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The “Elmina Note:” Myth and Reality in Asante-Dutch Relations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 May 2014

Larry W. Yarak
Larry W. Yarak*
Affiliation:
Texas A&M University
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Extract

One of the more perplexing issues in the history of Asante's relations with the Europeans on the nineteenth-century Gold Coast has been that of the origin and significance of the so-called “Elmina Note,” the pay document which authorized the Asantehene to collect two ounces of gold (or its equivalent in trade goods) per month from the Dutch authorities at Elmina. Not only have modern historians of Ghana evidenced no small amount of confusion on this matter, but during 1870/71 the Asantehene, the British, and the Dutch also disagreed strongly over the political significance of the note, as the Dutch negotiated to cede their “possessions” on the Gold Coast to the British. Failure to resolve these disagreements contributed significantly to the Asante decision to invade the British “protected” territories in 1873. This action in turn led to the British invasion of Asante in 1874, which most historians agree constitutes a critical watershed in Asante history. Clearly, the matter of the “Elmina Note” (or kostbrief as it was known to the Dutch) is one of some historical and historiographical importance. An examination of the relevant Dutch, Danish, and British documentation now makes possible a resolution of the major questions concerning its origin and meaning.

The debates between the Asante, the British, and the Dutch show that in the later nineteenth century there was considerable agreement over certain issues: first, no one disputed that the Dutch had for some time past paid to the Asantehene (actually to an envoy dispatched by the king to Elmina) a stipend (or kostgeld, as the Dutch termed it) of two ounces of gold per month, or twentyfour ounces per year.

Type
Research Article
Information
History in Africa , Volume 13 , 1986 , pp. 363 - 382
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1986

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References

Notes

1. Financial support for the research on which this paper is based was generously provided by the Asante Collective Biography Project (directed by Ivor Wilks and T.C. McCaskie), the Social Science Research Council, and the Fulbright-Hays program of the Department of Education. I would like to thank Brenda Blair, John Rowe and Ivor Wilks for reading and commenting on earlier drafts of this paper. Any remaining defects are of course my own.

2. The term “stipend” is used here in a strictly neutral sense to denote “regular payment of a stipulated amount by one party to another,” without connotations as to the significance of such payment.

3. This represented 80 Dutch florins (abbrev., fl.) or fl. 960 on an annual basis. During the eighteenth and most of the nineteenth century, this was a nominal figure; the actual cost to the Dutch was less than the stipulated amount because they paid the stipend in trade goods, charging the retail cost of the goods against the amount owed, while their actual expenditure for the goods was of course substantially less. For a brief period in the early nineteenth century and after 1859 the Dutch authorities stopped this practice and paid the Asantehene's envoys the full amount due. See Yarak, L.W., “Asante and the Dutch: A Case Study in the History of Asante Administration, 1744-1873” (Ph.D., Northwestern University, 1983), 128-30, 136, 164.Google Scholar

4. Handelingen der Staten-Generaal (Dutch Parliamentary Papers--hereafter HSG)1873-74, Bijlagen 156.34: Kofi Kakari to Ussher dd. Kumase 24 November 1870. Language as in original. See also Crooks, J., Records Relating to the Gold Coast Settlements From 1750 to 1874 (Dublin, 1923), 389–90.Google Scholar The HSG version is slightly, but not substantially, different from that found in Crooks.

5. British Parliamentary Papers (hereafter BPP), C.670, A&P (1872) LXX: Nagtglas to Ussher dd. 20 December 1870 (extracted in Metcalfe, G., ed., Great Britain and Ghana: Documents of Ghana History [London, 1964], 333).Google Scholar

6. Ibid. This part of Nagtglas' letter is not included in Metcalfe's extract, but may be found in the version published in Crooks, , Records, 391–93.Google Scholar

7. This point was raised by the British Colonial Office in correspondence with the Foreign Office about the execution of the transfer; it requested that “the Dutch government should procure…the renunciation of the claim of the king of Ashantee to Elmina” before proceeding with the cession; see BPP, C.670, A&P (1872) LXX: Colonial Office to Foreign Office dd. London 3 February 1871 (Metcalfe, , Documents, 333Google Scholar).

