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The 1916 Bongo ‘Riots’ and Their Background: Aspects of Colonial Administration and African Response in Eastern Upper Ghana*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

Roger G. Thomas
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Extract

Several recent studies have examined the impact of the First World War on the people, and rulers – alien and indigenous - of West Africa. Diverse societies responded in a variety of ways to a situation in which extraordinary demands from the colonial rulers - of which direct military recruitment was only one - were often accompanied by administrative and military contraction at the local level.

This paper examines the way in which wartime conditions in the Zouaragu (Zuarungu) and Bawku districts of what is now upper Ghana exposed the weakness of the indigenous administrative structure recently constructed by the British. Here, in many instances, chiefs had been imposed, or at least had had their powers qualitatively changed and substantially increased, in societies that were traditionally organized on a kinship basis. The War seemed to provide an opportunity for an overthrow of this structure, which had enabled many of the chiefs to establish harshly exploitative relations with their subjects. An upsurge of disobedience to chiefly orders was followed in the Bongo area by a land dispute which flared into disturbances in which a constable was killed. These disturbances and an incident in the neighbouring Bawku District were taken as a sign of revolt and ruthlessly crushed by a local administration intent on teaching an unforgettable lesson.

Governor Clifford in Accra anatomized the inadequacies of administrative control and condemned his officers' brutal response to the disturbances, but offered little in the way of suggestions for the reform of the chieftaincy system despite clear indications that local hostility was directed more against it than against colonial rule per se. Neither were reform proposals forthcoming from the Northern Territories administration. Thus the severity of the British response to popular opposition to chiefly power was a factor in enabling some chiefs to continue as ‘spoilers’ rather than ‘fathers’ of their people even after the introduction of formal Indirect Rule in the 1930s had nominally broadened popular participation in local administration.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 24 , Issue 1 , January 1983 , pp. 57 - 75
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1983

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References

1 ‘Drum song’ of a chief's praise-singer collected by Captain S. D. Nash in the Zouaragu District. Zouaragu District Diary (hereafter ZD), 16 and 17 December 1913, National Archives of Ghana, Accra (hereafter NAG-A) ADM 68/5/1.

2 For recent studies drawing attention to the impact of the War in West Africa see, for example, Crowder, Michael, West Africa under Colonial Rule (London, 1968), 252–270;Google ScholarSuret-Canale, Jean, French Colonialism in Tropical Africa 1900–1945 (London, 1971), 134–143;Google ScholarD'almeida-Topor, Hélène, ‘Les populations dahoméennes et le recrutement militaire pendant la premiere guerre mondiale’, Revue française d'histoire d'outre-mer, LX (1973), 196–241;CrossRefGoogle ScholarFuglestad, Finn, ‘Les révokes des Touareg du Niger (1916–17)’, Cahiers d'Etudes Africaines, XIII (1973), 82–120;CrossRefGoogle ScholarCrowder, Michael, ‘The 1914–18 European war and West Africa’ in Ade Ajayi, J. F. and Michael, Crowder (eds), History of West Africa, II (London, 1974), 484–513;Google ScholarThomas, Roger G., ‘Military Recruitment in the Gold Coast during the First World War’, Cahiers d'Etudes Africaines, XV (1975), 57–83;CrossRefGoogle ScholarEchenberg, M. J., ‘Paying the blood tax: military conscription in French West Africa 1914-29’, Canadian J. Afr. Stud, IX, ii (1975), 179–192;Google ScholarKillingray, David, ‘Repercussions of World War I in the Gold Coast’, J. Afr. Hist. XIX, i (1978), 39–59;CrossRefGoogle ScholarOsuntokun, Akinjide, Nigeria in the First World War (London, 1979).Google Scholar

3 The North-Eastern Province covered the present Upper Region of Ghana east of the Sissili River plus the territory of the Mamprugu state – now in the Northern Region. This paper is mainly concerned with that part of the North-Eastern Province now in the Upper Region-hence ‘eastern upper Ghana’. I am indebted to Swanston & Associates, Derby, for preparing the map that accompanies this article.

