr. Kevin McDonald, Co-ordinator Post-graduate Programmes, Gywn Davies, Derek Watson and Jay Woodhouse. I enjoyed the co-operation of the staffs of Library and Archival Institutions in Ghana and Europe. In Ghana, the Furley Collections at Balme Library, University of Ghana and primary documents at the National Archives in Accra were consulted. I obtained the bulk of written historical materials from the Danish National Archives, Copenhagen and the Public Records Office, Kew, London. I thank the workers of these institutions for their tremendous assistance and permission to photocopy all the relevant documents. Three Scandinavian scholars deserve special thanks. Professors Ole Justesen and Per Olaf Hemres introduced me to the Danish National Archives and freely shared xvi University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh their own infonnation with me. I am grateful to Professor Klavs Ransborg who assisted in correcting my imperfect translations of archival materials and was always responsive to my numerous enquiries. I thank also, Professors Ray A. Kea and Christopher R. DeCorse of University of California, Riverside and Syracuse University respectively for providing me with vital infonnation on the Danish plantations and the theoretical aspects of the thesis. During my short stay in London certain individuals opened their homes to me and did all they couid to let me feel comfortable. They are Kwame Oduro-Atta and his wife Maggie, Benito Kofi Nkrumah Boakye and wife, Dr. J. Owusu Agyeman, Owoahene Boakye Akyeampong, Yaw Baah and Mr. Akwasi Gyabaah. Others are Mr. Fosu Berkoh and his wife Rose as well as Mr. and Mrs. Adusei Basoah. I thank them all. I thank the Chief of Sesemi, Nii Anum Mumli, the elders and the entire people of the village for their friendships and permission to carry out the research for this study at the Frederiksgave plantation site. My sincerest appreciation also goes to the staff of the Ghana National Museum and Monuments Board. The Director, Dr. Debrah deserves special thanks for issuing me with the appropriate permit which enabled me to conduct excavations at the Frederlksgave site. I am most grateful to xvii University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Professor Joe NIaumah and Joe Gazari for the assistance they extended to me during the research. Lastly, the people closest to me deserve very special thanks. I thank my wife, Georgina for her understanding and support. The research took me away from home sometimes for a long period and thereby denied her of my company. My thanks also go to all the strong boys in the family, Boateng, Gyebi, Boakye, Bredwa 1nr., Safo and Atuahene for their patience and encouragement. xviii University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh ABSTRACT The global processes that were unleashed due to the maritime exploration and commercial expansion of Europe made an impact on indigenous cultures of the Atlantic world. Between the late fifteenth and the nineteenth century the Atlantic Slave Trade, which existed due to the European contact, and basically involved trade in Africa's human cargoes, affected traditional institutions and local life. On the Gold Coast, the Royal Danish Government established agricultural plantations in the foothills of the Akuapem Mountains and along the estuary of the Volta River. The plantations, which were established in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, produced agricultural commodities for consumption and industrial processing. The thesis surveyed the Danish plantations on the Gold Coast, highlighting on their location. historical development and production management as portrayed by Danish documentary sources. The present state of the plantations is also described. The study has demonstrated that the Danish plantations on the Gold Coast developed as a result of the European global expansionist activities particularly the Atlantic Slave Trade. The diverse archaeological objects particularly, the exotic trade goods obtained at the Frederiksgave plantation is an indication of the incorporation of the Danish plantation complex into the European dominated world economic system of the nineteenth century. xix University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Resident enslaved African workers provided labour on the plantations. This work investigated the social conditions of the enslaved African workforce who tirelessly cultivated the plantations in the Akuapem Mountains. Originally, the Danes, who participated in the Atlantic Slave Trade, used enslaved Africans in their forts and private homes. However, when they became involved in plantation agriculture on the Gold Coast, these slaves were transferred to work on the farms as plantation workers. Archaeological data recovered from the Frederiksgave plantation was combined with documentary, ethnographic and oral information to provide insights into what the daily life was like for the enslaved workers on the plantations. The enslaved workers on the plantations were drawn from different ethnic backgrounds on the Gold Coast. They engaged in diverse servile tasks, which ranged from weeding, planting, harvesting and headloading and transporting harvested commodities to warehouses on the Accra coast. The subsistence and building construction patterns on the plantations strongly remained African. It was clear that all categories of slaves on the plantation were trapped by their enslaved condition. The slaves therefore adopted appropriate responses to resist their disadvantaged social conditions. xx University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION This \\ ark is about slavery and the living conditions of enslaved Africans on nineteenth century Danish plantations on the Gold Coast (now Ghana). Generally, it is a historical-archaeological study of the socio-cultural aspects of slave lifeways on former Danish plantations located along the foothills of the Akuapem Mountains in southeastern Ghana. However, the archaeological study for this research has focused specifically, on the Frederiksgave plantation, one of the Danish agricultural settlements established in the Coastal Savannah Plains below the Akuapem Mountains (Map 1.1). During the pre-colonial European expansion in West Africa, the coastline of present day Ghana, stretching from Beyin eastward to Keta attracted several European settlements. Among the various European nations that became involved in the commercial enterprise on the Gold Coast, Denmark had the highest concentration of trade stations (castles, forts and lodges), and a sizeable number of agricultural settlements in the eastern coastlands. Altogether, the string of trade stations and the plantation settlements constitute relics of the Danish involvement within the broad context of European commercial venture in West Africa during the contact period. The Danes concentrated in southeast Gold Coast (Ghana) originally to get a share in the gold trade, then made their bid in the slave trade University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Tamale. Akuse GHANA fre deriksgaYe Bibeau Oakobi 4 Hyretu.n I Brockllan 5 Oe For.nedl Broldr. Frederiknted 7 Fr. deriksnapel .. __ Tallarind Avenue o 10 .20km. ~I------~'------~' Hap 1·, Danish plantation sites in the Akuapem Hountains University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh and finally attempted to explore other economic avenues to make their colonial aspirations viable (Bredwa-Mensah 1996a: 445-458). The Danes established their agricultural settlements along the foothills of the Akuapem Mountains and along the estuary of the Volta River (Maps 1.1 and 1.2). The Danish plantation complex was a labour-intensive enterprise, which to a large extent. depended on the workforce of publicly and or privately owned enslaved Africans. The publicly owned workforce was derived from enslaved Africans called fort slaves who were used in various capacities in the Danish trade stations. As from the end of the eighteenth century the fort slaves were settled in small villages attached to the Danish agricultural settlements to cultivate the plantations for export production (NorregArd 1966, Justesen 1979). This 'new' slave group then became known as plantation slaves (plantages[aver) or plantation workers (planlagearbejdere) in the Danish records. The emergence of the Danish fort slaves on the Gold Coast and the transformation of the group into plantation slaves are discussed in Chapter Three. This research is interested in investigating the range of experiences of these enslaved Africans as expressed in their social and cultural activities on the Danish plantations on the Gold Coast. Research Objectives A multi-stage historical-archaeological strategy was designed to pursue three major goals: 3 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh .......... ~. Map 1.2. The estuary of the Volta River showing the locations of Danish plantations ICourtesy of Puhlic Records Office, Kew, London I .d. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 'tten infonnation as well as conduct archaeological (a) Collect oraI an d wn d use the data generated to describe the historical researc h an development of the Danish plantations on the Gold Coast (Ghana). (b) Investigate the Danish involvement on the Gold Coast particularly in the Slave Trade and the deployment of African slaves in the Danish forts on the Gold Coast and how these enslaved Africans were eventually transfonned into plantation slaves during the nineteenth century. (c) Gather material culture through excavations from the Frederiksgave Plantation and use that as the basis for investigating slave lifeways on the Danish plantations on the Gold Coast (Ghana). Historical Archaeology in Africa: a review Archaeologists usually have two views in mind when they use the tenn historical archaeology. Some archaeologists consider this discipline by its methodology. In that sense. historical archaeology is viewed as the kind of archaeology that utilizes the approach of both history and archaeology by employing primary records and material remains to investigate the recent past. However, this discipline is neither history nor what Schuyler (1970:83-89), calls "general archaeology". It is a discipline in its own right, although as already mentioned, it has a developmental relationship with history and archaeology. By combining 5 ~, } ; I J(I University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh both historical sources and tangible material culture in its methodology of I. nvest.iga'tio n, h' t on'c al arcbaeology ' provides a balance to other more traditional IS approaches to the past. Ian Hodder (1987) has noted that archaeology has traditional links with history and therefore appeals to historical archaeology practitioners to recapture these links. One central issue that arises is the extent to which historical data can be used to illuminate the archaeological record. No!l Hume (1983: 13) advocates for an approach which provides that every class of artefact excavated from historic sites, be treated in a detailed and thorough manner with emphasis on identifying each relic from historical and sometimes contemporary information. Merrick Posnansky has defined historical archaeology as "archaeology undertaken in periods or for areas in which the principal source of contextual information is provided by documentary evidence" (Posnansky and Decorse 1986). Charles Orser (1996: 2) also considers historical archaeology as a discipline that "combines excavated information with traditional historical information". These definitions are without chronological or geographical parameters and therefore allow for their application in Africa. However, in many local settings textual information is provided by oral traditions. While scholars do not deny the importance and relevance of oral traditions to historical archaeology, they caution that these sources be combined with documentary evidence, because on their own, they rarely provide the same precise contextual context. But Peter Schmidt has demonstrated otherwise. In his book entitled Historical Archaeology: a Structural Approach in an African Culture, Schmidt (1978) 6 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh adopted an all inclusive or holistic perspective to historical archaeology. Applying oral traditions on traditional governmental systems, cosmology, multi-layered social set-up and socio-cultural expressions, Schmidt unraveled the traditional past of Tanzania and thereby demonstrated the efficacy of oral traditions in illuminating the cultures of non-literate societies. In contrast to the above approach to studies in historical archaeology, Stanley South (1977: 17-22) advocated for a scientific paradigm. South argued that by applying rigorous quantitative methods to artifact analyses, the historical archaeologist could recognize patterns among them and thereby allow for inter- site comparison that would lead to prediction and explanation. Despite South's strong advocacy for this paradigm it has not been very popular among historical archaeologists. Rather, they have adopted approaches, which Orser and Fagan (1995: 189), consider to be, humanist or a combination of science and humanism. Other archaeologists consider historical archaeology from the global perspective. James Deetz (1977:5) views historical archaeology as "the archaeology of the spread of European culture throughout the world since the 15th century, and its impact on the indigenous peoples". This definition considers only one side of the interaction between Europeans and the indigenous societies of the Atlantic world - that is how the European contact affected indigenous lifeways. It does not give room for investigating the actions and reactions of indigenous peoples to the European contact. Orser and Fagan (1995:14) consider historical archaeology as 7 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh "a multi-disciplinary field that shares a special relationship with the formal disciplines of anthropology and history, focuses its attention on the post- prehistoric past, and seeks to understand the global nature of modem life". This definition recognizes the global dimension of historical archaeology and stresses on the study of the historical and cultural processes of the modem world. The maritime expansion of western Europeans as from the fifteenth century was a worldwide phenomenon that brought about drastic changes in indigenous cultures. This phenomenon is unmistakably distinguishable in the archaeological record. From this standpoint, historical archaeologists are able to investigate a wide range of themes including slavery, ethnicity, racism, colonialism, imperialism, the strategies and expansion of capitalism as well as many others that help to explain the modern world system. This work has adopted both the methodological and global perspectives of historical archaeology. As regard methodology, this work has combined written documentary evidence, oral information and ethnography with archaeological data to investigate the social conditions of the enslaved workers on the Frederiksgave plantation. In addition the conceptual framework adopted to analyze the social world of the enslaved people was couched in a global perspective. In this section a review of the practice of historical archaeology in Africa is presented. The pioneering stage, of historical archaeology in Africa, may be attributed to the research work of James Kirkman (1957, 1964, 1974) on the East 8 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh African coast. Chittick followed up (1975, 1984) in the same region later. The research of both scholars focused on coastal Islamic contact sites. Since then, historical archaeological research has gained roots. In recent years, significant researches by many historical archaeologists have centered on diverse topical and geographical interests. The review that follows is not exhaustive. It is aimed at demonstrating the amount of work done and the diverse topics that have been investigated as historical archaeology in Africa. In southern Africa, historical archaeological studies have focused on underc1ass life and gender diversities (e.g. Hall 1991, 1992, Hall e.t al 1988, 1990), contact between Europeans and indigenous peoples (Schrire 1988, Schrire and Deacon 1989, Kinahan 2000) and cognitive organization (Scott and Deetz 1990, Winer and Deetz 1990). Redman (1986) examined medieval urban lifeways in North Africa during encounters between indigenous people of the Maghreb and foreigners namely, Europeans and Arabs. In West Africa, historical archaeological studies started with the survey of European trading posts (e.g. Lawrence 1963. 1969; Varley 1952; Wood 1967), identification and documentation of extant colonial buildings (Bech 1989; Hyland 1970) and heritage management concerns (e.g. Bech and Hyland 1978; Van Dantzig 1980; Anquandah 1992a, 1997; Sinou 1992, Diop 1993). Some recent historical archaeological studies in the sub-region have focused on indigenous African settlements addressing socio-cultural changes associated with the European presence in West Africa (e.g. DeCorse 1987,1989b, 1992a, 1992b, 1997,1998; Kelly 1997.1999; Stahl 1994,1997,1999). 9 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh However. an important area in West African archaeology that has rarely been studied is the impact of the slave trade on indigenous societies. This is indeed unfortunate because a large number of enslaved Africans were taken from this sub-region into the African Diaspora. Commenting on the neglect of this important area of research in his article, Toward Archaeology of the Black Diaspora. Posnansky (1984: 196) wrote: "One problem that African archaeologists initially have to face is that we have rarely studied Africa's greatest migration; yet we have been attracted to far smaller movements that we are not even sure were folk movements at all. We have concentrated our attention on the pre- European contact period and unconsciously accepted as more significant, at least in West Africa. those societies that demonstrated the least effects of European contact. Archaeologists have not tried to study the impact of the slave trade, except for noting the dramatic increase of various categories of imports such as guns. We have left to historians to deal with the demographic effects of the slave trade. Historians in recent years have however provided a large amount of evidence relating to the numbers of slaves exported and their points of departure if not necessarily their ethnic origins ... but as archaeologists we have contributed virtually nothing to the important dialogues among historians in Europe, Africa and America. and between historians and sociologists." 10 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh In West Africa, due to the European contact and the slave trade, several sites related to slave occupation developed. These included: (a) Slave quarters located in the African settlements. (b) The fortified dungeons in the European trade posts. (c) Slave settlements on plantations. Though the research potentialities of these sites have been known for sometime now (Posnansky 1984: 203, Posnansky and DeCorsel986: II), it is only in recent times that a systematic and extensive archaeological research has been initiated to investigate slave settlements on the Gold Coast. The archaeological research at Frederiksgave plantation is part of a larger research programme, Slavery and the Danish Plantations Archaeological Project, initiated by me in 1992 to investigate among other things, the nature of human interactions on the Danish plantations on the Gold Coast (Ghana). Before this project was initiated, only one archaeological study concerned with slavery had been undertaken at the Cape Coast Castle. In 1972. a preliminary testing conducted by Doig Simmonds (1973) at the fortified dungeons in the Castle examined the conditions of enslaved Africans at the points of departure to the Caribbean and the Americas. Recently, Anquandah (1997) conducted an archaeological reconnaissance survey at the Cape Coast Castle. He also test excavated sections of the Castle including the female dungeon, to ascertain among other things, the behaviour patterns, events and material culture associated with females held captive, while waiting to be exported overseas. 