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“We Shall Rejoice to see the Day When Slavery shall Cease to Exist”: The Gold Coast Times, the African Intelligentsia, and Abolition in the Gold Coast1
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 May 2014
Extract
The articulation of antislavery among Africans remains to be studied. Overall, the staple of animated questions, debates, and conclusions of the vast literature on abolition of slavery in the last two decades or so has neglected African contributions of ideologies of antislavery to the global abolition epoch in the Atlantic world. Charting a new trajectory for the study of abolition in Africa, as well as the global abolition epoch, this study examines the ideologies of antislavery among Africans as expressed in the Gold Coast Times (Cape Coast) during the heyday of the British abolition of slavery in the Gold Coast in 1874-75. The study, echoing African agency, reveals the manifest presence of the African intelligentsia abolitionists in the late nineteenth-century Gold Coast. The origin and timing of the African intelligentsia's antislavery attitudes in the Gold Coast are not made known in the sources. However, the sources do reveal that antislavery flowered in the littoral region between Elmina and Accra, the hub of precolonial intellectual activities, political activism, and diffusion of cultures, linked to the larger Atlantic world.
Overall, I argue that antislavery existed among the African intelligentsia and that they articulated their ideologies of antislavery in several ways, both on the eve of the British colonial abolition of slavery and in its immediate aftermath. The study is divided into four main parts. The first section problematizes the sources and addresses some methodological considerations. For its part, the second portion interrogates the comparative historiography on abolition, while the third section conceptualizes the African intelligentsia abolitionists and their association with the Gold Coast Times, the main platform for the African intelligentsia's espousal of ideologies of antislavery. Divided into two parts, the final section examines the African intelligentsia's articulation of antislavery both before and after the inauguration of abolition by the colonial state.
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- Copyright © African Studies Association 2004
Footnotes
Quoted from The Gold Coast Times (30 October 1874). I wish to thank Rashid Ismail of Vassar College and Femi Kolapo of Guelph University for their insightful comments on this paper.
References
2 The literature is vast, spanning nearly twenty years. See, for example, Davis, David Brion, Slavery and Human Progress (New York, 1984)Google Scholar; Miers, Suzanne and Roberts, Richard, eds., The End of Slavery in Africa (Madison, 1988)Google Scholar; Manning, Patrick, Slavery and African Life (Cambridge, 1990)Google Scholar; Lovejoy, Paul and Hogendorn, Jan S., Slow Death for Slavery (Cambridge, 1993)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Klein, Martin, Slavery and Colonial Rule in French West Africa (Cambridge, 1998)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Miers, Suzanne and Klein, Martin, eds., Slavery and Colonial Rule in Africa (London, 1999)Google Scholar; and Eltis, David, The Rise of African Slavery in the Americas (Cambridge, 2000), esp. 281–84Google Scholar.
3 Following Davis, David Brion, The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution 1770-1823 (New York, 1999), 17Google Scholar, I use ideology to mean “an integrated system of beliefs, assumptions, and values, not necessarily true or false, which reflects the needs and interests of a group or class at a particular time in history. By ‘interests’ I mean anything that benefits or is thought to benefit a specific collective identity. Because ideologies are modes of consciousness, containing the criteria for interpreting social reality, they help to define as well as to legitimate collective needs and interests. Hence, there is a continuous interaction between ideology and material forces of history.”
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13 For an exception see Priestley, Margaret, West African Trade and Coast Society: A Family Study (London, 1969)Google Scholar; and Falola, Toyin, Yoruba Gurus: Indigenous Production of Knowledge (Trenton, 1999)Google Scholar. For studies that make use of newspapers see Zachernuk, Colonial Subjects; and Rina Okonkwo, “The Lagos Auxiliary of the Anti-Slavery and Aborigines Rights Protection Society: A Re-Examination,” IJAHS 15(1982), 423–34Google Scholar.
14 Studies of African resistance to colonial rule have been fruitful in demarcating specific responses, e.g., rural-based ones from littoral ones and those led by the chiefs from those championed by the African intelligentsia. See Boahen, A. Adu, African Perspectives on Colonialism (Baltimore, 1994), 27–93Google Scholar. Similar approaches that seek to detach abolition from colonial rule can enrich our understanding by capturing the differing and intersecting nuances of both processes.
15 For a discussion of the problem of compensation and abolition in the Gold Coast, See Akurang-Parry, , “Slavery and Abolition,” 27–32Google Scholar.