4 Meyer Fortes noted that these groups ‘differ so little…that they might all be regarded as subdivisions of a single cultural unit’. Fortes, M., ‘The Political System of the Tallensi of the Northern Territories of the Gold Coast’, in Fortes, M. and Evans-Pritchard, E. E. (eds), African Political Systems (London, 1940), 239.Google Scholar

5 For the term ‘countryside’ see, for example, ZD, 2 and 4 October 1913.

6 Fortes, , ‘Political sysem’, 239–271,Google Scholar remains the classic anthropological account of a political system typical of the area. For useful studies of the changes wrought by colonial rule among the same people see Anafu, M., ‘The Impact of Colonial Rule on Tallensi Political Institutions, 1898–1967’, Tr. Hist. Soc. Ghana, XIV, i (1973), 17–37,Google Scholar and, for the whole area, Iliasu, A. A., ‘The Establishment of British Administration in Mamprugu, 1898–1937’, Tr. Hist. Soc. Ghana, XVI, i (1975), 1–28.Google Scholar

7 Crowder, , West Africa, 254,Google Scholar quoting Lucas, Sir Charles, The Gold Coast and the War (London, 1920), 14.Google Scholar

8 Crowder, , West Africa, 254.Google Scholar

9 Even in centralized states chiefs had not necessarily had their powers either preserved or consolidated: in another part of the Northern Territories, the Bole District (part of the Gonja state), disturbances in 1917 centred on a chief's unwillingness to suffer the political isolation consequent on being kicked upstairs from the chiefship of a burgeoning administrative centre, Bole, to the remote, semi-ritual paramount seat at Nyanga unless the British were willing to make concrete their claim to be supporting the authority of paramount chiefs. This was the other side of the coin of the underdeveloped stage which ‘political accumulation’ had reached in northern Ghana as late as the War. For the Bole incidents see Iliasu, A. A., ‘Rex v. Yagbongwura Mahama and Six Others’, Universitas, V, i (1975). 139–151.Google Scholar This corrects the over-reliance on the ‘official’ version of these events of Thomas, , ‘Military Recruitment’, 72–74.Google Scholar For ‘political accumulation’ see Lons-Dale, J. M., ‘The Politics of Conquest: the British in Western Kenya, 1894–1908’, Historical Journal, XX, iv (1977), 841–870CrossRefGoogle Scholar which contains numerous insights applicable to the early colonial history of northern Ghana which the present author hopes to develop elsewhere.

10 For examples of various forms of corruption on the part of African administrative intermediaries and impostors see Acting Governor Low to Joseph Chamberlain, 23 October 1900, Public Record Office, London (hereafter PRO) CO 96/363; Chief Commissioner, Northern Territories (hereafter CCNT) to Colonial Secretary, 20 December 1905, NAG-A ADM 56/1/3; CCNT to Colonial Secretary, 10 August 1907, NAG-A ADM 56/1/62; CCNT to Commissioner, North-Eastern Province (hereafter CNEP), 14 October 1910 and enclosures, NAG-A ADM 56/1/76 and various letters in NAG-A ADM 56/1/137. For a brief account of some of the punitive expeditions see Anafu, , ‘Impact’, 17–21.Google Scholar

11 ZD, 17 January 1914.

12 ZD, I October 1913.

13 ZD, 28–31 December 1913.

14 Captain H. T. C. Wheeler to CCNT, 12 June 1916, enclosure A in CCNT to Colonial Secretary, 31 July 1916, enclosure xv in Governor Clifford to A. Bonar Law, 18 September 1916, PRO CO 96/570.

15 ZD, 10 August 1914.

16 Ibid.

17 See ZD, 12 and 22 September, 30 October, 23 November 1914; 15, 16, 19 March, I, 7, 24 April, ii, 19 May, 16 July, 20 September, 22 November 1915; 14 January, 18 February, 26 March 1916.