11 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Archaeological materials recovered included Dutch and English smoking pipes, two tubular drawn glass beads probably of Dutch origin and a small number of imported European ceramics, liquor bottles, perfume jars and a few metal objeots. Other materials found represented both wild and domesticated animal food remains. The material remains recovered demonstrated the condition of the slaves and the nature of their possessions as they waited to embark on their forced journl!Y across the Atlantic for the African Diaspora. The tinal destination for many enslaved Africans was the New World. In many parts of the Americas and the Caribbean, slave archaeology has a respectable tradition in historical archaeological studies (Deetz 1988:362). The vast majority of the literature in the archaeology of the African Diaspora concerned with slavery in the New World investigates aspects of plantation life (e.g. Ascher and Fairbanks 1971, Handler 1972, Fairbanks 1974, Craton 1978, Handler and Lange 1978, OUo 1979, Armstrong 1985, Ferguson 1992, Singleton 1996), resistance and freedom fighting (e.g. Agorsah 1992, 1993, 1994, Orser 1994). Unfortunately, many New World archaeologists involved in the archaeology of slavery rarely have had exposure to the areas from which the slaves came or in many cases, the fullness of the recent archaeological record that is available from West Africa. But the need for a multi-disciplinary and inter-cultural approach in the archaeology of slavery is recognized. In the words of Agorsah (1993: 180), 12 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh "Much interpretation of the history of the Diaspora depends on knowing the cultural patterns and the areas whence the slaves were brought". To achieve this, Posnansky (1984:202-3) has correctly pointed out that: "It is important for Caribbean and North American archaeologists to be aware of what is going on in West Africa, to exchange publication, possibly to visit key West African museums and attend periodic West African and Pan-African archaeology conferences. Rather than speculate on the material culture of the slave societies or attempt to replicate their handicrafts, a great deal can be learned from observing the technology and customs of the traditional societies of West Africa in rural areas away from large urban centres. Contact between two areas tied intimately during the slave trade era still has much to offer of mutual advantage. Thus, in any long-term research projects on Caribbean historical archaeology, it is important to include West African scholars. Their linguists, oral historical folkloric expertise will help Jamaican or Haitian colleagues appreciate aspects of their sites and certain artifacts or association that might otherwise be difficult to understand" . In recent years, some researchers on the African Diaspora have employed a wide variety of material and cross-cultural approaches to interpret African behaviour patterns among enslaved Africans in the New World (e.g. Agorsah 1993, Ferguson 1992, Yentsch 1994). Yentsch (1994:325) commented on the use of 13 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh this approach to explain African ties or cultural expressions among the slaves of a Chesapeake English family in North America. She wrote: " ... the reading I did on West African cultures using travelers' accounts of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries A.D .... enabled me to look again at objects I had thought of as securely British and see within them the residue that told of African behavior patterns". Christopher DeCorse (1999: 132-155) contributing to this debate pointed out that American archaeologists with research interest in the African-American past have viewed African cultures in generalized terms despite the fact that very few specific phenomena could be used to characterize African cultures as a whole. He stressed that archaeological studies have shown that African cultures were neither static nor uniform in the past. Despite these complexities DeCorse has demonstrated that material aspects of African belief systems, worldview and dietary pattems can be perceived archaeologically. He concluded that these aspects of the African society may provide the best means of evaluating African continuities or otherwise in American slave societies. The Geographical and Cultural Setting The gently undulating lowlands of the Accra Plains characterize the geographical landscape of southeast Ghana. The low relief of the plains rarely rises above 85m above sea level. Steep-sided inselbergs and a chain of mountain ranges, towards the interior break the monotony of the rolling plains. Prominent among the inselbergs are the Shai and Legon Hills, which rise to heights of 300m and 161 m respectively. Average rainfall is about 800mm. Generally the vegetation here is 14 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh grass Ia n d ·th a van. ab l e development of dense thicket scrub and scattered trees. WI However, towards the interior, the proportion of thicket to grass increases progressively indicating that forest once covered the northern parts of these plains (Lane 1962:167). The Densu and Volta are two major rivers that roughly serve as the western and eastern boundaries of the research area respectively. The Volta River once reached the sea via a delta, the remnants of which can be seen in the broad area of channels and lagoons dominating the coastal area of the plains east of the present mouth (Brash 1962:83). As a result of long shore drift of coastal deposits and deltaic silts, sand bars and relatively small islands formed along the channel of the Volta River in its lower reaches where it enters the sea. Some of these became the sites of Danish plantations during the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries A.D. The Akuapem Mountains form the northern boundary. Generally, they are part of the chain of mountains known as the Akuapem and Togo Ranges. The eastern portions of the Akuapem Mountains are characterized by an escarpment, which drops abruptly from about 350m above sea level in places to merge with the low- lying and gently undulating Accra Plains (Dickson 1972: 8). It is along the eastern slopes and in the gently rolling plains below, that the ruins of the Danish plantations are located. The area is endowed with relatively fertile soils, a pleasant climate and attractive scenery afforded by the elevation of the 15 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh escarpment. The specific focus of this research was the portion of the escarpment, which stretches from the Accra coast in a northeasterly direction to Akropong (Map 1.1), where other Danish plantations including the Frederiksgave were established. Culturally. the Accra Plains comprise largely the Ga. Adangme and Ewe peoples. The Ga and Adangme inhabit the western part of the area from the Densu River to the Volta Delta. The Ewe on the other hand are located to the east of the Volta Delta. The Ga and Adangme share some similarities in certain cultural features particularly, in language and socio-political institutions (Anquandah 1982: lB. Dakubu 1987:1, Odotei 1991:61). The Akuapem occupy the mountain range to the north whilst further inland, the Akyem and Asante are established in the tropical rainforest. Towards the northeast and on the banks of the River Volta are the Akwamu people (Mapl.3). The Danish trade and agricultural venture during the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries A.D., were affected by the complex local political conditions that, entangled these ethnic groups on the southeast Gold Coast and its hinterland regions. Review of Literature on the Danish trade and agriculture venture on the Gold Coast The present work is basically archaeological in focus but non-archaeological data such as documentary records, oral traditions and ethnographic information have been used whenever appropriate to elucidate the material record. At the outset, it 16 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh o, KM ls,a Map.1.3 Geo_ political map of nineteenth century southern Gold Coast. 17 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh · IS appropn.a te t observe that Danish and non-Danish scholars have given very 0 little research attention to the fonner Danish 'possessions' on the Gold Coast. So far my research revealed that only four Scandinavian historians namely, Georg Norregard, Kay Larsen, Ole Justesen and Per Olaf Hemles have published articles and books on the Danish involvement on the Gold Coast. The historiographical basis for my study in Danish research into Denmark's overseas trade and . colonial , history is therefore very weak. To offset this weakness primary historical data presently located in the Danish National Archives was consulted. This was indeed a difficult and painstaking exercise. My research effort was however rewarded as gradually relevant and very crucial infonnation generally, on the Danish involvement on the Gold Coast and in particular, about the plantations in the Akuapem foothills was gathered. The sources of the infonnation obtained were basically, reports and letters written by Danish officials and private merchants on the Gold Coast to Copenhagen. In addition, British archival sources that relate to the European trade on the Gold Coast were consulted at the Public Records Office, Kew Gardens in London. Archival documents that yielded infonnation relevant to this study included the Guinean Journals (Guineiske JO/lmaler). Some entries in these documents provided information on purchase deeds of plantation lands in the foothills of the Akuapem Ridge. These docwnents gave the locations and descriptions of the plantations. Two other sources, the Inventory Lists (Inventarbeger) and Wage Lists (Gagebeger for Livegne/ Negrenes) also yielded interesting infonnation on the so-called fort slaves. These domestic slaves served in the Danish forts. The Inventory Lists gave details of 18 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh sex. age, date of birth where known and skill for these slaves while the Wage Lists indicated the wages they were paid. The last primary source consulted was a number of documents catalogued as Generaltoldkammer. These documents included official dispatches in the nature of correspondence and reports on diverse aspects of the administration and maintenance of the Danish settlements on the Gold Coast presented to the Board of General Customs and Trade rGeneraltoldkammer og Kommercelcollegium). The control and supervision of Danish interests and affairs in West Africa were vested in this Royal Danish Government department between 1760 and 1848. One particular document of this category, Bemaerkninger om de danske Besiddelser i Guinea, 1831, a report by Balthazar Christensen was of immense interest. The report based on Christensen's observations provided fairly detailed accounts of the Danish plantations along the Akuapem foothills and their development. Further survey of Danish documentary sources revealed that some early Danish officials who worked at the Christiansborg Castle published descriptions of the former Danish 'possessions' on the Gold Coast. H.C Monrad was one of them. He served as a Danish Chaplain on the Gold Coast during the period 1805 and 1809. In his book, Bidrag til Ski/dring af Guinea Kysten og dens Indbyggere, Monrad (1822) provided a good deal of information about the Danish involvement on the Gold Coast. Of particular interest were his descriptions of the Danish plantations established along the Volta River and in the Akuapem Mountains during the early years of the nineteenth century A.D. 19 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Research into the history of Danish involvement on the Gold Coast has concentrated on Denmark's commercial relations with her so-called colonial establishment in southeast Gold Coast. Among the broad themes that have been investigated by Danish and foreign historians are Denmark's participation in the Gold Coast trade and her encouragement of plantation agriculture as a viable alternative to the slave trade. The Danish historian, Georg Nerregard published two books, which are very relevant to this work. His book, Danish Settlements in II 'esl Africa (1966) that draws heavily on official Danish documents from the Gold Coast, is a mine of information. Relevant to this work is the information he provides on the organization of the Danish trade, import and export commodities, social and political relations on the Gold Coast as well as the location and nature of the Danish plantation system along the River Volta and in the Akuapem Mountains. The other book of Nerregard (1964), Guvernor Edward Carstensens Indberetninger fra Guinea 1842-1850, contains a good descriptive account of the Frederiksgave plantation the main focus of this work. The book, which is a compilation of the official reports of Edward Carstensens, the last Danish governor on the Gold Coast, also provides some information on the slave trade in the Danish Guinean 'possessions' during the 1840s, Another Danish historian, Ole Justesen (1979,1998) has written articles on the political and socio-economic conditions in the Danish 'possessions' on the Gold Coast. Among the issues examined by him are the slave trade and emancipation, 20 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Dam·s h agn.c uI t ur al expen'm ents and the so-called legitimate trade on the Gold Co ast dun·n g th e m.n e teenth century A .D . The monumental work of Edward Reynolds (1974) on trade and economic change on the Gold Coast in the nineteenth century A.D. also provides general information on Danish trade activities and plantation agriculture on the Gold Coast. Perhaps the most comprehensive historical research relating to the Danish slave trade in Africa is the study by the Norwegian historian, Per Olaf Herores. His book. Slaves, Danes and African Coast Society (1995), provides detailed information about the organization and volume of the Danish trade. It also makes a fascinating quantitative assessment of the human and non-human cargoes exported from the Gold Coast and European manufactured goods imported to the Gold Coast between the mid-seventeenth century and early nineteenth century A.D. Studies by botanists, historical geographers, historians and archaeologists have focused on the Danish agricultural plantations on the Gold Coast. C.D. Adams (1957) investigated the activities of Danish botanists on the Gold Coast between the mid-eighteenth century and nineteenth century A.D. This work contains information on the crops cultivated on the Danish plantations and the condition or state of some of the plantations as observed and reported by Danish officials and other Europeans on the Gold Coast. Ray Kea's (1995) study provides relevant information on aspects of the material and social organization of the Danish 21 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh p Ia ntatl .O ns . southeast Gold Coast This work presents fairly detailed 10 • descriptions of some of the plantations, the history of their development and labour management system on the plantations. Henrik Jeppesen (1966) carried out an extensive survey of the Danish plantations on the Gold Coast, in the 1960s. The survey led to the location of a number of the plantation houses at Bibease, Daccubie, De Forenede Bradre, Frederiksnopel, Frederiksberg and Frederiksgave. The study also reported on the on-site conditions of the plantations. Another interesting discovery made by Jeppesen dW'ing the survey were remnants of the tamarind tree (Tamarindus indica). The tamarind trees, indigenous to the interior savannas (Hill 1994: 433), were associated with the Danish plantations in southeast Gold Coast. The Danes planted them around many of their outposts. Alleys constructed by the Danes from Christiansborg, Osu to the plantation in the Akuapem Mountains were lined on both sides with tamarinds. Remnants of this tree still mark the location of the so-called King's High Road at the villages of Pompo. Sesemi and across the eastern slopes of Legon Hill (Plate 1.1). The archaeological study of the Danish plantations on the Gold Coast began as part of the research efforts directed to examine European settlements in West Africa. In the 1950s, A. W. Lawrence made an extensive survey of EW'opean settlements in West Africa. In his published work, Trade Castles and Forts of 22 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Plate 1.1 Extant Section of Tamarind Avenue at Pompo in the Akuapem Hills. 23 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh West Africa (1963), Lawrence who focused mainly on the building histories, architectural features and the nature of on-site conditions of the European sites reported on one of the Danish plantation settlements along the foothills of the Akuapem Mountains. Lawrence cleared and surveyed the site of the plantation building at Dakobi (Daccubie). He reported on the ruins of the plantation building. In addition a detailed description of the building and its plan / drawing were provided. Unfortunately, the report was silent on the village settlement where the enslaved Africans who provided labour on the plantation lived. Also, Lawrence provided no discussion of the artefacts recovered in clearing the plantation building. C.R. DeCorse (1987,1993) surveyed the Danish plantations along the foothills of the Akuapem Mountains and conducted a small-scale excavation at the Dakobi (Daccubie) plantation. This work investigated the nature of African-European (b) Plate 5.1 Manufacturer's marks on early 20111 century European earthenwares. (a) Dutch vessel carrying a printed mark of a Lion surmOWlted by the inscription Societe CeralDique Maestrieh Holland (b) Ironstone chinaware with a seated figure under an Oriental hat carrying the inscription Oriental Ivory. 144 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh (c) Printed mark ofWedgwood and Co., England. (d) Printed mark of the Burslem Pottery Co., England. Plate S.l Manufacturer's marks on early 20th century European earthenwares. 145 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Fig,5" Impressed marks at the bases of European ceramics 146 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh who established their factory in the Hanley District from 1865-1878 (Thorn 1947:58), manufactured this vessel. Another of the British ceramics, a bone china was impressed with the maker's mark of the Doulton family who produced a wide range of wares at Burslem and Lambeth since 1815. The mark (Fig.5.1 # 2) belonged to the period 1880-1903 (Godden 1974:299). The rest of the British factory marks included the printed mark WEDGWOOD & CO. LTD. and the words TRADE MARK in black (Plate S.lc). The true Wedgwood firm did not manufacture ceramic vessels that carry this mark. Earthenware pieces with this mark were imitations or fakes of the true Wedgwood. Geoffrey A. Godden (1974:] 29). one of the leading experts in English pottery has observed that: .. If imitations be the sincerest of flattery, then Josiah Wedgwood must be the most flattered of potters, for countless English and Continental firms emulated in various degrees the Wedgwood styles. These imitations fall into two categories, those bearing the true name-mark of their maker and those which we can fairly regard as fakes, rather than imitations. in that they bear a copy, or near copy, of the Wedgwood name mark." The imitations can easily be distinguished as their printed marks always carried the additional' & CO', while the true Wedgwood firms used only the single name 'Wedgwood' (Godden 1974:130). The plate recovered at Frederiksgave with this 147 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh mark was probably manufactured by wedgwood & Co. of Tunstall, Staffordshire. This finn operated from 1860 until 1965 when it was renamed Enoch Wedgwood (Tunstall) Ltd. (Ha:strup1987: 232, Godden1974: 129). Another manufacturer's mark of British origin printed in blue was found on a vessel attributed to THE BURSLEM POTTERY CO. ENGLAND (plate 5.1d). The Scotia Works at Burslem manufactured ceramic vessels that carry this mark in the Staffordshire District in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century. Wbitewares were the predominant ceramic category. They included plates, bowls, mugs, ointment containers and chamber pots. Some of the excavated sherds were decorated others were undecorated. The decorated ones included annular-banded bowls. blue shelI-edged plates, sponged and stamped decorated plates and bowls, annular-banded mocha decorated mugs (Plate 5.2a), plates and two chamber pots. one plain (Plate 5.2b) and the other exhibiting broad hand-painted floral patterns. Blue transfer-printed whitewares depicting a wide variety of designs including the . Willow' pattern, floral. geometric, and historical and other scenes were also excavated at the Frederiksgave plantation site (plate 5.2c). The ware depicting the 'WiIlow' pattern was recovered from a Formation A layer indicating a pre-1850 date. Three pieces of glazed sherds apparently belonging to the same bowl vessel, blue decorated and depicting a Chinese scene of two figures on a bridge and a Pagoda 148 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh (a) Annular banded mug with mocha decoration. (b) Ceramic chamber pot. Plate 5.2 Nineteenth century EW'Opean ceramics. 149 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh (e) Blue transfer-printed plate decorated with the Willow and the wild Rose floral patterns. (d) Glazed bowl with a typical Chinese scene. Plate 5.2 Nineteenth century European ceramics. ISO University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 2 ~--- Plate 5.3 Stonewares. 151 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh building in the foreground (plate 5.2d). It iS~ely that a Chinese factory produced this vessel, as "the market for Chin~e wares seems to have declined in the nineteenth century (DeCorse 1989: 115). This vessel may have been produced by one of the European pottery factories probably British that operated in the nineteenth century. Eight pieces of stoneware containers recovered ,at the Frederiksgave plantation included the long cylindrical utilitarian earthenware containers with small handles connecting the abrupt shoulder and short neck (plate 5.3). There were also other examples, which were smaller in size with constricted necks. The paste varied from reddish brown and buff yellow to grey. One of the pieces carried an incised mark of the place of manufacture - BRISTOL. In the nineteenth century Bristol became one of the important centres for the manufacture of English stoneware. According to Geoffrey A. Godden (1974:54), "The stoneware potters from Bristol, also other West Country potteries, in London and up to and including Scotland made thousands of plain pots of different sizes to serve as food and other containers (ink etc.)