16 Several studies have identified the close relationship that existed among the African intelligentsia in the West African region, e.g., Gocking, , Facing Two Ways, 8–9Google Scholar; and Zachernuk, , Colonial Subjects, 20Google Scholar.
17 Strahan had a low opinion of the African intelligentsia. See, for example, Further Correspondence Relating to the Abolition of Slavery on the Gold Coast, Parliamentary Papers, 1875, C. 1139 (hereafter C. 1139); and Further Correspondence Relating to the Abolition of Slavery on the Gold Coast, Parliamentary Papers, 1875, C. 1159 (hereafter C. 1159).
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28 E.g., Adams, John, Remarks on the Country Extending from Cape Palmas to the River Congo, Including Observations on the Manners and Customs of the Inhabitants with an Appendix Containing an Account of the European Trade with the West Coast of Africa (London, 1823), 86–86Google Scholar; and Winterbottom, T., An Account of the Native Africans in the Neighborhood of Sierra Leone to Which is Added an Account of the Present Medicine Among Them (London, 1969), 154–58Google Scholar. I thank Femi Kolapo for drawing my attention to these two sources. For studies of resistance to slavery in the precolonial period see Rathbone, Richard, “Some Thoughts on Resistance to Enslavement in West Africa,” Slavery and Abolition 6(1985), 11–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar; McGowan, Winston, “African Resistance to the Atlantic Slave Trade in West Africa,” Slavery and Abolition 11(1990), 5–29CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lovejoy, , “Fugitive Slaves,” 74–77Google Scholar; Rashid, Ismail, “Escape, Revolt, and Maronnage in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Sierra Leone Hinterland,” Canadian Journal of African Studies 34(2000), 656–83Google Scholar; and Kolapo, Femi, “Documentary ‘Silences’ and Slave Resistance in West Africa During the Era of the Atlantic Slave Trade,” paper Presented at the Harriet Tubman Seminar, Founders College, York University, 9 October 2002Google Scholar.
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31 For example, the Dahomian state, in collaboration with the British authorities, had made efforts to abolish slavery; see Law, Robin, “An African Response to Abolition: Anglo-Dahomian Negotiations on Ending the Slave Trade, 1838-48,” Slavery and Abolition 16(1995), 281–310CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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38 Rathbone, Richard, “The Gold Coast, the Closing of the Atlantic Slave Trade, and Africans of the Diaspora” in Palmie, Stephan, ed., Slave Cultures and the Cultures of Slavery (Knoxville, 1995), 57–63Google Scholar. Rathbone delineates several groups within the African-Caribbean and African-Brazilian groups. Within the African-Caribbean groups were repatriated African soldiers, who had served in the Dutch East and West Indies. They were “predominantly Moslems” and had settled between Elmina and Cape Coast. The African-Caribbean group also included African-Jamaicans recruited by the Basel Mission and Africans drawn from the British Caribbean serving with the British West Indian Regiment. The African-Brazilians included those deported in 1831 and 1835 following a series of slave revolts in Brazil, and who settled between Cape Coast and Winneba. This group also included Christians who intermarried with the local African elites.
39 Kimble, Political History; Gocking, Facing Two Ways; and Parker, Making the Town.
40 See Akurang-Parry, , ““Smattering of Education’,” 49–50Google Scholar. See also M. A. Kwamena-Poh, “The Basel Mission Period 1828-1918: The Planting of the Presbyterian Church in Mamfe-Akuapem, 1858-1993” in Presbyterian Church of Ghana: Dedication of the Emmanuel Presbyterian Chapel, Mamfe, On Sunday 9 May 1993 (n.p., n.d.). 11-22. I thank my sister Gladys Akurang-Parry of Adenta-Accra, Ghana, for bringing this essay to my attention. The essay reveals that by the 1880s there were several Akuapems working as teachers, pastors, catechists, traders, and farmers. Kwamena-Poh's essay points to the rich possibilities of the historical reconstruction of the intelligentsia in Akuapem.
41 Gocking, Facing Two Ways.
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46 For biographical account of Brew see Gold Coast Times (30 November 1874); and African Times (1 March 1875). For a fuller biographical exposition see Kimble, , Political History, 409–20Google Scholar; Priestley, Margaret, “The Emergence of an Elite: A Case Study of a West Coast Family” in Lloyd, P.C., ed., The New Elites of Tropical Africa (London, 1966), 87–99Google Scholar; idem., West African Trade; and Akurang-Parry, , “‘Smattering of Education’,” 55–58Google Scholar.
