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THE GOLD COAST, 193 T.
THE GOLD COAST, 193 I.
A Review of conditions in the Gold Coast in
1931 as compared with those of 1921, based on
figures and facts collected by the Chief Census
Officer of 1931, together with a Historical,
Ethnographical and Sociological Survey of
the People of that Country.
By A. W. CARDINALL
Chief CellSUf Officer.
Printed by the G overnment Printer, Accra, Gold Coast .
G-IJ-(2 3 9 B
DT 5""\-0 . GIl
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CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
GEOGRAPHICAL. PAGE
Description of the Country-The Coast Line-Lake
BOS1!,mtwi-The Forest and S~tdanese Zones 1-7
CHAPTER II.
HISTORICAL.
Myths and Traditions-Forme1' High State of
Civilisation-Aggrey Beads-Advent of the Europeans-
History of the Gold Coast in its relation to that of
the World-Local Historical Events-International
Agreements-Ashanti and the Northern Territories-
Samory-Ferguson's Death-Awm~al Record of the Last
D ecade- C onstitution- J udicial System 8-52
CHAPTER III.
ETHNOGRAPHICAL.
Divisions of the Gold Coast Peoples-Their
ReligionS-Sky, Earth, Animism, Ancestors and Fetish
W orship-I njluence of Christianity--Cult of St. A nthony-
Sir James Fraze1"s Su,mma1'y of the Gold Coast Reli-
gions-Earth-gods and Land Te'/t'I,we--Constitution of the
Tribes-A True Democracy-The Common People--
Asafu-Despots and P1'1:ests-Oriental I nfhtences in the
North 53-74
CHAPTER IV.
ECONOMIC.
Economic Development of the Country-Gold-mining-
hon and Manganese-Diamonds-Romance of the Cacao
Industry-Economics of that I ndustry-Problems arising
therefrom-Forestry Problems-M'inor Ag1'icultural and
Sylvan Products-Imported Foodstuffs-Internal Trade-
Cattle Breeding-Meat Consumption-Transport Problems-
Non-distribution oj Overhead Charges-The National
Income 75-122
CONTE TS.
II
CHAPTER V.
THE CENSUS, 1931. . PAGE
Preliminary Survey-Assistance freely given-
Census Ordinance-Date fixed-Cost of Census-Compar-
ison with previous Censuses-Abnormal ~'l1crease due to
immigration-Reasons for this moveme11.t-Density
Returns-Zone of depopulousness-Sex and Age Statistics-
Marriage conditions-Status of women--Occupational
Retnms-Analysis of Occ~tPations-Female Occupations-
Ret'Mnt Showi'ng increased use of wheaten flour-Religion
and Education of -the people 123- 200
CHAPTER VI.
SOCIAL CONDITIONS .
Classification of Agricult1l.ral labour-Housing
Conditions-Recent I mprovement-Water Supplies-Health
of the Community-Child and I nfantile MOl,tality-Death
rates in Sex and Age groups-Su,rvival rate of Cht:ld,'en-
Inf irmities-Leprosy-Lnnacy-Dietetics-Co st of liv1:ng-
A lcoholic Consumption-Labo~tr Co nditions-Mi nes labo~tr
Tendency towards G1{.ilds 01' U nionism-l nstitutional
Statistics-Criminal Population , .. 201-253
CHAPTER VII.
NON-AFRICAN POPULATION.
Number of Non-Africans-Sex Distrib~ttion-Increase
oj Females-Classification by Nationality-Occupational
Ret~trn.-Age Groups-Health of Europeans-Health oj
Asiatics ,.. 254-265
LIST OF MAPS.
General Map of West Africa Frontispiece.
Linguistic lVIap of the Gold Coast To face page 9
Geological Map-of the Gold Coast 75
Map of the Gold Coast showing area of
maximum productivity 82
Map of the Gold Coast showing political
divisions 123
:y[ap showing density of population in the Gold
Coast 157
THE GOLD COAST, 193I.
CHAPTER 1.
GEOGRAPHICAL.
Description of the Co~tntry-The Coast Line-Lake Bosumtw1'-
The Forest and Sudanese Zones.
The Gold Coast is that portion of the coast of Guinea lying
between longitude E. 10 14' and W. 30 7' and latitude N. 40 45' and
N.llo 10'. It stretches along a coastline of some 334 miles, and
penetrates northwards towards the Sudan for a distance of about
380 miles.
The country is not a separate entity containing the people of
one single nation but is an arbitrarily created zone, the result of
many political machinations and arrangements. Its area amo,unts
to some 91 ,843 square miles which is divided among the several
parts of which the Gold Coast is composed as follows :-
Square miles.
Gold Coast Colony 23,937
Colon v of Ashanti 24,379
Protectorate of Northern Territories 30,486
Mandated Zone of Togoland 13;041
Politically it is bounded on the West and North by the French
Colonies of the Ivory Coast and the Upper Volta, and on the East
by the Zone of Togoland mandated to France, whilst the Southern
frontie r is t he Atlantic Ocean.
Occasic nal cliffs and rocky outcrops interrupt the low sandy
foreshore along which break continually the ocean swells in a surf
that for long has made landing difficult and often dangerous and
to no small extent has hindered the progress of the country. No
harbours, nor river estuaries have offered shelter to the trading
vessels, until during the past decade the harbour of Takoradi was
built and opened.
Back of this sandy horizon there rises a long chain of low hills
which , reaching the coast itself at about Cape Three Points, recede
further and further inland until they are still visible some 30 miles
away from the sea at Prampram. Between these hills and the sea
lies a great plain which is characterised by areas of oil-palm, grassy
fiats and brackish lagoons.
The late Director of t he Geological Survey of the Gold Coast
briefiy describes it as follows :-
" The coast-line varies verv much in its character from
west to east. Between Newtowil and Axim there are strips of
beach sand, backed by swampy country, ext ending in place~
to about 20 miles from the coast. From Axim eastward to
A
2 THE GOLD COAST, 1931.
beyond Appam, the greater portion of the coast-line consists
of massive rocky cliffs, some of them rising as sheer walls to
upwards of 200 feet above sea-level. \i\There streams reach the
ocean there are usually brackish or freshwater swamps or
lagoons, separated from the sea by fringes of sea-sand. From
near Appam eastward to the limit of the Colony there is an
alternation of lagoon and coastal plain, with or without cliffs.
The land is steadily encroaching on t he sea. The coast-line
is undoubtedly rising, a fact evidenced by the occurrence of
several well-marked marine terraces or platforms, one of which
is from 70 to 100 feet above present sea-level, and at least two
others of more recent age, of 20 feet and 8 to 10 feet above it.
The last uplift of 8 feet was partly the cause of the occurrence
of the fringing and landlocked lagoons to be seen now along
many parts of the coast. In some places shells of existing
marine species can be seen in t he clay and mud of the banks
of channels several feet above present sea-level. Owing to
the uplift the shallow estuaries and indentations of the coast
at the mouths of streams were converted into lagoons. The
strong west-south-west Guinea current, and t he prevailing
south-west wind acting on the sea formed a great swell which
persistently swept and is still sweeping along the coast, trans-
porting landward large quantities of sand along the sea-floor.
Continued action of this kind has resulted in the formation
first , of a shoal, then of a tidal sandbank, and finally of ashore-
sand barrier. This work is being actively aided and hastened
by the wind, which blows the dry sand inland. The
constructive action of the two forces proceeds rapidly, and at
such places the land is gaining at the expense of the sea, while
at others, as at Acc] a, those portions of the cliffs that are
composed of soft rocks are being rapidly broken down and the
material washed away. Shore-sand barriers in most places
prevent the waters of the impounded streams from flowing into
the sea. In a few places, however, the streams are able to
discharge during the rainy season floods or at low tide, wIllie
several of the small streams and the large rivers have permanent
outflows."
Immediately behind this coast line, from Axim to Kpong on
the Volta River and eastward thereof there stretches an area
commonly known as the Coastal Zone, varying in width up to as
much as 60 miles inland from the sea. It consists generally of
almost level plains, on which very occasionally there rise abruptly
small ranges of hills or isolated peaks. Trees of any size are scarce,
but the soil is by no means a poor one, crops of various kinds being
readily cultivated.
To several causes can this quasi-deser t nature of the plains be
attributed ; t he uplift mentioned above, the continuous depositing
of sand by the south-west monsoon, the act ion of man, and the
influence of t he Volta River's everchanging delta. The receding
THE GOLD COAST, 1931 . 3
of the forest has been historically noted, and its retreat is clearly
visible to-day, one of the most difficult of the many problems in the
Gold Coast.
The area of the country covered by the forest is almost an
equilateral triangle; from Axim to the Volta River at Kpong,
from Kpong to Nkoranza m Ashanti, and a base formed by the
Western Frontier across which the forest itself continues to stret ch
towards Sierra Leone. It covers an area of approximately 18,000
square miles, and includes almost all t hat country from which the
people of the Gold Coast at present draw their prosperity.
This ever-green forest offers to the traveller a sense of almost
overwhelming weight. Giant trees rise to a height of some 200 feet
or more; a late conservator of forests in t his country estimated
their number to be from 20 to 30 an acre, so that it is not difficult
to realise how the canopy of their branches and leaves affords a
roof almost impenetrable t o the full light of the sun, whilst trees of
smaller girth, rising to an equal height help to add to the
entanglement above. In the forest, an almost twilight prevails'.
The undergrowth, or jungle which borders the paths and roads of
man. or covers the space where some giant tree has fallen or a
former patch of cultivation existed, ceases. One can gaze for as
much as a hundred yards through the long irregular lines of the
grey barked trees, rising branchless t o the dark ceiling of their
leaves, whilst one stands on a soft carpet, the pile of which is one
vast nursery of treelings, rising barely a foot in height. The air is
heavy and steaming, a continuous dropping of moisture almost
enough to be termed rain falls from the canopy above, and over all
t here hangs an almost overwhelming odour of vegetation, sometimes
pleasant and sometimes the reverse, The silence of the woodland
is not here, there is always the chatter of monkeys, the hoarse
calling of birds and the ear-splltting shrilling of the cicadas.
The evel-green forest lies in a country of hills and mountains.
The northern boundary is formed by a range which in many places
attains to heights of more than 2,000 feet . But throughout the
area the hills are many and steep, with here and there perpendicular
walls of rock or over-hanging cliffs, affording vist as of magnificent
scenery.
The whole area is well-watered with innumerable streams and
rivulets, which form the tributaries of the Rivers Tano, Ankobra,
Prah and Birim,
Included in the river system is the basin of the one and only
real lake in the Gold Coast (Lake Bosumtwi), lying some 20 miles
to the south-east of Kumasi. This expanse of water presents in
many ways a unique problem for the geographer and for the
geologist, The latest account of it is given in the J ournal of the
Royal Geographical Society for September, 1931 in an article by
Mr. Malcolm Maclaren, D,se" F.G, S" who puts forwarn the theory
that its origin is meteoric, His description of the lake is briefly
as follows :-
AI
4 THE GOLD COAST, 1931.
"Lake Bosumtwi is roughly circular, with an average
diameter of a little under 5 miles. It lies at the bottom of a
great crater with its surface waters 900 to 1,200 feet below the
crater rim. The diameter of the crater at the rim is about
6! miles. The inner slopes are steep. They were obviously
originally precipitous. but have been modified somewhat by
denudation. . . . . The inner walls of the crater are densely
jungle clad. Perhaps the most striking topographical featur
is t he continuous and unbroken rim, which is raised from 300
to 600 feet above the general upland level (950 feet)
The water gathering area of Lake Bosumtwi is therefore
confined wholly to the crater walls, and no stream flowing
into it has a greater length than 2t miles, while the majority
have a length of ahout it mile. The maximum depth of the
lake appears to be at the present time about 240 feet
" The bottom of the lake is therefore about 100 feet above
sea-level."
Mr. Maclaren compares these figures with the almost exactly
coinciding ones of the famous Meteor Crater in Arizona.
To the casual observer the appearance of the lake would suggest
a volcanic origin. But as Mr. Maclaren · points out there are
nowh t're in the neighbourhood any traces of volcanic ejecta, nor
is there any evidence of recent volcanic action recorded elsewhere
in the country. It is the comparative recentness of the origin of
this lake that is so striking to the geologist and no theory has yet
been put forward as so likely as Mr. Maclaren's theory. He gives
an almost thrilling account of what to him seems to have occurred.
" There is no reason to assume that the diameter of the
meteor in any way approached that ofthe resultant impact-crater.
Travelling, as it must have done, at a velocity of approximately
50 miles per second, urging allead of it , and especially drawing
behind it, enormous quantities of superheated air, the shock
and heat of impact must have blown all rock round the point
of impact to incandescent dust. If, as was probable, since
by far the greater number of meteorites that enter the earth's
atmosphere are stony and not of nickel-iron, the Bosumtwi
meteor was stony, then it also was blown to dust. leaving in
solid masses only the small portions of nickel-iron metal that
stony meteorites usually carry. The mass of the meteor is
probably to be expressed in thousands rather than in millions
of tons, and the relative diameters of meteor and crater are
believed to be comparable to those of a high-explosive shell
and the crater formed by it. The direction of the meteor is
possibly indicated by the greater piling up of the rim against
the flank of the Obuom Range to the south. If this assumption
is valid the meteor fell from the nOlih-north-east."
The lake is a sacred place, and many are the tabus imposed
upon t he dwellers on its shores and the fishers in its water. It
was the great fishing centre from which the people of Kumasi drew
THE GOLD COAST, I93I.
supplies of fish, and as a result the villages along its bank are
numerous and the inhabitants passing rich. The earliest known
description of the lake seems to be that given by Perregaux in the
Bnlletin de la Societe N eufchateloise in 1906, but the fullest is
probably that of Rattray in his book Ashanti, 1923, pages 54-76.
Lying immediately to the north of the ever-green forest is
the so-called Sudanese zone. Of this the late Major T. F. Chipp,
D.SC., M.C., wrote :-
"Comparatively no botanical or forestry survey work
has so far been carried out in this country on the vegetation
of the Sudanese Zone, and consequently it is not possible
at the present stage to define the limits of the sub-divisions
into Savannah Forest and Savannah .. The controlling factor
over this zone, apart from its proximity to the more arid
conditions of the north, is the annual grass fires, which, sweeping
over extensive areas of country for many decades must now
be considered in the light of a natural factor. Strips of the
original closed forest are still found in its southern edges along
watercourses and on the south side of the hill masses. Beyond
that Savannah Forest and Savannah stretch away to the
north, the forest patches or isolated tress ever becoming fewer.
" In the west all the country north of 7° 30' belongs
to this zone. As one proceeds eastwards the limits bear
towards the south, but keep to the north of the Mampong,
Agogo, Kwahu and Akwapim ranges of hills. In the east
of the Colony it has supplanted the Guinea vegetation right
down to the sea front. It is now steadily progressing along
the sea front in the shape of a wedge, ever widening behind,
and at the same time extending its thin end westwards. In
this manner it has progressed as far as Sekondi. Westwards
of Sekondi it cannot yet be said to be established, although
many of its characteristic denizens such as Borassus, Phcenix
and Sanseveria are found as far as Half Assinie along the sea
front, and the latter two right to the western frontier of the
Colony. The extension of com and groundnut farms between
Sekondi and Half Assinie is causing the tall forest to contract
inland rapidly and so preparing for the conversion of this
country to the Sudanese vegetation.
" As in the case of the Guinea Zone (i.e. coastal zone)
the soil may be sand or clay, but there seems little doubt that
the majority of the country has a sandy soil covering. In
many places, however, owing to the destruction of the
vegetation, the soil is completely removed, and there the barE'
rock surface is exposed. This occurs sometimes as stretches
of fiat rock . sometimes as prominent jagged rocks
and scarps. Where the vegetation exists there is found a
black soil to the depth of a few inches only, formed by the
collection of vegetable ash from the annual fires, and often
described as ' a rich black soil suitable for the growth of cottoTi
6 THE GOLD COAST, I93 I .
and similar agricultural crops.' The removal of the vegetation,
however, quickly causes its dispersal by wind and rain.
" The principal rock of this part of the country i sandstone.
Where this has been eroded, as on the hill tops, granite with
quartz appears, and the effect of the erosion is seen in the
sandy accumulations in the depressions and low valleys .
Where this zone of vegetation occurs in the south-east of the
country detached outcrops of clay ironstone occur, and here
and elsewhere further north are occasionally found schists
and shales.
"The general rise of the country does not
appear to be continued, and maximum heights of the majority
of the isolated hills are not recorded as being greater than
those of the principal divides of the country. It seems
reasonable to suppose that the northern part which embraces
the Northern Territories and Northern Ashanti is a land
surface reduced to a low relief by erosion. This explains the
exposed granite on the hill tops and alluvium in the depressions,
the latter being constantly moved on to the sea."
This Sudanese Zone is drained by the Volta River System.
It is, except in the rainy season, from August to October inclusive,
not well watered, most of the rivers and tributaries running almost
completely dry, leaving only occasional pools of comparatively
deep water.
Finally in th e extreme north the approach of the desert has
already made itself apparent. Thorn-bush and sandy patches
are annually growing larger, and the writer is persona,lly aware
of fields on account of the advance of the sand having been
abandoned as no longer fit for cultivation. .
Of the hills in the Sudanese Zone there are few of remarkable
note. From Kintampo to Gambaga a broken scarp faces the
north-west, rising to about 800 feet above the surrounding country,
whilst ranges of hills north of the White Volta mark the frontier
of the Protectorate with the Upper Volta Colony. Isolated peaks
are noticeable here and there but the general character of this
zone is one of gentle undulation. To the east the frontier with
French Togoland is marked by the mountain ranges which form the
backbone as it were of that country, and the watershed of the
Volta River and the Mono.
The population of these various zones differs, both tribally
and in density. In the coastal area, at its widest the greater number
of inhabitants belong to the linguistically allied tribes known as
Ga, Adangb e and Ewe, and their area is comparatively thickly
populated.
The oil-palm and ever-green forest is t he habitat of the Akan
peoples and except for the more open areas their country is but
sparsely inhabited.
THE GOLD COAST, 193I. 7
But even more thinly peopled is the adjacent area of the
Savannah forest, where the Guang division of the Akan stock is
found. To their north is the true Savannah country where the
Dagomba and tribally related peoples dwell and populate the
country more and more thickly as one proceeds northward.
8 THE GOLD COAST, 1931.
CHAPTER II.
HISTORICAL.
Myths and Traditions-Former High State of CiV1Jisatiol1-
Agg1'ey Beads-Advent of the E1.tropealls-Hlstory of the Gold
Const in its 1'elation to that of the World-Local H,stoncal Events-
International Agreeme'l1ts-Ashal1ti alld the Northern TerY1:t01'ies-
Samory-Ferguson's Death-AwHlal Rcc01'd of the Last Decade-
Co nstit~ltion--Judicial System.
The arbitrary character of the political boundaries of the
Gold Coast is such that in any review of the history of its inhabitan ts
there must always be kept in mind that the Gold Coast as defined
to-day has been imposed upon the people by aliens not only of
nation bu t of race and is in no sense of the word a spontaneous
or homogeneous creation.
The earliest known contact with Europeans was during
the latter half of the fifteenth century, and prior to that our
knowledge of the people who lived in the Gold Coast amounts
practically to nothing. One has to rely almost entirely on myth
and tradition. -
The former seems generally to point to a race of short m en
or dwarfs of a reddish colour as being the aborigines; t he latter
consists of one long list of migrations of families and individuals
and the founding of settlements by hunters and fish ers. Throughou t
the traditions, however, there runs a general tendency to record
a movement in waves from north-west to south-east with a
secondary movement on a very much smaller scale from the east
along the coast westward.
There is no real antiquity lying behind these traditions 'but
there is considerable evidence to support their truth. Linguistically
the people of the Gold Coast Colony and Ashanti as well as of a
considerable portion of both the Protectorate and Mandat ed area
are allied; their religion, custom and folk-lore are so similar as
to be almost identical ; and the forest area where the bulk of t he
Akan tribes have settled shows no evidence of any dense settlem en t
or any ascertainable age to man's existence therein .
It is the Akans that reached 1;he coast line in waves from the
north-west, ,vhilst the Ga, Adangbe and Ewe seem t o have drifted
slowly and in comparatively recent historical times from the east
and north-east.
~o useful pUrpose can be. served. here ?y giving t he story of
each mdlvldual t n be, for the dlvlslOn mto tnbes is oft en arbitrary
and the term "tribe" is too frequently loosely interpreted.
2' 1° 0 '
'P E R V 0 L T A /~-r, 11
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Cope Three Pojnt:i I I
2° f' 0'
SURVEY H . Q ACCR.A 1932. .
MAP SHOWING DISTR IBUTION OF LANGUAGE GROUPS.
[=:J Akan- I Twi-Fanti liroup. c=J Akan-2 Twi-Guanlf Group.
c:::::=:J Ga-Ewe. c=J Moshi- Dagomba. c:::::::J Uncla.ssifled.
THE: GR ADUAL MERG/NG OF ONE LA.NGUAGE GRO Up
].NTO ANOTH ER IS INOfCATED B Y THE SHADING.
THE GOLD COAST, I93I. 9
Ordinarily it might be defined as a social group comprising a number
of families descended from a common ancestor; in course of time
slaves and others seeking protection or adoption are included
until, although the idea of consanguinity persists, the tribe becomes
based more and more on common social and political institutions
rather than kinship.
In the Gold Coast Colony there can be classified three tribes,
the Akan, Ga-Adangbe and Ewe, and as the coast is approached
these are more and more mixed in blood with the unknown
aborigines, slaves, strangers both European and African and even
Asiatics. These three type-tribes can be distinguished by the
following main characteristics: the Akan form a social group
organised on democratic, quasi-military lines, the men not being
circumcised; the Ga-Adangbe practise circumcision and being in
the intermediate cultural stage between the Akan and Ewe have a
constitution which is semi-military and semi-sacerdotal and less
inclined to democracy; the Ewe society is built on a religious
base, circumcision is practised and a democratic form of government
non-existent, it not having yet wholly evolved from the patriarchal
state.
In Ashanti the Akan type-tribe continues northward under
the tribal name Brong, but in the north-west corner there is an
isolated group, the Mo-Banda, which has not yet been studied
but which superficially seems to be closely related to the Nunuma
and Kassena division of the so-called Grunshi living along the
northern frontier of the country.
In the Protectorate of the Northern Territories the dominant
tribe in the southern province is the Guang or Gbanya or Gonja.
They are not numerically dominant, but cover the greatest area of
which any single identifiable tribe is in occupation. Undoubtedly
of the same stock as the Akan they have been ruled for some two
hundred years by overlords of Mandingo origin,"bl1t have maintained
almost intact their own cultural and social systems as other peoples
in other parts of the world have done under similar conditions.
Numerically superior to these Guang in the protectorate
are the Dagomba who likewise, but for a far greater period of time,
have been subject to rulers of alien race. It will probably be
found, when the tribes of the protectorate have been more closely
studied, that the Dagomba people cover, except for isolated groups
of remnant tribes, the whole area north of the Guang to as far
north as the sixteenth parallel. So little is known of the northern
tribes that at present excepting linguistically no reliable grouping
into tribes can be made. Linguistic divisions are by themselves
of little value, and of this fact there is an excellent example in the
north of the mandated area of Togoland where the Chakosi of
undeniably close affinity to the Konkomba, their neighbours,
speak a language dialectically related to that spoken by the Akan
from whom they are separated by close on two hundred miles.
10 THE GOLD CO.\ST, 1931.
The mandated area of Togoland provides many ethnic problems.
The old international frontiers, the Volta Ri,-er and the Daka
River, were merely arbitrary ones, and the Mamprussi, Dagomba,
Guang, Akan and Ewe hibes dwell on both sides; but to the east
are found tribes quite unclassified although considerably studiecJ
by various German students. Such are from north to south the
Bimoba, the Chakosi already mentioned, the Konkomba, the Ajati,
Adele and the small mountain tribes Logba, Buem, Santrokofi,
Akposso and vVora-wora.
Of the history of these protectorate and north Togo tribes
excepting for the Dagomba and Mamprussi little is known. The
Konkomba relate how they were driven from the westward and
point as evidence to the great heaps of slag which their forefathers
are said to have made when smelting their iron and which are so
marked a feature of the country in the Savannah zone east of the
Great North Road from Kumasi to Tamale and west of the Daka
and. Volta Rivers.
The Bimoba are of recent migration having entered their
present settlement within the past decade.
Of the other Grunshi tribes, the Busanga, the Nabdam, Nan-
kanni, Kassena, Issala, the so-called Lobi, etc., the tradition leads
generally back to some hunter or to some mythical arrival out of
a hole in the ground.
But as with recent Gonja or Guang history the Mamprussi and
Dagomba have preserved a traditional story which rings true.
They tell of the descent from the north-east of a hero who with
his followers seized the dominion of the land, and after exterminat-
ing the actual chieftains of the clans or families that lived therein
tolerated the return of the rightful heirs to those chieftainships
in the guise of priests and interceders before the spirits of the Earth.
That traditional history is to a certain extent borne out by quite
disinterested evidence.
The tradition is briefly that the hero settled first in Pussiga,
a small village now just across the old international frontier east
of Bawku. A son, i.e. a descendant, founded the kingdom of Mam-
prussi, from which again the kingdom of Dagomba was similarly
created. Meanwhile by identical methods sons had founded the
kingdoms of Fadan Gurma, Tenkodogu, Wagadugu and Wahiguya.
It appears the descendants of the original conqueror did not
take kindly to a quiet sedentary life but were ever anxious to be on
the war-path, to earn fame and fortune and if possible to found
kingdoms. That spirit in the blood of those of the ruling stock
survived until and even during the early days of Eurpoean
occupation.
It is definitely recorded by the historian of Timbuktu, in the
Tarikh es Soudan, how in the fifteenth century that city was sacked
by marauders from Moshi and at the end of that same century
THE GOLD COAST, 1931. 11
the Portuguese governor of E lmina despatched a large embassy
from the coast to give presents to and make a treaty with the
" Sultan" of that country.
The particular lVIoshi Kingdom referred to was that of Wahi-
guya. That was the latest to Ilave been founded by the scion of
the hero race of Pussiga. It is therefore not unreasonable to deduce
that tile kingdoms of lVIamprussi and Dagomba date historically
from tbe twelfth century at the latest, since 300 years must have
elapsed before Wahiguya could have been founded and rendered
sufficiently powerful to overwhelm Timbuktu.
Their traditional history is one long list of petty wars, of raids
and brigandage, of rebellion and of pal'Lce intrigues.
To return however to the people of the coastal zone and Akan
kinship, their migration from the north and north-westward having
been admitted, one can recognise that their earliest migration had
not the character of permanency. That these immigrants were
hunters, lived on grubs and snails, roots and fruits, with occasional
meat of the forest animals is certain. The earliest pictures of these
people show a naked folk, covering parts of their body with bark-
cloth, and armed with spears and bows and arrows. To this day
these general characteristics survive. In areas such as the districts
of Sefwi and Kete-Krachi, the people still make and use bark-cloth
both for aprons an(i for covering; snails and certain caterpillars,
(especially the former) are still the staple diet of the majority of
the inland Akans ; and the wild roots and fruits once the ordinary
food of the people have survived in the manner customary to
sociological evolution as medicinal and magical concoctions.
The earth itself supplies evidence of all this in the innumerable
broken off pieces of neolithic diggers, termed here, as similar stones
elsewhere in the world, God's axes and hoes and thunderbolts;
it also reveals a complete absence of ancient clearings either for
farming or for dwelling sites. So that with myth, tradition and the
testimony of the earth itself in accord it is clear that at the period
preceding the arrival of the European in the fifteenth century,
t he people in t he coast al and forest zone were nomadic hunters.
undoubtedly not numerous, and traditionally migrants from the
interior.
Such were the ancestors of the Akan tribes. The forebears
of the Ga and Ewe t raditionally came from the East, probably over-
land and possibly a few contingents by sea. Their appearance
came at a much later period and they encountered members of t he
earliest Akan people in Winnebah, where t hey were known as Fetu,
or Ofutu, Obutu . It is interesting to record that the earliest
linguistic and anthropological study of the people who inhabit the
Gold Coast is t hat of the Fetu, who were described so long ago as
1673.
In parenthesis it may be noted that there is a pleasant theory
that the peoples of the Gold Coast had attained a great height of
civilization and that this had degenerated or st agnated until, the
12 THE GOLD COAST, 1931 .
circle completed, the stage of primitiveness wherein Eu ropeans re-
discovered them was reached again. There is no shred of evidence
to justify this theory. On the contrary every myth and tradition
point to the reverse, and the fact that the ancestors of the Akan
people fled from culture and civilisation, which the conquerors of
the Dagomba certainly possessed, seems undeniable proof to the
contrary.
Several writers have put forward a suggestion that t he
Phoenicians probably visited the Gold Coast. There is no sound
reason to accept this nor yet to refuse it. The matter to-day is
of almost purely academical interest. In support of their assertion,
they have pointed to the occasional finding in the ground of beads,
locally termed" aggrey." To these beads the inhabitants of the
Gold Coast attribute a great value.
But these writers overlook the fact that beads of glass
and porcelain partake of the nature of indestructibility. At the
same time the artificial value given to the beads by the local
inhabitants has misled them into attributing a greater antiquity
than need necessarily be the case and has probably caused the
confusion in terms of Phoenician and Venetian.
Certain facts point to this having taken place. There is no
evidence that the Phoenicians were specialists in the art of bead-
making; there is absolute evidence that the Venetians were, and
moreover that they had an established trade with the people south
of the Niger in the early part of the fifteenth centry, having agencies
at least so far south as in EI Touat; there is no evidence to be
gained from the beads brought to Europe of their being of an age
such as a Phoenician origin would have shown (actually the bead
from West Africa of greatest ascertainable antiquity in the British
Museum is of the Roman Empire period) ; and it is to be recorded
that during the past decade, when the north was opened up to the
southerner, a small but very profitable trade existed for a short
time in these beads, many Ashanti and Kwahu traders travelling
into French Territory to acquire (which they readily were able to
do) collections of so-called aggrey beads for sale in their home
towns.
The word " aggrey" itself seems to indicate mendy a bead
which in the eyes of the local inhabitants was regarded as a bead
of value. The earliest narratives of voyages by the Dutch and
English persistently tell how the ships while awaiting the collection
of cargoes proceeded into the bight of Benin where they brought to
the Gold Coast among other articles cer tain bJue beads of coral
called " akori " or " accory " or " aigri."
The Phcenician connection seems therefore to be based on
very slender grounds, but indirect influence from if not real
contact with Egypt and Egyptian culture is almost certain. In
a recent work "Hebrewisms in \~rest Africa," the author, the
Reverend Father J. 'vV. Williams, produces a vast amount of
material in proof of this assertion, whilst Romer showed clearly
THE GOLD COAST, 1931. 13
the routes along which this influence travelled. Not only great
similarities in culture and religious thought and practice exist,
but there are other likenesses, in architecture, costume, head-dress
and so on, whilst the agricultural systems and the field products
of the northern tribes seem to point to an eastern origin.
It is in any case difficult to imagine that West Africa could
have been kept outside the pale as regards influences from the older
Mediterranean civilizations. There is clear evidence of a slight
contact with Rome; there is clearer evidence of Egyptian. Moorish
and Arab influence is historically known; whilst a certain influence
from the culture of the Berbers and the Church of North Africa
can safely be assumed. But the extent of these influences whether
direct or indirect, whether at first or at second hand cannot now be
ascertained.
It is, however, highly probable that the contact, or threatened
contact with these higher forms of culture, which would have
involved at the best servitude and at the worst extermination,
led to the emigration of interior tribes, forcing them to withdraw
into the wilder recesses of the forests. They in their turn thus
forced the aborigines into still wilder recesses so that one finds the
oldest evidences of occupation and settlement on the hill-tops
and in the rocky areas of the forest-repetitIon here of a course
of events to be observed almost universally throughout the world.
Such ancient sites are those at Begoro in Akim-Abuakwa, at Obuasi
in Ashanti and at Nsuta in the Western Province.
Historically it is not until the fifteenth century that the people
of the coast came into direct contact with Europe and as a result
they have become involved in all the great world movements since
the Middle Ages. It was to the great impulse whicp swept Western
Europe in the middle of the fifteenth century to seek for communi-
cation, unhampered by the Turks, with the wealth of Cathay and to
the religious fervour to renew touch with the old Christian Church
whose head ,vas Prester J olm, that the Portuguese, inspired by the
princely geographer, Henry the Navigator, crept slowly down the
coast of Africa. Year by year their progress was pursued. Their
undertakings were commercially successful, so that they considered
it advisable to establish a stronghold on the coast. For this purpose
they chose the sit e of Elmina, where in 1482 d' Azambuja erected
the castle of San J orge d' El Mina.
The Portuguese continued their progress southward, founded
the future great Christian Kingdom of the Congo, crossed the
continent of Africa, rounded the Cape of Good Hope and opened the
way to India and Cathay.
The Spanish discoveries on the 'Western side of the Atlantic
and the revelation of the possibility of attaining untold wealth
raised in an acute manner the question of labour supply. No other
source was available than that of Africa; and the only means of
obtaining that labour was through the age-old a,nd we!l-trLer! methocl~
THE GOLD COAST, 1931.
of slavery. Thus there began the trans-oceanic Slave Trade, which
in spite of its abomination, was in many ways dest ined to be a
blessing to West Africa.
Economically the Slave Trade, which both Africans and
Europeans indulged in to the full, resulted directly in the opening
of the country. The wandering hunter and fisherman were through
their greed for European luxuries forced to settle and adopt fixed
habits. Elmina, a picture of which as it was in 1547 is extant,
from a hamlet of some few huts grew into a town of importance;
the diggers of roots and the hunters of grubs and snails found they
had in order to liye in the new manner to barter something for the
luxuries they coveted. Slaves were in demand and slaves were
easy to come by. Therefore they began to hunt and capture and
sell their fellow men. The Portuguese in order to feed the slaves
awaiting shipment as well as to support their captors had to
introduce foodstuffs; so that because ofthis evil there was introduced
into the Gold Coast almost every food-plant which provides to
this day for the feeding of the people.
It can safely be averred that the Slave Trade was the direct
cause of the introduction of agricultural habits among a people
whose wealth and happiness to-day is entirely due to agriculture.
The security of the Spaniards and Portuguese in this trade was
assured by Papal Bull, and Christendom was then quite willing as
a whole to acquiesce in a regulation whereby half the unkno'wn
world was allotted to the enterprise of Spain and half to Portugal.
Occasional interlopers of various nations disregarded this law, but
their individual efforts were mere interlucles and of but little
importance.
However Christendom at the end of the sixteenth century was
at throes in internecine strife. Portugal had been absorbed by
Spain, and except for the Slave Trade the coast of Guinea was
practically neglected. Spain was deeply engaged in war with her
subj ects in Holland and when the la tter country asserting her
independence decided to attack her arch-enemy at the source of
her wealth, South America, the third great step in the development
for the Gold Coast had been taken . The Dutch seized the Coast
of Brazil.
The Dutch and English had visited the Gold Coast at infrequent
intervals before the seventeenth centurv. But such visits were
irregnlarised poaching and smuggling -trips, performed at the
instigation of individuals in a desire to get rich quick rather than
with the express intention to settle in and exploit the country.
This illicit trade was, in spite of the risk to its participators, highly
profitable, and by the end of the sixteenth century the Dutch had
tentatIvely established two fortified posts to protect their
interests.
The seizure of the Brazils altered the outlook, which the
Netherlanders in the Low Countries held as regards the West
African trade, The Coast of G Llinea, and th~ Gold Coast in
THE GOLD COAST, 193I. 15
particular became of prime importance; the labour necessary to
develop the South American countries had to come from vVest
Africa. As soon as this was realised, the Dutch made determined
attacks on the Portuguese settlements, which received but little
assistance from their Spanish masters who were far too busily
occupied elswhere.
Thus it was that as soon as war in Europe broke out afresh in
1621, the Dutch determined. on the conquest of the Gold Coast as
a part of their plan of campaign. The West Indian and Guinea
Company was formed, and plans laid to capture the headquarters
of the Portuguese on the Gold Coast, San Jorge del Mina. The
first attempt failed but in 1637 the fortress fell and the Dutch were
more or less left in undisputed control of the traffic with t his
country.
However only three years later Portugal regained her
independence from Spain. The former sought to win back her
former possessions in the Brazils and the war with Holland was
continued. The end came in 1642 when Holland handed the Brazils
back to Portugal, who abandoned the Gold Coast to the Dutchmen.
Thus ended the Portuguese control of this country, a control t hat
had lasted since 1481.
