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Producing a Received View of Gold Coast Elite Society? C.F. Hutchison's Pen Pictures of Modern Africans and African Celebrities1
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 May 2014
Extract
In the early 1920s British West Africa saw a flurry of colonial activity, in which the formation of the colonial state—originally started in this region in the 1870s—was brought to a higher plane. The introduction of Indirect Rule in the newly-amalgamated Nigeria by governor Frederick Lugard called for a rethinking of colonial political and administrative structures. Where before, the relatively small administrative units were dominated by Europeans and western-educated Africans, now the position and role of “traditional” leaders was enhanced on all levels of colonial government. Control over the economy came more and more into the hands of European businesses and business conglomerates, at the expense of African firms. As a result, relations between African elites, who had vested economic and political interests in the colonial states, and the growing European colonial establishment hardened.
In the case of the Gold Coast, the African urban coastal elite of merchants, educators, missionaries, and others faced an overwhelming onslaught of change and modernization in all parts of society. In many cases these changes undermined the elites' social status, as well as their political and economic position. One of the weapons in the battle between British colonial authorities and African urban elite society was the written word. Within this context, expert knowledge about African achievements, molded in the form of biographies, was the two-edged sword of African cultural nationalists of diverse plumage.
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- Copyright © African Studies Association 2006
Footnotes
1
This paper is a revised version of a paper presented at the AEGIS Conference in London on 29 June-2 July 2005, and leans heavily on the introduction of my book The Pen-Pictures of Modern Africans and African Celebrities by Charles Francis Hutchison: A Collective Biography of Elite Society in the Gold Coast Colony (Leiden, 2005). Research for this article was funded by NWO-WOTRO, The Netherlands Foundation for the Advancement of Tropical Research, as part of project W52-707: “The emergence of a professional and trading elite on the West African Coast, 1850-1950: a transnational perspective on family networks, ethnic identities, and the management of wealth and knowledge, with special reference to Lagos and the Gold Coast. “ Additional financial contributions were received from the Institute of Cultural Research Groningen (ICOG) and the Faculty of Arts, both of the University of Groningen.
References
2 Cf. Hopkins, A. G., An Economic History of West Africa (London, 1973)Google Scholar; Coleman, J. S., Nigeria: Background to Nationalism (Berkeley, 1958)Google Scholar.
3 Although Hutchison himself advertised and described a second volume, it was long uncertain if this book actually existed. Confirmation that the second volume was published came from a personal communication by the Hutchison family of Cape Coast, September 2005. The second volume contains biographies of “modern Africans and African celebrities” from the British West African colonies other than the Gold Coast (Nigeria, Sierra Leone, the Gambia). The publication of a new scholarly edition is currently a subject of negotiation.
4 For this information and other facts about his business activities recounted here see MacMillan, A., ed., The Red Book of West Africa. Historical and Descriptive, Commercial and Industrial, Facts, Figures & Resources (London, 1920), 212Google Scholar.
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9 See for a recent analysis of modernity and the state from a comparative African perspective Comaroff, John, “Governmentality, Materiality, Legality, Modernity: on the Colonial State in Africa” in Deutsch, Jan-Georg, Probst, Peter, and Schmidt, Heike, eds., African Modernities. Entangled Meanings in Current Debate (Oxford, 2002), 107–34Google Scholar, and specifically for the Gold Coast context Richard Rathbone, “West Africa: Modernity and Modernization” in ibid., 18-30.
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12 In this respect we also need to take into account is the role of domestic slaves in the social set-up of the Gold Coast towns and the importance of dependency, clientage, and patronage in relationships in these otherwise cosmopolitan, globalized, and open communities. Cf. Parker, John, Making the Town: Gã State and Society in Early Colonial Accra (Oxford, 2000), 60Google Scholar.
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16 Casely Hayford, “Genealogical History;” Parker, Making the Town. It must be noted here that where Casely Hayford describes the extreme complications in social relations in Cape Coast politics and elite society between the late eighteenth and the middle of the twentieth century very well, he is not completely successful in his efforts to analyze these relationships, because of a relative lack of contextualization. Parker provides this through discussions of parallel historical developments and a clear positioning of Accra in the wider world (Gold Coast, British colonial policies in West Africa, developments in the hinterland).