47 E.g., July, Origins of Modern African Thought, 345-73.
48 Rowand, Evelyn, “Press and Opinion in British West, 1855-1900: The Development of a Sense of Identity Among Educated British West Africans of the Later Nineteenth Century” (Ph.D., University of Birmingham, 1972), 4Google Scholar.
49 Gocking, , Facing Two Ways, 10Google Scholar.
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51 Gold Coast Times (30 November 1874), and African Times (1 March 1875), 30.
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53 Priestley, West African Trade, 166.
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55 Ibid.
56 Kimble, , Political History, 91Google Scholar.
57 E.g., Gold Coast Times (9 June 1975).
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60 E.g., Rowand, “Press and Opinion,” 1-63.
61 Kwabena O. Akurang-Parry, “Ritual, Rumor, and Colonialism: The Alleged Human Sacrifice of Two-Hundred Girls by Asantehene [King] Mensa Bonsu in Asante and the Gold Coast in 1881-1882,” unpublished manuscript.
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63 Parker, John, “Ga State and Society in Early Colonial Accra, 1860s-1920s” (Ph.D., University of London, 1995), 124Google Scholar. See also Parker, , Making the Town, 83Google Scholar. For a detailed account of the Basel mission's slave emancipation efforts of the 1860s see Haenger, , Slaves and Slaveholders, 1–111Google Scholar.
64 Parker, “Ga State,” 124n37.
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69 For this conclusion, see Dumett/Johnson, “Britain and Suppression of Slavery,” 108. They assert that abolition was “a quieter revolution.”
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71 Miers/Roberts, End of Slavery; and Miers/Klein, Slavery and Colonial Rule.
72 Gold Coast Times (30 October 1874).
73 See African Times (29 August 1874), 16Google Scholar. Several of the British newspapers had correspondents based on the Gold Coast due to the coverage given to the Sagrenti War (Sir Garnet's war in the local parlance) or the Anglo-Asante War of 1873-74. It is not clear whether the correspondent was an European or an African. See, e.g., African Times (29 August 1873), 173Google Scholar.
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75 African Times (30 June 1874), 69Google Scholar. See also C. 1139, Carnarvon to Strahan, 20 August 1874, No. 2; and “Draft Proclamation Defining the Nature and Extent of the Queen's Jurisdiction on the Gold Coast” in C. 1139, Encl. No. 2. The British Parliamentary debates were published verbatim in the African Times and the Gold Coast newspapers, including the Gold Coast Times. The Gold Coast newspapers also culled news on the Gold Coast from British newspapers. The Gold Coast Times issue of 24 May 1874, included the British government's official policy statement on colonial rule in the Gold Coast, subtitled “British Policy on the Gold Coast” from the following British newspapers: Manchester Guardian (29 April [1874]); Times (28 April [1874]); Morning Post (28 April [1874]); and Standard (29 April [1874]).
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77 See, e.g., C. 1139, Carnarvon to the Officer Administering the Gold Coast, 21 August 1874, No. 3; and C. 1139, Strahan to Carnarvon, 19 September 1874, No. 5.
78 Gold Coast Times (20 October 1874). Strahan had met the chiefs of the Central and Western Provinces to prepare them for the impending abolition. See C. 1139, Strahan to Carnarvon, 19 September 1874, No. 5.
79 This falls within the area of British jurisdiction that came with the Bond of 1844, which enabled the British authorities to intervene in African affairs. For a fuller account of the Bond see Kimble, , Political History, 193–95Google Scholar. For a copy see Hayford, J. E. Casely, Gold Coast Native Institutions (London, [1903] 1970)Google Scholar, app. D5., 367-80.
80 Gold Coast Times (20 October 1874).
81 Ibid.
82 Quoted by the Standard (no date) and culled by the Gold Coast Times (31 March 1875).
83 See, e.g., C. 1139, Carnarvon to the Officer Administering the Gold Coast, 21 August 1874, No. 3; and C. 1139, Strahan to Carnarvon, 19 September 1874, No. 5.
84 C. 1139, Strahan to Carnarvon, 28 November, 1874, No. 17.
85 See Akurang-Parry, , “Administration of Abolition Laws,” 152–53Google Scholar.
86 Johnson, Marion, “The Slaves of Salaga,” JAH 27(1986), 349–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Akurang-Parry, , “Rethinking the “‘Slaves of Salaga,’” 40–48Google Scholar.