Meanwhile the success of the Guinea trade had attracted to the
Gold Coast the attention of other European monarchs and
merchants, who sent out expeditions to exploit the wealthy slave
trade and establish settlements in the country. Thus Branden-
burgers, Swedes, French, Danes and English came hither and built
fortified posts. There is even record of a Hungarian Guinea
Company, probably equipped and arranged at the instigation of
Dutchmen, who found themselves excluded from this profitable
business unless working for the monopolistic West India Company,
and who therefore perforce had to obtain a protection similar to
that which the letters of marque provided privat eersmen in the
following century.
But Brandenburgers, Swedes and French ceased by the end
of the seventeenth century to be seriously interested in the Gold
Coast and the trade of that country remained almost exclusivelv
in the hands of England, Holland and Denmark.
The merchants of these three countries carried on unceasingly
the traffic in slaves on whose labour the prosperity of both the
America>, and the vVest Indies was more and more dependent
with the unforeseen result that the people living on the coast or
within easy reach thereof leapt several stages in cultural evolution.
to which reference is made later.
But world politics continued inevitably to have great effects
upon the development of this country. The Napoleonic Wars
included among its incidents, more or less disregarded at the time,
the sale of Louisiana by the French to the United States.
When France once more was settled the loss of this wealthy
Colony made itself felt in the areas of industrial mamlfacture.
16 THE GOLD COAST, I931.
Raw mat erial reached France but was no longer of French origin .
Far-seeing thinkers . began to consider the possibilities of the
northem parts of Guinea as a likely source of supply for the raw
materials which Louisiana had provided; and thus the policy of a
single self-supporting empire which still dominates the thoughts
of Frenchmen when they consider matters colonial, was founded
at the time of th e Bourbon restoration.
Meanwhile a second event had O'(:curred at the end of the
eighteenth century which was destined to affect most profoundly
conditions of trade and the position of the West African. European
opinion had never really acquiesced in the slave-trade. It h ad
tolerated what was an obvious ill because of the immediate gain .
. Although Africans themselves had supported in the pulpit and in
theses submitted to their universities defended the practice and
traffic of slavery public opinion ,vas never, when fully informed
thereon, in its favour, and in 1782 Austria declared slavery and
the trade in slaves illegal. Denmark followed her example a decade
later, and England having come to the same conclusion abolished
slavery in 1807.
Thus at the end of the Napoleonic wars there were two world-
forces at work in the moulding of th is country: the desire of
France to find a new source of raw materials, and t he abolition
by the greatest sea-power of slavery in all its forms.
The former for the t ime being had little effect beyond the
definite establishment of the F rench in the Senegal country; the
latter led to the general acceptance by the world of the principle
of abolition and rendered for the time being almost useless to
merchants the coast-line of the Gulf of Guinea.
But with the abolition of slavery there also entered into the
minds of a few sincere, almost fanatical men, in Switzerland as
well as in Denmark, the desire to develop the countries where the
slave trade had thriven. Both countries realised that this should
be done not only by evangelisation of the people but also by 'the
agricultural development of the country, and to the early efforts
of these devout men the present prosperity ofthe country is almost
exclusively due. Thus it came abou t that th e first half of the
nineteenth century 'Nitnessed a waning in trade which led almost
to the abandonment of the country by the English but at the same
t ime saw an ever growing desire to lead the people of the Gold
Coast to the peace of Christianity, as envisaged by the devout,
and therefore to the peace of a thriving peasantry.
This phase endured until 1870. By that time the Danes
and th e Dutch had definitely abandoned the country and the
English alone remained on the Gold Coast. At the same time
the Franco-Prussian war broke out and France's u tter defeat
brought a result quit e unforeseen to the Gold Coast .
Faced in Europe with severe loss in territory, material and
man-power, France remembered the poJicy to which Napoleon 's
THE GOLb COASt, i93i.
sale of Louisiana had given birth. She therefore looked to Africa
wherein to rebuild her fortunes and began that intensive penetration
which finally led to the scramble for Africa.
Most of the European powers were involved in this imperialist .
but rather undignified and certainly non-ethical competition.
To the Gold Coast the result was however entirely beneficial. Great
Britain consolidated her coastal holdings, annexed Ashanti and
assumed a protectorate over the Northern Territories, thereby
creating a country under her flag which could be regarded as a
single entity and for the holding of which at that time it was
consideoed successful exploitation alone could be the justification.
The modern and finer ideal of leading the country towards nation-
hood had not then been born.
Then da\'med the twentieth century and with it a complete
revolution as regards the tropics, probably one of the most important
in the world's history. The uses of quinine and the discovery
that the principal tropical diseases were insect-borne and therefore
capable of being controlled had been made known towards the
end of the last century. The present one saw the foundation
under the auspices of the Imperial Government of the School of
Tropical Medicine whilst similar institutions were opened in
Liverpool, Paris, Hamburg, Lisbon, Rome and elsewhere. The
deadly climate of the tropics was to be attacked and the result
of that attack is visible to-day. Without the knowledge acquired
and made known by such men as Laveran, Manson, Ross and others,
the development of this country could never have taken place.
When the twentieth century opened the Gold Coast was in a
way fortunate in having its house set in order through the tragic
1900-1 rebellion of the Ashanti, and so enabled the country to
adjust itself to the thoughts with which Europe was obsessed:
to make money as quickly as possible, and to move about the earth
with the greatest possible speed.
Both these thoughts were applied to this country; the former
has led to the accumulation and handling of wealth, never foreseen,
divided not too unevenly among the Gold Coast Africans; the
latter has, aiding and abetting this lust of acquiring wealth, brought
about a sociological revolution, the end of which is nowhere yet
in sight.
The wealth of the Gold Coast is discussed in a later chapter,
as well as the progress of the revolution in speed and its direct and
indirect effects. Summarised these steps in the history of the
country in its relationship to the world in general are as follows :-
Fifteenth Century.
First contact with modem Europe resulting in the beginning
of the trans-oceanic Slave Trade.
Sixteenth Century.
Growth of that Slave Trade l'esulting in the creation of settle-
ments and the necessity of teaching agriculture to the Gold Coast
inhabitants in order to supply the whel'ewithal to feed the slaves.
B
18 THE GOLD COAST, 1931.
Seventeenth Century.
General European rivalry ending in the abandonment of the
Gold Coast by the Portuguese and their replacement by the Dutch ,
. English and Danes.
Eighteenth Century.
The greatest development of the Slave Trade leading to its
decline and a general desire to evangelise the country.
Nineteenth Century.
Abolition of the Slave Trade ; agricultural development of
the country through the missions and governments; the scramble
for Africa leading directly to the creation of t he Gold Coast as a
single country.
Twentieth Century.
Acquisition of great wealth by the inhabitants through the
practice of agriculture; and the social revolution brought about
by the search for speed which was intensified by the Great Vvar,
whilst life in the tropics was made safer than believed hitherto
possible by the researches in medicine.
Finally the effects of the Great War on world politics must
not be forgotten. There is scarcely a sufficient gap in time between
the end of that great event and the present day to gauge aright its
true effects but there are at least two prominent results readily
visible: the search for speed has opened up the country 1.0 an extent
that would have seemed incredible even in 1921, and the conquest
of the German Colonies with their final apportionment to the Allied
Powers has brought about a change in mental attitude towards the
people of these tropical countries, of whom we no longer regard
ourselves as masters but for whom we realise we hold a trusteeship
for the conduct of which we are responsible to posterity.
Such in brief is the history of the Gold Coast in its relationship
with the history of the rest of the world. It is more convenient
to record in quasi-tabular form the principal events in local history
rather than to weld them together in a connected story, since many
histories of the country have already been written and published
and are readily available.
ca. Eleventh or Twelfth Century.
Invasion of t he north-eastern corner of the Protectorate of
the Northern Territories by Na Ggewa and his followers who founded
the first of the Moshi-Dagomba Kingdoms in the COlllltry of the
Kusasi and Busansi, making Pussiga their capital. Raiding and
marauding throughout the country to the south where they formed
the Mamprussi and Dagomba Kingdoms, they drove many of the
inhabitants southward and thus brought about in the
Thirteenth Century. ca.
the first invasion of the coastal countries by families of the Guan
who reached the sea at Winnebah.
THE GOLD COAST, I99I, 19
F O%rteenth Ce nt%ry.
The earliest arrival of immigrants from the east, who settled
along the coast and absorbed the indigenes and thus in all
probability created the tribe now recognised as the &a Adangbe.
ca. 1450.
The first Portuguese are stated to have reached that part of
the Guinea Coast known as the Gold Coast and are probably the
first of the modem Europeans to have done so. The French
have asserted that almost a century earlier men from Dieppe and
Rouen had traded here; but this story is clearly refuted by the
recent authoritative work by M. C. de la Ronciere in hIS La
decouverte de /' Afrique au Moyen-Age.
From now on history is authenticated.
1482.-Arrival on the Gold Coast of the expedition from
Portugal under command of Dom Diego d' Azambuja and founding
of the fortress of San Jorge d' El Mina.
1486.-The fortress of San Jorge d' El Mina and its surrounding
huts raised to the dignity of a City by King J oh11 II of Portugal.
ca. 1488.-The Governor Joao de Barros, sends an embassy
from Elmina to the Sultan of the Moshi.
1553.-First English expedition to the Gold Coast, whence
150 lbs. of gold was brought home to England.
1595.-First Dutch expedition to this country.
1598.-Dutch found their first settlements at Mori, Butri and
Kommenda.
1618.-Formation of the first English chartered company for
trading in the produce of Africa; "The Company of Adventurers
of London trading in Africa." A fort was built at Kormantin but
shortly afterwi-rds abandoned.
1621.--0n 3rd June, 1621 the States General of the United
Provinces granted a charter to the Dutch merchants to form a West
India Company which gave them exclusive right to trade on the
West African Coast. Of those early years there is to-day but one
record and that fortunately an authoritative one, compiled from the
archives of the company by one of the Company's employees and
later director, Joannes de Laet of Leiden. The narrative of the
acts of the company appeared in 1644 in thirteen books, each book
covering the period of one year from 1623-1636. The author then
destroyed the archives.
1622.-Disaster at the Abrobi mine a few miles to the north
of Kommenda which had been worked since prior to 1482 by the
Portuguese.
1623.-Building of Fort Duma 15 miles inland of Axim to
protect prospectors, and the discovery of a rich mine at Aboasi.
1626.--Compagnie Libre de Dieppe et Rouen formed by the
French for trade in West Africa and a second English company
with rights to carryon business in slaves received its charter.
BI
20 THE GOLD COAST, 1931.
1636.-Earthquake destroys the mine at Aboasi and Fort
Duma.
1637.-Capture of Elmina by the Dutch.
1642.-Abandonment by the Portuguese of their possessions
in the Gold Coast to the Dutch.
There is considerable confusion in the local history of the Gold
Coast after the withdrawal of the Portuguese. The Dutch were
nominally their successors, but the monopolistic claims inherited
from the Portuguese were disputed by the merchants of other
countries, and during the period from 16407-1667 Danes, Swedes,
French , Dutch and English seem to have been at incessant strife
with each other.
In 1662 the third English Company had been incorporated
" The Company of Royal Adventurers of England trading to Africa,"
and in 1664 the Compagnie Libre .de Dieppe et Rouen had been
merged into the French West India Company. It is to be noted
that all the companies trading in Guinea excepting the English
were Vi'est Indian Companies, thereby indicating that the trading
interests were almost entirely confined to the Slave Trade.
1667.- Treaty of Breda secures Cape Coast Castle to the
English.
1672.-The Company of Royal Adventurers surrendered its
charter and a fourth company called the Royal African Company
was formed, having as its patrons the King and the Duke of York.
1682.-First German appearance on the Gold ' Coast, an
expedition being sent by the Elector of J randenburg with orders
to form a settlement. A fort was built at Manfro and on the return
of the expedition some of the principal natives were taken back to
Hamburg. They were well entertained and visited Berlin, returning
the following year to their country.
ca. 1682 or earlier.-The Dutch penetrated" inland from
Axin1, and built a fortified post some 40 miles above the old
Portuguese fort Dun1a-over 50 miles from the sea. This was in
the country of the Aowins, tl1e only Gold Coast people living on the
coast who were known to have used poisoned arrows. The nan1e of
this outpost was Fort Ruyghaver and it seems to have been
destroyed and abandoned not long after its foundation on account
of the hostility of the Aowins.
ca. 1697.-0sei Tutu succeeded to the Kingship of Ashanti and
shortly after founded the town of Kumasi as his capital. His reign
marks the beginning of the Ashanti Kingdom.
ca. 1720.- 0sei Tutu killed by the Akims at Akromantin and
is succeeded by Osei Apoku Wari as King.
1722.- Serious blow to piracy on the Gold Coast, 52 pirates
being hanged at Cape Coast Castle on one day.
ca. 1725.- 0 sei Apoku Wari invades the country of the
Northern Territories and subjugates the Kingdoms of Ga.man,
Dagomba and N tao
THE GOLD COAST, I93I. 21
1750.-The 5th English Company fonned: the African
Company of Merchants. Among its duties was one by ""hich it was
bound to maintain the forts and settlements on the Gold Coast
in exchange for £13,000 per annum.
1752.-Society for the Propagation of the Gospel begins work
at Cape Coast Castle.
ca. 1764. -The earliest recorded visit by Europeans to Kumasi,
the Danes sending Noy to that capital as a special ambassador.
Throughout the century the Ashanti power had been growing, but
the kingdom had never quite been consolidated. Rebellions were
frequent, so that the history of that country is one long account of
wars and punitive expeditions. In 1792 their assistance was called
upon by the Danes who become deeply involved in a war with the
Awuna, and in that year the first direct communication took place
between Kumasi and an English Governor who sent to request
them to refuse the help for which the Danes had asked.
1797.-King of Denmark prohibits hi~ subjects from engaging
in the Slave Trade.
1798.-Visit of the famous botanist P. Thonning to the Gold
Coast on behalf of the King of Denmark to report on the agricultural
possibilities of his possessions, where coffee in particular had been
very successful. There were three experimental plantations at
that time established in the foothills of the Akwapim Range, near
Aburi, Akropong and Dodowa.
1807.-Abolition of slavery by Great Britain.
First conflict between the Ashantis and the British. The
former attacked the Fort at Annamabo, but were repulsed with
great slaughter, the reason for the hostilities being the protection
given by the British to two Assin chiefs who had fled from the '
former.
1809.-A suggestion that spirits from Indian corn might be
distilled on the Gold Coast in order to replace Hollands gin was
turned down by the Commit tee of the Company of Merchants,
who passed a resolution to the effect that it was the duty no less
than the inclination of the Committee to discourage the introduction
into Africa of the art of distilling spirits and that the objects of
the Committee were to promote agriculture and commerce.
1812.-Murder of Meredith, Governor at Winneba, by the
people of that place. This was the culminating tragedy of a series
of assassinations and crimes which had been taking place since
the abolition of slavery. The fort at Winneba was destroyed
as a punishment, thereby removing European protection in case
of an attack by the Ashanti-a measure reproved in London but
apparent ly one which met the case locally as it brought the Winnebas
to heel.
1815.-A school for the education of the children of Cape
Coast established by the Committee of the Company of Merchants
under the headmast ership of Rev. Vililliam Phillip who was
destined to succeed to the chaplaincy of a remarkable African,
22 THE GOLD COAST, 193I.
who had been educated at Oxford. This was the Rev. Phillip
Quaque who was probably the first of any Non-European ~ace
(since the Reformation) to be ordamed m the Anghcan commumon.
He had been sent home to England in 17M and after his return
to the Gold Coast had succeeded to the chaplaincy at ape Coast,
which he retained until his death in 1816.
The earliest record of the successful introduction of cacao into
the Gold Coast.
1817.-Cape Coast destroyed by fire, resulting in the first
attempt at town-planning. The instructions read : " That
instead of the houses being crowded together as formerly, they
should be built upon a regular plan alike conducive to the health
of the inhabitants and the beauty of the place."
Mission sent to Kumasi, consisting of :Messrs. James, Bo\\'dich,
Hutchison and Tedlie. A treaty was entered into under which
the King of Ashanti agreed to a consul being appointed to reside
in his capital.
1818.-Joseph Dupuis appointed first British consul at Kllmasi.
One of the last recorded large shipment of slaves from the
Gold Coast, seven vessels taking slaves on board close to Cape
Coast in February of this year.
1820.-Dupuis enters into a treaty with the King of Ashanti
at Kumasi, but in spite of the fact that his appointment as consul
was from the Home Government, the treaty was refused by the
merchant governor and council at Cape Coast Castle. Dupuis
returned to England and it is probable that his report influenced
the decision of the Government to abolish the African Company
of .Merchants and to transfer their possessions on the Gold Coast
to the Crown to be placed under the Government of Sierra Leone.
1822.-Sir Charles McCarthy assumes the Government of the '
country, which as a result of many misunderstandings was practically
in a state of war with Ashanti. The coastal tribes ever since 1807
had been either actively or indirectly engaged in hostilities with
that country, and only the exercise of considerable diplomacy
and patience had kept the European settlements from becoming
involved in one or other of the disputes.
Formation of the Royal African Colonial Light Infantry to
maintain and defend adequately the Forts.
Seizure of Sergeant Kujo Otetefo stationed at Anamabo by
the Ashanti on 16th August, his capture ending with his murder
early in 1823. The Ashantis justify the murder on the ground
that it "vas an execution, since the Sergeant was guilty of having
grossly abused the King of Ashanti, a crime punishable in their
eyes with death. But the greater probability is that the King of
Ashanti was weary of the undecided policy of the English Govern-
ment and wished to find out one way or another the latter's
attitude vis-a-vis the coastal tribes if and when the Ashanti decided
to conquer them finally ..
THE GOLD COAST, I93I. 23
1823.-In order to avenge the murder a force was sent from
Cape Coast Castle to arrest and bring in the murderers who were
supposed to be at Dunkwa, some 15 miles inland, where the tragedy
had taken place. This was the first definite inland punitive
expedition undertaken by the British and ended in a ~erious reverse,
the troops being ambushed and forced to fall back on Anamabo.
The Ashantis invaded the country which was now being regarded
by the Government at Cape Coast Castle as under its protection.
Sir Charles McCarthy returns to the Gold Coast at the end of the
year to assume full charge of affairs there.
1824--6.-Sir Charles McCarthy after making various tours of
inspection of the local forces arrayed against tht Ashantis, was
attacked at Assamacow (Insamancow) in the Wassaw country
and suffered a complete defeat in ·which he lost his life, 21st February.
Throughout the major portion of this year the Ashantis
menaced Cape Coast Castle but owing to an outbreak of small-pox
which is said to have caused terrific losses, they withdrew so that
by April, 1825, the Governor, Major-General Turner, C.B., was
able to withdraw most of the troops to Sierra Leone. But the
Ashantis returned in force, this time with the intention of inflicting
punishment on the Accras, who had abandoned their alliance
with them. The few British troops available together with levies
from the Akims, Akwamus and Denkeras marched to the assistance
of the Accras. Issue was joined on 7th August, 1826, at Dodowa
and resulted in the complete defeat and rout of the Ashanti
invaders, peace however not being fully restored until 1831.
1827.-The Basel Mission sent out its first missionaries to
Christiansborg.
1828.-The troubles of the late war, its disasters and misunder-
standings, together with the appalling casualities due to the climate
and declining trade had almost convinced the British Government
that the abandonment of the Gold Coast was desirable. But the
merchants trading thither seeing the loss which such action would
inevitably bring upon them suggested that the affairs of the Forts
might be handed over to a Committee of London Merchants.
This plan was adopted, and Cape Coast Castle and J ames Fort
Accra were handed over to their care but were still to be considered
dependencies of Sierra Leone.
1830.-George Maclean appointed as President of the Council
by the London Committee.
1831.-Maclean signed a treaty of peace with the Ashantis
and began to excercise authority and jurisdiction among the pro-
tected tribes, i.e. the former allies against the Ashantis.
The trade in palm-oil had begun about 1820, but existed only
to a small extent. The good government introduced and enforced
by Maclean brought a great impetus to the manufacture and export
of this commodity, which now became the princpal item of trade
{rO)11 this country. .
24 THE GOLD COAST, 193I.
1835.-The vVesleyan Church entered the n11SS1On field and
in 1836 "'as laid the foundation stone of the first Wesleyan Chapel
in the Gold Coast at Cape Coast Castle, its completion and d dica-
tion taking place in 1838.
1840.-The Royal African Colonial Corps was disbanded and
the troops incorporated with the 'West India Regin1ent.
1841.-Rev. T. B. Freeman of the 'Wesleyan Church had
visted Kumasi. in 1839 but it was not until this year that he was
permitted to found a mission station there, the first Christian Church
to be established in Ashanti.
In the same year in consequence of reports that the merchant
government were conniving at the slave trade the British Govern-
.ment sent out a special commissioner to report on conditions obtain-
ing on the Gold Coast. His report resulted in a select committee
bemg appointed in 1842 and on their recommendation the Crown
resumed the direct control of the Gold Coast under the Governor
of Sierra Leone in 1843.
Commander H. W. Hill was appointed Lieutenant-Governor
and Maclean was created Judicial Assessor or Stipendiary Magistrate
in recognition of his work and the firm and just administration
which had resulted in a great extension of jurisdiction through
the voluntary acquiescence therein by the people. This extension
of jurisdiction was formally confirmed in a treaty, locally called
the Bond, which the chiefs signed on nth March 1844.
1848.-After a successful punitive expedition against the
Appollonians, Governor vVinniett left Cape Coast Castle for Kumasi
on a visit to the King of Ashanti. He \vas accompanied by an
escort of one company of the 1st West India Regiment and the
band of that regiment. This was the first occasion on which a
British Governor and British troops visited the capital of Kun1asi.
1850.-The forts and settlements on the Gold Coast were
separated from the Government of Sierra Leone on January 1st
and Executive and Legislative Councils established.
On August 17th the Danish Government ceded its forts and
possessions to Great Britain.
An attempt was made during this year to grow cotton near
Cape Coast Castle. But the difficulty of obtaining labour caused
the attempt to be abandoned.
1852.-The Poll-Tax Ordinance was passed by the Legislative
Council, consent thereto having previously been obtained from
the Chiefs concerned. The tax was one shilling per head of the
population and the revenue therefrom was to be devoted to " the
payment of stipends to the Chiefs and the expense of collection,
and then to the public good in the education of the people, the
improvement and extension of the judicial system, in affording
greater facilities of inland communication, increased medical aid,
and in such other measures of improvement and utility as the state
of social progress may render necessary." In the first year £7,567
THE GOLD COAST, I931. 25
was collected but this amount fell off to £1,552 in 1861 ,vhen the
Ordinance was allowed to lapse into abeyance.
1854.-Considerable disturbances took place at Christiansborg
which was consequently bombarded as well as the town of Labadi.
1862.-Severe earthquake along the coast in which Accra
suffered great damage, every stone building being levelled and the
castle and forts rendered uninhabitable, whilst at Cape Coast Castle
the shocks were also felt but no damage was recorded.
In October the Gold Coast Artillery Corps mutinied. This
regiment had been established in 1851 to relieve the I'mperial Troops
then forming the garrison of the Gold Coast, and had taken part
in several minor punitive campaigns. The mutiny lasted from
the 3rd to 9th when the men surrendered. In the following year
the corps was disbanded.
1863.-The Protectorate was invaded by the Ashanti who
withdrew in face of a demonstration in force during which a camp
had been established at Prahsu.
1864.-As a result of this expedition to the river Prah, the
Home Government decided to send out a special mission to the
four colonies in West Africa under Colonel Ord to investigate the
conditions obtaining there and to advise upon the future policy
which should be observed towards them. On his return to the
United Kingdom a Select Committee was appointed to consider
his report. Their opinion was given in 1865 and was to the effect
that it was not possible for t he British Government to withdraw
from the settlements, and, what is most interesting in the light
of the imperial post-war policy: "that all further extension of
territory or assumption of Government, or new treaties offering
any protection to native tribes would be inexpedient; and that
the object of our policy should be to 'encourage in the natives the
exercise of those qualities which may render it possible for us more
and more to transfer to them the administration of all the govern-
ments, with a view to our ultimate withdrawal from all except
probably, Sierra Leone".
The Committee further opined that in view of steam communi-
cation the central government could be re-established at Sierra
Leone.
1866 .-The Gold Coast again attached to Sierra Leone-.
1868 .- Interchange of territory between the British and Dutch
Governments, by which the former ceded all their possessions west
of the Sweet River in exchange for all the Dutch possessions east
thereof.
The steamer "Eyo" was the first steam vessel to cross the
bar of the Volta River and ascend that river.
1869.-The Ashanti commenced war with the Krepis and
in the course of their campaign captured the town of Anum where
since 1864 the Basel Mission had maintained a station. The mission-
aries Ramseyer, his wife and infant son and Kuhne were taken
26 THE GOLD COAST, 193I.
prisoners' and a French trader , Bonnat, '\Vas captured a little later
at Ho. The prisoners were taken to Kumasi where they remained
until their release in 1873.
1871- 2.- The Dutch t ransferred all their possessions on the
Gold Coast to Great Britain. The former had been invoh'ed for
some years in wars with the people and the exchange of territory
in 1868 had in no way added to the peace of the country. Their
home Goyernment moreover was not prepared to enter upon regular
hostilities. At the same time the British realised that the respon-
sibility for the hinterland was becoming indubitably theirs, especi-
ally after the capture of foreign subjects who had been dwelling
with tribes that considered themselves under British protection.
It was evident therefore that the first step toward procuring the
latters' release and the re-establishment of peace was to clear up
the muddle on the coast. The transfer of all possessions and settle-
ments to one or the other of the two powers offered the only possible
way out. The actual transfer was carried out in February 1872.
Confederation of all the F anti States was agreed upon by the
Kings, Chiefs and representatives. The formal constitution was
drawn up at Mankessim and signed on 18th November 1871.
But the local government disapproved the movement which was
forbidden by proclamation in 1872.
1873-4.-The Ashantis in furtherance of the war started in
1869 crossed the Prah in J anuary, and the British Government
decided to put forward a serious effort to settle the disturbed country.
Sir Garnet vVolseley was appointed Governor and commander-
in-chief and with a select force of European troops amounting in
all to some 2,500 men invaded Ashanti in J anuary 1874 and after
several severe engagements entered Kumasi on February 4th, which
was destroyed the following day. The return to the coast began
on the 6th and by the 27th except for the special service officers
and small detachments of the Royal Artillery and Royal Engineers
the European troops had re-embarked for home.
A treaty, known as the treaty of Fonunanah was entered into
at Cape Coast on 13th February, 1874 between the King of Ashanti
and the Queen of Great Britain by which the fonner agreed, to pay
an indemnity of 50,000 oz. of gold and renounced all claims to any
tribute or other homage from his former subjects but now allies
and under the protection of Great Britain.
This war had three very important results :-
1. The Gold Coast Government was separated from that of
Sierra Leone and together with Lagos became the Gold Coast Colony.
At the same time all the rights and jurisd ction acquired by the
Crown were transferred to a Supreme Court; provision was made
fo r the enactment of laws; a police force was created; customs
duties, licences and the imposition of sanitary rates in towns were
arranged ; and the establishment of schools and other improve-
ments ou-tiined.
THE GOLD COAST, 193I. 27
2. The final and complete abolition of slavery and the pawning
of people was enacted thereby putting an end to the continuance
of domestic slavery in all areas under the protection of the British
flag. Domestic slavery and the status of slave had not previously
been made illegal, the practice of the slave trade and traffic in slaves
alone had been forbidden.
3. The complete disruption of the former Ashanti Kingdom,
its component states throwing off their allegiance to the Kumasi
King in rapid succession in the hope of their being taken under
British protection. This however could not be given them in the
circumstances and consequently the immediate hinterland of the
Gold Coast Colony was reduced to a state bordering on anarchy.
1876.-Dr. Gouldsbury with a small British mission visited
Salaga and returned via Krachi and signed with the chiefs of the
latter place a treaty of friendship and freed6m of trade.
Headquarters of Government moved from Cape Coast Castle to
Accra.
1877.-This year was marked by the revival of the gold-mining
industry. Since the efforts of the Portuguese, which had not been
continued by other European nations, gold-mining had been left
entirely in the hands of the country-people who employed uneco-
nomic native methods of extraction. However Jules Bonnat,
the Frenchman who had shared the captivity of the Missionaries
in Kumasi formed the African Gold Coast Company which after
prospecting the country around Awudua (on the Prestea branch
of the present railway) obtained a concession at Tarkwa and thus
were the pioneers in that famous gold field.
1879.-0wing to the intrigues of the Ashantis, it was deemed
advisable to send a mission under Mr. John Smith to Sefwhi and
Bontuku. The mission was not entirely successful and was dis-
approved by the Home Government which looked with disfavour
on any policy which might be regarded as intervention in native
affairs outside the Protectorate.
1881-1883.-Great activity marked this period in the history
of gold-mining in this country. The reefs at Abontiakoon and
Abosso were discovered; concessions were taken out in great numbers
with little regard by their grantors as to whether a previous con-
cession covering the same area had been given or not; labour diffi-
culties caused the engagement of indentured Kru labour ; and
diggers from all over the world, thinking another Californian strike
was about to be made, arranged, quite regardless of the climate,
to flock to the country.
At the request of the King of Ashanti the Government sent
a mission to Kumasi under Captain R. L. Lonsdale who had orders
to do all he could to convince the chiefs and people of the tribes
neighbouring on Ashanti that the Government wished to preserve
peace with the latter and were especially desirous of opening trade
and commerce with them. He visited Salaga and Krachi on his
return to Accra (1882).
28 THE GOLD COAST, I 93I.
In 1881 the Roman Catholic Church re-established its mission
at Elmina where it had during the Portuguese occupation been
firmly settled.
1886.-Submarine cable communication with England was
completed.
A survey of the relations between the European Powers in
regard to African matters must now be made:-
In 1880 the question of the western frontier between the British
and French possessions, first raised in 1877, was re-opened by Great
Britain, who wished to transfer it 3 miles west of Newtown, at
which place it had been fixed prior to 187 1 by a Franco-Dutch Con-
vention. A boundary commission, appointed in 1882, separated
in 1883 without arriving at an agreement.
In the following year the Colonial Government owing to a
great increase in smuggling was considering the annexation of
Be Beach, on the eastern side 'when it was annexed by the Germans,
who in July, declared a protectorate over it and Togoland. In
1885 a conference of Powers interested in Africa was held in Berlin,
and on the 26th of February, concluded the Berlin Act, which
provided that the occupation of any newly acquired territory
should be notified to the signatory powers, and that such occupation
must be supported by sufficient authority to protect existing
rights and freedom of trade and transit. An Anglo-German
Frontier Commission was then appointed, and by March 1886
had fixed the eastern boundary for 2 ~ mile~ inland. At the same
time the Germans annexed Agotime, Kawe and Atiwe, a step
which threatened to divert the Salaga trade from the Colony.
In consequence, in July, the Colonial Government extended the
Protectorate over Krikor, and also over Krepi and Akwamu in
virtue of the former Danish authority over them . These acts
led to an arrangement as to further extensions which was confirmed
by the British and German Governments in March, 1888. By
this agreement a neutral zone was established north of a con-
ventional line drawn on the latitude of the mouth of the River
Daka, and south of the 10° N. latitude, while the eastern and
western boundaries were apparently 0° 33' E. and 1° 7' Vv.
respectively. Both Powers agreed to abstain from acquiring
any exclusive influence in this zone, but recognized the right of
either to make treaties with chiefs in it as to territories lying outside
it. The boundary from the sea to the neutral zone was fixed by a
later agreement of 1st J uly, 1890, which conceded Heliogolancl to
Germany. By April, ]892, the demarcation on the ground was
completed not without considerable opposition on the part of some
of the tribes to their transfer to Germany.
Meanwhile on the western frontier an agreement had defined
the boundary between the French and British possession frem the
coast to 9° N. latitude.
THE GOLD COAST, 193i.
This line of demarcation agreed to in 1889 was more precisely
fixed by the agreement of the 12th July, 1893, and the British
claim to Bonduku was at the same time abandoned.
In 1890 the Brussels Act, which provides for the suppression
of slave-trading and for the limitation of the import of arms and
31mTIunition into Africa, was signed by most of the European
Powers and by the United States.
In 1892 G. E. Ferguson concluded treaties with five countries
west and north of the neutral zone, and later with three west
of it, six north and east of it, and six within it. With certain of
these countries Germany had made treaties in ] 888. Further
additions were made in 1894 during Ferguson's expedition of that
year, while in 1895 France also negotiated treaties 'Nith some
of the countries to the west and north.
The struggle between Togoland and the Gold Co~t for the
trade east of the Volta, which had been accompanied by a lowering
of tariffs that threatened the financial condition of the former,
was concluded by the signature of a Customs ConventiCDn at Berlin
on the 24th February, 1894.
The acquisition of Ashanti by Great Britain in 1896 and the
treaties concluded by Ferguson led to great development and
activity in the neighbouring spheres of influence of Germany and
France in 1896 and 1897. The latter country was also urged to
action by the successes which had attended Samory's movement
towards the Kong country, north of the Ivo~y Coast.
Eventually the western frontier of the Gold Coast from 9° to
11 ° N. and its northern frontier were fixed by a convention between
France and Great Britain, dated 14th June, 1898, and ratified
on the 13th June, 1899, and the partition of the neutral zone
between Germany and Great Britain was effected by a convention
signed on the 14th November, 1899, and ratified in the following
February, a treaty which provided as well for the settlement of
the Samoan and other questions.
1893-4.-In consequence of events which culminated in a
threatened invasion of Atabubu by the Ashantis, Sir F. Scott
left Accra in October, 1893, at the head of a force of Gold Coast
Constabulary, numbering nine European Officers and 364 natives.
Halting during November at Abetifi, the Expedition received
more or less definite requests for inclusion in the Protectorate
from Agogo, Mampon, Kumawo, Jaubin, Nsuta, and Ashanti.
On the 17th December, headquarters arrived at Atabubu, which
Ferguson had reached on a political mission two months earlier.
On the 2lst December, that officer concluded a treaty with Amantin,
whither a small force was despatched in the following month.
Meantime the Bandas and Ashantis had attacked the Mos, but
were defeated: they then turned to the Boles for assistance. But
the forces of that country fled on the approach of Ferguson's
mission, and the Bandas were thus reduced to inactivity.
30 THE GOLD COAST, 1931.
By March 1894 treaties were concluded with Nkoranza, Jwan
(Wiasi), Basa, Nkaneku and Ayinwofi, and the danger of an invasion
of Attabubu was averted. In the previous month it had been
decided to send a mission, under Vroom, to Kumasi, with a view
to induce Ashanti to accept incorporation in the Protectorate.
The expeditionary forces were consequently withdrawn from
Attabubu, and returned to Accra early in April.
Before the departure of the force from Atabubu Ferguson
had been despatched on an important mission to the tribes north
of the Black Volta, with which he concluded before the end 01 the
year treaties of friendship confirming the British claims to the
country that ultimately became the Northern Territories.
Vroom's mission arrived at Kumasi on the 17th March, and
returned to the coast six weeks later without, hmvever, having
succeeded in its object. No further progress was made in 1894
in inducing the King of Ashanti, Prer:i1peh, to accept a Resident.
In December an embassy from Ashanti under Ansa, the King's
uncle arrived at Cape Coast Castle, and at the end of the same
month Captain Stewart and Vroom were sent to Kumasi, whence
they returned in February, 1895, after being insolently received
by the King.
1895-6.-1n April the Ansas proceeded on an abortive mission
to England. By the autumn of 1895 it appeared a strong pro-
bability that military operations would have to be taken against
Ashanti. A last effort was, however, made to induce, Prempeh
to conform to the conditions of the treaty of 1874 by accepting
a Resident and suppressing human sacrifices. Captain Stewart
and Vroom were therefore sent on a second mission in September
with an ultimatum, to which no reply was obtained. On their
return journey they concluded a treaty with Adansi, the country
south of Ashanti proper.
By the middle of November, 1895, it was decided to enforce
the terms of the ultimatum by the despatch of an expedition under
Col. Sir F. Scott, of a total of 2,042 Europeans and Africans.
A detachment of 150 men of the Gold Coast Constabulary was
directed to Atabubu, to form the nucleus of a levy of 2,000
Nkoranzas, whose country was threatened by the slave-raider
Samory at the instigation of the Ashantis.
Meanwhile the Ansa embassy had returned to Cape Coast
Castle, from England and after two days delay proceeded in
December to Kumasi, whence envoys were sent on the 11th J anuary
to treat with Sir F. Scott. But on the 17th January Kumasi was
reached without opposition and on the 18th the Governor arriv d.
The next day Prempeh, the Queen-Mother, the chiefs or kings of
Bantama, Asafu, Ofinsu and Ejisu, the acting king of Mampong,
and the two Ansas were arrested, and the fetish-groves of Kllmasi
and Bantama were destroyed.
