aspects of the ashanti northern trade in the nineteenth century

International African Institute

Aspects of the Ashanti Northern Trade in the Nineteenth CenturyAuthor(s): Kwame ArhinSource: Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, Vol. 40, No. 4 (Oct., 1970), pp.363-373Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the International African InstituteStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1159472 .

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[363]

ASPECTS OF THE ASHANTI NORTHERN TRADE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY'

KWAME ARHIN

I MEAN by the Ashanti northern trade Ashanti2 market exchanges with Hausa, Mande, and Mossi caravan traders at the town of Bonduku (eastern Ivory Coast),

Salaga (northern Ghana) before I874, and at Kintampo (Brong-Ahafo Region of Ghana) 1874-92. The main facts relating to this trade are well known to students of Ashanti. This paper attempts (i) to establish the basis of the Ashanti trading relation- ship with the northern peoples; (ii) to make distinctions between types of Ashanti traders, the scale and results of their operations, and to describe the production and distribution of kola from Ashanti; and (iii) finally to draw attention to those features of the nineteenth-century trade which contribute towards the understanding of what Tordoff(I965: 187) has called ' the emergence and phenomenal growth of the cocoa industry' in the early years of this century.

THE BASIS OF ASHANTI TRADE WITH THE NORTH

From accounts by Bowdich (1819: 330-6), Lonsdale (i882), Binger (1892, ii: o05-6), and the recollections of former participants in the trade at Kintampo3 the

following were the trading groups and their goods of exchange in the northern markets:

Traders Goods

Ashanti Kola, European trade goods-salt, rum, iron tools Hausa Slaves, nnonkofo, leather goods such as cushion, ate, sandals, mpaboa, bags,

apretwaa, locks, krado Moorish traders ' or Dyula Coarse thick scarves, silks, serekye and beads, nhwenee, ivory (in the Bonduku

market) Mossi Slaves, cattle, sheep, goats, fowls, coarse cotton cloths, kyekye, coarse

blankets, bommo, shea-butter, donkeys Ligbi and Nafana Gold dust (from the Banda hills and the Lobi district) Agni and Baule Guns and gunpowder,4 dyed cloths

The essential basis of trade in the north was the exchange of kola for savannah natural and craft products. Kola is produced in the humid forests of the Guinea coast but consumed mostly in the drier regions of the Sudan. The Ashanti, for example,

I I wish to thank Professor Daryll Forde for eluded in what was known in the nineteenth century criticisms of earlier drafts of this paper and for the as the Ashanti empire. opportunity to attend the International African 3 I did field-work at Kintampo in I965, I966, Institute Seminar at Freetown in December I969. and I967, with funds provided by the Institute of Some of the problems discussed in the paper were African Studies, Legon. raised in the course of the discussions at that Seminar. 4 Arms and ammunition became available in the

2 The Ashanti Kingdom is now the Ashanti northern markets after I874, when Ashanti authority Region of Central Ghana. Parts of the Brong-Ahafo, in her hinterland broke down as a result of British Northern, Eastern, and Southern Region were in- invasion of Kumasi in that year.



364 ASPECTS OF THE ASHANTI NORTHERN

themselves chew very little of their kola. Austin Freeman, an English surgeon on the Gold Coast in the late nineteenth century, who thought the kola trade of great importance commented ( 898 : 354) on it: ' It is very curious that this nut should be an article almost of necessity to people living hundreds of miles from its habitat and yet be practically unused by those in whose midst it grows.' And Meillassoux writing ( 962: 286) of the exchange of kola for iron in Guroland noted: ' The con-

sumption of kola by the Sudanese peoples was quite high, enough to induce sustained external trade. '

The exchange of kola for savannah products and crafts was the basis for further secondary exchanges. The Ashanti added to their kola some items of European trade goods obtained from trade establishments on the Gold Coast: Elmina, Cape Coast, and Accra. The Hausa and Mossi caravans, described by Lonsdale (i882) as

'moving market(s)' added to their craftworks and natural products, a miscellany of commodities obtained from the markets situated along the caravan routes. This

miscellany of goods included slaves, which the Ashanti ranked highly among the northern goods of exchange.