." Stoneware containers are used in traditional homes on the Accra coast today for storing liquid materials especially local alcoholic drink tapped from the palm tree (/£OOa) and non-alcoholic drink brewed from maize and sweetened with sugar 152 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh (nmedaa). The recovered specimens were probably scavenged by the slaves and reused because of their convenient size and shape. Smoking Pipes A total of 625 European pipe fragments were excavated. The majority of the pipe fragments recovered were portions of stems. Of the total, 235 were bowl fragments. However, 105 of the bowl fragments were too small to be diagnostic. The remaining 135 bowl fragments were complete or nearly complete in shape and carried diagnostic features. The pipes were analyzed on the basis of the following attributes: the bowl shapes, degree of surface finish, maker's marks and decorative motifs (Walker 1975:165-193, Calvocoressi 1975:195- 200,1977:136-39, Oswald 1975). The majority of the pipes excavated from the Frederiksgave plantation site were of English manufacture. Of the 135 pipe bowls analyzed only three were identified as Dutch and one as a French product. The Dutch pipes carried delicate denticulation around the rim. Also on the heels of two of the bowls were marker's marks, which comprised the diminutive letters W and L, surmounted by a royal crown motif (Plate 5.4 #1&2). They were recovered from the first two stratigraphic levels immediately above the sterile layer. On the basis of their positions in the profile, the two pipes may be dated to between 1820-1835. According to Calvocoressi (1975: 197), the presence of a particular maker's mark 153 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh does not provide any more than a ti·m e range ·thin whi h . WI c a pIpe may have been made and used. Citing Helbers and Goedewaagen (1942), he pointed out that the croWlled L registered with the Gouda guild in 1726 was still on the manufacturers' records in the middle of the nineteenth century. The other Dutch pipe also highly burnished carried denticulation on the entire rim. The lower part of the bowl was covered with ribs (plate.SA #3). This was recovered from late nineteenth century context. One unique bowl piece was identified as a nineteenth century French pipe. It was moulded in the shape of a human head wearing a hatband (Plate SA # 4). The stem was extremely short, designed to take a detachable stem and mouthpiece made of some different material. The outer surface was elaborately coloured with red varnish. Walker (1975:186) commenting on the moulded French pipes traded in Africa wrote: "In the nineteenth century the French produced, along with countless more modest forms, vast numbers of superbly moulded pipes with bowls frequently in the shape of heads. These were usually of the stub- stemmed variety, that is pipes in the form of a bowl with a short stubby stem, designed to take a stem and mouthpiece of some different material, as with the modem briar pipe. Frequently, the bowls were highlighted with coloured glazes." 154 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh The stub-stemmed character and portrait pipes generally referred to as 'figural.' (Ayto 1994:26) were produced by three French firms - Fiolet of St. Omer (1765- 1921), Dumeril-Leurs also of St. Orner (1845-85) and Gambier of Givet (1780- 1926). The piece recovered from the dig did not carry any mark so it was not possible to identify, which of the three-pipe making firms manufactured it. Clay smoking pipes produced by English pipe makers were also represented in the assemblage. Six of the pipes depicted various TD marks indicating they were of English origin (Plate 5.5). All of them had the marks embossed on the bowl facing the smoker. Two of the pipes in this category carried long pedestals. These pipes may probably be attributed to London pipe makers, particularly Thomas Duggan and Thomas Davidson & Company, firms that are known to have been in production in the nineteenth century. However, Walker (1975:183) has cautioned that possibly the most common of all the pipes manufactured in the nineteenth century were those marked with TD marks. Many European pipe makers plagiarized this trademark. Of interest was one pipe bowl recovered from the top 20cm layer of the profile. The bowl with part of the stem attached to it was slightly bulbous and looked like a copy of briar pipe (plate 5.4 #5). On the right side of the stem was a mould mark. which read GLASGOW. The reverse side carried a mould-number 106 ahead the maker's name MCDOUGALL. According to a classificatory system by Ayto (1994:8) based on bowl shapes, this type of pipe was manufactured by European pipe makers from about 1860-1930. ISS University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Plate 5.4 Assorted European smoking pipes. Plate 5.s European smoking pipes [TD types]. 156 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh £.~.'..:..k ''1'3''1' McDouGALL.~... .- ..3 ~ r.' !\: ' ... ..~ ASGo;;l :c.',, ~ "':if~.t;] ............ 1 ...) " £..1:::.' . " t.;.:.: ::. ... 0<4QL"A SGOW~... ~:j 'r ., c::><.llAV1I>SC)J:x:?) -1.' b;>~.!-~. ,.. ~ .... eM'1Il I•l• -: .:.., :.:. ... ~:~'. ~ (}-~. . ;:~~ .J G~iM.&·.TV.· 481.... .. ,.: .....· ..~ .·~ IIIlRtefI' '';!'.~:.' 'jL' -. : .:~:; ',..:;.:.'~ 'R-.. ' -: -. -... '..c.- ·.-" "~N: ifl ~'','";,. ;,uU:.,,.,;.", E'('··· " ,, ~ Fig.S.2 Impressed marks on nineteenth and early twentieth century English and Scottish kaolin smoking. ptr~~_stems 157 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh This piece manufactured by McDougall, the Glasgow pipe making finn can securely be dated to the late nineteenth century to the early twentieth century. f., In the Frederiksgave Plantation pipe collection 390 were stem fragments. However, only 28 pieces carried decorations or names, as well as places of manufacture and in very few cases numbers stamped parallel to the stem. Pipe stem marks and decorations represented in the collection have confirmed that some of the pipes were of the nineteenth century to early twentieth century British/Scottish origin. Four of the pipe fragments were marked with MCDOUGALL preceded by type numbers for instance 370 and 131 on the left side and the place of manufacture GLASGOW on the reverse side (Fig 5.2 #1 & 2), Three other stem pieces carried the mark DAVIDSON on the left side and GLASGOW on the right; each mark was encased in a frame (Fig 5.2 #3&4). Another stem fragment bore the mark of a Glasgow pipemaker. On the left side of the stem was impressed W WHITE, preceded by the type number 370. The reverse side of the stem carried the mark GLASGOW (Fig 5.2 # 5&6). William White & Sons Company was one of the largest and best-known nineteenth century Glasgow pipemaking firms that exported large numbers of its products overseas particularly to West Africa by the 1880s (Walker 1975:180). Four other stem fragments carried double marks indicating the initials of the maker(s). The initials indicated were M&T, followed by one or three dots and the type number 483, all mould-imparted and raised (Fig 5.2 # 7&8). 158 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh The maker's name on one stem piece revealed that another pipe was made in France. The name PETER was moulded in relief on one side of the stem, DORNI opposite it on the other side (Fig 5.2 #9&10). These marks were located within sections of the stem profusely decorated with heavy moulded lines and raised dots. Pipes produced by Peter Dorni, whose industry flourished in northern France from about 1850-80, were said to have also carried the mark ofa milkmaid (Omwake 1961:12-15). Two of the Frederiksgave stem fragments depicted mouthpieces that probably imitated briar pipes (Fig 5.2 #1l&12). Briar pipes appeared around 1856 (Walker 1975:184) indicating that if the two stem fragments were imitations of briar then they were probably late nineteenth century pipes. It was noticed while analyzing the pipes that one bowl had been inscribed on both the right and left sides with the mark X. The mark was scratched into the pipe bowl probably with a sharp cutting edge. This mark, perhaps the owner's was inscribed to distinguish it from similar ODes owned by other slave workers on the plantation. The tear and wear analysis on the stems revealed that when pipes broke, the slaves on the plantation did not discard them. The slaves reworked the broken stem remnant on the bowl to obtain a smooth mouthpiece with a slightly rounded-off end. In several cases such reused pipes had relatively deep dents at the ends of the mouthpieces. The dents were created probably because the slaves constantly clenched the mouthpieces in their teeth when smoking. The European 159 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh pI·p eS recove red fro m th e Frederiksgave Plantation were comparable to similar ones of the nineteenth century contexts at Bantama, near Elmina (Calvocoressi 1975, ]977), the Elmina old town (DeCorse 1989b) and Fort St. Jago (Anquandah 1992a). Cowry Shells Over 700 cowry shells known in Danish as bos were excavated. Two species namely, Cypraea moneta and Cypraea annulus were recovered from the dig (Plate5.6). These species do not inhabit the Atlantic Ocean and for that matter the West African coast. However they are both Indian Ocean species, the former widely distributed throughout the Maldives Islands, the latter from the East African coast and islands particularly Zanzibar (Edmunds 1978: 36, Johnson ] 970: 17). Of the two species, Cypraea moneta was the first to be introduced to West Africa from the source area via the Mediterranean world across the Sahara. According to York (1972), this species was used as medium of exchange in the Western Sudan by the eleventh century A.D. It is not yet known how far they penetrated further south to the rainforest and coastal regions of the sub-region. The Portuguese introduced the other species, Cypraea annulus from the East African coast to the coastal areas of West Africa during the seventeenth century. By ]850 the Gold Coast was importing 150 tons of cowry shells annually from the Maldives and other Indian Ocean islands (Johnson 1970:22). 160 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Plate 5.6 Cowry shells. 161 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh The contact situation generated a system of exchange that facilitated trade and payment on the Gold Coast. The cowry was used as a unit of account and was usually counted in strings or heads. This became the local currency in the area east of Accra as far as the Slave Coast. At Cbristiansborg the cowry system was harmonized into the Rigsdaler, the Danish national currency and also in a gold currency based on the standard weight of an ounce. Nmreglkd (1966:161) mentioned that cowry was in everyday use among the people of West Africa as currency. The cowries recovered from the slave village on the Frederiksgave plantation were probably used as such. According to Johnson (1970:352) by the beginning of the twentieth century cowries had begun to go out of use in several areas in West Africa where they had been accepted as medium of exchange for centuries. On the Gold Coast for instance he pointed out that English silver coin had long replaced cowries for all the smaller market transactions. Firearms/Weaponry Firearms formed a very significant portion of European trade items to West Africa. R.A Kea (1971: 191, I 94-5) has pointed out that large-scale import of firearms to the Gold Coast started in the 1660s mainly by the Dutch and the British. However, the Norwegian historian Per HeI'IlZs (1995:364-5) is of the opinion that by the eighteenth century onwards, the Danes had established a much stronger position in the gun trade. The Dane gun (Gebisde FUnle), a long- 162 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh barrelled flint-lock musket had achieved an uncontestable position as the most popular gun on the Gold Coast by the mid-eigbteenth century. Africanist scholars have extensively discussed the importance of firearms in inter- ethnic relations in West Africa and their role in the slave trade (Kea 1971, Inikori ]977, Ten.korang ]968). There is no doubt that as from the mid-seventeenth century to the nineteenth century, the various European traders controlled an elaborate trade in firearms in West Africa. As already noted the Danes played a significant role in the gun trade. Extracts from Trade Ledgers (Negotie Hovedbtlger) of Christiansborg Castle in the late seventeenth century to the late eighteenth century have indicated that major categories of Danish trade items sold to African merchants included firearms and their accessories namely, gunpowder and flints as well as metal ware, textiles and liquor. Of these items, guns by far became the most important categoryeof trade item in the Danish commercial venture on the Gold Coast. For instance in March 1772, information gathered from the Christiansborg trade journals indicated that the Danes exchanged assorted trade goods, which included 263 Danish flintlocks, 10 English guns, II French guns 3,140 Ibs. of gunpowder and 2,500 flints (Hernaes 1995;359,375). This clearly shows the diverse sources of guns sold by the Danes to the people of the eastern Gold Coast. The firearms supplied to the slaves on the Danish plantations therefore may have come from different European sources. 163 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh The flintlock became so popular in the African trade that it was widely in use in West Africa even in the nineteenth century when percussion cap firearm had almost replaced it in Europe. Unfortunately. fireanns have not been well reported in archaeological contexts in West Africa. In Ghana reports on recovered gun parts have come from the Elmina old town (DeCorse 1989), Fort St. Jago (Anquandah 1992a), Banda (Stahl 1994) and Bibease (Bredwa-Mensah 1996a). The excavation at Frederiksgave provided evidence of fireanns that were probably used by the slaves on the Danish plantations. They included a flintlock plate almost complete that carried a goose neck cock, battery (frizzen) and its spring, the jaw part and a pan for accommodating gunpowder (PlateS. 7 # 1). Also found were a lock and frizzen probably belonging to the same mechanism. Another lock smaller in size was also recovered. This probably came from a holster flint-lock pistol (Plate.5.7 #3). It was difficult to determine the place of manufacture of these firearms. However, a Danish source cannot be ruled out since the Danes owned the plantations in the foothills of the Akuapem Mountains and the fact that the Danish flintlock was also very popular on the Gold Coast. Other important finds associated with the use of firearms on the Frederiksgave plantation were two types of primers namely flints and a metal percussion cap as well as a cartridge (plate 5.8). Primers were used to supply the flame or spark necessary to ignite gunpowder. Twelve flints (12) were found at the Frederiksgave plantation site (Plate 5.8 Rows 2&3). Of that number of flints 164 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh .. Plate 5.7 Gun partslWeaponry. 165 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh .11 ..a e lem __ 'I Plate 5.8 Gun accessories. 166 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh recovered from the excavations five were of English source, three French and the rest may be of Nordic origin. The flints were distinguished on the basis of~~ main characteristic features: the physical qualities of the source material and the manufacturing technique. The French gunflints are distinguished by their honey - yellow or blonde colour and the source material may contain white inclusions. The English type otherwise called Brandon flint grades from one that is very dark nearly black, translucent fine-grained to a grey, opaque flint with inclusions (Kenmotsu1990: 95-6). English and French flints are described as 'prismatic or blade flints' (Witthoft 1966: 23-34). However, the English flint can be distinguished by the presence of percussion scar on each side at the bed level (Blanchette 1975: 46). The Nordic flints, manufactured in the Jutland in Denmark were "bifacially flaked by coarse percussion chipping. They are square to rectangular and pillow-shaped, with their edges bilaterally symmetrical rather than beveled toward one face. Most of them are tiny" (Witthoft 1966:22, 24). As a primer flint was necessary in the use of flintlock guns. It was used to obtain the spark necessary to light the gunpowder during firing. All the recovered pieces exhibited worn features particularly; some pieces clearly showed a U-shaped wear pattern indicating that they were probablY used as strike-a-lights. One piece of lead shot was recovered during the dig (Plate 5.8 Row1 #1). At Christiansborg, lead (bly) was one of the trade goods used by the Danes as 167 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh payment to fort slaves (See Chapter Three). According to Van Dantzig (1978:77) lead was one of the metal objects traded by EW'Opean traders to the people of West Africa It is likely that the local Afticans put this metal to several uses including cutting and moulding into bullet shots. About the second half of the nineteenth century gun makers in Europe developed many different kinds of improved cartridge guns. One of them was the pin-fire gun, which could be breech-loaded and fired with a conventional-type hammer mechanism. Appropriate self-contained cartridges were designed for this mechanism. One category of such cartridges was the patent ignition. The pin-fire is the oldest type in this category of cartridges. A Frenchman, M. Lefaucheux invented the first pin-fire cartridge about 1836 (Moore 1963:66). This cartridge had a cardboard case and brass head. Ten years later another French gun maker, M. Houllier patented an improved pin-fire cartridge, which consisted of a full- length case constructed of thin copper or brass. Pin-fire weapons received wider patronage particularly in Europe. One 12mm caliber short case pin-fire cartridge (M00re1963: 66) and a pink- edged, pink-faced wad belonging to the cartridge were found in the middle levels of the profile (Plate 5.8 Row 1 # 3&4). The metal percussion cap found was the type known as the 'top hat or musket cap' (plate 5.8 Row 1#2). This cap was commonly used on military weapons. Also they marched with percussion cartridges for the Gallager breech-loading carbine (Moore 1963:77). The presence 168 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh of these indicated that the enslaved people on the Prederiksgave plantation had access to improved weapons. Glass Glass fragments recovered during the excavation were 2,105 in number. An interesting aspect about the glass objects was that some of them possessed technological features, which provided clues to function and chronology. Some of them carried embossed identification of the contents and the manufacturer. The container sherds included a number of liquor bottles, soft drink bottles and a small number of phannaceutical bottles. Class Number % Liquor 77 70 Mineral water 13 11.8 Toiletry 6 S.S Culinary - - Medicine 14 12.7 Total 110 100% Table S.2: Bottle dasses from tbe Frederiksgave Plantation site Other glass manufactures included glassware and a variety of miscellaneous glass bottle containers. Table 5.2 shows the identifiable bottle classes from the Prederiksgave site. Liquor bottles were by far the most predominant class (70%). 169 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh They included alcoholic beverages such as gin and aromati·c sch nap ps cont ained in case bottles, champagne, brandy and wine (plate 5.9). Of these, hard liquor gin and aromatic schnapps, were very popular (28.1 % and 17.5% respectively; Table 5.3). The embossed inscriptions on one side of the square-faced bottles and emblems on their almost square-off shoulders indicated that majority of the bottles that contained gin and aromatic schnapps were of Dutch origin. The names of the manufacturers identified were J.HENKES, I.A.I NOLET, as well as CURLEW and J. J. MELCHERS. The emblems on the shoulders of some of the liquor bottles depicted a star and others the stork (Fig 5.3 a-c). Liquor products of the J. H. Henkes Company seemed to be very popular. This Company had been in business in the Delftshaven area of Rotterdam since the early decades of the nineteenth century. The Company became so successful that by the middle of the nineteenth century it had established itself as a leading exporter of gin and schnapps products to West Africa, South America and the Dutch East Indies. But Dutch liquor especially gin was already known in West Africa before the nineteenth century. The Schiedam area of Holland was the centre of gin production since a Dutch doctor first distilled the drink in the mid- seventeenth century and it became popular. Small distilleries in this area depended on old-fashioned production of malt wine, which was re-distilled and blended to produce varieties of gin for export to all parts of the world (Anniversary Handbook 1975:33). Some of the bottle fragments, which carried liquor, produced by J. H. Henkes and I. A. I Nolet were marked SCHIEDAM 170 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh j j j j j j j j j j j j j IW ___ • j j j Plate 5.9 Alcoholic beverages bOttles. j j j j J71 j j j University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Q b /I ( Fig.S·3 Manufacturers emblems on case bottles (Schnapps) 172 - University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh % C .... Tvue Number Aromatic Schnapps 32 28.1 Liquor Gin 20 17.5 Whiskey 10 8.8 Brandy 3 2.6 Cbampagae 4 3.5 Wine 8 7.0 Mineral Water Soda Water 4 3.5 Lemonade 9 7.9 Toiletry Florida Water 6 5.3 Medicines 14 1l.3 Unidentified 4 3.5 Total 114 100% Table 5.3: Bottle types from the Frederiksgave Plantation site indicating that the slaves on the Frederiksgave Plantation consumed liquor from that region of Holland. Wine was another liquor product preferred by Africans (7.()OIo). In the nineteenth century the bulk of wine marketed in Cbristiansborg and the Accra littoral came in wooden barrels. This was rather poor stuff; the better came in ceramic and glass containers. Comparatively, wine bottle fragments from the Frederiksgave Plantation were small in number. They did not exhibit makers' marks or embossed inscriptions to assist in determining the source and the manufacturers. However, going by the lip and shape features, three main wine bottle types namely, Burgundy, Claret and Hock were identified from the bottle fragments. 