The Ashanti captives were removed to Elmina Castle; and
in 1898, owing to the di:fficulty of preventing communication
THE GOLD COAST, 193I. 31
with Ashanti, they were deported to Sierra Leone, whence they
were eventually transferred in 1899 to Seychelles, not to return
to their country for a further quarter of a century.
The opening up of Ashanti after its occupation in 1896 was
followed by marked activity in the development of the Colony.
Capital was attracted by the enterprise of gold, timber, and rubber
prospectors; old roads were improved and new ones made; in
1898 the Sekondi-Tarkwa Railway was begun; further impulse
was given by the settlement of the frontier question with France
and Germany in 1898-99.
Legislation thus became necessary to protect both the natives
and the prospectors in the sale or purchase of land, and found
expression in various Land Concession Ordinances and the Survey
Ordinance, No. 8 of 1896, which were followed in 1901 by the
beginning of a trigonometrical survey of the colony, in conjunction
with the demarcation of the eastern and western frontiers. In
1898 the Northern Territories were included in the Government
of the Gold Coast and in 1901 with the reconstitution of those
territories and Ashanti, the Colony of the Gold Coast was extended
so as to include all the tribes embraced in the Protectorate prior
to 1890. In 1902 the Gold Coast Constabulary was re-organised
and embodied in the West African Frontier Force.
After the occupation of Kumasi the administration of the
former kingdom of Ashanti was vested in a Resident, who was
installed at that town in March, 1896. A fort was also built there,
and a garrison of 300 men provided from the Gold Coast
Constabulary. For the next four years British influence throughout
the country was effectively extended by a policy which, while
preserving the Kotoko or Ashanti Council, aimed mainly at
suppressing all attempts on that part of the Kumasis to re-assert
their authority over the surrounding dishicts and at opening up
the trade routes from the latter to the capital.
For these purposes it was necessary to construct new roads
and to maintain garrisons in various localities. These measures,
entailing also the regular provisioning of the garrisons from the
coast, led to a serious drain on the finances of the Gold Coast Colony,
for no contribution was levied from the Ashantis except in the
fom1 of labour. The rapid increase in the trade of Ashanti during
these years appeared, therefore, to justify the introduction of some
form of payment by the natives towards the cost of administration.
Sir F. Hodgson, the Governor of the Gold Coast, proceeded
to Kumasi at the end of March, 1900, while the Resident was on
leave in England. On the 28th of that month the proposed
system of taxation was explained to the assembled kings and chiefs
who understood appa~ently that they were at the same time to
surrender the Golden Stool, the national emblem of sovel·eign
power. The Ashantis, unprepared for these demands, at once
made secret preparations for revolt, a step to which they were
32 THE GOLD COAST, I93I.
no doubt encouraged by the prospect of such an important captu re
as the Governor, and by the weakness of the Kumasi garrison,
which even with the Governor's escort at that time totalled 150
rank and file only.
The first encounter took place close to Kumasi on the 3rd of
ApriL On tne 11th, matters had become so serious that all the
troops in the Northern Territories were summoned to Kumasi.
Four days later the rebellion embraced the following tnbes :-The
Kumasis, Adansis, Kokofus, Achimas, Ahafos, Nsutas, part of the
Nkoranzas, the bulk of whom, however, with the queen and the
Tekimans, remained loyal. The detention of the Mampon and
Juabin kings in Kumasi decided their wavering subjects, except
in the case of a few Mampon villages, in our favour. But still
more important was the fidelity of the King of Bekwai, who e
capital occupied by a portion of the West African Frontier Force,
eventually served as an advance base for the relief of Kumasi.
On the 25th and 29th April, ' deternlined attacks were made on
the fort, which was closely invested by the 9th May. On the 15th
of that month the Northern Territories troops arrived, and, with
a detachment of the Gold Coast Constabulary and the Lagos
Hausas, which had reached Kumasi on the 18th and 29th Apri l
respectively brought the garrison up to 12 combatant officers,
six medical officers and 722 rank and iile. An inadequate reserve
of ammunition and the difficulty of feeding the large number
of friendly natives in addition to the garrison culminated on the
23rd June in the evacuation of the fort by the greater part of the
force. Two British officers, one medical officer and 115 rank and fi le,
of whom but 25 were fit for operations in the field, were left, with
rations for 24 days, while the remainder, viz., ten officers, five
medical officers and 600 rank and file, accompanied by the Governor,
nine other Europeans of both sexes, 800 sel vants and carriers,
and 1,000 friendlies marched out in a south-westerly direction.
This force, harassed by the enemy for the first three days, moved
v·ia Takiman, Terebum, Nkwanta, Edubia and Takorassi, reached
a place of safety at Ofinsu in the Denkyira country on the 30th
June, and made its way thence to the coast.
Meanwhile, reinforcements had been arriving from Northern
Nigeria and Sierra Leone, the latter colonies also furnishing carriers,
the want of whom had seriously hampered operations.
On the 13th July a force under Colonel (later Lieut-General
Sir J.) ViTillcocks, the greater portion of which was concentrated
at Bekwai, started to the relief of Kumasi. Marching via Peki
and Nkwanta, the column was frequently sniped at, but did not
meet serious resistance until 4.30 p.m. on the 15th when the enemy
was found in a strong stockaded position one mile from Kuma i.
A heavy shell and Maxim fire was at once opened, and maintained
for 20 minutes, while the infantry extended on both flanks of the
guns into the bush. Then " cease fire" gave the signal for a general
THE GOLD COAST, 1931. 33
charge of the whole line which drove the enemy in confusion from
his position, and some minutes later the Fort was relieved. On
the 17th the column returned from Kumasi with the old garrison
and on the 19th reached Bekwai.
Operations were at once begun with the objects of securing the
communications from Prahsu to the Ashanti capital, of driving the
enemy, more particulary the Adansis and Kokofus northward, and
of ultimately suppressing the rebellion.
On the 20th September the final stage began by the despatch
of a column of 500 men and a 75-mm. gun to open up the road to
Kintampo, distant 100 miles, and of another column of 900 with
two 75-mm. guns to reconnoitre the country to the north-west of
Kumasi. The first column met with little resistance and returned
from Kintampo on the 13th October. The operations of the second
column were of importance, not only in the decisive results which
they attained, but also from the fact that duriflg them the Ashantis
abandoned their defensive tactics. For, convinced apparently
of the uselessness of these against shell-fire and bayonet charges,
they attacked this column, on the 22nd September, in front and
all along its left flank, but after a fight of 40 minutes' duration, were
completely routed. Thanks to their superior mobility, the Ashantis
made good their retreat, and, being reinforced by all available
fighting men, prepared-but without stockades-a strong position
at Obassa on the Berekum road. Here they were attacked on the
13th September by Colonel Willcocks with 1,200 men and five guns,
and, after a stout resistance, of which a frontal and flank counter
attack were the prominent features , were again completely routed;
the next day they were pursued for 10 miles by a force of 800 men.
This was the last fight of the campaign, but during October flJOing
columns searched the country around Kumasi; and in the first
half of the following month two strong columns, 1,200 men and
three guns in all, visited Bechem, Ahafo, Odumase and Berekum,
and on the 19th Mim surrendered.
On the 23rd November operations closed with the return of
the columns to Kumasi ; and by the 3rd December that town was
evacuated by all the troops, except its garrison.
In March 1901, Major (now Sir M.) Nathan visited the capital,
and, at a meeting of all the Kings and chiefs of Ashanti, informed
them of the election of new kings of Kokofu, Nsuta, Adansi, Ofinsu,
Ejisu and Abodum and new chiefs of the Korentin, Adentin, Chidom
and Owiku divisions of Kumasi, in place of their disloyal predecessors
(deported in the same year to the Seychelles) while rewards for
their fidelity were promised to the kings of Bekwai, Dengiassi,
Agona, Mampon, Juabin, Berekum, Warn, Takiman, Attabubu,
Kumawo, and Nkoranza and to the chiefs of Esumeja and Bompata.
Since that date the country settled down; and entered on its
present prosperous career.
With the country to the north of Ashanti the colony had no
direct relations prior to 1892.
c
34 THE GOLD COAST, 193I.
In consequence of the occupation of Bontuku by Samory-a
slave-raider who deyasta ted the French Sudan for many years
and who in 1895 had tlweatened Nkoranza in virtue of an alliance
with Prempeh-an expedition was despatched in February, 1896
to the neighbourhood of Bontuku. It found whole districts and
towns in Gaman law waste and depopulat d and provisions so
scarce that the only foodstuff locally available for native soldiers
and carriers was, with rare exceptions, dried cassada, ground and
made into flour. Samory, in spite of protestations of friendship,
could not be induced to leave Bole to meet the officer commanding
the expedition, which, on its return march, concluded treaties
with Bechem and Asunafo Ahafo, Borumfo and Wam.
Samory's slaver-raiders continued to disturb Nkoransa and
Gaman and to interrupt trade with the norlh throughout 1896.
Consequently at the end of that year it was decided to occupy Bole
and Buna effectively since they wen~ considered to have fallen within
our sphere by the treaties of 1892 and 1894. Lieutenant
Henderson, R.N., with a party of the Gold Coast Constabulary
arrived at Bole on the 2nd of J anuary, 1897 and then pushed on to
Vila and Dokta. At the latter place he was attacked by the Sofas,
as Samory's fighting men were called, on the 29th March, and after
four days' resistance fell back to vYa. Here the expedition remained
three days, when, the force having run short of water it was decided
to continue the retreat. Lieutenant Henderson, however,
proceeded first to the Sofa camp with a view to a parley, but was
detained as a prisoner and sent to Samory, then in Jimini ; here he
was released and sent back to the coast. Meantime the force began
its ret reat, and although harassed by the of as en route, succeeded,
after being succoured by a French force near Leo, in reaching
Yagaba on 20th April. A most regrettable incident of the last
stage was the death of Ferguson, whose journeys in the hinterland
had mainly contributed to the extension of British influence therein .
. H e was wounded at Dokta and in the retreat from vVa was abandoned
by his carriers and killed by the Sofas. The rainy season prevented
further operations, and with the foregoing events British intercourse
'""ith Samory ceased. The latter was captured by the French
in 1899 and exiled.
F erguson was one of the most remarkable Africans born on the
Gold Coast. The Governor reporting his death to the Secretary
of State paid the following tribute to his memory :-
" I should not be doing justice to the services of this
lamented officer if I did not express to you my sense of the
great loss which the public service of this Colony has sustained
by his death. The geographical and political work which he
has carried out under the direction of this Government is well
known to you and has won for him on several occasions commen-
dation and reward. He was a striking example of an intelligent,
indushious and trustworthy native officer and was as modest as he
was able. It will be long before his place can be adequately filled."
THE GOLD COAST, 1931. 35
George Ekern Ferguson was a native of the Gold Coast having
been born at Anamabu about 1865. He was educated in Sierra
Leone, and on his return became a teacher in the Wesleyan School
at Cape Coast. In 1881 he obtained a Government clerkship and
was employed as junior clerk in the Governor's Office in 1884 when
he first exhibited a taste for cartography by producing a map show-
ing the divisions of the Gold Coast according to the location of
tribes and the boundaries recognized among them. In 1884 he
served an apprenticeship in political ,york with a mission in Krobo
and Akwamu. In 1889 and 1890 he went to England, receiving
assistance from the Government to enable him to pursue his studies
there at the Royal School of Mines. On his return to the Colony
he was again employed in political work for which he had many
special qualifications. In 1890 he negotiated a treaty with Kwahu
and Attabubu and in 1891 he was employed on an expedition to
Akim and upon the Anglo-German Boundary Commission. In
1893 he was attached to the Public Works Department as Surveyor
of Roads owing to his knowledge of surveying. In 1894 he was
selected for the special service by which he is best known. He
made a successful journey through that portion of the West African
Sudan which lies to the North of Ashanti, mapping the country
and concluding treaties with a number of native tribes. His work
both as an explorer and as political agent proved to be of the highest
value and his services to Geography were recognised by the bestowal
on him by the Royal Geographical Society of the Diploma ·of the
Gill Memorial and a gold watch . He was specially nominated by
the Secretary of State for a further mission to the hinterland and
he was accordingly despatched with Henderson in December, 1896,
their destination being Buna and Wa. Buna was already in the
hands of Samory's troops before they could arrive there and their
temporary occupation of Wa ended with his death. The Governor
concluded :-
" Mr. Ferguson has lost his life in the performance of his
duties and in bearing testimony to his ability and devotion
I am performing a melancholy duty to the memory of a valued
subordinate. "
In the same year, 1897, the territories to the north of Ashanti
were consitituted a separate Protectorate with the title of "The
Northern Territories" and placed in charge of a Commissioner,
a grant in aid of the expenditure being voted by the Imperial
Parliament.
With the termination of the rising in Ashanti and the fixation
of the international boundaries the people of the Gold Coast settled
down to a period of exceptional prosperity. . There had been in
the previous decade a boom in the mining industry, which whilst
attracting much attention to the country had also drawn a crowd of
gamblers and speculators of the most unscrupulous character, and
there had also been a boom in rubber', which had caused the
spread of commerce even to the remotest parts of the forest. Such
9~
36 THE GOLD COAST, 1931.
was the growth of trade that in 1897 the first bank had been
estabiished-the Bank of British West AiIica at Accra, which held
the monopoly of the banking business for twenty years, when
the Colonial Bank opened its first agency.
The rubber boom did not last long. The development on
economic lines of highly organi'led plantations of para soon rendered
the collection in the forests of the country of the wild rubbers,
funtumia and llandolphia unprofitable. But as the rubber industry
was dying, the cacao industry was growing, so that from the dawn
of the century until the outbreak of the great war the progress of
the Gold Coast was even and regular, unmarked by any incident
of real note.
The war naturally retarded this progress. The Gold Coast
like all other members of the Empire responded nobly to the call
of patriotism and her share towards the common need was given
with no niggard hand.
The war brought in its train two revolutionary ideas to the
African of the Gold Coast. the familiarity of and thence the desire
to travel and the cult of speed. There was one year of rest, the
year of the influenza plague which killed one in twenty of the
inhabitants within a period of a little more than a quarter of the
year. This was in th<:! dry season 1918-1919. But in the following
year the country went forward in leaps and bounds. The last
census was in 1921 and since that date, i.e. a decade, the list of
accomplishments is such that the rate of progress can truly be
telmed phenomenal. Year by year these events are as .follows :-
1921.
The Governor of the Gold Coast motored from Kumasi to
avrongo where a special mission from the Lieut.-Gov~rnor of the
Haute Volta met him, having motored southward from ~Tagadugu,
th• .' capital of that colony. Thus for the first time through motor
connection was establisked between the Gulf of Guinea and the
Sudan. This remarkable feat was due to the foresight of Lieut.
Col. Watherston, a former Chief Commissioner of the Nor'them
Territories who had died in Tamale in 1909. This officer had laid
down a policy of road development anticipating the requirements
of motor traffic in the Protectorate and thereby putting into force
the scheme which the first Chief Commissioner had expounded so
long previously as 1899. It is worth while recording the words of
the latter, since he wrote them actually prior to the freedom of
the road being granted in England to motor cars. Having dis-
cussed the various methods of transport, head-porterage, draught
by horse or ox, pack transport by horse, ox or donkey, and railways
he continued :-
"The recent improvements in motor cars suggest these
vehicles as a means of transport vastly superior to carriers,
and as providing some at least of the advantages of railways
without any of their drawbacks. Roads sl].itable for them
can easily be constructed, No ambitious bridg-
ing schemes need be thought out, for culverts can easlly be
made locally to bear the weight of a motor car and its load,
and the large rivers are so placed t hat they could naturally
be taken as junctions for the car service, the goods being
fen-ied across. The original outlay would be relatively very
small and so also would the number of men employed in the
working of the line. A fair load wopld be carried each trip
and would perfo= the journey, in favourable cil cumstances,
in one-fifth of the time at present occupied."
It was not quite according to the above plan that the motor
car invaded the Protectorate and reached its northern limit. As
the road was obviously in the first instance merely a dry season
one to the north of Tamale, it was found practicable to cross the
larger rivers, even the White Volta itself by means of drifts and the
shuttle cock system outlined by Colonel Northcott was never
necessary except in the rainy season.
A second event during the year 1921 was one of considerable
local historical importance and certainly of intense human interest .
This was the finding and desecration of the Golden Stool of Ashanti.
The story as told at the t ime runs as follows :-
In the early years of the reign of Osei Tutu, King of Ashanti,
about 1700 there came to live among the Ashantis a man named
Anotchi. He was a clansman of the King of Denkera, then
paramount over Ashanti, but he had been forced to fly from
Denkera because he had seduced one of the King's wives. He
took refuge in the Obi country where he made study 6f fetish
medicines and practices, and thence he returned to Juaben, Ashanti.
To the King of the latter place he announced he had a mission
from Onyame, the sky god, t o make the Ashantis a gLeat and
powerful nation. This was reported to Osei Tutu who summoned
a gathering of the people in Kumasi. In their presence Anotchi
by his magic power drew down from the sky a black cloud, and
amid the rumblings of thunder and in an atmosphere thick with
white dust , a wooden stool having three supports and partly
covered with gold, emerged .
It did not descend upon the ground but came to rest upon
the knees of Osei Tutu. Anotchi proclaimed to the King and
all the people that the Stool contained the Sunsum (soul or spirit
of the Ashanti nation, their power, their health, their bravery,
their honour and their welfare. H e warned them also that if the
Stool were captured or destroyed the Ashanti nation would sicken
and die. He called upon Osei Tutu and each Ashanti Chief and
each Queen-Mother to give him some of their hair and some nail
parings, which he collect ed and ground into powder and mixed
with" medicine." Some of this compound was drunk and the
remainder poured over the Stool. The meaning of this rite is as
follows. When an Ashanti dies away from home and the body
38 tHE GOLD COAST, 1931.
cannot be brought back for burial, nail parings and hairs from
the corpse are carried home, since it is supposed that the soul will
accompany them.
The Stool is never supposed to have touched the ea.rth, for
it was not allowed to come into direct contact with the ground.
The Stool was placed on the skin off the back of an elephant and over
which had been spread a cloth of the kind .woven in the north.
It was never sat upon nor was it the stool of ordinary everyday use.
On great occasions the King would make pretence to sit upon it
three times and would th en seat himself upon his o\\"n Stool, his
arms resting upon the Golden Stool. In its progress once a year
to Bantama, the burial place of the Kings, th is Stool was carried
under its own umbrella and was surrounded by its attendants
who in number and in wealth of adornment exceeded those of the
King who followed it. Its fu ll title is Sika Gua Kofi " Friday'S
Golden Stool " for it was on a Friday that the Stool descended
upon the knees of Osei Tutu.
The Gyase or bodyguard were custodians of the Golden Stool,
and the Gyasehene or H ead of the Gyase was responsible for its
safety. In 1896, when Prempeh was arrested at Kumasi, certain
of these guards disappeared into the forest with the Stool in their
possession, and when the escape of the Stool was reported to the
head of the Gyase orders were given that it should be taken to the
village Wawase and there to be handed over for safe keeping in a
special hut built for its reception.
Some twenty years later a dispute arose over the ownership
of land at '"Vawase. Before giving a decisiOl~ the Chief Commissioner
considered it desirable to inspect the land and set out from Kumasi
fo r that purpose. His intentions were immediately suspected
and on the eve of his departure th e h ead of the Gyase, Esubonten,
sent a messenger to Wawase telling the guardian of the Stool to
remove it at once from 'Nawase and to hand it over to a man in
the village of Abuabugya for safe keeping.
In August 1921 a road was being made at Chief Esubonten's
desire (but under Government supervision) between Abuabugya
and a neighbouring village. At a certain point a diversion almost
at right angles was made from the track, as the road overseer
considered the line easier. I t happened that a labourer's 3..-'Xe
struck a box, and the youngmen* gathered round. One Danso,
who was by now the custodian of the stool was present and begged
them to leave it alone and only succeeded when he had convinced
them that they had come upon a small-pox fetish.
This box contained the Golden Stool and its insignia. Danso
sent to h is house for a tin trunk as the box was rusted, and with
some old men ,,'aited till dark when they carried the Golden Stool
in the trunk to Abl\abugya \I'here it was placed in the room o[
Yankyira whose duty was to look after the youngmcn. The old
* The expression" Youngmen" is used to signify the plebs, and tho~e not in
possession of a Stool or attached directly to the holder of a Slool
'i'HE Goll) COAS1', 193 1 . 39
men" swore fetish" that the discovery should not be made known
to others, but Danso was convinced that the yo ungmen had fully
realised what was in the box t hey had come upon by chance. A
certain Seniagya a professing Christian and by descent one of the
Stool Carriers, seems to have got wind of the discovery, for three
days later he appeared at Abuabugya. After greeting Danso
and Yankyira he walked straight into Yankyira's room, where
he drew attention to the box. H e then persuaded Danso and
Yankyira to share with him the gold ornaments belonging to t he .
Stool, and while the distribution was taking place Yogo, an ordinary
" youngman" happened to pass and claimed a share. The point
of view adopted by these spoilers of the sacred thing was that the
Stool itself alone was sacred, whereas the gold around it was not.
Meanwhile the youngmen of Abuabugya had grown inquisitive
and eventually the matter came to the ears of the Kumasi Chiefs.
In the course of their enquiry it was found that the Golden
Stool had been desecrated and various of its ornaments taken, that
a certain goldsmith had received one of its bells to melt down,
that the gold Fetters made in memory of the days when Denkera
was master of Ashanti had been pawned and that most of the other
gold ornaments and insignia pelonging to the Stool had disappeared.
On the evening of Monday, 12th September a message, was
left at the Chief Commissioner's bungalow that "there was big
palaver over the Golden Stool ; it had been stolen." The next
morning at a meeting at Appremesu, the Palaver Hall of the old
palace and the place where the two cannon captured in the
Denkera war were set up, Chief Esubonten and Seniagya. were
accused before the chiefs. Police attended to watch the proceed-
ings, and it soon became necessary to remove to the police stations
for their own safety the two accused who became the obj ect of
the hostility of a large crowd. The news of t he desecration of
the Stool soon spread and the excitement and constemation became
intense. The Ashantis from neighbouring villages put on
mourning and poured into Kumasi to find out if the report were
true. It was not at first believed possible that their own people
could have violated the sanctity of the Stool. The town" became
rough and shaky "; no market was held for some days; there
was a good deal of wild talk and a good many of the foreigners in
the town left Kumasi . As the facts became known and the
Ashantis came to understand that they had not become a general
laughing stock but that the sympathy of all strangers was with
them in the degradation their national sentiment had suffered,
their hostility focussed itself more and more upon those accused
of complicity in the crime. Meanwhile the Chief Commissioner
had announced that the Govemment had no intention of sei~ing
the Stool but was prepared to see justice done in accordance with
the desires of the Ashantis.
The problem of how to deal with the accused was as perplexing
to the Government as it 'was to the chiefs among whom there had
40 THE GOLD COAST, 1931.
been a strong party for concealing the whole business from the
authorities. In that case as one of the chiefs explained :-" The
two men would have been taken into the bush and lost." On the
other hand the offence was not one that fell within the four corners
of the Criminal Code, nor would the punishtnt'jnt for theft have
been adequate in the minds of the Ashantis. But the procedure
was settled mainly by the fact that the accused were in the police
station under Government protection. After several interviews
the proced ure decided upon was as follows :-
The chi efs were to hold th e Enquiry, not at Appremesu, but
in the open space behind the police barracks; police were to be
at the enquiry to maintain order and preserve the peace; the
accused would attend under armed police escort; witnesses were
to b e summoned and any further arrests were t o be made through
the Commissioner of P olice; accused and witnesses were to be
under police protection ; the enquiry was to be conducted
according to the principles of British justice; at the concJu ion
of the enquiry a report was to be made to the Chief Conunissioner,
who would consider the question of guilt and the nature of the
punishm ent to be inflicted.
The chiefs found that Senigya, Kujo Danso, Kwesie Yankyira,
Yogo and Kujo-Poku (the goldsmith who melted down the bell)
" being natives of Ashanti and subj ects of the Gold Stool of the
Ashanti Nation, did expose, steal, destroy, sell and otherwise
unlav.rfu lly deal with and use the said Gold Stool thereby betr.,-ing
the said Ashant i Nation and laying it open to disgrace and ridicule,
and debasing the name and fame of . Ashanti , much to t he
annoyance and provocation of all people young and old, thereby
giving occasion for disturbance and bloodshed, but for the inter-
vention of Government."
In the case of Esubonten the chiefs fo und that he, "being the
Head Chief who by virtue of his office had t he custody of the
Golden Stool ", had neglected his duty and he, " gave occasion for
the exposure and loss of the Golden Stool which has caused much
commotion and fear not only among th e whole of the Ashanti
Nation but among other nations on the coast" and further by
"causing a new and unnecessary road to be constructed from
Abuabugya to Ahinkro, through the piece of ground in which the
Gold Stool and the Treasuries of the Ashanti Nation are deposited
did cause the said Stool to be discovered, exposed and stolen,
like an officer or soldier sleeping on guard in t ime of war, or
neglecting to keep watch has suffered the enemy to enter." These
persons the chiefs recon1mended should be put to death. " In
the days of the kings of Ashanti a person committing a less serious
offence than this was put to death with all members of his family."
At the time the case against Esubonten did not appear strong
enough to justify his conviction and was pu t back for further
enquiries. In the case of the others who had confessed their guilt,
banislunent overseas was substituted for the death penalty.
THE GOLD COAST, 1931. 4J
Eight others were convicted of buying the ornaments of the
Stool knowing that they were stolen and belonged to the Stool.
The chiefs asked that these persons should be banished and all
their goods confiscated. F ive of these, however, were convicted
on the evidence of Seniagya alone-Seniagya had assumed the
part of Titus Oates and was accusing people one day and the next
day would confess he had been lying. These five persons, there-
fore, as the evidence of Seniagya was utterly unreliable, were
acquitted. The remaining three were ordered "to swear fetish"
before the Kumasi Chiefs. One of them had admitted receiving
the Gold Fetters in pawn, another admitted purchasing some of
the Gold from the ornaments melted down and the third admitted
that he had also purchased some of the gold.
Fresh evidence was subsequently brought against Esubonten
which was sufficient to prove at least that he was guilty of
negligence. The office he held was that of the keeper of the King's
Keys including the key of the Stool House; he was brother and
successor of Opoku Mensa who had charge of the Golden Stool ;
the Stool was found on his land by his subj ects; he knew the
approximate whereabouts of the Stool and it was on his instmctions
that the Stool was removed from Wawase to Abuabugya. On the
other hand he was not immediately responsible for the discovery
of the Stool and was in no way concerned in the theft of the Gold.
The chiefs asked that he should be classed with Seniagya and the
others. His guilt however, was not as heinous as theirs and it
was decided that his Stool should be declared vacant and that he
should be banished from Ashanti.
The attitude of the Government towards the Stool is that the
Ashantis may, if they so desire keep open custody of the Stool, that
as far as Government is concerned they need not think it necessary
to bury or conceal the Stool, that Government will .not interfere
unless the Ashantis allow its worship to sink into an indulgence
in vile and impure practices or unless they make use of it for other
criminal purposes.
The story of this disturbing event in Ashanti politics cannot
be closed without paying a tribute to the conduct of t he Chiefs and
people of Ashanti throughout the crisis. Apart from the first day
or two, Kumasi at night, in spite of the large crowds coming in, was
as quiet as if curfew had been instituted. No doubt the embargo
immediately placed on the sale of spirits in the capital and the
neighbouring districts strengthened the hands of the Chiefs, yet
the greatest credit is due to the Chiefs themselves for the manner
in which they conducted the enquiry and strove successfully to
preserve the peace.
1923.
The railway between Accra and Kumasi; begun in 1909 in
order to open up the Akwapim country, was formally declared open
for traffic on 5th July and for the pUiblic on 5th SeptembeF.
42 THE GOLD COAST, 1931.
The Gold Coast Hospital (Korle Bu) was formally opened on
9th October. This is one of t he largest and best equipped hospitals
in the tropics. The hospital is for Africans and during the year
1930-31 admitted 3,345 patients, the daily average of persons
occupying beds being 221.9. Its construction was begun in 1920
and completed in 1923.
Electric Light aJ;ld Power are available in all buildings, and an
efficient water-borne sewerage system wIth purification works
discharging tJie effluent into the adjacent lagoon has been provided.
The grounds which are well laid out form an attractive feature of
the scheme. The total cost of the buildings, excluding equipment ,
was £254,500.
The Kumasi telephone service installed and trunk communica-
tion with Accra opened.
The Church of England entered the mission field of Ashanti.
1924.
A Native Jurisdiction Ordinance was introduced into Ashanti
in order to regularise and control the working of the tribunals held
by the various chiefs,
On the 12th November Prempeh returned to Kumasi after
twenty-eight years of exile. H e was granted an annuity and a
spacious house was erected for his use by Government. Before
leaving the Seychelles Islands where he had spent most of tl1i.s long
period of captivity he was the recipient of many testimonials of his
character, behaviour and undoubted ability. His reception at
Kumasi was magnificent.
Electric Light and Power were installe~ at Accra and at Sekondi.
As a result of a serious outbreak of plague in Kumasi the zongo
or foreign section was pulled down and rebuilt on the most modern
lines. This work which entailed a very considerable outlay in
money marks the commencement of the layout of the city, which
is probably the finest and most picturesque in West Africa.
1925.
His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales landed at Takoradi
on 9th April. He visited Sekondi, Kumasi and Accra, embarking
from the latter port on 14th April. During his visit he laid the
foundation st one of t he school which bears his name at Achimota.
His reception everywhere was in enthusiasm such that pen can
hardly describe it. Individuals went from every part to see l1i.m
and returned happy and content telling their friends: "He saw
me and smiled at me " ; " I have here a piece of the ground his foot
trod upon".
Her Highness Princess Marie Louise stayed in the Gold Coast
from lOth May to 10th June during which period she accompanied
the Governor on a tour of the Northern Territories, visiting
Wagadugu the capital of the Haute Volta. The story of her visit
she recorded in a volume of letters which relate the trials and
troubles of the first motor car trip completely round the Northern
Protectorate from Kumasi and back.
'fIrE GOLD tOA T, 193I. 43
1926.
This year marked the coming into operation of a change in
the constitution of the country, a short review of which is given at
the close of this chapter.
The Forestry Ordinance was passed this year, a meaSUie of
great importance to the country, having for its object the
conservation of the forest and the constitution of properly
administered reserves without interfering with the ownership of
the land.
The Honourable W. G. A. Ormsby-Gore, M.P., Under Secretary
of St ate for t he Colonies, accompanied by the Honourable
C. A. U. Rhys, M.P., and Mr. J. E. W. Flood and Mr. A. Bevir of the
Colonial Office, arrived at Accra from Nigeria on the 20th March,
1926. During the first ten days Mr. Ormsby-Gore paid a visit to
British Togoland.
Between the 27th March and the 5th April Mr. Flood visited
the Northern TerritOlies, making a complete circuit from Kumasi
via Yeji, Tamale, Navoro, Lorha, Wa, Kintampo, and Sunyani,
and back to Kumasi, where he rejoined Mr. Ormsby-Gore. The
latter wit h the remainder of the party motored on the 1st April
from Accra via Aburi, Mampong, Koforidua and Kibi to Bosuso
where they entrained for Kumasi. From the 3rd t o the 6th of
April Mr. Ormsby-Gore visited various places in Ashanti and on
the 7th and 8th journeyed by train t o Sekondi, visiting the gold
mines at Obuasi and Aboso and the manganese mines at Nsuta
en route.
On the 9th he visited Takoradi Harbour Works and the Seysie
palm oil plantation, while on the 10th Mr. Rhys, Mr. Flood, and
NIr. Bevir visited Cape Coast . On the lIth of April the whole party
embarked at Sekondi for Sierra Leone. A report of the Under
Secretary of St ate's visit to West Africa was presented to Parliament
in September, 1926 and has since been published.
1927.
A visit of far-reaching importance was made to the Gold
Coast by Professor Diedrich Westermann. Hitherto the different
vernacular languages had been reduced to vvriting by the efforts
of various missionary bodies without any common agreen)ent .
Each had used its own system of orthography, and published its
ovm t ext books, from which its own pupils had been taught, with
the result that Africans of different tribes who could converse
fluently with each other. were often quite unable to communicate
in writing excep t through the medium of English. Professor
\~Testennann , on account of his acknowledged pre-eminence as a
scholar of Gold Coast languages, was invited by Government to
undertake the product ion of a script which would be common to
all the languages and dialects without unduly differing from the
scripts already in use. This difficult task, in which the local
THE GOLD COAST. 1931.
Missions united in giving enthusiastic support, has, it is believed,
been successfully accomplished, such opposition as existed having
generously yielded to the demands of the public interest.
An outstanding political event, so far a~ the Colony proper was
concerned, was the introduction into the Legislative Council of
the Native Administration Bill, read a first time on 3rd March, 1927.
The Bill consolidates the la,,, as it exist ed with regard to Native
Administration and Jurisdiction, and repeals various Ordinances
which had dealt with native political and judicial affairs.
An important provision in the Bill, the introducer and seconder
of which were Paramount Chiefs, was that by which the Provincial
Councils created by " The Gold Coast Colony (Legislative Council)
Order in Council 1925" were given jurisdiction to decide disputes
of a constitutional nature between two or more Paramount Chiefs,
or two or more Divisional Chiefs of the different States in the Province.
Provincial Councils also were given power to decide disputes
relating to the ownership, possession or occupation of lands or to
jurisdiction , arising between two or more Paramount Chiefs or
between two or more Divisional Chiefs of different States in the
Province, with an appeal to the Full Court of the Supreme Court
of the Colony
Where Paramount or Divisional Chiefs or States belonging
to different Provinces were in dispute the matter was to be decided
by the Provincial Councils of each Province sitting jointly.
The Bill also gave the Governor power to refer any question,
matter or dispute to a Provincial ~ouncil for hearing and
determination .
The Native Administration Bill was received with some
opposition mainly from the educated classess residing in the coast
towns, whose fear appeared to be that too much power was being
placed in the hands of the Chiefs . This opposition has died down
now that the people realize the very genuine step forward on the
road towards self-Government which its introduction marked.
In Ashanti Prempeh was installed as Head-Chief of Kumasi,
or Kumasihene thereby involving the abolition of the Kumasi
Council of Chiefs which since the ri<;ing of 1901 had so successfully
and loyally advised Government on all matters concerning the
welfare of the people of Ashanti.
1928.
The Harbour of Takoradi was ceremonially opened on the
3rd April by the Right Honourable J. H. Thomas, M.P., who, when
Secretary of State for the Colonies, had taken a keen personal
interest in its construction. The remarkable development of the
country, especially in regard to the bulk and nature of its exports,
had been such that the existing ports on the Gold Coast were not
capable of adequately dealin.g with the traffic.
THE GOLD COAST, 1931. 45
The principal port, i.e. the one responsible for the hauling
of the produce of the greatest trade basin was Sekondi, which had
been selected as the coastal terminus for the railway in 1898.
At the time a report was submitted recommending Sekondi but
at the same time pointing out that if it were ever a question of
making a deep-water harbour, Amanful would be the best place.
The Surveyors termed Amanful that locality where precisely
Takocadi now stands.
Early in 1919 those responsible for the manganese mining
interest foreseeing the inevitable increase in their shipments of
ore became anxious about the capability of the resources of Sekondi,
and their enquiries eventually led to the whole question of the Gold
Coast ports being re-opened by Govemment. At the time there
were the following coastal settlements used as ports: Axim,
Dixcove, Ajua, Sekondi, Elmina, Cape Coast, Anamabu, Saltpond,
Winneba, Accra and Ada. They were all exposed to the Atlantic
swell with its resultant surf which breaks immediately on the shore
especially during the period from July to December and according
to the native more particularly at the time of the full and the new
moons. This latter point has no reason in theory to support it
but it has often been noticed to be t rue. Careful observations have
shown that this swell depends neither on wind, atmospheric pressure
or any other meteorological conditions obtaining in the locality
where the surf breaks, but is probably the result of disturbances
taking place at a very great distance from the coast of Guinea,
an explanation which in sailing-ship days gave to the very heavy
surf the name "Ascension rollers", i.e. waves from the stormy regions
south of Ascension Island.
The surf itself or swell does not impede to any great extent
traffic movements in the ports, nor can it be considered of any real
danger. In 1911 the S.S. Monta~,k went ashore on the Sherbro
reef outside Sekondi and ten years later her hull was still showing;
many of the native villages are built in close proximity to the sea,
oft en being only four feet above its leveL Those two facts seem
to prove that the surf can never be considered excessive.