Wilks (I962) has shown that at the beginning of exchanges, which pre-dated the establishment of the Ashanti Union of States (about I699-1700), between the Mande Colonies and the Akan of Bono-Manso and Tafo, present Kumasi area, gold was the staple, kola being of secondary importance. Delafosse (I93 I: 52) emphasizes kola as much as gold. In the nineteenth century, as the result of Ashanti political control of the Gyaman (Bonduku) area, Takyiman and the Banda districts, and also of European trade activities, gold from those districts moved south as much as the north. Bowdich (op. cit.) stated that the Ashanti increased their hoards of gold by trade in the north. L. G. Binger, the French traveller in the Ashanti hinterland in the late i88os, who made detailed observation on Salaga and Kintampo (I892, ii: 142),

speaks of gold dust in the markets but does not specify the directions in which it was

being taken. Clearly the trade in gold was not as significant as it had been in former centuries, and did not match the kola trade in importance: Goody (1964) has written:

The trade in kola appears to have had an importance equal to that in gold, perhaps a greater one if we think in terms of the social organization of the countries south of the Niger. Indeed a wide variety of goods and services entered into this complex network of short- and long-distance trading.

That kola was the staple of the northern markets was shown by the northern traders' accounts of their own trade given to Clapperton, Barth, and Lonsdale and also by shifts in market location with variations in kola supplies. Clapperton (I829: 69) writes: ' The principal part of the cargo of these Hausa merchants consists in gold or kola nuts which they receive in exchange for red glass beads, and a few slaves. ' Barth (I859, iv: 28) was told that the functioning of the Salaga market depended on these conditions, namely, that the Mossi traders brought their asses; that the Ashanti brought the kola nuts in sufficient quantities; and that the state of the roads was such as not to prevent the Hausa from arriving in the market-towns. Lonsdale (op. cit.) reported that kola was the ' lodestone ' that drew the caravans over miles of insecure road.



TRADE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

Therefore, if kola was unavailable in a market the caravans moved to other places for supplies. Thus, as Gouldsbury (1876) and Lonsdale (op. cit.) reported, the Salaga market collapsed in the period I875-8i owing to Ashanti inability to take kola there, and Kintampo took its place.' Atebubu, a non-producer of kola, became a market-town because the Atebubuhene was able to impose a blockade on kola supplies going to Salaga from parts of Ashanti and force suppliers and buyers of kola to do business at Atebubu. The result was what I call a 'transit' market: a market for which the exchangeable goods came from, and were also intended for consumption, outside the localities of the market.

To sum up this section, Ashanti trade with the north was an example of exchange based on regional and ethnic specialization in natural and craft production.

TYPES OF ASHANTI TRADERS

I distinguish between types of Ashanti traders because the use to which the goods obtained from the caravan traders were put depended on the type of trader who brought them into Ashanti. First all Ashanti distinguished between the long-distance trader whom they called batani (pl. batafo) and the internal trader, dwadini (pl. adwa- difo). The batani went outside Ashanti's political frontiers, the dwadini operated within them. Batadi, long-distance trading, was organizationally different from dwadi, internal trading. The former, but not the latter, required protective measures. These were to some extent collectively ensured by Ashanti's military and political control over the peoples commanding the trade routes to Salaga and by Ashanti official supervisory activities in the localities of the markets. But Ashanti traders had to travel in groups and stay with friends, or landlords along the routes.

It appears from both written and oral information that there were three groups of batafo. These were, first, kola producers who decided to take their own kola for the purpose of exchanging it for a specific goods. An elder of Takyimantiaz in the Ahafo district (west-central Ghana) stated: 'In the olden days the abusua [in this context a minor matrilineage] would decide to help themselves by donating [the equivalents of] Ci or f2 to one member from the sale of kola in order to buy 4 to 6 slaves. In the following year they did the same to another member. As a result there are some mmusua (pl. of abusua) who had more than 20 slaves. These slaves had children and made their master wealthy. ' Bowdich (i 8 19: 33 I) reported that kente weavers' generally sent a trusty servant to the foreign markets' to purchase the silk cloths from which the threads were taken for making the kente cloths. I describe such visitors to external markets as target traders. Their trading was discontinuous, rather like the activities of a modern ' target' marketeer (Bohannan and Dalton, 962: 7) who sells food crops in order to obtain cash for specific purposes.