18 ZD, 19 May et seq.

19 ZD, 30 October 1914.

20 ZD, 22 November 1915.

21 ZD, 14 August 1915.

22 ZD, 16 and 17 August 1915.

23 Major A. Festing, Acting CCNT to Acting Colonial Secretary, 12 March 1911, enclosure 2 in Acting Governor Bryan to L. Harcourt, 19 April 1911, PRO CO 96/506. The evil of the ‘fetish’ was clearly very much in the eye of the beholder. Festing in 1911 described the shrine in the following terms: ‘…as in the case of Benin, Arochuku and numerous other places, the fetish was worked for all it was worth to enable a community of scoundrels to carry on their raids and robberies with impunity. No stranger might ascend the hill except naked and a general air of mystery hung over the place which was visited yearly by pilgrims from Dagomba, Mamprussi and other of the more enlightened tribes of the Protectorate. The fetish grove was of the usual description. There were traces of recent sacrifices (not human as far as one could gather). The trees were hung round with decaying Hausa gowns etc. evidently the spoils of captured caravans also a few spears and other arms – bones and other relics. There was no “bubbling spring” merely a very foul water hole almost empty and never full of anything but surface water.’ A strikingly contrasting description was given by S. D. Nash in 1913 (ZD, 7 November 1913): ‘A pen of Vergil would be required to describe it so nearly does it assimilate to the grottoes he describes and in which the Sibyl utters her injuctions and awful mysterious oracles. A grove of nice shade trees surrounds the Tonzugu shrine – a stream of clear water flows through and suddenly disappears under two immense rocks. Between these rocks there is a hold, hardly large enough to admit a man, which seems to communicate with the stream far below. On the rocks there are beads, cloth, cowries, some hair shaved from men's heads, beads [sic], etc., left there by consultants of the oracle. Childless women were particularly prone to visit this pace in order to become mothers, and prospective mothers would also come to hear their fate and to bring good luck on their offspring. It was tapu for anyone to wear any clothes on entering the hills. “Cast off all clothes all ye that enter here” was the order. Skins however might be worn. The fetish man's ipse dixit was regarded as a kind of nostrum to cure every ill of mind and body. He can bring rain and he can stop it. The crops will not be good unless he is consulted. Mothers-to-be and childless women were especially faithful to him. Such beliefs would seem childless [childish] were it not a fact that exactly the same idea is carried out at home when a Cardinal leads three or four thousand pilgrims to the sacred Grotto at Lourdes. The only difference appears to be that we gnash our teeth at anyone who does not respect our tapus, whereas the native is more liberal in these matters. He would certainly never try and force a man to agree with his beliefs. Different people have different Gods, is what he says, and let each believe in his own fetish'.

24 Extracts from CCNT's Diary, Enclosure in Governor H. Clifford to L. Harcourt, 22 April 1915, PRO CO 96/557. To Armitage, evoking yet another tradition, the fetish grove after his force set it aflame resembled ‘the circle of magic flame placed by Wotan, for her protection, round the sleeping Brunhild’. Nevertheless, despite Armitage's efforts, it was reported in 1925 that the ‘benevolent’ shrine had been in regular use since immediately after the 1915 destruction and it was suggested that some government recognition of this fact might be appropriate. Acting Commissioner, Northern Province to C.C.N.T., 19 September 1925, NAG-A ADM 56/1/207. For a detailed description of the shrine in 1928, by which time it attracted African clients from Kumasi and the coast, some of whom travelled north in their own cars, see Rattray, R. S., Tribes of the Ashanti Hinterland (Oxford, 1932), II, 361–365.Google Scholar

25 For the Kunab's anomalous position in the Tallensi political system see Anafu, , ‘Impact’, 25–31;Google ScholarIliasu, , ‘Establishment’, 8–9, 14–17.Google Scholar

26 Captain L. Castellain to Acting CNEP, 28 April 1916, enclosure in CCNT to Colonial Secretary, 23 June 1916, enclosure in Governor H. Clifford to A. Bonar Law, 18 September 1916, PRO CO 96/570.

27 Ibid.; precis of Navarro District Diary, 8 April-21 May 1916, enclosure in Governor H. Clifford to A. Bonar Law, 18 September 1916, PRO CO 96/570.

28 These people can probably be identified as supporters of the chiefs, since by 5 May those who had fled to the bush had still not returned and only on 11 May were they said to be slowly returning. ZD, 5 and 11 May 1916.

29 ZD, 27 April 1916.

30 ZD, 29 April 1916.

31 Acting CNEP to CCNT, 12 June 1916, enclosure A in CCNT to Colonial Secretary, 31 July 1916, enclosure xv in Governor H. Clifford to A. Bonar Law, 18 September 1916, PRO CO 96/570.

32 ZD, 19 May 1916.

33 Ibid., quoting reports by the chiefs of Nangodi and Arabe.

34 ZD, 30, 31 May 1916.

35 ZD, 13 June 1916; District Commissioner, Navarro-Zouaragu to Acting CNEP, 17 June 1916, enclosure in enclosure viii in Governor H. Clifford to A. Bonar Law, 18 September 1916, PRO CO 96/570.

