CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION
“The Press are the Chroniclers of history as it is made.”

Maryanne Means.

The Press and a Divided Government.

[Symposium] National Press Foundation, Washington D. C. December 6,1989.

The history of newspapers in the Gold Coast stretches back to more than a

hundred and fifty years. Indeed, the very first attempt at newspaper publication in

the Gold Coast, the ‘Government’ ran Royal Gold Coast Gazette was established

as early as 1822 during Sir Charles McCarthy’s short and unfortunate tenure as

Governor of the Gold Coast. Following his death at the battle of Nsamankow
1

there was a hiatus in the development of the press in the Gold Coast until the

1850s when the Bannerman brothers, Charles and Edmund, established the first

indigenously owned, edited, and erroneously presumed, first ever newspaper in

the Gold Coast, the Accra Herald. Thereafter, the Gold Coast press has known no
2

turning back, and by the end of the nineteenth century, a vibrant and dynamic
newspaper industry had become well established in the Gold Coast.

The historical import of the press in the Gold Coast has been noted by many

historians. However, as one eminent Ghanaian historian poignantly observes:

The Ghana Press is one of the most

important institutions of the land and one

of the oldest in Africa, and yet its history

1 K. A. B. Jones-Quartey, History, Politics and Early Press in Ghana; The Fictions and the Facts, The
Author and the School of Communications Studies, University of Ghana, Legon. 1975. pp. 25-40.
2Ibid. , pp.25-40.

1
 is one of the least researched and

documented in anything like a systematic

way. 3

The importance of the press as a medium for the propagation of new ideas, as a

forum for debating matters of general concern and as an avenue for agitation is

generally recognised and accepted by all who have studied the press in West

Africa’s history. However, the systematic historical study of this institution has

been largely neglected in studying the history of Ghana. Historians of Ghana have

made much use of information gleaned from the press as evidence to illuminate

and elucidate a priori positions, or to buttress arguments they canvass on issues

relating to other aspects of Ghana’s history. Generally, the press has been a

veritable treasure throve of information about political developments in the Gold

Coast. This is mainly because, as Murphy rightly notes:

To study the development of nationalism or the

press in West Africa is to study the other. They

cannot be separated. The press gave to nationalism

its prime means of diffusion, the organ through

which the idea could be disseminated. Nationalism

gave to the press its principal message in extending

or maintaining its circulation. 4

Thus right from the very earliest days of newspaper publishing in Gold Coast, it had always had

strong ties to politics, a symbiotic relationship which historians have long noticed and
3Jones Quartey, op.cit. , p. xix.
4 Edmund Murphy, "Nationalism and the Press in British West Africa", unpublished M.A Thesis,
University of Wisconsin, 1976, p.16.

2
documented in some detail. Very little work however has been done with the sole objective of
5

studying the Gold Coast press as an institution deserving of detailed examinations in its own

right. Most of the works published, which examine the press, are of such a sketchy nature as to

be of little practical value when viewed as definitive works of scholarship. An example of such

works is Magnus Sampson’s pamphlet, “A Brief History of Gold Coast Journalism”, a work

which has been described scathingly but aptly as being "even less than brief". A notable 6

exception to this trend in the form a detailed scholarly work is Prof. Jones- Quartey’s History,

Politics and Early Press in Ghana: The Fictions and Facts. This is a well documented enquiry

into the antecedents of newspaper journalism and printing in Ghana.

There have also been quite a number of unpublished theses which sought to study the history of

the press in Gold Coast. Notable among these is Sylvanus Ekwelie’s “The Press in Gold Coast

Nationalism 1890-1957”. . To these may be added a number of theses and publications which
7

study the press and politics in English speaking West Africa as a whole . Generally, these works
8

are geared at an examination of the press as a political force, or as a weapon in the nationalist

arsenal during the quest for national independence. However, there is more to newspapers than

just politics, and newspapers may well prove to be even more invaluable as historical sources if
a more thorough evaluation of their contents is undertaken

Finally, it is important to note the following statement from Christopher Fyfe, who provides

what is probably the greatest justification for a study of this nature . He observes that:

5 See. David Kimble, A Political History of Ghana: The rise of Gold Coast Nationalism, 1850-1928,
Oxford, 1963.
6Jones-Quartey, op. cit. ,p. xix.
7 Sylvanus Ekwelie, "The Press in Gold Coast Nationalism", University of Wisconsin, 1971.
8 Examples of such works are: Rosalynde Ainslie, The Press in Africa: Communications Past and Present,
London, Victor Gollanoz, 1966, W.D. Edmunds, “The Newspaper Press in British West Africa, 1918-
1939”, M.A. Thesis, University of Bristol, 1952, and Edmund Murphy, op.cit. .

3
 The historian of a colony has to draw much of his

information from dispatches or reports written for

the Government at home. They often tell a one

sided story. A Governor may spare the secretary of

state unpleasant details that may lead to unwelcome

inquiring : the authors of official reports often to

have an eye fixed on objects beyond their

immediate terms of reference. A country may well

be on the verge of revolution yet not a hint of it

appears officially. But the press, if not deliberately

silenced, speaks with no such united voice; the

under currents officials conceal, bubble openly in

the newspapers. 9

THE SUBJECT MATTER OF THE STUDY

The Gold Coast press was not at anytime in its history solely dedicated to the printing of
newspapers. In this sense, the expression “Gold Coast Press” is employed here with considerable

license. Neither was it the case that press activity concerning the Gold Coast was limited to

locally published newspapers; indeed it was not a homebound phenomena. Journals and

publications such as the Gold Coast and Ashanti Argus, Anti-slavery Reporter, The Colonial

Intelligencer and the African Times of London, to name a few from a very extensive lot, all

reported about and concerned themselves with events in the Gold Coast.

9Christopher Fyfe, “The Sierra Leone Press in the Nineteenth Century.” Sierra Leone Studies.,8, June
1957,pp.226.

4
The Gold Coast press may thus be conveniently divided into the following categories. Firstly,

there were the Government owned and Government ran publications, such as the Royal Gold

Coast Gazette and later the Government Gazette and Gold Coast News. These were generally

avenues through which the colonial Government disseminated its edicts. There is also a second

category which Prof. Jones-Quartey refers to as the Anglo-African journals . These comprise 1

newspapers and journals which were as a rule edited, and published outside the Gold Coast.

Their primary objective was not news reporting or even the Gold Coast per-se. However, the

Gold Coast fell within the ambit of their concern. Consequently they paid considerable attention

to developments in the Gold Coast. They were usually published by individuals and

organisations possessed of an empathetic view of Africa and who saw it as their duty to spread

the benefits of civilisation to Africa and speed the irradication of some deleterious practices

from Africa; notably, slavery. Many of these publications such as the Anti-Slavery Advocate

had highly specialised agenda and tended to go out of print once their special advocacy

concerns had been resolved.

Finally there was the indigenous press. This comprises newspapers edited and printed in the

Gold Coast. The vast majority of these were owned and edited by the indigenous people of the
Gold Coast, although they also included newspapers such as the Gold Coast Assizes which was

owned and ran by W .C. Niblett, an Englishman, and the Ashanti Times established by Colonel
2 3

Speers, another Englishman, who was chairman of the Ashanti Goldfields Corporation.

1 K.A.B. Jones-Quartey, “Anglo-African Journals and Journalists in the Nineteenth and early Twentieth
Centuries”, T.H.S.G. vol. iv, I, Legon, 1959,pp.44-55.
2 W.C. Niblett actually made three attempts at newspaper production, all short lived. Apart from the Gold
Coast Assizes ( November 1883- February 1884), he also established the Gold Coast News (March 1885-
August 1885) and West African Gazette and Gold Coast Chronicle (February 1896-March 1896) see also,
Jones – Quartey, op. cit. , pp. 94-95
3The Ashanti Times was the official house journal of the Ashanti Goldfields Corporation. J. D. Chick,
“The Ashanti Times, A footnote in Ghanaian press history “in African Affairs, Vol. 79, 302.

5
Another sub-category in this group is the indigenous language press, examples of which are the

Nkwantabisa , Amansuon, and Motabiala . This sub-group was the last to develop of all the
4

categories mentioned here. This is because it could not have been undertaken before the

indigenous languages had been reduced into writing. Moreover, the period of their development

suggests that they developed out of a need to spread nationalist ideas to that larger section of the

Gold Coast’s population for whom English was in every sense an indecipherable tongue. Finally

there was also the indigenously owned and indigenously ran English language press, with which

this study is primarily concerned.

This thesis is not aimed at attempting the almost impossible task of tackling the whole of this

extensive and very diverse field. It shall therefore be restricted to an examination of the

indigenously owned English language newspapers only. Moreover this examination shall; in

earnest, be confined to the first half of the twentieth century although a sketch of the

beginnings of newspapers publishing in the Gold Coast will be undertaken to provide a

background to the main study.

SCOPE AND OBJECTIVES

Several factors have been taken into account in choosing the scope of this study. The first of
these consideration relates to the availability of material. Material from the earliest years of

newspaper publication in the Gold Coast is largely unavailable or too scanty to enable a

thorough analysis of their contents and character. 5

The object of this enterprise is to investigate the past truthfully, not to originate or perpetuate

myths. The study therefore deals only with those periods for which material is available or

obtainable in such volume as to enable meaningful analysis. Moreover, I have taken note of
4Jones-Quartey, op.cit., p.104. Actually, this sub-category is supposed to have developed in the nineteenth
century. However, it was in the twentieth century that it really came into its own.
5Ibid. , pp. 75-77.

6
Prof. Jones-Quartey's work which answers many of the questions concerning the inception of,

and early years of the press in the Gold Coast. It is my opinion that any attempt on my part to
6

walk that well trodden path will unnecessarily belabour the facts and contribute little to

scholarship.

In addition to the above factors, the period which the study covers was chosen because it was an

era of truly monumental global changes. The period saw two wars of global dimension, the

establishment of a novel political system, the balkanisation of the world into different and

mutually antagonistic political blocs, and for the Gold Coast and Africa, the beginnings of the

break up of European global empires. These epochal developments impacted upon developments

in the Gold Coast and subsequently upon her history. Political agitation was heightened and so

radicalised during the period that the people of the Gold Coast of whom it had been said only a

few years prior to the study period that:

... the people ever contemplated open rebellion – or

even resistance with force - was simply a phantom

in the brains of alarmists 7

were by the end of the period under review, a half century after this assertion was made, no

longer clamouring for improved socio-economic conditions and a greater say in the politics of

their country, but for complete self-Government.

6.Ibid.pp.75-77
7Gold Coast Free Press , August 1-14, 1899.

7
Throughout this turbulent period the press in the Gold Coast formed part of the great arsenal

through which the nationalist movements channeled their agitation. Indeed it has been observed

that:

Newspapers did not appear in a political vacuum,

indeed the contrary is nearer the truth… African

leaders were beginning to resist, passively at first,

the objectionable features of British Colonial rule,

as dissatisfaction with economic conditions took an

early precedence over social and political

grievances . 8

The press not only served as the mouthpiece of nationalism, but also as the launchpad for many

of its most prominent figures, who indeed regarded it as an indispensable adjunct to their

political activities. 9

HYPOTHESES

A general history always requires an overall model,

good or bad, against which events can be

interpreted. 10

8E. Murphy, op. cit., pp.16-17

9. J. D. Chick, cp. cit., p.81. Casely Hayford, Attoh Ahuma, and Komla Gbedemah are examples of
politicians who entered public life as pressmen.
10 Fernard Brandel, cited in Arthur Marwick, “The Nature of History, Macmillan, London, 1970 p. 283.

8
The present study endeavours to examine the history of Ghana over a certain period of her past,

as revealed in the fragmentary remains of the period, in the present case, newspapers. However,

the history of this period, like any other, is many sided, thus an attempt to deal with all aspects

of this story will probably end in a fruitless rambling endeavour lacking in perspective or

direction. A theoretical framework has therefore been adopted to set limit to the concerns of

the study and also to provide a conceptual framework for analysis.

The theoretical framework adopted in this study consists of two hypotheses. In one part it posits

that the press provided the vehicle for fomenting a sense of nationality among the peoples of

the Gold Coast. It has been observed that:

National sentiment - the sense of ‘belonging’ - is

more likely to develop in the presence of certain

objective factors of which the most important are

national homeland and a common language and

culture. National feeling may further be reinforced

by a common ancestry or shared tradition of origin;

by religious beliefs held in common; and by the

physical advantages of economic inter dependence

and ease of communication. 11

However, these advantages are conspicuously absent in the Gold Coast. Prior to her complete

colonisation, what today is Ghana was not a unified political or economic entity, but rather a

melange of tribal kingdoms, for the most part mutually antagonistic, who were engaged in the

pursuit of parochial tribal objectives. Even after she was colonised, the pattern of socio-

11 D. Kimble, op. cit., p. xiii.

9
economic development in the Gold Coast was markedly unequal for different parts of the

country . Observing British West African colonies, David Apter remarks that in all cases, there

was a lack of historical unity among the different peoples of each colony and that relations

between different areas in the colonial territories were conducted mainly along tribal lines. There

were also differences in religion, education and levels of westernisation between the different

regions of the colonies . Generally, the coastal areas were much more economically developed
12

than the inland areas and enjoyed greater access to social infrastructure, having had a longer and

closer contact with Europeans, Christianity and European commercial activities and practices.

These differences were further exacerbated by the nature of governance adopted upon

colonisation. Indirect rule, by which political authority was exercised through the already

existing indigenous institution of chieftaincy entrenched, and in some cases even extended the

authority of chiefs thus further strengthening tribal allegiances.

Thus we notice that polarisation in colonial society existed on three fronts. Economically,

development was skewed in favour of the coastal areas, with the Northern Territories being

particularly neglected. A similar situation existed with regard to the provision of social amenities
and educational facilities while politically the concept of a nation in any wide, terminal, supra-

tribal sense was virtually non-existent among the indigenous people.

The Gold Coast was thus neither ethnically nor economically unified in any real sense. It was a

patchwork to which policy was directed in an uneven manner and altered to suit the expediency

of British colonial interest. Not much effort was directed by the colonial administration at

effectively integrating this ethnic mosaic. However by the time of independence, the people of

the Gold Coast had come to view themselves to a large measure, as one nation.
12D. Apter, The Gold Coast in Transition. Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 1964.

10
It is a contention of the first hypothesis that the indigenous newspapers played a vanguard role in

the process the mental bonding by fostering a “sense of nationality” - the feeling that as Gold

Coast people they were one people, distinguished from all other nations- and highlighted this

concept of nationhood until all the different disparate elements of the Gold Coast jigsaw had

been forged into a nation. Moreover, by persistently barracking the colonial Government, the

newspapers provided a common identifiable foe whose actions were interpreted as affecting

deleteriously, all the people as one upon whom all discontent was focused, and against whom

all were urged to band together for joint action. Kimble recognises this aspect of the role of the

press in the pre-independence era and observed of them, that:

They began to create a stereotype of a harmful,

inefficient unsympathetic colonial Government,

thus providing a coherent and consistent

explanation for everything that went wrong: and

gradually there emerged a desire for some

alternation to the authority, the paternalism, and the

prejudice of the white man. By recalling past

protests and offering future targets, the struggling

newspapers encouraged the sense of a continuing

campaign. 13

13. D. Kimble, op. cit., p.555.

11
The hypothesis also contends that this persistently anti-Government stance, and the wide range

of issues to which the newspapers lent their support encouraged a sense of identification among

the people of the Gold Coast.

The second hypothesis in this theoretical framework concerns the relationships between the

press, elites in Gold Coast society and the mass of ordinary Gold Coast people in the nationalist

movement.

The Gold Coast press, being almost exclusively an English language medium catered primarily

to the literate members of Gold Coast society. This group, urban-based and consisting mostly of

European trained professionals also owned, ran and patronised the press. This fact is recognised

by Chick, who asserts that:

Readership may have been limited to a tiny fraction

of the population but it was concentrated among the

educated urban elite which grew increasingly

influential with the passage of time. Moreover,

being almost exclusive African in both ownership

and control, the press was closely attuned to the

political aspirations of the politically conscious

minority which it served. .

14

The above quotation epitomises one of the generally held views of the relationship between the

press, the educated natives in Gold Coast society and the nationalist movement. This position is

in accord with Balandier’s view that whereas the colonizing powers created conditions which
14 J. D. Chick, op. cit., p.139.

12
facilitated rapid social transformation, the controls they imposed on the upper limits to these

processes led to social frustrations in the new African ‘elite’ classes which developed. As a

result of these frustrations elites sought political power as a means of redressing the

discrimination inherent in colonialism. It has been observed that this imposed ceiling on African

advancement was a strong source of potential conflict which provided strong motivation for

nationalist agitation. This position advances the view that the press was merely a tool, albeit a
15

very effective one, in the hands of the educated elite in their struggle for political hegemony in

the Gold Coast. However, such a viewpoint does not adequately explain the influence of the

press in the history of the Gold Coast. Furthermore, the position seems to posit a sort of grand

conspiracy among educated Gold Coast indigenes to wrest political authority from European

and traditional rulers. It is also observed that establishing categories solely on the index of

literacy may obfuscate other politically relevant linkages which may have existed, and which

may have exerted considerable influence upon political and social developments in Gold Coast.

To this end the theory proposes to re-examine the relationship between elite control, the

nationalist movement and press activity in the Gold Coast.

It is generally supposed that two sets of elites existed in Gold Coast society, these being the
traditional ‘royal’ elite, and the educated elite, who played a pivotal role in Gold Coast politics,

sometimes working in alliance and at other times being at variance with each other.

The hypothesis here contends that the Gold Coast press represented the interest of no one group

exclusively, but that the nationalist movement for which it spoke drew upon the strength,

energy, anxieties and discontents of various categories of people in the Gold Coast. It is further

contended here that in this process the educated elite as such was not its motive force, although

they through the press acted as spokesmen for the collective. The hypothesis posits that the
15A. J. Langley, Pan-Africanism and Nationalism in West Africa, 1900-1945, Clarendon Press, 1973.p.3.

13
fulcrum of this process was an amalgam of economic interests and social conditions, facing both

literate and illiterate members of Gold Coast society. It has been observed, for instance, that:

During the 1930s, a period of depression and rising

unemployed, the African press of the Gold Coast

was the main outlet for the frustrations and

resentments not only of the educated urban elite,

but also of worried cocoa farmers, redundant clerks

and disappointed school leavers. 16

This assertion is corroborated by Langley, who contends that:

If after 1918, economic and educational

development in West Africa was partially retarded,

the effects of the Great War on anti-colonial politics

between the two world wars was the reverse… in

the late 1920s and in the 1930s there was

stagnation due to the world economic crisis, and it

was during the period that West African

nationalism became more explicit in its criticism,

especially against unemployment and economic

exploitation.’ (emphasis mine) 17

He further observes that:

16. Fred Omu, “The Dilema of Press Freedom in Colonial Africa: The West African Example” J.A.H, 9,2.
1968. p.280.
17A. J. Langley, op.cit., p.3.

14
 Higher income from cocoa and rubber farms also

led to less concentration on food crops, a

development which was to have serious

consequences particularly in the towns during the

1921-22 slump and the depression of the 1930s. 18

It is seen here that the increased and more explicitly aggressive nationalistic tone of the press in

this period, for instance, is not so much the product of the conspiratorial intent of the educated

people in the Gold Coast, as it was a reaction to the conditions of the period. It is sought here to

replace the notion of an educated elite pursuing parochial political objectives with that of an

alliance of economic forces which would include educated professionals, traders, some members

of the traditional aristocracy, commercial cash crop planters, urban workers and semi-educated

unemployed members of the society. Almost all these groups of people found their fortunes at

some time enhanced and at other times, severely hampered within the socio-economic and

political environment created by the pax Britannica in the Gold Coast.

It must be emphasised that, despite the theoretical framework adopted, the basic orientation of
this study is empirical not theoretical. The objective here is not to construct a general theory of

the press in the Gold Coast. The hypotheses outlined above are meant to provide a guiding

framework only, and not as a dogmatic yardstick or pigeon hole into which all information must

fit.

SOURCES:

18. Ibid. , p.169.

15
Both primary and secondary source shall be employed in this study. The primary sources shall

mainly comprise newspapers from the period under review, and material in the Ghana National

Archives.

These may include the correspondence between officials of the colonial administration and the

records of the nationalist movement such as the Aborigines Rights Protection Society (ARPS)

and the National Congress of British West Africa (N.C.B.W.A). Works of general history

abound for the period under review, and these, as well as theses and published articles in learned

journals shall form the bulk of the secondary source material for the study.

ORGANISATION OF STUDY

The study is organised into six chapters according to the subject matter they deal with. This, the

first chapter, has been employed in introducing the concerns of the study.

Chapter two comprises an overview of the Gold Coast press prior to 1900. This is provided as a
background to the development during the period under review .

The third chapter examines the character of the press. In this chapter, an attempt is made to

examine the objectives of the newspapers, their links to the various nationalist movements, their

tone and the consistency with which they pursued a definite agenda. An attempt is also made to

examine the degrees of conflict and concurrence among the various newspapers.

16
The fourth chapter tackles the development of national consciousness in the Gold Coast, and

covers Pan-Africanism and the efforts of the newspapers to foster a sense of national identity,

while chapter four examines the legal and economic climate in which the newspapers operated.

The sixth and final chapter is a retrospective examination of the Gold Coast press, and also

presents the conclusions obtained in the study.

DEFINITION OF CONCEPTS

Although the title of this study employs the name Ghana in reference to the geographical area

with which the study is concerned, the name Gold Coast has been mainly employed in the

study. This is primarily to eliminate ambiguity, as the historical name Gold Coast, was not

always contemporaneous with the entire area of present day Ghana. The phrase ‘colonial

Ghana’ wherever it appears in this study means the same as Gold Coast. Furthermore as already

noted, the word ‘press’ in this study refers to newspapers exclusively, and even more

specifically, to indigenously owned English language newspapers Nationalism as employed in

this study is definable as:

a consciousness of belonging to a nation or

nationality, and a desire as manifest in sentiment

and activity, to secure and maintain its welfare,

prosperity and integrity. 19

19. J.S. Coleman, Nigeria, Background to Nationalism. Berkeley, University of California Press, 1958,
p.425.

17
Another expression of this nationalism is resistance to all forms of domination by non-

nationals, either by peaceful or violent means, and the desire to be free of foreign domination. 20

20. The definition of nationalism adopted here has been criticised by Baron Holmes who contends that
‘nationalism’ was something of a catch all concept, He argues that it is misleading to lump together such
diverse phenomena as violent insurrectionism, theoretical nationalists, culturalists, constitutional
lobbyists, interest articulating protesters and self-seeking merchants seeking to oust foreign economic
dominance under the umbrella of ‘nationalism’. While agreeing with Holmes’s reservations about the
conceptual laxity of the tag nationalism, we maintain the definition as it stands. Nationalism is essentially
an emotive phenomenon. It is not necessarily a response to external factors, nor must it necessarily
manifest in any particular form such as insurrectionism or a quest for national aggrandisement.
Essentially, in ascribing the tag ‘nationalism’ we are evaluating ex post facto, actions and their effects,
omissions, as well as motives and thoughts overtly expressed.
See Baron Holmes, “ What was the Nationalism of the 1930s in Ghana ” in “Akyem Abuakwa and the
Politics of the inter-war Period in Ghana.” Mitteilungen, 12,1975.pp.13-29.
See also, Baron Holmes, Economic and Political Organisations in the Gold Coast, 1920-1945.
Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis, University of Chicago, 1972.

18
 CHAPTER TWO
THE BIRTH OF THE GOLD COAST PRESS

The Gold Coast Press was ‘born’ sometime in 1857 when the Accra Herald, a hand written 1

manuscript newspaper produced by the brothers, Charles and Edmund Bannerman first

appeared. Right from inception, this newspaper set itself very high journalistic standards and

intimated that it was unprepared to be anybody’s lapdog. However, it would seem that at least in

its early days the paper sought to present a ‘balanced’ and not necessarily nationalistic position.

In its third issue for instance, the paper complains that:

The apathy of the Government is encouraging

the evil disposed to persuade their countrymen

to throw off all respect for the British Authority 2

This is definitely not the stance one would associate with a paper with nationalist objectives.

However, in the same issue one finds further examples of the balanced nature of the paper. In its
editorial titled “Public Journal”, the editor sums up the duties of a journalist. This editorial may

be taken to represent the manifesto of the paper, and sets out its intentions and proposed

character admirably as follows:

The duties of a Public Journalist are manifold, but they

are plain at the same time and unmistakable. He who

1 . K.A.B. Jones- Quartey, op. cit., p.61. The Accra Herald later changed its name to the West African
Herald. Jones-Quartey gives the date of establishment as September 7, 1857 in Accra, although the paper
later moved to Cape-Coast and even briefly to Sierra Leone. See also, Casely Hayford, Gold Coast Native
Institutions Sweet and Maxwell, London, 1903. p.175.
2 . Accra Herald, October 5, 1857.

19
undertakes to hold the position of a Public Journalist

must make up his mind fearlessly to speak the truth

and boldly to encounter the enmity of the powerful,

Everywhere a free Journal will be an object of jealousy

and dislike to Rulers. Generally speaking a journal

that enunciates its opinions without fear or favour is

admired and respected by the public just in proportion

as it is detested by the Authorities whose fault it

exposes. A public Journal should be a public friend -

the friend of the people, and the friend of the

Authorities – the champion of order and of liberty –

the opposer of anarchy and despotism . In order to be

respectable , a Journal must be conducted in a spirit

of strict impartiality – with boldness. It should not

affect to lay down the law dictatorially, for that is

aiming at despotism over men’s minds – neither

should it descend to the meanness of pandering to the

public passions. The plan which we have laid down for

our own guidance is simple. We sincerely respect the

Authorities and for that reason we shall keep our eyes

on them, so that we may, whenever they slip from the

right path, humbly endeavour to point out the road. If

we sometimes boldly tell the Government what is the

public feeling on such or such a subject, the

Government should not be offended. It ought rather to

20
 rejoice. Is it not well to know how men consider

themselves affected by our actions”

In civilized communities the Press deservedly occupy

a high position. The mass of mankind want either the

leisure or the capacity to form a sound opinion on

most questions of the day – we mean an opinion

founded in calm reflection and thorough examination

of the subject. Men’s opinions therefore, where there is

no Press, are often mere whims and fancies, formed on

very trifling knowledge of the matter. Their

information is frequently incorrect. If a journalist

avoids personalities, tells the truth, and fairly and

boldly expresses his opinions, he will naturally receive

the support of the community in whose interest he is

working; and even the Authorities , though they may

dislike; must respect them. 3

This was the philosophy and raison d’être of the Accra Herald. It was therefore not surprising

that the colonial administration did not find its commentaries laudatory. In a dispatch to the

Secretary of State written on July 13, 1859, for instance, the Acting Governor General of the

Gold Coast, Colonel H. Bird, sought to “call your attention to the enclosed extracts of the West

African Herald, a paper which generally cavils than acquiesces in the proceedings of the

Government.” Though there are too few copies of the Herald available to enable a thorough
4

content analysis, we may infer from the opinion of Colonel Bird, that the Herald was anything

3 . Ibid.
4 . Jones-Quartey, op.cit., p.72.

21
but a mouth piece of the colonial administration. In fact, the Bannerman brothers themselves

seem to have been held in considerable distaste by the colonial administrators, and although

this may to some extent be justified, one cannot help feeling that their press activity may have

contributed in no small measure to this official antipathy.

As already noted, the development of the press in the Gold Coast is closely tied up with the

development of nationalism. It is interesting to note that at about the same time as the

Bannerman brothers were embarking on their historic venture, the jurisdiction of Britain in the

Gold Coast was being roundly challenged by King Aggrey of Cape Coast and later by the Fanti

Confederacy.

It is aptly stated by Jones-Quartey that the existing copies of the Herald do not permit a full

analysis of its general character. However, he observes that the “Herald seems to have had an

ambivalent or love-hate relationship with the British colonial authorities. It ran all the way from

affection and praise, sometimes even fulsome praise to out and out repudiation of the colonial

system in the most abusive terminology of inflamed nationalism.” 5

A few examples will serve to highlight this ambivalence in the Heralds opinion vis a vis the

colonial administration. Writing in March 1871 of Captain-Commandant, C. C. Lee, the paper

acclaimed him in the following words, “the entire population… appreciate the excellent qualities

of their present commandant and ardently desire that he should remain among them” It goes on
6

to decry the smallness of the salary which “so important, so useful, so hardworking – a public

functionary is receiving”. The paper also refers to Judge Chalmers as the eminent and
7

universally loved magistrate. However, in 1863 when Edmund Bannerman was charged with
5 . Ibid., p.75.
6 . Ibid., pp. 75-76.
7 . Ibid., p.76.

22
embezzlement, the West African Herald treated the issue as one of racial discrimination and

averred that, “had he been a whiteman, we are certain the Governor would never have

sanctioned these extraordinary proceedings. There is no need to multiply proofs as to the

treatment here adopted towards coloured men”. 8

This race consciousness was to resurface in 1871, in the West African Herald’s reportage of the

opening of a new market in Accra. The Herald’s comment on the proceedings was scathy,

virulent and radical. It ran as follows:

The Commandant then called for three cheers for

the Queen. These were given with a degree of

heartiness by all present that seemed to afford

grounds for suspecting that the people of this

country do not properly understand how

tremendously they are oppressed. The poor,

helpless African who as has been so often proved to

demonstration in print is ground down ruthlessly

beneath the iron heel of the despotic European

Official out here, and is not allowed to have a voice

in his own affairs is evidently a senseless brute, not

half up to snuff. The stupid idiot doesn’t see how

frightfully he is oppressed, and when he is called

upon by a bloated aristocratical official to give

three cheers for the despotic tyrant whose minions

swarm in such numbers over the whole country,

8 . West African Herald, October 5, 1863.