17 Important comprehensive monographs on the urban experience with colonialism elsewhere in sub-Sahara Africa which take this route, if all from different vantage points, include Bickford-Smith, V., Ethnic Pride and Racial Prejudice in Victorian Cape Town. Group Identity and Social Practice, 1875-1902 (Cambridge, 1995)Google Scholar; Martin, Phyllis M., Leisure and Society in Colonial Brazzaville (Cambridge, 1995)Google Scholar; Sheriff, Abdul, Slaves, Spices, and Ivory in Zanzibar. Integration of an East African Commercial Empire into the World Economy, 1770-1873 (London, 1987)Google Scholar; idem, and Ed Ferguson, eds., Zanzibar under Colonial Rule (London, 1991).
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19 He died in 1834. Jenkins, , “Gold Coast Historians,” 582–83Google Scholar, and sources mentioned there; Kimble, , Political History, 267–68Google Scholar; Dupuis, J., Journal of a Residence in Asbantee (2d ed.: London, 1966), ixGoogle Scholar; Bowdich, T. E., Mission from Cape Coast Castle to Asbantee (London, 1819Google Scholar, passim.
20 Career and personal information for the Cape Coast period can also be found on his gravestone in the wall of the Anglican Christ Church Cathedral in Cape Coast (inspected April 1995 and January 2003); cf. Jenkins, , “Gold Coast Historians,” 582Google Scholar; Ephson, I. S., Gallery of Gold Coast Celebrities, 1632-1958, 1 (1969)Google Scholar, republished with vols. 2 and 3 (1973 [date foreword vol. II]) (Accra, 1969-73), 1:50-52.
21 For a more detailed treatise on the Hutchison-Bartels family group and a more complete citation of sources see Doortmont, , Pen-Pictures, 17–25Google Scholar, and references given.
22 According to his biography in Pen-Pictures. At his death Robert Hutchison left an insolvent estate. However, it seems strange that in this situation his son was able and allowed to enter university at all. See PRAAD, SCT 5/4/297, Supreme Court Cape Coast, Insolvent Record Book, 1855-1873, nos. 56, 57, 59, dated 16 June 1864 and 7 February 1865.
23 Kimble, , Political History, 456Google Scholar; Jenkins, , “Gold Coast Historians,” 581–82Google Scholar, and sources mentioned there. Apparently he wrote a positive report on the foundation of a modern harbor at Takoradi, as his son refers specifically to the fact that by the time Pen-Pictures was published, this plan had finally come to fruition. Even today Takoradi Harbour is the second international port of Ghana after Tema.
24 Jenkins, , “Gold Coast Historians,” 581–82Google Scholar, and sources mentioned there; Gold Coast Leader (6 November 1909).
25 Kimble, , Political History, 546Google Scholar, mentions “an absence of over twenty years” on his returning to the Gold Coast in 1919 (cf. West Africa [30 August 1919]). W. F. Hutchison does not appear in the 1901 census for England and Wales, but he may of course have lived in Scotland at the time.
26 Jenkins, , “Gold Coast Historians,” 581–82Google Scholar.
27 R. C. C. Law, “Introduction” to idem., ed., From Slave Trade to ‘Legitimate’ Commerce: the Commercial Transition in Nineteenth-Century West Africa (Cambridge, 1995); P. E. Lovejoy and D. Richardson, “The Initial “Crisis of Adaptation”: The Impact of British Abolition on the Atlantic Slave Trade in West Africa, 1808-1820” in ibid, 32-56; Martin Lynn, “The West African Palm Oil Trade in the Nineteenth Century and the ‘Crisis of Adaptation’,” in ibid., 57-77; for figures see Lynn, , Commerce and Economic Change, 23, 30–31Google Scholar and passim.
28 Other names from this group are: J. Bannerman, G. K. Blankson, G. F. Cleland, F. C. Grant, and J. Sarbah; cf. Doortmont, ed., Fen-Pictures, passim.
29 On freemasonry and other societies and their meaning in nineteenth-century Gold Coast society see Hayford, Casely, “Genealogical History,” 180-81, 229–34Google Scholar; Hayford, A. L. Casely and Rathbone, R. “Politics, Families, and Freemasonry in the Colonial Gold Coast” in Ajayi, J. F. Ade and Peel, J. D. Y., eds., People and Empires in African History: Essays in Memory of Michael Crowder (London, 1992), 143–61Google Scholar.