A second group of Ashanti traders were stool, oman (state), traders. According to Rattray (I929: o19-iI) trading for the stool was conducted by the followingfekuo (groups) who were generally subjects of Gyase, the King's household: the Akyere- madefo (drummers), the Asokwafo (horn blowers), the Asoamfo (hammock-carriers),

See B. Kirby, 1884, Report on Mission to Kumasi was gathered from Takyimantia and the neighbour- and the Interior Provinces of Ashanti January 3rd to ing towns of Bechem, Tanoso, and Teppa, all in the April 2nd, 1884 in Parliamentary Papers (C-), 4477. Ahafo district.

2 Most of my data on kola production and trade

365



ASPECTS OF THE ASHANTI NORTHERN

and the Agwarefo (bathroom attendants). About the month of November in each year, the Omanhene sent these subjects in charge of Ankobea (a unit of Gyase) to buy (kola) which was then taken to the market-towns and sold. Carriers of state kola were unpaid but carried extra bundles for themselves. They were accompanied by heralds with mfona, swords, to show that the carriers were royal traders. The trade paths were closed during the period in which the state traders disposed of the state kola, so that the state was accorded temporary monopoly of the kola market. The temporary closure of the paths also facilitated the collection of export duties, twenty- five nuts per load (2,000 nuts), on private traders' kola by the temporal separation of the passage of private from state kola. Mfaso, profits, from trading were paid into the state treasury, sanaa, if they were in gold dust. Chiefs could buy but not sell slaves. According to Rattray's informant,' A chief who bought slaves and sold them again on the coast would have been destooled for chief's slaves were agyapadie (heir- looms).'

A third group of traders consisted of individuals engaged in continuous trading between either the coast and the northern markets or between the kola-production areas and the northern markets. Robertson (i818: 178-8I) reported that Adu

Gyasi, an Ashanti trader lived at Cape Coast and traded to Bonduku. The Princes Owusu Ansah, cousins of the Asantehene, Karikari (1867-74), lived at Cape Coast and traded to Bonduku through agents and hired carriers.' One Appiah operated from a base in the Ahafo district to Kintampo and in the last decade of the century sent kola by ships to Nigeria.2 In the last quarter of the century the father of Opanyin Awudu, my elderly informant at Kintampo, traded kola for slaves at Salaga and resold the slaves at Kintampo. At the close of the century he switched to trade in rubber: he collected rubber from the Nkoranza district (of which Kintampo formed a part), took it to Lome in German Togoland, and after disposing of it used the proceeds in purchasing European goods at Cape Coast which he resold at Kintampo in order to purchase rubber for another round of itinerant trading.

This type of trader differed from both the target and state traders. From the first in the scale and organization of his operations, which were much larger and continuous, and from the second also in continuity and the type of labour used. Adu Gyasi, the Owusu Ansah brothers, and Opanyin Awudu's father left their homes and took up residence at the base of their trading operations. A professional trader was continuously engaged in trading: during the wet season the kola trader, for example, was engaged in getting together and preserving kola, and assemblingpaadifo, carriers, for trading journeys in the dry season. State trading was interrupted by participation in rituals of chiefship by the various Gyase groups. Professional traders, boo paa, used hired labour, but state traders used state functionaries whose services were given in the discharge of traditional duties; target traders employed their conjugal family for porterage.

The trading activities of the professional trader represented a point of departure from traditional economic organization which was based on kin or voluntary groups: those of target and state traders were embedded in that organization. Wilks (I970)

I See J. Owusu-Ansah, Letter to Administrator Letter to Ag. Governor Hodgson 17.9.1893, Moloney, 4.8.81 in PROCO 879/191. PROCO 879/39.