36 Ibid.

37 ZD, 15, 16 June 1916. Ashika, the Chief of Arabe, was clearly an exception to the loyalty typical of most of the chiefs. Sergeant-Major Egala Grunshi later told Castellain that when he had been travelling with Colonel A. E. G. Watherston (that is before December 1910), Ashika had done nothing to provide carriers or food. More to the point, the then Chief of Bongo had said that Ashika was not the chief whom he had appointed. Ashika had clearly seized power from that man, Abagana, but nothing had been done to rectify the situation, ZD, 7 July 1916.

38 ZD, 17, 19 June 1916.

39 ‘Notes in the District Book under Kussenaba’, enclosure in Acting CNEP to CCNT, 19 July 1916, enclosure C in CCNT to Colonial Secretary, 5 August 1916, enclosure xviii in Governor H. Clifford to A. Bonar Law, 18 September 1916, PRO CO 96/570.

40 Ibid.

41 Acting CNEP to CCNT, 12 August 1916, quoted in Governor H. Clifford to A. Bonar Law, 18 September 1916, PRO CO 96/570. Emphases and sics in this quotation are those added by Governor Clifford.

42 Kanjarga (after a town in the Bulsa area of the Navarro District) was the current sobriquet for a member of the Bulsa ethnic group.

43 Sgt Abudu Kanjarga, quoted in Governor H. Clifford to A. Bonar Law, 18 September 1916, PRO CO 96/570.

44 Governor H. Clifford to A. Bonar Law, 18 September 1916, PRO CO 96/57.

45 CCNT to Colonial Secretary, enclosure in ibid.

46 ZD, 22, 24 June; 21 July; 23 November 1916; 25 April 1917.

47 Governor H. Clifford to A. Bonar Law, 18 September 1916, PRO CO 96/570.

48 Acting CNEP to CCNT, 12 June 1916, enclosure A in CCNT to Colonial Secretary, 31 July 1916, enclosure xv in Governor H. Clifford to A. Bonar Law, 18 September 1916, PRO CO 96/570.

49 L. Castellain to CNEP, 9 July 1916, enclosure in CCNT to Colonial Secretary, 21 July 1916, enclosure xi in Governor H. Clifford to A. Bonar Law, 18 September 1916, PRO CO 96/570. L. Castellain to CNEP, 15 July 1916, enclosure in CCNT to Colonial Secretary, 26 July 1916, enclosure xiv in Governor H. Clifford to A. Bonar Law, 18 September 1916, PRO CO 96/570. ZD, 8, 9 July 1916. No final figure of fatalities was established; official opinion suggested that the original estimates were too high. It is important to note, however, that Castellain, Wheeler and Armitage believed these figures to be correct, and their responses are to be measured in the light of that belief.

50 L. Castellain to Acting CNEP, 15 July 1916, enclosure in CCNT to Colonial Secretary, 26 July 1916, enclosure xiv in Governor H. Clifford to A. Bonar Law, 18 September 1916, PRO CO 96/570.

51 The effects of the destruction of standing crops in this area would have been substantial; while congratulating the Commissioner on his exploits, the Kunab obliquely pointed to likely hardship, noting that the scorched earth policy would help break down the prevailing resistance to the use of coin. ZD, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 July 1916.

52 Colonial Office minutes on Governor H. Clifford to A. Bonar Law, 18 September 1916, PRO CO 96/570.

53 Although the Northern Territories had ceased to be a dejure military administration in 1907, many of the old personnel remained, and new appointees at this date were mainly military officers. Armitage had served in the Ashanti campaign of 1900; Castellain had served in the South African War and had been an officer in the South African Constabulary from 1901 to 1908. Gold Coast Civil Service List (1912).

54 Frafra (or Fra Fra), derived from the greeting of the Garisi people, was and has remained a common generic sobriquet for all the peoples of the Zuarungu District.

55 CCNT to Acting Colonial Secretary, 10 July 1916, enclosure viii in Governor H. Clifford to A. Bonar Law, 18 September 1916, PRO CO 96/570.