23
 eating up our wealth and sucking up our life’s

blood, he brutishly lends his voice to swell the

slavish “Hurrah” which is raised in compliment to

the usurper… Our correspondent informs us with

much meanness of soul that “we all enjoyed

ourselves immensely; everything went off in capital

style”. The chiefs and their attendant herd of

scarecrows managed of course to come in for their

(s) and other people’s share of what was going. 9

While noting the extreme swings in the West African Herald’s opinion, Jones-Quartey attempts

no explanation for it. However, it would seem that the opinions championed in the West African

Herald were to some extent dictated by the pendulous relationship which existed between the

Bannermans themselves and the colonial authorities. In support of this contention, it must be

stated that Charles Bannerman, the editor of the Herald, was very active in the political activism

which swept the Gold Coast in the wake of King Aggrey’s stand off with the British. 0 1

It must also be borne in mind that the West African Herald was moved to Sierra Leone
somewhere in 1868. 1 1 Murphy states categorically that “Bannerman the Gold Coast editor,

brought his West African Herald from Cape Coast but returned sometime between 1870 and

9 . Ibid., August 22, 1871.

10 . (A) It is interesting that both Bannerman brothers were once employed in Government service, but
were later dismissed. The Bannerman family was very active, both socially and politically, and
undoubtedly, they may have occasionally incurred official displeasure. (B). Letter, Horton to Caldwell,
Cape Coast Castle, October 12, 1869. This letter informs Caldwell about Bannerman’s letter to Horton,
informing him of the formation of an Accra Native Confederation on the initiative of educated natives of
Accra. The author has been unable to find any corroborating evidence of the existence of such a
Confederation. See also Francis Agbodeka, “The Fanti Confederacy, 1865-69”, T.H.S.G., Vol. VII, 1965,
Legon.
11 . Jones-Quartey, op. cit., p. 20.

24
1872". 2 Jones-Quartey presumes that this move from the Gold Coast to Sierra Leone was
1

because of the better printing facilities there. However, when one considers that it was only in

1868 that Edmund Bannerman, co-editor of the Herald was released from prison, following his

conviction in 1863 as the result of an enquiry after which Kennedy the British official in charge

of the enquiry felt compelled to comment that “the prosecution appears to have been conducted

in a manner and spirit, which I feel confident Your Grace would not approve” 3, one gets the 1

impression that the state of affairs in the Gold Coast at this time was not exactly conducive to

press freedom. This impression is further buttressed by the fact that Kennedy himself, in May

1868, prior to his visit to the Gold Coast had been inclined to the view that “Cape Coast is

afflicted with a number of mischievous, half-educated mulatto adventurers, whose livelihood

depends upon keeping alive dissension.” 4 Further evidence of the hostile environment of the
1

period is seen in the numerous cases in which Kennedy was compelled to censure colonial

officials. Kennedy was indeed moved to the position that the administration of justice on the

Gold Coast was so badly organised that “the natural result has been confusion, failure and the

perversion of justice”. 5 1
Such an atmosphere is hardly one which can be considered as

conducive to open criticism of Government activity.

The West African Herald continued in print till sometime between 1872-73, when it took a bow,

never to re-appear. However the flame that the Bannerman brothers lit was not extinguished. In

1874, a new indigenous newspaper appeared to carry on from where the pioneering Bannermans

left off, but with even greater, and more unambivalent nationalist fervour. This paper was the

Gold Coast Times, established by James Hutton Brew. 6 Like the Bannermans before him,
1

12 E. Murphy, op. cit., p.28. See also Jones-Quartey, op, cit., p.63. Quartey asserts that by 1871 the West
African Herald was back in Cape Coast.
13. Francis Agbodeka, op. cit., p.102.
14. Ibid., p.96.
15. Ibid., p.103.
16. Magnus Sampson, op. cit., pp.94-95.

25
Brew was a historical personality in his own right. He was deeply involved in the politics of his

day, and had, like the Bannermans suffered arrest and detention at the hands of the colonial

authorities. However, unlike the Herald which maintained a vacillating attitude towards

officialdom, Brew’s papers, the Gold Coast Times and later the Western Echo were more openly

radical and nationalistic. This was particularly true in the 1880s when his Western Echo held

sway on the journalistic landscape of the Gold Coast . Of this period, Sampson remarks that:

James Brew developed in the eighties of the last

century into the most brilliant journalist the Gold

Coast has ever known, and with the combination of

much dexterity of method with such rigidity of

principle, he edited the Western Echo a journal

which flourished in the eighties of the last century,

and which for a number of years was a source of

inspiration to the rising youth having regard to the

political enfranchisement of the Gold Coast. 7

1

Brew gave early notice of the uncompromising stance of his papers. In the first issue of the

Gold Coast Times he ran the following editorial which may appropriately be viewed as a

statement of his journalistic principles. It said:

… Once engaged in any enterprise we hold it our

adage. "Where there is a will there is a way”, we

17. Gold Coast Times, March 28, 1874.

26
have therefore adopted as our motto the expressive

word, ‘Thorough’

We do not consider it worth our while nor that of

our readers to make use of any of the stereotyped

phrases and sentences that everyday meet our gaze

on the duties of an editor. However this is our first

issue, and as (so we suppose) the public may be

desirous of learning something, or as much as it

can, of our program, policy intended and proposed

time of action, or anything else that you may

choose to term it, we are somewhat disposed to

anticipate and gratify the public wish in as brief and

concise a manner as we possibly can.

Professions we have none to make, promises we

will not hold out; but, in the words of our

prospectus “we earnestly solicit your support in

return for which we hope to be able to give you the

satisfaction to which you are justly entitled”

We shall always give our adherence to the popular

view of important matters in so far as we can

conscientiously believe that we are acting

consistently in their interest and, advocating their

rights; but circumstances may arise, complications

may turn up, which may render it necessary for us,

27
 having before us the rights and interest of the

public, to side with the constitutional authorities. In

such emergencies, we have to ask you to place the

same faith in us, as, we have in you, and not to

jump to conclusions, nor to judge us too hastily.

Crises have arisen in the history of all civilised

nations and people where the powers that be,

having regard to the public weal, have found it

incumbent to impose and thwart the wishes of the

people… we shall be found at our post, prepared to

perform our duties fearlessly and independently,

regardless of the frowns of King or Kaiser. Repose

confidence in us and we shall not be found

wanting. 8 1

As if to show that this was no empty pledge, the paper at once launched an attack at the secretive

manner in which legislation was passed, and the inhuman treatment meted out to Fanti carriers
in the Ashanti Expedition of 1873. The paper noted that it was notorious and unreasonable to

think “that subjects should obey laws which are made and kept only in the archives of the

Government.” 9 1

A paper launched on such a high note could only be expected to continue in like vein if it was to

survive for long, and the Gold Coast Times did just that. It took keen interest in the Gold Coast,

18. Ibid., March 28, 1874.

19. Ibid., March 28, 1874. Interestingly, the Gold Coast Chronicle was to revisit this issue two decades
later. See also Gold Coast Chronicle, September 8, 1894.

28
particularly the ever present threat posed by Ashanti, which the paper persistently urged the

colonial administration to undertake expeditions against. It has been observed, however, that for

a paper with a declared objective of being at post, jealously guarding the peoples rights ‘

regardless of the frowns of King or Kaiser’, the Gold Coast Times “in fact seems to have found

little time or cause to carry such a political touch’ and

was on the while that mild, and not very busy about

nationalistic politics. Thus it found no reason,

either, to wish the British away. On the contrary it

was interested in what the latter should do about

material improvements and about the

unextinguished threat of an Ashanti take-over of the

coastal areas. 0 2

It, however, appears to me that this view neglects the facts. It must be borne in mind that

nationalism within the context of Brew’s period may well have been defined in terms of the

Gold Coast Colony and Protectorate alone, as against the whole of modern day Ghana. Seen in

this light, Brew's almost rabid anti-Ashanti stance reflects the fears of the coastal people as a

whole. This fact is put into sharp relief when we consider that Brew was a very active member
of the Fanti Confederation, 1 one of whose main aims was to organise an effective military
2

deterrent to the menace Ashanti imperialism posed. Here it may be noted that the paper’s

standpoint was very parochial, but to Brew it may well have been a choice between two evils,

either consent to the domination of a technologically superior foreign power, Britain or face the

threat of conquest by Ashanti. The paper’s concern with material improvements rather than the

political issues of the day also does not detract from its averred nationalism. When viewed from

the fact that, Brew having seen the Fanti Confederacy fail, was prepared to tamper his idealism

20. Jones-Quartey, op.cit., pp. 82-83.

21. James Brew was under-secretary of the Fanti Confederacy.

29
and settle for the attainable. This would explain his preoccupation with making the best of the

situation, rather than overthrowing the British administration. The coastal people obviously

preferred the former to the latter. Furthermore, it may be pointed out that the Gold Coast Times

was mild only when compared to Brew’s later paper the Western Echo, which was admittedly

more vocal on nationalist issues than the Gold Coast Times was. However far from being

unconcerned with political issues, the Gold Coast Times, actually never let up on its incessant

clamour for constitutional reform, maintaining that:

Were a Rumanian sent to govern Venezuela would

he be capable of doing so without the assistance of

its inhabitants? If our rulers cannot know our needs

without first being brought to their notice, then we

ought to have natives in the Council who know and

could represent them. 2 2

This was a call the paper never let up on, and in subsequent issues the paper continued to press,

as it were , for a considerable number of native non-official members to be elected ‘by all
respectable persons’ to the Legislative Council. 32

In pursuance of the call for reform of the Legislative Council, the paper in August 1882,

launched a call to “all patriots to wake-up” and contribute “for a deputation to be sent to

England with the view of asking for this -‘desideratum’- popular representation.” 4 2

Unfortunately the Gold Coast Times folded up before the clamour for the deputation scheme

22. Gold Coast Times, September 3, 1881.

23 Ibid., January 20, 1883.
24 Ibid., August 26, 1882.

30
reached a crescendo, and the issue was picked up by the Gold Coast Times successor, the

Western Echo. As a result, Casely Hayford for instance wrongly declares that:

...it was the Western Echo which first mooted a

Deputation to England to lay before the British

public the political evils from which the Gold Coast

was suffering. 5 2

Suffice it to say that by 1888, when the Western Echo also closed down newspaper publishing

had become firmly established in the Gold Coast. Well did Sampson say, albeit inaccurately, of

Brew that:

If Charles Bannerman of Accra sowed the seed of

journalism in the Gold Coast as a newsletter –

writer, by editing the West African Herald with his

own handwriting on foolscap paper, James Brew

watered it and saw its germination by the

establishment of the first newspaper press which

indicated the stage in the transition from the

newsletter writing to the printed news edition. 6 2

Indeed by the time the Western Echo folded, the tradition of newspaper publishing and of

discussing issues pertinent to the common-well in the press had been firmly established. It even

appears that Brew made arrangements for the industry to continue when he departed the Gold

25. Casely Hayford, op. cit., p.90.

26. Magnus Sampson, op. cit., p.90. The Accra Herald began as a hand-written manuscript, but the West
African Herald was a printed paper which predated the Western Echo.

31
Coast journalistic scene in 1888, for Casely Hayford who was assistant editor of the Western

Echo makes the assertion that, when, “In 1888 the brilliant editor of the Western Echo left for

England… the writer was charged with the production of a new paper, the Gold Coast Echo”.

(Emphasis mine) 2 7

Nevertheless, in 1888, the Gold Coast Methodist Times founded by the Wesleyan Methodist

Church was already in operation so there was no immediate threat of another hiatus, however

temporary, in newspaper production in the Gold Coast. By the end of the nineteenth century, as

many as twenty privately owned newspapers had operated at one time or another in the Gold

Coast. Of these three were owned and edited by an expatriate lawyer W.C. Niblett, 8 while the 2

Gold Coast Methodist Times was owned by a church mission. Of the remaining sixteen ten

operated for about three years or over before folding up, and made the transition from the

nineteenth to the twentieth century. 9 Several interesting observations may be made about the
2

Gold Coast press in its formative period. The first of these is the very strong links that existed

between politics and the press.

The first indigenously owned newspaper in the Gold Coast appeared in an atmosphere of
political ferment, when British claim to jurisdiction was being roundly challenged by the

indigenous people . Not surprisingly, the earliest newspaper publishers and editors were people

embroiled in the political events of the period. These enterprising characters, such as the

Bannermans and James Brew, who, a British administrator. C.S. Salmon, deprecatingly

describes as “a penniless lawyer with an awful private character”, 0 had tasted at first hand, the
3

27. Casely Hayford, op. cit., p.177.

28. Another English lawyer, Leslie Mayne, attempted to ran a newspaper, the Gold Coast Herald, in 1896,
but his efforts were even less successful than Niblett’s. There was apparently only one issue of his paper.
29. These were the Gold Coast Chronicle, Gold Coast Aborigines and Gold Coast Free Press.
30. D. Kimble, op. cit., p.112.

32
harshness of foreign rule. It is not surprising therefore that the press developed a watchful

attitude towards the colonial authority right from its inception. This watchdog attitude was to

remain a consistent feature of the Gold Coast press throughout the colonial period. Thus when

legislation which was perceived as pernicious to the interest of the Gold Coast people was

proposed, or Government undertook any policy whose effect was deleterious, the press was

always to be found in the vanguard of resistance to it. A case in point is the press attitude to the

Crown Lands Ordinance Bill, which the indigenous newspapers did not hesitate to lampoon as a

‘blunder’ maintaining in opposition to the bill, that “there is no unoccupied land”, and that “the

lands are all required and the proprietors cannot be compelled to part with them”. 1 3

Furthermore, the press, owned and ran as it were by the coastal people, was uncommonly alive

to the peculiar needs of the coast. This explains the virulent anti-Ashanti and pro-colonial

expansion policy of most of the Gold Coast newspapers before 1900. Thus we find continuous

reports in the newspapers of ‘revolting, cruel and savage iniquities committed in open day in the

Ashanti capital” 2 and calls to “go straight to Kumasi and occupy and annex it, declaring
3

Ashantee (sic) a British protectorate.” 3. 3

These proclamations should not be viewed as

unnationalistic. On the contrary, when viewed from the position of the coastal people, that a

strong Ashanti was an ever present threat, it becomes easy to understand the calls for Britain to
extend her influence further inland. To the coastal people, a strong Ashanti was an enemy at

hand, from whom their only defence lay in British arms. Not surprisingly, even the most radical

of the newspapers did not want to see Britain go, just yet.

Security considerations were not the only reason for the persistent calls upon the colonial

Government to extend its influence to cover Ashanti, strategic economic consideration also

played a part in inciting the campaign. This fact is laid bare in the following passage from the

31. Gold Coast Chronicle, January 15, 1898.

32. Gold Coast People, September 24, 1894.
33. Gold Coast Chronicle, November 30, 1894.

33
Gold Coast Chronicle of 26 September 1894. Bemoaning the failure of the colonial

administration to take advantage of the successful campaign of 1874 to annex Ashanti, it states

that:

We must have Ashanti come what may. Had we,

directly the last war was over, possessed the

commonsense to annex it, today British institutions

might have been thriving in the interior…

Our revenue would have been just twice what is at

the present, if we had the good sense (say after the

decisive battle of Ordahsu in 1874) to place the

whole of Ashantee under the Union Jack … We are

paying now for the blunders of 1874… Our trade

with the interior will remain ruined until some kind

of Government more firm in character is introduced

into Kumasi. 4 3

The press was also to some extent motivated in this campaign by a fear that the French would
annex Ashanti while the British continued quibbling, as they had done and thereby lost Crepi.

Such a French takeover of Kumasi, would lead to the total ruin of trade with the interior. Thus

we find that there were some very sound economic reasons for the clamour to “march our troops

direct to Kumasi” with the Union Jack. 5 Nonetheless, the press was not solely concerned with
3

the ‘great political questions of the day’. It found ample time, cause and opportunity to go

crusading in other areas of public concern. In this regard, its concerns were manifold, extending

from infringements upon individual rights to racial discrimination, from defending African

34 . Ibid., September 26, 1894.

35 . Ibid., July 17, 1894.

34
religion and culture to campaigning for better social facilities; the press’s concerns ran the entire

gamut.

As early as 1861, the West African Herald had bemoaned racial discrimination. This issue

became persistent in the agenda of the Gold Coast newspapers. The newspapers paint a vivid

picture of racial discrimination and smoldering tensions. For instance, the following excerpt

from a letter by an European reader to the Gold Coast Chronicle is illustrative of these tensions:

It seems sometimes that our African brethren will

succeed in perishing the trade the European

altogether. But of course I cannot tell at what time

it might happen that the Europeans have to go home

when they have nothing to do here anymore. But in

so much I am sure that the time is drawing near

when the Europeans have to fight with might and

main against the overhauling natives… 6

3

Although the editor is quick to denounce the writer as “belonging to new class of alarmists” and

a person “evidently in pursuit of the phantoms of an excited imagination”, 7 it is interesting to

3

note that the same paper, barely two months earlier had protested against discrimination in the

civil service in a tone that suggested that racism was at the root of such discrimination. 8. Indeed
3

even the Gold Coast Free Press a paper which was generally very supportive of Government

policy had occasion to observe that:

36 . Ibid., August 22, 1894.

37 . Ibid., August 22, 1894.
38. Ibid.

35
 There is a feeling of uncertainty in the air, that the

racial relations at the present existing is not wholly

free from friction. There has been growing up

gradually a considerable feeling of anxiety in the

Native mind for some time now as to the course of

the administration of justice in civil matters. The

Native believes that British ideas of justice are not

concerned with race distinctions, and also that

sentiment or a tendency to racial proclivities should

not be allowed to prevail in the judicial mind in the

administration of justice. 9 3

This quest for justice was encapsulated in a general onslaught against all identifiable ills in

society. The Gold Coast press as an institution thus developed an omnibus character. The press

would thus be found, now upholding the rights of people to worship as they saw fit, and in the

next moment, launching editorial broadsides against perceived British public hypocrisy, against

cultural imperialism or racial discrimination. This aspect of the press’s character is illustrated by
the following quotations from the Gold Coast Chronicle. In an article titled “On Rights of

Native Races” the paper, while extolling the virtues of the Christian religion, proclaims that:

We have no faith in a crusade against fetishism, nor

patience with, such as build their faith upon the

holy text of pike and gun, decide all controversies

by (?) artillery and prove their doctrine orthodox by

apostolic blows and knocks. 0 4

39 . Gold Coast Free Press, August 1-14., 1899.

40. Gold Coast Chronicle, January 25, 1898.

36
The paper further goes on to complain against the Government’s enforcement of the Compulsory

Labour Ordinance in the following terms:

Our Government acting on the Jesuistic principle

“the end justifies the means” have by the

enforcement of the Compulsory Labour Ordinance

not only deprived the people of their liberty, but

subjected them to ill treatment, the lash having been

now and then put into requisition, and the poor

victim done out of his hire in some cases. 14

A third quotation which further illustrates the fearless, almost reckless, reportage of the press in

this period is provided by the following statement which accused the British administration of

hypocrisy and criminal conduct.

To seize, kidnap, false imprison, beat, maltreat,

cheat, and obstruct trade; these are said to be illegal,

felonious and highly criminal; and were these

perpetrated by a power like Turkey, the British

public would hold indignation meetings and loudly

cry down the evil...

Did an uncivilized native potentate indulge in these

(especially if it held goldfields) our highly moral

Government would have been moved with

righteous indignation to send up an expedition in

41. Ibid.

37
 the interest of humanity and civilization. Caesar’s

wife should be above suspicion, but our

Government is above suspicion, and may be safely

trusted by legislation to legalise anything under the

sun. 24

Apart from this inclination for politics, the press also found time to espouse social causes. It

concerned itself with the need for educational improvement and with health campaigns, although

these matters generally took a backseat to political matters. 3 4

Finally it must be noted that nineteenth century Gold Coast journalism was not remunerative,

but rather a patriotic undertaking. 4 As a result newspapers were small establishments, for the
4

most part running on an erratic schedule, and prone to failure. Another feature of the Gold

Coast press in the period of its development was that, it was an industry conducted by amateur

journalists. All the principal practitioners in the industry were people who had other

occupational concerns. Sarbah for instance, was a barrister, as were Brew and Casely Hayford,
Egyir Asaam and Attoh Ahuma were priests and school teachers. None of these men was a full

time pressman, but such was their dedication to the industry that they devoted much of their time

to building it. Thanks to men such as these, by the end of the nineteenth century the indigenous

newspaper industry was firmly established in the Gold Coast, so also was the tradition of

meticulous press scrutiny of Government actions and policy. The little struggling newspapers

42. Ibid., March 1, 1898.

43. See. Gold Coast Chronicle, March 15, 1898. Ibid., June 4, 1895. Paper reports that," we learn that the
present death rate among the criminal prisoners at James Fort goal is due mainly to starvation”.
44. Gold Coast Chronicle, January 25, 1896.

38
were firmly established as a voice for the voiceless, and forum for articulating indigenous protest

against the colonial Government’s policies.

39
 CHAPTER THREE

THE CHARACTER AND CONCERNS OF THE GOLD COAST PRESS

Journalism in the Gold Coast was in many respects inextricably bound to Gold Coast politics .

The link between the two, journalism and politics, is evident in diverse ways. For one thing, the

foremost political agitators and spokesmen of the Gold Coast people were very often people who

were also involved in journalism, either as newspaper editors, proprietors or contributors. The

Gold Coast press may therefore be expected to reflect the view of the nationalist leaders of the

Gold Coast . We may also expect the press to reflect the conflicts within the nationalists’ ranks

as well as the influences which spurred nationalism in the Gold Coast.

PRESS CONCERNS AND THE CLIMATE OF THE TIMES

When the Gold Coast Free Press remarked in 1898 that open rebellion in the Gold Coast was

only “a phantom in the brains of alarmists” her observation was not far off the mark. The
1

closing decades of the nineteenth century had seen a steady growth in British jurisdiction in the

Gold Coast, a process which began in the 1840s. Nonetheless, the political climate of the Gold
2

Coast was not all calm, and the ‘phantom’ was in fact not as far fetched as the Gold Coast Free

Press seemed to believe. Indeed what passed for quietude was in many respects a sham, for the

political environment was rife with potential for conflict.

The late nineteenth century was marked by political agitation in the Gold Coast. This was

primarily occasioned by the conflicting aspirations of the British colonial administration and the

1 Gold Coast Chronicle, August 22, 1894.

2 The growth of British jurisdiction is dated from the signing of the Bond of 1844.

40
people of the Gold Coast . These conflicts were mainly centered on the following themes: Land

Legislation, Political Representation, Race Relations.

These conflicts, which were not wholly resolved in the nineteenth century were carried over into

the twentieth century, so that at the beginning of the twentieth century, the political stability and

order which existed may appropriately be described as the calm before the storm.

The sources of potential conflict between the Gold Coast Government and people at the

beginning of the twentieth century revolved around one theme which may be aptly summed up

as a struggle between the Gold Coast nationalists on the one hand to stall all Government

encroachments on what they regarded as “the time honoured rights of the Gold Coast people”,

and the Gold Coast Government’s efforts to outdo the nationalists and consolidate its hold over

the Gold Coast. 3

Thus whereas the people of the Gold Coast, particularly the educated

indigenes, felt that greater participation in all aspects of Government ought to be extended to the

Gold Coast people, the colonial Government increasingly came to adopt the opposite view. At

the root of this dichotomy was the increasing number of Gold Coast people accepting and

assimilating western education, attitudes and skills on the one hand and the shift in British
colonial policy on the other. This divergence of ‘visions’ was to be central to all Government-

educated native relations throughout the first half of the twentieth century. This is illustrated by

the differing attitudes towards political representation. Whereas Gold Coast nationalists

persistently agitated for the franchise and a right to elect their representatives, the Government

adamantly refused to grant it, maintaining that “the vast majority of the general public …has not

yet reached such a stage of intellectual development as would enable them to exercise the

3 Francis Agbodeka, Ghana in the Twentieth Century, Accra ,Ghana Universities Press, 1972,
p 18.

41
franchise with wisdom and discrimination”. This remained the official position until the 1920s
4

when a very limited franchise was granted for municipal elections.

In addition to the issues already identified, which constituted the areas of greatest press activity,

may be added other issues, which though not political in nature or even concerning the Gold

Coast per se, were given considerable prominence in the Gold Coast press. These include issues

of economic development, education, social development, Pan- Africanism and foreign events.
The Issues
In any discussion of nationalism in the Gold Coast it is not only desirable but also appropriate to

start with the Land Question. Land galvanised the nationalist fervour of the Gold Coast people

as no other issue before it had. As already noted, any form of overt resistance to foreign

domination is in a sense a nationalistic act. In this regard, much of the early alterations between

the indigenes of the Gold Coast and the British can be described as nationalist agitation, but it

was the concern over land which first inspired the Gold Coast people to band together in a supra-

ethnic association whose sole objective was to further their nationalist aspirations.

Land in the Gold Coast held a far greater significance than its purely economic designation as a
factor of production, and a source of wealth. Land was intimately wedded to the concept of

power and authority, and to the organisational structure of the traditional states of the Gold

Coast. As such there existed in the Gold Coast, a strong emotive and “deep-rooted reverence for

land as the foundation of community life.” Indeed one colonial administrator cautioned that:
5

In dealing with the natives one must never touch

their rights in lands,…If one wished to stir up

trouble in West Africa, all one would have to do

4 G. E. Metcalfe, Great Britain and Ghana: Documents of Ghana History, 1807 – 1957, University of
Ghana, Legon, 1964. pp 551 - 555.
5 David Kimble, op.cit., p.330-333.

42
 would be to suggest that the land of the natives is

about to be taken away from them. 6

This fact was well appreciated by the colonial Government. Thus when Governor Brandford first

proposed the idea of vesting ‘wastelands’ in the British Crown, Chief Justice Hutchinson

demurred, pointing out that in native law all lands had owners. He noted further, that even if

such a policy were successfully undertaken, the hostility it would generate in the general

populace, coupled with the fact that it would inevitably weaken the traditional political

institutions of chieftaincy would make it a policy of little more than dubious value. 7

However, the 1880’s and 1890’s were a period of intense land speculation in the Gold Coast as

concessionaires scrambled to cash in on the mineral and forest resources of the Gold Coast.

Concessions were granted, often without regard to the ownership rights or boundaries of the

concession’s grantor. Consequently, confusion reigned, and the Government felt the need to

regulate land tenure. 8

Furthermore, the colonial Government felt a need to give a boost to large-scale plantation

agriculture which would not only supply raw materials for British manufacturers, but also
generate tax revenue for the development and effective administration of the Gold Coast.

Influenced by these factors therefore, the Gold Coast Government introduced the Crown Lands

Bill in 1894. Kimble observes poignantly that by 1891, the only thing lacking to spur a

nationwide nationalist movement was a nationwide grievance. 9

6 Sir William MacGregor, cited in Casely Hayford, Gold Coast Native Institutions, Sweet and Maxwell,
London, 1903,p.197.
7 Kimble, Ibid., p. 332-333.
8 Lord Hailey, An African Survey revised edition. 1959 .pp 737 - 738.
9 David Kimble, op. cit., 331.

43
The Gold Coast people had already, since 1874, been brought, welded together and administered

as one nation under the aegis of the Union Jack. However, they still tended to act to a large

measure as different ethnic groups and provinces. Thus anti-Government feeling was often

localised. With the introduction of the Crown Lands Bill in 1894, the colonial Government

provided the final spur to united action. Thus when Governor Griffiths reported in September

1894 that; “The people of the colony appear to be quiet, contented and peaceful,” he was only

reporting the calm before the storm. 0 The Gold Coast press responded to the perceived threat to
1

native rights with amazing alacrity and vigour. With the Gold Coast Methodist Times leading

the campaign: the Bill was characterised as an instrument “pregnant with fell and butcherly

stratagems”, and lampooned as an epitome of “British Brigandism”. 1 In an editorial titled “The

1

Rights of the People”, the Gold Coast Chronicle had this to say:

Our authorities are never tired of making laws…

And the latest news is that a new ordinance has

been passed to legalise the seizure by the

Government of all lands in the colony that are

unoccupied. This is to say the least a direct blow at

private rights … It does not follow that because the

land is not occupied, there in no owner. 2

1

The paper further opposed the Bill as a ‘blunder’ and proposed that people migrate from the

colony if the Bill was passed. 3 Consequent to this opposition the Crown Lands Bills was
1

withdrawn, only to resurface in 1897. However neither the press nor public opinion in the Gold

Coast would accept the new Bill. Indeed, it was met with greater and even better orchestrated
10 Ibid., p.335.
11 Gold Coast Methodist Times, November 1896.
12 Gold Coast Chronicle, January 11, 1895.
13 Ibid. , March 25, 1895.