But the great inducement, which out-weighed every other
argument, to construct a deep-water harbour was the elimination
of the lighter, with the resultant speeding up of traffic and therefore
increased capability in handling a growing and very considerable
bulk of produce. At every coastal port lighters and surf-boats
were necessary and often steamers would layout at a considerable
distance from the shore, so that the time and labour wast ed were
very great.
Work on the construction of Takoradi began in 1921 and on
8th November, 1926, the first ship entered the harbour. She
was the S.S. Agnete Naerst flying the Norwegian flag and carried
coal for the contractors. In the year 1930, two and a half years
after the opening of the harbour and in Spite of the decline in trad~
46 THE GOLD COAST, 193I.
which had already become manifest, there entered 371 vessels
of a nett tonnage of 1.042,726 tons and there cleared 326 with a
tonnage of 943,08l.
The Harbour which cost £3,133,366 is composed of two
breakvvaters, some 2,500 feet apart running from the shore in an
easterlv direction. The south or main breakwater after a distance
of 4,60'0 feet curves to the northward for 2,300 feet, the total length
being approximately It miles. The north or lee breakwater
has a length of about 4,500 feet. The area of water enclosed by
these two breakwaters is approximately 220 acres.
The lee breakwater which is provided with rail and road
facilities. has four wharves of a total length of 1,000 feet. Two
of these wharves each having its own transit shed and cranes are
allocated to imports. The third is for the export of manganese,
behind which is situated a dump capable of holding 25,000 tons
of ore, together with a handling plant which is on the endless belt
principle and can load up to 1,000 tons per hour. The fourth is
for coal traffic and is provided with cranage facilities.
An open dump for bulk cargo, provided with cranes and a
shed for t he storage of salt, etc., is situated to the west of the coal
wharf. On the northern or outer side of the lee breakwater
there is a mooring berth for vessels carrying bulk petroleum. A
lO-inch pipe line which can be connected to vessels discharging
petroleum leads to the storage tanks 2t miles away. There are
also six mooring berths provided for ocean-going vessels in the
deep water portion of t he Harbour.
At the inner end or base of the Harbour wharves are provided
with road, rail and cranage facilities for lighters for the shipping
of cacao and mahogany. A transit shed, and cacao sheds which
are leased to the various firms, are situated behind these wharves.
The Harbour is provided with a slipway and moorings fo~
lighters and has its own Signal Station. The Administration,
Customs, Immigration Offices and a Disinfecting Station are
situated within the Harbour area.
It is of interest to compare t he conditions provided at Takoradi
Harbour with t hose which existed at Sekondi where all cargoes
were taken through the surf in lighters and surf-boats to vessels
lying two to three miles from the shore. Manganese vessels which
had to lie off Sekondi for periods up to three weeks now clear from
Takoradi in from three to five days and the length of stay in port
of general cargo vessels has been very considera1Jly shortened.
Another great advantage at Takoradi is t hat cargoes are not
damaged by the surf and that practically all r isk of damage and
loss which occurred when cargoes were transferred to or from lighters
at Sekondi has been eliminated. Passenger vessels in many
instances come alongside the import wharves and the majority
of such vessels now put in at Takoradi and Accra the same day. The
storage facilities for general cargo and cacao at Takoradi are more
THE GOLD COAST, I93I. 47
commodiolls and acces<;ible than those provided at Sekondi where
the majority of cacao was stored in the open.
Shortly after the opening of the port Sir Alan Cobham landed
in the harbour in tlle seaplane with which he had flown from
England, crossed Africa from North to South and had coasted
homewards from Cape Town. His was not the first aeroplane
to have visited this country as foreign planes had been seen both
on the coast and in the extreme north-east corner of the Northern
Territories, at Bawku ; but it was the first British machine and
the first seaplane.
1929.
On 12th January, Captain R. S. Rattray, C.B .E., arrived in
the Gold Coast at Tamale, having flown from England. This
successful flight was followed in the autumn by a Royal Air .Force
visit from the Egyptian Sudan, when it was possible to uSe the
newly constructed aerodrome at Tamale.
The final departments of the Prince of Wales College and
School at Achimota were opened during this year. It had been
intended that this institution should wntain within its borders
kindergarten, primary and secondary education, together with
the training of teachers. The first had been opened in J anuary,
1927, and the last had taken over the Government Training College
which formerly existed at Accra. This year saw the opening of
the Upper Primary, Secondary and University Departments.
On 1st April the Northern Territories Constabulary was
disband€d and the force amalgamated with the Gold Coast Police
Force. The Corps had originally been recruited from the 2nd
Battalion of the Gold Coast Regiment which had been disbanded
at the time of the replacement of the military government of the
Protectorate by a Civil one in January, 1907. The change made
little or no difference but marks the end of an epoch and a milestone
on the path to progress. The first ten years of British occupation
of the Nortern Territories had been a period of pacification and
the restoration of order. Not only had British and French troops
faced each other in the Builsa country, at Wa and at Buna without
a breach of the peace it is t rue but certainly with a most disturbing
effect, but the whole country from Navrongo to Kintampo had been
the hunting ground of two slave-raiders, Samory and Babatu.
The former has already been referred to . His raids and expeditions
were along the present western frontier and it is difficult now
to realise their extent and the appalling loss inflicted by them on
the country. One example of this raider's feats may be given.
At Bole there are three mounds rather more pyramidal than the
usual middens and of a very unusual size. When the first British
troops entered the precincts of that town in 1897 they found the
gtound strewn with the headless bodies of t l).e unfortunate
inhabitants, and their first task was to get r id of these human
relics. The mounds of dead were covered with earth and remain
to-day as silent evidence of that cruel past.
48 THE GOLD COAST, 1931.
It is not out of place to give in brief the history of the other
raider, Babatu. In the '60's of the last century a dispute had
arisen as to the succession to the Mamprussi " Skin" or throne,
and civil war had broken out. One of the parties to the disput
had invited to his help a band of Bazaberimi or Zaberma horsemen,
whose military prowess brought him success. He was then faced
with the problem of getting rid of his allies, and after great difficulty
persuaded them to take up their abode in the Grunshi country
between the Mamprussi and Moshi countries. (The word Grunshi
is the plural of Gurunga, a Moshi or Dagomba word and is the
equivalent of the term barbarian as used by the ancient Greeks:
it was and is applied to all those natives not wholly tamed or under
the dominion of the Moshi or Mamprussi) . The leader of this wa.c
one Gazari and he settled with his followers at Sati in the Nunuma
country just within what later became French territory. He turned
quite naturally to the task of creating a kingdom for himself but
died before he had attained success. His method was the one typical
of all these Sudanese raiders . A village would be attacked, the
menfolk either became soldiers of the marauder or were sold into
slavery, and the women and children were divided among his
adherents. On the death of Gazari the leadership was disputed by
Amrahiya and Babatu. This coincided with the arrival of the
Europeans. Amrahiya made himself out to be t he King of the
Grunshi and as such allied himself with t he French under whose
protection he placed himself. Babatu came south and battles
between him and the French were fought on what is to-day British
soil, at Kanjaga and at Ducie. He was defeated and finding no
sanctuary with the British fled to Yendi where he died. But he
left behind him a land completely devastated and almost denuded of
population. The ruins of villages and homesteads, wasted farm-
lands and overgrown fields mark to this day the routes of his marches
and the scenes of his maraudings. There are still many survivors
of those he sold as slaves, dwelling as freemen and women in the
neighbourhood of Krachi and in the Ada-Keta area. The maps of
the former area based on a survey made in 19017 show numbers of
small villages which no longer exist. They were the hamlets in
which the slaves sold by Babatu used to dwell and are deserted now
as their inhabitants, the few who survived, returned to their original
home when the pax europaica was established.
After 1907 the civil administration had to face a period of
unrest throughout the Protectorate. The people were peaceful
enough; but the petty chiefs, the so-called sons of chiefs, continued
in the old fashion, and caravans and traders afforded them
comparatively easy prey. A semi-military force was necessary
and it was actually not until 1918 that highway robberies on,a
large scale ceased.
After t hat date the troops ret urning from the war, almost all
recruited from the wilder parts, and the determined opening up of
THE GOLD COAST, 193I. 49
the country ensured a more law-abiding attitude, and the need for
a constabulary as distinct from a police force ended.
1930.
The West African Court of Appeal Order in Council came into
force on the 1st March, 1930, and the first session of the Court was
held at Freetown in Sierra Leone on 10th March.
CONSTITUTION.
The constitution of the country is as follows .
At the conclusion of peace with Ashanti in 1874, measures
were taken for placing the government of the Gold Coast upon a
footing of efficiency and security.
A new charter was issued, dated the 24th of July, 1874,
separating the settlements of the Gold Coast and Lagos from the
government of the West African Settlements, and erecting them
into one colony under the style of the Gold Coast Colony, under a
Governor-in-Chief, with an Administrator at Lagos. . There was
one Executive Council and one nominated Legislative Council for
the two settlements and one Supreme Court.
This charter was superseded by Letters Patent, dated the
23rd of J anuary, 1883, and 13th January, 1886, respectively.
By the latter instrument Lagos was separated from the Gold
Coast and formed into a distinct colonv. Provision was made for
an Executive and Legislative Council, 'the members of both being
nominated by the Crown. Four unofficial members were appointed
to the Legislative Council.
By Royal instructions, dated 20th September, 1916, under
Letters Patent of the same date, all previous instructions were
revoked and the Executive and Legislative Councils were
re-constituted. The Executive Council was constituted by the
Colonial Secretary, the Attorney-General, the Treasurer, the Director
of Medical and Sanitary Services, and the Secretary for Native
Affairs with the Governor as President . The Legislative Council
was constituted by the members of the Executive Council and,
in addition, the Comptroller of Customs, the Director of Public
Works, the General Manager of Railways, and the Commissioners
of the Eastern, Central and Western Provinces, as ex-officio
members, and such unofficial members as might be appointed by the
Crown. By an Order in Council, dated 8th April, 1925, Letters
Patent and Royal Instructions, dated 23rd May, 1925, the Legislative
Council was re-constituted. It is now composed of the Governor,
fifteen Official Members and fourteen Unofficial Members. The
newly-constituted Legislative Council for the first time contained
an elective element, provision having been made for the election
of six Head Chiefs as Provincial Members of the Council, three
Municipal Members to represent the towns of Accra, Cape Coast,
and Sekondi, respectively, a Mercantile Member, and a Mining
Member,
D
50 THE GOLD COAST, 1931.
The above alteration did not affect Ashanti of which the
constitution is as follows :-
"Ashanti was annexed by Order in Council of 26th
September, 1901, which came into operation on 1st January,
1902."
This Order in Council and Royal Instructions of the same date
gave the Governor of the Gold Coast Colony power to exercise all
powers and jurisdiction on His Majesty's behalf in Ashanti subject
to His Majesty's instructions communicated through a Secretary of
State. The Governor was given power to provide by ordinance
for-
(a) the administration of justice;
(b) the raising of revenue;
(e) generally for the peace, order and good government of
Ashanti.
Ordinances are " enacted by the Governor of the Gold Coast
with respect to Ashanti ", and are subj ect to the Crown's power of
disallowance. In making ordinances the GoveI;nor must respect
native laws by which chiefs', tribes' or populations' relations are
regulated if they are not incompatible with the exercise of the
powers of the Crown or injurious to the natives.
By subsequent Orders in Council of 6th July, 1907, 8th May,
1919, and 14th July, 1922, the Order in Council was amended in
respect of the grant of pardons and the suspension of officers; and
by corresponding Additional Instructions given in the same years
the Royal Instructions were similarly amended. .
Of the other two dependencies of the Gold Coast, the Northern
Territories of the Gold Coast were proclaimed a British Protectorate
by Order in Council of 26th September, 1901, which came into
orce on 1st January, 1902. When the boundaries of the Colony,
Ashanti and the Northern Territories were defined in 1906, certain
portions of the latter were included in and annexed to Ashanti.
Under the Order in Council of 1901, and subsequent Orders in
Council of 6th July, 1907, 8th May, 1919, and 14th July, 1922 (with
the accompanying Royal Instructions), the Governor of the Gold
Coast Colony was given the same powers for the Northern Territories
Protectorate as for Ashanti.
The following Orders in Council have also been applied to the
Northern Territories :-
British Protectorate Neutrality Order in Council, 1904.
British Protectorates (General Convention) Order in Council,
1917.
The Northern Territories Administration Ordinance, 1902
(No.1 of 1902), and subsequent amending ordinances provided for
the administration of the Government. The provision relating to
Ashanti as to the application of various ordinances of the Colony,
and the administration of the law, also apply to the Northern
Territories,
THE GOLD COAST, 193I. 51
TOGOLAND.
The Gold Coast is responsible for the administration under a
mandate of the League of Nations granted to Great Britain,
of certain portions of the former Gennan Colony of Togoland.
The partition as between the French and British mandatory areas
is contained in an agreement between the two powers dated lOth
July, 1919, and this instrument defines the boundaries.
On the 20th July, 1922, the Mandate for that portion of the
fonner German Colony of Togoland which is now known as t he
British Sphere of Togoland was conferred upon His Brit annic
Majesty. The particular territory which is the subject of the
Mandate is declared in t he mandatory instrument to be that part
of Togoland lying to the west of the line agreed upon in the Franco-
British Declaration signed on 10th July, 1919. The territory is
now administered under the British Sphere of Togoland Order in
Council, 1923. Under this instrument the British Sphere is divided
into two portions named the Northern Section and the Southern
Section respectively. The Northern Section is administered as if
it formed part of the Northern Territories Protectorate; the Southern
Section is administered as if it fonned part of the Gold Coast Colony
and until other provision is made by Proclamation of the Governor
it is to be administered as if it formed part of the Eastern Province.
The law for the t ime being in force in the Northern Territories
applies, so far as it is applicable, to the Northern Section but the
Governor may by Ordinance modify or amend any provision in
such law, or exclude any provision from its application to t he
Northern Section. The law for the time being in force in the
Colony applies, so far as it is applicable, to t he Southern Section,
but the Governor may, by Ordinance, exercise t he same powers of
modification, amendment or exclusion, as he may in respect to the
law applicable to the Northern Section. The Governor may also
by Ordinance make all such provision as may from time to time
be necessary for the administration of justice, the raising of revenue,
and generally for the peace, order and good government of both
sections. If any applied law or any Ordinance enacted by the
Governor be repugnant to any provision of the Mandate it is void
and inoperative to the extent of such repugnancy. The jurisdiction
of t he Chief Commissioner's Court of the Northern Territories
extends t hroughout the Northern Section; the Supreme Court of
the Colony exercises throughout the Southern Section the like
jurisdiction as it exercises in the Colony and as if the Southern
Section formed part of the Eastern Province.
The powers and authorities conferred on the Governor by the
British Sphere of Togoland Order in Council are governed by the
provisions of any existing or future Order in Council relating to
the Northern Territories or to the British Sphere, and by any
existing or future Royal Instructions relating to t he Northern
Territories or to the British Sphere.
Dl
52 THE GOLD COAST, I931.
JUDICIAL SYSTEM.
The judicial system of the country was altered in 1930 as
mentioned by the creation of a West African Court of Appeal.
This Court deals with appeals from the Courts of the Colonies of
the Gold Coast, Sierra Leone and the Gambia ; from the Chief
Commissioners' Courts of Ashanti and the Northern Territories of
the Gold Coast; from the Courts of the Protectorates of Sierra
Leone and the Gambia; and from the Courts of Togoland under
British Mandate.
The Supreme Court of the Gold Coast consists of the Chief
Justice and six Puisne Judges. The Chief Justice and the Puisne
Judges of Nigeria are also ex officio Puisne Judges of the Gold Coast.
Its jurisdiction is limited to the Colony. In Ashanti and the
Northern Territories there is a Circuit Judge who presides over the
sittings of the Courts of the Chief .Commissioners with practically
the same jurisdiction in civil and criminal cases as the Judges in
the Colony.
There are divisional courts at Accra, Cape Coast and Sekondi ;
criminal assizes are held quarterly in the same towns and special
divisional courts are irom time to time held in the larger centres.
Police Magistrates and Commissioners are ex officio Commis-
sioners of the Supreme Court in the Colony and of the Chief
Commissioners' Courts in Ashanti and the Northern Territories.
The Law of the Colony is the Common Law, the doctrines of
equity, and the statutes of general application in force ·in England
on the 24th July, 1874, modified by a large number of local
Ordinances passed since that date. The Criminal Law was codified
in 1892 and the civil and criminal procedure are regulated by the
Supreme Court and Criminal Procedure Ordinances, both passed
III 1876. .
tHE GOiD COAst, i93f.
CHAPTER III.
ETHNOGRAPHICAL.
Divisions of the Gold Coast Peoples-Theil' religions-Sky,
Earth, Animism, Ancestors and Fetish Worship-Inflttence of
Christianity-Cult of St. Anthony-Sir James Frazer's S~tmmary
of the Gold Coast Religions-Earth-gods and Land Tenure-Con-
stitution of the Tribes-A Tnte Democracy-The Common People-
Asaf~t-Despots and Priests.
In an ethnographical survey of a people numbering more than
three millions divided into four distinct groups, it is not easy to be
brief. Therefore in this chapter I have not hesitated to quote in
extenso the various summaries of these different ethnographical
divisions written by others whose published works are considered
authoritative.
The areas occupied by the four groups mentioned cannot be
clearly defined as their boundalies overlap , but for convenience
they have been recognised as follows ;-
Group A. Agni-Twi or Akan or Kwa.
Tribal Divisions ... Ashanti Guang Gbanye
Brong ... J aman Chakosi
Fanti ... Nchumuru .•• Bowiri.
Locality.
(i) All Ashanti excepting in the north-west comer where t h e Mo and Band a
people (not yet classified) are found.
(ii) All the Western and Central Provinces of the Colony.
(iii) In the Eastern Province the following states-
(a) Akim-Abuakwa
(b) Akwamu
(c) Akwapim
(d) Kwahu.
(iv) In Togoland-
(a) Portion of Gbanye
(b) Krachi
(c) Buem
(d) Nkonya and a few small states which seem to be in process of
a malgation.
(v) In the Northern Territories the greater part of the Southern Province .:-
the Gbanye State or Gonja.
Group B. Ga-Adangme and Ewe.
Tribal Divisions ... Ada ... Ga
Awuna ... Krobo.
Locality.
(i) None in the Northern Territories, Ashanti, Western and Central Provinces
of the Gold Coast Colony.
(ii) In the Eastern Province, Gold Coast Colony-
(a) Ada (f) Osudoku
(b) Awuna (g) Peki
(c) Ga (h) Prampram
(d) Manya Krobo (i) Shai.
(e) Yilo Krobo
54 THE GOLD COAST , 1931.
(iii) In the Southern portion of Togoland a number of very small states
which it is to be hoped may consider favourably amalgation in the
near future.
Group C. Moshi-Dagomba or Gu.y.
Tribal Divisions Builsa I(usasi Nankanni
Dagomba Mamprusi T alansi
Dagarti ... Nabdam ... \Vala.
Locality.
All dwell in t he Protectorate of the Northern Territories where the kingdoms
of
(i) Dagomba
(ii) Mamprusi
(iii) Nanumba
(iv) Wala
have been easily recognised. In other parts of the country the precise character
of the states has not yet been ascertained.
Group D. Unclassified.
Tribal Divisions ... Ade]e
Akpafu Issala Mo
Banda Kassena N tru bu
Bimoba Konkomba Nunuma
Busansi Lobi ... Santrokofi
Locality.
These tribes inhabit almost the whole length of the frontier of the Gold
Coast from north of I{intampo to the mountain areas of the international
boundary which divides former Togoland.
The above classification is unfortunately based on linguistic
areas and may in due course be found erroneous, since it is
now-a-days commonly admitted that language has not necessarily
any signification ethnically. In this country there are two distinct
language movements which bear out this . contention. The growth
and spreading of Twi, the language of the Akan peoples, is such
that the old mountain languages of Togoland are rapidly dis-
appearing and at the san1e time with the increased facilities of
communication and therefore trade this language, almost unheard
in 'the Northern Territories a decade ago, is now rapidly becoming
the principal lil1g1<a jra1,ca of the commercial traveller in those
parts.
The second language movement is to be found in the rapid
opening of the country, the revolutionary changes in the methods
and objects of trade, the unquenchable thirst for luxuries and the
intensive campaign of education both by the Government and
the missionary bodies. -This has resulted in a great increase in
the use of English both in its" pidgin" and its correct forms whilst
at the same time it has tended to act as a preserver of languages
which ordinarily would have disappeared and the preservation of
which it is now generally admitted have neither the justification of
evidence as to nationhood nor usefulness in the business of to-day.
But if these groups and tribes do not yet meet on the ground
of a common language they do meet on that of a common religion.
Except for the followers of the exotic faiths of Christianity and
Mohammedanism, the people of the Gold Coast are animists, whose
religion has been defined by Sir James Frazer, O.M., as " a childlike
'tHE GOLD COAST, 193I.
interpretation of the Universe in terms of man. Whether or not
it was man's earliest attempt at solving the riddle of the Universe,
we cannot say. The history of man on Earth is long; the evidence
of geology and archaeology appears to be continually stretching
the life of the species farther and farther into the past . It may be
that th~nimistic hypothesis is one of many guesses at truth which
man has successively formed and rejected as unsatisfactory. All
we know is that it has found favour with many backward races
down to our own time."
And Sir James Frazer includes among those backward races
" also the uneducated classes in civilized countries, and especially
the peasantry, among whom ancient modes of thought and of
practice commonly linger long after they have disappeared from the
more enlightened members of the community."
The hypothesis itself is one by which man attributes to all
things, animistic and in animistic alike, the thoughts and feelings
to which he himself is subject. The word "soul" is difficult to
define; a precise meaning for it has not yet been generally
accepted; but by animism is meant that religion in which man
attributes to all things the possession of a soul. It is the religion
of that country which Schiller calls Dichterland. In details the
religions of the Gold Coast people differ to a certain extent, but
the broad principles are the same. The belief is general and
absolute in the existence of a Supreme Being. He is, as might be ~
expected, identified or possibly confused to a certain extent with
the sun and sky. To him are erected by the Akan and Grunshi
(i.e. the dweller in the extreme north) alike the three-pronged I
stick on which a bowl is set. The northerner identifies with him
also the Thunder-God though the latter is, among the hierarchy, ,!
retained as a separate conception. Thus in the north, where
the well-being of the country and the livelihood of the individual
depend so greatly on the elements, sun, wind, rain, thunder and
sky are manifestations of the Supreme Being, whereas in the f
south, where a kinder climate has caused man to cease to worry on
the inclemencies of weather, the need of prayer and propitiation
to these great elements is not so necessary.
Second to the Sky-God is the Earth-Goddess. Her worship
in the north is perhaps the most striking feature of the religion
of those parts, but equally in the south it is realised that from her
spring all the foodstuffs on which man relies. In the absence of
the written word, religion is inclined to be individualistic and
among primitive people except for national or tribal or family
observances even doctrine is elastic. There is no hard and fast
set of rules such as the maturer religions have evolved; there is
no doctrinaire caste of priests, no fear of heresy. The practices
of religion are therefore not necessarily identical, although their
creed may be the same.
Village life or community meetings amongst the southern
people is a marked feature of their existence. Without it, an
56 tHE GOLD COAST, 193!.
Akan village is inconceivable. But in the north this is far from
being the case, and except in towns where there are zongos or
strangers' quarters it can almost be said to be non-existent. This
reacts on the religion of the people, so that public observances
are rare among the latter whilst common among the former. For
instance among the Akans a characteristic of their religious tribal
life is the system of " adae "; the northerner apparently has no
such practice. The adae system may be briefly summarised as
follows :-The word itself possibly means a day of rest for no one
is supposed to work or go to his fields on t hose days. The adae
ceremony is held in order to propitiate, solicit or worship the spirits
of the dead, and is a rite observed twice in every successive period
of forty-two days. The first of the ceremonies occurs on a Sunday
and is followed twenty-four days later by a Wednesday adae,
which in turn is followed by a new Sunday adae, six weeks after
the first.
It is interesting to observe that this period of forty-two days
is made up of the multiple of six and seven. There are respectively
the seven modern days of the week and six week-days or market
days, commonly found among the northern people but not existing
among the Akans. It is possible that the former six-day week has
been combined with a later seven-day week, to which the writer
is inclined to attach a Christian origin. Possibly some later
student will be able to trace in the names of the six week-days
the six market places whence they were derived.
These days of adae are real village holidays of the fiesta type
common in the Mediterranean; but no trace has yet been found
among the northern tribes of any such practice.
There are many other details in the religioJ:f of the Akan and
southern tribes which are lacking among the Moshi group. In
Ashanti there is the making of a godling, the transference as it
were of the godling's spirit to a shrine or some receptacle. Captain
Rattray gives an account of the procedure by which this is
effected-
" Before passing on to a detailed account of the ceremonies
I witnessed in connection with certain of the Ashanti gods,
I propose to give a brief description of the origin and nature
of these deities and of the composition and consecration of
their shrines.
" The word shrine is used, in this particular context to
designate the potential abode of a superhuman spirit. It
consists (generally) of a brass pan, or bowl which contains
various ingredients. This pan, upon certain definite occasions,
becomes the temporary dwelling or resting-place, of a non-
human spirit or spirits.
" At the present day it is perhaps hardly necessary to
state that such an object or shrine (' fetish' is what every
English-speaking West African and most Europeans would
tHE GOLD COAST, I93i . 51
wrongly term it) is spiritually an empty nothing until the
particular spirit for which it has been consecrated, prepared,
and made acceptable thinks fit to enter it. It possesses, it
is true, a certain sanctity, by virtue of its being the potential
abode of a spiritual being."
Captain Rattray, after showing how the Ashanti regard rivers
and water generally as one of the essential attributes and property
of the Supreme Being, quotes the saying "As a woman gives
birth to a child, so may water to a god," and gives the following
details of the making and consecration of one of these shrines,
which held the spirit of one of the River Tano's sons :-
" A spirit may take possession of a man and he may
appear to have gone mad, and this state may last even some-
times for a year. Then the priest of some powerful god may
be consulted and he may discover, through his god, that it is
some spIrit which has come upon the man (or woman) . The
one upon whom the spirit has come is bidden to prepare a
brass pan, and collect water, leaves, and' medicine' of specific
kinds. The possessed one will dance, for some two days,
with short intervals for rest, to the accompaniment of drums
and singing. Quite suddenly he will leap into air and catch
something in both his hands (or he may plunge into the river
and emerge holding something he has brought up). He will
in either case fold this thing to his breast, and water will at
once be sprinkled on it to cool it when it will be thrust into the
brass pan and quickly covered up. The following ingredients
are prepared ; clay from one of the more sacred rivers, like
Tano, and the following plants and objects: afema (Justicia
fiavia) , Dama Bo (Abras precatorius); the bark of odum, a
creeper called hamakyem, leaves and bark of a tree called
domine, another creeper called hamakyerehene, any root
that crosses a path, a projecting stump in a path over which
passers-by would be likely to trip, also roots and stumps from
under water, the leaves of a tree called aya-those are chosen
which are seen to be quivering on the tree even though no
wind is shaking them-the leaves, bark and roots of a tree
called Bonsam dua (lit. the wizard's tree), a nugget of virgin
gold (gold that has been in use or circulation must not be
used) , a. bodom (so-called aggrey bead) , and a long white bead
called gyanie. The whole of these are pounded and placed
in the pan along with the original object already inside, an
incantation or prayer is repeated, and the various sacrifices
are made, the blood being allowed to flow upon t he content s
in t he brass pan ."
Captain Rattray then continues :-
" It will be noted that other minor spirits, or powers of
nature, are not wholly ignored or neglected, and that all are
considered as able in some manner to help the greater spirit
that is to be called upon to guide and assist mankind."
THE GOLD COAST, i:931.
The priests told him that at times, when this greater emanation
of God was not present, the spirits of some of the lesser die ties would
flash forth for a moment and disclose their presence. For example,
a priest would suddenly burst for th, singing, "odomce, die ado me
omera" (" I am the odoma tree, let him 'who loves me come hither. " )
It would seem that priests and priestesses, when in this ecstacy,
are subject to many spirit infiuences, a priestess having been heard
to talk in a different dialect from her own, a fact which did not at
all surprise the onlookers, who merely said" Oh, that is the spirit
of So-and-so' '-mentioning a dead priestess of the god, who had
come from another district, and had used that dialect .
An old priest with whom Captain Rattray remonstrated for
not trusting to the one spirit of the Supreme God replied as follows:
" We in Ashanti dare not worship the Sky-God alone, or the Earth-
Goddess alone, or anyone spirit . vVe have to protect ourselves
against, and use when we can , the spirits of all things in the Sky
and upon Earth. You go to the forest , see some wild animal, fire
at it , kill it, and you find you have killed a man. You dismiss your
servant but later find you miss him . You take your cutlass to
hack at what you think is a branch, and find you have cut your
arm. There are people who can transform themselves into leopards;
the grass-land people are especially good at turning into hyenas.
There are 'witches who can make you wither and die. There are
trees which fall upon you and kill you . There are rivers which
drown you. If I see four or five Europeans, I do not make much
of one alone, and ignore the rest, lest they too may have power
and hate me."
Such brass pans or shrines are not found among the Moshi
or other tribes of the northern group. Nor is the almost-worship
of the Unknown God or power, which the preceding paragraph
seems to indicate, a feature of their religious practices. This is
probably because in the north the people's condition of life has been
for so much longer firmly established and settled, the proof of which
will be found later in this chapter in the paragraphs dealing with
their constitution.
Possibly one of the most prominent features of the northern
form of religion is the never-ceasing inter-mixture of ancestor-
worship with that of the Earth and Sky. In Ashanti or among the
other' and kindred races this ancestor-worship exists and is by no
means the least important part of their religion. In the north it is
always part and parcel of the whole, whilst in Ashanti it is to be
noted chiefly in the adae ceremony and is kept apart from the wor-
ship of the Sun and Earth. In Captain Rattray's description of the
former he notes that throughout the ceremony there is no apparent
invocation or mention of any power or spirit other tha.n that of
ancestors. He remarks that no gods or fetishes are called upon,
whereas, in northern Ashanti in marked contrast these spirits are
invoked. And still further north they are invariably included in
every prayer or offering.
THE GOLD COAST, 1931. 59
There is no reason to suppose that the mythical and traditional
migrations of the inhabitants of the Gold Coast Colony are not
based on historical facts, and the fact that ancestor-worship in
the north is closely connected with that of the earth seems to indicate
this. The Earth is a goddess. She harbours the dead, and since
the dead are within her bosom from time immemorial, these latter
have become, as it were, an essential part of her. Now the Ashanti
in his migrations did not carry his dead with him. Therefore he only
had the Earth to worship. And when he came to pay respect to his
dead, they were of too recent a departure to have become mingled
with the Earth. Moreover it is also more than likely that the
spirits of the dead once in the bosom of the Mother Earth were
inclined to wander in that bosom back to the haunts of their
ancestors so that they would return home rather than sojourn in
the neighbourhood of their wandering children. All native history
emphasises this nomadic character of the early Akan arrivals, so
that it is permissible to conjecture that they considered that the
recent dead were nomads too and would rather wander in the land
of the departed than take up a permanent residence in some fixed
place, where their spirits would become commingled with Mother
Earth. Thus prayer to his ancestors could be offered apart and at
a separate occasion.
At the same time as sky-worship, earth-worship and ancestor-
worship are practised, there is the lesser cult of charms, amulets,
medicines, philtres, etc., together with the complementary body
of witches, sooth-sayers, medicine-men and others who seem rather
to be the remnants of an earlier faith than parasites of later growth .
So prominent a feature in the every-day life of the people was this
that it came to be regarded by the European strangers as the
principle part of their religion and thus the word fetishism was
adopted as a correct term by which to designate that religion.
The religion of the Gold Coast people can thus then be
summarised. Animism; worship of the Sky and Earth; the cult
of the lesser deities, sons and children of the former; ancestor
worship and fetishism .
There is however always to be remembered as was pointed
out in the chapter dealing with history the fact that not in historical
times have these people been ever out of touch with the so-called
higher cultures. There is yet to be traced the several influences
of Egypt, of Greece, of the East, of Rome and of the great church
of North Africa, of the Berbers and of the Moors, of the Arabs and
their several invasions. Not least is that of the Catholic Church
which was the inseparable companion of the early Portuguese
invaders.
That this last did influence and still influences local religion
the following summary of a note provided by the present Assistant
Secretary for Native Affairs, Mr. J. C. de Graft Johnson is good
testimony.
60 THE GOLD COAST, I931.
The principal yearly festival in E lmina is Baka Tuei, which is
the annual ceremonial opening of fishing in the small River Benya
at t he mouth of which s tands the famous Castle San Jorge del Mina.
It takes place about the beginning of July and is preceded by the
festival of Nana Ntuna, the titular deity of Elmina. Ntuna is a
corruption of St. Anthony, an old statue of whom is looked upon as
the Shrine of Nana Ntuna. According to the local tradition this
statue was brought to Elmina before the Castle was built and it i
said that until recently there used to be an old Bible in the Ntuna
Bum, the hut in which the statue is kept . The Ntuna rites
associated with the cult of Ntuna begin about the time of Passion
Week. On the liVednesday before Easter a sacrifical offering,
consisting of dog's flesh, plantain and' rum, is made to Brafu Kweku
or Brafu Wednesday, a subordinate obosum (god) supposed to be
the devoted attendant and executive officer of 1 ana Ntuna. Brafu
K weku is represented by a small stone at the entrance of the N tuna
Bum. The sacrifice to Brafu Kweku is probably a present to
persuade him to use his services to put Nana Ntuna into the proper
frame of mind to give his children, the Elmina people, his annual
blessing. Following the offering to Brafu Kweku, the festival of
Isa is celebrated on Easter Day. Isa is the name given to what
appears to be the powdered residue of very ancient wafers or
communion bread left in a receptacle, possibly a Monstrance, still
kept in the Bum. The name Isa is suggestive and is probably a
form of J esus. N ana N tuna himself is represented by the statue
of St. Anthony, already referred t o, a rosary and a crucifix. Nana
Ntuna, Isa and Brafu Kweku constitute tRe trinity of the Antoni-
Bum worship during the celebration of which lighted tapers or
candles are placed round t he statue and incense is burnt.
After the service in the Bum into which no one is allowed wearing
shoes or sandals, the monstrance with Isa or what represents Isa
in it and ana Ntuna and the symbols representing him are
reverently carried out and publicly exhibited in a solemn manner,
similar to that with which the Catholics at Elmina and elsewhere
to-day carry out the Host during the celebration of the Feast of
Corpus Christi.
The very obvious connection between this cult and former
Roman Catholic worship gives considerable food for thought and one
is justified in wondering how much influence that Church wielded in
the century and a half during which tlus country was kept a sealed
book to the rest of the world by the Portuguese. There is no doubt
about the intense desire of the Portuguese rulers to evangelise the
countries over which they held dominion ; it is proved beyond
question that the hinterland was visited by and known to them;
and the example of the Catholic Kingdom which they founded in
the Congo area is well known . Moreover possible traces of
Christianity in the use of the sign of the cross, the baptism of children
and the practice of confession in its earlier form are to be found
throughout the North.
THE GOLD COAST, 1931. 61
Traces there may be but the religion of t he people to-day is
far removed from Christianity. No better summaries of the
fundamental religion can be given than that of the worship of the
Sun and Earth written by Sir James Frazer, O.M., who has collected
and collated all that is so far known in his" Worship of Nature"
(1926).
Among the northern tribes the worship of the Earth-gods is
however the most important cult for the community, whilst that
of ancestors is pre-eminently essential for the individual. Nothing
can be done without a sacrifice of some sort, generally a fowl, to
one's ancestors. In every courtyard there stands a mound which
marks the founder's grave, and outside or near it are little pyramids
representing others of the family's dead. Each pyramid is capped
wit h a stone, whereon are laid blood and feathers from the sacrifices.
And when a family migrates, earth from the pyramids is carried to
the new abode, and theFe the sacrifices to the dead are offered as
before.
Of the Akan and Ewe group, Sir A. B. Ellis wrot e :-
" The general bias of the negro mind has been in favour
of selecting the firmament for the Chief Nature-god, instead
of the Sun, Moon, or Earth; and in this respect the natives
resemble t he Aryan Hindus, Greeks, and Romans, with whom
Dyaus pitar, Zeus, and Jupiter equally represented t he
firmament. The Tshis and Gas use the words Nyankupon
and Nyonmo to express sky, rain, or thunder and lightning,
and the Ewes the word Mawu. The Tshi people say Nyankupon
bom (Nyankupon knocks). 'It is thundering'; Nyankupon
aba (Nyankupon has come). 'It is raining'; and the Ga
peoples, Nyonmo knocks (thunders) 'Nyonmo pours',
, Nyonmo drizzles " etc., while in just the same way the Ancient
Greeks ascribed these phenomena to Zeus, who snowed, rained,
hailed, gathered clouds, and thundered. Nyankupon has' for
epithets the following: Amosu (Giver of rain); Amovua
(Giver of sunshine); Tetereboensu (Wide-spreading Creator
of water) , and Tyaduampon, which seems to mean' Stretched-
out Roof' Tyo, to draw or drag, dua wood, and pon, fiat
surface)."