8. See e.g., Ivor, Wilks, Asante in the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge, 1975), 233–34Google Scholar, where it is argued that the document was “spurious.” Adjaye, J.K., Diplomacy and Diplomats in Nineteenth Century Asante (New York, 1984), 190–91Google Scholar, adopts a similar position. By contrast, Coombs, Douglas, “The Place of the ‘Certificate of Apologie’ in Chanaian History,” Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana, 3/3 (1958)Google Scholar; the same author's The Gold Coast, Britain, and the Netherlands, 1850-1874 (London, 1963Google Scholar), chapter 4; and Baesjou, R., An Asante Embassy on the Gold Coast: The Mission of Akyempon Yaw to Elmina 1869-1872 (Leiden, 1979), 40Google Scholar, take the opposite view. As Coombs notes (Gold Coast, 102), the idea that the Certificate was a “forgery” dated from at least 1874. For a copy of the Certificate itself, see HSG 1873-74, Bijlagen 156.40.

9. See Kofi Kakari's letter to the Dutch governor dd. 19 August 1871 translated in Baesjou, , Asante Embassy, 155–58Google Scholar; and BPP, C. 890 (1874) LXVI, Kofi Kakari to Harley dd. Kumase 20 March 1873 (extracted in Metcalfe, , Documents, 349Google Scholar).

10. Ellis, A.B., A History of the Gold Coast of West Africa (London, 1893), 88Google Scholar; Claridge, W.W., A History of the Gold Coast and Ashanti (2 vols.: London, 1915), 1:198.Google ScholarWard, W.E.F., A History of Ghana (2d ed.: London, 1958), 122–23Google Scholar; in ibid., 245 Ward makes the further claim that the Elminas themselves paid tribute to Asante prior to 1872, but I have found no evidence whatsoever to corroborate this.

11. Claridge, , History, 1:198.Google Scholar

12. Coombs, , Gold Coast, 8.Google Scholar

13. Daaku, K., Trade and Politics on the Gold Coast, 1600-1720 (London, 1969), 69–70.Google Scholar

14. Ibid., 67.

15. Feinberg, H., review of Daaku, Trade, in African Historical Studies, 4 (1971), 722.Google Scholar Cf. Feinberg, H.M., “Elmina, Ghana: A History of Its Development and Relationship with the Dutch in the Eighteenth Century” (Ph.D., Boston University, 1969), 150.Google Scholar

16. Wilks, , Asante, 132–33.Google Scholar

17. Feinberg, H., “There was an Elmina Note, But…,” International Journal of African Historical Studies, 9 (1976), 618–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

18. Wilks, Ivor, “The Rise of the Akwamu Empire, 1650-1710,” Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana, 3/2 (1957), 104.Google Scholar See also Daaku, , Trade, 57.Google Scholar

19. Algemeen Rijksarchief (Dutch National Archives--hereafter ARA), The Hague, Archief van de Tweede West Indische Compagnie (hereafter WIC) 98: de la Palma to Council dd. Elmina 10 October 1703, enclosure Y.

20. ARA, WIC 126: Minutes of Council dd. 15 May 1732, as translated in van Dantzig, Albert, The Dutch and the Guinea Coast, 1674-1742 (Legon, 1978), 271.Google Scholar

21. Ibid.

22. For a brief account, see Kwamena-Poh, M., Government and Politics in the Akuapem State, 1730-1850 (London, 1973), 76–77.Google Scholar

23. Rømer, L., Tilforladelig Efterrentning om Kysten Guinea (Copenhagen, 1760), 188–89.Google Scholar I have used Bertelsen's, K. translation of this passage (The Coast of Guinea [Legon, 1965], 31)Google Scholar, adding the original Danish word that she rendered as “rent.” See also Nørregard, Georg, Danish Settlements in West Africa, 1658-1850, tr. Mammen, S. (Boston, 1966), 104.Google Scholar

