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Examining Text Sediments–Commending a Pioneer Historian as an “African Herodotus”: On the Making of the New Annotated Edition of C.C. Reindorf's History of the Gold Coast and Asante1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 May 2014

Heinz Hauser-Renner
Heinz Hauser-Renner*
Affiliation:
University of Zürich
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Extract

In 1995 Paul Jenkins, the former Basel Mission archivist, called my attention to Carl Christian Reindorf's Ga manuscripts kept at the archives in Basel, knowing that I had lived and worked in Ghana in the 1980s and that I was able to speak, read, and write the Gã language of Accra and its neigborhood. Of course I already knew Reindorf and his monumental History of the Gold Coast and Asante published in 1895 in English, as I had written my M.A. thesis on late-nineteenth-century Asante history, and moreover I was very much interested in Gã history. Reindorf's massive, substantive, and systematic work about the people of modern southern Ghana may be considered a pioneering intellectual achievement because it was one of the first large-scale historical work about an African region written by an African, and it was highly innovative, including both written sources and oral historical narratives and new methods for the reconstruction of African history. The book has excited interest ever since it first appeared 110 years ago because it contains an unrivaled wealth of information on the history and culture of southern Ghana.

A preliminary glimpse at the two heaps of folios wrapped with linen ropes at the archives showed that the manuscripts-none of them were dated–contained two different versions of the English History. That day, when I first laid my hands on the brownish, carefully folded papers, I was not aware that I was to embark on an intensive period of arduous transcribing and translating work (sometimes “lost in translation”), breathtaking archival investigations in Basel, London, and Accra, and of an exciting text/context research (unearthing sources, excavating informants, examining sediments/versions).

Type
Research Article
Information
History in Africa , Volume 35 , January 2008 , pp. 231 - 299
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 2008

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Footnotes

1

The present paper and the new edition of Carl Christian Reindorf's History of the Gold Coast and Asante (Basel, 1895; hereafter History) were made possible by a grant from the Swiss National Fund (SNF). The SNF supported me with a two-year scholarship, and financial support for research stays in Ghana and the UK.

References

2 Basel Mission Archives (henceforth BMA) D-20.27 (D.I.g.3a). Carl Christian Reindorf, Shika-Ŋshnaa lε kε Ashante. Blemasane ni anyie blemasaji ni agba kε naabu titri ke saji ni arjma hu no aŊma lε, Ni ji saji ni eba jeŊ miinshe afii ohai ete mli: kεjε afi 1500 lε n kεyashi afi 1856 l (Gold Coast n.d. [1891]). [hereafter Gã MS (1891)]; BMA D-20.26 (D.I.g.3). Carl Christian Reindorf, Shika-Ŋshnaa l k Ashante. Blema saji ni ba y afii 50 mli. Kj afi 1800 kyashi 1854. (Gold Coast, n.d [1912])—hereafter Gã MS (1912).

3 Aaron Belisarius Cosimo Sibthorpe, cite, in Fyfe, Christopher, “A.B.C. Sibthorpe: a Tribute,” HA 19(1992), 327Google Scholar.

4 Hrbek, I., “Written sources from the fifteenth century onwards,” General History of Africa (Berkeley, 1981), 1:133Google Scholar.

5 Fyfe, , “A.B.C. Sibthorpe,” 327–52Google Scholar.

6 Jenkins, Paul, ed., The Recovery of the West African Past: African Pastors and African History in the Nineteenth Century: C.C. Reindorf & Samuel Johnson (Basel, 1998)Google Scholar.

7 See e.g. Fage, J.D., “The Development of African Historiography,” General History of Africa (Berkeley, 1981), 1:38–39Google Scholar; Fuchs, Eckhardt and Stuchtey, Benedikt, Across Cultural Borders. Historiography in Global Perspective (New York, 2002), 8Google Scholar. With these scholars one must ask what an “amateur” historian is.

8 E.g., in the South African weekly newspaper Isidigimi Sama Xosa (The Xhosa Messenger), published between 1870 and 1880 by John Tengo Jabavu (1859-1921), appeared a collection of Xhosa historical traditions by William Wellington Gqoba (1840-1888). The same is true for the Gold Coast context. There are several historiographical texts by various authors in contemporary newspapers between the 1850s and the end of the century. What about unpublished historiographies repining as manuscripts in the mission archives?

9 Horton, James Africanus Beale, West African Countries and People, British and Native, with the Requirements necessary for establishing that Self Government recommended by the Committee of the House of Commons, 1865; and a Vindication of the African Race (London, 1868)Google Scholar, and, e.g., Blyden, Edward Wilmot, Africa for the Africans (Washington, 1872)Google Scholar.

10 Sarbah, John Mensah, Fanti National Constitution: a Short Treatise on the Constitution and Government of the Fanti, Ashanti, and other Akan Tribes of West Africa (London, 1906)Google Scholar; Casely-Hayford, Joseph Ephraim, Gold Coast Native Institutions: Thoughts Upon a Healthy Imperial Policy for the Gold Coast and Ashanti (London, 1903)Google Scholar; Danquah, J.B., Akim Abuakwa Handbook (London, 1928)Google Scholar; idem., Akan Laws and Customs (London, 1928).