87 For freed slave habitats or homes in the colonial period see, e.g., Olusanya, G. O., “The Freed Slaves' Home—An Unknown Aspect of Northern Nigerian Social History,” Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria 3/3(1966), 523–38Google Scholar; and Ubah, C. N., “The Colonial Administration of Northern Nigeria and the Problem of Freed Slave Children,” Slavery and Abolition 14(1993), 208–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
88 Gold Coast Times (20 November 1874).
89 Ibid.
90 Freed slaves themselves developed autonomous villages near the active centers of colonial rule, for instance, on the Accra plains; e.g., Lees to Hicks Beach, 5 July 1878, Encl. in No. 2, in Report by Sir David Chalmers on the Effect of the Steps Which Have been Taken by the Colonial Government in Reference to the Abolition of Slavery Within the Protectorate, Parliamentary Papers, 1875, C. 2148 (hereafter C. 2148); and Fraser to Hodgson, (n.d.), Encl. 27 in No. 59, in Correspondence Respecting the Slave Trade, Parliamentary Papers, 1890 (hereafter C. 6053). For a fuller account see Dumett/Johnson, “Britain and the Suppression of Slavery,” 89-90.
91 For this argument see Roberts, /Miers, , “End of Slavery,” 56–57Google Scholar.
92 See, e.g., Case No. 104, 3 November 1875, National Archives of Ghana, Accra (hereafter NAG/A), SCT 17/4/2; Despatches from the Governor to the Secretary of State, 1879-80, 7 February 1880, No. 57, NAG/A ADM 1/23; C. 6053, Holmes to Hughes, 27 July 1889, Encl. 26 in No. 59; C. 6053, Cole to Hughes, 17 September 1890, End. 8 in No. 59; and No. S.P.11/09, 21 June 1909, in Slave Children, National Archives of Ghana, Cape Coast (hereafter NAG/CC).
93 See Dumett, /Johnson, , “Britain and the Suppression of Slavery,” 90–91Google Scholar; and Akurang-Parry, , “Administration,” 156–58Google Scholar.
94 There were several official expressions that slavery was benign. See, e.g., C. 6354, Griffith to Knutsford, 26 January 1891, No. 7. See Dumett, /Johnson, , “Britain and the Suppression of Slavery,” 90–91Google Scholar, and Perbi, Akosua A., “A History of Indigenous Slavery in Ghana from the 15th to the 19th Centuries” (Ph. D., University of Ghana, 1997). 262–63Google Scholar.
95 Akurang-Parry, “‘Smattering of Education’.”
96 E.g., Miers/Roberts, End of Slavery.
97 Gold Coast Times (30 November 1874). Akurang-Parry, , “‘Smattering of Education’,” 58Google Scholar, has argued that historians of slavery in the Gold Coast have overlooked this flaw in the abolition process. Most scholars writing about the subject have presumed that abolition inaugurated on 3 November 1874 was supported by a legal document in hand. See, e.g., Grace, John, Domestic Slavery in West Africa (New York, 1975), 36Google Scholar; and Dumett, /Johnson, , “Britain and the Suppression of Slavery,” 80Google Scholar.
98 For this explanation, see Grace, , Domestic Slavery, 37–38Google Scholar; McSheffrey, , “Slavery,” 354Google Scholar; and Dumett, /Johnson, , “Britain and the Suppression of Slavery,” 80Google Scholar.
99 For this argument see July, Origins, 327-35.
100 Gold Coast Times (30 November 1874).
101 C. 1159, Strahan to Carnarvon, 8 January 1875, Encl. 1 in No. 2.
102 Gold Coast Times (30 November 1874).
103 Ibid.
104 African Times (31 December 1874/1 January 1875), 8.
105 Gold Coast Times (30 November 1874).
106 Ibid.
107 Ibid. For the expansion of pawning in the aftermath of abolition, see Dumett, /Johnson, , “Britain and Suppression of Slavery,” 94–95Google Scholar. Others agree with Dumett and Johnson, but have argued that post-proclamation pawning involved more females than men. See Austin, Gareth, “Human Pawning in Asante, 1800-1950: Markets and Coercion, Gender and Cocoa” in Falola, Toyin and Lovejoy, Paul, eds., Pawnship in Africa: Debt Bondage in Historical Perspective (Boulder, 1994), 119–59Google Scholar; Beverly Grier, “Pawns, Porters, and Petty Traders: Women in the Transition to Cash Crop Agriculture in Colonial Ghana” in ibid., 178-82; and Akurang-Parry, “‘What is and What is not the Law’.”
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