The evolving social space of gender and slavery in nineteenth century Accra

Abstract

By the seventeenth century, Accra had emerged as an important Atlantic trading port that dealt in slaves, gold and European luxury goods. The establishment of the European trading forts; namely the Dutch Fort Crevecoeur (built 1649), the English Fort James (1673-4) and the Danish Fort Christiansburg (1660) ensured the incorporation of Accra into an Atlantic cultural and commercial orbit. Accra thus evolved a multiplicity of identities which included aspects of Euro-Atlantic cultural and commercial practices that influenced indigenous Ga notions of slavery, gender relations and the expression of social power. It is important to note that the Ga and Mulatofoi (Euro-African) women were never constrained by patriarchal structures. Women slave owners tapped into the different and often conflicting norms regulating slavery to their own benefits. Slave holding thus became an important avenue for the contestation of social power and thus shaped urbanism, gender and social cleavages in Accra. The institution of slavery continuously evolved to reflect the contested interests of ma rtsEmEi (singular: mantse; ruler of a town) principal ablempen (grandees), Mulatofoi, influential women, and at the end of the nineteenth century, the fledging British colonial regime who sought to abolish it.