11 E.g. a comparison with In the Land of the Pharaos (1911), a history of Egypt, written by Mohamed Ali Dusé (1866-1945) who was an actor, historian, journalist, and publisher. He was born in Egypt of Egyptian-Sudanese parentage, and educated in England where he also settled before moving to the United States in 1920. What differences were there between the Christian and the Muslim historians of that age? Examples for a fruitful comparison might be Shaikh Musa Kamara (1864-1945) of Senegal and his Zuhur ul-Basatin fi Ta'rikh is-Sawadin, or the work of al-Nasiri al-Slawi (d.1897) who wrote a general history of Morocco with special emphasis on the 19th century, combining African and Western methods and using archival documents as well. See Robinson, David, “Un historien et anthropologue sénégalais: Shaikh Musa Kamara,” Cahiers d'études africaines 109(1988), 89–116CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 Law, Robin, Ouidah: the Social History of a West African Slaving ‘Port’ 1727-1892 (Oxford, 2004), 20Google Scholar.

13 Boahen, Aduet al., eds., The History of Ashanti Kings and the Whole Country Itself, and Other Writings by Nona Otumfuo Agyeman Prempeh I (Oxford, 2003)Google Scholar; Agbanon, Fio, Histoire de Petit-Popo et du Royaume Guin (1934), ed. Gayibor, N.L. (Paris, 1991)Google Scholar; Njoya, Ibrahim, Histoire et coûtumes des Bamum, rédigées sous la direction du Sultan Njoya, trans. Martin, P. Henri (Paris, 1952)Google Scholar.

14 Johannes Zimmermann (1825-1876), missionary on the coast from 1850 to 1872. BMA D-1, 6 Afrika 1855. “Biography of Carl Christian Reindorf” (Damfa, 21. Sept. 1855), in Steinhauser, and Zhnmermann to Committee (Abokobi, Jan. 1856)Google Scholar.

15 BMA D-1, 24 Afrika 1872, Christiansborg Nr. 95. Biography of Carl Christian Reindorf as delivered at the ordination on 13 October 1872.

16 Reindorf, C.E., “Biography of Rev. Carl Christian Reindorf,” in Reindorf, C.C., The History of the Gold Coast and Asante (1966), 3–23Google Scholar.

17 Elias Schrenk (1831-1913), missionary on the Gold Coast from 1859 to 1872. BMA D-1, 24 Afrika 1872. Schrenk, Carl Christian Reindorf Catechist (Christiansborg 21 Jan 1872).

18 Jenkins, Ray, “Impeachable Source? On the Use of the Second Edition of Reindorf's History as a Primary Source for the Study of Ghanaian History,” HA 4 (1977) 123–48Google Scholar; 5(1978) 81-100.

19 Vanderpuije, Mercy A., “A Study of the Reindorf Family of Accra” (B.A., University of Ghana, 1982)Google Scholar.

20 Reindorf, Joe. ed., 150th Birthday Anniversary (1834-1984): Remembering Rev. Carl Reindorf (Accra, 1984)Google Scholar.

21 Jenkins, Ray, “Gold Coast Historians and their Pursuit of the Gold Coast Pasts: 1882-1917” (PhD Univ. of Birmingham 1985)Google Scholar.

22 Parker, John, “Gã State and Society in Early Colonial Accra, 1860s-1920s” (Ph.D., SOAS, 1995)Google Scholar. The dissertation has subsequently been published as Parker, John, Making the Town: Ga State and Society in Early Colonial Accra (Portsmouth, 2000)Google Scholar.

23 Haenger, Peter, Sklaverei und Sklavenemanzipation an der Goldküste (Basel, 1995)Google Scholar.

24 Jenkins, Recovery.

25 Jones, Adam, “Zwei indigene Ethnographen der Goldküste im 19. Jahrhundert,” in Behrend, and Geider, , eds., Afrikaner schreiben zurück: Texte und Bilder afrikanischer Ethnographen (Köln, 1998), 27–40Google Scholar.

26 Year derived from dating of the “Preface”: June 1889. See Jenkins, “Impeachable,” 295Google Scholar. On the change of the title, see BMA D-20.27,7 (1): Reindorf to Christaller (Hebron, 26 Aug 1893) 2. In fact, “The Gold Coast and Ashante” was also part of the title of the Gã manuscript of 1891 (see below).

27 History (1895), i, iv; Gã MS (1912), II.

28 Jenkins, , “Impeachable,” 306Google Scholar.

29 Schlatter, Wilhelm, Geschichte der Basler Mission, 1915-1919. Nach einem Manuskript von Wilhelm Schlatter † bearbeitet von Hermann Witschi (Basel, 1965), 4:163Google Scholar.