The Supreme Being of t he Ashantis dwells aloof in his firmament
too far away to be concerned directly with the affairs of man. Some
of his powers he has delegated to his son, t he lesser gods (abosom),
who act as his vice-gerents in different places or for different purFoses
here below-a const it ution strikingly similar to the almost feudal
kingdom of the northern peoples. However in every courtyard in
Ashanti there stands an altar to the Sky-god in the shape of a three-
forked branch cut from a certain t ree which the Ashantis call
the Sky-god tree (Nyame dua). · Between the branches, which are
cut short, is fixed a basin or a pot ; in this receptacle t he offerings
are placed, and in it is generally to be found a neolithic celt, one
62 THE GOLD COAST , I931.
of the Sky-god's axes. Precisely similar altars are to be found
in the compounds of the north.
" The late Sir A. B. Ellis was form erly of the opinion that their
Sky-god, whom he calls Nana Nyankupon, " the Lord of the sky",
was borrowed by them from the Christians and was in fact little
more than J ehovah under a new name and a thin disgui e. But
this opinion he afterwards saw reason to retract. Discussing the
nature of Mawu, the Sky-god of the Ewe-speaking peoples of t he
Slave Coas t, he observes: " While upon the subj ect of this god,
I may as well say that, from additional evidence I have since
collected, I now think that the view I expressed concerning the
origin of Nyankupon, the parallel god of the Tshi-speaking peoples,
was incorrect; and that instead of this being the Christian God,
borrowed and thinly disguised, I now hold that he is, like Mawu,
the Sky-god, or indwelling spirit of the sky; and that, also like
Mawu, he has been to a certain extent confounded with J ehovah.
I t is worthy of remark that nyankum means' rain', and nyankonton ,
, rainbow', while the word yankupon itself is as frequently used
to express sky, firmameut, thunder, or rain , as it is as a proper
name."
" The name of Mawu is known throughout the whole of the
country, wherever the Ewe language is spOken, from the coast far
into the interior, and is of importance in the daily life of the people.
The idea of the Sky-god is not of foreign origin, a reflection of
missionary teaching; it IS an ancient possession of the .race and is
said to have formerly occupied an even higher place in the popular
religion than it does at the present day. ,The conception seems to
have been moulded directly on the sight of the celestial vault .
When the morning clouds are seen encircled with a rim
of light and the blue sky peeps between the rifts, the natives say
" Mawu has donned his coat of many colours". The proper name
for the visible sky is dzingbe, but the visible sky is also called Mawu
ga, " the Great God". In a native assembly a man has been heard
to say, " I have always looked up to the visible sky as to God and
when I spoke of God I spoke of the sky, and when I spoke of the
sky, I thought of God ". Another man observed, " Wherever the
sky is, there is God; for the sky is God".
In the interior of Togo there live a number of tribes speaking
languages which differ from Ewe. But among them also we find
the worship of the same great Sky-god under different names.
Thus the Akposos worship him under the name of Owulowu, which
they regard as equivalent to the Mawu of the Ewe-speaking peoples ..
The same word Owulowu is used to designate both the firmament
and its personification. Among the Krachi, he is Wulbari, among
the Konkomba O'wunbuor, and among the Gbanye he is known as
Ebuore. The similarity in name is striking.
" The Ashantis of the Gold Coast regard the Sky and the Earth
as their two great deities. The worship of the Earth-goddess is
less well known, than that of Nyame perhaps because it is not quite
THE GOLD COAST, 1931. 63
so obvious. No temple, no image is reared in her honour, but her
power is none the less universally acknowledged. From the Earth,
according to one of their most famihar myths, sprang some of the
noblest of the Ashanti clans, for example the Oyoko, from which
the later Ashanti Kings were descended. The Ashanti name for
Earth is Asase Ya, this Old Mother Earth. The day dedicated to
her worship was Thursday, and even now the Ashanti farmer will
not till or break the soil on that day; down to some thirty years
ago a breach of the rule was punished with death. To this day the
Ashanti farmer makes an offering to Old Mother Earth every year
on the day when he begins to till his land. He goes to the field,
taking with him a fowl and some mashed plantain or yam which
his wife or sister has cooked for him. Arrived at the field where
work is to begin, he wrings the fowl's neck, and letting the blood
drip on the mashed yam and the Earth he speaks as follows:
" Grandfather so-and-so, you once came and hoe-ed here and then
you left it to me. You also Earth, Ya, on whose soil I am going
to hoe, the yearly cycle has come round and I am going to cultivate;
when I work let a fruitful year come upon me, do not let the knife
cut me, do not let a tree break and fall upon me, do not let a snake
bite me ". He then cuts up the fowl and mixes the flesh with the
yam. After that he throws portions of the mixture to the four
points of the compass; and some of the remains he places in a leaf
and deposits on the spot where he stood in making the offering.
" Among the inhabitants of the Northern Territories of the
Gold Coast there prevails a worship of the Earth like that which is
characteristic of the inhabitants of the Upper Senegal and Upper
Volta or the French Sudan, and the resemblance is natural enough
since, as has already been pointed out, the boundaries between the
two countries is not racial but merely political, the same tribes
being settled on both sides of it. While the natives of the Northern
Territories of the Gold Coast all recognize the existence of a great
Sky-god or Supreme Being whom they call Wuni, Weni, or We,
they in practice pay much more attention to the gods of the Earth
for, like the ancient Chinese, they have not risen to the general
conception of a single Earth-god, the personification of the whole
Earth, but believe in the existence of a great number of Earth-gods,
each presiding over his own particular territory, like a human chief.
For the most part every community possesses at least one Earth-god,
and the names of the Earth-gods vary from place to place. They
are not visible. but abide in natural objects, such as clumps of trees,
rocks of large size or remarkable appearance, and ponds; but
clumps of trees are their favourite homes. At Kanjaga, for example,
there are two such sacred groves. One of them is a small cluster
of fan palms surrounding a single tall one, all of them growing out
of a white ants nest. The other is a group of short, long-leaved
raphia palms such as grow in the marshes of the Ashanti forest.
This latter grove, situated in a small dale otherwise bare of trees,
presents a striking appearance, all the more so because these palms
64 THE GOLD COAST, I93I.
are elsewhere unknown in the district. The propitiation of the
local Earth-god is deemed of the utmost importance, for were it
neglected, famine would surely follow as a consequence of the wrath
of the offended deity. His righteous indignation is excited by the
spilling of human blood on the ground, and by the commission of
incest, for such acts are thought to pollute the soil. Even so
seemingly trivial an act as the shooting of an arrow in anger suffices
to disturb th~ equanimity of the sensitive deity. vVhen such a deed
has been done, or indeed anything untoward has happened, the
particular Earth-god in whose domain the event took place must be
appeased. The duty of making atonement devolves on the religious
chief or priest who bears the title of tindana, tengyona, or tengsoba,
meaning in every case the Owner of the Land or Chief of the Earth,
as the corresponding official is commonly designated in Upper
Senegal. It is his office to intercede between the people and the
deity who gave them the land on which they live and the food which
they eat. They say that no place is without its Chief of the Earth
(tin dana) , and to this day, if people migrate into an uninhabited
country in the hope of finding there a less niggardly soil than the
one they have left behind them, they must obtain a grant of land
from the Chief of the Earth who happens to dwell nearest to the
new settlement. As usual, the atonement takes the form of
sacrifices, which are ordered by the Chief of the Earth to be
performed as the occasion arises. He also appoints the day when
the new crops may be eaten by the community; in short, he
regulates all matters that concern the religion of the ' Earth -god.
"The requirements of the deity are revealed from time to
time by a soothsayer, who ascertains them by means of certain
magical stones, which he shakes out of a bag. The divine wishes
announced by this form of soothsaying are regularly gratified, or
if not, so much the worse for the Chief of the Earth who is responsible
for the ommission. For example, the Chief of the Earth at Issa
was informed by the soothsayer that his Earth-god desired a market
to be re-established on the spot. The Chief delayed to comply
with the divine injunction, and in consequence his son was badly
mauled by a leopard as a warning to the Chief himself to be in future
less dilatory in obeying the deity. Through the communication
which the soothsayer thus maintains with the higher powers his
services are indispensable not only in religious matters but in the
conduct of everyday life; practically nothing is done without
consulting him; the whole structure of society is in his hands.
Yet the stones by which he works his wonders are neither rare nor
beautiful: they are just hard, smooth stones whlch may be picked
up in the fields. The natives believe that the stones have fallen
from heaven, so they gather and pile them on the ancestral graves,
or rather on the little pyramids of mud which are set up to serve
as altars in the worship of the dead. But sceptical Europeans
are of the opinion that these stones are simple disused hand-
grinders.
THE GOLD COAST , 1931. 65
"The E\ye-speaking people worship the Earth as a goddess
under the name of Anyigba. One of the epithets applied to the
goddess is lVIother of the little children for she it is who bestows
offspring on people. She also makes the yams to grow and trade
to prosper; she gives good luck in hunting and victory in war.
I t is in her power too, both to inflict and to heal ~ickness and disease.
One day of the week, named asiamigbe, is her rest-day or sabbath ;
therefore on that day it is unlawful to hoe the ground, t o dig yams,
or to thrust a stake into the earth, because such acts are clearly
calculated to disturb her divine repose, if not to do her bodily injury.
Anybody who hoes the ground on her sabbath will surely die."
The above summary of the religion of the Gold Coast people
is based on extracts from Sir James Frazer's work and quotations
from all the authorities on the religion and customs of the various
sections of the people dwelling in this country. It is to be noted,
however, that in the survey there is omitted all those t ribes dwelling
between the Ashanti and the North. As yet no exhaustive treatise
has been published to cover the lore of the tribes living in this zone.
However it is well known that the main characteristics of their
religion are similar to those of the people to their north and to their
south, and the close relationship of the Dagomba with the lVIoshi
enables one to obtain a good view of the religion of the former from
the wori{S of lVI. Tauxier, the authority on the latter.
Enough has been writt en and quoted to show the bases on
which the faith of the Gold Coast people is founded . But apart from
these general characteristics, there remain the individualistic worship
of ancestors, charms, home and local gods-a mass of spirits and
deities that have often confused animism with pantheism. There
is no need to enlarge on these phases, provided we remember always
that the people here live in Dichterland before the licence of the
poet has washed away the sordid conditions and roughnesses of
savagedom.
Arising from the religious outlook of the people there is the
question of land tenure which has become involved with 'the
constitution of the country to no small extent. It is a question
about which much has been written and is of so large an importance
that one must, in order to understand the native of the Gold Coast's
attitude of mind towards the land, be permitted to enter into
considerable detaiL
Of the four groups outlined above, it may be stated at the
outset that nothing reliable is known about the system of land
tenure among the Ewe or the unclassified groups. The Ga-
Adangbe system has become so fogged through contact with various
European syst ems that its first form is no longer recognisable.
But since the religion of all groups is based on the same premises,
and since the land is among all considered part and parcel of that
religion, and thirdly because the origin from some individual hunter
is common to all tribes and families, it is certainly not unreasonable
E
66 THE GOLD COAST, 1931.
to presume that the evolutionary development of the systems of
land tenure among the groups h as followed along similar lines.
No better outline of this process of evolution is available than
that by Captain Rattray in his' Ashanti Law and Constitution', one
of the reports submitted to the Gold Coast Government during
his tenure of the office of Anthropologist. He points out how in
the Akan group the Ashanti were originally a nation of hunters.
They have Ci saying: " In olden times the tribes all resided in
one town", but this is to be explained by the usual exaggeration
of a large family of nomads whose sons are forced by the circum-
stance of over-crowding to seek for other realms in which to roam.
The t radition of various clans record an era when game, fish, wild
herbs, berries and roots were the sole food of the people, and it is
logical to deduce that as a family grew larger, so the area, over
which the collection of the food required had to be made, increased.
But there is a limit to that area, viz. ,-the distance a man can cover
in safety from his hom e. That limit was undefinable, but within
the area of that roughly-known boundary the family would naturally
have com e to regard the food obtainable therein as theirs. Only
by might could this right b e wrested from them.
The family in course of t ime might reach a numerical strength
sufficient to warrant its being termed a tribe, but there is no reason
to suppose that the nomad Akans were ever of any great number.
The advent of agriculture brought about the first revolution .
So far all the Gold Coast tribes are known to have more or less
followed along these lines, but when agriculture actually came
is not determinable. There is no doubt .but that the grain-eaters
of the Moshi group as well as the unclassified tribes of the North
advanced more quickly than the southern tribes at this point of
evolution. The introduction of guinea-com and millet was probably.
from the East and is certainly of considerable antiquity. On the
other hand the Akan and Ga-Adangbe groups owe practically all
their foodstuffs to European introduction from the West Indies.
The possible exception is that of yams which to this day are sought
for in their wild state among the hills of Ajati to be planted and
cultivated, when th ey lose their bitterness and coarseness, in the
richer soil of the lowland plains . This revolution in the manner
of living gradually brought about, although the process is not yet
complete among the Brong and Guang tribes, a stabilization.
The nomads began to set tle and as settlement required cultivation,
there grew up the idea of a family right in the land as distinct from
over the land which was to supply them their livelihood.
Captain Rattray opines that a previous idea of family interest
in the land had existed. "These ancient hunters possibly regarded
one locality in their wild forest hunting-grounds as being more
particularly their very own, namely, the spot where their ancestors
had been laid after death Their dead men used it; they
continued to use it-for ever. The spot marked by the grave was
regarded a~ the particular property of his kinsman ."
THE GOLD COAST, I93I. 67
Although that theory is open to debate since on the surface
it seems incompatible with the nomadic life, the idea of the land
belonging to the dead or being so permeated with them that the
Earth and the dead are almost inseparable as ideas is certainly a
sound supposition and would in time lead to that intensive cult of
ancestors which being observed by Captain Rattray enabled him
to write: "It is not, however, the Sky and the Earth deities who
in Ashanti are held to be the prime factors in shaping and influencing
the actions and destinies of mankind. These great unseen powers
are generally too remote and perhaps too mighty to be concerned
very intimately with the individual dan, much less with the
individual member of the clan, and the predominant influences in .
Ashanti religion are neither ' .Saturday Sky-god' nor' Thursday
Earth-goddess', nor even the hundreds of gods (abosom), with
which it is true the land is filled, but are the samanfo, the spirits of
the departed forebears of the clan. They are the real land owners
who, though long departed, still continue to take a lively interest
in the land from which they had their origin or which they once
owned. The Ashanti land laws of to-day appear but the logical
outcome of a belief which, in the not very remote past, considered
the living landowners as but holding as it were t enancies at will
from the dead as being the trustees of the latter. ' ,
The Akans who were in the closest contact with the Europeans
were not allowed however to evolve along natural and therefore
slow lines. With the introduction of agriculture necessitated by
the Slave Trade there were also introduced fire-arms by the use of
which the slaves could be caught and kept. The nomad family
having ceased its wanderings had acquired a patch to cultivate for
the use of the famIly. Not every member of the family was now
necessary; free labour was obtainable lor the newly introduced
form of obtaining food; the young men were at liberty to go abroad
to hunt for slaves or to act as middlemen for the merchants. And
in the interior they became available as organized bands, later to
become formidable armies.
Land thus came to be regarded as belonging to the family,
the offspring of which no longer had to seek their own food collecting
zone, but could stay near the paternal roof. The slaves required
housing and wives. The village came into existence, and family
lands became village or community lands.
The actual area required for the cultivation of food stuffs was
small, but the hunter spirit had not disappeared, so that from the
focus of the village hunters would issue forth and claim as the and
over which they had a right all that area within their reach
and within their power of defence against all possible claimants.
This theoretical process of evolution in the system of land
t enure is not different to that actually observed in other places in
the world. But locally on the Gold Coast it may possibly account
for the apparent lack of zeal in agricultural pursuit of the coast-
dwellers. They evolved from nomadic hunters t o citizens of
El
68 THE GOLD COAST , 193I.
towns, merchants and middlemen, without themselves passing
through the intermediate st age of farmers or cultivators, At the
same t ime it offers an explanation of the willingness of the outherner
to employ northern labour on his fields and in his plantations and the
readiness of the lattet who has for centuries been a land labourer,
to undertake that work.
In the extreme North, hat is t o say throughout the Protectorate
of the Northern Territories and the Northern Section of Togoland,
the system of land t enure did not reach that of village lands to the
same extent . The permanence of cultivation led to an intensive
form of family ownership and even t o one approximating our own
idea of individual ownership . An understanding of this explains
the difference in the constitution of the two areas, the Protectorate
and the Akan system.
But further leaps in evolution were to be made in the coastal
areas. After the 1873-4 war with Ashanti and the establishment
of a protectorate by Great Britain over the tribes, 'who had been
our allies in that campaign, there ensued a period of keen
exploitation of the minerals of the country. Concessions with
recognised titles were necessary if capital wa" to be persuaded to
flow into Gold Coast channels. There quite logically and
undoubtedly legally followed the idea that the head of the
community could act fo r the community, and in consequence there
has grown up the conception that the Omanhene with the
concurrence of his counsellors were trustees of the land .over which
the community exercised collecting and hunting rights. The
voice of the family was not to be heard above the acclamation of
the village or community . Still less could the individual make
his claims upheld. Moreover there was plenty of land, the system
of cultivation was not of a permanent character and the immediate '
compensation in money or gifts made acquiescence ea,sier.
However less than forty years later a fresh revolution in thought
occurred. There was suddenly thrust upon the country the quite
new idea of permanence in agriculture. The amazing possibilities
of the cacao market made individual effort so remunerative that
farming for the family became secondary t o farming for the
individual. The evolution was complete and the system of land
tenure in its aspect vis-a-vis a cacao plantation among the Akans
is practically the same as that vis-a-vis the guinea-corn and millet
fields of the Northerner.
The communal idea, hitherto tacitly admitted and acquiesced
in, is receding far into tradition, not without considerable resistance
by the Chiefs who not only see their trusteeship and its concomitant
perquisites disappearing, but also see the day is not far distant
when the old-time tribal organisation must inevitably disappear.
This organisation has almost been outlived already ; the
individual hunter, the small family, the growing family mixed with
<l,li~n <l,dherents, the village, the community, the state and tribe.
THE GOLD COASt, I931.
It is evident that the constitution of a community evolved in such a
manner must be along family lines ; and such has been the case
in the Gold Coast.
It was probably owing to the rivalries ot the different European
powers along the coast that the various families or clans or tribes
dwelling thereon never reached the stage of unification, such as was
attained in Ashanti, but the constitution was practically identical.
The head of the clan is the Omanhene and he is assisted by
counsellors who include every village head-man and every family
chief although in practice delegates represent this rather unwieldy
witenagemote.
In Ashanti where the release of the young men from their
family duties by the introduction of slave labour and where the
non-interference by Europeans enabled one branch of the tribe to
organise an army which succeeded in imposing its overlordship over
its neighbours this familial constitution had given way to a more
elaborate quasi-feudal system with a recognisable king at its head.
But the head of the various families or clans who had been forced
to admit this supremacy never lost sight of their right to be consulted
and there remained in being the right of the family, that is
the common people, to direct the family heads in those consultations.
That is a very fine form of democracy and has provided a
vent through which discontent and ill-usage, grievance and
complaints could be remedied. To a certain extent this natural
manner of airing wrongs and obtaining redress has been concealed.
Unexpected and extremely raFidly acquired wealth by the people
accompanied the evolution of the chief from family head into king-
ship, but to-day there is no doubt that there is a healthy sign of
effervescence by which it is clear that the people are beginning to
take no small interest in their communal affairs and well-being and
are no longer content to leave state matters in the hands of chiefs
who are becoming further and further removed from the 'plebs'
out of which they sprang. This movement is not only to be observed
in the Gold Coast, it seems to be spread almost all over the world.
Fortunately in this country the movement is based on the old family
right of the members to be consulted by their head before he
represents them at the tribal witenagemote. It is therefore under a
properly constituted leadership and forms an important part of the
Akan constitution.
The movement is generally termed that of the Asafu. In the
past the history of the Asafu as known to Government has not been
happy. It orginated in the grouping of the young men in clans
based on paternity as opposed to the matrilineal organisation usual
to the Akan people. As village life grew, the creation of quarters
developed, so that while each member belonged on his mother's
side to the village or tribe as a whole, he belonged through his father
to the quarter where his father's family belonged. In Ashanti the
system was of great military value, but in the coast towns the natural
rivalry between quarters increased since the Europeans made use
70 THE GOLD COAST, I93t.
of such an obvious method of maintaining order. The result
however was not so orderly and to this day quarter-fighting or
company riots are still all too frequent.
The African 's mind is supTemely sensitive; and he will often
accept insult, where none whatsoever is intended. Moreover he
can convey disapproval, or make mockery of the acts of otheTS in
ways, most shrewd and cunningly devised. It is not usually
recognised, so subtle is the act, that drumming or whistling, even
the manner of shaving one's head or the fashion of wearing one's
cloth can convey the deadliest of insults. Em blems are therefore
easily made to indicate derision, to throw taunts, to ca~t aspersions
and to recall events which had better be forgotten.
Th e companies 01' quarters in the coast towns have been all
too ready to adopt th is method of annoying their rivals, with results
that in many cases have been tragic beyond words. One such
occurred in 1930 at the village of Appam and over 40 people lost
their lives, most of th e houses were burnt and extensive damage
done. The cause of the trouble was insignificant. But this was
no new occurrence. In f849 the Dutch Government had entered
into an agreement with the people of Elmina with a view to the good
administration of that town, and among the clauses of that
convention there appears the following :-
"ART 11.
" The old agreement with the E lmina Government of the
second November, 1840 respecting the Customs flags to prevent
their being the cause of any palavers, are inserted in this
contract as follows :-
1st.-That all Customs flags of the different quarters shall
be done away with, and that the pendant above the
flag of quarter No.4 shall no more be used; the said
Customs flags being the general cause of all
disturbances and in this Contract forbidden to be
used-thus after this meeting the Elmina Government
has given the said flags to the Netherlands Government
to deposit .
2nd.-That in the place of the above-mentioned Customs
flags, shall be given them by the Government a
National Dutch flag-three colours; the flags marked
as follows :-
For quarter No.1 with the number 1.
2 2.
3 3.
" 4 4.
5 5.
" 6 6.
7 7.
No.7 with the letter K signifying that this is the King's
quarter.
TIIE GOLD COAST, 1931. 71
The Broker's quarter shall be distinguished by the
letter M.
The Volunteer quar ter by the letters VB.
For the Government workmen the letters L.S., whilst
the field marshal shall be allowed to use the pendant,
3rd.-Each of the above-mentioned quarters, volunteers
or Government workmen, who shall overstep the
above-mentioned rules, shall be fined in a sum of
five ounces (Oz. 5) gold for the benefit of the King of
Elmina and the landholders, who shall use this for the
trouble they take in the strict performance of their
duties, whilst other expenses shall make good to the
Government that they have incurred from the non-
fulfilment of this contract." ,
That phase of the development of the Asafu movement is
exotic. Its true lines of evolution have been traced, as the result
of the Appam riot, by the Assistant Secretary for Native Affairs,
Mr. J. C de Graft J ohnson, whose report summarised is as fo llows:-
The power and position of the Asafu in its relation t o t he state can
hardly be disregarded or minimised. In its wider sense it embraces
even the Omanhene and the principal chiefs themselves; in its
narrower it definitely constitutes the third estat e, the common
people without whose assistance no native government in the Akan
country is 'possible, the saying being: Ohin na ni mpanimfuo na
Asafu (the Chief and his Elders and Asafu). The Omanhene as a rule
appreciates the rights and privileges of the Asafu and their unique
relation to the Paramount Stool. In Ashanti it is fully recognised
that Chiefs, paramount or other, can only be elected and installed
after the wishes of the " youngmen " have been consulted. Where
this has been ignored the Chief so elected has sooner or later come
to grief. Moreover, in the old Ashanti regime, when a Chief has
been elected and installed by his people he is at first regarded as a
mere Nkwankwahin (a leader or Captain of the" youngmen ") until
his appointment is confirmed by the Paramount Chief or Supreme
Council. And further, no member of the Stool family is ever
appointed as a real Nkwankwahin of the "youngmen " lest with
the Asafu behind him he should drive away the ruling Ohin and
take his place. This shows that the power behind the Stool rests
with the" youngmen ", not with the Elders. By whatever name
it is called, the fact remains incontrovertible that both in the Cblony
and Ashanti the Asafu forms part and parcel of the Oman that
more often than not its representatives serve on the Oman Council
and take part in its deliberations; that every person, prince or
peasant, virtually belongs to the Asafu ; and that a man only ceases
to identify himself with its activities when he is elevated to occupy
a stool or appointed a Councillor. The Asafu is therefore essential
if the position and authority of the Chiefs are to be maintained.
It has a voice in putting a Chief on and removing him from a Stool.
As the Berekum Nkwankwahin pointed out the" youngmen " can
72 THE GOLD COAST, 193I.
object to an Omanhin's order if they consider it is not right. In
other words, the Asafu collectively can countermand the Omanhin's
order. The Omanhin is first and last the servant of the Oman
and t he Mbrantse or Asafu form the bulk of the Oman.
That a similar organisation exists among the Ga-Adangbe and
Ewe tribes is known, but it has not yet been definitely identified
among the ortherners of the l'I'Ioshi and unclassified groups, where
the constitution differs from that of the Akan tribes. However
the terms Kombenaba, Kefrinaba, Kadema\\'ura which seem to
mean leader of the young men tend to show that such an institution
is in being, even if it has hitherto fai led to reveal itself.
The true democratic character of the Akan constitution cannot
fail to have been noticed, based as it is on the Family. Among
the Ewe and Ga-Adangbe the constitution is even more closely
connected with the institution of the Family, and the people haye
not had to the same extent to assert their inherent rights. In the
Northern Territories however the constitution is far from democratic
and is almost despotic.
The land tenure system was stabilised much earlier in the No, th
than in the South as has already been remarked, and in a
generalisation may be termed almost identical with that now
obtaining among the Akans. But there are two most important
considerations to be made; hitherto there has been no interference
by Europeans who in order to exploit the country must either
reconcile the local system with their own or alter it entirely, and
secondly the head of the family, clan or tribe is not the political
head, this latter being an alien to the family, clan or tribe who has
placed his authority over the people vi et annis.
There are therefore existing in the Northern Territories, the
one imposed on the other, two distinct constitutions. There is the
F amily constitution which regulates the intimate life of the people,
orders the worship when due of the ancestors, keeps in touch with
the spirits of the Earth-gods and stands as the conn cting link
between the Supreme Being and the insignificant plebs. At the
head of the family is the house-master, the community-master, the
interceder between the family and the gods. H e is called tindana
in Dagomba country, and under other names he is readily
recogJ;)isable in every tribal or group division in 'the Protectorate.
So similar has been the process of evolution, and so impossible
is it to conceive that a cultural boundary could have existed between
the migrants into the Forest and the people who dwell to-day where
they formerly dwelt, that it would seem logical to conclude and
certainly most reasonable to suppose that the Dagomba word
" tindana " (lord of or one who has power over the " tenga ") is
identical with the Akan word" Omanhene " (lord of or one who has
power over the " Oman ") . Ordinarily" tenga " is translated Earth,
and" Oman" as tribe, but when the latter has resided for centuries
THE GOLD COAST, I931. 73
in one place, and has saturated the Earth with the numbers of his
dead, the failure to discriminate between tenga and Oman becomes
readily intelligible and probably inevitable.
Secondly, however, imposed upon this Family or clan constitu-
tion is the despotic rule of the political chiefs. They are to be found
in every part of the Northern Territories excepting among a few
of the unclassified tribes, where the Family system of the tindana
still exists untouched. These political chiefs as has been shown in
the chapter dealing with history are of absolutely alien stock and
they introduced with them a form of government in which are to
be found many similarities to oriental administrations.
The rulers of the Gbanye or Gonja divisions came, tradition
has it, from the West, whilst those of the Mamprusi, Dagomba,
Wala and in all likelihood the Dagarti divisions from the East and
North-East. The first-comers seem to have been composed of
warrior bands who seized not the over-lordship of the land but the
suzerainty over the dwellers thereon. Their male offspring did
not descend to the plebs but remained marauding princelings who
lived by banditry and raiding. Some were given small divisions
of the people to rule over. They were and are indifferent as to
the land on which their people lived, provided their own household
was never lacking in food, nor did it matter to them by what means
the food reached their corn-bins.
They were mounted and clothed; they had or the people II
believed they had the magic power by which they could seize and 1
maintain dominion. The naked tiller of the fields, the peasant
whose toilsome life left no time or opportunity to organise ~I
resistance, acquiesced in their exactions which the common sense
of the rulers did not make onerous and were content to win from II
the soil that which the Earth-gods consented to yield. j
The administration of the country except in the organisation
of raiding expeditions was left to an artificial body of men, born
of the land but no longer interested therein, a group of eunuchs.
These were slaves and many of them actually sons of t he people
over whom their masters ruled. To each division of the admini-
stration of the country and in particular of the towns in which
they resided one eunuch was allotted. These head-eunuchs formed
as it were a council and they alone were able to tender advice to
the Na or Chief contrary to the latter's inclination.
The E unuch regimen was similar to that of the sons of chiefs.
They were classified in age-groups and received promotion by
merit or what amounted to the same thing, willingness to give
presents to those in authority, which in our candid manner we
term bribery. Thus a slave-boy eunuchized at the age of seven
could rise in course of time to the eminent post of chief of all the
eunuchs, as it were, to be Grand Vizier. Similarly a chief's son
could rise from the lowest grade of page to a rank equal to that
held by his fat her. That regimen existed unt il our advent int o
the area of the Northern Territories. The last of the eunuchs
74 THE GOLD COAST, I93X.
who held high rank died during the last decade and with him the
time-honoured administrative system of the Dagomba Kingdom.
At the same time there disappeared, at our coming, the opportunity
for the sons of chiefs to raid and plunder the peasantry. Occasional
attempts to carryon the pleasant pastime have occurred but the
people no longer acquiesced quietly therein and brought their
complaints to the European. Retribution was usually swift and
certain.
The disappearance of the eunuch system, the forced abandon-
ment of banditry, the complete lack of administrative knowledge
or indifference thereto among the chiefs, a fuller understanding
of the family life of the people and their history, and finally the
rapid opening up of the country during the past decade introduced
a problem for Government not too easy to solve.
It is not possible to summarise here details of the intimate
life of the people, be they Akan, Ewe or Dagomba. Birth,
marriage and funeral rites, observances at seed and harvest
time, clan and family customs are too numerous, and vary too
much in minor details to permit even a resume. There are many
works available on these subjects, as a reference to the bibliography
accompanying this work will show. Above, a sketch of the religion
and the constitution of the people has been attempted, and the
great underlying simil arity between the various tribes has been
emphasised. It is the same with the minor customs and in that
fact lies the great possibility that the artificial Gold Coast may
one day attain united nationhood.
tHE GOLD COASt, i93:l:. 75
CHAPTER IV.
ECONOMIC.
Economic Development of the Country-Gold-mining-Iron
and Manganese-Diamonds-Romance of the Cacao I ndustry-
Economics of that Industry-Problems arising therefrom-Forestry
Problems-Minor Agricultural and Sylvan Products-Imported
Foodstuffs-Internal Trade-Cattle Breeding-Meat Consumption-
Transport. Problems-Nan-distribution of Overhead Charges-Tile
National Income.
The preceding chapter will almost certainly give to the reader
unfamiliar with the country a somewhat misleading picture of the
Gold Coast. That impression this chapter is intended to rectify.
It must I think be admitted by all that an ethnographical survey,
especially a curtailed one, of Great Britain would deal almost
exclusively with the remoter parts, where folk lore, folk custom
and folk traditions still are found, with Northumbrian and Cornish
peasantry rather than with dwellers in suburdan Croydon or Acton.
One of the most prominentfeatures in the history of this country
has been its persistent advance in cultural progress by leaps rather
than by the process of gradual and continuous evolution. Since
the beginning of the twentieth century these leaps have been even
more exaggerated and the past decade has witnessed a rate of
progress which might even be considered dangerous.
The sudden acquisition of very great wealth may upset the
equilibrium of an individual but in the Gold Coast it seems to
have acted over the nation as a most potent stimulant for greater
effort, even the set-back of over-production and the disappearance
of markets having had but little effect. It is probable that the
nation is advancing faster than may seem good to the Government,
who actually has had occasion to act as a brake rather than as an
accelerating force. For instance the anxiety of the people to
procure access to their villages by means of motorable roads has
often overlooked the necessity of their maintenance.
The accompanying table of exports and imports during the
past decade will show the amount of money turned over by the
nation.
76 THE GOLD COAST, I93I.
Exports of
I Imports. Domestic Total External Produce. Trade.
I
£ £ £
lQ21 I 6,816,757 5,532,113 12,348,870 1922 I 6,501,205
6,632,349 13,133,554
1923 7,727,561 7,543,612 15,271,173
1924 7,207,433 8,715,113 15,922,546
1925 ... 8,820,568 9,786,206 18,606,774
1926 ''' 1 8,44.3,660 10,OD9,103 19,4·12,763
1927 11,703,667 13,458,721 ~5,161,388
1928 11,301,811 12,944,318 24,246,1~0
1929 ..... \ 9,625,592 1l,530,760 21,156,352
1930 8,507,458 8,855,054 17,362,513
I
I
I
£86,654,712 £95,097,349 £182.65~,061
The African population of the COUIltry including its dependencies
is 3,160,386. It will be seen therefore that if one accepts as a
round figure for the adult population during the decade 2,000,000,
the individual average turn-over during ten years is £9 1 or £9 per
annum. In terms of per capita to the revealed population it
amounted to £5 5s. approximately in 1930, a year when values
had fallen to a very considerable extent. The great characteri5tic
of the Gold Coast is (so insignificant are the areas under European
exploitation), that the greater part of this wealth can be reckoned as
obtained and used by the native-·an economic situa.tion difficult
to reconcile with the anthropological survey just recorded.
The resources of the country from \I'hich the people draw
this wealth are mines and agriculture. To the former the country
owes its name. Originally gold was the sole mineral exported.
To-day manganese, and diamonds almost rival that valuable
product, and to-morrow there promises to be bauxite and tin and
even petroleum.
GOLD.
From the earliest days of Portuguese settlement gold has
been exported. There is no reliable inIormation at present
available as to the quantity of this mineral which has been taken
out of the country nor any certain date as to when it was first
extracted. One of the earliest estimates is that of Barbot who
considered that in 1660 the annual value was £240,000 in modern
sterling. The first reliable records date only from 1903 so that
during the period 1483-1~03 at the moderate estimate of £50,UOO
per annum, this country yielded some £21,000,000. Since lhat
date accurate statistics have been kept. These show
1903-1910 1,579,940 oz. exported .
1911-1920 3,679,531 oz. exporled.
or a total in 18 years of 5,259,471 ounces.
THE GOLD COAST, 1931. 77
During the past ten years the annual output decreased but
towards the end of the period a revival in this industry became
mo~t marked.
The figures are :-
I No. of Companies. No. of Labourers.
Ye:lf. -------- Oz. won. I Value.
I Fine.
Mining. IP roducing. European. African.
£
1921 ... 14 I 10 252 10,313 203,395 863,979
1922-3 ... 15 12 265 10,083 259,738' 1,103,326'
1923-4 ... 16 12 257 10,025 200,703 852,548
1924--5 ... 15 9 229 10,338 210,301 893,359
1925-6 ... 13 11 190 9,135 198,083 841,394
1926-7 ... JJ 9 195 8,240 189,117 803,369
1927-8 ... 10 8 202 7,831 168,933 711,833
1928-9 ... 9 7. 209 7,792 167,115 709,903
1929-30 9 5 200 7,386 218,494 928, 161
1930-31 6 I 4 181 7,121 246,075 1,045,327
, Covers a period of 15 months 1st January, 1922-31st March, 1923.
The mining areas are classified under three headings, quartz,
conglomerate and alluvial. To the first belong the mines at P restea,
Bibiani and Kaviankor in the Western Province of the Gold Coast
Colony and at - K ibi in the Eastern Province. This group also
includes the famous Obuasi mine in Ashanti, one of the richest
gold mines in the world.