173 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh These were typical wine bottles that evolved in the wine-producing districts of Continental Europe before spreading to Britain after 1802 (Beck 1984: 38). Soft drink bottles also featured among the glass objects recovered from the dig (11.4%). They came in different shapes and forms. These bottles contained artificial carbonated mineral and soda water. Examples of soda water containers from Frederiksgave were thick, sturdily built fucy sub-marine or egg-shaped bottles with blob-tops introduced by William Hamilton in the early nineteenth century (Hedges 1998: 13, Beck 1984:74). Their hemispherical bases made it impossible to keep them standing upright. Those recovered during the excavation were embossed with the lettering PITTS LONDON or SCHILLING BRIGHTON (Plate.5.10 #3). By the late nineteenth century mineral water bottles with pushed-bottoms or flat-bottomed versions had come in general use. One type with a hemispherical base, which could hold 375 ml of soft drink, was embossed with the maker's mark CROWN WHEELER & CO. LTD. BELFAST. This mineral water bottle came from late nineteenth century context. The flat-bottomed versions in the range of soft drink bottles recovered from the Frederiksgave Plantation usually carried a ceramic stopper and metal clamp and could contain about 500 ml of drink. Some of them probably of Danish IGennan origin were embossed with the mark of STEINI KE AND WEINLIG (Plate 5.10 #1). 174 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Plate 5.10 Mineral water and Florida water bottles. 175 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Glass containers for phannaceutical products from the site constituted 12.3% of the identifiable bottles. They came in different shapes and sizes. According to Hedges (1998:15) towards the end of the eighteenth century, patent medicines were marketed in odd-shaped easily recognizable bottles. However in the early nineteenth century when hinged moulds were introduced chemists embossed their names on the bottles and in some cases the contents and dosages. A small medicine bottle carried at the base the embossed name ZIMMERMAN. Also of interest was a bottle fragment that was embossed with the Gennan word SCHUTZMARKE. Beneath this was the crown of medical practitioners: a hand holding a walking stick on which a snake is entwined. Six perfume bottles were recovered from late nineteenth century to early twentieth century contexts (Plate 5.10 # 4). All these bottles probably contained Florida Water. Florida Water is a type of scented spirit that is used as a fragrance. It belongs to a class of scented spirits called colognes or toilet waters. The ingredients for making Florida Water varied from one manufacturer to another. However lavender was always the main ingredient and to obtain a particular quality and variety bergamot, lemon, orange, rose and cinnamon could be added. Florida Water was manufactured almost exclusively in North America during the nineteenth century although Gennan and English brand names for the product are reported (Sullivan 1994:80). The American Company Murray and Lanman of New York seems to have been the best-known producer of this scented toilet water. The bottles recovered did not carry any embossed marks to allow for 176 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh identification. However, all of them were what American glassmakers called the castor oil or lemon syrup bottles. Today the tradition of the use of Florida Water still continues in Ghana. The modern bottle has no embossed mark; it carries a paper label indicating the trade mark- Florida Water- prepared by Lanman and Kemp-Barclay & Company Inc. Westwood, New Jersey. A smaIl number of glassware (5) was recovered from the Frederiksgave site. They all came from the upper levels of the stratigraphy. They were very delicate, characterized by globular, acorn-shaped bowls; straight stems and round bases. The paucity of drinking glasses is not surprising since it is ethnographically known that the coastal people on the eastern Accra coast serve liquors in containers fashioned out of tiny coconut fruits. This may be an African innovation that originated from the introduction and use of glassware by the Europeans on the Gold Coast. Building Construction Hardware Architecturally related items were found at the Frederiksgave Plantation. The recovered objects from this site included a variety of materials partly reflecting vernacular architecture and constructional practices. More common in the hardware assemblage were various fasteners namely spikes, nails, locks and hinges. All the spikes were cut specimens with square shafts and tapered on two sides to form a chisel point. The nails from Frederiksgave were both machine-cut and hand-wrought specimens. Some of the spikes and nails had wood adhering to the shank, probably reflecting their use in building construction (plate 5.11). 177 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh m ____- l - Plate 5.11 Building construction h~. T1l 1)1 2 3 4 5 le", _ _ Plate S.12 Building construction hardware. 178 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Four hinges were among the recovered hardware. All of them were iron loose- joint hinges (Plate 5.12 # 4-7). The loose-joint hinge has a fixed hinge pin on one side. The opposing leaf slips over the pin allowing easy removal of the door. Three of them had a spike fastener on the jamb-end and a strap leaf on the door- end. The door-end portion of the strap leaf bad three holes to accommodate either screws or nails (Plate 5.12 # 4&5). In addition to the hinges four door locks were found. The locks were of two kinds: the plain stock-lock and the plate stock-lock. Relatively large chunks of clay, some of which depicted deep-impressed surfaces, were recovered. These clay lumps are believed to be broken pieces of wattle and daub walls of slave houses. Even though house foundations were not excavated, the presence of these large chunks of clay with pole impressions indicated that huts of wood and mud similar to present-day countryside viUage houses of a roughly rectangular shape were built and used as dwelling places by the Frederiksgave Plantation slaves. Brass objects A pair of brass bells was among the excavated metal objects (Plate 5.13). A large one was 5 cm tall and the diameter of the beveled base measured 4.5 cm. The other bell, which was relatively smaller, was 2.5 cm tall and had a diameter of 3 cm at the broad base. Similar types are known ethnographically as part of the paraphernalia of local diviners and fetishes in southern Ghana. 179 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Plate 5.13 Brass objects. 180 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Farm tools Agricultural implements were among the iron objects excavated from the Frederiksgave site. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries European trade items sold in the Danish trade on the south-eastern Gold Coast included a variety of so-called cheap 'commoner oriented' goods or 'non-luxuries'. Typical of such trade goods, which found regular sales at the Danish forts were assorted textiles, cheap pots and pans, iron bars for the local foundries and agricultural tools: fishing hooks, knives and hoes (Hermes 1995:363). The farm tools recovered were three iron hoes and two cutlasses. They were heavily worn probably as a result of constant usage. The blade of one of the hoes measured 16 x 11 cm. The shank of each of the hoes was cylindrical. The wooden handle of the hoe probably extended down into the cavity of the shank. The iron blade of the cutlasses measured about 40cm long from the handle tip to the tapering cutting end. The metal projection, which was driven into the wooden handle of the cutlass, was intact on one of the blades (Plate 5.14). Knives Five iron knives probably utilized in the kitchen in relation to food preparation and for other functional purposes were excavated. Three of the knives had bone handles. The other two without handles were crudely shaped perhaps indicating that an African blacksmith probably manufactured them locally (Plate 5.15). 181 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Plate 5.14 Farm tools . . - - -:;-...-..- ~ ----- Plate S. t 5 Knives 182 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Slate and Slate Pencils An interesting category of the recovered artefacts related to reading, writing and computation. The upper stratigraphic levels, which chronologically fall within the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, produced five polished slate fragments and six slate pencils (plate 5.16). By the late nineteenth century, formal education based on school system was established particularly in the Gold Coast Colony and the Protectorate. Many of the schools were linked to the Christian missionary activities of the Basel (Presbyterian), Wesleyan (Methodist) and Catholic Churches. Literacy drive was strongly considered as a useful tool to facilitate the propagation of the Gospel. In the research area the Basel Mission exerted much influence on the social and cultural landscape by establishing schools at Christiansborg (Osu), Akropong and Abokobi to train the local people to read and write as well as acquire skills particularly in agriculture and vocations such as carpentry and bricklaying. Reindorf, the Ga historian and a beneficiary of the Basel Mission training reported on the achievements of the Mission in the research area. He wrote: .. We will now sketch the outward features of our progress during the last ten years. In 1868 we were able to assert that we had filled the regions of the Eastern Province of the Colony with the Gospel. Congregations had been gathered, schools founded, native assistants educated, the Bible translated into two languages, other books for 183 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh ". - ~ Plate 5.16 Slate and slate pencils. 184 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh school and church published in the native tongues, workshops opened, agriculture promoted". Of particular interest to this study was the policy of the Basel Mission towards enslaved people in the research area. The Basel missionaries directed their energies towards the spiritual and socio-economic progress of slaves in the research area. The Mission established a policy to purchase the freedom of slaves who had been converted to the Christian faith in the south-eastern coastland and its hinterlands. In pursuance of this policy the missionaries established Christian communities called Salem where liberated slaves lived. The liberated slaves were taught to read and write. In addition, many received practical training in agriculture and vocational skills such as carpentry, joinery, masonry and shoemaking. The town of Abokobi was one of the Basel Mission centres where liberated slaves were trained as from the mid-nineteenth century. Fonner slaves who continued to live in the villages attached to the Danish plantations after their departure became targets of the Basel missionary outreach activities. Oral information gathered at Sesemi mentioned attempts made by European missionaries and their educated African catechists to teach the slaves on the Frederiksgave and the nearby plantations to read and write. The spot at the Ojabing village where the slaves gathered for this pwpose is mentioned in the narrative as Tikya blofo (which literally means where the white man's language was taught). 185 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Beads A variety of beads was recovered from the Frederiksgave Plantation site. In. all 542 beads were excavated. Tbey comprised European trade beads as well as locally made beads of stone and shell. In the section below the variety of European glass beads recovered from the plantation site is described. European trade beads A large variety of European trade beads (n = 504) was excavated at Frederiksgave. These imported beads were fairly distributed throughout the archaeological levels and they can be divided into two broad groups namely, stone beads and beads fonned from glass. Slone Beads Four imported stone beads were recovered during the excavation. They were all made from the semi-precious quartz mineral called chalcedony. Three of them belonged to the banded or patterned chalcedony commonly called agate and the other one was carnelian (Plate 5.17a #1-3). Carnelian and agate beads have been produced in India at Arikamedu (Francis 1991:36), Khambat (Kenoyer and others 1991: 44-63) and Cambay (Possehl 1981: 39 - 47). These and other beads made of precious and semi - precious stones have been traded along well established routes linking these manufacturing centres with the Red Sea Coast and East Africa (Kennoyer and others 1991 :51) then transported from here to West Africa between A.D 500 and 1500 (Dubin1995: 66). However, India's role as a major 186 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh exporting stone bead producer steadily declined due to the global European contact. European beadmaking centres gradually encroached on India's market. One particular European beadmaking centre that succeeded in supplanting India's position in the manufacture of carnelian and agate beads was ldar-Oberstein in Gennany. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries Gennan bead manufacturers imported chalcedony raw materials from the region of Minas Gerias in Brazil. They then made large quantities of carnelian and agate, which were copies, designed to imitate Indian beads, for the African market. The ldar-Oberstein chalcedony beads are easily identified and distinguished from Indian made types by their straighter holes, which result from the manufacturers use of drill press and sometimes by their dusky hue and finely ground surfaces. All the chalcedony beads recovered at the slave village on the Frederiksgave Plantation were identified as probably Gennan made. Glass Beads By far glass beads (n = 500) constituted the largest component of the excavated European trade beads. They are classified and described on the basis of three main attributes: (a) manufacturing technique - drawn; moulded; wound; blown etc (b) general shape categories - tubular; spherical, cylindrical etc. (c) colour - navy blue; brick red; white; light green etc. 187 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Drawn Glass Beads Drawn beads recovered from Djabing, the slave village on the Frederiksgave plantation constituted the largest number (n = 260) of the bead assemblage. Drawn beads were manufactured from plain or multi-layered, hollow canes drawn from a molten gather of glass. The canes were then cut into the required bead- length segments. They may be left as tubes, cut into a variety of shapes and as well as rounded off by hot tumbling or fire finished. The drawn beads were probably Venetian. All the recovered drawn beads are grouped into three main classes based on colour that is whether single or multi-colomed and finished- unfinished treatment. Class A - Polychrome Drawn Beads: Beads of this class numbered 52. They exhibited multi-coloured layers produced when the bead maker pulled from a gather of glass layered with multi-colours. Some of the bead specimens were short to long segments chopped from the drawn canes (Plate 5.17b # 1- 4). They do not appear to have been fire polished or hot tumbled. Included in this Class were small multi-coloured beads with hot tumbled finish. Two of the excavated beads that belonged to this Class had a satiny finish produced purposely by introducing bubbles into the glass gather. When the tube was drawn out the bubbles elongated to produce the satiny effect. 188 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Stone beads. Drawn polychrome beads. Drawn monochrome beads. Plate 5.17 European-made beads. 189 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Specialized polychrome drawn beads Prosser moulded beads Mandrel pressed beads Plate 5.17 European-made beads. 190 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Class B _ Monochrome DlYlwn Beads: The total of specimens that constituted this broad bead class was 19 4. They included tubular or cylindrical beads and short discs with cut ends. These constituted the majority and simplest of the class. The predominant colours of these beads were marine and navy blue, yellow, opaque gold, red and green (plate 5.17c # 1- 4). Other specimens of this class were a number of small beads with their ends rounded off probably by either fire polishing or hot tumbling. Class C- Specialized Polychrome Drawn Beads: A total of 14 beads from the Frederiksgave plantation belonged to the group commonly called chevrons. Chevrons are specialized drawn glass beads. They are formed from glass tubes with mUltiple layers. To form these beads a bit of multi-layered gather of glass is blown into a tapered mould with cog design. The original glass gather now hollow may be encased with additional layers of different colours. The multi-layered hollow gather is then quickly drawn out to form a cane. The drawn tube is chopped into pieces. Finally, the cut pieces are ground on the ends or heated and pinched to show the cog design as a row of chevron zig-zags. Chevrons were among the most popular trade beads exported to West Africa by European traders during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The chevrons from the Frederiksgave plantation site were mainly tubular and disc-shaped and probably originated from Venice (Plate 5.17d # 1-4). 191 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Moulded Glass Beads Out of the grand total of beads recovered 183 were identified as moulded beads. They constituted the second most common group of beads at the Frederiksgave plantation site. Moulding was a technique used to produce either single or multiple beads by pressing a bit of molten hot glass in simple moulds. Moulded beads evolved and became increasingly important trade items throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (Ross 1989). The beads recovered from the Frederiksgave plantation were perhaps manufactured in Bohemia and the lablonec region in Czechoslovakia They are grouped in two broad classes based on the technique of manufacture. Class A- Mandrel Pressed Beads: A small number (n =7) of the moulded beads were manufactured by the mandrel pressed technique. This involved the use of a two-part mould. A bit of hot glass was pressed in the mould to produce the bead. The hole of the bead was produced by pushing a pin into the mould and through the glass or by a tapered pin that has been an integral part of one cavity. The excavated beads carried seam lines or ridges being the result of molten glass that escaped between the halves of the mould. These were made smooth by tumbling or manual grinding. Three were faceted and carried designs cut or moulded on their surfaces. One of them transparent green in colour had a conical hole, which appear to have been partially punched through (plate 5.17e # 1 & 2). 192 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh CIIISS B-Prosser Moulded /Jeads: Majority of the moulded beads (n =1 76) was produced by the Prosser technique. In the 1830s two brothers, Thomas and Richard Prosser patented a pressing machine with multiform moulds, which was used to manufacture uniform beads named after them. Francis Jr. (1994:58) describes the manufacturing process and the nature of moulded beads produced: "The machine subjects a pellet of clay mixed with other ingredients to great pressure in a dye. The pressure vitrifies (makes into glass) the clay and the finished bead is quite exact in form. Prosser beads will have seams but they are hard to spot". In shape and form, the excavated specimens from the Frederiksgave plantation included those that were flat and round as well as interlocking beads and short cylinders otherwise called tile beads (Plate 5.17f # 1-7). Colours of the recovered beads were mainly apple/light green, navy/marine blue and yellow or gold. All the beads had one of the ends being smooth and shiny and the other pitted. Wound Glass Beads: The excavation produced 43 wound beads. Wound beads are manufactured individually by winding molten glass around a rotating mandrel, which could be a rod coated with clay slip or lime as a separator. Some of the specimens recovered appear to have been moulded by rotating the warm plastic bead in a mould. Complex decorative motifs such as stripes, trailed concentric lines and dots were applied on the smooth surfaces. Among the excavated 193 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh speci·m ens were Ia mp-wo und beads of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries probably Venetian in origin. They included: (a) Two tubular translucent dark green beads with IS and 19 'eyes' of transparent navy on opaque white, on opaque redwood, on opaque light gold (plate 5.17g #1 & 2). (b) Four barrel-shaped beads of opaque light gold glass with a transparent bright navy on opaque white, on opaque brick red, on dark green band around the middle, and blue on white on red dashes on the ends (plate 5.17h # 1-4). (c) Twenty-five pieces ofapple-green and opaque light gold bi-cones with multiple stripes of light gold, black and barn red (plate 5.17i # 1-5). Comparison of the Frederiksgave plantation beads with excavated examples from Elmina and relatively well-dated specimens from four trade bead cards of Moses Levin, a London bead merchant photographed (plate 5.18) in The History of Beads (Concise Edition) by Lois Sherr Dubin (1998:40-41) indicates that they are of similar age. Some of the beads from the Frederiksgave plantation are similar in style and manufacture to examples recovered from nineteenth century contexts at Elmina (DeCorse I 989a: 45). According to Lois Dubin (1998 :40-41) the import-export business of Moses Levin to Africa operated from 1830 to 1913. Karklins (1985 :31, 81) quoted by DeCorse (1989a: 45) has placed the date of the Levin Catalogue between 1851 and 1869. These dates are consistent with the 1850-1931 date assigned to the Horizon B (that is the upper stratigraphic levels) 194 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Wound beads. Specimen trade bead card of Moses Levin [Lois Sherr Dubin 1995]. Plate 5.18 European-made beads. 