30 The article which Reindorf referred to appeared in the issues of the Western Echo of 30 January and 24 February 1886 respectively. The Western Echo was owned by James Hutton Brew from Dunkwa and edited by JE. Casely Hayford and Timothy Laing. Its fore-runner, the Gold Coast Times, had been founded by Brew in March 1874 and was suspened for some time until it was revived in November 1885 as the Western Echo. See Omu, Fred I.A., “The Dilemma of Press Freedom in Colonial Africa: the West African Example,” JAH 9(1968), 286CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Jones-Quartey, K.A.B., A Summary History of the Ghana Press, 1822-1960 (Accra, 1974), 6–13Google Scholar.

31 Moloney, Alfred, A Sketch of the Forestry of West Africa (London, 1887)Google Scholar.

32 BMA D-20.27,8. Reindorf to J.P. Werner, London (Osu, 30 December 1891), 1. The same firm, J.P. Werner of London, took over trading concerns of the Basel Mission trading company when the mission was expelled from the Gold Coast in 1918. See Killingray, David, “Repercussions of World War I in the Gold Coast,” JAH 19(1978), 43CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Gannon, Margaret, “The Basel Mission Trading Company and British Colonial Policy in the Gold Coast, 1918-1928,” JAH 24(1983), 503CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

33 Reindorf, , 150th Birthday, 13, 17Google Scholar.

34 Theodor Oehler (1850-1915) entered the Basel Mission in 1885, and was pastor and inspector of the Basel Mission from 1885 to 1909 and director from 1909 to 1915. BMA D-20.27,8. Reindorf to J.P. Werner, London (Osu, 30 December 1891), 1.

35 Jones, Adam, “Reindorf the Historian,” in Jenkins, , Recovery, 115–33Google Scholar. Reindorf, however, made great efforts to “cleanse” oral narratives from its “fetish” contents.

36 At the beginning of 1893 Christaller wrote to Reindorf: “[w]ith regard to your English work I can only wish that you may find a way to get it printed and that you may at least get your expenses reimbursed.” BMA D-20.27,7. Christaller to Reindorf (Schorndorf, n.d.[1893]), 7.

37 Addo-Fening, Robert, “Ofori Atta, Mate Kole, and Jurisdiction over the Krobo Plantations,” Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana 3(1999), 90Google Scholar.

38 Jenkins, Paul, “Introduction” in Jenkins, , Discovery, 13Google Scholar, noted that Reindorf's manuscript seems to have been largely ignored at the Basel Mission headquarters. He mentions that the History certainly did not appear under the Mission's imprint or became part of the Mission's conscious historic identity. Moreover, Jenkins declared that the international seminar on African history staged by the University of Basel in connection with its interdisciplinary Programme on African History and Cultures in 1995 to mark the centenary of the publication of the first edition of Reindorf's book was intended as an act of historical Wiedergutmachung. See also History (1895), viiiGoogle Scholar; Trutenau, H.M.J., “The Basel Mission's Gold Coast ‘Christian Messenger’, 1833-1931: The ‘Christian Messenger’ and its Successors: A Description of the First Three Series of a Missionary Periodical with Articles in Ghanaian Languages (Twi and Ga), 1883-1931,” Mitteilungen der Basler Afrika Bibliographien 9(1973), 40Google Scholar.

39 BMA D-20.27,8. Reindorf to J.P. Werner, London (Osu, 30 December 1891), 2. From 1554 until 1924 copyright was normally secured by registration with the Stationers' Company in London. Copyright records held at the National Archives (ex-Public Record Office, London) cover the years 1842 to 1924.

40 Paul Steiner (1849-1941) entered the Basel Mission in 1867. He was a private tutor and worked as a missionary on the Gold Coast from 1872 to 1889. He was the editor of the Missionsmagazin from 1890 to 1911.

41 Paul Ensinger was head of the Basel Mission administration, responsible for finance, from 1873 to 1919. See Schlatter, , Geschichte, 4:70Google Scholar.

42 BMA D-20.27,7 (1). Reindorf to Christaller (Hebron, 26 Aug 1893) 3; BMA D-20.27,7. Christaller Notes (27 Sept. 1895), 1.

43 History (1895) viiiGoogle Scholar; Trutenau, , “Basel Mission,” 40Google Scholar.

44 BMA Gräter Personal File 584; History (1895), viiiGoogle Scholar; Jones, Adam, “Reindorf, the Historian” in Jenkins, , Discovery, 121n21Google Scholar.

45 BMA D-20.27,7 (1). Reindorf to Christaller (Hebron, 26 Aug 1893), 2.

46 Ibid. 2.

47 BMA D-20.27,7. Christaller to Reindorf (14 July 1893).

48 Ibid., The Berlin Professor Richard Lepsius (1810-84) published this orthography in Das Allgemeine linguistische Alphabet. Grundsätze der Übertragung fremder Schriftsysteme und bisher noch ungeschriebener Sprachen in europäische Buchstaben (1855); Standard Alphabet for Reducing Unwritten Languages and Foreign Graphic Systems to a Uniform Orthography in European Letters (1863); and Nubische Grammatik mit einer Einleitung über die Völker und Sprachen Afrikas (1880). Christaller (Dictionary of the Asante and Fante Language Called Tshi (1881) ix) criticized the Wesleyan missionaries in the Fante area for their use of an alternative orthography, observing metaphorically that “the Fantes would build a railway of their own different gauge, so that no cars of the western railway could be used on the easter [railway, i.e., the Gold Coast].” Jenkins, Paul, “The Basel Mission's Gold Coast ‘Christian Messenger’ 1833-1931: a Forgotten Vernacular Periodical,” Mitteilungen der Basler Africa Bibliographien 9(1973), 30Google Scholar, noted that a number of letters passing between J.G. Christaller and the British and Foreign Bible Society in the 1870s and 1880s on orthographical conventions to be used in publications are included in Christaller's personal file in the Basel Mission Archives. See also History (1895), vi, 245Google Scholar.