The Tarkwa area, opened up first by the F rench in 1880, is
in that in which the conglomerate mine~ are being exploit ed.
Whilst the alluvial were chiefly the Ofin, Ankobra and Pra rivers
but these are not at present being worked. The six companies
at work on 31st March, 1931, were :-
Company. Area working. IT ons crushed. Fine oz. won.
--
J. Akoon Syndicate, Limited Abontiakoon ... 482,55 19,552
2. Tarkwa and Aboso Mines Aboso and 118,589 44,884
Limited. Adjah Bippo.
3. Ariston Gold Mines (1929), Prestea .. - 57,637 22,619
Limited.
4. Asba.nti • Goldfields Cor- Obuasi ... 133,284 159,019
poration, Limited.
5. Bibian i (1927), Limited Bibiani ... - -
6. Lyndhurst Deep Level, KonQngo ... - -
Limited.
There are no companies at present working in the Northern
Territories nor in Togoland. In the former considerable prospecting
has been done in the past and two companies once worked a small
area in the present Western Gonja District where gold undoubtedly
78 THE GOLD COAST, 193I.
exists. Gold has also been located in the north-west of the
protectorate but the cost of transport at present militates against
any probability of development in the near future.
The story of gold-mining in this country is one of great human
interest. In ancient times gold was washed for in every stream
and even in Cape Coast gold dust could be found in the off-scourings
of the streets after heavy rains. In many parts of the country
there are to be seen deep pits, clrcular in shape and of small diameter.
The native miner descended these shafts using hands, knees and
back. The rock extracted by his primitive hoe was crushed by hand
grinders and the dirt then washed. Such are now no longer worked,
as with the disappearance of slave labour the results would not
possibly be sufficient to cover the expense.
The Portuguese were the first to exploit mines in a more
economic fashion and their efforts ended in tragedy, a mining
disaster which stands alone in its magnitude in the history of mining
in this country. Before the founding of Elmina Castle a mine
had been opened up by Fernando Gomez at a place called Abrobi,
not far from Komenda. That mine was worked almost without
cease fmm about 1485 to the early part of the seventeenth century.
Somewhere about 1620 the hill was so honeycombed by tunnels and
borings tha.t it collapsed and buried numbers of workers beneath it.
A second mining area was opened by the Portuguese some
distance inland from the mouth of the Ankobra River, at a place
called Aboasi. To protect the workings, a fort was built, known
as Fort Duma. Some dozen years after the opening cif this mine,
which is said to have been of extraordinary richness, an earthquake
caused it to cave in, and only seven Tnen escaped. They were
not underground at the time, but the entire number of men so
engaged perished.
When the Dutch had wrested their holdings on the Gold Coast
from the Portuguese the former made an attempt to exploit the
gold fields discovered by the latter. Little is known of this
endeavour, beyond its tragic end wherein the fort erected to protect
the mine was blo'wn up during an attack by the natives. Since
then until after the Ashanti war of 1873-4 the mining industry
was left entirely in the hands of the local population.
Modern mining on the Gold Coast owes its b.eginning to the
French, and especially to the enterprise of J. Bonnat, the agent
for the Gold Coast Company. It was in 1877 that he and his
companions landed at Axim and, proceeding up the Ankol1ra River,
took up concessions on that river and also on a range of hills to the
West of Awudua in the vicinity of what is now known as Prestea.
In the following year Bonnat took up a concession at Tarkwa,
and later another concession at Aboso, and it is of interest to record
that on each of these two concessions an important mine was
developed; that at Tarkwa having been worked continuously until
1928, while that at Aboso is still an active producer.
THE GOLD COAST, I931. 79
Several concessions were also taken up by English companies
about the same time, and modern mining was thus started on the
Gold Coast.
Bonnat who was one of the captives in Kumasi in 1869-1873
died at Tarkwa and lies buried there on the scene of his labours
and enterprise.
The gold at Prestea is won from a quartz reef, which is the
most usual form of a gold deposit, but that at Tarkwa and Aboso
is obtained from a conglomerate bed of muc~l the same nature as
that being mined on the Witwatersrand, South Africa, and now
universally known as "banket". It is worthy of note, however,
that the discovery of the Tarkwa goldfield took place some ten
years before that of the Rand.
Except for short interludes, as the result of shaft collapses
or lack of funds, mining has been carried on at Prestea ever since
Bonnat's time, but so far no dividends have been paid; now that
gold is at a premium, however, the prospects of operating at a
profit are greatly increased.
The Tarkwa goldfield has been more fortunate than that of
Prestea, though for quite a number of years the mines here were
also failing to yield dividends. During the last two years, however,
what with ample labour and reduced costs, the mines have shown
a profit, and an expansion in mining on this field is a topic frequently
discussed.
IRON MANGANESE.
The industry of iron-mining is one of the oldest industries
carried on by the peoples of the Gold Coast. I t stretches back to
the period before history began in these parts and seems to have
been universal in the distribution of localities. Iron ores of various
types are to be found almost everywhere and to have been used
for the production of iron by the neighbouring inhabitants, although
among most of the tribes of the Gold Coast neither iron-smelting
nor iron-production are known to-day. Evidence however of the
wide distribution of this industry is abundant in the existence of
heaps of iron-slag and bf0ken tuyers, which are found in great
quantities practically everywhere north of the forest zone.
Inside that zone such heaps have also frequently been seen but
owing to the denseness of the jungle not to the same extent as in
the Savannah country where they are readily visible.
This iron was used chiefly for weapons but the memory still
exists of an iron monetary system which had reached the stage of
conventionalized token money. From time to time pots containing
this money are discovered; only last year (1930) one such was
unearthed in the Akan country near Abetifi. The fact that iron
tokens were used as money would seem a further proof of the recent
migration of the Akan peoples from outside the forest zone. Their
tradition is that iron money was older than standardised weights
of gold dust, the use of which as a monetary system dates subsequent
to the advent of the European.
80 THE GOLD COAST, 193 1.
To-day iron is smelted by most of the tribes belonging to the
unclassified group, particularly those dwelling along the northern
and eastern frontiers.
An interesting fact which possibly may throw some light on
the movements of the people is that the Busanga and Bassari people
who live mostly on the F rench side of the front ier make seasonal
migration into British territory in order to work the iron ore, and
at the same time it seems significant that the black-smith although
not the iron miner almost invariably belongs to the traditionally
oldest established family in the country.
Mining for iron by European methods was not considered
economically pract icable until in 1915 a deposit of manganese of
great value and extent was discovered close to the Sekondi-Kumasi
railway at a place where the station of Akyem has since been built
a few mil es south from Tarkwa. The Geological Survey Depart-
ment m ade t he discovery on land ·over which a mining company
already had a concession, and this, together with the great demand
for high-grade ore owing to the war, enabled operations to be begun
without any delay.
In 1916 over 4,000 tons were exported and annually there-
after until recen tly shipments have been increased manifold. The
return of shipments and other figures relating to this industry
during the past decade are :-
Year. No. of Campa- Na. of Europeans No. of Africans Total Tons
nies working. Engaged. Engaged. Exported.
1921 2 12 805 7, 195
1922-3 2 12 632 83,153'
1923-4 1 21 1,222 181,623
1924-5 1 43 1,934 276,905
1925-6 1 61 3,114 36 1,838
1926-7 1 51 1,355 398,551
1927-8 1 43 1,53 1 I 334,535
1928- 9 1 40 1,607 376,913
1929-3\l 1 47 1,740 496,486
1930-31 1 37 1,535 I 396,044
, For the period 1st January 1922-31st March 1923.
The decline in the last period is due to the universal slackening
in t rade which unfortunately affected the labour engaged. The
average for the year showed 1,535 Africans at work in this industry,
but for the first quarter of the twelve months there were 2, 11 9 so
employed as against only 845 in the last quarter.
DIAMONDS.
For some considerable time the existence of di amonds in the
Gold Coast had been suspected, the first reasoned report being one
submitted by F erguson , the same man mentioned previously as
the founder of the Northern Territories Protectorate. He had
tHE GOLD COAST, i93I. 81
been trained in metallurgy and mineralogy in England and in 1891
was directed to proceed on an exploring trip to Attabubu via Kibi
and Abetifi.
He reported that in his opinion the Akim-Abuakwa district
would be found to be diamondiferous; but it was not until 1919,
thirty-eight years later, that the first diamonds were discovered.
The late Director of the Geological Survey, Sir Albert Kitson,
C.M.G., C.B.E., was their discoverer.
They were alluvial diamonds of small size but good in colour
and quality; they were found in considerable numbers in the pebbly
gravels of the Birim River at a place called Abomoso. Since then
other discoveries have been made south of Tarkwa, near Enchi in
the Western Province, in the Obosum River basin in northern
Kwahu and in the Mampong District of Ashanti. The area at
present being worked is the Akim-Abuakwa district in the neighbour-
hood of Kade Akwatia. So far the largest diamond found in this
country weighed 9 carats and was valued at £15.
The statistical return of this industry is as follows :-
I No. of No. of No. of Carats
Companies (and Europeans Africans Exported. Value.
Year. Individuals) Engaged. Engaged.
Mining.
£
1921 ... 1 2 125 1,788 4,476
1922-3 ... 1 2 214 8,410' 10,292'
1923--4 ... 2 3 748 30,419 34,223
1924--5 ... 2 14 824 61,381 69,054
1925-6 ... 2 15 978 152,148 171,167
1926-7 ... 2 23 1, 139 340,020 420,119
1927-8 ... 3 23 1,357 501,455 474,220
1928-9 ... 5 35 1,954 686,068 598,454
1929-30 ... 5 39 3,014 716,898 628,877
1930-31 ... 4 40 3,392 848,199 595,079
OTHER MINERALS.
No other minerals are at present being worked in this country
of which the mineral wealth as known already is exceptional. The
first discovery of bauxite was made on the Kwahu plateau at Mt.
Ejuanema and it is estimated that there are some 4,000,odo tons
of are available. This is within easy reach of the railway between
Kumasi and Accra, being only some two miles away from the station
at Nkawkaw.
Other discoveries of bauxite have been made notably in the
Affo Hills 50 miles from Dunkwa on the Kumasi-Takoradi line.
Here a conservative estimate of available are reaches the colossal
total of 50,000,000 tons containing approximately 58.26 per cent
alumina. Bauxite has also been located in considerable deposits
west and north-west of Kumasi in the Yenahin area and near the
Mie Hills.
F
32 THE GOLD COAST, I93I.
The British Aluminium Company obtained last year certificates
of validity for two concession in the Affo area, so that the bauxite
mining industry may very shortly be begun.
Oil has been foqnd between Axim and Half Assinie, and tin
in the vVinneba District. Valuable clays, marble, lime-stone have
also been located and it is of interest to note that steamers calling
at Accra usually take in enough locally quarried sandstone for the
holystoning of their decks homeward and return-a small mining
industry to which but little attention has been paid.
AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS.
The accompanying map shows how the approximate area of
greatest productivity coincides with the approximate zone of dense
forest, and curiously enough includes the mineral as well as the
agricultural products. The people dwelling in this area , have
reached since the beginning of this century a degree of wealth of
quite unprecedented height, due to the extraordinary growth in
the development of the trade in cacao, but agricultural encroach-
ment on the forest began at some date considerably earlier than
the introduction of that valuable commodity.
Of the cultivated agricultural products the Gold Coast exports
cacao, coffee, maize, pepper, fibres, coconuts, copra, groundnuts,
palm kernels and palm oil; whilst of the non-cultivated agricultural
and forest products the country despatches copal .gum, rubber,
kola nuts, sheanuts, shea butter and various woods and timbers.
By far the most important export is that of cacao, the local history
of which is probably unique in the annals of husbandry.
Cacao, or more popularly cocoa, which is indigenous to South
America, is first mentioned as having been grown in the Gold Coast
in a Dutch book published in 1815, but these early essays were
rendered futile by the prolonged and general internecine warfare
which was waged more or less throughout the country during the
first thirty years of the nineteenth century.
In 1843 the Basel Mission began their second invasion of the
country and carried on their work under the aegis of the Danish
Government. They were thus brought into the closest contact with
the early efforts of that power to introduce agriculture of an
exporting character and were so to speak the natural inheritors of
the plantation started by the Danes at the foothills in the neighbour-
hood of Dodowa. In 1856 the Mission were farming an agricultural
station at Akropong growing chiefly coffee and fruits as well as
experimenting with grasses for thatching. One of the missionaries,
Rev. Johannes Haas of Sissach, near Basel, received in 1857 some
cacao seedlings from Surinam, but these appear to have died.
A further consignment, however was more successful, as ten trees
were in existence by 1861. Two years later these were reduced to
two only, but these flourished and in 1866, it is recorded that the
U
111-......,....--,-4
i .Tumu
i, 'Han
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Wahabu-
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IO'1-__~ \ __~ c.~w.~a~ __ ~ ______ ~ ______ +-__ ~ __ +-__ ~ __ ~ ____ +-~ __ ~IO
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Yeji • ( ,_"(",, j
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Cape Three Points ,.
SURV EY H. Q.ACCRA t93z-
Area of Maximum Proc/uctivity_ __________ _
Ca cao Area ___ _ _ _ _ ___ ___ __ ___ __
Cola __ _ _ _ ___ ___ _ __ __ ____ ___ _
...... ______- 'M"","' '''e''r' a/s (Diamonds, Gold, Ma nganese), _ _ __ .0 .G.M
THE GOLD COAST, 1931. 83
first ripe cacao pods had been gathered, some of which were replanted
at Akropong and others distributed to other stations of t he Mission,
Aburi, Mampong and Odumase.
For some unknown reason tjle trees attracted t he at tention
of the local inhabitants who purloined the pods, obviously fo r
cultivation. To such an extent was t his practice carried on
that fences had to be built round the trees and even these were
broken.
Agricultural pursuits were of course, somewhat checked by
the Ashanti troubles between 1868 and 1874, but the people of
Odumase still remember the old cacao tree outside the Mission House
from which pods were act ually sold to the people both of t he neigh-
bourhood and even of Akwapim.
The value of the plant, as an article of export was further
brought home to the people of the Gold Coast by the return of one
Tetteh Quarshie who had been working in the island of Fernando
Po where he had witnessed the intensive cultivation of the t ree.
He brought with him some seedlings and apparently distributed
them amongst his relatives. That was in 1879 or thereabouts.
A few years later a fresh stock of seed was introduced from
Sao Thome by the then Governor of the Gold Coast and nurseries
made at Aburi, whence seedlings were distributed to the local chiefs
and to the Mission.
These three introductions were successful and resulted in the
present important indust ry. The first shipment of cacao as an
exportable product was in 1891, when 80 lbs. were sent out of t he
country. Since that date the export in quantit y in quinquennial
periods has been :-
Quinquennial Period. Total Shipments Average per year.
tons.
1892-1896 62 12
1897- 1901 1,644 329
1902-1906 23,855 4,771
1907-1911 104,669 20,934
1912-1916 291,528 58,306
1917-1921 591,451 118,290
1922-1926 1,029,292 205,858
1927-1931 1,128,662 225,732
The value of this crop depends of course upon the market ..
but the Gold Coast has been extremely fortunate in practically
seizing the control of that market since it pn>duces the great er
portion of the world's t otal out put of cacao.
84 THE GOLD COAST, 193t.
But the most interesting feature of this industry lies in the
fact that it is almost exclusively in the hands of the native popu-
lation. Moreover, although Government encouraged, in some
places quite brusquely, the making of nurseries and the planting
out of the seedlings, the development of t he industry has been
practically spontaneous on the part of the inhabitants.
The inevitable result of the rapid increase of the people's
wealth has been to bring about what almost amounts to a
revolution. The communal ownership of land is being largely
repudiated for individual ownership ; the sale of land, an almost
unheard of practice, has become a matter of every-day life; the
tendency for the maker of a cacao plantation to leave his property
to his son rather than his sister's son has almost brought a change
from matrilineal to patrilineal descent; the industrious planter
has been forced to hire labour in order to cope with the fruits of
his industry and is gradually ceasing to be a working farmer with
the inevitable result that in course of time he will be a non-working
landlord; an influx of strangers drawn as it were to EI Dorado
has opened up the country t o an extent no man could have
foreseen as possible within so short a period; fresh problems of
the gravest nature, such as preservation of forests, slum conditions,
unemployed, spread of disease, transport and shipment, and a
people which has learnt to gallop before it could crawl have been
set for Government to solve.
Before considering some of these problems and relating the
methods being adopted to compete with them, it ' is perhaps
desirable to portray the conditions obtaining in the area of greatest
productivity.
Farming, before the introduction of this quasi-pernlanent
crop, was carried out by the system known as that of "shifting
cultivation." The menfolk selected a small portion of the forest,
cleared the undergrowth and cut the lianes. This work was carried
out at the beginning of the dry season, and towards the end of
that period they set fire to the dried refuse. The larger trees were
left but the smaller ones usually perished. Then the womenfolk·
took possession, planted plantains, mai;ce, groundnuts, yams,
onions, ginger, coco-yams in a seemingly haphazard manner,
according to what they considered the soil was most suited to
produce. In five years or even less the patch would be abandoned
and a new one selected. The old farm was exposed to the sun and
became jungle so that that particular area was lost to the forest.
This ruinous syst em of cultivation has been termed " land
robbery" and with the huge demand on the forest made by the
requirements of the cacao industry has become a serious menace
not only to the agricultural value of the land but to the cacao
industry itself.
The introduction of a crop exclusively grown for export
brought a great change in the economics of farming by the methods
of shifting cultivation . For the purpose of food production to
THE GOLD COAST, 1931. 85
meet the requirements of the family the old system continued,
but the fields which formerly had been abandoned and allowed
to return to jungle were now required for the young cacao trees
originally planted amongst t11e plantains and other crops. The
care of these rapidly became impossIble physically to the owner
and planter. He had to engage labour and the peasant small-
holder, semi-nomadic by inclination and heredity, evolved quite
suddenly into a settled and landed working farmer.
Fortunately for the prosperity of the Gold Coast labour was
readily available. The country at no time in its history had been
able to develop by the work of its own native labour. This latter
had invariably been immigrant, and there existGd even in the
remoter recesses of the Sudan the knowledge that a market for
labour was available in this country. The news that the market
was a "bull" one soon spread and immigrants flocked to the
fabled land where mere work in the fields was rewarded with wages
almost incredibly high.
A second result of this change in the economic life of the people
was brought home to nearly everyone by the realization of the
fact that labour was in itself merchantable and that the fruits
of labour not only rewarded monetarily the labourer but also
enriched his hirer. No better example of this can be given than
that of the ordinary Gold Coast peasant himself.
Formerly he and his family could and did grow with com-
parative ease enough food for themselves. They invariably grew
a little more than was enough, just as the wives always cooked a
little more than the family required so that a stranger who might
drop in could be fed to his content. The actual cost of such
farming was in money nil. The first cacao plantation grown
among the food-crops equally cost nothing in money. In fact
money was scarcely required at all. There were no markets in
the forest zone except those established in the non-productive
towns of the European or along the main trade routes to the
interior. Everyone grew enough for himself or as a member of a
family received, when sick or too old to work, the food to which
that membership entitled him.
But when labour came to be hired, that labour had to be
fed, and more labour had to be hired to produce that food. Thus
the system grew until labour is now hired to perform the first
essential of every cacao-field, the cleaning of the forest. To such
an extent has this system grown that the area available for and
capable of producing cacao is the only limit of the country's
productive powers, providing the labour supply continues to flow
freely.
The cost of cacao production originally a pure peasant's or
small-holder's crop now became a part of the economics of
an organised system dependent on hired labour. To such an
extent indeed has this become the case that the vice of absentee
landlordism actually exist:;;. So great was the extent of the land
6 THE GOLD COAST , i 931.
available and so limited in numbers the indigenous people that
practically any unoccupied land could be t aken by one of t he
latter and claimed as his or his family's own by vi rt ue of t he right
which issued from the act of clearing, a claim now recognised when
that clearing is performed by proxy . It has t herefore become
possible to arrive at an estimate of considerable accuracy in regard
to the cost of cacao-production in t he Gold Coast and t he p rofit s
accruing t o the people.
The cost of a cacao plantation is dependent on a variety of
causes, the degree of suitability of the soil , proximity to distribut ion
centres, availability of labour and so forth . The trees usually
bear frui t in their fourth or fifth year, when a considerable yield
may be expect ed . It is t herefore assumed that the plantation
is established in five years and represents in m onetary costings
approximately £9 per acre. The following is a table showing
how this sum is reached. It is based on the cost of labour being
reckoned at I s. per diem, a wage which is general bu t in a few
centres ra ther below the average :-
£ s. d.
Original clearing of small trees and brushwood
at 15 man days per acre ... 0 15 0
Felling and chopping large timber at 60 man
days per acre 3 0 0
Burning and final clearing a t 15 man days
per acre 0 15 0
Stumping at 6 man days per acre 0 6 0
Cocoa seedling at 2s. 6d. per 100 say 400 o 10 0
Planting of seedlings 1 man day per acre 0 1 0
£5 7 0
1st Y ear.
Three weedings a t 4 man days per acre £0 12 0
Coll ecting Akate,* filling vacancies, and
miscellaneous 6 man days per acre 0 6 0
2nd , 3rd, 4th and 6th Y ~a1'S.
Two weedings per annum a t 4 man days
per acre 12 0
Collecting Akat e, filling vacancie and
miscellaneous 6 man days per acre 1 4 0
£3 14 0
- - --
Total .. . £9 1 0
'Insect pests.
There is of course considerable variation in t hese costs ; for
example the felling and chopping may reyuire very much more
0 1 much less labour t han the above, since those depend upon th e
number of large trees on the selected site. When the latter is
found to contain man y large trees of hard wood, clearing is often
not attempted because of the heavy demand on labou r.
1'HE GOLD COAST, 1931. 87
Again the six man days per acre for stumping are estimated
for the removal of some of the smaller stumps only, the larger
ones being allowed to decay in sit,.,. Further the cost of temporary
shade for the nurslings has been omitted since that shade is
provided by the food plants required either by the family or the
labour. No permanent shade is planted, but a few of the original
forest trees are usually left for this purpose.
The establishment of a cacao plantation represents therefore
approximately in money the sum of £9 per acre and in labour
170 man days.
It is generally acknowledged that the size of the average
cacao-plantation is somewhat in the neighbourhood of four acres,
and the costings of such a plantation have recently been worked
out on the assumption that a four acre plantation represents the
capital outlay incurred to bring it to production. The estimate
is based on a farm in Ashanti. Although the crop is 0: too recent
introduction to allow any definite statement to be made, it is
generally estimated that the average useful life of a cacao tree
in the Gold Coast is about thirty years. Plantations in suitable
situations in the Colony have shown that this figure may be too '
low but it will probably prove a high enough average for trees in
Ashanti.
If one accepts a thirty year life and a capital value of £36 for
the plantation farm, depreciation should be allowed for at the
rate of £1 4s. per annum or 6s. per acre per annum. Other costings
are :-
Interest on capital.-As the planter has tied up a certain
amount of capital in the plantation he is entitled to interest on
that capital. The average value of the farm during its life is £18,
interest on this sum at 5 per cent is 18s. or 4s. 6d. per acre.
Rent.-A stranger wishing to take up farm land in Ashanti
is required first to obtain the consent of the Chief and then to
make a present to him or his Stool. This usually takes the form
of a sheep and a bottle of gin, and if he is granted land no further
payments are made until the cacao trees come into bearing when
a rent of 1d. per tree is usually paid to the stool.
Planters who establish cacao on lands belonging to their own
stool pay no actual rent as such but are expected to contribute
to stool funds and to help in maintaining roads, paths, etc., and
in the general upkeep and sanitation of the village. As these
payments and services can be practically considered as a return
for the use of the land they are legitimate charges against the
production costs of cacao. It is not easy to estimate the value
of such services, and to allocate a proper proportion against the
cacao crop is less so, but it may be assumed that a man farming
in his own village land only pays one quarter of what a stranger
would pay, i.e. ld. per tree or approximately 5s. per acre or £1 on
his four acre farm.
88 THE GOLD COAST, 1931.
As probably 90 per cent of the cacao is produced by planters
on their own stool lands that figure is used in compiling costs of
production.
Total fixed charges.-What may be described as fixed charges
on the plantations are therefore as follows :-
£ s. d.
Depreciation .. . at 6 /- per acre 140
Interest on Capital at 4 /6 o 18 0
Rent at 5 /- 100
15 /6 £3 2 0
N ote.-The figure of five cwts. per acre generally accepted by the
Agricultural Department has been used though this is probably too
Iow a figure on plantations which have been carefully established,
a condition assumed in the foregoing estimate of costs of
establishing thereby adding to the conservative nature of those
costings. .
Annual Labour.-Labour is usually of the family type and
therefore its cost is difficult to calculate, but when labour is hired,
a fair estimate would be a wage of £5-£7 per year together with
land for his food and t ime to cultivate it . This last is yet another
factor against accuracy in the computation of true costs.
The number of man days per annum per acre may be considered
to be on a well managed plantation as follows :-
Weeding .. . at 10 ~1an days per acre
Pruning at 2t " " " "
Picking and Breaking at 8
Fermenting and Drying at 3
Sorting and Bagging at t
Total 24 man days per acre or 96
man days per annum per plantation of four acres .
Wages for unskilled labour in Kumasi at present are Is. 3d.
per day but outside that town Is. per day would appear to be more
usual. Thus the annual labour bill amounts to £4 16s. or 24s.
per acre.
Miscellaneous Charges.-I mplements.- The chief implement
used is a cutlass made of hoop iron that can be purchased from the
local blacksmith for 6d. Hoes, pruning knives and pickers are
also required but annual depreciation on tools will scarcely amount
to more than 5s.
Fermenting boxes are very rarely used. A drying rack
complete with mats can be made from local materials at a cost
of two or three days labour, say 2s . 6d. If cocoa is stored this is
usually done in the farmer's dwelling house so that no charge can
fairly be made.
THE GOLD COAST , 1931. 89
Total cost at Village of production.- Fixed Charges £3 2 0
Labour 4 16 0
Miscellaneous 0 7 6
£8 5 6
Yield from four acres at 5 cwts per acre = 1 ton.
Cost of production to farmer £8 5s. 6d. per ton .
Cost of production t o farmer 4s. 5d . per load of 60 lbs.
Transport.-The average charge for transport of cocoa in
Ashanti is 9d. per ton mile. Assuming that the average distance
from Kumasi is 30 miles the cost per ton would be £1 2s. 6d.
Merchants' Expenses.-(a) Bags.-Cocoa is exported in 140 lb .
bags, therefore sixt een bags are required nor one ton;
these bags can be purchased wholesale at Is. each .
(b) Brokerage is usually paid at the rate of 6d. per load or lOs.
per ton. A bonus may be paid above this.
(c) When cocoa is brought to the merchants' stores at rail
head it is usually re-dried, re-bagged and re-weighed and
often stored for some time before being put on rail.
Estimated cost to merchant 5s. per ton.
(d) Overhead expenses £1 per ton.
Total Merchants' Expenses.- Bags £0 16 0
Brokerage o 10 0
Re-drying etc. 0 5 0
Overhead ... 1 0 0
£2 11 0
Total cost on Rail at Kumasi.
Cost in Village of production £8 5 6
Transport 1 2 6
Merchants' expenses 2 11 0
£11 19 0
The above costings have been arrived at by the Department
of Agriculture and the general accuracy of their calculation was
supported independently by the owner of a large plantation in the
Akim-Abuakwa country. In the 1930--31 season he obtained a
crop of 1,400 loads and paid £400 in labour. No member of his
family was employed, the whole plantation being worked by hired
hands. The cost per load was 5s. 8td. to which must be added
the interest on the capital outlay, based on the previous estimated,
which would amount to Is. a load. That owner was an absentee
planter and undoubtedly his labour charges were unnecessarily
high and not efficie~tly supervised.
90 'tHE GOtD COAST, 1931 .
A second independent authority, also African, supplied the
following figures of costings to a peasant farmer, whose labour was
estimat ed at Is. 6d. per diem ;-
Collecting 2,500 pods .. . Is. 6d.
Breaking 2,500 2 3
Fermenting 2,500 pods 0 6
Drying, bagging, etc. ... 6 0
or lOs. 3d. for 2,500 pods or three loads. The load on this calcu-
lation cost 3s. 5d. and with the Is. for the interest on the capital
outlay 4s. 5d.
The average yield of an acre has been estimated to amount
to 9 loads per acre. These loads are 60 lbs., so that a ton of cacao
requires 4.15 acres of land. This area represen ts a capital cost
of £37 7s. in accordance with the above calculation so that the
annual production of 240,000 tons approximately of cacao in the
Gold Coast has required 1,556 square miles of land and a capital
cost which in terms of money may be reckoned to have totalled
approximately £9,000,000, although the expenditure in actual
money could not have amounted to one-tenth of that sum.
Originally the whole of this considerable industry could have
been attributed to the work of peasant proprietors or small-holders,
but to-day this is no longer the case. The demand for cacao forced
the introduction of hired labour, but the majority of the plantations
are still peasant-owned and peasant-worked. There are no data
at present available as to the proportion of the whole crop produced
by the working small-holder, but it is evident that his share is
decreasing annually. '
The figures given above show that 23,900,160 man days are
required annually to carry out the necessary plantation work.
This labour is supplied by a population of approximately one and
a half million persons of whom there are available as adult males
capable of labour 400,000 approximately. This body of labour
therefore has to supply individually 60 man days per year on the
production of an export crop the value of which amounted to
£6,970,385 in 1930 and had at one time reached the annual value
of £11,727,566.
The handling of so large a crop harvested from a great number
of separat ely owned and widely scattered plantations brought into
being a quite inordinately large force of middlemen. The business
of these latter was no new introduction into the economic system
of the Gold Coast. From the earliest days of the slave trade
middlemen had been essential to the easy working of commerce,
so that the supply was ready at hand and quite adequate to deal
with an ever increasing trade.
However it is precisely this excessive employment of middlemen
in the marketing of produce that is one of the principal disadvan-
tages and probably the most uneconomical feature of small-holdings.
The usual solution and remedy is the formation of co-operative
tHE GOLD COAST, 1931. 91
societies and on the Gold Coast their need is all too apparent i-f the
producer is to receive the full reward of his production. Fortunately
the natives of the Gold Coast possessed already in their civic system,
which was and is in reality nothing more or less than the intensive
family culture common to most races in the earlier stages of develop-
ment, the foundation on which to erect such societies.
In 1921 , when the exportation of cacao had reached the figure
of 133,195 tons of a value of £4,764,067, the Gold Coast Agricultural
and Commercial Society had been inaugurated. It was formed
in order to enlist the active support and sympathy of all sections
of the community directly interested in the economic development
and prosperity of the country. Although non-official it received
financial assistance from the Government as the objects of the
Society were in the first instance essentially of an educational
nature. Its activities were perforce limited to the Gold Coast,
Ashanti and the Southern Section of Togoland, and although
covering the whole agricultural field were mostly confined to the
problems presented by the main and most important crop.
The movement begun by this Society was consid.erably more
widespread than would appear from the membership of its various
branches and through the dissemination of its ideas into almost
every village made the peasant farmers and small-holders begin
to think in terms of co-operation.
The Society itself came to an end in 1928 but the subject
of rural finance had been brought into prominence three years
previously by a number of Africans ;vho had submitted a proposal
to the Government for the establishment of an Agricultural Bank.
At a general meeting of the Society to which the whole scheme
had been referred for consideration and discussion a counter
proposal, suggesting the formation of co-operative societies as
existing in Ceylon and India, was made. This suggestion was
eventuplly accepted by the Government and an Ordinance enacted
to regulate and control the operation of co-operative societies in
1929.
It is as yet too early to give details of the progress of the
movement nor is it an auspicious moment, in this period of general
depression in the world markets, to review the financial position
of these societies, which have been only two years in operation.
But it is of interest to record that although the idea of co-operative
societies in the economic conditions of European markets has
proved its value, here in a country of a cultural status which might
almost be termed primitive that value was recognised spontaneously
by the people and prior to the enactment of the ordinance or the
mooting of the official Co-operative Scheme, there had already been
formed associations of a similar nature.
In Ashanti there were formed in 1918 three co-operahve
societies for the sale of cacao, and they are to-day the most
prosperous of all the registered societies. Their joint paid-up
capital amounts only to £177 l Os. and the membership to 145,
92 THE GOLD COAST, I 93I.
but they handled approximately 80 tons of cacao and returned a
dividend of 7t per cent.
The above figures show how much the indus try is still in the
hands of the small-holder and it is of interest to record here, since
the destiny of the industry seems to be in the direction of land-
lordism and to an organisation based on a more economic system,
some statistics of very close accuracy obtained by officers of the
Agricultural Department in a survey conduct ed under the Plants
(Injurious Pests) Ordinance.
The area covered by the survey was typical of the greater
portion of the cacao producing country and is situated in the South-
eastern portion of Ashanti, almost in the centre of the productive area.
In extent it covered 65.32 square miles, and every cacao
plantation therein was visit ed and surveyed. The data collected
showed that of the total acreage approximately 7.25 per cent
had been taken for cacao production.
It was found that over 25 per cent of the population as based
on the figures of the 1921 Census could be classified as cacao planters
and that there were actually 2,184 plantations or orchards owned
by some 1,249 persons. Of these latter there were 278 or 22.3 per
cent women owners.
The average size of the area was larger for those owned by
males than those owned by females, the former being 2.8 acres
whilst the latter was only 1.13 acres; but the average acreage of
the plots was 1. 7 acres, so that most of the planters were cultivating
more than one plantation. .
The attached table is of considerable interest as it shows the
preponderance at present of the small-holder and if in ten years'
time the same area were to be surveyed the return would be of un-
doubted value in showing whether that preponderance is maintained.
Number of Male Female
Size of Farms. Total Farms. Owners. Owners. Owners.
ACRES.
Up to 1 acre ... 1,299 359 198 557
Between 1 and 2 476 240 43 283
acres.
2-3 192 172 20 192
3- 4 79 70 9 79
4-5 43 42 1 43
5- 6 32 29 3 32
6- 7 21 17 4 21
7- 8 13 13 - 13
8- 9 7 7 - 7
9-10 7 7 - 7
10-15 8 8 - 8
15-30 7 7 - 7
Total ... 2,184 971 278 1,249
THE GOL]) COAST, 193i.
A table showing the number of plots per farmer is as follows :-
Persons having 1 plot ... 795 = Approximately 63.66 per cent.
2 plots 232 = 18.50
3 106 = 8.50
4 48 = 4.00
5 32 = 4.50
6 16 = 1.25
7 9 = 0.75
8 7 = 0.50
9 1 = 0.08
10 2 = 0.16
11 1 = 0.08
Of the total area under cacao, 2,713 acres were owned by
males and 314 acres by females. The size of the plantations varied
from a fraction of an acre to 27 acres; approximately 60 per cent
were less than one acre, and a further 20 per cent were less than two
acres.
It is worthy of note that in this area the largest plal'ltation
was merely 27 acres in extent whilst above mention has been made
of a plantation situated not very much farther to the south in Akim-
Abuakwa which covered some 144 acres.
These larger farms are not necessarily the result of a single
peasant's efforts. Inheritance occasionally, hired labour most
often, the taking up of mortgages frequently and straightforward
purchase may have enabled an individual to acquire a plantation
area of considerable size.
The marketing of the cacao beans is almost exclusively carried
on through the agency of middlemen, and as usual that method of
trading brought about the introduction of land sales, land transfers
and mortgages, thereby hastening the process of westernizing a
peasantry who had only just emerged from the era of nomadism.
Mention has been made before of this recent change from nomadic
life to a settled one. Proofs are many and obvious. The continual
shifting of village sites, the demand often made for new sites to be
laid out, the absolutely willing acquiescence when such moves are
ordered for sanitary or other reasons, the immediate migration of
a family, even of a tribe, when redress to wrongs cannot be obtained,
'show conclusively how little in reality the peasant of the cacao
producing area is attached to the land. Great indeed is the contrast
in conditions to be found further to the north. There a man will
die rather than abandon the ancestral home and even when the latter
has fallen into ruins will erect a hovel in their midst . The pathetic
return of the whilom slaves to their houses which Babatu had
destroyed and from which he had driven them into captivity is
witness sufficient of the northerners' true attachment to the land
of his fathers.