195 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh of the Frederiksgave plantation site and associated artefacts including all the excavated beads, some of which are similar to those on Levin's trade cards. See specimens on Levin's trade card Plate 5.1S and exoavated examples in Plate 5.17 particularly, specimens g, b and i. The Levin Bead Catalogue therefore helps to accurately date the upper stratigraphic levels of the Frederiksgave plantation to the second quarter of the nineteenth century and the early twentieth century. Clothing Apart from beads, other interesting categories of artefacts relating to clothing used by enslaved Africans on the plantation include a few buttons, finger rings and a buckle (Plate 5.19). These provided only a very limited and indirect indication of the clothing probably worn by the slaves on the plantation. The buttons were made of brass (n=7), porcelain (n= 4) and bone (n =1). The brass buttons were characterized with sunken panels. The margins of some of them carried stamped designs and words such as EXCELSIOR followed by three stars, SUSPENDER with four concentric rings, DOUBLE RING and BEST RING EDGE. The largest of the metal buttons was a cast domed-disc with soldered ring-shaped eye. The back carried the inscription ARMFIELD'S BIRMINGHAM and the front a bunch of flowers in a hom. The remaining metal objects included three finger 196 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh OGC •• •-• •• •~ "1 . ea lem _ _ Plate 5.19 Clothing Items. 197 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh rings made of thin brass wire and a buckle probably from a shoe. The brass finger rings had an internal diameter of between 1.7 em-2.0 cm and their opening left unsoldered. All the brass buttons were recovered from Horizon B levels indicating that they can be dated to the mid-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. On the other hand. the porcelain buttons came from Horizon A stratigraphic levels and can be dated to between 1828-1850. 198 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh CHAPTER SIX AFRICAN MATERIAL CULTURE AT FREDERIKSGAVE Over 8,000 locally produced material remains excluding a wide range of faunal resources were recovered from the Frederiksgave plantation site. This formed over 50% of the over all excavated artefactual assemblage. This material inventory represents a broad array of local resources from the coastal and hinterland areas of the eastern Accra Plains exploited by the enslaved Africans who lived on the plantation. Apart from faunal remains the other locally produced material culture recovered included pottery, brass objects, lithics such as stone axes and grinding stones, beads and daub fragments. The analysis and description of these material objects and their occurrence at the Frederiksgave plantation are presented below. Locally produced Pottery Locally made pottery formed the largest category and therefore the most common item of the recovered artefacts at the Frederiksgave plantation (8,175 sherds). Archaeologists take particular interest in the pottery they excavate because it can provide insights into the very nature of the society that produced and I or used it (Redman 1986: 10 3). Therefore the approach adopted in the analysis of the pottery assemblage from the Frederiksgave site was to make the identified vessel types 199 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh culturally meaningful. To this end the analysis was carried out to answer two main questions: (a) Did the enslaved people on the Frederiksgave plantation produce their own ceramic vessels, in that case, the excavated specimens? Or did they source them from another area? (b) To what extent does variation in technique(s), shape and form; as well as the physical and chemical constituent properties of the excavated vessel types reflect the source or location of manufacture and their functional roles in the past? Thus apart from investigating to establish the source of the Frederiksgave pottery, it was also of prime importance to decode the past behaviour patterns that they represented. Ethno-archaeological studies have indicated continuity in pottery production processes in the coastal Accra Plains region. Two pottery traditions with long antiquity are known in the Densu Valley region (Bredwa- Mensah 1990, 1996b) and the Shai Hills of the coastal Accra Plains (Anquandah 1992b: 1-8, Quarcoo and Johnson 1968:47-88). The Danish plantation sites in the foothills of the Akuapem Mountains are located in between these two different pottery traditions (Map 6.1). Could any of the two traditions be the source of the 200 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Akropongt. .fr;dlri ksnopel rAgOlllda ~@ A" WKodiol!e ~ " Shai Hills ¥Dodowa 1I0oyum ~ -Fredlrikssfl!d eAfienya LEGEND ~G! ~ Akuapem Mounto',ns ';':: IP ~. .. II Potting Villages _~( 'C~~ 1';8 ~6 ~4·"'G! <1(1,. "., q .l ArchaeologicQI Sites .p 1;(1. " _ Plantation ~He5 ~ "C6 Ol'g • Towns o 10 20 30 Milas eI Map 6.1: Danish plantations in the Akuapem mountains and the 201 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Samples Deieription Fryerigave Reddish dayey soil. hard to very hard consistence when dry with few SoilSaapie fine and medium distinct clear brown mottles. Frederilll.ave Pottery Sample) Black dry potsherd. Central part iI dark to very dark gray. Sherd matrix includes many white sand .rainl. Samplel Weak red to reddish yellow dry potsherd. Central part i. very dark gray. Sherd matrix includes a few white .and Iralns. Sample 3 Black dry potsherd. Central part is black. Sherd matrix ineludes many white sand grains. SaRlple4 Potsherd decorated with black and Iray paintings. Central part is reddish brown. Sherd matrix ineludes many white sand grain• • SampleS Brown dry potsherd. Central part is black. Sherd matrix Includes many flne and coarse gray sand Irains. Sampl.6 Li.ht yellowish brown potsherd. Interior part is brown. Sherd matrix il stratified; containl numerous mica flakes and many dark red mottles o.lllU Valley Reddish brown dry potsherd. Central part Is very dark gray. Slaerd Pottery Sample I matril includes iron nodules and many white .and grains. Samplel Brown dry potsherd. Central part il dark gray to very dark Iray. Matrix include. many white sand grains. Sample 3 Reddish brown dry potsherd. Interior part iI weak red. Sherd matrix contains iron nodules and few white .and grain •• Sample 4 Reddish brown dry potsherd. Central part iI dark gray. Matrix Is red and contains many white sand !lrain •• Shai Hills Pale brown dry potsherd. Interior part is .trong brown. Matrix contains Pottery Sample) much reddish but few white .and grain •• Samplel Reddish brown dry potsherd. Interior i. yellowish red. Matrix contains many shiny black sand grains. fine gravel and few iron nodulel. Sample 3 Brown dry potsherd. Central part of potsherd Is al.o brown. Matrix contains white sand grains. Sample 4 Reddi.h brown dry potsherd. Interior part Is black. Matrix contains .hinyblack sand erains. Table 6.1: Summary orPbysical properties orsoil aDd pottery samples 202 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh e Frederiksgave plantation? To ascertain the source of the pottery from th excavated pottery the following samples were submitted to the Chemistry Department of the Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University (KVL) in Copenhagen. Denmark for physical and mineralogical analyses: (a) Soil sample from the Frederiksgave plantation site (b) Specimens of excavated pottery from the Frederiksgave plantation, Adwuku Hill in the Shai area and the Okai Koi Hill site near Ayawaso in the Densu Valley. Table 6.1 above is a summary of the physical properties of the soil and pottery samples submitted for analysis while Table 6.2 below presents the mineralogical composition of the same samples. The two tables reveal similar results on the source of the pottery used by the enslaved people on the Frederiksgave plantation. Table 6.2 shows that the sediment on the Frederiksgave plantation is composed of silicate minerals namely quartz and kaolinite. Therefore it is unlikely that the archaeological pottery from Frederiksgave were manufactured on the plantation. The two tables show clearly that the physical and mineralogical compositions of the Frederiksgave pottery are similar to that of the Densu Valley. Physically, mainly gray or white sand grains characterize the matrix of the pottery from the Frederiksgave plantation and the Densu Valley. The mineralogical composition of the pottery from the Shai Hills is dominated by plagioclase (hornblende), amphibole and gamet while the Densu Valley and the Frederiksgave plantation 203 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh pottery has a high content of quartz and devoid of gamet. The pottery from the plantation site and Densu Valley could have been made of the same kind of sediment. The ceramic vessels recovered at the Frederiksgave plantation were therefore assigned to the Densu Valley pottery tradition contrary to my preliminary submission that they were probably produced in the Shai Hills (See Bredwa-Mensah and Crossland 1997:68). Before the pottery samples were selected for geo-chemical analysis a preliminary classification of the excavated potsherds from the Frederiksgave plantation was conducted. Two broad groups of pottery (one large and the other small) were identified on the basis of surface colour, fabric, vessel form and decorative motifs. Only 20 sherds represented the small group of pottery. The potsherds of this group are mainly light yellowish-brown and reddish-orange in colour. They are relatively well fired, plain and undecorated. Both the outer surface and the inner core of potsherds in this group display the presence of numerous micaceous (probably muscovite) inclusions. In addition, the core matrix contains many dark red mottles. Sample 6 of the Frederiksgave pottery in Tables 6.1 and 6.2 represents this small group of potsherds. The vessels of the large group are either coarsely or finely built. They are characterized by hard, well-fired fabrics, which are usually of black, brown and reddish orange colours. The vessel assemblage of this group displays a great variety of shape and form. The bowls range from shallow to relatively deep 204 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh MINERALS SAMPLES Quartz PlagiG- Micro- Clay Kaolinite Amphi- Heulan- Garnet Mica dase cline bole dite Frederiksgave Soil Sample X X Frederilul8\'e Pottery X X Tr Sample I Sample 2 X X X Sample 3 X X Tr X X Sample 4 X X * X X X SampleS X X Tr X X Sa.p1e6 X X X X Dea.u Valley Pottery X X X Tr X Sample I S• •p le2 X X X X Sample 3 X X X X Sample 4 X X X X Sh.i Hills Pottery X X X X X X Sample I Sample 2 X X X X X X Samp_1e3 X X X X X Sample 4 X X X X X x - Present Tr - Trace amounts of the minerai *--Identification uncertain Table 6.2 Mineralogical composition of soil and pottery samples 205 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh fonns. Two broad groups are distinguished among the bowls. One of them, the Kukw&i Group constitutes shallow to relatively deep bowl forms with wide and short sharply everted rims on angular shaped bodies. The other, designated as Ka/Ap::lcyowa Group (grater) includes both coarse and highly burnished brown, reddish orange and flre smudged, black shiny, wide-mouthed bowls (Figs 6.1 and 6.2). The jars designated as Gbl: Group (conveyance/storage), comprised relatively large pots, some of which were plain, coarse, and the others burnished (Fig.6.3). It is this large group of the Frederikgave pottery that has been assigned to the Densu Valley pottery tradition. Ethno-archaeological research has revealed that potters of the Densu Valley pottery tradition have supplied the western Accra plains with their wares for more than four centuries (Bredwa-Mensah 1990, 1996b). A fairly good ethno- archaeological data on techniques of manufacture and functional classes of the Densu Valley pottery has been established. It was therefore possible to tie the excavated pottery at the Frederiksgave plantation into the established functional classes to make them culturally meaningful. Today pottery making in the Densu Valley is the sole responsibility of women. Production is non-mechanized and it is carried out on household basis as an integral part of the daily domestic activities. The Densu Valley potters form vessels by the moulding and drawing techniques (plate 6.1). These techniques contrast with that of potters in the eastern Accra plains (Shai Hills) who 206 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Plate 6.1 Moulding and drawing technique of pottery manufacture, Manhean, Densu Valley 207 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh commonly use the coil method (Quarcoo and Johnson 1968). The surfaces of ceramic vessels may either be burnished with a smooth pebble or left roughened particularly in the leather hard stage. Other forms of surface enhancement include fire smudging and slipping with clay or organic solution. The Densu Valley potters produce a wide range of ceramic vessels. They include storage pots, ritual pots and medicine pots, eating bowls, wine pots, cooking and steaming pots. All the locally produced pottery used by the enslaved people on the Frederiksgave plantation was hand-built. Bowls of the Ka/Ap:.Cyowa and Kukwsi Groups dominated the pottery inventory. They exhibited great diversity in vessel categories. In all fifteen vessel categories were recognized in this group. Together all categories of jars (Gb& Group) added up to three. The Frederiksgave pottery assemblage may have served a variety of primary functions that ranged from the preparation of herbal medicine, ritual performance, conveyance and storage to food preparation and serving. KUKWEI GROUP OF VESSELS This group composed of medium to large-sized cooking and food serving vessels with burnished outer surfaces. They were often but not in all cases fire-smudged. Those that were smudged exhibited shiny black surfaces. A characteristic feature of some of the vessels in this group was that, they were carinated. They ranged between shallow to relatively deep vessels with wide, open mouths. Three broad sub-groups were distinguished: 208 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh KukwdIDidis£D This sub-group included small, medium and large bowls. They were either shallow or relatively deep vessels characterized with everted rims and carinated bodies. The height of the vessels ranged between 5-15 cm and rim diameter between 18-32 em (Fig.6.l a-e). Some of the vessels in this sub-group carried stepped-lips indicating that they probably accommodated lids. They were identified by the elderly potters in the Densu Valley and the old folks at the Sesemi village as male eating bowls. The small-sized types were used to serve juvenile males while meals for individual adult males were served in the medium- sized bowls. For group or communal eating, adult males were served their meals in the large bowls. Wonu kukwd/Kwans£D The second sub-group constituted large, deep, almost flat-bottomed carinated bowls with short and long everted rims. Height of vessels ranged between 10-21 em and rim diameter ranged between 20-26 em (Fig.6.2 a-c). They may have served within the household as food preparation vessels specifically for preparing soups and stews that usually accompanied the food. Today, the coastal Ga people use similarly shaped bowls to prepare and serve soups and stews during the celebration of their annual H;,rraw;, [hooting at hunger] festival. 209 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh -------- :";: .... ,..,'.::. ';" : ....... . _... . ---------- ...'. , ''- --::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::====== ----- ........ '" Fig. 6. J KukwEi/DidiS£n - Bowls 210 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Tsofa kukw&ilAduro kukuo This third sub-group comprised small and medium-sized, round-bottomed bowls. The rims of majority of them were everted while the others had stepped-lips. Height of the vessels ranged between 15 -22 cm and the rim diameter between 20- 28 cm (Fig.6.3 a, b). The outer surfaces were plain and coarse or burnished and fire-smudged to shiny black. Primarily, the vessels of this sub-group were used for cooking herbal medicine. KAlAP=T=VOWA GROUP OF VESSELS The group constituted small, medium and large wide-mouthed bowls. Bowl forms were the most numerous in the Frederiksgave pottery assemblage. Height of the vessels ranged between 5-20 cm and rim diameter between 20-35 cm. The bowls primarily served as food preparation, serving and consumption vessels. They were composed of two sub-groups: Ka The Ka sub-group composed of shallow and relatively deep hemispherical bowls. Height of vessels ranged between 5-11 cm and diameter between 20-32 em. In almost all cases, the rim diameter was greater than the height. Rims of some vessels of the group were thickened to the exterior and flattened horizontally on the top edges. In some cases, the rims extended as thin flanges that protruded to 211 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh = ---- .... " ..: .. ~:::-:::-:::::::::=::: '-":"~:""i:'::;;'/"\'i "':"';~1i" .--..._. ....... _.L. .~ . __ .• ,_"....:.,..:. . ;".' ~\ ... ~::::.2~~) , " / " ' "... ............ .... .... - .",,/" ...... -.::.::======= Fig.6.2 Wonu KukwEi/K wansEn- Bowls 212 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh , ,I I I I / / / ;' //' ----- -"-" . ~ -=~ Fig. 6.3 Tsofa Kukw£i/Aduro Kukuo- Bowls 21.1 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Fig.6.4 Kal Ap:JOyowa Group of vessels- Bowls 214 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh the outside. The flattened rim portions of some vessels in this sub-group carried decorative bands of concentric grooves. This sub-group included plain, coarse and highly burnished brown and reddish orange:~ bowls. Others were fire smudged, black shiny, wide-mouthed vessels (Fig 6.4 a-d). The inside surfaces of these vessels were smooth and they served primarily as female eating bowls. Ap~byowa The vessels of this sub-group were hemispherical in shape. They were medium- sized and fire-smudged. Vessel height ranged between 8-12 em and rim diameter between 18-28 cm (Fig.6.4 e). The inside surfaces were designed with incised concentric patterns. These bowls were used primarily for grinding, particularly condiments for soups and stews. The Densu Valley potters asserted that grinding bowls originated from their Akan neighbours. The Ga potters started to produce them in response to local demands. Interestingly. these vessels were recovered from late nineteenth century and early twentieth century contexts. Today, households in the research area commonly use ceramic grinders and a wooden pestle in grinding cooked vegetables for preparing soups and stews. GBE GROUP OF VESSELS This group comprised medium, large and extra large pots. They have globular bodies with either wide or short everted rims on very sharp shoulders that separate the body from the upper parts of the vessels. The angular necks and inner rims of 215 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh some of the pots and occasionally, the bodies carried simple line incisions, simple punctates, simple curvilinear lines and a range of dots. The inner rim parts and shoulders of some of the jars are decorated with a wide range of painted designs. These include criss-cross and wavy lines, narrow bands and reticulate designs (Fig.6.8). The Densu Valley potters who were shown potsherds that carried these painted designs explained that they were achieved by painting the designs with a solution of lateritic clay and palm oil or palm kernel oil boiled in water when the vessels are in the leather hard stage. These designs are usually reddish pink but they tum into dark brown after the vessels are fired. A small number of the jars are calabash-like in shape and form with broad inturned mouths (Fig.6.6 b, c). Three sub-groups were identified: Did~ Extra large globular pots with thick everted rims that measured between 8-12 cm. Maximum rim diameter ranged between 24-36 cm while estimated vessel height was between 40-65 cm. Outer body surfaces were imperfectly burnished. They served as household vessels probably used to store water for domestic purposes. Today, in the research area these extra large water storage pots are kept in one place in the compounds resting on hollow rings such as the neck rings of old pots. 216 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Fig.6.S GbE Group of vcssels- Jars University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh " " " , \ \ \, I I I I / / / ,/ ,/ ,/ ./ -"",,/ " --- '''IliI\iD:~'&fIa!_IIitx!l~. ..! b. ?'~~~ifJr~1.i!liJi". •·! I.: ~'''''Ii I / I I / / / ./ --.,//./ --- I I I", \ I, I, II \ II \ II II \ II I II I "\ I \ I \~\, I ,', , I / / ' ........'.: :::::::::::. :: ,.,// -----" Fig.6.6 GbE Group of vcssels- Jars 21K University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Tsumli gb£ Large globular pots with short everted rims on constricted necks. Estimated height ranged between 35-60 em and rim diameter between 20-3Ocm. The inner portions .","0- of rims were decorated with a series of semi-circular painted designs. They may ., have been used to store drinking water. Today similar pots used for this purpose in the research area are kept in living rooms or very cool places in the house. Fanyaa gb£ Large pots with constricted necks. Rim diameter ranged between 20-30 cm and estimated height about 30-5Ocm. The shoulder parts are decorated with cross- hatched painted lines. The local name given to these pots today means water conveyance vessels. They may have been used in the past for fetching water from the riverside to the house. Saascn This group comprised small and medium-sized, oval-bodied and round-bottomed vessels with very constricted necks. Height ranged between18-28 cm and rim diameter between 8-16 em. The upper body parts were burnished and sometimes fire-smudged to shiny black while the lower parts were coarse and not burnished. They may have been devoted to the storing and serving of locally produced drinks. Today these vessels are used to collect, store and dispense palm-wine (tedaa), and a non-alcoholic maize drink (nmedaa). 