44
opposition – spearheaded by the press which adopted an even more radical approach to its

opposition, maintaining that, “the Gold Coast is not a colony at all, not being acquired by Great

Britain by conquest, cession or purchase”, and that there were no unoccupied lands in the Gold

Coast as shifting cultivation was the farming method mostly used, “The lands were all required,

and the proprietors cannot be compelled to part with them…” 4 If anything, the re-introduction
1

of the Lands Bill had only made opposition to the Government more radicalised. Faced with

intractable opposition and mounting public unrest, this Bill was also withdrawn. In spite of

these setbacks to its plans the colonial Government was still determined to regulate land

transactions between property speculators on the one hand, and concession mongering Africans

on the other. In 1900 therefore, the Government introduced the Concessions Ordinance Bill. By

this time, the incessant feuding between the Gold Coast Government and the Gold Coast people

over land legislation had generated a siege mentality in the Gold Coast. So sensitive had the

Gold Coast people become to legislation concerning land, that even though all references to

‘public lands’ and ‘waste lands’ had been expunged from this bill, and the bill left the ownership

rights of the Gold Coast people inviolate, its passage still evoked considerable backlash from the

press, particularly from the Gold Coast Aborigines which objected to the proposal that “all rents

passing (sic) through the Colonial Treasurer who deducts the royalties and fees before paying
them to the owner.” 5 The paper opined that the Concessions Bill was simply the old despised
1

Lands Bill resurrected in new form. 6 Thus we see that at the beginning of the twentieth century,
1

land was still a contentious area as far as Government- Gold Coast natives relations were

concerned.

Another issue with potential for conflict in Gold Coast politics at the turn of the century was the

issue, or rather, the quest for political representation. Political representation had been a

14 Ibid., January 15, 1895

15 Gold Coast Aborigines, January 13, 1900.
16 Ibid. , March 17 1900

45
contentious issue in Gold Coast politics even in the nineteenth century. The opening salvo in

this quest had been fired by Brew, “that noblest of our country’s martyrs” 7 when he used his 1

newspaper to launch a campaign for African representation of the Legislative Council. 8 1

As with the Land Question, the issue of political representation reflects the irreconcilable

differences between the political vision and aspirations of the Gold Coast people, and those of

the Government. Prior to 1874 when Britain declared the Gold Coast a colony, Britain’s attitude

towards the Gold Coast was at best ambivalent. Hailey observes of Britain’s attitude then, that

“it had as its guiding principle the policy of minimum interference with the indigenous political

authority, whether this took the form of a Native State or a tribal system headed by a Chief.” 9 1

This policy, often described as benevolent paternalism, was in fact more akin to benign neglect.

Nonetheless, the policy although patronising of the native, created an environment within which

there existed considerable scope for self advancement for the indigenous people. 0 However, 2

with the adoption of the Lugardian concept of Indirect Rule, a new chapter in British

administration was opened, one in which Crown officials deigned to exercise authority through

already existing native institutions. In the Gold Coast, this meant rule through traditional chiefs.

Indirect Rule in the Gold Coast however did not take account of the changes then occurring in

Gold Coast society. The growth of urbanisation, the monetization of the local economy and the
spread of western education among the indigenous population were all developments which

impacted significantly upon Gold Coast society, and the institutions of traditional society.

17 Kobina Sekyi’s epitaph to Brew, in D.E.K. Baku "An Intellectual and Nationalist Politics: The Role of
Kobina Sekyi in the evolution of Ghanaian National Consciousness." unpublished D.Phil. Thesis, Sussex
University, 1987.
18 Gold Coast Times. , September 3, 1881
19 Lord Hailey, op.cit. , p 200
20 Several example of Africans who held high office in the colonial administration during the nineteen
century abound. James Bannerman was commandant of James Town, in 1857 and even acted as Lt.
Governor of the Gold Coast in 1850. His sons, Charles was Acting Commandant of Winneba, Samuel,
Acting Commandant of Anomabo. In 1851, Governor Hill also commissioned six natives as Justices of the
Peace.

46
However, all these were developments which the concept of Indirect Rule failed to take account

of . This fact is aptly noted by Hailey who makes the following observation:

The existence of what has been conventionally

described as ‘detribalised’ Africans had always

posed a problem for which Indirect Rule had no

satisfactory solution, and as Western Education

became more widespread and as more and more

Africans entered the money economy there emerged

a class of ‘new men’ who felt themselves excluded

from a share in political authority owing to the

operation of the Native Authority System. 1 2

It is this class of ‘new men’ who posed the greatest challenges to the Indirect Rule System. It

was they who set themselves up in the A.R.P.S. in collaboration with the chiefs, to challenge the

colonial Government’s edicts and policies, and in the press, as sentinels of indigenous African

rights and interests. Educated and articulate, this class of men could not accept the politically

insignificant position assigned to them under Indirect Rule. Their quest for a political station

commensurate with their social and economic station took the form of a call for reform of the
Executive and a Legislative Councils, to include native members, and a resistance to direct

taxation in any form unless such taxation was accompanied by native representation based on the

elective principle. However, British administrators fixated on the apparent convenience of

Indirect Rule viewed any call for native representation with disdain, holding that the idea was

chimerical, and if tried out, bound to result in futility. 2 2

Racial prejudice and discrimination were other issues which held considerable potential for

creating unrest. Race relations in the Gold Coast did not hold as great a potential for conflict as

21 Lord Hailey, op.cit. , p 202.

22 . Statement of Mr. Lowther in Gold Coast Times, July 31 1874.

47
existed in other African colonies where white immigrants had founded large, permanent

settlements, such as in South Africa, Algeria and Kenya. Nonetheless, race relations in the Gold

Coast were not entirely free from friction. Racial prejudice, discrimination and other forms of

European bigotry were bound to, and did excite disaffection among the Gold Coast people.

Sylvanus Ekwelie observes that, “in the fight against colonialism racial prejudice proved so

effective a weapon that it would have had to be invented if it did not exist”. 3 In the Gold Coast
2

however, it was not contrived but real. Along with the gradual imposition of the pax Britannica

in the Gold Coast, there developed an educated African population, the members of which

sought advancement within the existing socio- political order of foreign domination. However

by the end of the nineteenth century, the avenues for their advancement were being drastically

curtailed. This development resulted from many factors among which was the fact that with the

discovery of cures for malaria and yellow fever the ‘ whiteman’s grave’ was no longer the

dreaded scourge it once was to Europeans. As a consequence more Europeans could be brought

to West Africa to administer the West African colonies. This necessitated a reduction in the

number of Africans employed in the higher echelons of the colonial system. Added to this

development was the resurgence of racial supremacist ideologies and attitudes in Europe. After

the abolition if the obnoxious Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, a contrite Europe had embraced
humanist ideas which espoused the fundamental oneness of all mankind. However by the end of

the nineteenth century, ideas of European superiority propagated by such men as James Hunt,

Richard Burton, Frederic Farrar, Winwood Reade, Hexter, Kipling and Carlyle, were the

dominant views in Europe and this shaped European attitudes towards Africans. The practical

effect of the ideas of such thinkers in the Gold Coast was to curtail the advancement of educated

Africans in the Colonial Service. This situation naturally raised considerable apprehension in the

Gold Coast press, particularly as qualified Africans, at times even more qualified than their

23 Ekwelie, op.cit. , p. 74.

48
European compatriots, were openly discriminated against in a manner which defied all, but a

racially founded explanation. An instance which illustrates this situation occasioned in 1894,

when one Dr. Murray, an European, was promoted in preference to the native son, Dr. Quartey

Papafio who was his senior in rank. The Gold Coast press was as to be expected, at its post, ever

vigilant in the performance of its watchdog function. Decrying the apparent injustice, the Gold

Coast Chronicle in an article titled “Justice” had this to say:

If there is such a thing as justice in the local

Government, we sincerely trust that the Medical

Department will undo what it has done, and this as

early as possible: In reference to a recent

appointment, Dr. Papafio-who was senior to Dr.

Murray, had suddenly and unaccountably been

given a ‘back seat’ and for what reason, no one

knows. 4 2

The Chronicle continued, “The race is not always to the swift in this world nor the battle to the

strong but surely the treatment Dr. Papafio has received … might argue the absence of even the

rudimentary notions of justice in the local civil service” 5 . In another such instance, a newspaper
2

laid bare the inequities in the disparities in emoluments paid to European officials as against

their African compatriots. Whereas one Mr. Beringer, an European medical officer in

Government employment received £700 annually, his African compatriot Mr. Akiwande Savage

received a paltry £50 per annum 6 In every instance where such glaring injustice could be found,
2

the press was found at post, protesting vehemently for redress. These press campaigns were in a

24 . Gold Coast Chronicle, July 4, 1894.

25 Ibid., July 4, 1894.
26 Gold Coast Nation, May 9, 1912.

49
sense also a further reflection of the divergent aspirations of the westernised natives of the Gold

Coast and their British overlords.

As a result of the 1865 Select Committee Report on the Gold Coast which recommended a

British withdrawal from the Gold Coast, a lingering impression had been created among the

Gold Coast people that they would soon have to take control of their own political affairs.

Added to this was the fact that for much of the nineteenth century indigenous Gold Coast people

had held positions of considerable influence in the colonial administration. The westernised

Gold Coast natives saw all these as part of a training process by which the people of the Gold

Coast would acquire the skills and know-how relevant for administering their nation along

modern lines in the event of an imminent British withdrawal. However with the adoption of

Indirect Rule, this trend which had hitherto seemed to present the impression of a linear

progression of advancement via education for the Gold Coast people was truncated.

The westernised natives, hitherto the closest collaborators of the British in administering the

Colony found themselves without a place in the new political order, their position in the new –

European – model of administration usurped by an influx of immigrant administrators from

Europe, while the newly adopted policy of Indirect Rule left no part for them at all. Thus

whereas the westernised natives considered themselves the ‘natural heirs’ to administer the

Colony, and saw it as their due to take part in administering the Gold Coast, the British

administrators, blissfully in love with the precepts of Indirect Rule, and filled in part with

jaundiced notions of racial superiority clung to the view that the educated native was in a sense

a socio-political solecism, detribalised and lacking any right founded in tradition to claim a

part in the administration of the state.

50
From the foregoing, it becomes evident that the Gold Coast press devoted a large measure of its

attention to political matters, to issues of constitutionality and other such ‘great and heady

matters’ of the day. However these issues do not represent the full spectrum of matters with

which the Gold Coast newspapers concerned themselves. Economic advancement, education,

social development and the station of the blackman within the complex matrix of a world

dominated by white men were all topics with which the Gold Coast newspapers were concerned

and to which they devoted a considerable amount of their endeavours.

In the economic as in the political sphere, the aspiration of the rulers were often at variance

with those of the ruled. Britain’s interest in the Gold Coast was best served by maintaining her

as a Colony within the overall imperial metropolis-satellite economic framework. The Gold

Coast was thus to provide cheap and plentiful primary products to feed Britain’s industries, and

a ready market for British manufactures. Within this framework therefore, the Gold Coast was to

exist to serve the economic interest of Britain. This was not exactly in tune with the aspirations

of the Gold Coast’s articulate intelligentsia, nor even with those of the broad mass of Gold Coast

people. To the peasant farmer of the Gold Coast, a fair price for his cocoa, palm oil or rubber

was logically the highest price attainable, and this logically represented his primary economic
aspiration, whereas to the European purchasing firm, the lowest price payable represented the

highest equity . There was therefore a fundamental clash of economic objectives between the

natives of the Gold Coast and their European overlords. Moreover, the development of

European owned mining concerns around the turn of the century necessitated the employment of

native labourers to work the mines. However, Gold Coast natives were most unenthusiastic

about working in the European mines. This was to lead to friction between the Government,

which even contemplated importing Chinese labourers and the natives, for whom such a policy

51
was unthinkable. Moreover, the operations of European mercantile firms and banking houses

was felt to be extremely discriminatory towards the indigenous people.

With the abolition of the Slave Trade in the early nineteenth century, and the spread of

westernising influences such as Christianity and Western education, a new indigenous economic

elite had emerged, particularly in the coastal areas. There people, traders and representatives

of European commercial interests on the coast, were from the beginning of the twentieth

century being rapidly crowded out of the commercial field by a new development, the

European Combine. Indeed in 1912, the Gold Coast Nation felt constrained to ask the following

questions, “What has become of the lively – once lively Cape Coast Chamber of Commerce?.

Moribund Condition? Killed by the combine? What? 7 (emphasis mine). Added to the fact that
2

European combines of the twentieth century were by comparison with their competitors,

financial monoliths, was the fact that the different firms sometimes collaborated to fix prices,

thereby effectively pricing the African entrepreneur out of the market. This generated

resentment among the Gold Coast intelligentsia and discontent which found articulation in the

indigenous newspapers.

At the close of the nineteenth century, the press was lamenting the parlous state of educational
facilities in the Gold Coast Colony. The spread of Western education had initially been under the

direction of the Christian missionary societies. However, the huge demand for education soon

outstripped the numbers the missionary societies could cater for. The call was thereafter made

to the Government to provide educational facilities. This call was carried at two levels. There

was a clamour for the general increase in educational facilities as well as a call for scholarship

schemes and facilities for higher education. This was made more imperative by the fact that up

to 1897 no candidate from the Gold Coast had qualified for scholarships offered on the basis of

27 Gold Coast Nations, April 11, 1912.

52
good grades achieved in the Cambridge senior local examination, 8 and the only form of higher
2

education in the Gold Coast consisted of teacher training. This abject state of affairs was

obviously far from satisfactory. To the Gold Coast intelligentsia, tempered in the crucible of

protest that the Gold Coast had become following the agitation over land legislation in 1894

and 1898, all Government actions and omissions were matters for close scrutiny. The apparent

Government disinterest in education was interpreted as an instance of Government’s efforts to

delay the ‘political growth’ of the Gold Coast people. 9 2

Developments within the Gold Coast Newspaper Industry

As has already been noted, journalism and politics in the Gold Coast were intimately fused

together. In this regard, nationalism formed the raison d’être’ of the Gold Coast press. This

feature of the Gold Coast press is probably attributable to the circumstances surrounding the

development of the newspaper industry, as well as to the character of the persons and institutions

who ventured into newspaper publication.

The Gold Coast press was ‘born’ in an atmosphere of political ferment, and was conceived by

persons who were themselves principal actors in the frenzied political developments of the
period. The press thus acquired the essentials of its character at birth. This development was

further enhanced by other developments, political and social, both within and outside the Gold

Coast. However, through all the changing scenes of Gold Coast politics, the character of the

press remained quintessentially the same. An attempt is made here to present a periodization of

the industry’s development, as well as brief profiles on some of the persons and institutions who

were most influential in, and thus directed the nature and agenda of the Gold Coast press.
28 Colonial Report, 1897.
29 Gold Coast Nation, April 4, 1912. So suspicious were the Gold Coast people of British machinations,
that a proposed scholarship for training people for artisanal employment was criticised by a reader who
‘foresaw’ that, “The ultimate effect of such scholarships for Manual Training will be the formation of …
hewers of wood and drawers of water who labour to benefit leaders of another race…”

53
In his study of the development of the Gold Coast press from its inception in 1857 to the

attainment of independence a century later, Sylvanus Ekwelie identifies three distinct periods in

its development. These were the first period which spans the years from the beginning of

newspaper publishing to 1899, a second period, covering the time from to 1900 1930, and a

third phase, which covered the years between 1930 and independence in 1957. He observes that

the first phase was characterized by rabid, personalised attacks in the press, with Brew’s Gold

Coast Times and Western Echo the worst offenders. Commenting on the press during this

period he observes that “the press became a liability to itself by often overstepping the bounds of

decency” 0 The following quotation from Brew’s Western Echo dated October 23,1886,
3

illustrates this assertion:

Surely His Excellency cannot assert that he does not

perceive the danger with which the execution of his

views is surrounded. The law permits the resistance

by force of the carrying out of an illegal act, and his

having caused a gong-gong so to be beaten does

not make his proposed action any legal than would

a proclamation by us, advising every man who

passes His Excellency not to pass him by without

bestowing corporal punishment upon him for

having threatened to enforce such order. We can

assure His Excellency that he is but digging pitfalls

for himself; we will not permit our people to fall

30 Ekwelie, op.cit., p, 275

54
 into his trap, but if he forces on a collision, we shall

take care that he shall not go scatheless.

During the second period from 1900 to 1930, he observes that the press attained greater

maturity, and its criticisms of the Government were less rabid, while its articles were better

researched and arguments more coherently presented. He categorizes this period as the “golden

age of Gold Coast Journalism” during which the newspaper industry concentrated its energies

on cultural awareness and race pride, while at the same time agitating for political, economic

and social advancements. Ekwelie's third period is characterized by a return to the errant

journalism of the first stage. Personalised ad hominem attacks reappeared in newspapers while

articles and editorials lacked the meticulously researched facticity of the second period. Ekwelie

attributes this development or rather editorial retrogression to the harsh economic conditions of

the period as well as local and international political conditions.

While Ekwelie’s periodization is illuminating, it does not present a fully coherent picture of the

developments in Gold Coast newspaper publishing. It is proposed here to remedy the defects in

his periodization by advancing a modified four-phase version. Firstly, it is observed that there

was considerable overlap between the periods, so that we find elements of all the periods in any
one Ekwelie’s period. Moreover, he fails to adequately account for the changes in attitude he

observes. The following periodization is therefore proposed in preference to his three-phase

periodization.

The first period from 1857 to 1894 is characterised by the features already identified by

Ekwelie. However, as a result of the successful press campaign against the Lands Bills the press

attained maturity. The rabid ad hominem arguments which were a dominant feature of the press

in its inchoate phase was in fact a characteristic of a newspaper industry which had no definite

agenda. This is because although newspapers like Brew’s Gold Coast Times had the avowed

55
objective of standing as sentinel of popular rights, and keeping leaders in line, these early

newspapers were in fact mouthpieces with no definite agenda. However, following the threat to
21

popular rights posed by the lands bills, the issues became more clearly delineated. The

newspaper thereafter began to address issues in a more logical manner. This feature became

more pronounced in the next period from 1895 to 1920.

Another characteristic feature of journalism in the first period which became more pronounced,

albeit in a different form in the second period, was its treatment of issues of race and

development. Journalism in the first period demonstrated two features with respect to the issue

of race. Firstly the press seemed to have a derogatory outlook towards African culture, and

seemed in no end of a hurry to see the speedy eradication of obnoxious African practices.

Concomitantly, much of the press agitation of this period was carried out in the framework of

protests against the social bigotry, presumed and real, of the British administration. Thus we find

that the Gold Coast Free Press sought “to, create and foster Public opinion in Africa, and to

make it racy of the soil,” while the Gold Coast Chronicle and Gold Coast People were
22

vehemently protesting against racism. This apparently conflicting situation is not as

irreconcilable as it may at first instance seem. The Gold Coast press, owned and ran by the

educated African elements of Gold Coast society, naturally reflected the thought of this group.
Progress was an ideal to which this group universally subscribed. These protests against racial

bigotry may then be seen as protests against those aspects of Euro-African relations which did

not match the progress ideal to which the Gold Coast’s westernised native subscribed. This

protest was to crystallise into a more coherent form in the second phase, a fact to which the

motto of the Gold Coast Nation, “for the safety of the public and the welfare of the race,” bears

eloquent testimony. As is seen from the two mottoes quoted above, the latter one; the Gold

Coast Nation’s did not advocate the same eurocentric view of progress as the first. However, this

21 . Murphy categorises the press in this phase of its development as mouthpieces in search of issues.
22 This was a marquee, which the Gold Coast Free Press carried on its front page in every edition.

56
does not mean that the ideology guiding the press had changed. The guiding principles remained

the same, only the form had changed in response to the exigencies of the alliance of “elite

nationalism”. This was an alliance between the traditional elite of the Gold Coast, the chiefs, and

the westernised intelligentsia who aspired to ‘progress’ along the lines of European

development. This progress was not to reflect in the mere ‘aping’ of European dress and

manners, the members of the intelligentsia also sought to clothe their “ minds with European

ideas and thoughts, so far as they were necessary for our advancement. {emphasis mine} A23

fundamentally conservative group, they were allied with the traditional elite to which a large

number of them belonged for the preservation of the traditional rights of the Gold Coast people.

The intelligentsia, being themselves products of the colonial system, were not (at this stage) anti-

colonialists. Their main concerns were with advancement within the colonial system,

preservation of native right and social development. More strenuous efforts were made during

this period to address race issues.

The third period, 1920 to 1927, was characterised by a breakdown of the entente between the

traditional elite and the intelligentsia, and the floundering of the influence of the A.R.P.S. which

was the principal organ of their collaboration. The breakdown of the unified front of the chiefs

and the educated also reflects the success of the colonial Government in its implementation of
Indirect Rule. As a result of this, considerable attention in the press was directed at exposing the

flaws in this system, as well as to attacks on Government policies which were meant to facilitate

Indirect Rule.

The fourth period is characterised by the development of true anti-colonialism in the Gold Coast

press. This development is presaged by the entry into Gold Coast journalism of persons like

Nnamdi Azikiwe and Bankole Renner, who did not subscribe to the conservative progress

ideology which dominated the Gold Coast press in the preceding periods. These men had no

stake in the existing status quo and were in fact wholly dedicated to its overthrow. Another
23 . Immanuel Geiss, The Pan – African Movement, Methuen, London, 1974. p. 73.

57
feature of the press in this period was a return to the fiery rhetoric of the first stage, and the

introduction of a blatantly sensationalist approach to newspaper reporting. The fourth period was

also the period, which saw the growth of mass circulation newspapers, a development, which

may have been in large measure attributable to the use of blatantly sensational news items and

headlines. This period also saw the emergence of the purely political press. These comprised

newspapers such as the Daily Mail, Morning Telegraph and Evening News. These papers were

published solely to propagate political objectives of their publishers, such as the Convention

Peoples Party (C.P.P) which used their papers to seek an overthrow of colonialism in the Gold

Coast. Indeed, in 1950 a British Member of Parliament reviewing the Gold Coast press alleged

that:

Many publications which call themselves newspapers are not

newspapers at all. They are political pamphlets or

broadsides… which contain little or no news and which have

come into being for the sole purpose of stirring up racial

feeling. 24

Thus, we find that in this phase, not only did the political press emerge, but it also flourished in
the politically turbulent atmosphere of that period

THE PROTAGONISTS

A roll call of Gold Coast newspaper editors and publishers reads like a page out of Magnus

Sampson’s biographies of great men of the Gold Coast. Attoh Ahuma, Mensah Sarbah, Casely

Hayford, James Brew, Kobina Sekyi, and J. B. Danquah. Journalism seems to have been the

pursuit of the social colossi of the Gold Coast.

24 African Morning Post, October 9, 1950.

58
Newspaper publication in the Gold Coast was largely undertaken by amateur journalists for

whom journalism was an adjunct to other, often professional engagements. This is not to

suggest that the Gold Coast press was a dilettantish institution. On the contrary, the press,

controlled by the people at the centre of political developments in the Gold Coast was

consciously used as a forum for political agitation and was sufficiently acquainted with political

developments to play a significant role in Gold Coast affairs. It is therefore illuminating to

examine some of the main personalities and organisations which were involved with the

industry. Because Gold Coast journalists were often politicians or other prime movers in society

doubling as newspapers publishers, editors and writers, we can expect the press to reflect the

thought, degree of cohesion, and conflicts within this articulate group of Gold Coast natives.
JOHN MENSAH SARBAH
The Gold Coast’s first barrister, John Mensah Sarbah was both by birth and upbringing an

epitome of the politically articulate, westernised native class which owned and dominated the

newspaper industry. His father John Sarbah, was a wealthy, educated native merchant and

political leader of considerable stature in his day.

Born in 1864, Mensah Sarbah received the best education available in the Gold Coast. After

being educated at the Wesleyan school in Cape Coast, Mensah Sarbah proceeded to England
where he studied for and was admitted to the English bar in 1887. Even during his student days

in England, Sarbah showed traces of political activism. It is therefore not surprising that soon

after returning to the Gold Coast in 1892, he established a newspaper the Gold Coast People,
25

which he owned and edited. Sarbah was also a founding member of the Fantsi Amabuwho

Fekuw as well as the Gold Coast Aborigines Rights Protection Society. His personal forays into

newspaper publishing aside, Sarbah also gave an indirect spur to the development of the

newspaper industry by inspiring the establishment of the first ‘corporate’ newspaper in the Gold

Coast. As counsel representing the A.R.P.S in their campaign against the 1897 Lands Bills, John
25Robert July, The Origins of Modern African Thought. Faber and Faber, London. 1968. p. 330.

59
Mensah Sarbah had been advanced a retainer of 400 guineas by the Society. On 30th June 1897,

Sarbah wrote to the Society returning the sum of 400 guineas, and informed them that, while he

did not spurn the Society’s money:

…In serving my country, the land of my birth,

within her boarders, I seek no remuneration; and

did I ever dream of any recognition for such

services which I have performed, the fact that, at

such a crisis my countrymen selected me to plead

their cause, is in itself a solemn honour which will

not be unremembered or unappreciated by me…

Allow me to offer one suggestion to your society,

and that is, no effort should be spared to devise

means whereby every native in the Gold Coast may

acquire a correct and true knowledge of the

constitutional history of our dear land.” 26

With these words, he returned the retainer advanced him as the Society’s counsel; and for this as

much as for his invaluable services to his nation, he earned the undying gratitude of the Gold
Coast people.

As a result of his altruism the A.R.P.S purchased a printing press, and began the publication of

the Gold Coast Aborigines, “with the avowed object of supplying the necessary useful

information to meet a need, the absence of which we all sorely deplore.” 27

John Mensah Sarbah continued to be instrumental in the social and political life of the Gold

Coast until his death in 1910. He was appointed to the Legislative Council as an unofficial

26Azu Crabbe, J., John Mensah Sarbah, 1864-1910, Ghana Publishing Corporation, Accra, 1971, pp. 25-
26.
27 Ibid. ,p.26.

60
member in 1901, and remained a member until 1906. He also set up educational scholarship for

Gold Coast natives. 28

James Ephraim Casely Hayford

Born in 1866 to the Reverend and Mrs. Joseph de Graft Hayford, Joseph Ephraim Casely

Hayford more than anyone else before him symbolised and projected the ideals, objectives and

aspirations of the westernised native in the Gold Coast.

Educated at the Wesleyan Boys High School in Cape-Coast, he proceeded to the Fourah Bay

College in Sierra Leone and subsequently to Cambridge University and the Inns of Court in

England, where he was called to the bar at the Inner Temple in 1896. However, even before his

tortuous educational odyssey was complete, Hayford had begun to play a significant role in Gold

Coast politics through his association with the Western Echo. Beginning at the age of 19 as a

sub-editor, Hayford later owned and edited the Gold Coast Echo, a paper that was published for

about one year between 1888 and 1889. 29

Subsequently he worked as editor in several

newspapers including the mission owned Methodist Times and the Gold Coast Chronicle. In

1902, he established the Gold Coast Leader, a paper which remained in publication until 1933. 30

Among his contemporaries, Hayford was peerless. A political thinker far ahead of his time, he

was the guiding spirit behind the National Congress of British West Africa, an organisation
which aimed at presenting a unified voice for all the indigenous colonised people of the four

British territories in West Africa: the Gold Coast, Sierra Leone, the Gambia and Nigeria. Ever

the practical politician, Hayford did not agitate for independence; an unattainable objective

during his era, but rather sought to

Maintain strictly and inviolate the connection of the

British West Africa Dependencies with the British

28 Ibid.
29 Jones – Quartey, op.cit., p. 94.
30 . Jones – Quartey, op.cit., p. 96. It is debatable whether Hayford set up the Gold Coast Leader W. S.
Kwesi Johnson asserted that the paper was founded by Herbert Brown.

61
 Empire, and to maintain unreserved all and every

right of citizenship of the Empire and the

fundamental principle that taxation goes with

effective representation. 31

Effective representation was the bedrock of his political agenda. A signatory to the 1900 Gold

Coast petition to the Queen against the appointment of S. W. Morgan as a justice of the Gold

Coast Supreme Court, Hayford was also a member of the A.R.P.S. delegation to petition against

the Forest Bill in 1911. However, Hayford did not spend his entire political life agitating “from

the outside”. In 1916, he was appointed an unofficial member of the Gold Coast Legislative

Council, a position which enabled him to present directly those views which he had previously

been able to present only through the newspapers.

Hayford served his country and his race, as a schoolteacher, barrister, journalist legislator and

pan-Africanist. He spent his period of service seeking progress by cooperation and

constitutionality, and in attempting to redress every perceived injustice with reasoned argument,

both in the Legislative Council and in the press. Even his bitterest opponents acknowledged his

patriotism. Nana Ofori Atta, his greatest rival, admitted that, “If in the days to come we find

Africa taking her rightful place – it will be very considerably due to the great influence that
Casely Hayford exerted.” Indeed, well has it been said of Hayford that by 1930 when died:
32

He had done everything that could be expected of a

patriot, except going to war for his country and

dying on a battlefield, but in reality he died on a

different but equally glorious battlefield: in harness

as a legislator, journalist and West African

31 Magnus Sampson, Gold Coast Men of Affairs, London, 1969, p.164.

32 H.K. Akyeampong, compiler, The Foundations of Self Government, Selected Speeches on Ghana’s
Independence, Boakie Publishing Company, Accra, 1967. p.7.