49 BMA D-20.27,7 (1). Reindorf to Christaller (Hebron, 26 Aug 1893) 2-3; BMA D-20.27,7 (3). Reindorf to Christaller (Osu, 23 Feb 1894), 3.

50 BMA D-20.27,7 (1). Reindorf to Christaller (Hebron, 26 Aug 1893), 3.

51 For Aduanan Apea's picture, see History (1895) facing 186.

52 BMA D-20.27,7 (2). Reindorf to Christaller (Osu, 14 Dec 1893), 1.

53 BMA D-20.27,7 (3). Reindorf to Christaller (Osu, 23 Feb 1894), 1-2. Wilson, John L., Western Africa: Its History, Condition and Prospects (New York, 1856)Google Scholar. Rev. John Leighton Wilson (1809-1886) was an American Presbyterian missionary. He lived and worked for 18 years in Africa between 1834 and 1856, first in Liberia and from 1842 in Gabon. Apart from Western Africa he also published The British Squadron on the Coast of Africa … with Notes by Capt. H.D. Trotter, R.N. (1851), and Comparative Vocabularies of some of the Principal Negro Dialects of Africa (1849). According to Fage, Wilson made use of published sources, as well as his own experience. See Fage, J.D., A Guide to Original Sources for Precolonial Western Africa Published in European Languages (Madison, 1987), 124Google Scholar.

54 BMA D-20.27,7 (3). Reindorf to Christaller (Osu, 23 Feb 1894), 2.

55 Ibid., 2.

56 BMA D-20.27,7 (4). Reindorf to Christaller (Sierra Leone, 27 June 1894) 1. L.G. Bannerman remains unidentified.

57 Ibid.

58 BMA D-20.27,7 (5). Reindorf to Christaller (Sierra Leone, 30 July 1894), 1-5.

59 BMA D-20.27,7 (6). Reindorf to Christaller (Osu, 15 April 1895) and “Corrections” to History (by Reindorf).

60 Yaw Twereboanna (ca. 1860-1908), Oyoko royal, was the eldest son of Asabi Boakye and Yaa Afere. From the Asante civil war of 1884-88, a period of anarchy and struggle for the Asantehene office, Agyeman Prempe, the son of Kwasi Gyambibi and Yaa Kyaa, emerged successful against his rival candidate Yaw Twereboanna. The supporters of Agyeman Prempe arrested Yaw Twereboanna and his known sympathizers around January 1887. Late in that same year, Yaw Twereboanna managed to escape and in June/July 1888, with thousands of his supporters, he took refuge in Akyem Kotoku. Subsequently Yaw Twereboanna remained in the Gold Coast Colony and in 1893 his planned return to Asante was prevented by the British. See Wilks, Ivor, Asante in the Nineteenth Century: the Structure and Evolution of a Political Order (Cambridge, 1975), 360, 368, 571–87Google Scholar; McCaskie, T.C., State and Society in Pre-colonial Asante (Cambridge, 1995), 71, 492Google Scholar.

61 BMA D-20.27,7 (7). Reindorf to Christaller (Osu, 10 June 1895), 1-2.

62 Ibid., 2.

63 D-20.27,7 (8). Reindorf to Christaller (Osu, 30 Aug 1895). Reindorf's index can be found in BMA D-20.27b. Gottfried Ziircher (1863-1924) entered the Basel Mission in 1886 and worked as a missionary on the Gold Coast from 1890-95,1897-1902, etc.

64 BMA D-20.27,7 (7). Reindorf to Christaller (Osu, 10 June 1895) and Concept of a Letter from Christaller to his son (26. Sept 1895); BMA D-20.27,7 (7). Binder to Christaller (Basel, 2 October 1895)

65 BMA D-20.27,7 (7). Reindorf to Christaller (Osu, 10 June 1895) and Concept of a Letter from Christaller to his son (26. Sept 1895). In 1889 the publishers Messrs Trübner & Co and joined Kegan Paul, Trench & Co, amalgamated and converted into Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co Ltd. Kegan Paul, Trench, Triibner & Co were incorporated with Routledge and Sons to form Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd, with Cecil Franklin and Sir William Crookes among the directors, in 1912.

66 D-20.27,7 (9). Reindorf to Christaller (Osu, 12 Sept 1895), 1.

67 Köbele, Karl was J.G. Christaller's son-in-law and had been appointed “Reichsschullehrer in Togo” in the late 1880s (Für Afrika bestimmt [1997], 38)Google Scholar. Hermann Ludwig Rottmann (1832-1899) entered the Basel Mission in 1853. He worked on the Gold Coast from 1854 to 1897 and was the founder and director of the Basel Mission Trading Company.