2 See H. M. Hull (Travelling Commissioner)

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TRADE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 367 has argued that the organization of state trading was part of bureaucratization or differentiation of administrative function in Kumasi: he believes that this bureaucratization began in the reign of the Ashantihene, Osei Kwadwo (I75o-64) and gathered momentum in the reign of Osei Tutu Kwame (c. 1801-24). There are two

objections to this. First, state trading by members of the King's household preceded Osei Kwadwo: guns, powder and shot, salt and drinks were purchased in the reigns of the two previous kings of Ashanti by officials bearing insignia of office. Secondly, a general criterion of bureaucratization is the specification of functions to persons or groups whose recruitment could be hereditary or appointive. In Ashanti administrative functions were assigned to specific groups. This was marked by specific terms for both the group and its appointed head. Thus there were nkonguasoafo and nkonguasofohene, head of the stool carriers, asoamfo, hammock-carriers, and asoamfohene, head of the hammock-carriers. But there was no specific group with an appointed head whose duty was to engage in, and supervise, trading, respectively. Apparently the state trading group was an ad hoc body appointed from among other household personnel. Trading was not regarded as a regular enough activity to require continuous and specific organization.

Regular and continuous traders were those already called ' professional '. Bowdich (1819: 336) suggested that the chiefs, particularly in Kumasi, deliberately inhibited growth in the number of professional traders for reasons of state. He wrote:

Were [the chiefs] to encourage commerce, pomp [to which they are much inclined] would soon cease to be their prerogative because it would be attainable by others; the traders growing wealthy, would vie with them; and for their own security, stimulated by reflections they now have too little at risk to originate, they would unite to repress the arbitrary power of the Aristocracy; and even if they did not, inevitably [as the chiefs conceive] divert the people's genius for war.

Bowdich's assertion concerning political obstacles to the growth of private trading was what may be regarded as a reasonable inference from his insights into the prob- able consequences of large-scale private trading on the socio-political order of Ashanti and on her value-systems. The socio-political order was closely related to a ranking system (discussed below) of which most of the material symbols were derived from external trade. The diffusion of these symbols among commoners through trade would throw the ranking system into confusion with adverse consequences for the

socio-political order. Also, as the Kumasi chiefs told Bowdich (1819: 249), they considered that' war alone affords an exertion or display of ability ' and they esteemed 'the ambition of their king as his greatest virtue '. The chiefs apparently believed that trading would destroy inclination to warfare. To encourage the former was to let in influences corrosive of the militaristic virtues. Professional traders, as Bowdich

pointed out (1819: 335), might even sell arms to Ashanti's enemies to the north and so inadvertently help to destroy the Ashanti empire.

State regulations inhibiting the growth of private trade were not directly related to trade. There were, first, fiscal rules which prevented the large-scale accumulation of capital in private hands.' The Ashantihene and the amanhene (chiefs of the divisions) had rights to two-thirds shares of treasure troves of gold dust and the entire findings

I See K. Arhin, 'The Financing of the Ashanti Expansion 1700-1820 ', Africa, July 1967, 283-91.




of gold nuggets; they also claimed the gold hoardings of deceased and disgraced subjects. Secondly, one is often told of the past practice of chiefs to trump up charges against apparently wealthy commoners who were then fined and deprived of their

gold hoardings. Thirdly, the location of external markets outside what I have else- where (1967) called Greater or Central Ashanti, that is, beyond undisputed Ashanti boundaries and away from the principal Ashanti towns increased the hazards and risks involved in long-distance trading and kept down the number of batafo. It is

significant that before colonial rule began the real professionals were to be found resident in the market-towns outside central Ashanti. The effect of these measures

generally was to prevent the emergence of a large body of wealthy trading commoners who might have been centres of dissent against chiefs.