62
 politician of the highest public prestige and

esteem. 33

Attoh Ahuma
Born Samuel Richard Brew Solomon, Attoh Ahuma was one of the most expressive and verbally

flamboyant of Gold Coast’s literary firebrands. His father, the Reverend James A. Solomon was

Methodist minister from the royal house of James Town. Like Sarbah and Hayford, he attended

the Wesleyan Boys High School at Cape Coast, and then proceeded to Richmond College in

England. Ordained a minister in 1888 he returned to the Gold Coast and worked as a minister

and schoolmaster for the Wesleyan Mission, for whom he also edited, the Gold Coast Methodist

Times in the 1890s. 34

Subsequently, he also edited the Gold Coast Aborigines and the Gold Coast Leader. He was also

the author of several books, including, the Gold Coast Nation and National Consciousness, and

Colony or Protectorate, Which?

Whereas Brew and Sarbah were primarily concerned with the preservation of the rights of the

indigenous people, Attoh Ahuma’s mission was principally to facilitate the mental emancipation

of the African from the mental inertia into which foreign domination and indoctrination had

reduced him. He castigated Africans who sought to mimic European attitudes, contending in his
usual piquant style that; “It is never to the credit of the West African to strive manfully to

become Anglo-African, Europeanised or Anglicised in anything. A Black-Whiteman is a

creature, a freak and a monstrosity.” He sought to inspire a cultural renaissance in the Gold
35

Coast and openly declared a preference for the free, manly life of the peasant to the constrained

existence of the Anglicised Africans who were forced to “eke out miserable lives as clerks’. 36

33 . K. A. B. Jones Quartey, “A note on J. M. Sarbah and J. E. Casely Hayford.” in Sierra Leone Studies,
14, December, 1960. p.58.
34 Attoh Ahuma was relieved of his position as editor of the Gold Coast Methodist Times because of the
political views he expressed in it.
35 Attoh Ahuma, The Gold Coast Nation and National Consciousness, 2nd ed. Frank Cass and Co.
London. 1971.p. 40.
36 Robert July, op.cit., p. 344.

63
KOBINA SEKYI

Born on 18 November 1892, William Essuman Gwira Sekyi, was like Sarbah and Hayford, a

Cape Coast barrister. “He was an impressive man, intelligent, well read, upper class in manners

and bearing”, he ordered his clothes from England, enjoyed the music of Bach, Mozart and

Beethoven, fine wines and expensive cigars, belonged to philosophical societies in England, to

literary and social clubs in the Gold Coast and wrote short stories, plays and poems. He was 37

also a prominent figure in Gold Coast politics and the Gold Coast press, and an unflinching and

uncompromising opponent of colonialism.

A grandson of Chief Kofi Sekyi of Cape-Coast and the merchant, W.E. Pieterson, Kobina Sekyi

was born to both royalty and wealth. He was educated at the Cape Coast Collegiate School

(Wesleyan Boys High School), the University of London and was called to the bar at the Inner

Temple in 1918.

Writing in the Gold Coast Leader and Gold Coast Times, Kobina Sekyi persistently attacked

British rule. He maintained that:

The whole system of administration in the Crown

Colonies so called is despotic rule of the regular

type carried on in the way as to serve the ends of

the despots while eluding the gaze of the critical

world.

When an English Government talks of “assisting,”

It generally means ultimate control, and if we study

the history of the British connection we shall find

37 . This profile of Kobina Sekyi is extracted from, Samuel Rhodie, “ The Gold Coast Aborigines Abroad”
in J. A. H., VI, No.3. 1965.pp.389-411.

64
 that it is so. When the English settled in this

country they sought for authority under the Bond of

1844 in order to assist us in the administration of

our country. That was the thin end of the wedge,

but we know today that the object behind the

request for authority to assist was to work their way

upwards to control us and eventually to deprive us

of a place in administration and a voice in

legislation, which they have successfully

accomplished. And if by this time we have not yet

leant of what is meant by official “assistance” then

we shall never profit by experience. 38

Like Casely Hayford, Sekyi sought political representation for the Gold Coast people. However,

unlike Hayford, Sekyi was more an idealist thinker and agitator than a practical politician. He

sought the “ideal” rather than the ‘attainable’. Consequently, compromise was not one of his

strong points. He had little affection for colonial administrators of whom he once wrote:

From Africa is always something new.

The sway of pupil Governors; the rule

Of officers in-training blundering through

Affairs of state, uncouth like boys at school. 39

38 . Gold Coast Times, January 2,1926.

39 . Rhodie, op.cit.,p.389.

65
It is not surprising therefore, that Kobina Sekyi never held any significant Government office or

appointment. From 1927 onwards, he was the moving spirit of the A.R.P.S but by then the

Society’s star was on the wane.

I.T.A. WALLACE JOHNSON

Isaac Theophilus Akunna Wallace Johnson was a Sierra Leonean who played an instrumental

role in nationalist politics not only of his native Sierra Leone, but also of Nigeria and the Gold

Coast. From November, 1933 to March 1937 he was in the Gold Coast, where within the short

span of three years, he was able to generate a storm both in the newspaper industry and in Gold

Coast politics. A dedicated Marxist, he had attended the Kutvu Institute (University of the

Toilers of the East) from where he graduated “in the art of subversive propaganda and returned

to West Africa as a professional agitator.” In the Gold Coast, Wallace Johnson quickly got
40

involved in every radical anti-colonialist scheme. He organised the West African Youth League,

which sought to inspire in the youth an anti-colonialist spirit. His articles, which appeared

regularly in the Gold Coast Spectator and the African Morning Post, were very critical of the

Government and its collaborators. Thus, it is not in the least surprising that he inspired the very
first sedition trials in Gold Coast history.
THE ORGANISATIONS
The Gold Coast Aborigines Rights Protection Society sprang from the anti-Lands Bill agitation

of 1897. The Society was the organ through which the traditional elite and the intelligentsia

collaborated to resist the policies of the colonialist administration. Its raison d’être was the

preservation of the rights and privileges of the Gold Coast people. Although it had an elaborate

organisational structure and was supposed to hold regular meetings, the Society was at its

essence a reactionary organisation which only became active in the face of perceived threats to
40 . Shaloff, op.cit., p. 245.

66
the privileges and rights of the indigenous people. Indeed in 1912, Governor J.J. Thornburn

asserted that the A.R.P.S. existed solely to oppose Government and “frequently stirring up

prejudice by an absolutely distorted interpretation of the Government’s intentions." 41

The Society was involved in the newspaper industry, and published the Gold Coast Aborigines

and later the Gold Coast Nation. These papers were nationalist outlets which espoused the

position of the A.R.P.S. However, none of them survived very long. The Gold Coast Aborigines

only lasted from 1898 to 1909.

The National Congress of British West Africa (N.C.B.W.A) was an intelligentsia inspired

endeavour on the part of educated West Africans to forge closer ties and present a unified voice

to the colonial Government on issues affecting the Gold Coast. Its prime mover was Casely

Hayford. The National Congress was not involved as such with journalism in the Gold Coast,

but as virtually all the intelligentsia supported the Congress, it received massive support in the

Gold Coast press particularly from the Gold Coast Leader, and Gold Coast Independent. In fact,

the only newspaper which actively opposed the Congress was the Gold Coast Nation which

belonged to the A.R.P.S. 42

Apart from the N.C.B.W.A. and the A.R.P.S., other organisations emerged whose propagandists

sought to use the press to disseminate their ideas and espouse the course of their organisations.
One such organisation was the West African Youth League (WAYL), whose Organising

Secretary, Wallace Johnson was also a key figure in the politics and press of the 1930s. The

W.A.Y.L. even launched its own publication, the Dawn with Wallace Johnson and F. Adolphus

–Bruce as editors. Its board of control included, J. J. Ocquaye, Wallace Johnson Adolphus

Bruce, F. E. Duncan, A. R. Dennis, Job Lartey and R. W. Amoah. The paper, launched in 43

October 1936, appeared sporadically, and folded up finally sometime in 1939. The paper’s

41 . S. K. B. Asante, Pan-African Protect: West Africa and the Italo–Ethiopian Crisis, 1934–41, Longman,
London, 1977. p. 102.
42 . Gold Coast Nation, December 6 – 13, 1919.
43 . Holmes, op.cit., p.703.

67
fortunes, it appears were linked to the political career of the League’s dynamic and controversial

Organising Secretary, Wallace Johnson, and it would seem that although the Dawn does not

seem to have acquired much of a following even while he edited it, his departure from the Gold

Coast in 1938 sounded its death knell. With the emergence of political parties in the Gold Coast

in the 1940s, the press assumed a more belligerent posture. Newspapers such as the Evening

News, and Daily Telegraph were little more than propaganda outlets agitating for independence

and race pride.

Another interesting feature of the Gold Coast press was the involvement of other Africans of

non-indigenous origin. These ‘foreign’ journalists include J. Bright Davis, who edited the Gold

Coast Independent, a paper launched in 1895 by a group of Sierra Leonean residents. Others 44

were Dr. Savage, who was connected with the establishment of the Gold Coast Leader, Prince

Enemi, Nnamdi Azikiwe, Bankole Renner and I.T.A. Wallace Johnson. Indeed throughout the

colonial period, there was considerable movement of journalists from one British West Africa

Colony to another. Murphy identifies the movement of this dynamic, articulate group as one of

the factors for the spread of nationalist ideas across West Africa; a development which he calls

the Trans-colonial hybridisation of nationalist ideas. These movements definitely aided the
development of journalism in the Gold Coast.

The Content of Newspapers in the Gold Coast

Gold Coast newspapers reported on a hotchpotch of issues. The dominant feature of press

reportage was definitely the political and social issues confronting the Gold Coast. This is

44 . Bright Davies also edited the Gold Coast Chronicle, before he left to join the Independent. It appears
that the Independent was launched as a rival to the Chronicle, following the Independent’s treatment of
Dr. Easmon, with regard to the passing up of Dr. Quartey Papafio for promotion. See Gold Coast
Independent, June 23 , 1894

68
understandable in a colony like the Gold Coast where there always seemed to be something to

excite this watchdog function to the exclusion of all others. There was also considerable

reportage of international issues particularly issues concerning the welfare of Africa or Africans

in the diaspora. Instances showing the advancement of the Negro race were always prime

material for publication as were issues showing injustices perpetrated against them. A win by Joe

Louis in a boxing match would receive prominent front page coverage in terms glorifying the

Black race, while an instance of injustice such as was meted out to one Roscoe C. Bruce, who
45

was refused admission into a freshmen’s dormitory at Harvard University, received prominent

coverage and comment in the Gold Coast press. Another reason for the press’ coverage of
46

international matters seems to have been to use developments in other parts of the world as

indices for comparison in determining the Gold Coast’s political and social development.

International news aside, the papers also tried to fulfil entertainment and educational functions as

well. Their social pages were filled with jokes, tips on sanitation, fashion in Europe and trivia

from all over the world. 47

45 African Morning Post, January 27, 1939.

46 Gold Coast Leader, May 12, 1923.
47 . Gold Coast Chronicle, September 8, 1894.
See also African Morning Post, October 1, 1937.

69
 CHAPTER FOUR

“FORGING A NATION": The Press and the Growth of National

Consciousness in the Gold Coast.

Colonialism in the Gold Coast brought about an interaction between two cultures,

the culture of the British colonisers, and that of the inhabitants of the Gold Coast,
as well as the transfer of technology from Europe to the Gold Coast. These

developments had dramatic social, political and economic consequences in the

Gold Coast.

Politically, the different independent tribal polities that existed all lost their

independence, as Britain established her political hegemony over them.

Consequently, these kingdoms were engulfed by a larger, supra-tribal political

entity. The economic and social results attendant to these developments were no

less dramatic. Both economically and socially, the Gold Coast was in a state of

flux. Following the advent of Europeans in the Gold Coast in 1471, the Gold

Coast’s economy underwent a succession of profound transformations, 1

culminating in the entrenchment by 1911, of rubber, cocoa and mining as the

principal industries on the Gold Coast. Socially, European religion coupled with

European education led to the emergence of a new breed of Africans. European

educated, these ‘new men’ not only adopted European religion and names but

also the dress and manners of their educators and overlords. They also entered

1 The principal economic activity involving Africans and Europeans in the Gold Coast had initially been
gold trade, which soon changed to slaves, then finally to 'legitimate trade". This was the trade in primary
products such as rubber, cocoa and gold.

70
European lines of employment, as catechists, schoolmasters, priests, merchants

and lawyers. All these developments impinged on the evolution of national

consciousness in the Gold Coast.

The Gold Coast was in every sense an artificial creation. Its territory contained

different ethnic groups with different traditional political systems, with each

group tenaciously holding on to its own tribal identity. It is from this situation

that in 1957, the nation of Ghana emerged. In this chapter, we shall examine the

contribution of the indigenous newspapers of the Gold Coast to the formation

(evolution) of national consciousness among the various peoples of Ghana.

Colonialism contributed in no small measure to the development of national

consciousness in the Gold Coast. This contribution resulted from two situations

which colonialism engendered. Firstly, colonialism brought under the aegis of the

Union Jack various tribes who would otherwise have pursued separate courses of

development. In bringing these people together and subjecting them to the same

treatment as a colonised people, colonial rule provided the crucible within which
these different people could be welded into a nation.

In examining nationalism in Africa, Kwadwo Afari-Gyan identifies three forms

of nationalism First of there is the traditional or tribal nationalism, where the

2

tribe is the basic unit of national identification. Here, the different tribal groups

co-existing in a given geographical area, do not identity with each other as

belonging to a supra-tribal entity, but rather construe ‘nation’ in terms of the

2 Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, “Nationalist Ideology in the Gold Coast” unpublished M.A Thesis, University of
Ghana.1969.

71
tribe. Secondly, there was modern nationalism. This refers to a situation where a

sense of supra-tribal identification develops among different ethnic groups co-

existing in a given geographical area. Here this sense of belonging to a nation

develops organically among the various tribes on account of shared history,

shared language ties, assimilation of aspects of their separate cultures and

economic interdependence. Lastly, he identifies modern (African) nationalism.

This third typology was premised on the ground that European colonies in Africa

were not national entities in the sense of the second typology, but rather a

melange of tribes held together by the geographical limitations set up by

European colonisers, as well as the coercive power of the colonising nations.

Modern African nationalism was different from modern nationalism in the sense

that whereas in modern nationalism, a sense of national identification evolved

organically, modern African nationalism developed as a reaction to the

limitations imposed by colonialism.

In the Gold Coast, British rule as already observed brought the different ethnic

groups together in a single territorial and political entity and set in motion forces
which ultimately led to evolution of a sense of nation-ness.

How was this achieved, and in what way may the Gold Coast press have

contributed to this development? The answer to this question, lies in the Gold

Coast nationalist reaction to the deleterious effects of cultural interaction between

the indigenous cultures and European cultures, and further in the sense of

identification which developed organically over time.

72
As already observed colonialism entailed a great deal of cross-cultural interaction.

The technological disparity between the interacting cultures, and the complex of

inferiority engendered by foreign domination, as well as the awareness for

economic and social advancement which were attendant to the adoption of

European attitudes all combined to produce effects which from a nationalist

standpoint, were often quite distressing. They produced an uncritical adulation

and imitation of everything European, and the development concomitantly, of a

derisive attitude towards African tradition and culture. Not surprisingly

therefore, cultural revival became one of the founding tenets of nationalism in the

Gold Coast. This was evidently in reaction to the threatened loss of self, which

these developments represented.

In the quest to reassert African culture and values, the indigenous newspapers of

the Gold Coast played a vanguard role. As early as 1898, the Gold Coast

Chronicle, in reaction to a letter from a reader which detailed some deleterious

attitudes among the ‘small scholars’ lamented that, "Unfortunately ‘shots of

whiskey and soda’ are by the young men regarded as an indispensable adjunct to

genteel society, one of the lamentable results of English civilisation." The paper
then counsels that this was "a false notion from which we would be most happy to

see our young men straining to emancipate their minds". 3

However, attitudes

once acquired are not easy to change. In the same year, the press was again agog

with another, even more alarming instance of the absurd results of

Europeanisation. A Nigerian gentleman, one Mr. Savage, was reported to have

refused, at a party, to associate with any indigenous ladies who had not travelled

overseas before. However, forging the various tribes of the Gold Coast into a
4

3 The Gold Coast Chronicle, August 31, 1898.

4 The Gold Coast Aborigines, July 30, 1898.

73
nation required much more than simply exposing the absurdity of Africans

straining to become "black Europeans". It required a composite onslaught to

show the African in a better light than his colonial overlords had led him to see

himself. This task fell to the Gold Coast literati, and they rose magnificently to

it.

To regenerate the sense of pride in being African, the Gold Coast intelligentsia

cast their eyes back to history, to provide fitting exemplars for the task. In doing

this they sought to show that history was replete with examples of great Africans,

and also to show that the African culture was, far from being inferior to any

other, a rational whole perfectly adapted to Africa. The press complemented this
5

endeavour, by publishing biographies of prominent Africans, and campaigning

for a recognition of the African's contribution to civilisation and the development

of the Gold Coast. An example of press endeavour in this regard is provided in

the April 4, 1912 issue of the Gold Coast Nation, where it declares that:

The street nomenclature of this town [Cape Coast] requires

revision. The naming of such streets and lanes ought to bear
historical reference to the town. Who did this sin of calling
our streets by outlandish names? Winnebah is worse in this
respect. John Street, Alexandra Street and so forth greet the
eyes as one goes along. This should not be so. Appropriate
names of local origin are not far to see.

Another expression of this Gold Coast reaction to the cultural accretions of

Europeanisation is seen in the development which Europeans on the Gold Coast

referred to derisively, as ‘going Fantee’. This was an effort among educated

5 The Gold Coast People and Gold Coast Aborigines ran biographical articles on the lives of great
Africans. The trend to revise the 'white' history of the Gold Coast in this period also found exponents in
Attoh Ahuma, Ananman, and C.C. Reindorf. J.B. Danquah was to continue this trend later on in the
twentieth century.

74
Gold Coast people to set the trend in dress. In 1897, the Rev. Mr. S.R.B.

Solomon sparked off a debate in the Gold Coast Methodist Times when he invited

readers to express their views concerning the adoption of European names by

Africans upon conversion to Christianity. Not surprisingly, the Gold Coast soon
6

witnessed a spate of name changes among the educated African population. The 7

Rev. Mr. Solomon himself changed his name to Attoh Ahuma, while his

compatriot, W.C. Penny, became Egyir Asaam.

Another area in which press nationalism was demonstrated was in relation to

religion. Christianity had been a great facilitator of Westernisation in the Gold

Coast. The missions were instrumental in education, through which the process

of Europeanisation was facilitated. The influence of the Mission was not lost on

the press. In 1905, the Gold Coast Leader felt duty bound to combat this trend.

The paper declared that:

The apostles in obedience to their

Master's command went into the world
and preached the Gospel to every
creature, but we read of no attempt to
make their converts Jews. Why should
the European seek to Europeanise us in
bringing the Gospel to us. 8

To combat the trend towards Europeanisation, the press championed the

development of indigenous Christian churches, maintaining that, the real danger

confronting Africa was the danger posed by the European 'civilising mission'

which was Europeanising without any real Christianity. During the 1930s, this
9

6 Gold Coast Methodist Times, September 30, 1897.

7 Gold Coast People, August 15, 1892.
8 . Gold Coast Leader, February 4, 1905.
9 Gold Coast Spectator, February 12, 1938.

75
campaign against Europeanisation developed into an attack on anything perceived

as European. One paper even went as far as to proclaim that, "All the evils and

wrongs done today... are results of Western Civilization, and as a result of too

much Europeanisation on the part of the African". 0 1

Apart from trying to combat the notion that European civilisation was superior to

the indigenous civilisation, the press also tried to foster unity and race pride

among the Gold Coast people. To this end, the Gold Coast nationalists resorted to

other media in addition to newspapers. The writing of men such as Casely

Hayford and Attoh Ahuma were geared towards achieving this end. Attoh

Ahuma provides what is probably the most emphatic statement of this unifying

intent. In his book, The Gold Coast Nation and National Consciousness, he

makes a strenuous argument for a national identity. Despite its "multiform

composition of congeries of States or Provinces; independent of each other,

divided by complex political institutions, laws and customs, and speaking a great

variety of languages," 1 the Gold Coast, he asserted, was a nation. He argued that:
1

It may be a miserable, mangled, tortured, twisted

tertium quid, "or ... a Nation scattered and peeled... a

Nation meted out and trodden down", but still a

Nation. (italics mine)

He further maintained that, "If we were not, it was time to invent one; for any

series of States in the same locality, however extensive, may at anytime be

merged into a nation." 2 For Attoh Ahuma and other members of the Gold Coast
1

10 African Morning Post, January 25, 1939.

11 S. R. B. Attoh Ahuma, The Gold Coast Nation and National Consciousness, 2nd edition. Frank
Cass & Co, London, 1971. pp 1-2.
12 Ibid., pp.1-2.

76
intelligentsia, the Union Jack was the glue which bound the different Gold Coast

peoples together into a nation, all that remained was to get a sense of common

identity to spring from their common political circumstances. This art of thinking

nationally, as Kimble notes, took longer to develop 3 Nonetheless, its

1

development was also fostered by the Gold Coast press. The manner in which the

press contributed to the development was much more subtle, but nonetheless

effective. This was through the persistent and equal treatment of issues affecting

the Gold Coast people irrespective of their province or past, in a nationalistic,

sometimes even jaundiced manner. We find that whereas in the nineteenth

century, the coastal press had been instrumental in whipping up support for a

British invasion of Ashanti, in the twentieth century, we find the same newspaper

industry placing increased emphasis on the common attributes of the different

people. Furthermore common concerns, such as perceived threats to indigenous

control of land, cocoa price fluctuation or boycotts and a universal desire for

improved social facilities were treated by the press from a nationalistic, non-

sectional stand point thereby forging a sense of common interest, of unity in

adversity, and of common triumph when their common objectives were attained.
This fact is illustrated by a review of press reportage of the 1937-38 cocoa crisis.

In 1937, in a bid to control producer prices of cocoa, the three principal cocoa

purchasing firms in the Gold Coast, United Africa Company (U.A.C.), Cadbury

Brothers Limited, and John Holt and Company joined together to form a

purchasing pool. The principal objective of the pool was to set the price of the

cocoa. The Gold Coast press was up in arms immediately the existence of the

13 David Kimble, op. cit., p. 524.

77
pool and its price manipulating objectives were known. Led by the African

Morning Post which ran a seemingly endless series of editorials on the subject,

the press attacked the price agreement as unfair, and wondered why the pool

should pay the African farmer less than his goods were worth, particularly as the

Gold Coast farmer generally gave back "the trifle apportioned to him by the

foreign buyer for foreign goods," 4 in the stores of the same European trading
1

houses which had "no scruples in manipulating prices by which the buying

capacity of their best customers (the farmers) is restricted." 1 5 There was no

justification for price control, the newspapers maintained, especially as:

…the price of chocolate has not been known to fluctuate

in proportion to the fluctuation of the local market price
of cocoa.... It is a fact that the Pool is a menace to the
country's progress... Let the Pool live if it must but
certainly not at the expense of the farmer, the country or
the Government. We will not tolerate injustice to our
people or to anyone else; nor will we connive at such
exploitation or mean cheeseparing in any form" 61

In the face of the blatant threat to their financial well being, and goaded on by the

exhortation of the newspapers, the Gold Coast farmers embarked upon a hold-up

of cocoa in November 1937. Throughout the period of the hold-up the press
reported upon the issue, categorising the Government's "neutrality" as

insensitivity and collusion with the Pool, and the farmers stance as a heroic

demonstration that the African held "the power for regulating affairs... in his own

hands. " 7 The effects of the hold-up was to paralyse trade in the Gold Coast, a
1

fact which the press gleefully reported as an exhortation to the farmers. 8 Using1

14 African Morning Post, October 5, 1937.

15 Gold Coast Independent, September 18, 1937.
16 African Morning Post, October 5,1937.
17 Gold Coast Spectator, February 12,1938.
18 Gold Coast Spectator, February 29,1938.

78
such instances of common needs and common adversity, the press endeavoured to

create an us against them mentality, with all Africans irrespective of tribe or

social standing identified as one, against a colonial Government which was

continually portrayed as insensitive, oppressive and exploitative.

Pan-Africanism and National Consciousness in the Gold Coast.

Like most other concepts suffixed with the ubiquitous-"ism", Pan-Africanism

defies easy or accurate definition. It has as Geiss observes, "hardly ever been a

clearly defined, precise or rational concept. On the contrary, it has been a matter

of hazy, vague notions - a vision or a dream...” 9 The concept of Pan-Africanism

1

has been applied in one breath to the behaviour of Negro people; both Africans

by birth and Negroes of the diaspora seeking to co-operate to attain collective

ideals. It has also been employed to describe the reveries of Negro intellectual

dreaming of an African utopia and to the calculated aspirations of practical

politicians for whom unity was a means not an end, to emancipation from the

economic and political controls of capitalist industrialised nations. The same

concept has been advanced to claim a cultural and social brotherhood for people

as disparate and diverse as the Asante of Ghana, the Xhosa of Southern Africa

and the Masai of Kenya.

Indeed, upon cursory examination one may conjecture that Pan-Africanism is

little more than a panacea-ism, a conceptual cement to explain away otherwise

and apparently inexplicable paradoxes. However, these many-sided and

19 Immanuel Geiss, The Pan-African Movement, Methuen, London, 1974. p. 5.

79
apparently inexplicable differences in the meanings to which the concept is

applied is not unique to Pan-Africanism. It has been observed that:

Pan-Africanism is neither an exotic movement nor

an entirely new phenomenon fundamentally from
other pan-movements. Like all pan-movements it
has no single intellectual pedigree and is difficult to
define comprehensively for the single reason that it has
assumed different meanings and orientations at various
stages of its evolution. 0 2

In this section, we shall attempt to establish the parameters of nationalist activity

in the Gold Coast to which this concept is applicable, trace its antecedents and its

relationship to Gold Coast politics and the press. 1 Pan-Africanism refers to the
2

desire and attempts by native Africans and diaspora Africans to attain political

social and economic advancement through collaborative efforts. This desire

manifested in utopian back-to Africa movements, in collaborative economic

ventures, protest movements, conferences and resolutions and intellectual efforts

to assert the position of the African in world history. At the heart of the Pan-

Africanism movement was the diaspora of Africans across three continents and

the unresolved questions about their place in the world. 2 2

The roots of the Pan-Africanist movement lay in two events, both the outcome of

Africa’s contact with Europe. These were the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and

Colonialism. The slave trade, which developed as the principal economic activity

on the West African seaboard, resulted in the intentional, forced relocation of a

20 Ayodele Langley, op cit., p.7.

21 The idea here is not to attempt a redefinition of Pan-Africanism, but only to establish working
parameters for this study.
22 As defined here, the concept refers to Pan-negroism, and is not associated with the Afro-Asianism of
Duse Mohammed Effendi, as even to the Africa-wide Pan-Africanism of the O.A.U.

80
large number of Africans to the West Indies, Americas and Europe. These

Africans, taken as slaves to the cotton and sugar plantations of the New World

became, upon the abolition of slavery in the New World, liberated in law only.

They remained a socio-economic underclass in the Americas, deprived of the full

benefits of citizenship, economically underprivileged, and in many places, subject

to the most appalling incidents of discrimination. Pan-Africanism in one sense

arose out of the desire of this deprived group to return to their historical

homeland in order to escape their underclass status and the economic deprivation

which was their lot in the New World.

Another factor which accounts for the phenomena is colonialism in Africa. By

the beginning of the twentieth century, virtually all of Africa was under the

political control of European nations who had carved up the continent between

them. 2 3 This effectively placed the destiny of Africa in European hands. One

expression of Pan-Africanism therefore took the form of a struggle against

European domination. This quest took various forms: violent conflict, cultural

revivalism, intellectual arguments and Pan-Negro political and economic co-

operation.

As a phenomenon linking events and people across three continents, the

beginnings of Pan-Africanism cannot be precisely dated. Pan-Africanism

however began to gain prominence as a movement from the beginning of the

twentieth century. This fact is highlighted by a number of developments. Firstly

it was this time that the Du Bois inspired Pan-African Congresses gave the

23 At the beginning of the twentieth century, the only independent African states were Liberia and
Abbyssinia.

81
movement the prominence and recognition that it required and it was also at this

time that there emerged the spokesmen and thinkers who formulated a coherent

philosophy for what was hitherto a purely emotive response of persons connected

by race and shared social disadvantages. It was also at this time that the different

strands of Pan-Africanism began to emerge clearly.

The Gold Coast and Pan -Africanism

The Gold Coast’s contact with Pan-Africanism predates the establishment of

colonialism in the Gold Coast. As the area with the largest concentration of

European trading ports and forts in West Africa, the Gold Coast was most

intimately involved in the forced emigration of Africans to the New World as

slaves. With the abolition of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, the Gold Coast

quickly established herself as one of the major British possessions in West

African.

The Gold Coast’s involvement with Pan-Africanism was in part a result of her
role as a major conduit for the transport of Africans to the Americas. It was also

in part a response to the efforts at establishing colonial rule in West Africa.