The demands of business had shown the possibilities of
obtaining money by the mortgage of land . There followed in
94 THE GOLD COAST, 1931.
rational sequence the idea of personal ownership, and quite logically
there has followed the next step in evolution that of patrilineal
inheritance rather than the more warrior-like and nomadic system
of matrilineal descent. The Government Survey Department
entered at once intimately into the life of the people and as shown
in Ferguson's case (vide sl.lpra page 35) the work of surveying seems
one of great attraction to the youth of the Gold Coast. No mortgage
could be raised without a plan of the property to be mortgaged;
therefore plans and accurate plans had to be made. It was easy to
foresee the next step, the formation of a department wherein matters
concerning land will eventually be registered. Thus in the last
decade the Survey Department gave birth to the Lands Department
and both have become factors more and more vital in the economics
of the Gold Coast. The maintenance of the cacao crop as the
property of the peasant-farmer depends on the restriction of the
usurer's activities, and registration .of title to land is, though rarely
possible, one of the best means by which such restrictions can be
effected. No information is at present available as to the growth
of the-practice of mortgaging lands, but it is safe to conclude from
similar conditions elsewhere that the practice must be widespread.
Of all the difficulties at present facing the industry of cacao-
planting, that of transport is perhaps the most acute as it is the
most obvious. It is the difficulties which this problem presents,
that strike at the root of any defence of small-holders. The
uneconomic method of handling produce for marketing that must
perforce prevail for the small-holder can be defeated only by
co-operation but in a situation such as that shown above
in the south-eastern corner of Ashanti, even co-operation will not
overcome these difficulties.
It has been seen that out of 2,184 plantations, 1,299 were less
than an acre in extent, or approximately 59 per cent. The yield of
cacao per acre has been estimated at 9 loads of 60 lbs. each; so that
these small plantations scattered in an area of 65.32 square miles
produced probably 10,000 loads, which at least would have to be
carried as head-loads to the village of the owner. No system
of lanes, in spite of its magnificent system of roads, has yet been
adopted in the Gold Coast. The obvious difficulties and expense
of the porterage of this quantity of cacao, difficulties and expenses
which would certainly be encountered in practically every part of
the count ry, are an additional safeguard against the destruction of
the present unique position the Gold Coast peasant-proprietor
enjoys and his decline to that of a hired labourer.
However, the system of peasant culture in a forest zone presents
a problem of no small dimension. The minute patches taken by
the peasants from the forest are similar to the small perforation in
a plate of iron where rust has set in . They must spread; there
sets forth from the centre of every patch or hole an eroding influence,
so that if no steps are taken the forest as the plate must perish.
In the Golcj Coast this problem of deforestation has for many years
THE GOLD COAST, 1 93I. 95
been recognised and unless directly tackled means without the
slightest doubt the disappearance of the forest and with it t hat
wonderful soil to which the prosperity of the country to-day alone
can be attributed.
The following extracts from a memorandum by the Acting
Conservator of Forests, 1'11'. H. 'vV. Moor, are of such value and
indicate the dangerous position in which the industry finds itself
to-day that no apology is required for the length of the quotation :-
"Deforestation presupposes a forested area. The late
Major T. F. Chipp, M.C., Assistant Director at Kew and
formerly a Forest Officer in the Gold Coast, on botanical
evidence, states that formerly the Southern portion of the
Gold Coast was included in an undivided forest belt stretching
from Sierra Leone eastwards across the continent of Africa,
reaching as far north as the seventh parallel of latitude, and
probably considerably further. To-day the western portion
of this forest belt has shrunk to an island extending from
western Liberia to the middle of the Gold Coast. The eastern
portion has its western boundary to the east of Lagos. The
intervening area is characterised by an intrusion of Sudanese
vegetation containing comparatively insignificant patches of
original Guinea Zone forest. The area which has been
deforested in the course of years and which now exhibits an
altered type of vegetation includes the whole of t he Ho district
of British Mandated Togoland, about three quarters of the
Eastern Province and a third of the Central Province of the
Colony and portions of Ashanti. When it is considered that
the agricultural value of the forest or Guinea Zone is infinitely
greater than that of the Sudanese Zone the loss to the country
becomes appreciable.
" It is uncertain whether the original cause of this alteration
in vegetation is a progressive climatic desiccation but there
is no doubt whatever that the major secondary cause,
cumulative in its effect, is the customary system of shifting
cultivation.
"Africa is not unique in its adoption of this system.
I t is still practised in Ceylon, India, Burma and other portions
of the East, and was formerly customary, and is claimed t o be
the origin of the heaths of to-day in Great Britain, Scandinavia
and Northern Germany. It is the primitive man's labour-
saving device, when land is plentiful and population scanty.
"The manner in which this deforestation has been
accomplished is the principal factor in its effect. No one can
suggest that agriculture should have ~ny but the first place
with a purely rural population and, given intelligent leadership
in the past, it is conceibable that even the form of agriculture
designated 'shifting cultivation' could have been carried
on , on a limited scale, for ever in certain portions of the country,
without involving the wholesale destruction and sterility that
THE GOLD COAST, 193i.
have actually occurred. In actual fact, it has been
concentrated over a long period of years in a section of the
country which appeared to be subject to a delicately adjusted
balance of natural conditions; and the net effect is that not
only has a large portion of the country been rendered barren
but that the fertility of the rest of the country is endangered
by its continuance. The system is a pernicious one, its only
redeeming feature being the ease with which results are attained.
This same ease, however, reacts on the moral fibre of the people,
engendering a life of sloth and entirely obscuring the claims of
posterity to an inheritance which is being rapidly dissipated
by succeeding generations.
" In passing from the general to the particular effects of
deforestation it must be remembered that this is a country of
heavy rainfall; not only heavy in the actual volume of annual
precipitation but heavy in the manner of fall. A vegetative
cover interposes a natural barrier between rain and the soil.
The removal of this barrier permits the rain to beat with
undiminished force on the soil and, whatever the character of
the soil, erosion occurs. Two examples may be quoted. The
township of Begoro stands on heayy red clay; a photograph,
taken in about 1870, shows a still existing tree outside the
chief's house, the roots of this tree being shown as exposed
to a depth of about 1 foot. To-day, sixty years later, about
3 feet of the roots are exposed. In this town two feet of surface
soil has been sheet-eroded in sixty years, with ah average
annual rainfall of only 68 inches. Na.tural depressions around
this town have formed the run-offs and are gully-eroded to
depths up to 8 feet. The site of this town forms part of the
catchment area of the town's water supply. The two holes from
which the water is obtained are silted up, necessitating damming
in 1930, in spite of the fact that one of these places is said to
be an " elephant hole", and was said to be over ten feet deep
within the memory of some of the older inhabitants. The
other example is from Koforidua where the average annual
rainfall is 51t inches. The soil here is a sandy loam overlying
a sandy clay; erosion to an average depth of six inches is
plainly marked on the 30-foot front of a public building erected
sixteen years ago on a slope of 1 in 12.
"Closely connected with the subj ect of erosion is the
question of the absorptive properties of the soil and stream
flow. It is obvious that the proportions of the rainfall that
are absorbed and contribute to stream flow, and those which
run-off, are influenced by the nature of the soil, the Jength
and nature of the fall and the mechanical obstructions to
run-off. A forest covering provides a humus layer which is
not only highly absorptive to water in itself but also provides
suitable conditions for colonies of burrowing soil fauna which,
by their activities, permit a greater degree of percolation.
THE GOLD COAST, 193I. 97
The foliage, while intercepting and re-evaporating some of the
actual fall, breaks its force-a considerable factor in regions
characterised by heavy, tropical downpours-and not only
promotes a less erosive form of drip but spreads the amount
which does eventually reach the ground over a far greater
period, a fact which favours percolation at the expense of
run-off. The mechanical obstructions to run-off and aids to
percolation are the tree-roots themselves and the mass of
ground litter always associated with forests. Deforestation,
particularly of hill slopes, removes these aids to water-
conservation and affects stream flow by producing torrents in
the wet season and dry stream beds in periods of drought .
\i\Torld-wide examples are well known; locally, mention may
be made of streams that have dried up in the Eisa area within
recent years as the result of wholesale deforestation. Another
glaring example is that of the town of Sra which is dependent
on an adjacent stream for its water supply. Until about
twenty years ago water was obtainable all the year round, but
since then the hills at the head-waters of the stream have been
deforested and now, during the dry season, the town is
dependent on a very scanty supply obtained from holes scraped
in the dry stream bed, eked out by water from the Volta River,
12 miles distant.
"The question of the influence of forests on rainfall is
a much-debated one and has been the subj ect of considerable
generalisation but of little scientific observation. The so-called
tornadoes of the Gold Coast come under the category of
instability showers and this type of rain is of great importance
in affecting rainfall distribution. If this rain, coming as it
does during what would otherwise be a very long, dry season,
were to be affect ed one would naturally expect to see a change
in the type of vegetation. And one does see that change in
the transition from the wet monsoon forest type to the drought-
resistant savannah type. Coffee is a crop requiring what
might be termed a forest climate and to-day one would be very
surprised to see coffee plantations in the savannah country
at the foot of the Akwapim Hills. Yet the Scientist Thonning
was sent out from Denmark to report on some very successful
plantations in that locality about 1788. Cacao is even more
exacting than coffee in its climatic requirements and since its
production is the one agricultural industry of any real
importance in the' Gold Coast, it is on the manner and extent
of deforestation that the future of cacao farming depends. "
The need for protection of the Forest Country has indeed been
long realised, but lack of understanding and knowledge among the
people made the introduction of protective measures useless, since
it is obvious that public opinion must be behind any rules and
regulations Qf the nature required by Forest Reserves. However
G
98 THE GOLD COAST, 1931.
during the past decade, after a period of intensive education of the
people concerned, a Forests Ordinance was passed in 1927 .
Under this Ordinance it became possible to constitute reserves
in the Forest Zone and to make rules and regulations for their
proper administration and control. The principle, however, that
public opinion must be behind the enforcement of such legislation
was preserved and these reserves were to be constituted on the
advice of the Forestry Department by means of bye-laws enacted
by the Native Administration. The Government of course reserved
to itself the power to constitute these reserves under the Ordinance
if the Native Authorities refused to create them themselves or to
exercise proper control over them.
At the end of 1930-1 there were 61 such reserves, of which
55 with an approximate aggregate area of 1,643 square miles had
been declared such by the Native Administration. The remaining
six consisted of three ovmed outright by the Government of a total
area of 53.2 square miles, and three of an area of 16.9 square miles
had been proclaimed reserves under the Ordinance. There is thus
. a total area of 1,713 square miles under protection. It is not yet
possible to judge if any progress in the propagation of the idea of
forest preservation has been made, for such ideas which presuppose
forethought and foresight are almost completely foreign to the
African.
In addition to minerals and cacao the Gold Coast export a
variety of other tropical products both agricultural and sylvan,
The following table indicates the quantity and value exported
during 1930 :-
Agricultural. Sylvan. I Value. ---
£
Coffee ... ... lbs. 7,620 - 154
CopaI, gum .. . ... lbs. - 450 4
Cotton, lint ... '" Ibs. 239,719 - 1,837
Fibre ... ... tons. 287 - 6,802
Grains, various .. . lbs. 5,326 - 65
Mahogany ... ... cu. ft. - 855,532 90,954
Other timbers .. . cu . ft. - 1,981 9,144
Maize ... ... Ibs. 347 - 2
Coconuts ... ... nos. 58,024 - 124
Copra ... ... tons. 917 - 15,671
Groundnuts ... tons. 1 - 14
Kolanuts ... ... lbs . - 8,441,311 138,322
Palm Kernels ... tons. - 5,470 69,018
Oil, palm .. . ... tons. - 489 11,392
Pepper ... ... lbs . 1,120 - 45
Rubber .. . ... Ibs. - 539,696 21,987
THE GOLD COAST, 193I. 99
of a total value of some £365,535. Other raw products were hides to
the value of £18,924, ivory worth £1,374 and salt from the lagoons
to the value of £301.
A table comparing the value of the total exports showing the
overwhelming proportion of the trade which cacao holds and
covering a period of ten years indicate the peculiar position of this
country in its relation to world trade. The exports include the
value of all minerals shipped as well as that of the products of
agriculture, husbandry and the uncultivated lands.
Value of Other Total Percentage Percentage
cacao. Exports. Exports. of Cacao. of other
I Exports.
£ £ £
1921 4,764,067 1,623,143 6,387,210 74.58 . 25.42
1922 5,840,743 1,680,810 7,521,553 77.65 22.35
1923 6,566,973 1,827,310 8,394,283 78.23 21.77
1924 7,249,878 2,340,243 9,590,121 75.6 24.4
1925 8,222,263 2,404,468 10,626,73 1 77.4 22.6
1926 9,181,235 2,667,910 11,849,145 77.48 22.52
1927 11,727,566 2,458,337 14,185,903 82.67 17.33
1928 11,229,512 2,399,621 13,629,133 82.39 17.61
1929 9,704;493 2,696,130 12,400,623 78.26 21. 74
1930 6,970,385 2,940,303 9,910,688 70.33 29.67
If the value of the minerals exported is deducted it will be
seen how insignificant is the export trade other than that of cacao.
The reason for this is not far to seek. So easy is cacao to grow
and so renumerative that a false idea of commercial values has
been forced upon the native peasant. He has yet to learn to think
in pence instead of pounds, and once that lessoI). has been thoroughly
learnt, the only limit to his continued prosperity is that of the
supply of labour.
Coffee, a proved successful crop in this country, could, with
the complete elimination of overhead charges such as the European
plantation system' involves, compete with such great coffee-producing
countries as Brazil; the same can be said of cotton and fibres, copra
and palm-nuts, always provided world conditions return to what
hitherto has been considered the normal and that transport can
be obtained at a sufficiently cheap rate. But the Gold Coast peasant-
farmer if he is to survive must remember and be taught always
to remember that the crops which produce small but certain profits
are those on which his existence depends, since they do not draw
upon him the envious eye of the usurer or the greedy one of the
capitalist.
In this connection the internal trade of the country in domestic
produce offers a rare opportunity for the continued prosperity of
the small-holder. The value of this has as yet never been estimated
in spite of the fact that the trading inclination or market-sense of
t he people is one of their most strikin~ characteristics,
100 THE GOLD COAST, I931.
The food-bill for 1930 paid by the Gold Coast to outside
countries was as follows :-
£
Biscuits, bread and cakes 92,143
Butter and substitutes 19,398
Cheese 7,667
Coffee 4,254
Confectionery 14,504
Fish-Tinned 182,426
Fish-Dried, Salted, etc. 83,687
Fish-Fresh 2,340
Fruit-Fresh 2,312
Fruit-Dried 5,754
Grain-Rice 207,824
Other varieties ... 11,102
Flour-'Wheaten 216,586
Maize meal 837
Other 4,883
Beans and Peas 4,950
Pulse-Other kinds 139
Other farinaceous preparations 20,877
Jams and jellies and preserved fruits 5,777
Lard and substitutes ... 14,256
Meat-Pickled and salted 81,872
Tinned and in glass 104,431
Fresh 21,948
Smoked 4,014
Other ... 502
Milk 43,937
Provisions unenumerated 28,604
Oils edible 26,959
Pickles, Sauces, condiments 3,590
Salt 29,094
Spices 32,380
Sugar 111,047
Tea 7,156
Vegetables-fresh 9,235
dried 8,288
Total £1,414,773
THE GOLD COAST, 1931. 101
Of this total the Gold Coast itself could have provided more
than 50 per cent of the salt and fresh fish, rice, maize and other
meal, beans, salted and fresh meat, edible oils, salt, spices and fresh
vegetables or in other words have saved £200,000.
That sum may seem insignificant enough to the cacao producer
who has been used to an annual marketing in the neighbourhood
often million pounds, but fortunately the peasant outside the cacao-
growing areas has not overlooked the home market, and in those
parts where the latter is not beyond reach through excessive charges
for transport he has in recent years been increasingly occupied
with production of vegetable and food stuffs. An interesting
survey made in the Krachi District showed that a yam field of an
acre would yield approximately £10 per annum if the price of yams
by the road-side were 2d. a yam of about 4t to 5t lbs. The cost
of delivery by motor to the market in Accra was estimated at 6.27d.
per yam, so that the peasant farmer of Krachi was easily able to
place his yams on the Accra market at 9d. and compete with other
yams which were at the time valued at 2s. 6d. This latter price
was not one fictitiously reached by profiteers, but was due to a
long chain of middlemen who each required a profit, to the fact
that the Accra market seemed too remote to be a business possibility
for the producer himslf and to the lack of capital, i. e. ready cash
with the first buyer. •
Similarly high prices and the concomitant conditions have
tended to drive off the market the salt producers of the Ada-Keta
area. For hundreds of years probably the people of those lagoons
have held a monopoly of t he salt trade in the interior. Their canoes
still penetrate as far north as Yapei, but competition with salt
from Europe has almost put an end t o their business. This
industry will certainly revive as soon as the people concerned are
content with small profits, no longer look back to those halcyon
days when an 80 lb. bag of salt fetched as much as 40s. or even
more at Yeji, where to-day it is only worth some 4s. 6d., and are
prepared to market the produce on an economic basis.
Considerable efforts have been made in the last ten vears to
place on a sound footing the internal t rade in cattle and meat.
Cattle are not found in every district of this country as there are
but few areas suited for them but the following table shows their
distribution and the number of head of cattle per 1,000 of the
population . The principal Veterinary Officer considers that the
estimate of the cattle can be considered ·as being fairly accurate,
but that the figures for the other live-stock can all be considered
as being of a degree of accuracy great er t han has been possible
heretofore.
102 THE GOLD COAST, 1931.
Number of I Number of
Number of Cattle per Number ofl Sheep and
District_ Population. Cattle_ 1,000 of Sheep and Goats per
Population. Goats. 1,000 of
Population.
--
I. Colony ... ... - - - 220,000 -
Eastern Province
Accra .. . .. , 136,696 3,000 22 - -
Akwapim ... 86,380 5,000 58 - -
Keta-Ada .. . 243,671 25,000 102 - -
Volta River ... 162,100 3,000 18 - -
2. Ashanti ... ... 578,078 1,500 26 10,000 -
3. Northern Territories
and Togoland.
Northern Province
Kusasi ... 151,715 15,000 99 70,000 460
Lawra-Tumu ... 93,125 11,000 129 50,000 537
Mamprusi .. , 61,520 2,000 33 10,000 164
Navrongo .. , 120,870 23,000 190 70,000 578
Wa ... .. , 72,323 11 ,000 153 40,000 555
Zuarungu ... 133,981 12,000 89 40,000 298
Southern Province
Eastern Dagom-
ba ... ... 91,523 10,000 109 50,000 549
Western Dagom-
ba ... ... 100,433 11,000 110 70,000 700
Eastern Gonja 23,683 500 22 20,000 833
Western Gonja 15,723 500 31 20,000 1,250
Kracbi ... ... 20,521 300 15 14,000 700
From the above table it can be seen that the true cattle-raising
districts are Keta-Ada in the Eastern Province of the Gold Coast
Colony and in the Northern Territories, which in this instance
include the Northern Section of Togoland, the Dagomba country
and all the Northern Province with the exception of the Mamprusi
District.
These areas are also those carrying the largest district
population, but the ratio as shown of the number of head of cattle
per 1,000 of the population indicates that ownership of cattle
is a distinctive feature of the economic life of the people living
in those areas. A comparison of similar statistics taken from other
countries is of interest-
No. of cattle No. of sheep and
Country. per 100 of goats per 100 of
population. population.
---------------------1------------1------
Northern Nigeria 25 53
Uganda ... 40 37
Tanganyika 92 100
Nyasaland 9 22
Lawra-Tumu District ... 13 54
Wa District 15 55
Navrongo District 19 59
Eastern Dagomba District 11 55
Western Dagomba District 11 70
rHE GOLD COAST, I931. 103
and shows how the Northern Territories compare favourably with
similar conditions in Northern Nigeria in regard to sheep and goats
but not so favourably in regard to cattle. This is to be explained
by the fact that the population of the Protectorate although owners
of cattle are not in any way breeders or herdsmen.
A further table showing the area of the district, the density
of the population, number of cattle and number of sheep and goats
per square mile,
Density of Head of No. of sheep
District. Area. population cattle per and goats per
per sq. mile. sq. mile. sq. mile.
--- -
Keta-Ada ... ... .. . 2,146 1I3.55 1I.6 -
Kusasi* ... . .. ... 1,227 131. 79 12.2 57.0
Lawra-Tumu ... . .. 3,840 24.25 2.8 13.0
Navrongo ... ... .. . 1,551 77.96 14.8 45.1
Wa ... .. . . .. .. . 3,462 20.89 3.1 11.5
Zuarungu ... ... . .. 781 171.55 15.3 51.2
Eastern Dagomba ... 5,503 16.63 1.8 9.0
Western Dagomba ... 6,754 14.87 1.6 10.3
J I
shows clearly how the possible area of development in the cattle
farming industry is confined alm'ost exclusively to the Dagomba
districts.
The value of the meat market of the Gold Coast is considerable
and to-day depends almost entirely on imports of livestock
overland from the French Sudan and through the seaports from
Nigeria. The supply is increased very largely by the importation
of salted, dried, smoked and tinned meats.
The figures of this import trade are as follows and have been
reached by an estimate of 350 lbs. as the average weight in meat
of cattle, and 60 lbs. for the sheep and 40 lbs. for the goat. The
year 1930-31 has been taken, and the annual rise and fall in the
trade can be discounted as it is comparatively insignificant
No. Imported No. Imported Total in
by Sea. Overland. lbs.
-
Cattle ... ... 2,798 5Q,434 18,631,200
Sheep ... ... 14,323 54,608 4,135,860
Goats ... ... 1,356 14,261 624,680
or a gross weIght of 23,391 ,740 lbs. of meat.
. To this must be added the number of pigs, an estimate of
which cannot be reached and the only available figure being that
of pigs slaughtered in certain towns. These number 7,750 and
averaged at 75 lbs. weighed 581,250 lbs.
'Includes the Kusasi District of the Northern Section of Togoland.
i04 THE GOLD COAST, I93I.
Imports of fresh, salted, smoked and tinned meats totalled
9,795,452 lbs.
A very conservative estimate of one per cent of the total must
be added to account for the meat from the local herds and game
shot . The final figures are :-
Live imports 23,391,740
Dead imports 9,795,452
Pig meat 581,250
Game, etc. 337,684
Total 34,106,126
This total distributed over a population including non-Africans
numbering 3,163,568 gives an average meat consumption of 10.78
lbs. per capita. This compares favourably with other countries
in Africa. But a closer analysis would show that the per capita
consumption of meat is infinitely greater in the larger centres than
in the rural districts where the people cannot be classified in any
sense as meat-eaters. The returns from the four principal munici-
palities show the following consumption of fresh meat only, no
account being taken either of imported smoked or salted or tinned
meats or of the consumption by the non-African population.
No. of animals slaughtered. E stimated Tot al
Municipality . Popula- ------- - - - -- Ibs. of Ibs. per
tion. Cattle. Sheep. Goats. -'Swine. nleat . capita.
-----------
Accra ... 60,726 2,386 2,584 2,941 3,132 1,328,460 21.88
Cape Coast 17,685 28 479 1,601 1,902 245,230 13.81
Sekondi ... 16,953 293 662 1,903 2,552 409,790 24.17
Kumasi ... 35,829 2,148 5,857 3,965 164 1, 266,120 35.34
Total ... 131, 193 4,855 9,582 10,410 7,750 3,249600 24.77
The value of this trade excepting for pigs is at present lost to
the Gold Coast people, and it is estimated to be worth £5 per head
of cattle, 7s. 6d. each for sheep and goats or a total for imported
animals on the hoof of £296,685.
There are certain disadvantages and difficulties to be overcome
before this trade can be changed into a home indu try. The
continuous prevalence of rinderpest and the fact that the people
of the cattle areas are in no single instance pastoral and therefore
have no idea either of breeding or droving must be taken into
account.
The former difficulty can be and is being tackled by
Government . From the earliest days of our knowledge of the
Protectorate epizootics have devastated the herds, and in the past
decade most active measures have been taken to combat their
THE GOLD COAST, 1931. 105
ravages, to control and eventually to eradicate t hem. Quarantine
stations have been erected at every inland port of entry, and
imported cattle may only use routes controlled by the Veterinary
Department. A continuous campaign has been carried on with the
intent to educate cattle owners in the elements of cattle husbandry.
E xperimental farms for the improvement of the local cattle have
been organised, and a training centre for teaching Africans
veterinary work, a laboratory for the preparation of sera and
vaccines and for research work have been made and built, the
headquarters being some 21 miles north of Tamale; and finally
throughout the decade efforts have been made to control rinderpest
by immunisation with varying degrees of success.
The greatest difficulty, however, is the successful education
of the cattle owner. He is an excellent farmer and in that respect
differs from the peasant of the cacao-producing area. Conditions
however are not identical in the two provinces of the Protectorate.
In the extreme north the population of the districts depend mainly
on cereals and leguminous plants, whilst in the southern province
although cereals are an important item in the daily menu yams
are the predominant foodstuff.
The northern system of agriculture is unique in the Gold Coast
and no full account of it has so far appeared. The general conditions
of life in the Province are extremely primitive, and the religious
beliefs of the people play probably the most important part in
agriculture. The most striking feature of farming, whereby it
differs from the practice usual in the Colony, is that permanent
cultivation is employed to a greater extent than shifting cultivation.
The cause of this is pressure of population and its distribution and
to the fact that the people have been long settled. No compact
villages exist and each dwelling is surrounded by its own farm
land which often is not sufficiently extensive even to allow of the
usual rotation, and since each field touches on neighbouring fields
no extension is possible. The crops cultivated are exclusively
annuals, of which millet and guinea-corn predominate (75 per cent).
Year after year these are grown in a system of mixed farming with
other crops. Each year a small portion of land is manured with
household refuse and animal manure, and a small portion is periodi-
cally fallowed. Many people also work subsidiary farms in the
"bush ", always some distance from their homes; on these shifting
cultivation is sometimes practised, but often these" bush" farms
are after a proving period built upon by the overflow from the house
which originally started them.
The average size of farm has been found to be about 4.28 acres
in the more congested areas, and about 5.51 acres where pressure
of population was not so severe. The number of people per
compound averaged 10.2 and 14.9. The area of cultivated land
per head of popUlation was between 0.4 acre and 0.8 acre. Two
cereal crops per year wen~ grownJ and the mean grain yield for the year
106 THE GOLD COAST, 1931.
was 16.4 cwts. per acre. Yield of groundnuts was estimated at
630 lbs. per acre and of coleus potatoes about 3,050 lbs. For five
to six months in the dry season, no cultivation takes place, and
the people live on foodstuffs stored after harvesting. Storage
provision is made for about 250 lbs of dry grain per head to outlast
this quiescent period.
Such are the conditions prevailing in the Navrongo, Zuarungu,
Kusasi and to a certain extent the Lawra-Ttill1U Districts.
Elsewhere the thinness of the population permits of a system
approximating that known as shifting cultivation. It is reasonable
therefore to deduce that if the people can be taught to become
cattle-breeders the area where success is most likely to be attained
is that of the Dagomba Districts, and possibly a portion of the Lawra
Tumu District.
The two Gonjas although offering a greater area are to a large
extent swampy ground and infested 'with tse-tse.
The development of an industry in sheep and goats is possible,
but the destructive nature of the latter is so well known that
Government can hardly encourage the breeding and rearing of an
animal to whose activities such irreparable damage has been done in
Cyprus and elsewhere.
The type of cattle both in the Northern Territories and in the
coastal zone of the Eastern Province of the Colony is the un humped
taurine. The animals are small symmetrical and compact and
resemble miniature short-horns. They are slow in development
and reach their full size only at the age of from six to eight years.
Heifers reach the age of puberty from eighteen months to two years,
and the cows do not usually calve every year but appear to do so
about every eighteen months. It would seem that the cattle are
of such ancient introduction that they might be termed indigenous
in spite of the fact that their owners possess no cattle-sense and
whenever possible allow them to be herded by immigrant Fulani
from Nigeria or the French Sudan.
Other items of internal trade are fibres, mattresses, mats, hats,
baskets, string, rope, calabashes, pots, leather work, a certain amount
of iron-work, gold ornaments, brasses, stool-carving, furniture,
canoe-making, kola, tobacco, fish, snails and poultry. The value
of these is considerable and an attempt to arrive at an estimate is
made below.
Transport and its problems.
It is evident that this volume of trade both external and internal
has brought the problems of transport into great prominence.
Here in the Gold Coast as elsewhere in the world there has arisen
the question of the competition between road and rail.
During the decade since 1921 there has taken place an almost
complete revolution in the carrying trade. Head porterage formerly
so distinctive a feature of African life is fast disappearing and except
for short passages entirely so in the handling of the export traffic.
THE GOLD COAST, 1931. 107
It still persists to a certain extent in the inland trade and also in
the export towards the North. Often this old method of carriage
has been termed degrading, but it is as natural to the African as,
and no more degrading, than carriage by hand is to the European,
and it will persist here for short distances just as the latter does in
Europe for an indefinite period.
A comparison of the mileage both rail and road year by year
shows a remarkable march of progress.
--------------------------
Miles of Motorable Roads.
Year. Miles of Colony.
R'wyOpen.----------Ashanti. N.T. Total
W.P. C.P. E.P.
1921 ... 276 mean ·[--85--:3---:-----:----:---;241
1922-3 ... 334 " I 97 - 1,015 532 1.200 -
1923-4 ... 379 " II 140 - 1,057 721 1,200 -1924.-5 ... 394 " 156 477 1,266 836 1,242 3,977 .
1925-6 ... 394" 214 - 1,306 1,019 1,785 -
1926-7 ... 457" 259 521 1,319 1,080 1,931 5 110
1927-8 ... 480" 354 587 1,444 1,142 2,000 5:527
1928-9 ... 495" 390 - 1,506 1,158 2,300 -
1929-30 ... 500 443 633 1,525 1,175 2,335 6,111
1930-31 ... 500" 500 713 1,525 1,228 2,772 6,738
The figures for the mileage of motorable roads are almost
spectacular, especially in the total shown forthe Northern Territories
But it must be remembered that although a policy of development
by motor traffic had been put into force by t he earliest of the
administrators of that country, the connecting links along which
motors could reach the protectorate were only completed in 1921,
a fact alreadv referred to.
Other st~tistics of the development of motor traffic show how
phe:t;lomenal the progress has been.
Net No. of Net No. of
Year. Motor Cars Motor Cycles Petrol (galls.)
and Lorries Imported. Imported.
Imported.
1921 ... ... 283 187 986,230
1922 ... ... 243 52 1,055,781
1923 ... ... 542 142 1,705,941
1924 ... . .. 783 125 1,832,388
1925 ... . .. 1,284 207 2,799,205
1926 ... _ .. 1,432 165 3,615,014
1927 ... . .. 2,891 219 4,818,887
1928 ... ... 2,482 165 5,752,670
1929 ... ... 2,096 115 6,011,318
1930 '" ... 1,772 72 7,305,525
108 THE GOLD COAST, 1931.
Of the total number of 13,808 cars and lorries imported in the
decade there were licenced during 1930 an aggregate of 8921. No
estimate is at present possible of the extent of the motor traffic,
but averaging the value of the cars at £250 each there was on that
basis a sum of £2,230,250 invest ed in the industry.
The petrol consumption per head of the population has
increased from 0.42 galls. in 1921 to 2.31 galls. in 1931, approximately
450 per cent.
In 1921, the more important trade roads were surfaced with
gravel, or to give the material its more correct name, with laterite.
This material is soft when freshly excavated, but it hardens on
exposure to air, and forms a very satisfactory surface for roads on
which the traffic is light. When saturated by rain, however, it
exhibits all the disadvantages of a clay, and loses its bearing capacity
almost completely. The increase in motor transport during the
last decade has been so great that it became at times impossible
to maintain the more important roads in even a fair state of repair.
In wet weather the surface was so cut up by traffic that it rapidly
degenerated into mere quagmire, which after a continuous spell of
dry weather, formed a very friable surface that was subjected to
rapid attrition by the incessant hammering of high speed and heavy·
vehicles. This attrition, moreover, took the form of corrugations
which had a m ost shattering effect on motor vehicles.
The problem of producing an improved surface. was difficult
but very urgent.
The method adopted to meet the above conditions was to lay
a 4-inch coating of broken stone on the old gravel surface, and to
finish this off, after consolidation with road rollers, with a water-
proofing coat of tar or bituminous preparation. Approximately
430 miles of the more important roads have now been treated by
this method, to which the name of" tarmet " has been given. The
improvement effected has been most noticeable and .has
resulted in an increase in the permitted carrying capacity of motor
vehicles. In the last year of the decade a programme of further
improvement of the" tarmet " roads had been commenced, but
this work and also any further extension of the" tarmet" surfaces
was unfortunately held up owing to financial difficulties.
The total cost of maintaining the Trade Roads rose from
£53,400 in 1921 to £144,840 in 1930-31, oran increase of 171 per
cent. The cost of maintenance by the Public Works Department
per mile rose in the same period from £60 per mile t o £75 per mile,
a very low rate of increase considering the greatly increased traffic,
whilst the grants made by Government for the purpose of
maintaining village and pioneer roads rose from £4.8 per mile
in 1921 to £7 .96 per mile in 1931. The amount spent during the
decade on new roads and on improvements to existing ones was
approximately £1,800,000, about 2.21 per cent of the value of the
cacao exports during the 10 years.
THE GOLD COAST, I931. 109
In 1925, a Temporary Roads Department was created for the
purpose of expediting the survey and construction of new roads.
The Department had a military personnel, and during its life of close
on six years, some 777 miles of road were surveyed, and 358 miles
were constructed. The Department was closed down early in 1931,
owing to the unavoidable holding up of the road extension
programme, but many important roads such as the Insu-Enchi
Road and the Wiawso-Krokosua Road, both in the Western Province
had been completed by it.
In addition to improvement work in respect of the road surface,
the last decade has seen a very considerable advance in connection
with the conversion of bridges having wooden decks into permanent
concrete structures, the most noteworthy example of this work
being on the road from Kumasi to Tamale, on which all bridges
have been so converted.
The figures given above show that the railways have progressed
equally during the decade. In 1921, the railway ran from Sekondi,
through Tarkwa and Obuasi to Kumasi on the Western side and
from Accra to Tafo on the Eastern side. The extension of the line
from Tafo was then in progress, and in September, 1923, the line
from Tafo to Kumasi was opened to through traffic, enabling trains
to be run through between Sekondi and Accra, a distance of 362
miles. In 1923 the construction of a new line tapping the Central
Province was begun and gradually opened to traffic, until in
December, 1927, the whole line from Runi Valley to Kade, a distance
of 99 miles was opened, thus giving an outlet by rail from the
Central Province to Takoradi and up-country stations.
As a result of these extensions the number of stations has
increased from 51 to 74; and in order to give greater facilities for
passengers from outlying villages the management of the railway
introduced a system of halts, i.e. stopping places for the picking
up and setting down of passengers. These halts number 25, so
that there are 99 stopping places in a railway stretch of 500 miles .
In connection with the installation of the halts a service of
" Rail Motors" has been introduced. The Sentinel-Cammel type
of Rail Motor was obtained for this purpose, each having a self-
contained engine unit which operates at a very low cost per mile
as compared with an ordinary locomotive. By means of these rail
motors, it is possible to maintain frequent local services and it is
hoped will prove useful in the development of passenger traffic.
The line between Sekondi and Kumasi has been considerably
improved by deviation and by the elimination of excessive curves
and heavy grades. This, coupled with the laying of 80-lb. track
through from Sekondi to Kumasi (completed in 1930) has enabled
heavier and more powerful engines to be used and the through
passenger t rains to be speeded up. In 1921 the journey from
Sekondi to Kumasi took 10 hours and 35 minutes but in 1931 the
t rip was accomplished in 8 hours 27 minutes-a saving of over two
110 THE GOLD COAST, 1931.
hours. Since the initial opening of the through line from Accra
to Kumasi in 1923 timing of the train has been tightened up with
the result that the journey has been reduced from 12 hours to 10}.
In spite however of these real improvements and increased
facilities the response from the public has been a disappointing
surprise to the management.
The accompanying t able shows how in spite of increased mileage
open to the public there has been no corresponding increase in the
passenger traffic.
Total Miles I Total No. of Average per
Open. Passengers. Mile.