24. Rømer, , Tilforladelig, 189 (Bertelsen translation, 32).Google Scholar

25. The issues here are complex. With regard to the European view of the matter, it is noteworthy that the English recorded their payments specifically as “ground rent” as early as 1752 (Public Record Office [hereafter PRO], London, Treasury Papers 70/977: James Fort Day Books, entry for 1 November 1752; I am grateful to R.A. Kea for this reference). Throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the Dutch used the term kostgeld (literally, “board money”) to describe their rent payments; this may have derived from their usage in Asia, where the Dutch East Indies Company established similar relationships with the indigenous authorities of Java early in the seventeenth century (see Klompmaker, H., Handel in de Gouden Eeuw [Bossum, 1966], 39–40Google Scholar). In the eighteenth century the Danes employed the term afgift (literally, “tax”), as shown by Rømer's account cited above. By the early nineteenth century the “ground rent” connotation of the payments was still quite clear to English officials and traders on the coast; see Robertson, G., Notes on Africa (London, 1819), 181Google Scholar; Hutton, William, A Voyage to Africa (London, 1821), 263n.Google Scholar; Dupuis, Joseph, Journal of a Residence in Ashantee (London, 1824), i–ii.CrossRefGoogle Scholar The evolution of Dutch thinking on the political meaning of the payments is discussed further below. With regard to the Asante perspective, it is clear that the European concept of “rent” was alien to Asante perceptions of rights in lands held by subject peoples, such as those at the coast. These rights derived from Asante notions of political sovereignty rather than private property; thus the regular payments in respect of its sovereignty in imperial lands were logically included in the category of “tribute.” As Wilks has argued, “the Asante government regarded the British, Dutch and Danish establishments on the Gold Coast as falling within the class of tributaries;” Wilks, , Asante, 68.Google Scholar The following statement by Asantehene Osei Tutu Kwame (1804-1823) recorded in 1820 gives some indication of his view of the significance of the European payments: “White man come to my country to trade… They build castles and houses to live in; they stay as long as they like, then take the gold and go home again… The forts are mine, because I hold the books (notes), but don't say they belong to me to keep. I say they stand in my country to trade with my people.” Dupuis, , Journal, 146.Google Scholar Cf. Bowdich, T.E., Mission from Cape Coast Castle to Ashantee (London, 1819), 44, 68–69.Google Scholar

26. ARA, Archief van het Ministerie van Koloniën (hereafter MK) 3986: Daendels to Minister dd. Elmina 23 March 1816. The sum fl. 5,000 represented what was owed to the Asantehene for 62 1/2 months, thus presumably spanning the years 1811-1815, plus the first 2 1/2 months of 1816, i.e., up to the time of Daendels' writing.

27. ARA, MK 3983: Minutes of Council dd. Elmina 19 April 1816.

28. ARA, Archief van de Nederlandsche Bezittingen ter Kuste van Guinea (hereafter NBKG) 349: Elmina Journal, entry for 25 April 1816.

29. See Daendels, H.W., Journal and Correspondence (Legon, 1964), 94–95Google Scholar, “Instructions for Mr. Huydecoper” dd. Elmina 26 April 1816; ARA, MK 3986: General State of Finances dd. Elmina 29 June 1816, entry for 27 April 1816.

30. ARA, MK 3983: Minutes of Council dd. Elmina 30 May 1817; ARA, NBKG 501: Roelossen to Daendels dd. Accra 12 June 1817.

31. ARA, NBKG 350: Osei Tutu Kwame to Daendels dd. Kumase 17 April 1817. My translation.

32. Ibid., Osei Tutu Kwame to Daendels dd. 6 December 1817. A year later the Dutch issued one new note; ARA, NBKG 351: Elmina Journal, entry for 25 November 1818.

33. ARA, MK 3983: Minutes of Council dd. Elmina 30 May 1817.

34. This implicit rejection of the conquest origin of the kostgeld was made explicit by Daendels' successor Frans Oldenburg when in 1818 the king's envoy pressed for the last time for payment of two distinct kostgelds; see ARA, NBKG 351: Elmina Journal, entry for 6 November 1818. It is also interesting to note that Daendels refused to salute the entry of Kwadwo Aberante into the Dutch fort with seven cannon shots, as the Asante envoy had been accustomed to receive at Accra. The evidence indicates that the king's kostgeld collectors had indeed received such an honor in the late 1790s; see ARA, NBKG 189: Sinninghe to Bartels dd. Accra 25 October 1798.