European imperialists, seeking to provide an ideological basis for colonial

expansion sought to throw overboard the humanitarian precepts which had led to

the abolition of slavery. In this enterprise, they found ready allies in European

anthropologists, whose superficial studies of African society, and jaundiced

conclusion of African inferiority they sought to use as justification for the

subjugation of African territories to European nations. Anthropologists such as

82
Richard Burton, Frederick Farrar, and James Hunt advanced the absurd position

that the African was "mentally (and culturally) inferior to Europeans and should

be classified "as a distinct species form the European." 4 These racialist theories
2

provided a launch pad for colonialism. West African Pan-Africanism developed

in a great measure, as a reaction to these racist theories and also as a response to

the loss of independence which colonialism entailed.

The earliest West African response to these European attempts to ascribe an

inferior racial and cultural status to the African came form Edward Blyden. In

response to the apostles of European supremacy Blyden rose to the defence of his

race, asserting in opposition to the European anthropologists that, political

hegemony was not proof of superior natural ability since, "the part of the

oppressor is not less to be despised than the part of the oppressed.” 5 He argued 2

further that the backwardness Africa exhibited in the nineteenth century was not

the result of natural social disabilities of the African, but rather of historical

factors, particularly the slave trade.

In the Gold Coast, the press and the intelligentsia took up the mantle of resistance

to eurocentrisim. Like Blyden and his followers in Sierra Leone and Liberia, the
press in the Gold Coast tried to combat the pernicious influence of European

contact by advancing the idea of the ‘African Personality’. With the development

of European influence in the Gold Coast, developed the perception that

everything European was superior to everything African. Consequently,

European dress and attitudes were openly mimicked by Africans who sought

thereby to project a sense of social superiority. From the 1880s, onwards this

24 M.yu. Frenkel, "Edward Blyden and the concept of African personality ", African Affairs, Vol.
73, 1974, p .278.
25 Ibid., p.279.

83
uncritical imitation of European attitudes elicited a severe backlash in the Gold

Coast press, which developed a philosophy of Africanism to combat the cultural

denigration which was entailed in aping Europeans. In the vanguard of the

movement to re-establish cultural pride was the Rev. S.R.B. Attoh Ahuma.

Proclaiming that the greatest calamity to befall West Africa was the loss of

cultural awareness and pride, he argued that it was better that the West African

lost his worldly possessions, even his land, "...but let us see that they do not rob

us of ourselves. They do so when we are taught to despise our names,

institutions, customs and laws.” 2 6 In article after article, first in the Gold Coast

Methodist Times and later in the Gold Coast Nation, he admonished those who

aped European attitudes arguing that it was senseless to become Anglo-African,

Europeanised or Anglicised, since that entailed a loss of the African's cultural

identity and an acceptance of the very ideological basis of European hegemony

over Africa. He urged rather, his concept of Intelligent Retrogression, a back to

the earth concept entailing a revival of all that was good in African culture as a

means of instilling race pride and confidence.

Another aspect of this attempt to redeem the African from the mental shackles of

colonialism is seen in the revival of interest in the history of the Gold Coast

people. Whereas in the mid-nineteenth century even advanced African thought

often tended to see indigenous culture as backward, by the early twentieth

century, there were attempts by Gold Coast people to re-tell the story of their

past, and to provide rational explanations for African culture and institutions. 2 7

26 Robert July, The Origins of Modern African Thought, Faber and Faber, London, 1968, p.342.
27 This interest in history among the Gold Coast intelligentsia is illustrated by the numerous history books
Gold Coast natives published around the turn of the century. They include: C.C. Reindorf, History of the
Gold Coast and Asante and S.R.B. Attoh Ahuma, West African Celebrities. The newspapers also
published articles on the lives of past heroes.

84
However, the Gold Coast was not alone in the attempts at rekindling race pride.

The New World was a beehive of activity aimed at this same purpose. This

activity soon developed two distinct strains. These were the radical segregationist

variety which believed that the African in America will never be accorded his full

station in life, and therefore sought to return to Africa, and the integrationist

form, which sought to better the Africans’ position in the New World by

education and integration into American society.

The Gold Coast was intimately involved with these developments. In 1912, even

before the emergence of Marcus Garvey and his Universal Negro Improvement

Association made a return to Africa a cornerstone of their agenda, an attempt had

been made to resettle Negro 'emigres' in the Gold Coast. This attempt was led,

not by West Indian or American Negroes, but by Chief Albert Sam, a native of

the Gold Coast.

Chief Albert Sam was born at Appasu in the West Akyem District of the Gold
Coast, and claimed to be a scion of the royal lineage of Appasu. He attended the

German missionary school at Kibi, and by 1911, he was already deeply involved

in the export trade. On 15th July 1911, he formed the "first Negro Corporation

ever conceived amongst the race", the Akim Trading Company. Chartered in

New York, the Company had over $600,000.00 in capital and had its

headquarters in Brooklyn, New York. 2 8 Apparently Chief Sam's Association with

this company was not a very amicable one, for in 1913, barely two years after its

28 Ayodele Langley, op.cit., pp.41-42.

85
establishment, Chief Sam broke away to establish another company, the Akim

Trading Company Ltd. The new Company's objectives were:

… to open up trade between West Africa on the

one hand, and Europe and America on the other hand;
to develop Africa and the world; encourage the
emigration of the best Negro farmers and mechanics to
different parts of West Africa, so that the knowledge
of practical and modern agriculture may be quickened
by contact with natives, develop mining and banking
in West Africa; build and purchase ships and boats for
transportation and dredging; establish schools and
colleges along modern lines and undertake all interests
that relate to economic independence. 9 2

With these objectives, the Company moved quickly to organise a migration of

American Negroes from Oklahoma to the Gold Coast. The Company purchased a

3000 ton vessel; the Curityba, from the Munsoon Steam Company, which it re-

christened the Liberia, for the purpose of organising an emigration to the West

Africa. On August 20, 1914, the Liberia set sail for Saltpond in the Gold Coast,

with 60 'emigres' abroad.

Right from its inception this venture was confronted with official opposition, both

in America and in the Gold Coast, and its originator, Chief Sam was roundly

condemned as "a most undesirable character". 0 In the Gold Coast, legislation was
3

quickly rushed through the Legislative Council with ‘indecent haste’ for the

apparent purpose of frustrating the emigres. The Ordinance required immigrants

to deposit £25 as security against the cost of their being repatriated. 3 1

29 Ibid., p.43.
30 Ibid., p.44.
31 Ordinance No.4 of 1914, The Regulation of Immigrants Ordinance.
Standing orders of the Legislative Council were suspended so that the bill could be passed into
law in only one sitting. See Langley, op.cit., p.45.

86
The Chief Sam emigration episode is very important in several respects. Firstly,

it illustrates the divergent aspirations of the various parties in the Pan-African

family. Coming from the 'deep south' of America's southern states, the emigres in

Chief Sam's party were evidently exposed to all the disadvantages associated with

their race in America. They were in every sense an underclass in America, subject

to lynching and Jim Crow laws which effectively placed barriers to their socio-

economic advancement. For these people their emigration was in a sense

translating Africa from a sentimental homeland into a haven of equality,

prosperity and real emancipation. The people of the Gold Coast on the other

hand were interested in the 'back to Africa' scheme on account of the

technological and capital transfer opportunities which they envisaged in them.

This is evident in the volteface which the Gold Coast press undertook in its

attitude towards the Chief Sam expedition. The Gold Coast Leader barely

stopped short of calling him a hoaxer and painted a dire picture of the perils

which the climate and the mosquito posed to the returnees. 2 However a mere six
3

months later, this same journal had undergone a most dramatic change of heart
with regards to the emigration scheme, and roundly denounced the Government's

policy, which was obviously to discourage the emigration. The paper proclaimed

nationalistically that:

It is putting a strain on our endurance for the Government to

place, as they have done, difficulties in the way of American
Negroes, our own kith and kin, seeking livelihood in our country. 3
3

32 Gold Coast Leader, January 31, 1914.

33 Ayodele Langley, op. cit., p.50.

87
The paper further denounced the Regulation of Immigrants Ordinance as an

example of class legislation which ought to be expunged from the statute books.

The reasons for this about face in the Gold Coast press are obvious, as are the

reasons for its initial opposition. Concerning the initial opposition of the Gold

Coast people to the emigration, the following extract from the Gold Coast

Leader, will suffice in explaining the anxieties which fueled their opposition.

It is not at all a bad idea to have our kith and kin across
the sea to come to find a home among us; but when one
comes to think of the way which this is sought to be
done, the clandestine way in which our land is to be
robbed from us for them, it makes the idea unpleasant to
us. Let them come by all means, they only come to
their own, ... But let them come through the proper
channel, that is obtaining the lands through the peoples
whose they are... 4 3

From the above it is pretty obvious that, that perennial concern of the ARPS

protecting the land of the people, was central to the Gold Coast's opposition to

emigration. It also suggests that there must have been an earlier attempt prior to

1915 to resettle Africans from the diaspora probably under the aegis of the

colonial Government, in the Gold Coast. Sadly however, the newspaper's report

throws no light on the occasion which drew its ire.

By September 1915, Chief Sam's scheme had become a fiasco. Official

opposition and poor management had conspired against the realisation of the

emigrant's dream. Consequently most of them returned to the United States

aboard the R.M.S. Abosso. Nonetheless, the Chief Sam episode had a lasting

effect on the Gold Coast's attitude towards ‘back to Africa’ pan-Africanism. It

has been observed of the emigrants in Chief Sam's expedition that:

34 Gold Coast Leader, August 17, 1912.

88
 They were much too used to living conditions in the
United States, and despite their voluntary segregation,
they were unwilling to settle for the standards of the
Gold Coast, however much their own Jim Crow status
might be alleviated. They did not want to be
Americans, but now they found that they did not want
to be Africans either. 5
3

This was the dilemma which Negroes of the New World were confronted with,

the dilemma of 'double consciousness'. Socialised as people of the New World,

they saw Africa in terms of an escape from the inferior status they held in the

New World, but they were unprepared for the realities of life as Africans, and the

material difference which it might entail. This dilemma was not lost on the

people of the Gold Coast. Thus, when Marcus Garvey emerged in America in the

1920s, espousing the same ideals as Chief Sam had, namely 'back to Africa'

emigration, Kobina Sekyi, easily the most radical of the Gold Coast nationalists

of the period, and a man who was generally supportive of Garvey's ideals was

quick to point out that:

If there is anything now that militates or is likely to

militate against any American Negro movement
towards Africa, it is the Americanisation of the
American Negro. So long as he remains an American
in ideal, his sphere of usefulness in Africa, if any when
he gets there, will be very much circumscribed, in fact
so restricted as to become a hindrance to his own
happy existence...
Even now .... will be found people who think we are in
such a condition that the only part we can play in the
prevailing endeavour on the part of the darker races to
attain a better place since the Great War than they had
before it, is to be led by them. That is a very serious
mistake which ought to be corrected as early as
possible. We in Africa can, and do, claim to be the

35 Geiss, op.cit., p. 95.

89
 only people qualified to keep the tone of the present
spirit of unrest at the proper pitch... 63

Sekyi admitted that Africans in Africa lagged behind their compatriots in the

diaspora in terms of their acquaintance with technological devices, nonetheless he

maintained that:

...we have the controlling forces in our hands, and we

in Africa alone understand these forces and can direct
them alright for the good of the whole Negro race. 7 3

The Gold Coast's position was here clearly stated. She was willing to co-operate

with other members of the Pan-African family, but the idea of emigration from

the New World was for her impracticable because Negroes of the New World

were too alienated from the realities of the African experience to fully

comprehend the aspirations of their African brethren. For people like Sekyi

therefore, whereas Africa may benefit from the technological knowledge of

Negroes in the diaspora, and from the transfer of Negro capital to help develop

indigenous capital as a bulwark to the monopolistic tendencies of European

combines, the political emancipation of Africa however, "must be controlled and

directed from African Africans and thoroughly African Africans." 8 3

Ethiopianism, the Ethiopian Crisis and the resurgence of Press radicalism in

the Gold Coast

Pan-Africanism is not solely, or indeed even principally concerned with the

search for an African utopia. There were other manifestations of the

36 A. J. Langley, “Garveyism and African Nationalism”, Race ,xi, 2, 1969. p.165.

37 Ibid., p.166.
38 Ibid. , p165.

90
phenomenon. One such expression of Pan-Africanism is what is referred to as

Ethiopianism. Ethiopianism found expression in several forms, but in the Gold

Coast, it manifested primarily as an expression of self-assertion from foreign

domination, and a symbol of liberty and emancipation, mentally, religiously,

economically and politically. Ethiopianism was a means by which Africans

sought to attain race pride, and for Africans to develop their institutions and take

control of their own affairs, so that, "unfettered Ethiopia (Africa) could be

unbound and eventually emerge as a giant among other nations.” 3 9

Ethiopia's place in African nationalist thought is unique. She held pride of place

on account of a couple of factors. Firstly, Ethiopia was an African kingdom with

a remarkable history. Not only did she have an ancient Christian religion, but she

was also, in the age of colonialism, free from foreign domination; Ethiopia had

in fact raised her esteem in African eyes even further by her stout defence of her

independence in 1896, when she defeated Italy at the battle of Adowa. This was

particularly remarkable as it occurred at a time when African states were being

routinely gunned down and colonised by technologically superior European

armies. To African nationalists therefore, Ethiopia served as, "The only oasis in a

desert of rank subjugation from the avaricious hands of foreign domination...." 4 0

Consequently, Pan-Africanists everywhere looked to her as a source of

inspiration.

Another reason for Ethiopia's pre-eminence in African thought was cultural.

Theories of racial superiority were actively propagated by European scholars in

39 S.K.B. Asante, op.cit., p.14.

40 Gold Coast Independent, January 18, 1938.

91
the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. These theories sought to

demonstrate that the African was of a race that was mentally and culturally

inferior to the European. These theories, propounded by European intellectuals

provided an intellectual rationalization for European imperialism in Africa. In

answer to this social darwinism, Africa's apologists found in Ethiopia a staunch

defence for the African's historical contribution to civilization, and ample

evidence of the African's capability to organise a state. This is because, contrary

to what European imperialists asserted, here was an African kingdom whose

history was not shrouded in darkness. She had a rich history, and a civilization

which gave the lie to European efforts to portray Africa as a continent which

prior to the arrival of the European was stagnated in a Hobbesian state of nature.

Ethiopia acquired an important symbolism for African nationalists, and was used

symbolically, in reference to the black man in every part of the world. 4 1

Ethiopianism also found religious expression in the African's quest for a purer,

less acculturating religion than the Christianity preached by European

missionaries which presented a pre-packaged European culture as an integral part

of the Christian religion. This form of Pan-Africanism found ready and wide
acceptance in the Gold Coast where the nationalist intelligentsia began to

question the pre-packaged cultural baggage of European Christianity. These

reservations were explicitly stated by a Gold Coast journalist Titus Glover, in a

letter to a New World Negro acquaintance:

We feel that through you the West African will have

the true religion, which points to material prosperity -
not the religion which points with one hand to the
skies, bidding us to "lay up for ourselves treasures in
heaven", but while we are looking up grasps all our
worldly goods with the other hand, seizes our ancestral
41 Gold Coast Leader, November 1, 1924.

92
 lands, labels our forests and places our patrimony
under inexplicable legislation. What we want in the
Gold Coast is a pure unadulterated religion. The
cultivation of our soil, the raising of cattle, the
promotion of our handicrafts. All these must form no
small part in the African religion. 2 4

Apart from the religious expression, Ethiopianism also had an economic

manifestation. In its economic form, it was manifest in the form of co-operative

endeavours aimed at ameliorating the harsher aspects of the colonial economy.

The colonial economy, tied the colonised people to

...economic circumstances beyond their control. With

the emergence in the twentieth century of an oligopoly
of giant European trading companies... West African
produce farmers and traders began to voice discontent,
and then band together to resist economic subjugation.
The fluctuations in the trade cycle after the First World
War and the prolonged depression in commodity
prices in the 1930s served to intensify the struggle
...yet they were frustrated by external control of
import-export trade, commodity prices, shipping
facilities and banks.
Hence the struggle to regain economic independence,
in which help was sought from the diaspora... 3 . 4

The above statement illustrates the constraining economic environment of

colonialism. The Gold Coast cocoa farmer may well be the producer, but in the

framework of the colonial economy, he was quite impotent. Shipping was

controlled by the Elder Dempster Company, while cocoa purchasing was

controlled by the four monolithic oligarchic firms who formed the 'Pool' in the

1930s: Messrs G.B. Olivant, Cadbury Brothers, U.A.C. and John Holt. The

Bank of British West Africa, and the Dominion Commonwealth and Overseas

Bank controlled banking. The opportunities for economic independence were

42 Ian Duffield, "Pan-Africanism, Rational and Irrational", J.A.H., XVIII, 4, 1977, p.619.
43 Ibid., p.608.

93
therefore severely circumscribed. The fluctuations in cocoa prices between 1919-

20 and 1930 illustrates the impotence of the Gold Coast farmer in the face of the

combined might of the European commercial interests who had a stranglehold

over the Gold Coast economy. During the 1919-20 purchasing season the price of

cocoa rose to 125s 6d. per cwt, during the 1923-24 season this had dropped to as

low as 31s per cwt. During the 1927 season the price rose again, reaching a peak

price of 79s. 6d., but by 1930-31, the price had once again fallen to between 20s

and 30s. 4 4 In these circumstances the Gold Coast farmers felt justified in staging

hold ups, particularly as the Government practised a biased neutrality, which as

Rhodie points out:

...chiefly served the interests of the large European firms.

Neutrality was an argument for maintaining the status quo; in the
inequitable conditions of the Gold Coast, such a policy left the
field open to the most powerful. Moreover, the colonial
bureaucracy, through its various departments, daily supplied
information on crop movements, prices, rents and cocoa
cultivation to the merchant firms. 5 4

The Gold Coast press was quick to recognise this pernicious stranglehold of

foreign capital on the Gold Coast economy. In 1932, the Vox Populi declared
that, "what we have got to remember is that economic and industrial

independence is a necessary step to our political freedom." 4 6 In pursuit of their

economic independence, Gold Coast nationalists and farmers adopted two

approaches. One approach was to confront the vested interests by forming co-

operative economic organisations of Gold Coast producers. These organisations

sought to enhance the bargaining ability of the Gold Coast producers, and often

44 S.K.B. Asante, op.cit., pp. 26-27.

45 Samuel Rhodie, "The Gold Coast Cocoa Hold-Up of 1930-31", T.H.S.G., IX, 1968, p.107.
46 Vox Populi, April 23, 1932.

94
resorted to hold-ups as a means to reach their ends. On the other hand, they also

sought co-operative business ventures with Africans in the diaspora. 4 7

The Ethiopian Conflict

On December 3, 1934, fighting erupted at Walwal between forces of the armies

of Italy and Ethiopia, a conflict which was to have far-reaching ramifications on

nationalism in Africa. Using this skirmish as a pretext for the furtherance of her

foreign policy objectives, Italy embarked on an all out 'civilising mission' against

Ethiopia. On October 3, 1935, after constructively destroying all efforts at an

amicable settlement of the altercation, and without even bothering with a formal

declaration of war, Italy launched a military onslaught against Ethiopia.

Although the second Italo-Ethiopian conflict flared up in 1935, its antecedents lay

in events which occurred far before then. Among these was Ethiopia's defeat of

Italy in the first Italo-Ethiopian conflict in 1896, and Italy's unbridled desire to

acquire "her own empire at last".

Ethiopia's struggles with European imperialism dates back to the period of

Europe's mad, rapacious scramble to acquire colonies in Africa. Ethiopia's

geographical location near the mouth of the Red Sea, and her control of Lake

Tana; the source of the Blue Nile, made Ethiopia strategically important to

European nations, particularly Britain which controlled Sudan and Egypt.

Ethiopia was therefore a tempting prospect for European imperialists. Indeed in

47 Ian Duffield, op.cit., pp.597-620.
Also, A.J. Langley, op.cit., chapter V., "Nationalism, Pan-Africanism, and Colonial Economics: 1918-
1939, pp.195-242.

95
1896 she became the object of an attempted colonisation when Italy

surreptitiously tried to foist her overlordship upon Ethiopia through the infamous

Treaty of Wuchale, article 17 of which effectively made Ethiopia a protectorate

of Italy. However upon realising the subterfuge entailed in the treaty, Emperor

Menelik II quickly repudiated it. This led to the outbreak of war between the two

states as each felt compelled to "maintain her dignity" before the world. In the

event, the Ethiopian army decisively decimated the Italian force at the battle of

Adowa, thereby maintaining Ethiopia's independence. This defeat at the hands of

an African army was seen by Italians as a national shame. Therefore with the rise

of Benito Mussolini and his fascist ideology which hinged on national greatness,

it became imperative that Italy avenge the ‘shame of Adowa’.

Another factor which contributed to Italy's assault on Ethiopia in 1935 was Italy's

wish to acquire her own empire. After the First World War, in which Italy had

fought with the victorious allies, she felt cheated in the 'division of the spoils'

under the Versailles Treaty. This was further compounded by the fact that the

balance of power in Europe precluded any nation from pursuing an aggressive

policy of aggrandisement in Europe. Nevertheless, it was fundamental to the

fascist ethos that Italy pursue an imperialistic policy of aggrandisement. In the

event, she had to look beyond Europe to the theatre of least resistance, Africa.

Coupled with this is the fact that Italy felt that in attacking Ethiopia she could

expect the acquiescence of the rest of Europe. It has been observed that the

"existence of Ethiopia as an independent native state in Africa was a nuisance to

Powers with colonial possessions in that continent.” 4 8 Italy could therefore

48 S.K.B. Asante, op.cit., p.40.

96
reasonably expect these powers to turn a blind eye while she eliminated the

nuisance. Finally, Mussolini attacked Ethiopia partly to divert the attention of

Italians from domestic problems. Thus it can be seen that when Italy launched

her onslaught upon Ethiopia in October 1935, the immediate cause, the altercation

at Walwal, was a mere simulacrum. It was an act of naked aggression in pursuit

of an unbridled imperial policy.

The nationalist response to Italy's aggression came with amazing alacrity. All

over West Africa, nationalists attacked Italy's action as an unwarranted act of

wanton aggression. In the Gold Coast, this clamour was loudest in the indigenous

newspapers, with the foremost propagandists of Ethiopia's cause being the Vox

Populi, Gold Coast Spectator and the African Morning Post. These papers

constituted the triumvirate of radical newspapers of the 1930s, and were actively

pursuing an anti-imperialist, nationalist agenda. According to their interpretation

of events, the Italo-Ethiopian conflict reflected in microcosm, the relations

between European nations and Africa. Thus Italy's belligerence against Ethiopia
was reflective of the predatory attitude of Europe towards Africa. The crisis

therefore encapsulated the struggle of African people everywhere to emancipate

themselves from the manacles of colonial rule and white domination. In

Ethiopia's survival therefore lay the destiny of African nationalism. By tying the

future of African nationalism to the Ethiopian conflict, the press succeeded in

widening the mass appeal of the conflict and turning it into a matter of popular

concern. Expressing these Pan-Africanist sentiments, the African Morning Post

opined that should Ethiopia fall, "all our hopes will be doomed and our

97
aspirations curbed. Let the Abyssinians be slaughtered and we shall become

slaves. 4 9 On the other hand, a successful repulsion of Italian aggression would

signal a fulfilment of the psalmist's exhortation to Ethiopia to "raise forth her

hands unto God..." ushering in the dawn of the "New Africa". Throughout the

period of the Italo-Ethiopian conflict, the Gold Coast press remained at post,

unflinching in her defence of, and support of Ethiopia. Thus when an editorial in

West Africa, a magazine published in Britain, advanced the view that the conflict

was not a racial one, and that West Africans were misguided in supporting

Ethiopians as the Ethiopians neither were, nor considered themselves as Negroes,

the Gold Coast Spectator reacted quickly, calling the views expressed in West

Africa a "riot of ignorance, and interesting too if only for this wicked ignorance it

displays." 0 Further, in 1937, the African Morning Post issued the following
5

prophetic warning to the nations of the world who had turned a blind eye to

Ethiopia's plight:

...When dictators agree, especially those of the calibre

of Hitler and Mussolini, surely there is trouble. Let
European races, nay, the races of the world, beware of
Hitler and Mussolini and let the powers that be take
such early measure as will avoid the doom that now
threatens mankind on account of the lack of moral
development as made manifest in power drank
dictators. 1
5

Reiterating this warning, the paper proclaimed her undying faith in the eventual

triumph of good (Ethiopia) over evil (Italy). It expressed the conviction that:

The law of retributive justice is inexorable,

inescapable. While Ethiopia bleeds, while the Italian
imperialists murder Ethiopian women and children in
49 Ibid., p.63.
50 op.cit., p.56.
51 African Morning Post, October 1, 1937.

98
 cold blood; while relentless Italian soldiers continue
to violate the chastity of Abyssinian womanhood,
these remorseless aggressors refuse to observe the
writing on the wall; they fail to realise that vice
carries within it the germs of its own ruin; and that a
retribution which is all the more inevitable from being
often slow, awaits every violation of the moral law.
God's mills grind slowly but they grind very sure
indeed. 1 5

Agitation against Italy's aggression on Ethiopia was not confined to the

newspapers. Ethiopia's cause was also taken up by the most radical and dissident

elements of Gold Coast politics in the 1930s, the ARPS and I.T.A. Wallace

Johnson's Youth League. Through the energetic advocacy of Wallace Johnson

and the persistent race-centred commentaries of the newspapers, the Ethiopian

crisis became every man's concern. This was partly possible because the Italo-

Ethiopian conflict occurred concomitantly with the emergence of the urban

masses as a force in Gold Coast politics; in fact this process may have been

accelerated by the conflict. This is because by analysing the conflict in racial

terms, the radicals who were the chief propagandists of Ethiopia's cause were able

to excite a natural racial solidarity among the people of the Gold Coast for their

Ethiopian brothers. Moreover, by portraying the conflict as a clash of races, they

managed to discredit the League of Nations and the Colonial Government, by

portraying their attitude as being deleterious to African interest. They also used

the furore generated to discredit the older, collaborationist, Rodgers Club set of

upper elite politicians, thereby paving the way for the more radical, youth

oriented, mass conscious, anti-colonist politicians such as Kojo Thompson to gain

a firm foothold in the political scene of the Gold Coast. S.K.B. Asante remarks

that the electoral victory of Kojo Thompson in the Legislative Council elections

51 Ibid., January 4, 1939.

99
of 1935 was interpreted as a victory for the youth, the masses, anti-imperialist

groups and a vindication of the Ethiopian cause. He further observes that it was

under the umbrella of the Youth League that Wallace Johnson organised the

Ethiopian Defence Committee, as well as the labour movements he set up in the

Gold Coast. 5 2

As already noted, agitation against Italian aggression was not press-bound. In

fact the WAYL launched a drive for £200,000.00 for Ethiopia. However, this was

in the circumstances of the 1930s a purely unattainable objective. 5 3 In the event,

the Ethiopian conflict had a greater impact on nationalist thought and orientation

than the activities of nationalist groups in the Gold Coast had ,in any tangible

terms, upon the Ethiopian war effort. One scholar has observed that:

race had for long been part of the consciousness of

the West African colonial society. ...thus

throughout the period of agitation against

colonialism, the nationalist movements tended to

share a feeling of fraternity of racial brotherhood. 4 5

The Ethiopian crisis was important in the transformation of this often vague racial

solidarity into concrete form because it put race relations in such vivid relief, by

portraying little Ethiopia, African and weak as a valiant David fighting an evil

European leviathan which was attacking her principally because she was African.

Furthermore, the conflict saw the emergence of the mass of Gold Coast people as

a factor in Gold Coast politics. Occurring in conjunction with the Ethiopian

52 S.K.B. Asante, op.cit., p.114.

53 Ibid., p.163.
54 Ibid., pp.214-215.

100
conflict, the urban mass became an articulate, race conscious group. The conflict

therefore contributed enormously to the translation of national consciousness

from an elite quest to a reality for the mass of Gold Coast people.

As seen from the foregoing, the Ethiopian conflict accentuated race feelings in

the Gold Coast. By fostering this ‘us against them’ orientation in which the press

projected every aspect of the conflict, the crisis helped to solidify race centred

thought, and nurtured the feeling among the Gold Coast people, of unity in the

face of adversity. This development was also stimulated by other developments in

the Gold Coast, among which were the return of Gold Coast soldiers after the

Second World War and the general dissatisfaction with social , economic and

political developments in the Gold Coast. By the 1940s the economic

stranglehold which foreigners held over the Gold Coast economy had not

slackened in any way. European trading firms and the Association of West

African Merchants, an association of Levantine businesses, dominated commerce

in the Gold Coast to the detriment and chagrin of the indigenous people, while

politically, the Government persisting in its blissful ignorance, remained attached

to the system of rule through ‘natural rulers’, neglecting the new social and
political force which the urban masses constituted.

101
 CHAPTER FIVE

THE PUBLISHING ENVIRONMENT OF THE GOLD COAST

NEWSPAPER INDUSTRY

Newspapers of necessity operate in society, and like any other instruments of

mass communication they can be employed to achieve social cohesion or to
undertake substantial mischief in society. Governments therefore have often
sought to control the newspaper industry, both as a means of maintaining
cohesion in the body politic, and sometimes for other, more cynical objectives.

In this chapter, we shall endeavour to examine attempts at press control in the

Gold Coast by reviewing legislative measures aimed at regulating the Gold Coast
press and the effects these measures had on the newspaper industry. We shall
also attempt to examine the economics of newspaper publication to ascertain
whether newspaper publication was from a financial standpoint a feasible venture,
and if so, what the determinants for success in the industry were.