56 Apart from his sentimentality, Armitage wilfully exaggerated the isolation of the ‘Frafras’ here. Head-carriage for the administration could mean journeys as far south as Kumasi; an unrecorded number of men had begun migrating to southern cocoa farms (on these two aspects see S. D. Nash's typically perceptive remarks in ZD, 14 October 1913) and southern mine labour was already drawn from this area, see Thomas, Roger G., ‘Forced Labour in British West Africa: the Case of the Northern Territories of the Gold Coast 1906–1927’, J. Afr. Hist, XIV, i (1973), 79–90;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Crisp, J. F., ‘Labour Resistance and Labour Control in the Ghanaian Gold Mining Industry, 1870–1980’ (unpub. Ph.D. thesis, University of Birmingham, 1980), chs. II and III.Google Scholar

57 Sworn statement by Sergeant-Major Egala Grunshi of 16 October 1916, NAG-A ADM 56/1/193. In his own evidence the Chief of Bongo said that people had told him that he was a liar in threatening to report unrest to the Commissioner at Zuarungu since ‘there was no District Commissioner at Zouaragu only a Hausa Trader’. Notes of Enquiry into Unrest in Zouaragu District, 16 November 1916, NAG-A ADM 56/1/193. Captain Breckenridge, who carried out the inquiry, interpreted this as an analogy. People wanted their ‘own Commissioner’ not the peripatetic ‘Hausa Trader, who is seen occasionally but treated as a stranger’. Captain Breckenridge to CCNT, 20 November 1916, NAG-A ADM 56/1/193.

58 Notes of Enquiry … NAG-A ADM 56/1/193.

59 Governor J. Rodger to Lord Crewe, 19 April 1910, and enclosures, PRO CO 96/495. Current local tradition portrays the murdered chief, Na Tii, as an aggressive, arrogant man, and connects his murder with resistance to demands for labour for road-building. I am grateful to Clement Chabot for allowing me to consult his field-notes of interviews with Baganaba Azuri, brother of the present Chief of Nangodi; the Zuanaba; and with the watchman of the Nangodi Middle School.

60 Notes of Enquiry…NAG-A ADM 56/1/193.

61 Ibid.

62 Ibid.

63 On Armitage's administrative schemes see Iliasu, , ‘Establishment’, 4–18.Google Scholar

64 CCNT to Acting Governor A. R. Slater, II December 1916, NAG-A ADM 56/1/193.

65 ZD, 6 August 1919.

66 Preface to ‘Record Book for North Mamprusi’, 31 March 1922, NAG-A ADM 68/4/3.

67 ZD, 19 September 1919.

68 ZD, 14, 15, 27 August 1920.

69 Handing-over report for the Navarro District, 1 November 1907, NAG-A ADM 56/1/61.

70 Handing-over report and half-yearly report on Navarro District by Captain S. D. Nash, 12 July 1911, NAG-A ADM 56/1/61.

71 ZD, 15 October 1919.

72 Anafu, , ‘Impact’, 27–30;Google ScholarIliasu, Cf., ‘Establishment’, 15–16.Google Scholar

73 ZD, 25 November 1913.

74 Handing-over report for the Navarro District, I November 1907, NAG-A ADM 56/1/61.

75 For a forceful restatement of the view that Mamprugu was not suzerain over the Tallensi in the immediately pre-colonial period see Goody, Jack, ‘Population and polity in the Voltaic Region’, in Friedman, J. and Rowlands, M. J. (eds.), The Evolution of Social Systems (Pittsburgh, 1978), 535–545.Google Scholar

76 Thomas, , ‘Military Recruitment’, 75–81.Google Scholar

77 CNEP to CCNT, 3 February 1919; CCNT to Colonial Secretary, 19 February 1919, NAG-A ADM 56/1/198.

78 The most spectacular examples of the advantages of being a labour recruiter came from the north-west of the Protectorate, where some chiefs had established large farms. See the cases from the late 1920s discussed in NAG-Tamale, ADM 1/143.

79 Acting CCNT to Colonial Secretary, II June 1942, NAG-A CSO 0172/SF 15.

80 CCNT to Colonial Secretary, 18 November 1943, NAG-A CSO 3861/SF 15.

81 CCNT to Colonial Secretary, 23 June 1943, NAG-A CSO 3861/SF 1. Anane, the ‘octogenarian bandit’, was allowed to return to Bongo in 1945; CCNT to Colonial Secretary, 20 March 1945, NAG-A CSO 3861/SF 1.