219 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh I / / -----./ ,\ I " I " ", / - - ./ '~- ............-...- --=::== .,,-,/ Fig. 6.7.Micaceous Wares- Bowls University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh ~::~~::-'";~~.~:::'-::~\nw:'~'.~~.~f':~~~~~~~.",!~'1:.~.~:.~:~~:~ ::.: ~ .. ... ": ~~ :~··~:~~~r~·,:'"~~~~·!'~~!·:""~r'~!""'~,:·'i:··· . Wavy-lines design Semi-circular design - Fig.fl.R Painted d~cor~.t~\'~ desi~ns on the plantation ponery University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Cross-hatch design NalTow bands design Combination of wavy-lines and semi-circular design ... 'O:- •••••• : •••••• '.," .. ",., Combination ofwa\')'-Iines and nalTow bands design ell Combin~lion of siril'ed n;llTo\\ hands and semi-circular d~sign ,..,.., University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh LiloliJc The vessels of this group were medium and large in size. They were round- bottomed with intumed rims. The vessels were't;;Wshed but not fire-smudged. '~, There were two subgroups of vessels. The firs.t ,c.om prised squat-like, medium- sized vessels with constricted orifices. Estimated height was between 14-24 cm and rim diameter ranged between 12-20 cm. The other' sub-group consisted of large vessels with orifices that were relatively narrow. Estimated height ranged between 22-30 cm and rim diameter between 16-24 cm. The squat medium-sized vessels were probably used for cooking while the large, tall ones served as storage vessels for solid food materials such as com dough. MICACEOUS WARE Vessel forms identified among this group are shallow and relatively deep bowls. The range of variation among the identified bowls is very minimal. Only four bowl forms hemispherical in shape were identified. Three of them are shallow bowls characterized by intumed mouths with a ledge around the maximum diameter. The other is a deep bowl with aT-shaped rim thickened to the exterior and the interior; and flattened horizontally on the top edge (Fig 6.7 a-b). The source of this group of vessels is not known. 223 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Observations about tbe Frederiksgave Plantation Pottery Although scientific analyses have shown that the Frederiksgave plantation pottery were manufactured in the Densu Valley, it is significant to point out that they differ markedly from pottery also produced in the same area and recovered at sites in coastal Accra dated to the sixteenth century particularly, from Ayawaso and Wodoku. The differences are apparently observed in the patterns of decoration and infusion of new forms during the nineteenth century. The nineteenth century plantation pottery carried decorations such as simple line incisions, punctates, simple grooving. a range of dots and interestingly a variety of design paintings. On the other hand the Ayawaso Phase pottery carried applied complex plastic decorations, channelling. fine multiple grooving and perforating in addition to punctates, simple grooving and incisions (Bredwa-MensahI990: 96-123). During the nineteenth century new pottery forms characterized by distinctive, light to heavy, fire-smudged carinated vessels had been infused into the pottery repertoire of the Accra area. Again painted decorations are generally absent on pottery from southern Ghana. The only reported design-painted pots in southern Ghana have come from Vume Dugame in the Lower Volta Region (Davies 1961:35-45). But they do occur on specimens recovered from several sites in northern Ghana and Brong-Ahafo such as New Buipe (DaviesI962: 4-11, York 1973: 93-160), Daboya (Shinnie and Kense 1989:124), Vendi Dabari (Shinnie and Ozanne 1962: 87-118), Begho (Crossland 1973) and Bono Manso (Effah-Gyamfi 1978). Their 224 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh presence on some of the nineteenth century vessels of the eastern Accra coast may probably point to influences from outside the Accra area. Paul Ozanne (1962,) also noted that there was a radical difference between the pottery of the late sixteenth century to the middle of the seventeenth century, a period he called Early Historic and that of Late Prehistoric Period in the eastern Accra coast area. Ozanne's Early Historic Period pottery is referred to as Ayawaso Phase pottery in this work. According to Ozanne, the Early Historic Period pottery was characterized by a greater standardization of wares and vessel forms. He argued that the difference in this pottery was essentially due to "a change in attitude towards fonn, inspired by the brass [European trade] vessels"(Ozanne 1962:65). Even though Ozanne's observations about the differences in the pottery of the two periods are correct his reason for the change is problematic. It sounds too Euro-centric. Ozanne correctly pointed out that archaeological evidence from the eastern Accra coast indicated greater urbanization, state formation and influxes of new ethnic groups due to the European presence but he did not see that the change in the pottery might have come as a result of internal influences such as demand for vessels by new ethnic groups to satisfy their domestic tastes. The appearance of new pottery fonns on the Accra coast during the nineteenth century was probably due to the heterogeneity of the coastal population during that period. The African population on the Accra coast had radically become heterogeneous due to the Atlantic slave trade and the European trade in general. 225 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh This is coHaborated by the heterogeneous nature of the Frederiksgave plantation workers as revealed by demographic data in Chapter Four. It is therefore not surprising that archaeological evidence from the Frederiksgave plantation has also indicated differences in the pottery of this period and that of other sites in the Accra Plains dated to the sixteenth to the mid-seventeenth century A.D. The plantation pottery may reflect influences from different ethnic areas and therefore provide some indication of coastal Accra's heterogeneous nature. The presence of light and heavy carinated wares, the majority of which were fire-smudged to shiny black may indicate Akan influence. Also the design painted decorations on some of the vessels may be indications of influences from the Lower Volta basin, the interior woodland savanna and savanna grassland areas. However, in general the pottery assemblage from the plantation site appears to share characteristics with pottery from other coastal sites like Wulff's House at Osu (Bredwa-Mensah 2000) and Katarnanso (Wazi Apoh pers. comm) not connected with the plantations. Faunal Remains Evidence about diet or food at the Frederiksgave plantation was limited to animal and fish bones, shells of land snails as well as marine and freshwater shellfish. No palaeo-botanical remains were recovered. In all, 1,490 fragments of faunal remains that weighed 8.4 kg. were recovered. The recovered specimens were analyzed and grouped into the following categories: Bovinae, Suidae, Caprinae, Carnivora, Avian, Crustacea, Reptilian, Pisces, Gastropoda and Molluscs. Tables 226 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh CLASS COMMON & SCIENTIFIC NO. '" % OF IDENTIFIED NAMES SPECIMENS BOVINAE Cattle (Boa Sp.) 24 2.2 CAPRINAE Sheep/Goats (OvisiCapra) 330 30.3 SUIDAE Pig (Sus Scrofa) 37 3.4 CARNIVORA Dog (Canis familituis) 13 1.2 BOVIDAE Royal antelope (Neotragus pygameus) 21 1.9 Unidentified (Large mammals) 143 13.1 Unidentified (SmaU mammals) 106 9.7 RODENTIA Giant Rat (Cricetonrys gambitlnus) 71 6.5 Grass cutter (Thryononrys swinderitlnus) 202 18.5 Ground squirrel (Xerus eryt/tropus) 15 1.4 AVES Chicken (Gallus gallus) 55 5.0 Turkey (Haleagris gal/opllVO) 9 0.8 Francolin (Francolinus sp.) 13 1.2 Unidentified (Birds) 17 1.6 REPTILIA Land tortoise (Kinixys sp.) 4 0.4 PISCES Freshwater mud fish (Claris sp.) 18 1.7 Unidentified (Marine fish) 12 1.1 TOTAL & % 1090 1000/0 Table 6.3 Showing individual species among excavated vertebrates 227 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh COMMON & SCIENTIFIC NO. & % OF SPECIMENS CLASS NAMES IDENTIFIED GASTROPODA Giant Forest snail (Achlllinil achilina) 20 4.9 Giant Land snail (Archllchlllinil ) 39 9.6 CRUSTACEA Crab (Freshwater) 4 0.9 Crab (Marine) 3 0.7 MOLLUSCA 53 13.1 ( Freshwater) II 5.2 Olivancillaria hiatula 35 8.6 Sterescopa 10 2.5 MOLLUSCA Arcasenitis IS 3.7 (Marine) Natica marochiensis 14 5.9 Donaxsp. II 5.4 Arca afra 11 5.4 Thais nodisa 18 4.4 Tbais baemastoma 74 18.2 Ostrea denticulata 21 5.4 Tympanatus fuscata 24 5.9 TOTAL & % 406 99.8%. Table 6.4 Sbowing individual species among excavated invertebrates 228 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 6.3 and 6.4 present the details of the classified faunal remains the enslaved people on the Frederiksgave plantation exploited for food. Vertebrates constituted the largest proportion of the faunal remains excavated at the Fm:leriksgave plantation site. They included both wild and domestic fauna. Remains of mammals dominated and accounted for 88.2 % by total bone count of all the faunal remains recovered. The remains of birds (8.6%) comprised the second most common class followed by fish (2.8%). Reptile remains (0.4%) comprised a minor component of the assemblage. It can be inferred from Table 6.3 that the enslaved people on the Frederiksgave plantation exploited both wild and domestic fauna. Some of the faunal remains (25.5%) could not be identified as wild or domestic and were therefore classified as unidentified. This comprised specimens in the following categories from the vertebrates: unidentified mammals, unidentified birds and unidentified marine fish. Three groups of invertebrates that belong to the classes Gastropoda, Crustacea and Bivalvia were recovered at Frederiksgave. These represent two types of land snail, twelve species of marine and freshwater shell-fish. Also represented were remains of freshwater and marine crabs. All the excavated specimens were edible. The frequency of classes represented in the invertebrate faunal remains at Frederiksgave indicates that marine shell-fish (65.4%) was highly exploited while freshwater shell-fish (18.3%) was the second most exploited class. Land snails 229 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh (14.5%) also fonned an important component of the diet of the enslaved inhabitants on the Frederiksgave plantation. Marine and freshwater crabs comprised a minor component of the assemblage. However, crab shells are often ingested today, a practice that would mask their archaeological visibility. Lithics Two ground stone axes and eighteen grinding stone tools constituted the lithic assemblage recovered at Frederiksgave. Ground stone axes are locally known and called Nyame Akuma. The last Danish Governor on the Gold Coast, Edward Carstensen, who had great interest in African material culture, collected both ethnographic and archaeological artefacts from different parts of the Gold Coast. He visited Frederiksgave and collected three specimens of ground stone axes in the vicinity of the plantation. These stone axes were donated to the Danish National Museum in Copenhagen. Presently, they are in the collections of the Foreign Department, Section of Ethnography. H.C. Monrad (1822: 114), who served as the Chaplain in charge of the Danish trade-posts on the Guinea coast between 1805 and 1809, commented on the presence and use of ground stone axes at that time on the Gold Coast. He wrote: "Without doubt other weapons were in use in Africa in antiquity; at least one finds a type of stones which points to this; they look from their appearance like serpentine [greenish mineralJ and are, as it 230 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh seems, well polished, wedge-shaped or rounded and flatly pointed in the end. Probably they were, like battle-axes, tied to a shaft. Strangely, it seems to me, that I have never found this type of stones except in the indicated shapes. The Negroes call them fetish-stones, and believe that the one who is owning such has, as it is said, a strongly protecting fetish." Ground stone axes are known archaeologically to be Late Stone Age tools but there is no evidence for any prehistoric settlement in and around the plantation area. Among the various ethnic groups in the country, it is believed that stone axes are the products of thunder and lightening. These tools play an important role today in the ritual ceremonies of the local people. They are therefore found among herbal and plant medicinal materials that are sold by peddlers of traditional medicine at market places. The examples from Frederiksgave may have continued in use long after their manufacture. The grinding stones are made of rock materials that are available in the locality. They included quartzite, sandstone and schist. They are characterized by smooth worn-out or abraded surfaces suggesting evidence of having been used for grinding or rubbing purposes. They are of various shapes and vary from those with flat surfaces on both sides to others that are rounded, rectangular and nearly oval (Plate 6.2). Some of them had concave depressions on the already worn out surfaces indicating that they were later used as pounding objects. The grinding stones were fairly evenly distributed throughout the archaeological record. 231 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh .. ---- Plate 6.2 Grinding stones 232 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Grinding stones were used in diverse processing contexts. For instance potters used them in preparing clay and temper. However, the distribution pattern of these tools in the excavated profiles is significant as it is probably an indication of their been connected with food preparation (Chapter Seven). Brass Objects Metalworking was an important and well-established craft in West Africa long before the nineteenth century. The production of objects of iron and copper alloys is known archaeologically on the Gold Coast in pre-nineteenth century contexts. Imported brass from Europe was used to produce a wide range of artefacts on the Gold Coast during the nineteenth century. Two brass oil lamps were among the excavated objects at Frederiksgave (Plate 6.3). The oil lamps, which are rectangular in shape measured 8 x 7 cm and 7.4 x 6.2 cm respectively. The four top comers of each of the lamps have been beaten to fonn short open channels to accommodate twisted dry grass or a strip of old cloth as wick. One of the ends could also serve as a handle. Some type of plant oil such as palm oil or palm kernel oil was probably used to keep the lamp burning. It is difficult to tell whether they were moulded of sheet brass or pieces scavenged from old brass basins, pans and plates. A pair of cast brass bells otherwise known as crotula was among the excavated metal objects. Castings of this type are known ethnographically as part of the paraphernalia of the dance ensembles of some ethnic groups in northern Ghana, particularly the Frafra people. 233 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Plate 6.3 Brass oil lamp. 234 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Beads The locally produced beads were relatively small in number. Only 25 specimens made up of stone, shell and glass turned up from the excavation. These constituted 4.6% of the total number of beads recovered. In spite of the small number, they were of interest because they represent bead types that presently feature prominently in the traditional setting. Unfortunately, archaeologists casually mention the recovery of these beads without investigating the variety of traditions they represent. Stone beads Eleven of the beads were made from stone materials. Seven of them were bauxite beads and the other four were quartz beads (Plate 6.4 a & b). Three of the quartz beads were crudely fashioned and bi-conically perforated. All the seven bauxite beads were disc-shaped. The Akan-speaking Akyem people in the Eastern Region of Ghana presently produce bauxite beads. The Akan people call the beads, abo:J while their Ga-Dangbe spealdng neighbours call them Alcyem re (which literally means Akyem stone). Six Akyem villages straddled along the foothills of the Begoro Plateau have exploited the bauxite resources of two local hills, Odumparara Bepo and Ataso for bead making (Shaw 1945:45-50, Bredwa- Mensah 1996/97: 11-21). Production is now centered at the village of Abompe. The bead makers chip the raw bauxite cobbles or slabs into smaller blank pre- forms. The chipped blanks are then drilled on the flat surface by using bow drills. 235 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh The drilled prefonns are slipped on lorry-tyre spokes and firmly secured in place by smaJI fruit nuts at the ends of the spokes. The beads are then rubbed back and forth on a hard grinding stone of sandstone or quartzite until the edges are evenly shaped. To speed up the grinding process small volumes of water are scooped by hand and poured on the beads while grinding. Finished beads are strung on raffia fibre in preparation for marketing. Intermediary traders, mostly women, travel to the bead making area to purchase the beads for re-sale in local markets. The Akyem bauxite beads are traded throughout Ghana and her immediate neighbours namely. Burkina Faso, Togo and Cote d' Ivoire. Beads likely produced in Akyem have been noted in Sierra Leone, SenegaJ, Mali, South Africa, Zimbabwe and the United States of America (DeCorse 1996: pers. comm.). Apart from the specimens recovered from the Frederiksgave Plantation site, small numbers of bauxite beads have been excavated from a couple of Iron AgeIHistoric sites in other parts of the country. Excavation conducted by Nunoo (1957: 12) at Asebu produced twenty glass trade beads and locally produced stone beads. One of the stone beads was made from bauxite. Through the association of imported ceramics probably from the Rhineland and European smoking pipes, he estimated that the site might pre-date 18111 century A.D. Anquandah (1992c: 35-6) has excavated the site of Adwuku Hill, an Iron Agel Historic hill top settlement of Dangme-Shai. The site produced a total of 98 assorted beads. Two of them were bauxite beads. The beads were recovered from the seventeenth century to the nineteenth century A.D. contexts. Excavations at Ladoku, another ancient Ga- 236 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Dangme settlement produced 140 beads. Many of the beads were recovered from a large rubbish pit. Eleven of the beads were fashioned from various stones, namely quartz, carnelian, agate and bauxite. The chronological sequence of the site spans the period, 1400 - 1700 A.D (Anquandah n.d). Archaeological research at the old Ga capital of Ayawaso near Accra yielded a number of beads. Seven of them were bauxite beads recovered from stratigraphic layers dated between 1620 and 1680 A.D (Bredwa-Mensah 1990). Shell beads Fifteen shell beads were excavated from the slave village on the Frederiksgave plantation. All of them were made from grey/white marine shells. They were mainly flat, cylindrical discs. In addition, short faceted as well as square tabular and square cylinder types were recovered (Plate 6.4c). The local communities on the south-east coastland particularly, the Ga-Dangme and Anlo call the shell beads afti. The Danish physician, Paul Erdmann Isert (1788 [trans] 1992:114) who served at Christiansborg described the ornamentation of Akra (Accra) women in one of his private correspondence to Copenhagen in the late eighteenth century. Additionally, he provided a brief description of the technique used by the local peoples to manufacture shell beads on the Gold Coast. He wrote: "Their further ornamentation is so extremely varied that one could write a book if one wanted to describe all the kinds of adornment. Some wear ear- rings of the European kind; others wear a necklace of 237 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh beads. They make a type of bead out of white mussel shells, which they grind with stones for this purpose". The shell beads were recovered from different levels of both the upper and lower stratigraphic horizons. Marine shell beads have been recovered at archaeological sites that chronologically range from the prehistoric Late Stone Age to the Iron AgelHistoric Period. The earliest known beads in Ghana have been recovered from archaeological contexts in the K- 6 and K- 8 rock shelters at Kintampo in the Brong Aharo Region. These Kintampo Culture sites are dated by radiocarbon age detennination to about 1450 B.C. This was about the period when the Punpun Phase populations of the Late Stone Age were being replaced by the pioneers of farming and settled village life known as the Kintampo Culture people in Ghana. Two bwials of a female adult and a young male adult excavated at the K-6 and K- g sites respectively were adorned with beads. The female adult wore a necklace of small disc shell beads while the male adult also wore stone beads on the wrists of both hands (Flight 1967: 69). Ntereso, another KintaJ.npo Culture site located in the savanna grassland region of Northern Ghana has also yielded a large number of small-sized shell beads (Davies 1980:219). Excavations conducted at the ancient Ga settlement of Ayawaso produced a variety of ninety beads. Out of that number, thirteen were marine shell beads of different sizes and shapes. The beads were recovered from dateable contexts between the sixteenth and late seventeenth centuries A.D. The ancient hill top settlement of Dawu in the hinterland of the Accra coast has also produced a number of beads including those of shell (Shaw 238 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Stone beads Shell beads Polychrome powder beads Plate 6.4 African-made beads. 