The Beginning of Press Control in the Gold Coast

Much as John Mensah Sarbah provided one of the spurs to the development of the
newspaper industry in the Gold Coast when his altruism led to the establishment
of the Aborigines Press and the Gold Coast Aborigines, he was also unwittingly
responsible for the enactment of legislation to control, and possibly suppress the
Gold Coast press.

The January 2nd, 1893 issue of the Gold Coast People; Sarbah’s paper, carried
under a pseudonym, a virulent article which libelled various high ranking colonial
officials. The paper alleged that most members of the Gold Coast judiciary took
their seats in court in a state of virtual inebriation, and further and even more

102
libellous, that the Chief Justice of the Gold Coast Colony, had obtained his office
by bribing the Governors. The Government desired to initiate proceedings against
the newspaper, but found herself unable to do so, as they could neither ascertain
the author of the libellous publication, the editor of the newspaper, nor who its
owners were. This situation brought home to the Colonial Government the need
1

for legislation which would enable her to control the newspaper industry.
The Government therefore passed the Newspaper Registration Ordinance of 1894.
Prior to the enactment of the 1894 Newspaper Registration Ordinance, the Gold
Coast had been without any substantial press regulating laws. Nonetheless,
attempts to throttle and intimidate the press were not unknown, neither was the
Government entirely devoid of coercive devices which it could employ to this
end. Indeed in 1862, Charles Bannerman was imprisoned for criticising a judicial
ruling in his newspaper, while during the 1880's Governor Brandford Griffiths
had also considered the prospect of prosecuting James Brew for offensive
publications in his newspaper, the Western Echo. In fact, Governor Brandford
Griffiths was only dissuaded from this course by his son who cautioned against
this action as such overt attempt to stifle the press could easily backfire, and
portray the offending editors as little heroes fighting an oppressive leviathan. 2

Prior to 1893 therefore, although there was no law specifically aimed at

regulating the press, the Gold Coast Government could if it chose prosecute
offending newspapers under the laws of the Gold Coast, which were defined to
include, “The common law, the doctrines of Equity and the Statutes of general
application” in force in England on 24th July 1874. Prosecutions were rare
3

occurrences as they tended to, at least temporarily, increase the popularity of the
offending newspapers.

Added to this is the fact that the newspapers themselves tended to impose some
form of self censorship within the industry. In 1886 for example, the Gold Coast
Methodist found it necessary to warn Brew against the scathing language he
employed in criticising Governor Brandford Griffiths. 4

1 Fred Omu, “The Dilema of Press Freedom in Colonial Africa: The West African Example.” in JAH, Vol.
9, No. 2, 1968. pp.286-287.
2 Ibid., p.268.
3 T. O. Elias, The Judicial Process in Commonwealth Africa, University of Ghana, 1977, p. 1.
4 The Gold Coast Methodist Times, December 1886.

103
Prior to 1893, the press laws of the Gold Coast consisted of the anti-sedition
sections of the Criminal Code of 1881. There was no law requiring the
registration of newspapers, their proprietors or even their editors. The only
redress an aggrieved person had against a newspaper for an offensive publication
lay in civil action for libel. Following the shenanigans of the Gold Coast People,
the Colonial Government rushed a bill through the Legislative Council. This was
the Newspaper Registration Ordinance of 1893.

The Ordinance required among other things that a newspaper should:

1. . Register their names and business addresses.
2. . The names of its proprietors and their addresses.
3. . Copies of the publication and
4. . Circulation figures for the proceeding year.

The law further stipulated a penalty of £25 for non-compliance with its provisions
and £100 for submitting false details.

The 1893 Ordinance was essentially a reproduction of the English Newspaper

Registration Act of 1891, however the ameliorating sections of that Act had
ominously, been expunged from the Gold Coast Ordinance. Naturally the passage
of the Ordinance aroused protest in the Gold Coast, where it was felt that this was
a blatant attempt to trammel the ‘only estate’ of the Gold Coast people, and also
in Britain, where questions were raised in parliament concerning the propriety of
passing a law which could easily be turned to despotic ends. These misgivings
compelled the Secretary of State for Colonies, Lord Ripon, to refuse assent to the
Ordinance. Not to be outdone however, the Gold Coast administration re-enacted
the Ordinance in 1894 and again in 1897. Whereas the 1894 Ordinance was
substantially the same as that of 1893, the Book and Newspaper Registration
Ordinance of 1897 added the additional stipulation that editors were to deposit
three copies of their publication with the Registrar. 5

5 Sylvanus Ekwelie, "The Press in Gold Coast Nationalism, 1890-1957", unpublished Ph.D. Thesis,
University of Wisconsin, 1971, p. 155.

104
These laws therefore constituted the sum of official legislative efforts to regulate
the conduct of newspapers in the Gold Coast. This did not however, represent the
entire range of restraints with which the press was confronted. There was always
the possibility of a boycott by both Government and Europeans trading concerns
of a newspaper, a situation which could have adverse economic consequences for
a newspaper since these were the principal sources of advertising revenue. In a
colony such as the Gold Coast, where newspaper sales were low; partly due to the
irritating habit of borrowing from friends instead of buying one’s own paper,
advertising revenue was crucial if a paper was to stay in operation. Therefore 6

while a paper needed to assert its patriotic credentials if it was not to die from
sheer innaniation, it also had to walk an editorial tightrope, in that it could not
afford to be too offensive to either European commercial interests or to the
Government. There was also the possibility of a newspaper being sued in civil
court for defamation by parties aggrieved with the content of its publication. This
indeed happened on numerous occasions. In 1897 for instance, the Gold Coast
Methodist Times, was sued by a Captain Cramer for the contents of an article
which defamed him by alluding to him as a coward. The parties eventually settled
the dispute out of court for a settlement which cost the paper 2000 pounds. 7

Similarly, the May 16th, 1931 edition of the West African Times also carried a
report of a suit before the West African Court of Appeal: Miss Lawlor, Lady
Medical Officer v. The Proprietors of Gold Coast Leader, in which the plaintiff,
Miss Lawlor was suing the Gold Coast Leader for defamation in respect of the
use of the words “inhuman” and “indecent” with regards to acts allegedly
committed by her in the conduct of her duties. Finally, there was always the
possibility of extra-legal action against journalists whose articles or publications
gave offence to someone. In fact, there were more than a few reports of such
occurrences, where pressmen were assaulted by mobs. 8

The newspaper industry therefore was not entirely bereft of restraining

influences. A paper after all had to register before it could operate, and this of

6 Gold Coast Times, January 2, 1926. The paper ran a notice on its front page stating: “Don’t lend your
copy of the Times to friends, please. Induce them to subscribe”. See also Gold Coast Aborigines, January
8, 1898.
7 Gold Coast Methodist Times, July 31,1897.
8 Gold Coast Leader, November 6, 1909. African Morning Post, June 16, 1938.

105
course could be with held if need be. Furthermore, although the Government was
generally disinclined to prosecutions, it did not shy away from the task when it
found occasion to. Indeed quite a few papers fell foul of the 1897 Ordinance and
were prosecuted for it. Notwithstanding all the coercive devises at her disposal
9

the colonial administration in 1933 proposed a new bill which sought to place
further, and more stringent restrictions on the newspaper industry in the Gold
Coast. This was the Criminal Code (Amendment) Ordinance of 1934.

THE “SEDITION BILL” OF 1934

In December 1933, the colonial Government proposed an ordinance to amend the

Criminal Code, Cap 29. Opposition to the proposed amendment was virtually
instantaneous, and came from all articulate sectors of indigenous Gold Coast
society. Not since the Crown Lands Bill in the nineteenth century, had any
proposed legislation aroused as much debate, anxiety and unanimous opposition
as the “Sedition Bill” of 1934. With all the means at her disposal by which she
could regulate press activity therefore, it would seem strange at first that the
Government should find it necessary to enact fresh legislation to that effect and
arouse public feeling the way the Sedition Bill did. The colonial administration’s
action was however not without reason.

The reasons why the Government found such a universally reviled law necessary
is explained by a combination of factors operating together during the 1920s and
1930s in the Gold Coast. These were, increased nationalist activity, increased
radicalism in the Gold Coast press, increased volumes of radical literature
entering the Gold Coast, a near paranoid fear among British administrators of
communist influence, and their aversion of press criticism.

The 1920s was a period of novel developments in Gold Coast nationalism.

Hitherto, nationalist causes had been championed by an alliance of chiefs and
educated Africans. However, this consensus was put under great strain from the
beginnings of the 1920s following the parting of the ways between the chiefs and
9 Gold Coast Express, September 18, 1897, reports the case of Reg. v. Charles Newton. Newton was the
publisher of the Gold Coast Methodist Times. Also, R. v. Gold Coast Leader in Gold Coast Leader, June
17,1905.

106
the intelligentsia over the claims of the National Congress of British West Africa.
The cleavages between the two pillars of Gold Coast nationalism widened further
in 1925 over the establishment of the Provincial Councils, and even further in
1927 over the Native Administration Ordinance.

Thus during the late 1920s there was no consensus about the direction of Gold
Coast nationalism. This situation led to increased nationalist agitation
particularly from the educated elite who were fighting to reassert their former
lobbyist role in Gold Coast politics. Added to this was the emergence of
‘political parties’ in the Gold Coast. The Municipal elections of 1927-28 led to
the emergence of different political parties in the Gold Coast; the Maambii Party
and the Rate Payers Association, each fielding different candidates in the Accra
Municipal elections of 1927. Consequently, even the intelligentsia was no longer
speaking with a unified voice.

Since the press presented a ready forum for reaching a large audience, the press
was consciously employed as a campaigning tool by the different candidates. All
these developments made Gold Coast journalism more lively. It also had the
related effect of injecting more bombast into the language employed in the
newspapers. In Cape Coast, the remnants of the A.R.P.S., under the intellectual
sway of Kobina Sekyi was implacably opposed to the loss of the Society’s
influence and prestige, and sought to reassert its position in Gold Coast politics.
Using the Gold Coast Leader, and the Gold Coast Times, they critically attacked
the Government’s policies and programmes. 0 Moreover, following the failure of
1

the intelligentsia to secure their political objectives, the press metamorphosed into
something quite different from the ‘loyalty to King and Empire’ institution it
previously was. Gone was the consensus which previously existed in the
newspaper industry, as there began to emerge voices willing to question not just
the activities of colonial administrators, but even the very institution of colonial
rule itself. The late 1920s and early 1930s also saw the re-emergence of violent
street rioting in resistance to the colonial Government’s policies. The introduction
of Municipal Councils sparked trouble in Accra and Cape Coast, whilst the
10 The Gold Coast Leader soon changed its position when its owner Casely Hayford, forever the practical
politician abandoned the quest for the ‘ideal’ in favour of the attainable, and accepted the new status-quo.
The Gold Coast Times was left to do its crusading alone.

107
attempt to introduce a direct tax was met with riots in the coastal towns of Accra,
Sekondi and of course in implacable old Cape Coast. 1 1

The pre-1920 newspaper industry was dominated by persons with close ties to the
chiefly families of the Gold Coast. 2 This close association in part set the agenda
1

of the press, which was centred on the presentation of traditional rights and
privileges, and a need for cultural regeneration. As virtually all the dominant
press figures were men who in one way or another were connected to the chiefly
families or the influential native merchant families, this ideology was
understandable. The press was not seeking major political upheaval. Revolution
was the last thing on the minds of the priests and lawyers who dominated the
press. They rather sought to ameliorate the more objectionable features of the
status quo, to protect the privileges of the traditional elite; and by extension their
own privileges, and to engender cultural renaissance among the youth.

However during the 1920s when cleavages began to emerge between the chiefs
and the intelligentsia, the Gold Coast intelligentsia found themselves confronted
with a novel situation: their total loss of political influence. Following their
differences with the chiefs over who were most qualified to speak for the people
of West Africa, the Government had sided with the chiefs, declaring that:
It is the policy of the Government to rule as far as possible
by means of tribal organisations and not to allow these to
be undermined and overthrown by the destructive influence
of a small body of advanced thought which might destroy
but would not be able to substitute any other form of Government. 3 1

11 Shallof. S., “Income Tax, Indirect Rule and the Depression: The Gold Coast Riots of 1931”, Cahier
d’Etudes’Africaines, 54, xiv-2, pp.359-375. Also, Dominic Fortescue, “ The Accra Crowd, the Asafo and
the opposition to the Municipal Corporations Ordinance, 1924-25”, Canadian Journal of African Studies,
pp.348-373.
12 Gold Coast Nation, March 28, 1912. In an article entitled “Some of Mr. Morel’s Educated Natives”, the
paper points out that the presumption that the educated were hoodwinking illiterate native rulers into
supporting their schemes was a myth. The paper asserts that 50% of the Chiefs were educated and had
distinguished themselves in the mercantile world before becoming chiefs. See also, May23, 1912, points
out that Casely Hayford was a scion of the royal house of Cape Coast, while T.F. Jones and E.P. Brown
were of the royal house of Abora. Attoh Ahuma was from the royal house of Jamestown while Kobina
Sekyi was a grandson of Chief Kofi Sekyi of Cape Coast.
13 N.A.G. Accra, Adm. 11/935.

108
This was the underlying rational which accounts for the prominence accorded the
chiefs vis-a-vis the intelligentsia in the 1927 constitution. The intelligentsia
therefore found their position as lobbyists, negotiators and agitators on behalf of
the ‘Chiefs and people’ of the Gold Coast effectively usurped. Confronted with
this unveiled threat to their influence, the intelligentsia predictably attempted to
sabotage the Provincial Councils.

However, faced with the intransigence of the colonial administration and the
opposition of their erstwhile allies, the Chiefs, the intelligentsia itself soon
fragmented into different camps. Whereas most of the older and more established
members of the Gold Coast intelligentsia soon came to be conciliatory towards
the Provincial Councils and were prepared to work within the new regime of
things, others remained intractably opposed to the Provincial Councils. These
generally comprised the younger members of the educated Gold Coast population
and some aggrieved groups epitomised by the tottering A.R.P.S. which could not
be reconciled to the loss of its previous influence. All these developments played
out in the Gold Coast press with different newspapers presenting the positions of
the different parties. These differences were also reflected in the language of the
press. As political agitation increased, so did the level of vitriol in the language
employed by the press.
In this environment of political ferment, it is not surprising that even the
“sunshine Governor”, Governor Hodson, who had initially attempted a
conciliatory approach towards the press, soon formed the view that:

“We are cursed with some professional agitators and an

anti-Governmental, anti-imperialist and anti-European press
which week after week pours out distorted and exaggerated
views ... to their circle of readers ... The result is that
the outside world gathers the impression that the country is
in a seething state of discontent and dissatisfaction... 4 1

14 S. K. B Asante, Pan - African Protest: West Africa and the Italo-Ethiopian Crisis, 1934-1941,
Longman, 1977. p. 184.

109
Furthermore, the early 1930s saw a new element, hitherto unknown, making an
entrance in the Gold Coast newspaper environment, sensationalism. At the
advent of the newspaper industry in the Gold Coast, the principal concern had
been to provide mouthpieces for airing indigenous opinion, and for political and
cultural reassertion. However, in the 1930s entrepreneurs were entering the
industry who were drawn to newspaper publication by the possibility of profit.
Notable among such publishers was Alfred J. Ocansey, whose African Morning
Post; edited by the American trained Nigerian pan-Africanist, Nnamdi Azikiwe
was by far the most sensationalist of all Gold Coast newspapers. 5 1

Another development which alarmed the colonial Government was the increasing
contacts which Gold Coast nationalism was developing with foreign radical
groups, and the volume of radical literature entering the colony. In 1933, Harry
Scott Newlands, Chief Commissioner of Ashanti advised the Colonial Office to
clamp down on the press in order to suppress subversive communistic propaganda
and the blatant appeals to race consciousness. 6 Newlands was voicing the opinion
1

of colonial administrators who felt that the Gold Coast was being inundated with
radical literature by communist inspired organisations. 7 Indeed radical Gold
1

Coast nationalists such as William Essuman Gwira Sekyi (Kobina Sekyi), Wuta
Ofei, Bankole Renner and Alfred John Ocansey were in contact with all shades of
radical opinion. These included the League Against Imperialism, the International
Trade Union Committee of Negro Workers, the Communist Party, Negro Welfare
Association, the United Negro Improvement Association and the Red
International of Labour Unions (Profintern). Added to this was the fact that most
Gold Coast nationalists who were in contact with these avowedly anti-imperialist
organisations were also very active in the newspaper industry through which they
attacked the Government’s policies relentlessly. According to the Inspector-
General of Police, who was apparently tampering with the mail of ‘link

15 Nnamdi Azikiwe was the first trained professional journalist in the Gold Coast. He later became an
influential figure in the Nigerian nationalist movement.
16 Stanley Shaloff, op cit., pp. 241-242. Newland's suggestion led to the preparation of a new press law;
“An Ordinance to Amend and Constitute the Law Relating to the Printing and Publication of Newspapers
and other Publications and to provide for the Registration of Books and the Registration and Keeping of
Printing Presses”. However, following the outcry over the Sedition Bill, this law was not gazetted at all.
17 Stanley Shaloff, op.cit., p. 250. The number of publications intercepted by the colonial authorities
rose from 76 in 1931 to 1750 in 1933.

110
subversives, the most active seditionists were Kobina Sekyi, Benjamin Wuta
Ofei, A. J. Ocansey and E. K. Caesar. 8 Of these people, three were intimately
1

involved in the newspaper industry. Wuta Ofei was editor of the Gold Coast
Spectator which was owned by A. J. Ocansey, while Kobina Sekyi was a very
active contributor to the Gold Coast Leader and the Gold Coast Times. To these
could be added other anti-imperialists like Bankole Renner, who edited the Gold
Coast Leader from 1931-1932, Nnamdi Azikiwe, editor of Ocansey’s African
Morning Post and I.T.A Wallace Johnson, a Moscow trained anti-imperialist, and
the moving spirit behind the West African Youth League. 9 All these persons 1

were in contact with radicals such as T. Ras Makonney, Arnold Ward, Nancy
Cunard, George Padmore and Reginald Bridgeman of the LAI, a fact which was
cause for much consternation in official circles where it was felt that the Gold
Coast was under a communist inspired threat operating through the press.
Finally, the attitude of British administrators in the Gold Coast was also a factor
that contributed to the passage of the sedition bill. Shaloff observes that whereas
Colonial Office staff, far removed from the theatre of events were often
dispassionate in their assessment of situations in the Gold Coast, the
administrators on the ground in the Gold Coast “tended to respond more
emotionally and personally, and revealed themselves to be unable or unwilling to
suffer quietly the printed criticism of their policies.” 0 This was particularly true
2

of men like Bamford and Governor Shenton Thomas, who regarded the press as a
bunch of contemptible riff-raffs. Bamford held the view that, there was not a
single editor of repute or sense of responsibility on any of the local papers and
felt that a character qualification must be introduced to prevent persons of
doubtful character from holding editorial positions, while Governor Thomas felt
that “the local press [was] harmful to the country” 1 2

All the above factors, particularly the fear of communist influence, gyved
together, and resulted in the passage of the Criminal Code (Amendment)
18 Ibid., pp. 242-43.
19 Bankole Renner, a barrister of Sierra Leonean descent was a self-avowed Bolshevik who was for a time
a student of the Moscow Eastern University. He was also the first President of the West African Youth
League and head of the Friends of Ashanti Freedom Society.
20 Stanley Shaloff, op, cit., p. 262.
21 Alexander B. Holmes, "Economic and Political Organisation in the Gold Coast: 1920-1945"
Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis, University of Chicago, 1972 pp. 545-46.

111
Ordinance of 1934. The sections of this ordinance which relate to the press are
found in sections 4 and 5. Section 4 of the new ordinance substituted section 330
of the existing criminal code, Cap. 29, while section 5 amended section 342 of
Cap.29. The new law granted that:
“The Governor in Council may, by Order, prohibit to be
imported into the Colony any newspaper, book or document.”

The law also made any person who conspired to print, printed or published, or
imported into the Colony any newspaper, book or document, or offered for sale
any material, or distributed or possessed any seditious publication liable upon
conviction to a term of 5 years imprisonment, and liable to a term of 7 years in
prison for a subsequent offence.
Compared to the pre-existing state of the law, the Sedition Bill’s provisions were
really draconian and sparked off opposition even before it was introduced in the
Legislative Assembly. Even the conservative, collaborationist elements of Gold
Coast society were uneasy with the provisions of the bill. Nana Ofori-Atta, the
Governments’ arch-collaborator, a man derisively described by radicals “as a
Mute and Obedient Boy of the Empire” thought the bill was too harsh and had
cause to protest against provisions which would put a man “to the trouble and
torment of going to court to defend ...” 2 himself for possessing seditious material
2

which he may not know was seditious and which he may not even have read or
used in any way. 3 2

However, although Gold Coast nationalists of every shade protested vigorously

against the bill both in the Legislative Council and in the press, the colonial
administration refused to withdraw the bill, even temporarily.

Its official position mirrored the view of Geoffrey Northcote, who thought that all
the fears expressed about the bill was sheer bunkum. Unable to prevent the
passage of the bill in the Gold Coast Legislative Assembly, the opponents of the
bill were left with nothing to do but to resort to the traditional last resort, an
appeal to the Colonial Office in Great Britain

22 F.A.R Bennion, The Constitutional History of Ghana London; Butterworth, 1962.p.34.

23 Stanley Shaloff, op.cit., p. 247.

112
RIVAL PROTEST GROUPS TO THE UNITED KINGDOM

The Sedition Bill sparked off one of the most protracted and universal protests
ever seen in the Gold Coast. Protest against it began even before the bill was
tabled in the Legislative Council for consideration. 4
2

On February 17, 1934, two weeks after the bill was tabled in the Legislative
Council, a protest meeting was held at the Palladium cinema in Accra against the
proposed bill. The meeting which was attended by several thousand people was
chaired by Dr. Nanka Bruce, editor of the Gold Coast Independent and stalwart of
the Rate Payers Association. The meeting selected a Committee of Twelve,
headed by Dr. J.B. Danquah to master-mind protest against the Sedition and
Water works Bills. The Committee of twelve comprised, Dr. Danquah, Dr. F.
Nanka Bruce, Akilakpa Sawyer, Kojo Thompson, E. C. Quist, H. F. Ribeiro, C.
E. Reindorf, A. J. Ocansey, T. K. Orgle, J. Buckman, S. O. Akiwumi and C. A
Vanderpuje. Interestingly, I. T. A. Wallace Johnson who had started the agitation
against the bill was excluded from the Committee. Indeed, he was not even given
the opportunity to speak at the Palladium rally. This was because the hugely
conservative set which dominated the organisers of the protest at this stage
thought that their open association with such an outspoken Marxist, and anti-
imperialist would hamper the cause of the protest. Moreover, they needed the
support of all sectors of the Gold Coast public, and Wallace Johnson, with his
stringent attacks on the Chiefs was definitely not a figure whose presence would
aid the sought unity. 5 2

Once formed, the Committee of Twelve went straight to work, their first order of
business being to secure the support of the chiefs and other influential groupings
in the Gold Coast. This would enable the Gold Coast present a unified front in
lobbying against the bills, and also because without the endorsement of the chiefs
who were now recognised by the Government as the official representatives of
the Gold Coast people, any protest lobby was bound to flounder before official
opposition. Furthermore, the support of the chiefs was crucial for financial

24 Holmes, op.cit., p. 548.

25 Holmes, op. cit., pp. 549-50.

113
reasons, since the chiefs represented the largest bloc of financial subscribers to a
deputation scheme should one become necessary.

The Committee of Twelve sent representatives to solicit the support of the chiefs
through the various Provincial Councils. Despite the support of the chiefs
however, and the unanimous opposition of the unofficial African representatives
of the Legislative Assembly, the Sedition and Water Works Bills were passed into
law. Since mass street demonstrations involving the ‘hoi poloi’ were not
contemplated by the conservative leaders of the Gold Coast protest lobby as
embodied in the Committee of Twelve, the lobbyists were faced with only one
option: a deputation to the Colonial Office. At this stage however, whatever
unity existed in the Gold Coast’s opposition to the bill crumbled. The efforts to
present a unified front were destroyed by the intransigence of the ARPS who saw
the situation as an opportunity to assert their claims as the legitimate spokesmen
of the Gold Coast chiefs and people. In retrospect it is obvious that the ARPS’s
pretentions were a hopeless cause. The Gold Coast Government’s position on
this issue was obviously against their (ARPS) ambitious quest. The Government
preferred to deal directly with the chiefs through the various Provincial Councils
rather than through the Intelligentsia. Neither were the chiefs themselves willing
to allow themselves to be politically upstaged by the intelligentsia. However, the
ARPS tenaciously clung to their hopeless quest, maintaining that their claims to
pre-eminence as spokesmen of the Gold Coast people be recognised by all as a
precondition to their cooperation. By intractably maintaining this stance, they
extinguished any hope of the Gold Coast presenting a united protest.

On April 30, 1934, a Central National Committee (hereafter called C.N.C) was
set up in an effort to unite the various groupings, the Provincial Councils, the
ARPS, Asante Kotoko Society and the Intelligentsia. However, it soon became
obvious that the ARPS had an irreconcilable agenda. The C.N.C therefore
proceeded to organise the deputation without the support of the ARPS and other
fringe groups like the Ashanti Freedom Society. Eventually a delegation of eight
members headed by Nana Ofori Atta, Paramount Chief of Akyem Abuakwa, was
selected to present the petition to the Colonial Office. The delegation comprised
Nana Ofori Atta, Nanka Bruce, Akilakpa Sawyer, James Mercer, Asafu-Adjaye,

114
Isaac Kweku Agyeman and J.B. Danquah. The constitution foreshadowed the
conservative form the protest took. Nana Ofori Atta was the arch collaborator of
the Government, while Korsah, Nanka Bruce and Sawyer were stalwarts of the
conservative Ratepayers Association. Mercer represented the Western Provincial
Council, while Asafu-Adjaye and Agyeman were representatives of the chiefs of
Ashanti. Danquah who joined the delegation as its secretary was the only person
whose presence caused any apprehension in official circles where he was
considered a dangerous anti-White, anti-Government man. 6 For a party of
2

conservative men such as these, there appeared only one avenue open, the path of
constitutionalist lobbying.

The Ofori Atta delegation left the Gold Coast on 10th June, 1934, arrived in the
United Kingdom on 23rd July and was received by the Secretary of State for
Colonies on 24th July.
The petition which they presented had 17 items about which the delegates sought
redress. This omnibus of different items reflects the different aspirations of the
bodies who sent delegates on the deputation. The petition read as follows:
To present a Memorial to the King on the Criminal Code
Amendment Bill, the Waterworks Bill and on the constitutional
relations between his Majesty’s Government on the Gold Coast
and Ashanti, in particular as affecting -
(i) Amendments of the “Gold Coast Colony (Legislative Council)
Order in Council of 1925" to provide that African unofficial
members of the Legislative Council shall be equal in number to
the Official and other members of the said council; and that
Ashanti and the Northern Territories be represented on the
Legislative Council.

(ii) Amendments of the ‘Gold Coast Colony (Legislative Council)

Order in Council for 1925' to provide that the electorate of the
Provincial Councils shall have the right to elect for the Legislative
Council other persons of the community (not Paramount Chiefs)
Considered suitable for the Provincial Councils, in addition to or
26 Stanley Shaloff, op.cit., pp. 549-50.

115
 in place of the Paramount Chiefs to serve as Provincial Members
of the Legislative Council; and that an Advisory Board of
intelligent educated persons for the Council to appointed.

(iii) The status of Paramount Chiefs and their jurisdiction.

(iv) The Right of the Native Authority or Paramount Chief of each

State to the allocation of money or support from the Public
Revenue
of the Gold Coast.

(v) Amendments of the “Letters Patent of 1925 and the Royal

Instruction of 1925 to provide for an equal number of Africans
Unofficial Members on the Executive Council with the Official
Members thereof.

(vi) The Ashanti Administration Ordinance, with specific reference to

the acquisition of Lands in Ashanti.

(vii) Ground rents in Kumasi.

(viii) Employment of Africans in the Civil Service, their salary scales

and class of appointments.

(ix) Entrance examination, civil service - position of College Trained

Boys and Girls.

(x) African Pensions

(xi) Education:
(1) Private Secondary Schools (Mission or other) should receive
adequate support from the general revenue.

116
 (2) Free Elementary Education.

(xii) Sanitation; reclamation of congested and insanitary areas,

Dispensaries and Hospitals - Medical Services.

(xiii) Cocoa, Trade and Industry - Need for control of the upward and
downward speculation in prices, and also the need for the
development and control of copra, palm kernel and palm oil
trades.

(xiv) Forestry Ordinance - A declaration on the title of the aboriginal

or native inhabitants of the Gold Coast to their Lands.

(xv) Improvements in trade and industry by constructive expenditure

of public revenue: the intensive encouragement of agriculture and
industry - Local arts and handicrafts.

(xvi) Repeal of Gold Mining Products Protection (License Fees)

Ordinance, 1932.