As has already been stated, one reason for grouping Ashanti traders is to facilitate the classification of the goods brought into Ashanti on the basis of the use that the various groups made of them. Most of the goods obtained by the occasional or target trader are considered here as ' consumer ' goods. They were not for re-exchange and were not in large enough quantities to constitute ' conspicuous ' or prestige accumulation. Slaves were acquired to replenish, by incorporation through marriage or

adoption, depleted lineages. But in cases where they were put to wealth-yielding uses, they are considered here to have constituted a 'working ' capital.' Also the silks purchased by the slaves of a kente weaver, regarded here as a target trader, fall into the class of a 'working' capital. It was a small-scale variant of the modern manufacturer's raw materials which are normally distinguished from 'consumer'

goods. State traders resold ivory from the north on the coast. They also expended that

part of the gold dust and nuggets (obtained by exchange) not used in the making of

regalia or added to the statefotoo, treasury, in purchasing arms and ammunition on the coast. As noted by Rattray (op. cit.) slaves sold on the coast did not include those obtained by purchase: the former were acquired in war or as tribute. Slaves obtained

through trade were regarded as agyapade, inheritable property, or fixed assets. Slaves not used in further trading by chiefs were employed both as retinue and in the collection of fruits (kola) and on farms near Kumasi: used in the latter way they are here considered to have constituted a ' working ' capital; used as retinue, they fell into the

category of prestige acquisition. Professional traders resold all the goods obtained from both the northern markets

and from the European trade posts. Slaves were either sold outright or added to the trader's personnel. The trusted slave took charge of other slaves in trading between Ashanti, the north and the coast. Or a relative was put in charge of the slaves for the purposes of long-distance trading. If re-sold outright or employed as trading agents, slaves are considered here to have constituted a trading or working capital. Professional traders used gold dust for trading purposes or hoarded it as a convertible asset. Bowdich (1819: 33I) shows from the table below the profitability of long- distance trading and retailing in Kumasi:

I R. Firth, p. I8, in Capital Saving and Credit in consumption but operated to increase the volume Peasant Societies, eds. R. Firth and B. S. Yanney of consumption in future periods, either directly or (London, 1964); writes: 'Capital represents a stock indirectly.' of goods and services not devoted to immediate

368




Cape Coast Coomassie Sallagha and Yanndi

Articles ? s. d. Quantity ? s. d. Quantity Profit ? s. d. Quantity Profit per cent

Silk, India 4 o o Per piece 5 o x span 175 - - -

Fezzan - - - .. 2 fathom xoo I o a i fathom Dagwumba white cotton - - - .. 5 o Sq. yard o00 2 6 Sq. yard Rum o o Gallon 7* Dram 400 - - - Tobacco, Portuguese 6 o o Roll 10 0 0 Roll 75 - - -

Inta - - - .. 7 Span .. - - - Inta - .. 2 6 Pound I5O - - - Pound

Gunpowder 4 o 0 i barrel 7* i charge 40 - - - Iron I 0 o Bar x5 o Bar 75 3 o o Bar 200 Lead 0o 0 .. 71t inch 75 - . Flints 5 o Ioo t Each 600 - - - Spanish Dollar 5 o Each 5 .. - - - .. Sandals - - - .. 10 0 Pair oo00 5 Pair Cushions - - - .. I Each Ioo o0 o Each Marrowa locks -- .. 0 .. loo 2 6

It ought to be added that the currency in Kumasi itself was units of gold dust so that profits were measurable with some degree of exactitude.

If, then, the goods listed above are evaluated on the basis of the three types of traders and their use of them, they may be classified in various contexts as consumer goods, prestige goods, trading goods, and capital goods. The Ashanti had their own equivalent terms for these categories of goods: they called the first, abotom dee, the second, ahonya dee, the third, adwadi dee, and the fourth, dwetire or sikatan: Christaller translates sikatan in his Dictionary as ' capital, principal, (stock) capital '.

This classification is not based on such moral evaluations as, for example, Bohannan (I955) asserts from the basis of Tiv categorization of their exchangeable goods. It is a matter of the type of trader and of utility. Hence it seems reasonable to suggest that goods were arranged by the acquisitors according to their relative consumption, prestige, or capital value. To the target trader slaves were, obviously, more valuable than cloths and cloths than shea-butter if for no other reason than their relative durability. State traders ranked slaves or gold dust above cushions or leather sandals. Professional traders ranked their acquisitions according to their re-sale price (bo) or of their relative profitability (mfaso).