35. The reasons for the Asantehene's failure to press further for the Accra stipend are not difficult to discern. First, the king was absorbed from early 1818 with a serious rebellion in the province of Gyaman. Secondly, the appropriate retaliatory measure for Dutch failure to pay kostgeld--cessation of trade with the Dutch at Accra--held little promise of success, for trade at the port had long been in decline; there was also the possibility that such an act might jeopardize trade at Elmina, which had become a crucial source of guns, powder, and lead since Daendels' arrival there in 1816.

36. Copies of the Fante notes transferred to Osei Tutu Kwame in 1817 may be found in PRO, Colonial Office (hereafter CO) 2/11, ff. 103-04.

37. Bowdich, Mission, passim.

38. L.W. Yarak, “Elmina and Greater Asante in the Nineteenth Century,” Africa, forthcoming.

39. Yarak, “Asante and the Dutch,” chapter 5, develops this theme in greater detail.

40. Bowdich, , Mission, 71–72.Google Scholar Bowdich's story was repeated by Brodie Cruickshank in his Eighteen Years on the Gold Coast (2 vols.: London, 1853), 1:51–52.Google Scholar Significantly, this work was translated into Dutch in 1855 as Achttien Jaren aan de Goudkust, tr. Weijtingh, D. (2 vols.: Amsterdam, 1855).Google Scholar

41. Yarak, “Elmina.”

42. Ibid.

43. Wilks, , Asante, 234Google Scholar; Adjaye, , Diplomacy, 190–91.Google Scholar

44. ARA, NBKG 117: Schadde to Ulsen, Accra n.d. (but received at Elmina 8 January 1756).

45. Ibid., Ulsen to Schadde dd. Elmina 21 January 1756.

46. See Yarak, L.W., “The Dutch-Elmina Peace Initiative of 1754-1758,” Asantesem: The Asante Collective Biography Project Bulletin, no. 7 (June, 1977), 26–31.Google Scholar

47. ARA, NBKG 120: van Blydenberg to Huydecoper dd. Accra 22 August 1759.

48. Ibid.

49. ARA, NBKG 123: van Blydenberg to Erasmi dd. Accra 9 April 1762.

50. Briefly described in Claridge, , History, 1:216–18.Google Scholar See also Crooks, Joseph, Records Relating to the Gold Coast Settlements from 1750 to 1874 (Dublin, 1923), 47–68.Google Scholar

51. Crooks, , Records, 74–75.Google Scholar

52. ARA, NBKG 150: van der Peuye to Woortman dd. Accra 11 October 1779.

53. ARA, NBKG 160: Lieftinck to van der Grijp dd. Elmina 29 May 1788. Lieftinck was on temporary leave from his post at Accra.

54. Ibid., van der Grijp to Lieftinck dd. Elmina 1 June 1788.

55. See Daendels, , Journal, 95–96Google Scholar, “Instructions for Mr. Juyde-coper” dd. 26 April 1816, which documents his efforts to encourage the Asantehene to rebuild the “great-road” between Elmina and Kumase via Wasa. Daendels' previous career in the Dutch East Indies was also characterized by a strong concern for road building and maintenance; see Nieuw Nederlandsch Biografisch Woordenboek, vol. 1 (Leiden, 1911)Google Scholar, entry “Daendels (Herman Willem),” col. 670.

56. ARA, NBKG 357: Elmina Journal, entry to 12 January 1829.

57. Ibid., entry for 30 May 1829.

58. ARA, NBKG 360: Elmina Journal, entry to 29 November 1831.

59. ARA, NBKG 769: Correspondence with the Merchants' Council, Minutes of a Meeting dd. Elmina 27 November 1834.

60. ARA, NBKG 361: Elmina Journal, entry for 16 December 1834. Typical of the cost to the Dutch government of the kostgeld at this time was the fl. 751.25 paid for the year 1835; see MK 4005: Lans to Minister dd. Elmina 23 April 1836, enclosure: Trade Tolls Accounts (Rekognitie Kas), credit entry for 16 March 1835.