30 Looking on the conversion to Christianity and the membership of mission churches in terms of “an act of modernity” set within a sociological and historical-theoretical rather than a theological framework seems to have received limited attention in the case of Ghana. In contrast, for Nigeria there has been a debate on the subject since the early 1970s: cf. Horton, R., “African Conversion,” Africa 41(1971), 85–108CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ifeka-Moller, C., “White Power: Social-Structure Factors in Conversion to Christianity, Eastern Nigeria, 1921-1966,” Canadian Journal of African Studies 8(1974), 55–72Google Scholar; Horton, R. and Peel, J. D. Y., “Conversion and Confusion: a Rejoinder on Christianity in Eastern Nigeria,” Canadian Journal of African Studies 10(1976), 481–98Google Scholar; Peel, J. D. Y., “The Pastor and the Babalawo: the Interaction of Religions in Nineteenth-Century Yorubaland,” Africa 60(1990), 338–69CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For Ghana there are efforts at a discussion of the historical and sociological context of conversion by Hayford, Casely, “Genealogical History,” 111–20Google Scholar, and Newell, S., Marita, or the Folly of Love, a Novel by A. Native (Leiden, 2002)Google Scholar, introduction.
31 With regard to African societies with a long history of overseas (Western) contacts, the notions “modernity” and “modern living” deserve further study. Rathbone, “West Africa.” provides a framework, emphasizing the necessity of a re-evaluation of the role of Africa and Africans in the shaping of the Atlantic world.
32 Lynn, , Commerce and Economic Change, 151–70Google Scholarpassim.
33 Cf. Kimble, , Political History, 93–98Google Scholar.
34 Ibid., 99-105.
35 Doortmont, Fen-Pictures; Kimble, Political History, 94n5.
36 Ibid., 255-56.
37 For the interpretation of what successful businesses were in this respect check MacMillan, Red Book, which lists a very different set of businesses active in the Gold Coast than Hutchison.
38 Kimble, Political History, chapter 9.
39 On the NCBWA see MacMillan, , Red Book, 140Google Scholar (group portrait); Kimble, Political History, chapter 10; Ephson, , Gallery, 3:231Google Scholar; Eluwa, G. I. C., “The National Congress of British West Africa: a Pioneer Nationalist Movement,” Tarikh 3/4(1969/1971), 12–21Google Scholar, and some later studies by the same author; Ebo, C., “The National Congress of British West Africa, 1920-1924: the Roots of Elitist Behaviour,” Ikenga 5(1981), 3–14Google Scholar.
40 A likely approach for further analysis would be to look at Gold Coast urban society in this era as an “imagined community,” for which see Anderson, Benedict, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (rev. ed.: London, 1991)Google Scholar.
41 See Boahen, A. A., Mfantsipim and the Making of Ghana: a Centenary History, 1876-1976 (Accra, 1996)Google Scholar.
42 I thank Stephanie Newell for her insightful contribution on the theme of “whiteness,” from which I derived this part of the argumentation. Cf. K. Sekyi, The Blinkards. A Comedy; and The Anglo-Fanti—A Short Story (1st ed.: Accra, 1915 and 1918)Google Scholar; S. Newell, personal communication, 3 June 2004.
43 Cf. Jones-Quartey, K. A. B., History, Politics and Early Press in Ghana: the Fictions and the Facts (Accra/Tema, 1975)Google Scholar; Newell, S., Literary Culture in Colonial Ghana: “How to Play the Game of Life” (Bloomington, 2002)Google Scholar.