68 Johannes Binder (1843-1909) entered the Basel Mission in 1866. He was on the Gold Coast from 1866 to 1893 and later worked in the Mission's administration.

69 BMA D-2027,7. Binder to Christaller (Basel, 6 Nov 1895), 1-2. The Deutsche Kolonialzeitung was the journal of the Deutsche Kolonialgesellschaft (German Colonial Society) and appeared from 1887 to 1929. The Deutsches Kolonialblatt was the official journal of the Reichs-Kolonialamt (ministry for the colonies) for reports and information relating to the German protectorates in Africa and elsewhere, and it appeared from 1890 to 1921. The Allgemeine Missionszeitschrift appeared from 1874 to 1923, and the African Times from 1862 to 1902.

70 BMA D-20.27,7. Binder to Christaller (Basel, 12 Nov 1895), 1-2.

71 History (1895), title page.

72 Jenkins, , “Gold Coast Historians,” 295, 297–98Google Scholar, and Bearth, Thomas, “J.G. Christaller: A Holistic View of Language and Culture and C.C. Reindorf's History” in Jenkins, , Recovery, 83–101Google Scholar.

73 BMA D-20.27,7. Christaller to Reindorf (14 July 1893).

74 BMA D-20.27,7 (5). Reindorf to Christaller (Sierra Leone, 30 July 1894), 4.

75 History (1895), 10, 267Google Scholar.

76 History (1895), 231Google Scholar.

77 Note by Christaller dated 23 Nov. 1894, encl. in BMA D-20.27,7 (4). Reindorf to Christaller (Sierra Leone, 27 June 1894).

78 Pictures of “Mr. Richter, p. 212; A. Riis, p. 225; J.G. Widmann, J. Zimmermann, J.G. Christaller facing p. 230; Governor Schonning, p. 269. Cape Coast Town and Castle - facing p. 16. Chief Aduanan Apea of Adwumako and his court - facing p. 186. Christiansborg Castle 1862 - facing p. 340.”

79 BMA D-20.27,7 (1). Reindorf to Christaller (Hebron, 26 Aug 1893), 3. Reindorf had also asked for pictures of “King Taki, the Ashante King, and the bombardment of Christiansborg.”

80 BMA D-20.27,7 (1). Reindorf to Christaller (Hebron, 26 Aug 1893), 2.

81 Christian Reporter I, 1 (1893) 1Google Scholar, in Agyemang, Fred, Christian Messenger Centenary 1883-1983 (Accra, n.d. [ca. 1983]) between 32 and 33Google Scholar. See also BMA D-20.22. MS on Christian Reporter for the Gold Coast, in Gã.

82 BMA D-20.27,7 (1). Reindorf to Christaller (Hebron, 26 Aug 1893), 2.

83 Ibid.

84 D-20.27,7 (6). Reindorf to Christaller (Osu, 15 April 1895), 1 and end. 2. Reindorf's suggestion was not realized in the text but added in the list of “Additions and Corrections” [History (1895], 355)Google Scholar.

85 BMA D-20.27,7 (5). Reindorf to Christaller (30 July 1894), 5. It was apparently too late to integrate these into the text, and so Christaller added a list of “Additions and Corrections” at the end of the published book (History[1895], 354-56).

86 BMA D-20.27,7 (7). Reindorf to Christaller (Osu, 10 June 1895), 1-2.

87 History (1895), viGoogle Scholar.

88 David Asante (ca. 1834- 13 Oct. 1892) was educated at the Basel Mission school at Akropong (Akuapem), and from 1857 to 1862 at the seminary in Basel. On his return to the Gold Coast he married Martha Lydia Otutua (b. ca. 1845) of Osu. See Abun-Nasr, Sonia, Afrikaner und Missionar. Die Lebensgeschichte von David Asante (Basel, 2003), passimGoogle Scholar; on David Asante's stay in Basel see Schlatter, , Geschichte, 3:97Google Scholar. Among David Asante's most prominent publications was Wiase Abasem (1874) for which J.G. Christaller wrote an introduction. A short anonymous text on Akuapem history found in the estate of the Basel missionary Heinrich Bohner and published in Struck, Bernhard, “Geschichtliches ilber die Östlichen Tschi-Länder (Goldküste). Aufzeichnungen eines Eingeborenen,” Anthropos 18(1923), 465–83Google Scholar, has also been attributed to Asante (Wilks, Asante, 181n80). On Basel Mission publication policy see Jenkins, , “Gold Coast Historians,” 296, 299–300Google Scholar. Nicolas/Nikolaus Timothy Clerk (1862-1961) was the son of Alexander Worthy Clerk (ca. 1843-1906?), the son of a Christian Jamaican who came to the Gold Coast in 1843 with the Basel Mission. Nicolas T. Clerk was educated at Akropong and Basel, stayed with J.G. Christaller at Schorndorf in 1884-85, and was ordained in Komthal near Stuttgart. Clerk's account of the journey made from Anum to the north of modern Ghana was published in Mitteilungen der geographischen Gesellschaft für Thüringen. See Debrunner, Hans W., Owura Nico. The Rev. Nicholas Timothy Clerk, 1862-1961 (Accra, 1965), 16Google Scholar.