239 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 1961:72). The site which clearly belongs to the Iron AgelHistoric Period was probably contemporaneous to Ayawaso. Anquandah (1992c: 35) excavated ninety-eight assorted beads from the ancient Dangme-Shai hill top settlement of Adwuku. They included European glass beads, Indian carnelian, cowries and locally made beads of stone and marine shells. Powder -glass beads Thirteen glass beads manufactured locally were recovered from the Frederiksgave site. The origins of glass beads among the various local communities in West Africa are steeped in myths. According to Kumekpor and others (1995:15), traditions of the Akan, Ga-Dangme and Ewe of Ghana, about the origins of ancient glass beads refer to them as 'rainbow beads and are deemed to have come from the house of God in the Sky. These beads are believed to be found at the end of the rainbow (in the forest) after a rainfall'. Statements such as these describe events and conditions, which are difficult to substantiate with historical, archaeological and ethnographic facts. The absence of chronological framework and systematic documentation on the origin of bead traditions encouraged a general belief that bead working in West Africa presumably depended on imported sources of glass (Lamb 1969). However, there is a tenuous hypothesis that silica glass, a by- product of iron smelting could have been used for the manufacture of beads (van Landewijk 1970: 96). 240 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Historical evidence provided by early European writers who visited West Africa as from the fifteenth century onwards noted that trade in beads and other commodities already existed along the coast. The European traders seized upon this trade and eventually monopolized it (KimbleI936: 120, van Dantzig and Jones 1987:120). According to Ozanne (1962:65 footnote), the European traders particularly, the Dutch were known to have bought the beads known variously as aggrey, aigris, accary. aleori, acoris and Ieoli from the coast of Accra for sale further west on the Guinea Coast as from the mid-seventeenth century AD. Unfortunately, positive identification of the material the original aggrey bead is made of is difficult although it has been hypothesized that it was made of coral, stone, glass or iron slag (Davison 1970, Fage1962, Kalous 1979, Landewijk 1970, Mauny 1958). A type of local bead industry with firm archaeological evidence to show that its antiquity goes back at least four hundred years is the powder-glass bead making. A number of Iron AgelHistoric Period sites in Ghana have produced powder-glass beads. Excavation conducted by Calvocoressi (1969:69) at the funerary terracotta site of Adansi Abinsan yielded powder-glass beads. The site is dated between 1680-1750. Powder-glass beads have been reported from Twifo Hemang another funerary terracotta site by Jim Bellis (1972:85) and dated to 1690-1710. The mound site of Dawu in Akuapem, excavated by Shaw (1961) and dated to between 1400-1700 also yielded locally produced powder-glass beads and a variety of European trade beads. Christopher DeCorse (I 998b: 202-3) has 241 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh reported that powder-glass beads were among a large variety of non-European beads recovered in eighteenth century contexts at the abandoned old Elmina settlement. Today powder-glass beads are produced in several villages in Asante (e.g. Dabaa, Asamang, Ohwim and Abrade) and other villages in Kroboland (e.g. Somanya, Odumase and Sikaben) using techniques that are perhaps ancient. Powder-glass beads are produced by crushing and pulverizing glass usually scrap bottles into a fine powder. The powder glass is then poured into fired clay moulds with cavities that may produce beads, which are conical, cylindrical or prismatic in shape. The cavities in the clay moulds may be horizontal or longitudinal. Long tubular beads are produced on the moulds with horizontal cavities while relatively short disc beads are fonned on those that carry longitudinal cavities. To form the beads pieces of dry cassava leaf stalk are placed in the cavities. The glass powder is then poured in the cavities. If polychrome or multi-coloured beads are to be formed, glass powder of different colours are poured in combination or alternatively into the cavities depending on the design wanted. Once a number of moulds have been filled they are placed in an updraft oven. The heat in the oven then causes the powder glass to coalesce and the cassava stalks to bum resulting in perforated sintered beads. The finished beads are shaken from the moulds, cleaned in water and sometimes polished and smeared with shea butter oil. 242 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh The powder-glass beads recovered from the slave village on the Frederiksgave Plantation included polychrome types with either straight or spiral stripes and monochrome types of blue, green and brown. They were retrieved from the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century contexts (plate 6.4d). Pottery Discs Four pottery discs were among the locally produced objects excavated at the plantation site. They measured 2.4 - 4. cm in diameter and weighed between 3.86- 6.59g. Archaelogists have recovered similar pottery discs at Iron Agel Historic sites in Ghana. These sites include Dawu (Shaw 1961 :54), New Buipe (York 1973:30), Amuowi (Effah-Gyamfi 1974 196-200), Begho (Posnanslcy 1976:57, Crossland 1989:45), Banda (Stahl 1998:67-72), Wodoku and Bonoso (Boachie- Ansah 1998:8,2000:11). Thurstan Shaw (1961:54) has described these rounded pottery objects as gaming pieces. Tim Garrard (1975:60, 1980:180-81) has given another explanation that these objects were probably used to weigh gold dust. According to Garrard the ceramic discs from Begho, New Buipe and Amuowi relatively conform to the Islamic mUkal and uqiya standard weights of North Africa. It is difficult to tag the four discs from the plantation site as gold weights. 243 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh CHAPTER SEVEN DISCUSSION: GLOBAL ENCOUNTERS AND SLAVE LIFEWA YS ON THE FREDERIKSGA VE PLANTATION The processes of globalization characterized by EW'Ope-centered economy that engulfed and dominated Africa and the rest of the Atlantic world affected these so-called peripheral regions in different ways. The European contact enabled African societies to participate in a broader political economic system that supplied European mass-produced goods in exchange for Africa's natural products. The encounter, which was dynamic and complex largely made an impact on locallifeways. In West Africa, the impact of global encounters differed in the coastal areas where indigenous African societies were directly entwined in socio-economic contact with European traders and the hinterland regions, which had indirect or remote links with these encounters. Archaeologists have noted the consequences of the European contact on coastal African communities. Christopher DeCorse (1989b, 1991, 1992a, 1992b, 1997, 1998) combining oral traditions and written historical information with archaeological data has illustrated in his discussion of African-EW'Opean interaction at Elmina that between the fifteenth and the nineteenth centuries a great deal of technological and social change took place within cultural continuities in the Elmina society. According to Decorse, excavations at Elmina (Gold Coast) turned out quite large numbers of both locally produced artefacts 244 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh and European imports. Among the imports there was material from different parts of Europe, Africa and Asia testifying to the global nature of the trade links and Elmina's incorporation into a world economic system dominated by Europe. Although a small coastal village of only several hundred Africans, Elmina had grown into a large town with a population of about 15,000 by the nineteenth century due to her global trade connections. His research revealed that the African population at Elmina enjoyed assorted foreign luxury goods such as smoking pipes, bottled drinks, ceramics and glassware as well as clothes and firearms. In addition, rich African merchants at Elmina lived in multi-layered stone constructed houses. Nevertheless the people of Elmina maintained an African lifestyle as they kept household shrines and buried the dead beneath house floors. Also the presence of zoo-archaeological remains believed to have been exploited for food, grindstones and locally manufactured ceramics reflected African foodways and therefore continuity in African traditional practice. The research of Ken Kelly (1997, 1999) at Savi, the capital of the kingdom of Wbydah on the Slave Coast (now the area from Togo to western Nigeria) also illustrates the responses of indigenous Africans to the European contact between the mid-seventeenth and the mid-nineteenth centuries. The kingdom of Wbydah extended over 60 km from the coast of modem Benin. It burst into international fame in the late seventeenth century and Savi became an important trading port that accommodated European traders namely the Dutch, Danes, English, French and Portuguese. From Savi, the European traders shipped African slaves from the 245 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh m· ten.o r and coastal regions of the Bight of Benin to the New World. Dahomey, an interior state destroyed the Whydah kingdom in 1727 and Savi was never occupied Archaeological investigation at Savi by Kelly revealed that the town extended more than 2 km across. Mounds of varying dimensions representing domestic refuse dumps and former buildings and a system of substantial ditches and embankments characterized the on-site surface configuration. Excavations showed that Savi was divided into two distinct sectors: the royal district and the commoner district. The royal district was confmed within the ditch system whilst the ordinary people lived outside of it. A palace complex of long narrow rooms with Dutch brick-lined floors arranged to enclose a large rectilinear compound was excavated within the elite zone. Kelly combined documentary evidence, oral traditions and archaeological data to investigate the political and social meanings of the trade contact between the Whydah society and European traders who lived at Savio The emerging picture in this contact setting is one in which the Whydah king and the elite ruling class exploited the benefits accrued from the European trade to enhance their political and socio-economic status. The market at Savi was located in the elite district and very close to the palace complex where trade interactions could be scrutinized and controlled by the ruling elite. The European trading posts at Savi were built within the enclosure of the royal palace. The European presence was therefore circumscribed with walls and royal regulations. This indeed was very unique in contrast to other regions on the coast particularly the Gold Coast where European trading posts were placed directly on the shore overlooking the African towns. 246 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh In the interior regions, Ann Stahl (1994, 1998,1999) combines historical infonnation, ethnographic and archaeological data to generate insights into the responses of the indigenous Banda society of west-central Ghana (Gold Coast) to trade encounters in the late eighteenth century and the early decades of the nineteenth century. Archaeological data representing three phases of occupation: Kuulo, Early Makala and Late Makala during the period under consideration, reveals that the Banda society experienced kaleidoscopic patterns of continuity and change in settlement, abandonment, craft production, subsistence and exchange (Stahl 1999:74). During the Kuulo phase, which is reflected in the occupation of Kuulo Kataa, villages characterized settlement pattern in the Banda area where specialists like potters, iron smelters and farmers engaged in their specialist pursuits. The Banda society at this period participated in regional trade in craft and subsistence goods as well as interregional trade in prestige goods with the Middle Niger area and the Mediterranean World. However, carbonized remains of New World crops particularly maize recovered at Kuulo Kataa points to coastal connections and for that matter participation in the Atlantic trade. After a period of dislocation due to Asante conquest the Banda society enjoyed relative stability during the Early Makala Phase. Archaeological data reveal that the Banda society relied on local resources for subsistence, building, craft production and exchange. People continued to build rectangular compound houses with local materials. Local craft production continued with households producing 247 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh and consuming their own food and textiles while pottery and metal goods required for household activities were obtained through local exchange networks. Trade in material goods with the Atlantic coast was very limited due to Asante control of the long-distance exchange networks in the hinterland areas. However, as from this period the Banda area began to supply slaves to Asante and the Atlantic trade. The Banda area came under the control of the British in the late nineteenth century when Asante hegemony over the ethnic groups in the forest and interior savanna regions was broken by British invasion of Asante in 1874. The Late Makala Phase represents this period. Archaeological evidence corroborated by oral historical sources indicate that after a period of lingering uncertainty and dislocation the Banda people settled down to rebuild their society. Excavations turned up many European manufactured goods including luxuries such as kaolin smoking pipes, glass beads and drink bottles of which some probably contained alcoholic beverages. There was greater reliance on maize, cassava and groundnuts New World food crops and a decline in the consumption of sorghum, an indigenous African cereal. It is evident that Banda villages were vitally drawn into broader exchange networks that supplied European manufactured goods. Village life also changed as the Banda people were compelled by British administrators to lay their villages in grid fashion, adopt organized cemeteries and participate in a monetized colonial economy. 248 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Even though the research efforts cited are not exhaustive, it is clear that scholars who have investigated the effects of the European contact in West Africa have painted this important aspect of the African past in broad wide strokes. Again, none of these investigations has focused on slave contact settings. Therefore there are gaps in our understanding of the processes that unfolded during the European contact in West Africa. The former Danish plantation sites are unique as they afford the opportunity to apply a perspective on global processes for understanding local level societal events and thereby fill some of the yawning gaps in our understanding of the impact of global encounters on a peripheral society. The uniqueness of the Danish plantations for such a research focus is due to three main factors. Firstly, unlike slave sites located within African settlements, which are not archaeologically visible, the Danish plantations located in the coastal hinterland and directly associated with the European presence are relatively well preserved and therefore visible. Secondly, they constitute individual contact settings that form only a small component of the complex encounters, which unfolded due to the European presence. Thirdly, the interaction on the plantations occurred in a specific historical context: that of the transition from the export slave trade to the export of commercial agricultural produce. Rather than focus on the European aspect of the interaction, during that transitional period, this study has sought to investigate the social effects of this interaction on the enslaved Africans who laboured on the plantations and how they responded to the contact situation. 249 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh The Intersection of Daily Life on the Frederiksgave Plantation with Global Processes As already noted (in Chapter Three), Denmark's commercial interests in West Africa began in the seventeenth century. This was long after the Portuguese and later the Dutch, English and French had established trade contacts on the Guinea coast. The Danish enterprise in West Africa may be seen as part of the European overseas trade relations generally. At the time Denmark entered the arena of overseas trade her economy was largely peripheral to that of the capitalist core countries of Europe namely. England, France and Holland (DeCorse 1993:153). However, by the close of the seventeenth century, Denmark had gained status as one of the minor colonial powers occupying a strategically important position in the European-centered global economy (Hermes 1995:173). Denmark's overseas ventures were characterized by expanding commercial network linking her so- called 'colonial possessions' in Asia, the West Indies and Africa including the plantation system on the Gold Coast. How were the Gold Coast plantations incorporated in the Danish (European) economic system? My analysis of the concern raised by this question proceeds from the argument of R.A. Kea (1995: 123) that the Danish plantation system on the south-east Gold Coast originated from 'a concerted political effort by Denmark to establish an agricultural colony, a projected alternative to the external slave trade'. This 'colony' was perceived to become a source of crops associated 250 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh with industrial manufacturing, processing and consumption. The Danes were therefore to use the crops from the plantations and the trade in the so-called legitimate 'colonial products' to feed their industrial sector and in exchange, export mass-produced industrial goods to the Danish Guinea establishment and thereby create wealth to support the Danish economy. Denmark's interests in the Gold Coast plantations stemmed from both internal and external factors. Internally, in the eighteenth century the Danish economy registered significant growth due to trade boom. However, this flourishing period collapsed and the Danish economy suffered losses. In the nineteenth century Denmark tried to find her way back to the world market of shipping and trade. It is significant to note that this positive policy pursued by Denmark created opportunities for economic development, which internally contributed to the social transformation in the Danish rural agrarian structure and urban growth. The agrarian reforms involved the emancipation of peasants as manorial tenants from feudal ties and their transformation to a peasant-farmer class of free landholders. The agrarian reforms led to the promotion of capitalist relations among rural peasant folks and the eventual emergence of a petit bourgeoisie class in the agrarian sector (Kea 1995: 138). As regards the urban sector growth, the Danish historian Vagn Wahlin ( 1980: 15 3) perceptively points out that: "In the second half of the eighteenth century a grand bourgeois milieu that was in many respects international in character with a club life and 251 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh political debate in the newspapers and journals developed in Copenhagen. It was based on commercial and financial circles, the leading officials of the strong Danish Absolutist State and some of the large landowners who had links with the centre and a residence in Copenhagen". These internal developments were inextricably linked to the external factor: the world market. Wahlin (op cit) further explains, "This urban growth enabled Copenhagen and ultimately the provincial towns to cease merely being an appendage to the agrarian sector and to develop on their own terms in constant interaction with, on the one hand, the agrarian sector and, on the other, foreign industry and the world market". It is the interaction of the expanding Danish economy with the world market (in our case the Danish establishment on the Gold Coast and precisely the plantations) that this study is partly concerned with. Denmark's interests in the plantations can be seen as part of a deliberate state policy, to create enabling conditions for a revival of the Danish long-distance international trade. The positive internal socio-economic developments in Denmark led to an increase in the consumption of tropical products especially sugar and coffee. In the early decades of the nineteenth century, the Danish need for sugar for instance, was met by the production of Danish West Indies. Coffee, another tropical crop also became popular as the habit of drinking this product spread to all layers of Danish 252 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh society. Denmark's industrial sector needed tobacco, cotton and dye-wood, as well as other vegetal fibres to produce industrial trade goods for both internal consumption and export. The high consumption pattern of these tropical products always created a short fall in supply, which had to be met. The Danish plantation system on the Gold Coast, which experimented with these and other tropical crops, can therefore be perceived as a source to produce and supply the much needed, industrial raw materials to augment the Danish economy. There is no doubt that the plantations on the Gold Coast were enmeshed in the global processes unleashed by the European presence. But what can be gleaned from the available data in respect to the daily life of the enslaved people who laboured on the plantations as these agriCUltural settlements intersected with such intercontinental relations? The material inventory from the Frederlksgave plantation coupled with ethnographic data, oral information and written historical accounts allow us to investigate the daily life of the enslaved people on the plantation. Written historical accounts provide an overview of the slave society by describing events that affected the daily life of the inhabitants on the plantation. Observations of contemporary traditional practices in the study area provide general insight into how the enslaved people perceived and