(xvii) Such other matters and questions relating to the constitution, the
Administration of the Executive and the Administration of justice,
rights of individuals and groups et cetera which may appear to our
said Delegates to be expedient and necessary to be raised and
discussed either in the Memorial to His Majesty the King - in -
Council or in discussion with His Majesty’s Principal Secretary of
State for the Colonies. 72

The items on the petition reflect a desire to satisfy the aspirations of all the
various groups which constituted the protest lobby. They also reflect the hopeless
tactics of the delegates. Instead of concentrating their protest on a few objectives
which could be vigorously pursued, they presented an omnibus of issues which

27 Holmes op.cit., pp. 588-590.

117
they had no credible hope of attaining. Furthermore, their tactics were to say the
least, inept.
The delegates refused to make a press statement prior to their departure from the
Gold Coast for fear of being misrepresented. Upon arrival in Britain too they
failed to avail themselves of the ready help of the British Left. In their
conservatism they failed to see the necessity of adopting more strenuous methods
of protest and seemed to operate under the illusion that their inchoate objections
will be “received with dignity and courtesy” by the arch-imperialists who ran the
Colonial Office. Under the circumstances, although the delegates made a
strenuous case against the Sedition Bill, they were roundly rebuffed by the
Secretary of State for Colonies. Consequently, the delegation, minus J. B.
Danquah, returned to the Gold Coast on September 1, 1934, roundly defeated.

The Ofori Atta delegation was not the only deputation from the Gold Coast to
petition the Colonial Office in 1934. The ARPS, which had refused to be part of
the Central National Committee’s Ofori Atta led deputation sent its own party to
petition the King - in - Council on behalf of the Gold Coast people.

The ARPS started making feverish preparations to send its delegates to the
Colonial Office in June 1934. The Gold Coast Government tried to pour cold
water on the idea of the Society which it said “did not speak for anyone at all
except a few disgruntled chiefs and other discontents and advised against this
deputation being received by the Secretary of State for Colonies. The Society
was even informed that the Colonial Office would not grant a hearing to her
delegation, as it would be hearing Ofori Atta’s delegation. Nonetheless, the ARPS
delegation sailed for the United Kingdom on July 8 ,1934.

As already noted, the ARPS’s policy towards the deputation scheme of 1934 was
essentially self-serving, and dictated by a desire to be recognised as the sole
mouthpiece of the Gold Coast people. 8 2

28 The ARPS had acted as the mouthpiece of the Gold Coast people prior to the establishment
of the Provincial Councils, however following the formation of these councils the ARPS lost its role. In
1932, the Society was officially informed that:
Government does not recognise your society as the
medium of communication between Government and
the Chiefs and people, the Provincial Councils having

118
Forewarned that its delegates would not be granted a hearing, and also because the
Society had no meaningful role in the status - quo and therefore had nothing to lose
and everything to gain, the ARPS delegation made more strenuous efforts than the
Ofori Atta delegation had. They actively courted the support of left wing
organisations and used the British press as a medium to pressure the Colonial
Office to at least grant them a hearing. Through these efforts, which were
protracted, and continued for close to a year, the delegation was finally able to
secure the much sought hearing. It presented its petition to Parliament on 29th May
1935 which was forwarded to the House of Commons Committee on Petitions to
the Colonial Office. However, although eventually able to secure an interview at
the Colonial Office in part because officials at the Colonial Office wanted to spare
the delegates the embarrassment of an outright failure, the Society was unable to
secure any of its demands. Like the Ofori Atta delegation, the ARPS presented a
petition of ambiguous demands which were impractical and unattainable. The
Society demand:
1. That it be recognised as the sole medium of communication
between the Government and the chiefs.
2. An Official inquiring into:
i. The Gold Coast - United Kingdom relations since 1921 and the
validity of the 1901 and 1906 Ordinances.
ii. The Legislative and Executive Councils and the issue
of African representation on them.
3.

General Administration of the Gold Coast.

4. Cases of discrimination against chiefs.
5. Other matters such as Education.
6. Repeal of the Sedition and Waterworks Ordinances. 9
2

been established for that purpose.

N.A.G. Cape Coast. unclassified, 59/64. March 21, 1932.
29 Holmes, op. cit., p. 611.

119
From its list of demands it is obvious that the Society sent its deputation to speak
for nobody but itself. Not only were the ARPS’s demands extremely self serving,
they were also practically unattainable. All its demands except the demand for
the repeal of the Sedition and Waterworks Bills concerned issues with which the
Society or its principal members were concerned in a private capacity, 0 while the 3

demand for an official enquiry into the relations between the Gold Coast and the
United Kingdom not only hit at the core of colonialism but also shows the extent
to which the Society, essentially a conservative - collaborationist organisation had
been pushed by the Government’s rejection towards an anti-colonialist posture.
In the circumstances, such demands were wholly utopian. Like the Ofori Atta
delegation’s petition, the ARPS petition neglected the need to concentrate on the
immediate cause of the protest. In presenting such an ambiguous list of demands,
the society, already lacking in credibility, had shot itself in the foot.

“HAS THE AFRICAN A GOD” : THE SEDITION BILL IN

OPERATION

In passing the Criminal Code (Amendment) Ordinance over the unanimous

opposition of the Gold Coast people, the colonial Government had thrown down
the gauntlet, and it was not long before someone took up the challenge of testing
the will of the Government and the limits of the new law.

The May 7 1935 issue of the African Morning Post contained an editorial headed:
“Do Europeans Believe in God”, and this produced a response in the form of an
article titled “Has the African a God”, by a writer using the pseudonym
‘Effective’. The article displayed all that verbal pyrogenic quality which
Governors Shenton Thomas and Hodgson had set out to stamp out, and seems to
have been inspired in part by Italy’s invasion of Abyssinia, but was written with
the express purpose of causing the utmost offence to Europeans.

Arguing that the question whether Europeans believed in God was wrongly put,
the writer expressed his views:

30 The demand concerning cases of discrimination against chiefs is particularly interesting considering
Sekyi’s involvement in numerous chieftaincy disputes.

120
In my opinion, the question is either unnecessary or
should have been put the other way round. It
should have been: “Has the African a god, if he has
a god, why not worship him and leave the
Europeans god alone?

Personally, I believe the European has a god in

whom he believes and whom he is representing in
his churches all over Africa. He believes in the god
whose name is spelt Deceit. He believes in the god
whose law is “Ye strong, you must weaken the
weak. Ye ‘civilised’ Europeans you must ‘civilize’
the barbarous Africans with machine guns. Ye
‘Christian’ Europeans you must ‘Christianise’ the
pagan Africans with bombs, poison gases, etc.

In the colonies, the Europeans believe in the god

that comments: “Ye Administrators, make Sedition
Bill to keep Africans gagged. Make Forced Labour
Bill to work the Africans as slaves. Make
Deportation Ordinance to send the Africans to exile
whenever they dare to question your authority.

Make an Ordinance to grab his money so that he

can not stand economically. Make Levy Bill to
force him to pay taxes for the importation of
unemployed Europeans to serve as Stool
Treasurers. Send detectives to stay around the
house of any African who is nationally conscious
and who is agitating for national independence and

121
 if possible round him up in a ‘criminal frame -up’
so that he could be kept behind the bars.

The European also believes in the god that says to

his bishops and Priests: “Tax the Africans with
cemetery fees sustentation fees, clan dues, harvest
festival collections, school fees, exorbitant prices
for school books and materials, picnic dues, desk
fees, and other forms of religious taxation.

Finally, put a monkey on a chair with a chain

around its neck and let an African child hold fast to
the chain and take their photographic picture and
write an inscription underneath ‘two monkeys’ so
that the African can realise the fact that to the
European he (the African) is classified as a monkey.

Yes! This is the god that the European knows and

believes in and whom the African Christian who
goes to the white men’s church Sunday after
Sunday is worshipping.

‘Effective’ continued by bearing testimony to an ‘Africans’ god’ - “the God of

Ethiopia - whom my fore-fathers worshipped at a period when the Europeans
were living in caves”, whom he had been worshipping for the past 15 years and
through whom he had found peace and happiness. Effective claimed that by
adopting the ‘God’ of his fore-fathers, he had freed himself, and the Europeans
no longer attempted to interfere with his rights nor to insult him or claim
superiority over him. Finally, ‘Effective’ ends his piece with this exhortation to
his fellow Africans:

Let the African seek his God and worship him in

sincerity and truth and leave the Europeans god
alone, and all will be well with him.

122
The article was an open challenge to the framers of the Sedition Bill and to the
institution of colonialism itself. Not surprisingly, although officials at the
Colonial Office felt that “the article hardly amounts to what we regard as
sedition”, 1 and was actually “not much worse than what the African Morning
3

Post usually publishes,” 2 British administrators in the Gold Coast were unwilling
3

to view the publication in this light.

An article expressing such blatantly radical views was bound to attract

repercussions, and these were not long in coming. On May 26 1936. ‘Effective’
was unmasked when the police intercepted some letters Wallace Johnson had
posted to the NWA and the LAI. Following their seizure, the police raided his
home and found duplicate copies of the offending article, as well as drafts of the
letters to the two organisations. Armed with these, the Government initiated
prosecution against Wallace Johnson as ‘Effective’ and Nnamdi Azikiwe as editor
of the African Morning Post. On July 13, 1936, the two were arraigned before
Mr. Justice Quarshie-Idun and charged with sedition. The trials themselves were
interesting affairs. At his trial on January 11, 1937; before a judge and three lay
assessors, the two African Assessors recommended that Azikiwe be acquitted of
the charges. Nonetheless the presiding judge, Justice Joseph Mervyn St. John
Yates over-ruled their recommendation in favour of the opinion of the sole
European assessor, found the defendant guilty, and sentenced him to a term of 6
months in prison or a £50 fine, whereupon Azikiwe promptly paid the fine. The
judge, realising that he had inadvertently allowed the ‘villain to walk free’,
attempted to review his sentence ‘suo motu’ to preclude the fine and thereby
force Azikiwe to serve the prison term. However, Azikiwe’s attorney, Mr. Frans
Dove objected on the grounds that the judge having discharged his duty was
‘functus officio’ and could therefore not rescind his sentence. Azikiwe thereby
escaped imprisonment. The trial of Wallace Johnson was essentially the same.
Like Azikiwe, he was also sentenced to a term of 6 months or a fine of £50, and
paid the fine. Both defendants appealed to the West African Court of Appeal,
where Azikiwe was exonerated on account of the shrewd legal manourvering of

31 S.K.B Asante, op. cit., p. 162.

32 Stanley Shaloff, op. cit., p. 257.

123
his lawyers. At the W.A.C.A, it was argued for Azikiwe that the popular
identification of Zik with Azikiwe, and Azikiwe with the African Morning Post
was a relationship unknown to the law, and that even though it had been shown in
court that Azikiwe was the editor of the African Morning Post, no evidence had
been adduced to establish that he acted in that capacity on May 15, 1936, or that
he exercised authority over the publication of articles in the Post on that day. 3
3

Wallace Johnson’s appeal followed a more tortuous course. Upon appeal to the
WACA his conviction was upheld whereupon he left the Gold Coast in March
1937 to carry his appeal to the Privy Council in England.

The Sedition Trials were a pyrrhic victory for the British administrators who had
hoped to use the Sedition Bill to control the indigenous press. As things turned
out, “the miserable result of the Wallace Johnson trial” failed to establish the firm
precedent the Government had hoped for.

Among the chiefs and moderates for whom Wallace Johnson had been as much a
nemesis as he was to the Government, there was considerable consternation over
the sentences meted out to the two journalists. The Asantehene was reported to
be perturbed by the lightness of the sentence imposed on the defendants “who had
without question, endeavoured to undermine the authority of the Central
Government”, and wondered how he, as a subordinate to the Central Government
could be expected to maintain his own prestige. 43

The trials also failed to achieve their desired effect for another reason. This was
simply the fact that the Sedition Bill was soon overtaken by events. The article
which had caused the prosecution of Azikiwe and Johnson had in part been
inspired by the sense of pique generally felt among Africans over European
reaction to Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia.

Ethiopia held a special place of significance in African nationalist thought

Ethiopia was a symbol of hope and pride to African nationalists primarily because

33 Stanley Shallof, op. cit., p. 256-59.

34 Ibid., p.259.

124
of her able defence of her sovereignty against European imperialism. Moreover,
Ethiopia had become an important weapon in the nationalist battle for cultural
emancipation. In this regard, Ethiopia’s antiquity was constantly drawn upon to
demonstrate that Africa had a proud past, and had indeed; contrary to European
propaganda and prejudice, made significant contributions to the development of
human civilization. The Gold Coast nationalists were therefore particularly
piqued at Italy’s aggression against Ethiopia and what they saw as the League of
Nations’ acquiescence of it. They saw the impotence of the League as tacit
encouragement of Italy’s aggression and felt that the League of Nations had
turned its back on Ethiopia because was in the final analysis, Ethiopia was an
African, not European nation. In this situation, the press soon threw a fear of
sedition to the winds as it rose to the defence of Ethiopia. 5 In addition to this was
3

the fact that the gathering clouds of World War II, also introduced other issues
more important and more urgent into the ambit of Gold Coast politics. Both the
Government and the Gold Coast nationalists were soon faced with more urgent
issues than the quest for, or resistance of, nationalist political demands.
Consequently Gold Coast editors could continue in their forthright and often
‘pungent’ criticism. It is significant to note for instance an article in the African
Morning Post which did not arouse prosecution in 1944, but which in the 1935
environment could presumably have aroused official censor as an instance of the
press whipping up racial tension. Under the heading “A psalm 23", the writer, a
“Gold Coast Soldier”, laments:
The European Merchant is my shepherd, And I am
in want; He maketh me to lie down in cocoa farms;
He leadeth me beside the waters of great need; He
restoreth my doubt in the pool of parts ...Thou
preparest a reduction in my salary In the presence
of my creditors Thou annointest my income with
taxes; My expense runs over my income Surely
unemployment and poverty will follow me All the

35 See. African Morning Post, June 4, 1935. October 1, 1935. January 25, 1938. See also Gold Coast
Spectator, January 15, 1938. The Gold Coast press actually seems to have shifted its emphasis
significantly towards international issues, with Ethiopia and a forthcoming war being their primary
preoccupation. They still maintained an interest in local issues, and provided staunch support for the
cocoa farmers in their boycott of the ‘Pool’.

125
 days of my poor existence, And I will dwell in a
rented house forever! 6 3

Nonetheless, the Sedition Bill and the sedition prosecutions which followed were
not an entirely futile venture for the Government. Following their prosecution,
both Azikiwe and Johnson left the Gold Coast. This was in a sense a victory for
the Government, as these two ‘foreigners’ were the most strident of all Gold
Coast editors when it came to cavilling the policies of the Government. Indeed,
Governor Hodson was particularly incensed at Wallace Johnson’s activities, and
was examining the prospects of deporting him, when he left to pursue his appeal
in England. 7 That the bill had at least resulted in the departure of these critics, it
3

may be considered to have achieved its objectives in part. However, the passage
of the bill did not result in the many prosecutions which its opponents had feared.
In fact there were to be no further sedition trials until the 1950s, when Kwame
Nkrumah and the editors of the CPP papers, the Daily Mail, 8 Accra Evening 3

News and Morning Telegraph were put on trial for sedition following the press
agitation attendant to the launching of the positive action campaign. This was a
period of great political agitation, and renewed newspaper radicalism.

Following the sedition trials of the 1930s, the Gold Coast press had gone off the
boil slightly. Indeed in a New Year’s message in the African Morning Post in
1939, Governor Arnold Hodson was full of praise for the press, remarking that:

The standard of production of Gold Coast papers

improves every year and is now one of which the
colony might be proud. The press can exert
considerable influence over the reading public, and
our Editors are to the congratulated on the way in
which that influence is used in the name of good

36 Ayodele Langley, Pan-Africanism and Nationalism in West Africa. 1900-1945., Oxford, 1973, p. 345.
37 Stanley Shalloff, op.cit.,p.260.
38 1950 indeed saw many trials for sedition, Apart from these C.P.P. papers, Prince Onotu Aduaye Emeni
and K.A Rhodes of the Labour Spokesman were also tried for sedition for the publication of an editorial in
the Labour Spokesman, July 4-8, 1950, titled “Man’s inhumanity to Man”.

126
 reason and fair presentation of useful and
interesting news.

Like Governor Hodson, the Attorney General of the Gold Coast also expressed
considerable satisfaction with the press, and observed that “the criticisms of the
local press, as a whole, are offered in a constructive spirit”. 9 These sanguine
3

official impressions of the Gold Coast press were not to last long. Indeed, in
1948, following the 28th February disturbances in Accra, the Watson
Commission which was set up to investigate the disturbances, noted among the
causes of the unrest: “Public suspicion of Government is reinforced by a hostile
press...” 0 By the late 1940s therefore we find that there had occurred a
4

renaissance of press radicalism in the Gold Coast. The reasons for this
development include, the renewed agitation for independence and the frustrations
of the Gold Coast people.

In the immediate aftermath of World War II, the Gold Coast became a hotbed of
political agitation. The United Gold Coast Convention and its off-shoot, the
Convention Peoples Party, began to make strident demands for independence.
This was in part as a result of the realisation that independence was attainable as
India’s attainment of independence had shown, Moreover, socio-economic
developments in the Colony also helped to fuel social tension political agitation.
Among these developments were “the failure of the Government to appreciate
that “the star of rule through the Chiefs was on the wane”, the disappointment of
ex-servicemen, the frustrations of educated Africans who saw their desire to take
part in the politics of their country denied them and their economic advancement
stifled by the slow rate of Africanisation. Traders also resented the concentration
of certain trades in expatriate hands, and particularly the influx of Levantine
businessmen into the Colony. 1 4

An environment like this, in which virtually every group in Gold Coast society
had a grievance to articulate, presented fertile grounds for nationalist agitation.

39 African Morning Post ,January 4,1934.

40 Colonial Office Report, 1948, Summary Report of the Watson Committee.
41 Ibid.

127
Not surprisingly therefore, there was an upsurge of agitation for independence
which was reflected in the Gold Coast press. This presented the scenario for a
renewed spate of sedition trials as was witnessed in 1950. By this time however,
the momentum of nationalism was too strong to be stemmed, and the Gold Coast
press continued in its strident criticism of Government and its radical advocacy of
independence, often courting persecution and imprisonment and the cherished
P.G tag (Prison Graduate) which imprisonment conferred. 2 4

The Economics of Newspaper Publishing in the Gold Coast

A newspaper, like any other business venture must operate at a profit if it is to

subsist for any considerable length of time. However, judging from the rate at
which newspapers were set up, and the rate at which they went out of circulation
in the Gold Coast, publishing a newspaper was undoubtedly a very risky
enterprise. This fact notwithstanding, the Gold Coast nationalist intelligentsia
never seemed to tire of rushing headlong into establishing newspapers. The
reason for this may well lie in the reasons for which they established the
newspapers.

In the Gold Coast, newspapers were established for various reasons. Of these,
education, politics and the quest for profit were the most compelling motives.

Education was one of the earliest factors which compelled Gold Coast natives to
establish newspapers. This was the underlying motive with which the ARPS
established the Gold Coast Aborigines. When in June 1897, John Mensah Sarbah
returned to the ARPS the retainer of four hundred guineas, given him for
representing the Society in the Lands Bill agitation, he suggested to the Society
that:
... no effort should be spared to device means
whereby every native of the Gold Coast may
42 Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana, the Autobiography of Kwame Nkrumah Thomas Nelson and Sons,
Edinburgh, 1959, p. 98. The editors of three C.P.P papers were all prosecuted and imprisoned. The
Evening News for sedition in an article titled, “Pull for Shore”, the Daily Mail, for the articles, “A
Campaign of Lies” and “We speak of Freedom”, while the editor of the Morning Telegraph was
prosecuted for contempt.

128
 acquire a correct and true knowledge of the
constitutional history of his dear land.

In pursuance of this objective, the ARPS obtained a printing press and established
the Gold Coast Aborigines to foster the political education of Gold Coast people.
This educational motive may also be perceived in the slogans which some of the
early newspapers carried on their banner. 3 4

Linked to the educational motive, was the political motive. Nationalism was the
very essence of the press. The Gold Coast nationalists established newspapers as
a means of projecting their nationalist ideas to a wide audience. Newspapers in
the Gold Coast covered a wide range of issues, and with varying degrees of
intensity. However, all of them without exception sought to foster the
development of national consciousness among the Gold Coast people.
Furthermore, we find that the newspaper industry was controlled by the same
people who were at the forefront of nationalist agitation in the Gold Coast. In the
event it is only natural that these men saw the press, and used it, as an instrument
for furthering their political goals.

Finally, profit was also a motive for the setting up of newspapers, particularly in
the 1930s when mass circulation newspapers emerged in the Gold Coast.
Nonetheless, even during this period, nationalism remained the guiding tenet of
the press and the surest way ensuring high rules.

Patriotism may well have compelled Gold Coast nationalists to enter journalism.
However, that alone was hardly sufficient to make such a venture a sustainable
one. Consequently, various newspapers were established only to disappear after
only a few issues. Several reasons account for this phenomenon in Gold Coast

43 The Gold Coast Free Press carried the slogan “To create and Foster Public Opinion in Africa and to
make it racy of the soil”. The Gold Coast Nation, carried the motto, “For the Welfare of the Nation and
the Safety of the Race”. Generally the mottoes of the papers gave a certain indication as to their character.
The Gold Coast Spectator had as its motto: “Salus Populi Suprema Est Lex” (The welfare of the people is
the paramount law) while the African Morning Post’s motto was “Independent in all things and neutral in
nothing affecting the destiny of Africa”. Needless to say both papers were very partisan where Africa was
concerned.

129
journalism. Among these were: low literacy levels, low circulation and the large
numbers of newspapers in print.

A newspaper is essentially a communication outlet for literate people.

Consequently, it may be expected that some correlation would exist between the
levels of literacy in the society and newspaper circulation. The following table
provides a rough measure of this correlation.

Year Number of Newspapers Annual Circulation Primary School Enrolment

1900 4 33,464 13,291

1916 3 103,450 34,654

1930 6 1,874,660 53,133

1938 8 4,488,000 88,720

NB: 1. All figures are calculated from the Gold Coast Blue Books
2. It should be noted that educational figures do not represent the potential
number of possible patrons, but is rather an index of future potential.

Generally, it may be observed that until the 1930s, literacy levels were too low to
support a newspaper industry of the size that existed in the Gold Coast. There
were simply too many newspapers on the market, and their character was also too
similar. For instance, between 1874 and 1899, as many as 16 newspapers had

130
existed for varying periods in the Gold Coast, while between 1900 and 1930, as
many as 19 newspapers were published in the Gold Coast.

Circulation figures for most of these newspapers were often so small that one
cannot credibly expect that they operated profitably. For instance, the Gold Coast
Blue Book for 1929-30 gives the circulation figure for the Truth of the Gold
Coast as 220. Even assuming that this figure represents a weekly or even daily
sales figure, which is most improbable, the paper can definitely not be expected
to have been operating profitably.

Another factor which impacted negatively on the financial viability of the

newspapers was the practice of borrowing newspapers from friends rather than
purchasing one’s own copy, a financially ruinous tendency against which
newspaper editors complained on numerous occasions. 4 While this practice4

ensured that the printed word reached a larger audience, it was definitely not in
the financial interest of the publishers.

Another feature of the Gold Coast newspaper industry was the small sizes of the
publishing houses. Most newspapers were established with the personal funds of
the proprietor, or contributions from a small group of subscribers. Capital was
generally small, consequently so was the number of employees. Indeed, in 1932,a
colonial official observed that apart from the Gold Coast Independent, all Gold
Coast newspapers were ran by persons who were practically indigent. 5 In fact 4

considering their small sizes and low circulation, it is a testimony to the tenacity
and sacrifice of newspaper proprietors and editors that the industry survived at
all, and a wonder that the Gold Coast newspapers managed to wield the influence
they did.

The newspaper industry became an economically viable enterprise from the

1930s onwards. This period saw the development of mass circulation
newspapers. Leading this development was the African Morning Post, which had

44 Gold Coast Times ,January 2, 1926 and Gold Coast Aborigines ,January 8,1897.
45 The salaries of newspaper industry workers must also have been very low. For instance Wuta Ofei,
while editor of the Gold Coast Spectator earned a mere £14.10sh. a month. See, Samuel Rhodie, “ The
Gold Coast Aborigines Abroad”, J.A.H vol. 1968. p. 393.

131
a daily circulation of 7500 copies. 6 The period saw newspapers employing
4

outrageous banner headlines such as: “White Racketeers sell ‘Tickets’ to

Heaven”, 7 and “Four Russian Scientists who sit on top of the world on love
4

‘Isle’ lose touch with North Pole”, 8 undoubtedly to boost sales.

4
The
accumulation of literate persons over time would also have increased the market
base for newspapers, and probably contributed to the increased newspaper
circulation which we witness from this period onwards. This development was
further accelerated by the political and economic developments of that period.
Events such as the Italo-Ethiopian crisis and the cocoa hold-ups held the potential
for boosting newspaper circulation, and were exploited to this end.

Faced with low circulation figures, the Gold Coast press turned to advertising
revenue as a means of achieving profitability. Even before the turn of the century
advertising took up significant space in Gold Coast papers. A paper like the Gold
Coast Free Press, carried a two page advertising supplement and a great deal of
front page advertisements for prominent local and foreign commercial houses,
notably F. Swanzy and Co.
In addition to this, the papers advertised births, deaths and marriages. 9 This trend 4

increased as time went on, and newspapers grew larger. For instance, the Gold
Coast Spectator dedicated about two-thirds of its space to adverts. Considering

46 Gold Coast Blue Book, 1938.

47 African Morning Post, October 6, 1935.
48 Gold Coast Spectator, January 15, 1938.
49 The Gold Coast Chronicle, August 24, 1894 had the following rates for subscriptions and
advertisement:
Terms of Subscription.
Annual 0.10.6.
Half Yearly 0.6.0.
Quarterly 0.3.6.
Every Single Copy Three pence.

Coastwise and foreign Subscription

Annual 0.14.6.
Quarterly 0.4.3.

Forwarded to England 4d. America or Coastwise

Adverts
Every 12 lines or less 0.4.0
Additional line 0.0.6
Births and Marriages 0.26.
Deaths 0.20.

132
their low circulation, adverts might have provided a very sturdy and significant
source of newspaper revenue. Finally, the newspapers also tried to encourage
advance subscription from their patrons, but considering their propensity to fail, it
is doubtful whether advance subscription yielded much. The indigenous
newspapers evidently made a valiant endeavour to stay afloat. However, judging
from their proclivity to failure it would appear that a large number of these papers
were unable to attain profitability.

It is evident from the foregoing that the Gold Coast press did not operate in the
most benign of environments. Not only were colonial officials wary of, and a
constant threat to newspapers, but also the newspapers were engaged in a constant
struggle for economic survival. Despite this hostile environment, the Gold Coast
press persevered. This is partly because most of the newspapers were established
with other motives apart from the simple quest for profit, but even more
importantly, their survival epitomises the resilience of the nationalist spirit even
in the face of extreme adversity.

133
 CHAPTER SIX
"OUR FOURTH AND ONLY ESTATE", 1900-1950 IN
RETROSPECT

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the indigenous newspaper

industry in the Gold Coast consisted of three newspapers. These were the

Gold Coast Chronicle, Gold Coast Express and Gold Coast Aborigines.

The industry's main preoccupation was with the preservation of native

rights, particularly their proprietary interest in lands, and the mental and

cultural regeneration of the indigenous people. Independence was not an

ideal which even the must outspoken of Gold Coast newspapers

persistently advocated. However, by 1950, independence was not just the

dominant theme in the press, but indeed the colony was on the threshold

of dominion status. In this chapter we shall review the contribution of the

Gold Coast peoples' only estate to the dramatic developments which

occurred in the Gold Coast over the period 1900-1950.

The indigenous newspapers of the Gold Coast were essentially

mouthpieces of a politically disenfranchised people. As their

mouthpieces, they not only reflected the aspirations and hopes of the

colonised people, but also their anxieties and fears and anger. Following

the anti-lands legislation agitation in the 1890s, the Gold Coast people

acquired a distinctly watchful attitude towards their colonial overlords. In

this politically charged atmosphere, there was always something to

provoke the ire of the indigenous people. Government actions, and even

acts of omission were subjected to close scrutiny with newspapers loudly

denouncing perceived encroachment upon popular rights, injustice,

134
official misconduct or ineptitude. The newspapers therefore present an

anthology of endless protest and social commentary.

The main preoccupation of the press, and the characteristic which best

exemplifies the watchdog attitude of the press was its attitude to politics.

The twentieth century opened with the press admonishing the blackman

to wake up and to "be more alive to his interest and make a couple of

strides towards the goal of advancement." 48

However, this was not a call

to imminent resistance to alien rule. This was primarily because Gold

Coast nationalism at this time was not the nationalism of mass

movements and street mob protests, bombs throwing incendiarists or even

visionary dreamers. Self-rule was an ideal with which Gold Coast

nationalist were acquainted. However, this was an ideal whose realisation

was perceived as lying in some as yet unfathomable future. 49

Nationalist

agitation was therefore focused of the attainment of achievable goals, of

preventing encroachments on popular rights and foreign rule.

Nationalists sought to advance their cause by constitutional means,

through lobbying and detailed; often tortuously argued positions carried

in the indigenous newspapers.

Politically, newspaper agitation centred on three main issues. These were

the role of chiefs, political representation and taxation. The crux of

newspaper umbrage in the area of chieftaincy related to the colonial

Government policy of indirect rule and its implications with regards to

the relationship between chiefs and their subjects, and chiefs and the

48Gold Coast Independent, August 31,1900.