89 BMA D-20.27 (D.I.g.3a). Reindorf, Carl Christian, Gã MS (1891)Google Scholar.

90 Bartels, Francis L., The Roots of Ghana Methodism (London, 1965), 73Google Scholar; Odamtten, S.K., The Missionary Factor in Ghana's Development, 1820-1880 (Accra, 1978), 225Google Scholar.

91 History (1895), viiiGoogle Scholar.

92 BMA D-20.27,8. Reindorf to J.P. Werner, London (Osu, 30 Dec 1891), 1.

93 Ibid.

94 BMA D-I c.30. Gã Kanemo-Wolo III. Reading Book in the Gã or Accra Language for the Vernacular Schools in the Accra and Adangme Countries, Gold Coast (3rd ed., 1904), 59-62, 106–18Google Scholar.

95 BMA D-20.27,7 (3). Reindorf to Christaller (Osu, 23 Feb 1894), 1.

96 BMA D-20.27,7 (2). Reindorf to Christaller (Osu, 14 Dec 1893), 1.

97 BMA D-20.27,7 (3). Reindorf to Christaller (Osu, 23 Feb 1894), 1.

98 BMA D.II.b.30. Christian Reporter for the Natives of the Gold Coast Speaking the Ga or Akra Language. [Shika-Ŋshna Kristofoi Ni Wie Ga Lε A-sanegbal. Basel, No. 1 (Jan.-April 1893), No. 2 (May-Aug. 1893), No. 3 (Sept.-Dec. 1893), No. 4 (Jan.-April 1894), No. 5 (May-Aug. 1894).

99 Trutenau, , “Basel Mission,” 38, 40Google Scholar. Between 1883 and 1888 Christaller had already published the Christian Messenger for the Congregations of the Basel German Mission in the Countries of the Gold Coast, W. Africa., with Texts in the Akan/Twi, Gã and English Language, between March 1883 and December 1888, 31 issues of the Christian Messenger came out in 356 pages. In 1885 its circulation was about 3,500 in the Akan/Twi- and Gã-speaking areas. Between 1889 and 1892 publication of this periodical ceased. See Amegatcher, Andrew, “The Christian Messenger. A History of One of the Publishing Products of the Days of Empire: a Pioneering Newspaper Founded by German Missionaries in the Heart of Ghana,” West Africa (13-19. January 1997), 57–61Google Scholar.

100 BMA D-20.27,7. Christaller to Reindorf (Schorndorf, 14 July 1893), 1; BMA Christian Reporter I, 5 & 6 (Sept. & Nov. 1893), 51Google Scholar.

101 Agyeman, , Christian Messenger, 31Google Scholar.

102 BMA D-20.27,7. Christaller to Reindorf (Schorndorf, n.d.) 4. There were apparently frequent requests for world news; see Jenkins (1973), 28-29, and Agyeman, , Christian Messenger, 35–36Google Scholar.

103 BMA Christian Reporter I, 5 & 6 (Sept. & Nov. 1893), 52Google Scholar.

104 Christian Reporter I, 1 (1893), 1Google Scholar, in Agyeman, Christian Messenger, between 32 and 33. See also its handwritten manuscript form in BMA D-20.22. MS on Christian Reporter for the Gold Coast, in Gã.

105 BMA D-20.27,7. Christaller to Reindorf (Schorndorf, n.d.), 6.

106 Ibid.

107 BMA D-20.27,8. Reindorf to J.P. Werner, London (Osu, 30 Dec 1891), 1.

108 BMA D-20.27,7. Christaller to Reindorf (Schorndorf, 14 July 1893), 1-2.

109 BMA D-20.27,7. Christaller to Reindorf (Schorndorf, n.d.), 4.

110 Ibid. 6.

111 BMA D-20.27,7 (3). Reindorf to Christaller (Osu, 23 Feb 1894), 3.

112 BMA D-20.27,7 (4). Reindorf to Christaller (Kru Coast, 27 June 1894), 1-2.

113 Ibid.,1.

114 BMA D-20.27,7 (6). Reindorf to Christaller (Osu, 15 April 1895)

115 According to Jenkins (1973:30), H. Rottmann's report and balance sheet dated 16 May 1895, with subscript from J. Müller dated 7 June 1895, are bound into the Gold Coast Correspondence of the Basel Mission for 1895, Vol. I, Nos. 23-25.

116 Ibid.

117 Agyeman, , Christian Messenger, 42–43Google Scholar.

118 Heinrich Bächtold (1901-88) entered the Basel Mission in 1922. He served in Cameroon from 1928 to 1953, and worked as secretary reponsible also for the archives of the Mission in Basel from 1953 to 1959. BMA D-20.27,9. Letter by H. Bächtold to H. Trutenau (Basel, 27. Nov 1967); BMA D-20.27,9. Letter by H. Bächtold to H. Trutenau (Basel, 13. Feb 1968). Archivist Bächtold, however, erroneously took the reference to the “Gã manuscript” in the source as meaning the second Gã manuscript of 1912 (see below).