But besides the acquisitors' own evaluations, these goods may be ranked in terms of other criteria such as their relative significance as symbols of social and political status and as forms of capital accumulation. It was slaves and gold dust which were significant for Ashanti economic development in the early twentieth century.

It has often been pointed out that in traditional Africa chiefs generally were not distinguishable from their subjects by any elaborate differences in styles of life and that this was due to low technological development and the consequent simplicity of material culture.2 However, where local crafts and external trading occurred on impressive scales, it was possible for regalia, regarded as symbols of high social and political status and as indices of power, to be highly elaborated, so that at least in ceremonial dress the chiefs stood apart from their subjects.

I Professor J. H. Nketia of the Institute of African (op. cit. 257) writes: ' Interest of money is 33* per Studies, Legon, points out that tan means fruitful, cent for every forty days which is accompanied by so that a sum of money sikatan (sika = a sum of a dash of liquor.' money) means invested sum. He also gives syno- 2 M. Fortes and E. E. Evans-Pritchard, eds. nyms of sikatan: sika boten or sika daho. Bowdich African Political Systems, Oxford, 1940, p. 8.

CC

369




The northern markets were important to Ashanti as sources of material symbols of social and political differentiation: these symbols were indices not only of distinctions between chiefs and commoners but also of the ranking of chiefs. Ramseyer and Kuhne, for four years (i869-73) prisoners at Kumasi, discerned (I875, appendix, iii) four ranks of chiefs under the Ashantihene. Chiefs of the first rank, the greater amanhene, were noted for their large silk umbrellas topped with gold, a large band of elephant-tusk blowers, and several drums; those of the second rank, the lesser amanhene, for their silk umbrellas topped with carved wood, a very nicely carved arm-chair ornamented on each side with brass nails, preceded by a party of twelve boys carrying elephant tails, and horn-blowers and drummers; those of the third rank, sub-chiefs with recognizable position in the armies of the divisions, had carved arm-chairs, servants carrying elephant tails, and umbrellas made of cotton; chiefs of the fourth rank had the same symbols but in place of elephant had horse tails; and chiefs of the fifth rank had 'large portly umbrellas' but with common and less ornamented arm-chairs. The frameworks of stools, chairs, and umbrellas were made of local material by local craftsmen but their ornamentation was done with materials obtained from the northern markets.

In sum, before the end of the nineteenth century, Ashanti were used to productive efforts directed towards the acquisition of capital, prestige, or consumer goods depending on the type of trader and his resources for financing and organization. But the scale of operation was limited by a simple technology and also by socio-political restraints inherent generally in a traditional order.' As stated in the introductory note, the final section of the paper will be concerned with showing the various ways in which this nineteenth-century background is relevant to the development of cocoa production early in this century.

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE KOLA TRADE FOR COCOA PRODUCTION

There are three ways in which one can see the significance of nineteenth-century kola production and trade for cocoa production early in this century. First, the capitalistic outlook and methods engendered by the kola trade were adapted to cocoa production and marketing. Secondly, equipment and tools used in kola production were brought over into cocoa production. Thirdly, resources, capital or dwetire and labour, nnonkofo, acquired through the kola trade were switched to cocoa production. These points will be discussed in turn.

For a discussion of the first point, a short description of the financing and organization of the distribution of kola from the producing areas to the northern markets is necessary. According to Nana Fosu Gyeabuor II, former chief of Bechem, in the Ahafo district, the starting-point of large-scale trading in kola was the acquisition of gold dust or nuggets. This enabled the prospective trader to hire labour, bo paa, for porterage, or alternatively to acquire pawns, nnwowa, by giving out loans, mmosea, and to acquire slaves. Slaves were not purchased with gold dust, but by selling kola for cowries, sedee, and then using the cowries for purchasing slaves; or as Binger

I For example, D. Forde and Mary Douglas dis- a chief and another lower one right for a commoner.' cussing disincentives to surplus production say: 'Primitive Economics' H. L. Shapiro, ed. Man, 'A rank system may have a deterrent effect if a Culture andSociety, 330-44, Galaxy, New York, I960. certain standard of living is considered suitable for

370




(op. cit.) pointed out, the values of both the slaves and the kola were reckoned in units of cowries to facilitate direct exchange between the two commodities. Pawns paid off the loans, for which they had been pledged, through producing and marketing kola in the north. Slaves, as already noted, were employed as trading personnel or for porterage.