61. A brief account of the military recruitment effort may be found in van Dantzig, Albert, “The Dutch Military Recruitment Agency in Kumasi,” Ghana Notes and Queries, no. 8 (1966), 21–24.Google Scholar See also Baesjou, , Asante Embassy, 23–26.Google Scholar

62. ARA, MK 4012: Accounts of the African Recruitment Depot, credit entry for 16 November 1841.

63. ARA, NBKG 365: Elmina Journal, entry for 28 January 1843; NBKG 923: Financial Documents, receipt dd. Elmina 24 August 1845.

64. ARA, NBKG 367: Elmina Journal, entry for 29 August 1853; NBKG 715: Schomerus to Minister (confidential) dd. Elmina 6 September 1853. It is interesting to note that it was about this time that Dutch officials began referring to the kostgeld as the Asantehene's “salary” (tractement) or “subsistence” (onderstand).

65. ARA, Archief van het Ministerie van Kolonien 1850-1900 (hereafter MK[II]) 293: Minister to Schomerus dd. 's-Gravenhage 5 November 1853.

66. ARA, NBKG 394: Schomerus to Minister dd. Elmina 9 August 1854.

67. ARA, NBKG 852: Ledger of Expenditures, entry for 2 October 1860.

68. Ramseyer, Franz and Kühne, Johann, Vier Jahre in Asante (Basel, 1875), 121Google Scholar (cf. the English edition, Four Years in Ashantee [New York, 1875], 129).Google Scholar See also Kofi Kakari's letter to Nagtglas dd. Kumase 19 August 1871 (translated in Baesjou, , Asante Embassy, 156Google Scholar).

69. M. Reynhout, “Redevoering, gehouden op den 11 van Slagtmaand 1824…beheizende kruid- en geschiedkundige waarnemingen emtrent de Goudkust;” a copy of this document may be found in the library of the Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Landen Volkenkunde, at the University of Leiden, the Netherlands. Reynhout was apparently the major source of information about the Dutch possessions and their hinterland used by Bowdich in his Mission to Ashantee; see pp. 165-215 and 219 of that work. The notion that the kostgeld payments in effect “bought” peace and protection for the Europeans on the coast was alluded to even earlier in an official dispatch from the Dutch governor; see ARA, Archief van het West Indisch Comité 94: Bartels and de Wit to Committee dd. Elmina 25 August 1799.

70. Gramberg, Jan, Sketsen van Afrika's Westkust (Amsterdam, 1861), 343–44Google Scholar; idem., “De Goudkust,” De Gids (1866), 399.

71. Gramberg, , “Goudkust,” 401.Google Scholar Governor Nagtglas actually proposed this idea to the Minister of Colonies in 1869: ARA, MK(II) 6007: verbaal 30 September 1869, enclosure: Nagtglas to Minister dd. Elmina 7 September 1869. It seems however that the difficulties surrounding Asante envoy Akyampon Yaw's stay in Elmina during 1869/70 prevented the execution of this plan, and the decision to cede the forts to the British rendered the question moot.

72. Gramberg, , “Goudkust,” 399.Google Scholar

73. ARA, NBKG 544: Statement of the Elmina Government dd. Elmina 12 September 1853. It should be noted however that the Elmina authorities rejected these connotations: “[The Fantes] further accuse that our Government (Dutch) pay allowance to Ashantee King, which thing, they consider us to do this to beg that king so as to be free from suffering his terror-. We have ever defended that such is only for trade and not for anything else…”

74. Horton, J.A.B., Letters on the Political Condition of the Gold Coast (London, 1870), 96n.Google Scholar Cf. PRO, CO 879/2: Ussher to Kennedy dd. Cape Coast 6 April 1868.

75. Feinberg, , “Elmina, Ghana,” 150–54.Google Scholar