119 BMA D-20.19,1. Kopierbuch Schopf, 1905-12. Schopf to Reindorf (10 April 1911), 219-20. Schopf was on the Gold Coast as a missionary from 1881 to 1895 and he knew Reindorf personally. Schopf had apparently kept up correspondence with Reindorf as a letter of 1904 shows. BMA D-20.19,6. Kopierbuch Schopf, 1900-6. Schopf to Reindorf (15 Sept. 1904), 362.

120 BMA D-20.26 (D.I.g.3) Reindorf, Carl Christian, Gã MS (1912)Google Scholar.

121 History (1895), v, viiGoogle Scholar; BMA D-20.27,7 (5). Reindorf to Christaller (Kru Coast, 30 July 1894).

122 Gã MS (1912), iiGoogle Scholar; Sarbah, Fanti National Constitution.

123 History (1966), 16Google Scholar.

124 BMA D-20.19,1. Kopierbuch Schopf, 1905-12. Schopf to Reindorf (18 March 1912), 227. On the fate of Schopf's unpublished manuscript of the Ga-English dictionary, which is today kept at the Balme Library of the University of Ghana, see Trutenau, H.M.J., “The Ga Dictionary Manuscript in the Balme Library, Legon,” Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana 13(1972), 265–72Google Scholar.

125 Jakob Wilhelm Wertz (1868-1949) entered the Basel Mission in 1889 and worked as a missionary at the Gold Coast from 1895 to 1917. He arrived on the Gold Coast in December 1895, just after Schopf had left it for good. He was in internment from 1917 to 1918 on the Isle of Man due to World War I, became a traveling secretary for the Basel Mission in Stuttgart from 1919 to 1921, and stayed again on the Gold Coast from 1930 to 1937. He worked as a minister until a call went out for a Gã-speaking Basel missionary to go out once more to the Gold Coast in order to help the now independent local Presbytarian Church. Wertz, though getting on in years, responded to the call and went out again to work at Osu from December 1930 until February 1934, and again from April 1935 until August 1937, thereby becoming the last of the Gã-speaking Basel missionaries to work on the Gold Coast. On Wertz's role in the revision of the Gã Dictionary, see Trutenau, “Gã Dictionary.”

126 BMA D-20.19,1. Kopierbuch Schopf, 1905-12. Schopf to Wertz (8 Aug. 1912), 232-41.

127 BMA D-20.27,7. Reindorf to Schopf (Osu, 24 Sept 1912).

128 BMA D-20.27,9. H. Bächtold to H. Trutenau, Legon (Basel, 13. Feb 1968).

129 Gã MS (1912), iiGoogle Scholar.

130 BMA D-3.3. Korrespondenz Goldküste 1914-17, Gã-Distrikt. Expertise by J. Schopf (15 May 1914), my translation.

131 Christian Kölle (1864-1936) entered the Basel Mission in 1883, and worked on the Gold Coast from 1889 to 1914, where he became one of the leading Gã linguists of his time. Kölle returned to Europe in April 1914, and was placed in charge of a boarding school, the New Higher Commercial School at Calw, and held this post as a commercial school teacher until he was pensioned in 1931. After 1931 he revised Schopf's, Gã Dictionary. On Christian Kölle's role in the revision of the Gã Dictionary, see Trutenau, “Gã Dictionary.”

132 BMA D-3.3. Korrespondenz Goldküste 1914-17, Gã-Distrikt. C. Kölle to Inspector BM (4 Aug 1914), my translation.

133 Ibid. The letter was also signed by missionaries Immanuel Bellon (1875-1956) and Gustav Arthur Jehle (1874-1957), who were at Osu and supported the idea of the land deal with Reindorf. Bellon entered the Basel Mission in 1894 and worked on the Gold Coast from 1899 to 1918. Jehle entered in 1899 and worked on the Gold Coast from 1900 to 1918.

134 Jenkins, , “Impeachable,” 90, 97n103Google Scholar, suggested that some revision was under way at least as early as 1921 since E.J.P. Brown, who quoted from both the 1895 edition and from what, thirty years later, was to become the second edition, completed his Gold Coast and Asiante Reader in that year. See Brown, E.J.P., Gold Coast and Asianti Reader (London, 1929), 1:94-101, 193–95Google Scholar, for extracts from Reindorf.

135 Reindorf, , History of the Gold Coast and Asante (Basel, n.d. [1950])Google Scholar. The following “agents” are given on the title page: Basel Mission Book Depot (Kumasi), Scottish Mission Book Depot (Accra), Methodist Mission Book Depot (Cape Coast), Overseas Buyers Ltd. (London) and Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co. (London). Inquiries about the printing history of the 1950 and 1966 editions of the History have proved unsuccessful.

136 Reindorf, , History of the Gold Coast and Asante (Accra, 1966)Google Scholar. It was distributed by the Oxford University Press outside Ghana.