49At the beginning of the twentieth century even the radicals such as Attoh Ahuma thought of
emancipation as something lying well in the future, since the Gold Coast people had not yet
began to think nationally.

135
Government. The causes of nationalist animus with indirect rule may be

summed as follows. Firstly, the Native Jurisdiction Ordinances 50

by

which indirect rule was ushered into the Gold Coast had the effect of

transferring authority from the chiefs and people of the Gold Coast to the

British administration thereby subordinating the chiefs formally to the

colonial administration. By these ordinances chiefs were required to

register under the ordinance or lose the right to exercise chiefly authority.

As is to be expected, the press was not long in catching on to these

aspects of the indirect rule system and to criticise it. In an editorial, the

Gold Coast Leader lamented that:

It is a pity that notwithstanding all our

efforts ... with our kings and chiefs,

especially those educated among them, they

still remain almost dead to see the

insecurity of position or rank: to be short, it

seems impossible for them to realise the

glaring fact.... that the sword of Damocles

is dancing, not merely suspended over their

heads. 51

In another editorial entitled, "Liberty or Slavery - which?", it bemoaned

the effect of British interference with local institutions.

You are told the aim and object of his

Britannic Majesty’s Government interfering

50The Native Jurisdiction Ordinance was passed in 1878.

51Gold Coast Leader, January 7, 1903.

136
 with the native races of the World by

bringing them within their 'sphere of

influence' is to make them a freer people in

no way meddling with their Native laws,

manners and customs... But instead of these

we turn around and what do we see? A

ruthless plundering of twenty centuries of

ideas, and modes of doing things into a

benighted country... with the result that our

manliness is being robbed from us, a

systematic tampering with our native laws

and customs, instead of cooperation the

deposition of our Kings and Chiefs under

the least pretext of having offended a

District Commissioner not even the

Governor, the cowering down of such

Kings and Chiefs that may be remaining,

with all but the tantalization of their powers

and rights left them... 52

Indirect rule also inspired opposition because it created an imbalance in

the delicate traditional system of 'democratic' checks existing between

chiefs and their subjects and between paramount chiefs and sub-chiefs. In

this regard, it was opposed on the grounds that it aggrandised the position

of paramount chiefs at the expense of sub-chiefs and subjects. Since

chiefs were enthroned with 'approval' from the Government who could

52Ibid ., January 31, 1903.

137
depose the chiefs it was felt that expediency would soon make them

lackeys of the Government.

The press also engaged in a persistent crusade for "that just desideratum;

elective representation.” As already noted elsewhere, the campaign for

political representation based on the elective principle was an age old

crusade which began in the nineteenth century. In the Gold Coast, a

Legislative Council was established as early as 1852. However, the

Council had very had very little African representation. Indeed by 1880

there were only two unofficial African members. This was a most
53

unsatisfactory situation, especially as the African member were not only

out numbered by the European official members, but they were also

appointed by the colonial administration. As appointees of the

Government, it was felt that they were encumbered in their ability to

effectively oppose the Government’s intentions.

Furthermore, it was felt that, the Government was unlikely to appoint

persons whose views it was not very comfortable with. These fears are

expressed in a newspaper comment from 1918 which observes that:

The position of an unofficial member of our

Legislative Council is anomalous enough in

all conscience but it becomes farcical when

such unofficial members habitually shirk

from subjecting Government measures to

criticism at the Legislative Council and fail

53Agbodeka, op.cit., p.7.

138
 to utilize their appointment to voice public

opinion. 54

They therefore demanded representatives elected by the indigenes who

would therefore be beholden to their electors and not the Government, as

it was felt that they were, as appointees of the Government likely to

favour the Government's positions. In pressing for the right to elect their

own representatives, the press argued that Government appointed

unofficial members did not represent the Gold Coast people, and asserted

that although unofficial members sometimes opposed popularly resented

bills," it is not because, such Honourable Members necessarily represent

the people. They have nothing to do with them as such". Continuing, the
55

paper comments thus:

We supply an annual income which has

swollen beyond a million pounds, but in

defiance of the worn out dictum of Political

Economy which teaches that Taxation

should go with Representation, we are

treated like slaves or aliens or imbeciles in

this direction. 56

This quest for elective representation was in fact to remain a cardinal

factor in Gold Coast nationalist activities during the first two decades of

the twentieth century. An illustrative instance is the position of the Gold

Coast Nation on the First World War. Gold Coast nationalists and the
54Gold Coast Independent , June 1918.
55Gold Coast Times , March 28, 1912.
56Ibid; March 28, 1912.

139
press supported the war effort to the hilt. Indeed, in 1916, the Gold Coast

Leader even launched a fund in aid of wounded soldiers from the

Togoland and Cameroon campaigns. 57

The Gold Coast Leader perceived

that the War presented the best opportunity for the blackman to advance

himself. Apparently, the Gold Coast's politically conscious leaders saw

the war as an opportunity to demonstrate their loyally as a means of

advancing their political objectives. The press was quick to press the case

for reform based on the Gold Coast's contribution to the British war

effort. The Gold Coast Independent proclaimed that:

...the war has proved our loyalty, our equal

sacrifice in lives and money; in fact it has

opened our eyes that both white and black

have a common goal to be reached by all. 58

For the Gold Coast press this "common destiny and common goal" was

manifested in advancement towards increased economic, social and

political welfare of the indigenous people. This position had been

proclaimed much earlier, when it asserted that:

What is going to matter after the war, what

mankind will insist upon, is not so much blind

partitioning of territories and spheres of

influence as the happiness, the welfare and the

contentment of communities, be they white or

yellow, black or brown. 59

57Gold Coast Leader, July 22, 1916.

58Gold Coast Independent, June 1918.
59Gold Coast Leader. , October 17, 1914.

140
When applied to the Gold Coast, this objective translated as advancement

along a linear, teleological progression towards greater political

representation. The Gold Coast nationalist Intelligentsia carried their

crusade to the Legislative Council, where Father E.J.P. Brown argued

that:

Political liberty is denied our people, and if

their persistent agitation for its grant has

hitherto availed nothing, surely the

spontaneous political loyalty displayed by

them in this War should appeal to the

Government to reconsider its inflexible

decisions refusing them the franchise.

[Emphasis mine] 60

However, their loyalty was not rewarded in the manner in which the

educated nationalist leaders seemed to expect. In fact, the colonial

Government felt obliged to oppose any calls for elective representation.

It was not until the passage of the 1925 Constitution that the Government

relaxed its attitude towards the issues of elective representation. Even

then, the reforms, when they eventually came, fell far short of the

expectations of those whose clamouring had brought the issue to the fore-

front of Gold Coast politics. The 1925 Constitution provided for a

Legislative Council made up of 15 official members and 14 unofficial

members. Of the 14 unofficial members, 9 were to be indigenous

members, 3 members elected from the municipalities of Accra, Cape

Coast and Sekondi-Takoradi, while the remaining 6 were to be paramount

60Legislative Council Debates, March 18, 1926.

141
chiefs elected from the three Provincial Councils of paramount chiefs. 61

This lopsided representation, which favoured the traditional rulers at the

expense of the Intelligentsia, was naturally resisted by the Intelligentsia.

Under the umbrella of the A.R.P.S., they protested against the bill, with

Casely Hayford constituting a one man protest delegation to the Colonial

Office to petition the King-in-Council. The protests of the Intelligentsia

were also carried into the Legislative Council where Casely Hayford

informed the Governor of popular disappointment with the reforms. The

knowledge that the Gold Coast was "to enjoy the benefits of elective

representation" had been received with great enthusiasm, but following

the unsatisfactory nature of the reforms, enthusiasm "has turned to a kind

of despair, and the great anticipation that was then entertained has now

provoked a certain amount of unrest". 5 1

However, these protests were all to no avail. This was primarily because,

once again a dichotomy had emerged between the visions of the educated

natives of the Gold Coast and that of their colonial masters. For Gold

Coast nationalists there were primarily two reasons for their clamour for

elected representatives. Firstly, they saw active participation in the

legislative process as a necessary training for self rule at a future date.

Secondly, they felt a need for effective representation to enable them

effectively influence legislation because, as the radical Gold Coast Times

put it:

We are precluded from influencing policies,

especially in the direction of legislation and

61Agbodeka, op. cit., p. 53.

15 Legislative Council Debates, November 2, 1918.

142
 financial administration, and the attitude of

the Government in repressing and ignoring

the people is most unjust considering the

fact that they pay every penny of the cost of

administration. Because we have no

influence in the molding of the laws by

which we are governed, Ordinances are

imported and applied here wholesale

without regard to local conditions. 6 1

As early as 1912, the Gold Coast Nation had decried the passage of

Ordinances in indent haste "as if the very breath of councilors is

dependent upon their passage" 7 in circumstances which then "can only

1

be described as 'legisfaction' ". The persistent calls for reform of the

Legislative Council was inspired in part by a desire to prevent this

penchant for what the press described as 'legisfaction'.

The colonial Government was influenced by a wholly different set of

objectives in reforming the Legislative Council. When it granted the

franchise, albeit in a very limited form, the colonial Government did not

intend to facilitate the nationalists' objectives, but rather to promote her

own designs for indirect rule and taxation. Colonial administrators

viewed increased African representations in the Legislative Council only

as a means of strengthening the Council by adding more members

“possessed of an intimate knowledge of native affairs or of first-hand

16 Gold Coast Times, January 2, 1926.

17 Gold Coast Nation, May 30, 1912.

143
experience in local provincial administration”. 1 8 As regards the agitation

for African members to be elected rather than appointed, the official view

was that the Gold Coast people had:

...not reached such a stage of intellectual

development as would enable them to

exercise the franchise with wisdom

and discrimination and in the best interest

of the community as a whole… In the case

of the Legislative Council, moreover, racial

and tribal animosities will not improbably

be excited were any attempt made to confer

the franchise upon the native population”. 9 1

As can be seen from the foregoing, the franchise, when it did come, was

not granted because the colonial administration had formed an exalted

opinion of the Gold Coast Intelligentsia, but rather because it was

expedient for facilitating her own political objectives. Notwithstanding

the fact that they had at least partially achieved their objective of elective

political representation, the Intelligentsia were not mollified. In fact, the

dissatisfaction with the reform of the Legislative Council accelerated the

emergence of radical anti-colonialism in Gold Coast politics, as men like

Sekyi who were unable to accept what to them was a bad and unworkable

status-quo were pushed to more extreme opposition.

Closely allied with the crusade for elective political representation was

the resistance to direct taxation. Like the resistance to any attempts to

18 Metcalfe, op.cit., pp. 551-535.

19 Ibid; pp.551-555.

144
alter ownership rights with regards to land, the idea of direct taxation in

any form was one which the Gold Coast people were adamantly opposed

to.

Resistance to direct taxation had its roots in the nineteenth century.

Direct taxation had first been introduced in the Gold Coast in the 1850s.

However, the scheme had met with fierce resistance from the Gold Coast

people, and resulted in a fiasco. 0 Kimble observes that the abandonment

2

of the Poll Tax “encouraged the idea that direct taxation was an unjust

imposition to be resisted at all costs. It also encouraged the idea that the

Government would yield to continued pressure”. 1 It was this attitude

2

which conditioned twentieth century protests against direct taxation.

These protests were based on two arguments. Firstly it was argued that

the tax ran contrary to the tenets of indigenous Gold Coast society. The

contention here was that, the concept of direct taxation was completely

alien to the Gold Coast people and against all their precepts. Taxation of

some sort existed in Gold Coast society, such as taxes levied to finance

warfare or for communal projects, but the idea that a person had to pay a

sum of money simply because he worked and earned an honest living was

unknown in traditional society; and like all taxes, resented. Resistance to

the “imposition of direct taxation was championed in the press, which had

held all along that the colonial administrators were wasteful, and

employing the wealth of the nation for all sorts of dubious purposes other

than satisfying the legitimate needs of the Gold Coast people. In 1903 for

instance, the Gold Coast Leader proclaimed that it seemed as if there

were an official Government policy, “a conspiracy, a resolution, a

20 Kimble, op cit., pp. 179-191.

21 Ibid; pp. 551-555.

145
determination, a set purpose” against Cape Coast, and that the

Government sought “only to squeeze out as much revenue as it can be

possibly squeezed out of it, from duties on goods, heavy, unreasonable

fines, in fact from every channel through which some money can be

obtained”. 2 The following quotation from a subsequent issue of the same

2

paper further illustrates the position of the Gold Coast Intelligentsia

where taxes were concerned. The paper noted that:

It is really sickening to see how

some of these Governors waste the

revenue but would practice so called

economy when the improvements of

the country, and things affecting the

people the taxpayers come in. 3 2

The paper further noted that the Gold Coast had more officials in the

country than what are really required; and observed that:

The thousands of pounds thrown away on

superfluous offices, travelling allowances

and passage to and from England on

furlough in a year, and on Ashanti will be

sufficient to keep any colony. 4

2

22 Gold Coast Leader, January 7, 1903.

23 Ibid., September 10, 1904.
24 Ibid., September 10, 1904.

146
This being the position of the Gold Coast people on official use of

revenue, it is not surprising that the Gold Coast developed such a strong

anti-tax orientation. The people upon whom the tax burden would

undoubtedly fall, did not see the benefits to be derived from it. As far as

they were concerned, direct taxation could probably mean more

allowances for European officials, but definitely not tangible

improvements in their needs: schools, hospitals, roads, and sanitation. 5 2

The attempt to establish direct taxation was also one of the factors which

spurred the mass of the Gold Coast people, towards anti-colonialism. In

1924 and 1931, street mob riots occurred in Accra, Cape Coast and

Sekondi. Apart from the 1924 Accra riots which were more the results of

schisms in nationalist ranks and chieftaincy strife in Accra, the 1931 riots

were organised in opposition to Governor Thomas’ attempt to institute

direct taxation. This was mainly because the Gold Coast Intelligentsia

were able to present the tax proposals, which would not have affected the

bulk of the people as a measure bound to have adverse effects on all the

people. Commenting on the resistance to the tax scheme, one scholar

observes that:

The elite naturally incited the masses

against these measures by making it appear

that the financial burden entailed

would fall on everyone and not just those

25 Ibid., July, 1913. The writer observes that

“Accra is the only town I know in West Africa
where the water supply is dependent on
wells and pools. In Christiansborg there are
about fifty of these pools with swarms of mosquitoes
in the neighbourhood…We wonder what
the Senior Sanitary Officer has to say to all this."

147
 who were better off. ...As had been the

case earlier, when the controversial Lands

Bill of 1897 had been withdrawn, the

masses were encouraged to repeat their

violent response when they believed

themselves similarly threatened… A few

stones, a few yells, and a few hostile white

faces had caused the administration to

panic. 62

However, it should be noted that it was not just a few stones and yells that

caused the “panic”., The colonial Government was confronted with the

terrifying prospect of the political reawakening of the Gold Coast people.

That was from an alien Government’s standpoint, frightening.

Political issues were not the only matters to which the Gold Coast

newspapers directed their advocacy. The press was also concerned with

issues of an economic nature. In their reportage of these issues too, the

newspapers tended to project an “us versus them” orientation. This was

also significant in the emergence of the masses as a significant political

force in the Gold Coast. Ideas like cultural emancipation were issues

which may have inspired the Intelligentsia, but the mass of ordinary

people were more concerned with the ordinary bread and butter issues of

everyday existence. They tended to lend their support to causes where

there was a perceived threat to their well being. Where they joined in

causes which did not seem to have immediate bearing on their well being,

26 Stanley Shaloff, “The Income Tax, Indirect Rule, and the Depression: The Gold Coast Riots
of 1931” Cahiers d’Etudes Africaines, 54, XIV-2,p 375.

148
the prospect of tangible benefits was a strong motivator. The press was

instrumental in the development of mass political consciousness because

of its consistent portrayal of any matter to which it was opposed an issue

with adverse consequences for all Gold Coast people from the richest

merchant, most erudite lawyer and largest concession granting paramount

ruler, to the small illiterate cocoa farmer and the indigent unemployed

urban school leaver. By portraying sectional issues as matters of

universal concern, and by persistently exaggerating the consequences of

this or that course of action the press turned every little issue: the passing

over of an indigenous doctor or the preference shown an expatriate

contractor over a local boy, into issues to which everybody ought to be

concerned.

Another aspect of the impact of the press in society is related to education

in the Gold Coast. As already noted, newspapers are patronised by the

literate. It is to them that its’ message even if directed at all, first reaches.

It should be noted that prior to the 1930s newspaper circulation was low,

a situation which was partially caused by the level of literacy of society as

a whole. However, by the 1930s the pool of educated people had risen

significantly, thus creating a pool of potential patrons. Concomitant with

this development was that of the development of the unemployed urban

youth. Educated at least to primary level, these unemployed youth and

others who were disgruntled with their employment, assimilated the

radical positions advanced by newspapers such as the Gold Coast Times,

West African Times, Vox Populi and African Morning Post. It was these

people who formed the bedrock of the Gold Coast mass movements of the

1930s such as the West African Youth League, and later in the 1940s the

149
Convention Peoples' Party. This fact is noted by Walter Rodney, who

points out that:

It is sometimes said that Kwame Nkrumah

organised the illiterates in the

Convention Peoples' Party. That was a charge

contemptuously made by other conservative

educated Ghanaians. In reality, the shock

troops in Nkrumah’s youth brigade were not

illiterate. They had been to primary school,

and could read the manifestos and literature of

the African nationalist revolution. But, they

were extremely disaffected because [among

other things] they were relative latecomers on

the educational scene in the Gold Coast, and

there was no room in the restricted African

establishment of the cocoa monoculture. 7 2

Therefore, we find that although Gold Coast newspapers had existed for

nearly eighty years, and had all along championed nationalist positions,

sometimes in language that bordered on sedition. It was only in the 1930s

that it was felt necessary to curb the literary fire of the press. The

contention here is that during preceding periods newspaper penetration

was too small for the evocative pieces of the Brews, Kobina Sekyis and

Attoh Ahumas to be a real bother to the Government. By the 1930s this

had changed. Newspapers were no longer read by a small elite segment

27 Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa” Dar es Sallam, Tanzania Publishing
House, 1972, p.295.

150
of the population. They were also being read by a large disgruntled

section of the population which was growing increasingly more

susceptible to the anti-colonialist views expressed by the radical sections

of the press. This section of the Gold Coast people accepted

wholeheartedly the interpretation of events offered by the press. They

read of Italian attacks on Ethiopia and accepted the newspapers

interpretation that Ethiopia had been betrayed by the League of Nations

because she was a nation of blackmen. They read of the exploits of black

heroes such as Joe Louis and felt a sense of community with them on

account of their race. They read of the activities of the “Pool” in cocoa

manipulation, saw the economic ruin caused by the world depression and

the economic strangulation of foreign capital, of which they themselves

were victims. The newspapers assured them that this was all the fault of

the incompetence or sheer neglect of the colonial authorities, while the

positive exposure it afforded nationalist groups ensured that an alternative

to alien rule, self-government, was consistently presented to the Gold

Coast people as the answer to the problems they faced.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the “Gold Coast” referred only

to the narrow coastal strip referred to as the colony. Ashanti and the

Northern Territories were not part of the Gold Coast. However, by 1950,

these areas were all regarded as integral parts of the Gold Coast; and at

independence seven years later, whatever distinctions had existed were

for all intents and purposes inconsequential.. The Gold Coast newspapers

played a seminal role in this development. As already noted, the press

was instrumental in the expansion of British influence into Ashanti and

the Northern Territories. With the conquest of Ashanti, the phase of the

151
press history during which it viewed Ashanti as a threat to the coastal

states was over. The press quickly entered a new phase. In a complete

volteface from their previous position, the newspapers now began to

advocate for the return of Nana Prempeh of Ashanti who had been

deported to Seychelles, whilst leaders like Casely Hayford began to stress

the kingship of the coastal Akan with Ashanti. Furthermore, particularly

after 1920, issues which affected Ashanti were essentially the same as

those affecting the Colony. The press campaigns were thereafter made on

behalf of both Colony and Ashanti. Moreover, the collaboration of

nationalists from both territories in resisting Government policies, as they

did with the Ofori Atta delegation to Britain in 1935, also helped to

cement the bonds of unity between the different parts of present day

Ghana.

In conclusion, we may observe that although the Gold Coast press

operated under extremely adverse conditions for most of its existence, its

influence in Gold Coast society was indeed great. This is partly because

the Intelligentsia who controlled it were a reference group for large

sections of society, so that when Brew for instance, exhorted people to

“forgo your high collar, top hat, long coat; walk in the street…dressed

according to the fashion of this country”; the call would be received by an

audience far larger than the Echo’s readers. Furthermore, it appears that

newspapers were often read to people in groups, and were definitely

circulated amongst pools of readers. Thus we notice that although the

newspapers were small and readership low, the ideas advocated in the

press reached a much wider audience, and received wide acceptance in a

society which looked up to its educated members. By consistently

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arguing from a nationalist standpoint, by analysing all issues in terms of

the “nation”, irrespective of which section the issue was primarily

concerned with, the press ensured that the concept of the Gold Coast

peoples being one nation was firmly etched in the sub-conscience of the

Gold Coast people. Throughout the period, the little newspapers of the

Gold Coast remained true to the principles set out by the industry’s

founders. They remained throughout the colonial period at their post,

“prepared to perform their duties fearlessly and independently, regardless

of the frowns of King or Kaiser” or indeed of any colonial official.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

MANUSCRIPT SOURCES.

NATIONAL ARCHIVES OF GHANA.

1. ADM. 11/1/115.

2. ADM. 11/1/864.

3. ADM. 11/1/920.

4. ADM. 11/1/925.

5. ADM. 11/1/933.

6. ADM. 11/1/935.

7. ADM. 11/1/947.

8. ADM. 11/1/967.

9. ADM. 11/1/978.

10. ADM. 11/1/983.

11. ADM. 11/1/1003

12. ADM. 12/1/82.

13. Unclassified Papers: 59/64, March 21,1932.

14. The Gold Coast Blue Book Series.

15. The Colonial Reports Series.

NEWSPAPERS.

1. Accra Herald.

2. African Morning Post.

3. Gold Coast Aborigines.

154
4. Gold Coast Chronicle.

5. Gold Coast Echo.

6. Gold Coast Free Press.

7. Gold Coast Independent.

8. Gold Coast Leader.

9. Gold Coast Nation.

10. Gold Coast Observer.

11. Gold Coast Spectator.

12. Gold Coast Times.

13. Vox Populi.

14. West African Herald.

15. Western Echo

SECONDARY SOURCES.
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1. Agbodeka, F., Ghana in the Twentieth Century, Ghana Universities

Press, Accra,1972.

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3. Apter, D., The Gold Coast in Transition, New York,1963.

4. Attoh Ahuma, S.R.B., The Gold Coast Nation and National

Consciousness, 2nd Ed., Frank Cass and Co. London, 1971.

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6. Austin, D., Politics in Ghana, 1946-1960, Oxford University Press

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155
7. Azu Crabbe, J., John Mensah Sarbah, 1864-1910. Ghana Publishing

Corporation, Accra, 1971.

8. Bartels, F. L., The Roots of Ghana Methodism, Cambridge, 1965.

9. Benion, F. L. R., The Constitutional History of Ghana, Butterworth,

London, 1962.

10. Casely Hayford, J. E., Gold Coast Native Institutions, Sweet and

Maxwell, London, 1903.

11. Clark, P.B., West Africans at War: 1914-1918, Ethnographicer,

London, 1986.

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13. Geiss I., The Pan-African Movement, Methuen, London,1974.

14. Graham, C.H., The History of Education in Ghana, Frank Cass &

Co., London,1971.

15. Hailey Lord, W.M., An African Survey, Oxford University Press,

London, 1959.

16. Hopkins, A.G., An Economic History of West Africa, Longman,

London,1973.

17. Jones-Quartey, K.A.B., History, Politics and Early Press in Ghana:

The Fictions and the Facts, The Author and the School of

Communication Studies, University of Ghana, Legon,1975.

18. July, R., The Origins of Modern African Thought, Faber and Faber,

London, 1968.

19. Kimble, D., A Political History of Ghana: The Rise of Gold Coast

Nationalism,1858-1928., Oxford, 1963.

20. Langley, J.A., Pan-Africanism and Nationalism in West Africa,

1900-1945., Oxford, 1973.

156
21. Markowitz, I.C., Power and Class in Africa, Prentice-Hall,

Englewood Cliffs,1977.

22. Metcalfe, G.E., Great Britain and Ghana : Documents of Ghana

History,1807-1957, University of Ghana, Legon, 1964.

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Nelson, Edinburgh, 1959.

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25. Rodney, W., How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, Dar es Salaam,

Tanzania Publishing House,1973.

26. Sampson, M.J., A brief history of Gold Coast Journalism, Accra,

1934.

27. _______________ Gold Coast Men of Affairs, London, Stockwell,

1937.

28. _____________ Gallery of Gold Coast Celebrities, London,

29. Sekyi, K., The Blinkards, Rex Collins, London, 1974.

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Africanism, Longman, London, 1967.

THESES.

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Thesis, University of Ghana, 1969.

2. Baku, D.E.K., “An Intellectual in Nationalist Politics: The Role of

Kobina Sekyi in the evolution of Ghanaian National Consciousness”,

D.Phil. Thesis, Sussex University, 1987.

3. Edmunds, W.D., “The Newspaper Press in British West Africa, 1918-

1939”, M.A. Thesis, University of Bristol, 1952.

4.

157
 4. Ekwelie, S., “The Press in Gold Coast Nationalism, 1890-

1957.”, Ph.D Thesis, University of Winsconsin,1971.

5. Holmes, A.B., “Economic and Political Organisation in the

Gold Coast: 1920-1945”, Ph.D. Thesis, University of Chicago,

1972.

6. Murphy, E.L., “Nationalism and the Press in British West

Africa”, M.A. Thesis, University of Wisconsin, 1967.

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1. Agbodeka, F., “The Fanti Confederacy, 1865-69”, T.H.S.G., Vol.

VII, 1964.

2. Boahen, A.A., “The Roots of Ghanaian Nationalism”, J.A.H., Vol. V.,

1, 1964.

3. Chick, J.O., “The Ashanti Times: A footnote in Ghanaian Press

History”, African Affairs, Vol. 79, 1971.

4. Davidson, B., “Questions about Nationalism”, African Affairs,

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4, 1977.

6. Dunn, J., “The Identity of the History of Ideas”, Philosophy, XLIII,

1968.

7. Eluwa, G.I.C., “Casely Hayford and African Emancipation”, Pan

African Journal, VII, 2, Summer, 1974.

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Municipal Corporations Ordinance, 1924-25”, Canadian Journal of

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158
10. Gannon, M., “The Basle Mission Trading Company and British

Colonial Policy in the Gold Coast, 1918-1925”, J.A.H., 24,1983.

11. Hobsbawn, E.J., “The Social Function of the Past: Some Questions”,

Past and Present, 55, 1972.

12. Jones-Quartey, K.A.B., “Anglo-African Journals and Journalists in

the Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries”, T.H.S.G., IV, 1, 1959.

13. _______________ “A note on J.M. Sarbah and J.E. Casely Hayford”,

Sierra Leone Studies, 14, December 1960.

14. Jenkins, R., “William Ofori Atta, Nnamdi Azikiwe, J.B. Danquah

and the ‘Grilling’ of W.E.F. Ward of Achimota in 1935”, History in

Africa, 21,1994.

15. Killingray, D., “Repercussions of World War I in the Gold Coast”,

J.A.H., XIX,I,1978.

16. Langley, A.J., “Garveyism and African Nationalism”, Race,

xi,2,1969.

17. Meredith, D., “The Colonial Office, British Business Interests and the

Reform of Cocoa Marketing in West Africa”, J.A.H., 29, 1988.

18. Milburn, J., “The Gold Coast Cocoa Crisis: British Business and the

Colonial Office”, African Historical Studies, III, 1, 1970.

19. Offiong, D.A., “Garveyism and Nkrumahism: The Quest for Black

Irredentism”, Pan African Journal, VIII,I, Spring 1975.

20. Omu, F., “The Dilema of Press Freedom in Colonial Africa: The West

African Example”, J.A.H., 9, 2, 1968.

21. Patterson, K.D., “The Influenza Epidemic of 1918-19 in the Gold

Coast”, J.A.H., 24, 1983.

22. Rhodie, S., “The Gold Coast Aborigines Abroad”, J.A.H.,VI, 3, 1965.

159
23. __________ “The Gold Coast Cocoa Hold-Up of 1930-31”, T.H.S.G.,

IX, 1968.

24. Shaloff, S., “The Cape Coast Asafo Company Riot of 1932”,

International Journal of African Historical Studies, III,4,1974.

25. ___________ “Income Tax, Indirect Rule and the Depression: The

Gold Coast Riots of 1931”, Cahier d’Etudes Africaines, 54,XIV-2.

26. ___________ “Press Controls and Sedition Proceedings in the Gold

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27. Shepperson, G., “Ethiopianism and African Nationalism”, Pylon,

XIV,1,1953.

28. ______________ “Pan-Africanism and Pan Africanism: Some

Historical Notes”, Pylon, 23, 4, 1962.

29. _______________ “Notes on Negro American Influences on the

Emergence of African Nationalism”, J.A.H., 1,2, 1960.

160