manipulated the material world around them. The range of material culture recovered at the Frederiksgave plantation site and presented in Chapters Five and Six constitute a major database for archaeological inference. Encoded in the archaeological objects is a wealth of information on the activities carried out on 253 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh the plantation and about the enslaved people who acquired, used and discarded these objects. These artefacts include storage items, tools, kitchen-related objects, construction hardware, clothing and jewelry, weapons and many more. The artefacts represent tangible evidence of the daily activities, housing, subsistence, personal adornment, exchange system, leisure and general lifestyle of the enslaved people who cultivated the Frederiksgave plantation. Our view of the daily life of the enslaved people on the Frederiksgave plantation begins with housing. Unfortunately, very little literal information with respect to the size of plantation villages was obtained from the Danish Archives. Apart from the ground plans of two unidentified plantation houses, which were stumbled upon. no contemporary ground plans or illustrations of entire plantations were obtained. However, early nineteenth-century Danish accounts mentioned that the plantations in the foothills of the Akuapem Mountains had small slave villages by each. Djabing the slave village on the Frederiksgave plantation consisted of two rows of ten houses on each side of the tree-lined alley that linked Christiansborg on the coast to the plantations in the interior. Balthasar Mathias Christensen (1831 :275), a Danish official on the Gold Coast observed that the plantation slaves lived in "cottages of clay, battened in wood and thatched with grass". He intimated further that these slave dwellings were cheap and easy to construct and that, they were put up by the slaves "without a whit of expense to the (plantations] owners". Despite these uncomplimentary 254 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh comments and the lack of detailed description of slave houses by Christensen, it is significant to remark that the slaves on the plantations constructed their houses in the typical vernacular architectural style of the coastal hinterland commonly called wattle and daub. Paul Erdmann Isert (1788 [trans] 1992:280) provides further insight into similar dwellings constructed by the Akuapem in the late eighteenth century. He observed: "The houses of the Mountain Blacks [Akuapem] are square, being built of poles, and the walls are covered with clay. The interiors are kept very clean. The floor is washed every morning with red earth, which gives it a very nice appearance ... the houses are not more than one storey high ... " Today there is continuity with the construction of wattle and daub dwellings at Sesemi, the present village where the enslaved people on the Frederiksgave plantation moved to in the early decades of the twentieth century. A building of this architectural design may either be a single or double-unit structure almost square/rectangular in shape and measuring about 3 x 5 m. sq. (plate 7.1). The comers of the layout and foundation of such a house are marked by four forked- shaped, upright posts firmly placed in the ground. In-between the four comer posts, a few more vertical posts are placed. Thin, pliable sticks called wattle are woven into the posts and then plastered with plastic clay [daub] to produce the house. Meanwhile, the four comer posts are linked together at the top by an equal 255 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Plate 7.1 Wattle and daub architecture, Sesemi village. 256 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh number of horizontal sticks. The rafters of the roof that link together in a crest rest on the horizontal sticks. To complete the house, the roof rafters are covered with thick. plaited raffia palm leaves or dry grass to provide a thatch. The building is primarily used for sleeping accommodation. A fence around the house provides an inner space where daily activities such as cooking, eating, animal raising and various forms of socialization are conducted. No physical traces of slave dwellings were found during the dig. However, pieces of pole impressed reddish-brown clay lumps believed to have been part of broken walls of wattle and daub houses used by the slaves collaborates the literal evidence that the plantation slaves lived in timber and clay buildings. In contrast, the plantation houses where the owners or the overseers lived were constructed with cut and dressed stone blocks from the rock formation of the Akuapem Mountains. It is interesting to note that the enslaved people did not copy this European way of building. However, the presence of construction hardware such as hand-cut nails and spikes, iron hinges and door locks shows that the slaves adopted European building materials in the construction of their houses. The precise overall dimensions of the slaves' dwellings are not known likewise the daily activities that took place in them. However, it can be conjectured that the enslaved people on the Danish plantations in the Akuapem Mountains utilized the physical spaces in and around their houses for various daily activities such as sleeping, shelter, raising of animals, storage, cooking and socializing. 257 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh In Chapter Four (Tables 4.1 and 4.2) a demographic analysis of the enslaved people on the Frederiksgave plantation was presented. Of the total of 32 enslaved people on the Frederiksgave plantation in 1831-2, males represented 59%, while 41 % were females. Between 1833-5, there were 42 slaves on the plantation. Adult males of that number constituted 45% and 19% stood for adult females. Boys and girls were 14% and 5% respectively. while the remaining 17 % stood for children. It is clear from these figures that the proportions of male slaves to females were deliberately skewed in favour of the former. A picture that emerges from Table 4.2 strongly suggests that the enslaved workers on the Frederiksgave plantation and perhaps the other plantations comprised heterogeneous ethnic groups such as Akan, Ga-Dangme, Ewe and those of northern Sudanic extraction. Could such diverse enslaved people establish family and kinship networks within the context of plantation slavery? Marriage is the starting point for establishing family structure and kinship networks. It was the responsibility of a Danish plantation owner to provide his male slave with a wife (Christensen 1831 :275). However, in practical terms adult male slaves could contract their own marriages within the enslaved plantation communities. Children of such marriages became slaves and remained the property of the plantation owner as their slave parents although it was the responsibility of enslaved couples to bear the reproduction costs of their households. In as much as the plantation slaves did not have control over their destinies; and the fact that innocent slave children had no choice but remained the property of plantation owners, it would not be far fetched to say that ties of fictive kinship bound families together on the plantations. 258 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Plantation agriculture required intensive labour. Enslaved people comprising men, women and children provided the required labour to cultivate the Danish plantations on the southeast Gold Coast. As indicated above, the enslaved labourers on the Frederiksgave plantation constituted a heterogeneous group drawn mainly from ethnic groups on the Gold Coast. The daily tasks of the slaves were tough and demanding. The labour management system, which operated on the plantations, was that slaves worked for their owners three or four days in a week (Christensen 1831 :275). The rest of the days were given to the slaves to attend to their private needs. However, slaves could forfeit their 'free' days in order to complete urgent and pressing plantation assignments such as sowing and harvesting. The production processes on the plantations dictated the duties of the enslaved workforce. Generally, the plantations specialized in the production of both subsistence and commercial crops, which were either seasonal or perennial. The major crops cultivated on the Frederiksgave plantation were coffee, cotton and maize. Other crops cultivated included sugar cane, orange, lemon, banana, plantain, cassava, tamarind and guava. The required slave duties included bush clearing, planting, hoeing, harvesting, smoke-drying coffee beans and transporting harvests by head loading to warehouses on the coast as well as conveying provisions like salt, fish and trade goods back to the plantations (N9ITeg4rd 1964:44-5). No infonnation about the work detail on the plantations was obtained. It is therefore difficult to say whether in the field the enslaved labourers worked in gangs or each slave was assigned a specific field task to be completed each day. 259 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh The production management on the plantations was under the close supervision of overseers/managers and headmen. The overseers were either Danes or free men brought down from the Danish West Indies to manage the plantations. They lived in stone-block houses put up on the plantations by the proprietors. Gnmberg, a mill-builder and a pensioned non-commissioned officer at Christiansborg, managed the Frederiksgave plantation for several years (Jeppesen 1966:87). The supervision of slaves in the field was the responsibility of the headman otherwise called a bomba. He was also a slave and his major responsibility was to ensure that slaves did not malinger in the field. Written documentary sources and archaeological data provide evidence about the subsistence of the enslaved workers on the plantations. According to Danish documentary accounts the slaves were responsible for their own subsistence. However, the plantation owners provided their slaves with farm tools, household goods and a flintlock musket to start them up on the plantations. To meet their daily food requirements slaves were allotted plots of land to farm. On the Frederiksgave plantation slaves used their so-called free times to cultivate maize, cassava, yams, plantain and a variety of vegetables for their daily subsistence. Archaeological data provides a great deal more infonnation about the subsistence base of the enslaved workers on the Frederlksgave plantation. No palaeo- botanical remains were recovered. Direct evidence about the diet of the workforce 260 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh on the Frederiksgave plantation was a variety of faunal remains including animal and fish bones, shells of land snails as well as marine and freshwater shellfish. The animal bones represented both wild and domesticated types. The wild animals exploited by the slaves were antelopes, grass cutters, giant rats, ground squirrels, land tortoise and small birds like francolins. Among the identified domesticates were cattle, sheep/goats, pigs, chickens and turkeys. The list of wild fauna suggests that the enslaved workers on the Frederiksgave plantation adopted a mixed strategy of hunting trapping and collecting to obtain the protein component of their subsistence. Docwnentary accounts mention that plantation owners supplied their slaves with guns. The recovery of parts of flintlock muskets and flint stones (strike-a-light) confirms that the slaves on the Frederiksgave plantation had access to firearms. They may have used either the flintlock muskets provided by their master or a variety of traps to obtain wild animals such as antelopes, grass cutters, giant rats, ground squirrels and small birds especially francolins. The slaves also collected freshwater shellfish and two kinds of giant land snails for food. The land snails, Archachatina and Achatina achatina today occur in the gallery forests along the banks of the nearby Dakobi and Mamman streams. The villagers in the research area presently collect land snails for food. Remains of freshwater and marine fish, crabs and shellfish were among the excavated faunal resources at the Frederiksgave plantation site. Together they 261 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh constituted an important component of the slaves' diet. The freshwater fish, crabs and shellfish were perhaps collected from the Dakobi and Mamman streams while the marine and estuarine resources could have been obtained by the slaves whenever they visited the Accra coast. Most of the animal bones excavated were broken and only a few showed butchering marks. Also some of these bones were charred indicating that meat was roasted. These observed conditions of the bones are consistent with the food processing practices in Ghana today. Meat is roasted to keep from going bad. Bones are often cracked during consumption to extract marrow. Soups probably consisted of a mixture of pulverized vegetables combined with meat, fish and snails in varying degrees. Cooked yams, cassava, plantains and maize were perhaps combined in different ways and eaten with soups, stews and sauces. The profile of domesticated animal remains recovered at the Frederiksgave plantation indicates that the slaves on the plantation probably raised chickens, turkeys, pigs and sheep/goats. These were perhaps allowed free range to roam the neighbourhood during the daytime returning to their owners in the slave village at the nightfall. The eggs of poultry (chickens and turkeys) probably supplemented slaves' diet. While some of the animals reared by the slaves may have been sold to get money to buy needed items such as salt and European trade goods. Lithic objects and ceramics related to the processing, serving and consumption of food were among the artefacts recovered at the Frederiksgave plantation. Eighteen 262 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh grinding stone tools exhibiting worn-out surfaces perhaps due to persistent grinding were recovered. They were fairly distributed throughout the excavation profiles. Presently, in the research area, cooked vegetables used as condiments are pulverized using a grinding stone or pottery mortar prior to the preparation of soups, stews and sauces. The presence of grinding stones, the charred and shattered nature of majority of the recovered animal bones are consistent with the diet of mixed dishes of soups, stews and sauces prepared and consumed in the research area today. Both locally produced and imported ceramic wares provide circumstantial clues to the diet of the slaves. Among the locally produced utilitarian pottery those related to food preparation and consumption were cooking pots (lik:llik:l), eating bowls (kalayowa), grating bowls (kalap=~owa) and soup preparation bowls (wonu kukw&ilkwans&n). As already noted, the locally produced pottery may reflect the responses of the Densu Valley potters to diverse consumer demands and an indication of ethnic heterogeneity on the Accra coast including the Danish plantations in the foothills of the Akuapem Mountains. The imported (European) ceramics included bowls, drinking mugs and deep plates, all of which were probably related to food consumption. The presence of all these ceramics suggest that the enslaved workforce on the Frederiksgave plantation prepared African meals which were eaten out of bowls and deep plates with the band. This is a common consumption pattern among contemporary traditional societies in Ghana. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Archaeological evidence has provided some indication that the enslaved workers on the Frederiksgave plantation indulged in liquor. A variety of drink bottles were recovered at the Frederiksgave plantation site. Among the bottle glass recovered from the excavation were reddish-brown and olive green bottles, square-bodied case bottles and sturdily built egg-shaped bottles suggesting the enslaved people on the Frederiksgave indulged in intoxicating beverages such as wine, brandy, whiskey and schnapps as well as mineral and soda water. N0ITegArd (1966:161) in an exaggerated statement about local demand for alcoholic drinks observed that, "the natives [on the Accra coast] were fond of the good Danish liquor. They were prepared to do almost anything to get hold of a bottle of it and it was the greatest treat at local banquets". However, as bottles could readily be re-used those discarded by the plantation's overseer/manager could have been scavenged and re-used as containers for liquid products. Some of the bottles particularly the relatively large wine, brandy and whiskey bottles contained residues of bitumen/tar an indication that they played secondary functional roles on the plantation. Archaeological information provided by local pottery recovered at the Frederiksgave plantation indicated that the enslaved workforce on the plantations consumed locally produced alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks. The excavated narrow-necked, globular-bodied pots locally known as 8888&0 were probably used in serving and dispensing of drinks. Today, these pots are devoted to the tapping, 264 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh storing and serving of ledaa, an alcoholic drink tapped from the palm tree and nmetiaa, a non·alcoholic drink brewed out of maize. The enslaved workers on the Frederiksgave plantation indulged in tobacco too. Large nwnbers of kaolin smoking pipes were excavated at the Frederiksgave plantation. Some of the pipes that carried maker's marks indicated that they were manufactured in Britain. Others were produced in France and Holland. Majority of the pipes was unmarked and therefore it was difficult to determine the source countries. The clay pipes were of cheap quality and hence belonged to the so· called Negro pipes. As noted in Chapter Five, the tear and wear analysis on the excavated pipe stems revealed that when pipes broke, the slaves on the plantation did not discard them. It was observed that they often reworked the stem remnant on the bowl by smooth grinding the broken end to obtain a mouthpiece with a slightly rounded·off end. In several cases such reused pipes had relatively deep dents at the ends of the mouthpieces. The dents were created probably because the slaves constantly clenched the mouthpieces in their teeth when smoking. These repaired mouthpieces may indicate that slaves access to clay pipes described by European writers as very cheap on the Gold Coast was restricted by their purchasing power, which was rather weak and pitiful and therefore could not afford to buy new ones whenever the pipes broke. Tobacco was one of the trade items exported to the Gold Coast by Europeans and the plantation owners occasionally 'rewarded' the enslaved workers with tobacco. It was also among the crops experimented on the plantation. The enslaved workers could have obtained their tobacco needs from the plantation. 265 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Archaeological data provide a glimpse of the worldview of the enslaved workers on the Frederiksgave plantation. Artefacts such as stone axes, a pair of brass bells, white/gray shell beads and alcoholic square case bottles, which were recovered during the excavations are ethnographically known ritual paraphernalia associated with African cognitive systems. Fetish priests and priestesses of traditional cults in Ghana wear the white/gray shell beads on their wrists and ankles for spiritual protection and identification. Stone axes and brass bells also feature in the healing, divination and protective rituals of these traditional spiritualists. While these may be considered as material expressions of African religious beliefs it is difficult to identify the specific cult these were associated with. Liquor perhaps played an important role in uniting and strengthening the social and spiritual worlds of the enslaved people on the Frederiksgave plantation. As a socially deprived and marginalized group of people drawn from different ethnic backgrounds into slavery, social drinking among adult slaves or sharing drinks together would have facilitated the building of a bond of social cohesiveness among themselves. Among African societies, alcohol is regarded as a powerful fluid that is used to communicate and mediate between the living (the known and present) on one hand and the ancestral and spiritual world (the future and unknown) on the other. Today this functional role of alcohol is observed during the ritual performance(s) connected with various rites of passage such as birth and naming, puberty, marriage and death. The enslaved workers on the Frederiksgave plantation may have used alcohol in such ritual situations to bridge the gap 266 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh between their physical world and the spiritual world of their ancestors. The strong and powerful alcoholic beverages were probably used in libation prayers to strike a harmonious balance between the plantation community and the ancestral (spiritual) world that ruled over the individual and collective destinies of the enslaved workers. Documentary information about slave clothing is very scanty. Christensen (1831: 134-5) tersely mentioned that the plantation owners allocated simple clothing to the enslaved workers on the plantations every year. Men's clothing probably consisted of long trousers of cheap rough linen and a shirt of the same material. Women were probably supplied with a cheap quality skirt and a shirt. Archaeological data provides a great deal more information. The different kinds of buttons, a buckle, finger rings probably fashioned out of metal wire by the slaves and the variety of both foreign and locally produced beads excavated at the Frederik:sgave plantation provided evidence of slave clothing. The presence of buttons is probably an indication that the enslaved workers were supplied with European clothing. The beads tell of the slave's expression of a rich and complex African cultural and social identity. The use of beads in West Africa pre-