137 See e.g. Boahen, Adu A., “A New Look at the History of Ghana,” African Affairs 65(1966) 212–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Addo-Fening, Robert, “Asante Refugees in Akyem Abuakwa, 1875-1912,” Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana 14(1973) 61Google Scholar; Agbodeka, Francis, African Politics and British Policy in the Gold Coast, 1868-1900 (London, 1971), 189Google Scholar; Kwamena-Poh, Michael A., Government and Politics in the Akuapem State, 1730-1850 (London, 1973)Google Scholar. 39, 39n referring to Wilks, Ivor, “The Growth of the Akwapim State,” in Mauny, , Vansina, and Thomas, , eds., The Historian in Tropical Africa (London, 1964), 407Google Scholar.

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141 For a more detailed analysis see ibid.

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143 The list of Akyem Abuakwa rulers seems to be identical with the one in ibid., 242. Danquah was a member of the Akyem royal house. See Jenkins, , “Impeachable,” 142n17Google Scholar.

144 National Archives of Ghana [hereafter NAG] ADM 5/3/221, Proceedings of the Ga Traditional Council Committee of Enquiry (1975-76) III, 15.

145 History (1895), ixGoogle Scholar.

146 William Edward Maxwell (1842/43-1897) was governor of the Gold Coast from 1895 to 1896, and from 1896 to 1897. Joseph Chamberlain (1836-1914) served as colonial secretary from 1895 to 1903.

147 Jenkins, (1985), “Gold Coast Historians,” 294, 298–99Google Scholar; PRO CO 96/4790, No. 18. Maxwell to Chamberlain (Camp Kumasi, 27 Jan 1896) and Chamberlain to Maxwell (London, 21 March 1896): “Will Mr. C. [Chamberlain] keep the book [History] or get rid of it by sending it to the library? 15.3.96.” “Library! 17.3.96.” These were the Colonial Office Minutes' in response to the arrival in Whitehall of the copy of the History.

148 Ustorf, Werner, Die Missionsmethode Franz Michael Zahns und der Aufbau kirchlicher Strukturen in Westafrika: Eine missionsgeschichtliche Untersuchung (Erlangen, 1989) passimGoogle Scholar; Pabst, Martin, Mission und Kolonialpolitik: Die Norddeutsche Missonsgesellschaft an der Goldküste und in Togo bis zum Ausbruch des Ersten Weltkrieges (Munich, 1988)Google Scholar.

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153 Quartey-Papafio, A.B., “Apprenticeship among the Gas,” Journal of the African Society 13(1914), 415Google Scholar. See also Parker, , Making the Town, 191n99Google Scholar.

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248 Fage, , “Some General Considerations,” 28–29Google Scholar.

249 Verdier, , “Critical Reflections,” 33Google Scholar.

250 Yankah, Speaking for the Chief, see also McCaskie, Thomas C., “Death and the Asantehene: A Historical Meditation,” JAH 30 (1989), 422CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Greene, Sandra E., Sacred Sites and the Colonial Encounter. A History of Meaning and Memory in Ghana (Bloomington and Indianapolis, 2002), 84Google Scholar.

251 History (1895), viGoogle Scholar.

252 Yankah, , Speaking for the Chief, 3-4, 11Google Scholar.

253 Isert (1788), 241-42, in Winsnes, , Letters on West Africa, 143Google Scholar.

254 The Gã word, mumo, expresses both “breath” and “spirit;” Rropp-Dakubu, Mary Esther, Gã-English Dictionary, with English-Gã Index (Accra, 1999, 108–09Google Scholar.

255 Struck, Bernhard, “Pockenschutzmittel der Gaer (Goldküste),” Globus 92(1907), 149Google Scholar, my translation; also see Greene, , Sacred Sites, 85Google Scholar.

256 History (1895), 23–24Google Scholar. Thus Owu or Alema, prominent names in nineteenth-century Osu and Accra history, were “ugly names.” For the Gã naming system see Amartey, A.A., Omanye Aba (Accra, 1990), 65–86Google Scholar.

257 Yankah, , Speaking for the Chief, 50–51Google Scholar.

258 See e.g. History (1895) chap. 18, on the Katamanso war and the flight of the Asantehene.

259 Yankah, , Speaking for the Chief, 11, 19Google Scholar.

260 Ibid., 42, 52.

261 Ibid., 56.

262 McCaskie, Thomas C., “Asante and Ga: the History of a Relationship” in Jenkins, , Recovery, 144Google Scholar.

263 Mann, , “Interpreting Cases,” 201–02Google Scholar.

264 Adjaye, Joseph K., “Rituals, Postmodemity and Development,” Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana 6(2002), 12Google Scholar; Odotei, Irene, “Festivals in Ghana: Continuity, Transformation and Politicisation of Tradition,” Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana ns6(2002), 32–33Google Scholar.

265 Fage, , “Development,” 41Google Scholar.

266 Dakubu, Mary Esther Kropp, One Voice: the Linguistic Culture of Ga Accra Lineage (Leiden, 1981), 27Google Scholar.