Akyem Abuakwa C.1874 - 1943: A Study of the Impact of Missionary Activities and Colonial Rule on a Traditional State
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Date
1980-04
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Publisher
University of Ghana
Abstract
This thesis is a study of the nature and extent of the pressures -social, economic and political - that the Basel Missionaries and British colonial Administrators brought to bear on Akyem Abuakwa society during the period 1874-1943. The study also examines the state's responses to these pressures and the extent to which they were conditioned by her pre-european historical experience, her ethos, the strengths and weaknesses of her institutional arrangements, the quality of her political leadership and her resources.
The general conclusions that emerge from this study are that missionary activities and colonial policies brought a great deal of material progress to Akyem Abuakwa society: the quality of life was
improved by the spread of western-style education, by the adoption of new skills, by improved medical care and by infrastructural developments; changes in the customary penal system made the administration of justice more humane; while the evolution of a modem-style bureaucracy at the courts of the chiefs and the adoption of certain administrative routines enabled the complicated and diverse functions of modem government to be effectively discharged.
Those positive results were, however, off-set by negative and harmful results: the spiritual foundations of Akyem Abuakwa were seriously undermined by widespread and wilful violation of time-honoured customary taboos by missionary converts in the name of religious freedom as well as by the introduction of a dichotomy between 'church’ and ‘state’, between religion and politics; the cohesion and solidarity of Abuakwa society suffered great damage by the creation of salems whose Christian inhabitants held aloof from the life of the wider community; existing social conflicts were sharpened while new, more serious and harmful ones were introduced by the concept of territorial jurisdiction as embodied in the N.J.O., by the distortion of the character and role of chieftaincy, and by the destruction of the religious conformity of the state; the wakening of extended family ties, growing emphasis on individualism and the failure of Christianity to deal adequately with the trauma. of rapid social and. economic change created problems of security which expressed
themselves in alcoholism and neurosis; above all the exploitation of Abuakwa’s immense resources -human and natural - for the greater benefit of her alien rulers resulted in the under-development of the state.
Description
PhD in History
Keywords
History, Akyem Abuakwa, Ghana, Colonial Rule, Missionaries