--
1921 .. . ... . .. 276 mean 1,228,434 4,451
1922 (Jan . I- Mar. 31) 306 I 344,880 -
1922- 3 ... ... ... 334 " 1,345,694 , 4,029
1923- 4 ... .. . ... 379 " 1,334,756 3,521
1924-5 . . . ... .. . 394 " 1,347,916 3,421
1925- 6 ... ... .. . " 394 1,487 ,164 3,774
1926-7 ... . .. " ... 457 1,452,915 . 3,179
"
1927-8 . .. ... ... 480 1,728,493 3,601
1928- 9 ... ... ... 495 " 1,875,002 3,788
1929- 30 ... ... " 500 1,846,665 3,693
1930-31 ... ... 500 " 1,336,489 2,673
"
The decrease of passenger traffic, whi(:h appears in the column
of average number of passengers t o the number of miles of railway
open, cannot be satisfactorily explained solely by the factor of t he
competition from motor traffic. The 1921 figure was reached
chiefly through the Sekondi-Kumasi section of the railway, and
that has not been affected by any road competition. The figures
for the average mileage travelled by passengers are in order of date
as follows beginning with the year 1921 :-26.81 ; 27.52; 29.24;
30.14; 28.07; 29.95; 30.69; 30.54; 28.99; 27.52 and indicate
that short distance travelling by train is not favoured by the African
population. A possible explanation for the decrease in traffic may
be that it is to a certain extent due to the universal trade depression
but this must be discounted by the fact that even in the boom years
the average passenger traffic per mile never attained the height
of 1921. A more probable explanation may be found in the
stabilisation of labour in the mining and cacao-producing areas,
its t endency to permanence rather than seasonal occurrence, the
failure of the Central Province Railvvay to attract passenger traffic
and road competition against the Kumasi-Accra section of the
main railway.
At the same time the following table of the goods tonnage
calTied by rail shows with the except ion of manganese, an essentially
THE GOLD COAST, I931. 111
railway goods item, the same tendency to decrease per mile of
railway open.
Year. Manganese. Cacao. Other Total.
Goods.
--- -
1921 ... ... 7,099 109,114 241,791 258,004
1922-3 ... 83,242 143,074 252,828 479,114
1923-4 ... 189,604 164,32~ 241,724 595,657
1924-5 ... 273,796 156,148 273,159 703,103
1925-6 ... 372,527 150,281 273,452 797,260
1926-7 ... 394,079 149,189 262,362 805,630
1927-8 ... 297,526 131,517 321,113 750,153
1928-9 ... 330,366 165,629 309,812 808,807
1929-30 .. . 507,075 139,462 285,692 932,229
1930-31 ... 39@,895 132,499 228,494 758,888
~
Reduced to a common factor the decrease in rail-borne traffic
compared to the mileage on the railways is even more apparent.
If the returns for the year 1921 be given the index figure 100 the
following comparative results are obtained :-
Mileage Tons of Tons of Tons of No. of
Year. Open. Manga- Cacao. Other Passen-
nese. Goods. gers.
----
1921 ... ... 100 100 100 100 100
1922-3 ... . .. 121 1,172 131 104 109
1923-4 ... ... 137 2,670 150 100 108
1924-5 '" ... 142 3,856 143 112 109
1925-6 ... ... 142 5,247 137 113 121
1926-7 ... ... 165 5,551 135 108 118
1927-8 ... ... 173 4,191 120 132 140
1928-9 ... ... 179 4,653 151 128 152
1929-30 ... ... 181 7,142 128 118 150
1930-31 ... ... 181 5,590 121 94 108
-
It will be readily seen that excepting for manganese and the
years 1922-23, 1923-24, 1924--25 for cacao the freight and passenger
calTied have' never shown a proportional increase to the increase
of open lines. At the same time the increase in population during
the decennial period has not been taken into consideration. In
1921 t he total number of passengers was 52 per cent of the total
population, whereas in 1931 that ratio had fallen to 42 per cent.
112 THE GOLD COAST, 193I.
This competition between road and mil is clearly indicated by
a return showing the decline in the percentage rate of rai l-borne
cacao to the full export . The figures are :-
Total Cacao Total Cacao Percentage of
Year. Exported. Carried by Total Cacao
Rail. Exported.
--- ---
1921 ... ... .. . 133,195 109,114 81.9
1922 (1st Qr.) ... 72,942 63,557 87 .1
1922-23 ... .. . 179,513 143,074 80.7
1923- 24 ... ... 197,434 164,329 83.1
1924-25 ... '" 219,867 156, 148 71.0
1925-26 .. . '" 214,250 150,281 70.1
1926-27 .. . ... 241,295 149,189 61.8
1927-28 ... ... 207,311 131,517 63,4
1928-29 ... ... 240,113 165,629 68.9
1929- 30 '" ... 206,585 139,462 67.5
1930-31 ... ... 227,185 132,499 58.3
For the calendar year 1930 the shipments port by port
show that of the total crop exported, approximately 22 per cent
went from ports not within the sphere of the railway, so that in
direct competition with the railway some 20 per cent was shipped.
The opening of the Central Province Railway, in spite of its cutting
the inland communication of the old ports of Cape Coast, Winneba
and Saltpond, has apparently had no effect on the latter, and
reasons for what would seem an uneconomic state of affairs must
be sought for.
The return of the port shipments are of a certain interest and '
are as follows :-
Other
Year. Accra. Ada. Cape Coast. Saltpond. Sekondi. Takoradi. Winneba. Ports inclu- Total.
ding over
land.
--
1921 ... 61,620 2,169 5,362 7,282 42,662 - 12,287 1,814 133,195
1922 .. . 78,974 2,686 6,230 6,412 45,400 - 16,092 3,511 159,305
:;l
f;l
1923 ... 90,494 2,707 8,194 10,618 60,516 - 21,009 4,126 197,664 <;)
o
r<
1924 ... 107 ,078 1,166 8,612 12,851 65,409 - 23,028 5,185 . 223,329 t1
()
o
1925 ... :>
105,328 1,122 8,999 13,466 60,890 - 22,739 5,607 218,151 ~
1926 ... H 101,535 860 7,194 12,897 80,478 - 22,039 5,837 230,840 ~ w
~
1927 ... 97,868 610 5,532 13,790 66,117 - 20,517 5,476 209,910
1928 .. . 91,403 199 7,751 15,845 70,508 8,571 24,501 6,299 225,077
1929 .. , 100,136 748 8,598 16,095 - 86,086 19,819 6,586 238,068
1930 ... 80,251 1,240 6,272 12,558 - 67,912 18,132 4,215 190,580
::Il ......
......
- --- - - ----- - -- <:.»
114 THE GOLD COAST , 193I .
"" hen the Railway was built its ra tes were such as materially
to cheapen transport as compared with head loading, and it was
then economical to forward goods in the highest class of th e Railway
classification by rail at 2s. 6d . per t on mile. But with in the b st
six or seven years the costs involved in the provision and the running
of internal combustion engines have decreased to such an extent
that m any lorries can convey goods at 6d. per ton m ile. The very
large increase in road mileage open t o motor traffic in the Colony
and in Ashanti has created the m eans for keen competition with
the railway at various points. The whole length of the Accra-
Kumasi section is parallelled by a road which for the greater par t
of the distance is in excellent condition . Roads al oin som e
instances provide a short rou te to a port as against a long haul by
a railway such being the case in the roads to Cape Coast, Saltpond
and Winneba from Foso and Oda on the Cent ral" Province line.
The road m otor vehicles are t o a very great exten t owned
by Africans or Syrians who usually obtain them on the hire purchase
system and who in many cases actually live in them . Their over-
head cost is to all inten ts nil, with the result that even the larger
m otor transport organisations find it difficult t o compete with
them. It is therefore pract ically inlpossible to quote rates in
competition with them since they are able to charge anything they
can get and whenever an instalment on their cars falls due their
rates are lowered to the smallest possible sum in order to obtain the
necessary funds to m eet its paym ent .
At the same time there enters a human factor which would
upset any calculation based on the usual western business methods.
The African in spite of his rapid development during the past few
years retains the age-old manner of commercial thinking common
t o t raders both of his own continent, eastern Europe and Asia.
H e has not yet passed beyond the stage of barter , and to him cer tain
goods readily exchangeable are as 'much currency as legally
permitted coins. Thus petrol, cigarettes, matches and similar
articles are as good as money to him so that when he is unable t o
borrow the latter he is almost invariably able to obtain the former
on credit. This traffi c is on the border line of criminality, but has
long been recognised and it might even seem that some of the larger
firms to a certain extent have come to acquiesce therein. In the
case of African lorry owners a trader who has advanced them cases
of petrol can soon recover the advance by receiving free use of the
lorry to the owner of which he has given the petrol. This sense
of barter and disregard of monetary values is even noticeable when
changing m oney. Five half-pence are 9ften, especially away
from the principal centres, offered for 3d., and fifty one-tenths
of a penny for sixpence. The commonest form , noticeable parti-
cularly in the la rge markets such as Accra, is the use of cigarettes.
In the stores they cost say 2s. 6d., but in the market place a similar
tin, just as fresh and in every way identical, can be bought for 2s. 3d.
110
The apparent loss of 3d. is recovered on other goods, and if this
cannot be done then the cigarettes are repaid by cigarettes of the
same quality and quantity, which have been" borrowed" from
some other merchant.
NOlmally these methods would result in the complete elimina-
tion from the transport industry of any such owner, and would only
occur in time of stringency or when the number of motor vehicles
available as common carriers was greater than the demand required.
But conditions are different in Africa. The lorry owner who is
quite frequently his own driver can always rely on his family and
his friends for shelter and sustenance; his clothing needs can be
reduced to a minute sum; he does not necessarily work every day.
He is almost entirely without overhead charges, and except to meet
the payment of the instalments on his lorries and running charges
has no need for money.
To a certain extent this is true of the African owner of a large
transport organisation. He employs his sons, nephews, cousins
and other members of the family, who are quite independent of the
usual expenses required for housing and food, since he will, if they
have none of their own provide that for them. A return of all
receipts to the owner is not strictly enforced nor expected, since
the laws of "meum" and" tuum "are not usually observed totheletter
in African family matters, and in exchange the owner has the
satisfaction of being regarded as an important person by his family
into whose chest most of the money derived from the business
will in the long run usually be poured. Until this family system
disappears, the apparently uneconomic method of the African lorry-
owners will enable them to fear no competition and to enter the
lists against the larger European Transport Firms with the benefit
of having no overhead charges to burden them or to impede their
activities.
Government itself has contributed to this state of affairs in
obedience to popular demands. The railways are completely
state-owned whereas the motor transport is generally privately
owned and makes use of state-constructed and state-maintained
roads. The latter moreover are heavily subsidised out of annl).al
revenue whereas the former is presumed not only to provide interest
on the capital outlay in this country, some £9,305,607, but to
provide for sinking fund and renewals.
Comparative figures showing over a quinquennial period,
1926-30, the relationship in the Gold Coast and other tropical African
colonies of motor traffic expenditure and revenue compared to the
revenue of the country, and the expenditure on roads are as
follows :-
HI
116 THE GOLD COAST, 193 1 .
! IP ercentage
Revenue IP ercentage Percentage of Revenue
deri ved of Motor I Total of Expen- from ~rotor
Total from Traffic Expendi- diture on Traffic
Colony. Revenue. Motor IRevenue toI ture on Roads to Expendi-traffic. Total Roads. Revenue. ture on
Revenue. Roads .
------ '--
N igeria ... 33,306,0 11 688,351 2.1 1 1,272,257 3.8 54.1
Nyasaland 1,847,301 51,971 2.8 135,966 7.4 38.2
Kenya ... 15,069,369 892,047 5.9 998,988 6.7 89.3
Uganda ... 7,296,344 203,33 1 2.8 616,175 8.4 3~.0
Tanganyika 9, 24,1,285 202,216 2.2 662,748 7.1 30.5
Gold Coast 23,094,791 716,434 3.1 1, 164,165 9.3 33.1
Another great factor which assists naturally the expansion
of motor traffic as against rail traffic is to be found in the conditions
which govern almost the whole of commerce in the Gold Coast.
These conditions are chiefly traditional and may be summarised
briefly as a t endency from time immemorial to regard the coast-line
as the market area for imported goods whilst the inland market has
been almost entirely left to develop itself . The possibility of buying
motor lorries on the hire purchase system has encouraged the petty
trader and the middleman at the expense of the retail purchaser;
and had it not been for the inordinate amount of wealth poured into
the country not only in the cacao boom but also in the preceding
rubber and concession selling booms, there is no doubt but that a
system of developing the inland market on an economically sounder
basis would have had to have been put into force. It is a curious
anomaly that the non-productive areas , of the coast-line enjoy
greater amenities than can be obtained in the prodnctive centres.
This pernicious system, if the world-wide trade weariness of
1930- 31 persists, must act as a serious brake on the rate of progress
of the country. It would seem unfair and apparently poor business
to sell a cloth at the coast-line fo r 17s. 6d., charge £1 I s. for it at
Kumasi, £l 6s. at Tamale and £1 7s. 6d. at Navrongo, when the
purchasers with most money or in the great est numbers live close
to the distributing points of Kumasi an d Navrongo. The
elimination of the middleman between the coast-line and the
distributing centre (or his disguised equivalent the local distribution
of local overhead charges), together with the spreading over the
whole market of the total transport costs of an article, instead of
making the single item bear its own individual charges, would
probably do more to revive trade and speed up development in
the Gold Coast t han any other measure . The sale of European
manufactured goods at a cheaper rate in the inland markets will
not only enable the productive population of the country to purchase
more, but will also bring their Co-operative Societies into direct
touch with the produce-buyers and at the same time increase to
an enormous extent the radius in which the middleman and petty
t rader can work.
'tHE GOLD COASt, 1931. 117
This distribution of transport charges over the 'whole market,
which presents enormous difficulties before being possible, 'would
be facilitated by the standardisation of values in the essentials of
distribution. With a standardised price for an article such as
petrol, it is self-evident how even distribution of transport charges
can be attained and those costings made to appear as ordinary
overhead charges, The first step towards this end was the
installation of the bulk reception of petrol at Takoradi in 1930,
and as soon as facilities for bulk delivery at the inland centres are
available the inevitable cheapening of imported goods will assuredly
bring about not only a great trade revival but a very rapid speeding
up of the march towards a higher cultural standard of living among
the peasant population,
Yet another factor which is often overlooked although it has
an important bearing on the attraction t owards the use of motor
cars rather than railways is the development of internal
communication by telephone. The effect would be noticeable
chiefly among passengers using the more expensive class of railway
accommodation, particularly 2nd class as the majority of the fi rst
class passenger are Government Servants or European non-officials .
Mileage No, of 1st No, of 2nd
Year. (railway) Class Index, Class Index,
Index, Passengers. Passengers. I
--
1921 ... 100 11,100 100 , 21,600 100
1922-23 ... 121 9,600 , 86 18,200 84
1923-24 ... 137 14,302 128 27,643 128
1924-25 ... 142 14,200 128 23,911 110
1925-26 ... 142 14,851 133 21,988 101
1926-27 ... 165 14,927 134 18,751 86
1927-28 ... 173 14,8 14 133 20,9 13 96
1928-29 ... 179 16,468 148 15,533 72
1929-30, .. 181 16,176 146 13,0 18 60
1930-31, .. I 181 12,213 110 8,306 38
Finally the general speeding up of trade has tended to divert
passengers from the railways. It has done much to abolish
the" dead" time wasted in long railway journeys and is shown
in the increase of the use of the telegraph and telephone systems,
and the accompanying table shows how Government has been
assisting this phase of the country's general development.
Telephone.
No. of Inland
Year. Exchanges. Public Paid Cable. Radio. Su bscribers. Offices. Telegrams. I ---
1921 4 258 14 308,911 19,3 18 1,434
1922-23 7 452 - 301,924 21,43 1 1,719
1923-24 8 464 - 293,091 21,542 1,701
1924-25 14 519 33 288,937 20,907 1,708
1925-26 17 578 41 321,960 20, 185 1)725
1926-27 24 628 54 3~4,298 22,418 2,292
1927-28 33 no 65 381,000 27,100 1,926
1928-29 49 926 87 392,441 29,400 2, 185
1929-30 59 J,051 95 410,859 27,600 3.053
1930- 31 71 1,152 115 337,226 25,000 2,772
118 THE GOLD COAST, I931.
Post Office Figures.
A close analysis of the above figures shows qui te clearly that
these facilities are used to a far greater extent by the African
population than by the non-African, and it is an interesting sidelight
on modern life in \~Test Africa that a telegram can be sent to an
African driver of a motor car directing him to consult the fetish
priest in the Tong Hills. It is difficult at times to reconcile things
in this country, the savage and his bow and arrows in all the wild
panoply of nakedness an d beads and coloured strings standing
side by side with the latest model of a car from Europe own d and
driven by, possibly, his own brother who is familiar alike with wire-
less and cinemas. The monetary transactions of the Post Office are
usually indicative of the prosperity or otherwise of a country and
in spite of the difference in the economic view-point of the Africans
t hey are so in the Gold Coast.
Money Orders. Postal Orders.
Year.
I ssued. Cashed. I ssu ed. Cashed.
>
£ £ £ £
1921 ' " ... 116,031 90,085 135,666 82,268
1922- 23 ... . .. 138,283 87,789 171 ,912 _ 95 ,816
1923- 24 ... ... 138,539 96,565 181,813 80,587
1924-25 ... . .. 141 ,439 101 ,0($1 199,760 91 ,953
1925- 26 '" .. . -155,629 115,396 208,828 98,729
1926- 27 ... .. . 175,481 128,840 229,612 110,827
1927- 28 ... . .. 225,711 171,044 285,135 129,625
17 28-29 ... ... 223,539 176,663 272,581 139,949
1929- 30 ... . .. 220,478 181,869 275,079 146,499
1930-3 1 ... ... 158,441 131,757 211,194 128,892
It has been usual to believe that the African of the Guinea
Coast has always been inclined to hoard his money. So frequen tly
has this been asserted that it has become generally accepted that
he is a miserly person. The figures of the Post Office Savings Bank
would not seem to bear this contention out, moreover there are
certain facts which seem to show that the contrary is the case, and
that in so far as money is concerned he is by no manner of means
a hoarder. It was and is only rational to presume that with no
pockets, no safes, no banks the easiest and most obvious place in
which to keep money was earth. Hence he buried and hence arose
the supposition that he was a hoarder if not a user.
The Savings Bank returns through the past decade of
,"xtraordinary prosperity are as follows :~
THE GOLD COAST, I93I. 119
No. of
Interest With- Accounts
Year. Deposit. on drawals. Open at Balance.
Deposit. end of
year.
£ £ £ £
1921 28,070 1,371 30,324 6,267 51,231
1922 30,328 1,393 31,386 5,253 51,ll6
1923 34,ll8 1,410 35,684 5,798 50,961
1924 39,620 1,436 37,310 6,317 54,707
1925 45,478 1,548 40,865 7,299 60,870
1926 50,692 1,702 44,759 8,369 68,505
1927 72,617 2,030 59,173 9,989 83,979
1928 76,762 2,299 72,280 ll,199 90,761
1929 81,260 2,489 76,149 12,361 98,361
1930 66,356 2,533 78,134 13,372 89,ll5
There are in 1931 seventy-five post-offices where banking
facilities are offered and these are established all over the country.
The sum of £89,ll5 does not indicate any great t endency to thrift
amongst a population of over 3,000,000 people. The idea of a
Savings Bank is not a new one. It was first established in 1887 ;
but the progress of the idea of saving money does not seem too
rapid. The same story is told by the two Banks which function
in the Gold Coast, but figures of the amount held on deposits by
them are of course not available in so far as local savings are
concerned.
Currency in Circulation.
The coinage in use in the Gold Coast is issued by the West
African Currency Board and consists of paper notes to the value
of 20s. and lOs., alloy coins of 2s., Is., 6d., and 3d., and nickel
coins of the value of Id., td., and 1/ 10d.
Silver was withdrawn from circulation in 1921 and has been
gradually sent to Great Britain to the total value of £2,590,000' I
leaving a balance in the country of some £3ll,200 (estimate) . There
has been issued a total of alloy coins to the value of approximately
£9,068,054, of which it is estimated there are some £4,240,584 in
the country, whilst the amount of nickel coinage in the Gold Coast
has been valued at £57,889.
Of paper money an estimate is difficult to reach. A very large
percentage is withdrawn from circulation as soon as issued; and
the amount in circulation varies according to seasons, so that the
figures taken in December and in September differ to a very large
extent. For instance in J anuary 1928 it was estimated that there
wa:; £7,112,763 in circulation as against £4,9H,742 in Se:ptembeJ;
120 THE GOLD COAST, 1931.
' 1928 and in December 1928, £6,578,201 as against £4,200,228 in
September of the following year. The explanation of this movement
up and down is to be found in the fact that the African population
not making use of the banks does not take advantage of the cheque
system, and thrs in spite of the large volume of business he handles.
However it can b e assumed that there is a sum approximating
£500,000 paper money in circulation, so that the total currency
required by the Gold Coast people for ordinary purposes amounts
to some £5,000,000. •
National Income.
It is permissible from the precedmg data to form an estimate of
the National Income of the country. Hitherto no such valuation has
ever been undertaken, nor until recently was it possible in a country
where monetary values were largely unknown. The following
estimate is admittedly tentative and is in every respect formed
on the most strictly conservative basis. It is an attempt to compute
in terms of sterling th e sum total of the joint incomes of all the
inhabitants of the Gold Coast and its dependencies, and being the
first ,,,,,ill probably for some time to come form the basis on which all
such estimates will be formed. The year 1930-31 is taken but the
value of the imports and export are mostly those of the calandar
year 1930. The usual divisions into two parts of such calculation
are observed, viz., the liberal professions and the productive agencies.
Estimate of the National Income of the Gold Coast 1930-31.
A.-External and Internal Trade:
£
1. Value of Domestic Products exported 9,910,688
2. Value of Imports less coin and bullion ... 8,507,458
3. Customs Receipts on Imports 1,854,435
4. Estimate of trading profits on 2 and 3 at 15 per
cent 1,554,283
5. Estimate tum-over through petty traders,
middlemen, etc., of 2, 3, 4 at 50 per cent 5,958,035
6. Railway receipts, goods and passengers 949,142
7. Posts, Telegraphs and Telephone receipts 11 3,824
8. Customs Receipts on Exports ... 258,892
9. Transport other than by rail of imports 250,000
10. Transport other than by rail of exports 100,000
11. Transport other than by rail of passengers 100,000
(9, 10, and 11 based on 50 per cent of value
estimated of 4,500 lorries at £200 each).
12. Inland trading not based on Import and Exports
(Building, local improvements, petty trading,
confectionery, etc.) 100,000
£30,556,757
THE GOLD COAST, 193]:. 121
B.-Liberal Professions: £
1. Government Servants 1,657,906
2. Government Servants, unskilled labour 350,000
3. Bankers, Dentists, Doctors, Lawyers, etc. 250,000
4. Missions (calculated on returns of expenditure) 250,000
5. Domestic Servants, etc. 50,000
Total Liberal Professions £2,557,906
C.-Agriculture and Forestry:
1. Cacao-labour estimate at 24,000,000 man days
at Is. 3d. to handle an annual crop of 240,000
ton 1,500,000
2. Cacao-brokerage at lOs. a ton ... 120,000
3. Cacao-handling at 5s. a ton 60,000
4. Other export crops-estimate 50 per cent of the
value of other crops exported. 182,500
5. Estimate of value of vegetable consumption at
2d. per diem per capital of population
3,160,386 9,612,640
6. Local consumption of timber estimated at
1,500,000 cu. ft. (Public Works 493,816) at
3s. per cu. ft. 225,000 III
7. Estimate of Labour for (6) at 20 per cent 45,000
8. Firewood (rail and mines) 96,000 tons at 20s .... 96,000 Ii
9. Fuel for local consumption at 1d. per diem per il
capita 4,806,320
10. Palm-wine and millet beer at 1d. per adult male
per diem (974,457) 1,471,900 ~
11. Calabashes at 3d., pots at 4d. at two per each 1
adult female per annum (931,726) 54,673
12. Mats, mattresses, fruits, hats, leatherware, ~
stools, furniture, shea-butter, dawa-dawa, etc., *I i
at 2s. per annum per capita of the population 316,038
£18,509,398
-----
D.-Fishing:
1. 3,000 canoe-loads (2,032 enumerated at principal
ports). 3 men per canoe. 200 days at lOs.
each 900,000
2. Sale of fish in markets, as above, + 20 per cent 1,080,000
3. New Canoes-income to makers thereof at 600
per anuum at £5 each ... 3,000
£1,983, 000
122 THE GOLD COAST, 1931.
E.-1Vleat Trade:
1. Value of Livestock imported overland 359,878
2. Sale of 23,391,740 Ibs. of locally killed meat
at Is. 1,169,587
3. Estimate of cost of droving and handling 35,987
4. Snails at td per diem per 'capita Ashanti popula-
tion 439,460
5. Fowls at 4 per capita of total adult popUlation
valued at Is. each 381,036
6. Local meat at 1 per cent of imported 11,695
£2,397,643
F.-Mining:
267 Europeans at £500 per annum 133,500
12,380 Africans at 2s. 6d. per diem 564,377
£697,877
G.-lltfoior Ind~tstry:
""'ages of 8,192 licensed Africans at £4 per month 393,216
Passengers carried at 10 per day each lorry
average fare 2s. about 4,000 lorries 1,460,000
£1,853,216
H. -MHnicipal Expenditlwe and Revenue abo,ttt 250,000
Abstract,
A. External and Internal Trade 30,556,757
B, Liberal Profession 2,557,906
C. Agriculture and Forestry 18,509,398
D. Fishing 1,983,000
E. Meat trade 2,397,643
F. Mining 697,877
G. Motor Industry 1,853,216
H. Municipal Revenue and Wages". 250,000
Total National Income ". £58,805,993
That total represents on an obvious under-estimate an average
income of £19 per head of the total population of the country.
It compares not unfavourably with the most recent estimate of the
national income of Great Britain £3,842,000,000 among a population
of approximately 43,500,000 or £88 pel," capita of the people,
THE GOLD COAST, 1931. 123
CHAPTER V.
THE CENSUS, 1931.
Preliminary Survey-Assistance freely given-Census
Ordinance-Date fixed-Cost of Census-Comparison with previous
Censuses-Abnormal increase due to immigl'ation-Reasons for this
movement-Density Returns-Zone of depopulousness-Sex and Age
Statistics-Marriage conditions-Status of women-Occupational
R eturns-A nalysis of Occupations-Female Occupations-Religion
and Education of the people.
The 1931 census was t he fifth census to be taken in the Gold
Coast. The ealliest took place in 1891 and had been followed by
further censuses at the end of every decennial period. Of these
the 1891 and 1901 censuses cannot fairly be compared with the
later ones as they covered only a portion of the present area of the
Gold Coast and its dependencies.
In 1891 the interior of the country was little known and a
considerable section had not been visited by Europeans
whilst in 1901 the rebellion in Ashanti could scarcely have assisted
so paciiic an undertaking as the enumeration of the population.
In each census report a greater degree of accuracy has been
claimed for the accompanying statistics than for previous figures.
The present is no exception; and it is only rational to presume that
the complete opening up of the country, its settled and prosperous
state, the absence, or nearly so, of suspicion of t he intentions
behind Government's desire to count the people and a greater
understanding of what was required have combined in the obtaining
of a result which can be considered as nearly accurate as possible
in a country where conditions are similar to those on the Gold Coast.
A majority of the c.ensus officers were of the opinion that the
figures collected by them are lower than they should have been
by from 2 per cent to 10 per cent . No particular reasons were given
for reaching this conclusion but it is probable that the knowledge
that reluctance to count any valuable property is common througn-
out the Gold Coast and that the necessity of taking the count over
a period of time automatically causes an error in the final compu-
tation prompted the expression of this fear. At the same time it
must not be forgotten that there was a certain inducement for chiefs
especially in the Colony to exaggerate. Not only do population
figures form the basis of representation in the Provincial Councils,
but they also usually provide the numQers on which 1;he issue ot
124 THE GOLD COAST, 1931.
gun permits, etc., are based and at the same time to certain chiefs,
especially the northern ones, an exaggeration of the number of
of one's subj ects adds glory and power to the monarch .
It may be safely assumed that the accuracy of the 1931 census
in so far as the actual numbers are concerned is greater than that
of any previous census. This cannot however be said of the details.
The analyses made lat er in this report will show how inaccurate
these latter unfortunately remain. •
The coun ting of the people appears to have been far simpler
in its execution than at previous censuses. It is interesting in this
respect to record the letter addressed at the time of the first census-
taking in the Gold Coast, in 1891, to the Chiefs whose people it was
desired to count and compare it with the laconic method of
announcing the same wish in 1931.
At the former date the Governor addressed the following
letter :-
" King,
The Queen has expressed a wish to know how many subjects
she has in the Gold Coast Protectorate, and has instructed
you to obtain this information for her and send it t o the District
Commissioner.
I ask you, therefore, to number the people of all the towns
and villages in your country, and when you have done this to
let the District Commissioner of . . know how many
males and how m any females you have in your country.
I understand the wa,y you couIlt your people is to divide
each town or village into companies, which are again sub-divided
into families. The heads of families are then directed to drop
into a calabash, or similar article provided for the purpose, a
grain of corn or a cowrie, according to the number of their
people-and that these calabashes are then collected and the
contents counted. You will, therefore, I know, have no
difficulty in doing what I ask you.
I wish you to clearly understand that I am not asking
you to do this in order to tax your people, or for any purpose
but your good. The Government in requiring this information
has no intention to tax you or interfere with your country, and
I only want the information to give to the Queen. As a loyal
King you will, I am sure, help me. You will see that it is for
your advantage that I should !rnow how many people belong
to your country in the same way that a shephered counts his
sheep to know how many look to him for protection and care.
In those of your towns where you have Hausas living,
you must not forget to include them in the numbers.
In order that you may be able to say how many males and
how many females you have, I wish you to give instructions
THE GOLD COAST, 1931. 125
that when the numbering takes place different ar ticles are t o
be used for each sex-that is to say, Indian Corn for males, and
CO\Hies or Kernels for females.
I am, King,
Your good Friend,
W. BRANDFORD GRIFFITH,
Governor. "
This method of counting by cowries or stones or similar
convenient articles WaS still in force in 1921 in certain areas but the
census recently taken seems to have dispensed with t hese substitutes
and educated persons 'were employed in their stead. All that was
considered necessary, apart from the usual courtesy letters to the
paramount chiefs, to inform the public of the intention of
Government was the following proclamation, which in order to
ensure its widest publicity was printed on red paper with black
lettering :-
No. 22. 1930.
NOTICE.
A Census of the Colony, Ashanti, the Northern Territories
and Togoland under British Mandate will be taken on Sunday,
the 26th April, 1931.
Similar arrangements will be made as in 1921, and full
particulars will be published in due course. Further
information can be obtained from Captain A. W. Norris,
Provincial Commissioner, P.O. Box No. 560, Accra (Telephone
No. 266 Accra).
G. C. DU BOULAY,
ACCRA, Acting Colon'ial Secretary.
14th October, 1930.
At the same time that this notice was published there began a
preliminary campaign to ascertain the number of houses there were
in every village and to locate t he smaller farm or hunting villages
which being more often than not of a temporary character are not
usually known to the commissioners of the districts wherein they
have been erected.
This early but very necessary enumeration of houses was
undertaken mainly by emissaries of the local Native Authorities
but in some cases by specially engaged clerks, who sent in their
returns on a form known as Form E which was drawn up as follows :-
FORM "E"
RETURN OF I NHABITED HOUSES OR COMPOUNDS AND ESTIMATED
POPULATION.
Province ........... ................. . Division .............................. .
Town or Village .. ... ... ... . .. ..... . District ....... ................. ..... ..
i26 THE GOLD COAST, 193 I.
,
Name of Occupier. Type of Building. 1_ __R_ e_m_a_rk_-s_. __
The printed instructions to these enumerators were at the
back and read :-
I NSTRUCTIONS.
(1) This form is to be used fo r all Towns, Villages and Hamlets
of all sizes.
(2) In the "Remarks" column should be shewn a fi gure,
estimating what is the population of the house or
compound: this need only b e shewn against each house
in the cases of towns which will be counted on census
day under Fonn " B " or Special Form " B."
In the cases of small villages and hamlets whi ch
will be taken on Form " A " a total figure may be shewn
for the whole lot, and m ore than one hamlet can be shewn
on a page.
(3) Enumerators in compiling Fonn " E " should, at the same
t ime, submit a rough estimate as to how many copies
of Form " C " and" D " will be required.
(4) A " compound" is to be taken as a building having its own
external or party wall s, no matter how it is divided up .
The Forms "c" and " D " referred to those which it was
intended to use ror Non-African statistics and the returns
employed for the registration of the religions of the people
respectively. Considerable difficulty was experienced, which for
some time to come it seems will be inevitable, about the defini-
t ion of the word "compound". In the Gold Coast and its
dependencies this term covers the whole gamut of inhabited houses
from the Castle of the Governor to the fortified buildings containing
possibly 100 or more persons, of the north, from the modern
bungalow of the rich African to the grass tent of the herdsmen.
The value of the return in its conception as a medical one to
ascertain housing conditions, over-crowding or otherwise, is in
the conditions prevailing on the Gold Coast, nil, but it forms the
only possible preliminary factor on which a census could be taken
in this count ry. Not only does it serve to familiarize the
enumerators with what is wanted from them, but it also enables
the district census officers to learn the whereabouts and the size
of the hamlets hidden off the beaten path.
r"HE GOLD COAST, 193I. 127
Hitherto a t each census an enabling ordinance ad hoc had
been enacted, but it was considered that from now on a definite
ordinance should be placed among the Statutes of the Colony and
with this end in view Ordinance No. 21 of 1930 was passed.
AN OR.DINANCE to make provision for taking a Census
of the inhabitants and livestock of the Colony as and
when required.
[19th D ecember, 1930. ] Date of com·
mencement
BE IT ENACTED by the Governor of the Gold Coast Colony,
with the advice and consent of the Legislative Council
thereof, as follows:-
1. This Ordinance may be cited as the Census Ordinance, Short title
1930 .
2. The Governor in Council may from time to time as Power to
he may think fit by Order direct a census to be taken of order census
the inhabitants and livestock of the Colony or any part
thereof specified in such Order.
3. (I) I t shall be lawful for the Governor to appoint a Appointment
of census
census officer, who, subject to the control of the Governor, officer, enume-
rators and
shall have the general supervision and management of the other officers
census, and shall a ppoint a sufficient number of persons duly
qualified to act as enumerators for taking the census and
also any other officers necessary for the purposes of carrying
this Ordinance into effect.
(2) Notice of the appointment of such en umerators and Gazetting of
appointments
any other officers shall be published in the Gazette.
4. The census ~fficer shall cause to be prepared and Preparation
printed, for the use of the persons to be employed in taking and issue of forms
a census, such forms and in struction s as he may deem and instructions
necessary, and in particular schedules to be filled up with
such details as the Governor may consider necessary in
order to insure, as far as possible, the completeness an d
accuracy of the census returns.
5. The enumerators and other persons employed under Penalty for
this Ordinance shall have authority to ask all persons all refusal to give infor-
such questions as may be necessary for obtaining any of mation
the particulars required by this Ordinance, and every person
refusing to answer , or knowingly giving a false answer
to any such question shall for every such refusal or false
answer be liable to a fin e not exceeding fi ve pounds.
6. Every person who- Penalty for"
(a) without lawful excuse refuses or neglects to fill in refusa l to fill in schedule
any schedule of deta il s as and when he may be of details
required by the census officer or any officer acting
on his behalf so to do; or
128 THE GOLD COAST, 193I.
(b) fills in a ny such schedule with detai ls which 11e
knows to be false; hall be liable to a fine not
exceeding five pounds.
Submission of 7. Upon the completion of any census, the census officer
an abstr;lct
of returns shall cause an abstract of the return to be furnished to the
to the
Governor Governor.
Similar Ordinances, Ashanti No. 9 of 1930, Northern Territories
No.5 of 1930 and British Sphere of Togoland No.4 of 1930 were
enacted to apply mutatis m~ttandis to these dependencies.
In accordance with sections 2 and 3 of the above Ordinance a
Government Notice to the effect that a census would be taken was
published on 23rd February 1931, couched in the following terms :-
No.2. 1931.
GOVERNMENT NOTICE.
A census of the Colony, Ashanti, Northern Territories and
Togoland under British Mandate, will be taken on Sunday the
26th April, 1931. Each occupier, or head of a house, will be required
to furnish a return of all people who slept in his or her house or
premises on that night.
2. imilar arrangements will be made by the Census Officers
as in 1921 and the forms on which the Census will be taken are as
follows :-
Form" A " for villages and small towns (Africans only)
Form" B " for certain selected large towns (Africans only)
Form" C" for all non-Africans •
Fonn " D " for collecting data as to Religions
Form " E " for inhabited houses.
3. F oods#tffs.-District Census Officers will take a Census
as to the price of the principal native foodstuffs on Census day, viz. ,
26th April.
4. Captain A. W. Norris has been appointed Census Officer,
with office at Accra (P.O. Box 560), and further information may
be obtained from him, or from any District Census Officer.
By His Excellency's Command,
W. J. A. JONES,
Acting Colonial Secretary.
COLON IAL SECRETARY'S OFFICE,
ACCRA,
23rd Febr~tary, 1931.
The forms referred to in the notice above were drawn up in the
following terms :-