44 In Yoruba historiography we find a strong tradition of translation and transliteration of eulogizing oral traditions into text format, unknown in Gold Coast literature. However, unlike Hutchison, these Yoruba examples always stay with the original subject matter, closely follow the original format, and address the same social groupings as the oral versions. Cf. Johnson, SamuelThe History of the Yorubas from the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the British Protectorate (London, 1921)Google Scholar, with analysis in Doortmont, M. R., “Recapturing the Past: Samuel Johnson and the Construction of Yoruba History” (PhD., Erasmus University/Rotterdam, 1994), 77–82Google Scholar, and other explicit examples in Akinyele, I. B., Iwe Itan Ibadan ati die ninu awon ilu agbaba re bi Iwo, Oshogbo, ati Ikirun (Ibadan, 1911)Google Scholar, and Akinyele, I. B., The Outlines of Ibadan History (Lagos, 1946)Google Scholar, with modern adaptation in Morgan, K., Akinyele's Outline History of Ibadan (revised and enlarged by Kemi Morgan, 3 vols.: Ibadan, n.d.)Google Scholar, and analysis of all texts in Falola, Toyin, “Kemi Morgan and the Second Reconstruction of Ibadan History,” HA 18(1991), 93–112Google Scholar.
45 Namely, set in the various traditions of praise-singing for the chiefs and other rulers of precolonial West African states and communities (cf. e.g., Barber, Karin, I Could Speak until Tomorrow: Oriki, Women, and the Past in a Yoruba Town [London, 1991])Google Scholar; Doortmont, “Recapturing the Past”).
46 Armistead, W., A Tribute for the Negro: Being a Vindication of the Moral, Intellectual, and Religious Capabilities of the Coloured Portion of Mankind (Manchester, 1848)Google Scholar; H. G. Adams, God's Image in Ebony: Being a Series of Biographical Sketches, Pacts, Anecdotes, etc. Demonstrative of the Mental Powers and Intellectual Capacities of the Negro Race. Edited by H.G. Adams, with a Brief Sketch of the Anti-Slavery Movement in America, by F. W. Chesson, and a Concluding Chapter of Additional Evidence Communicated by Wilson Armistead (London, 1854).
47 These originally appeared mainly in the form of society news and obituaries in the Sierra Leone, Gold Coast, and Nigerian newspaper press, but soon also in book format (cf. Doortmont, “Recapturing the Past;” Jenkins, “Gold Coast Historians;” Newell, Marita.
48 Newell, , Literary Culture, 135–56Google Scholar.
49 Smiles, Samuel, Self-Help. With Illustrations of Character and Conduct (London, 1859)Google Scholar; the latest recorded edition is from 2002.
50 Newell, , Literary Culture, 90Google Scholar.
51 Atto-Ahuma, S. R. B., Memoirs of West African Celebrities, Europe &c. (1700-1850), with Special Reference to the Gold Coast (Liverpool, 1905)Google Scholar. Like J. E. Casely Hayford and J. Mensah Sarbah, Attoh-Ahuma dealt with Gold Coast nationalism in his writings: cf. Attoh-Ahuma, S. R. B., The Gold Coast Nation and National Consciousness (Liverpool, 1911; 2d ed.: London, 1971)Google Scholar.
52 Newell, Literary Culture, chapter 7, concentrates on the development of the biographical tradition through fiction, which brings her to Hayford, J. E. Casely, Ethiopia Unbound. Studies in Race Emancipation (London, 1911)Google Scholar.
53 E.g., ibid., 141. Most strikingly Eurocentric is Gollock, G. A., Lives of Eminent Africans (London, 1928)Google Scholar, partly because in contrast to Smith, E. W., Aggrey of Africa: a Study in Black and White (London, 1929)Google Scholar, and Hutchison. Attoh-Ahuma, Memoirs, was strongly positioned in the missionary camp.
54 Sampson, M. J., Gold Coast Men of Affairs, Past and Present (London, 1969), 46Google Scholar; preface dated Winneba, October 1932. The 1969 edition of the book is a facsimile reprint of the first (1937) edition.
55 Ephson, , Gallery, 3:264–66Google Scholar.
56 son, Samp, Gold Coast Men of Affairs (London, 1937), 41–42Google Scholar.
57 Doortmont, , Pen-Pictures, 55Google Scholar.
58 Sampson, , Gold Coast Men of Affairs, 41–46Google Scholar.
59 Ibid., 9-38.
60 As it stands, very little research seems to have been undertaken in this field.
61 I wish to thank Larry Yarak and Stephanie Newell for their important contributions to this section, which to my mind can form the basis for a research project in its own right.
62 Ephson, Gallery, passim
63 Ibid., 1, preface
64 Interviews held in Ghana with multiple informants, 1995-2005. References available in the online Gold Coast Data Base (http://odur.let.rug.nl/~doortmonnTNG).