Experience gained in the organization of kola distribution was material to cocoa production. Before Ashanti was covered with a network of roads in the second decade of this century, traders used to organizing the distribution of kola had a start on others in planning the conveyance of cocoa to the scattered and distant cocoa- buying centres. The prior existence of a skeletal organization which could be used in the distribution of cocoa before the lorry became ubiquitous was a facilitating condition for a successful marketing of the crop.

Generally, the social framework for kola production was adapted to cocoa production. It is significant that the basic labour unit used early in this century for cocoa production consisted of the conjugal family, which had been the target trader's labour unit: this is remarkable since the major returns from the kola trade and cocoa farms are regarded as the most valuable of matrilineally inheritable property. And, just as to harvest and split large collections of kola pods, the villager had recourse to village nnoboa, self-help group, so early in this century villagers used the nnoboa, organization for the harvesting, splitting, and conveying (of the fermented cocoa beans home for

drying) stages of cocoa production. Equipment and tools used in cocoa production were brought over from kola

production. Among the equipment and tools were:

asrcnne: large mat on which kola nuts were spread for examination in order to remove those infected with insects; was or is also used for drying cocoa;

kenten: basket for carrying kola is also used for carrying cocoa; konno: a large basket in which kola was fermented in order to facilitate the removal of

the skins is similarly used in cocoa production; kotohro: a long pole with either an iron or a wooden hook is used for plucking both kola

and cocoa pods; kotokro: a small knife used in removing the skins of the kola nut is used in splitting cocoa

pods; sekan: cutlass, used in clearing the food farms in which clusters of kola trees were

situated (and thus claimed from the bush) is the major tool in cocoa cultivation.

Non-iron equipment and tools were made by the owner himself or purchased from local specialists; iron ones were made in the nineteenth century by Ashanti black- smiths. However obtained, they were within easy reach of any cocoa cultivator. One possible reason why, in spite of its high potential for making wealth, cocoa production has remained a peasant, and not become a plantation, industry is the communal

ownership of cocoa farm lands which made it possible for all and sundry to cultivate cocoa, as it had been to sell kola, coupled with the easy acquisition of the tools of

production. Finally, it was pointed out by Nana Fosu Gyeabuor and the elders of Takyimantia

that the most successful of cocoa cultivators were the big traders of the nineteenth

century and the chiefs who before the turn of the century were in control of nnonkofo, slaves, readily employable in all stages of cocoa production and in command of

371




dwetire, in the form of gold dust and other fixed assets, which were convertible into the Gold Coast currency introduced into Ashanti at the inception of colonial rule for the employment of northern labour.

What has been said in this section amounts to this: in the nineteenth century Ashanti society was not capitalistic but was used to types of capitalistic modes of

organization, some sections of the people possessing resources that can be described as capitalistic accumulation in a form determined by Ashanti's cultural level; that those modes of capitalistic organization and resources were switched over to cocoa

production; and that together with the equipment and tools brought over from kola to cocoa production, they account for the rapid development of the latter industry in Ashanti. Polly Hill says (1963: 204) of the development of cocoa in southern Ghana that:

The early and rapid development of Gold Coast cocoa growing was entirely due to the two types [patrilineal and matrilineal stranger-farmers] of stranger-farmer who were astonishingly quick to realize the potentialities of the new tree. Had it not been for their perspicacity, enterprise and persistence, development of cocoa growing would have been much delayed and might even have been as slow as in the neighbouring Ivory Coast.

iIiss Hill is apparently speaking here of the peoples of the immediate eastern hinterland of the Gold Coast. As far as the rapid development of cocoa growing in Ashanti is concerned, I should find its explanation in the nineteenth-century background of the kola trade. There was already a capacity to invest. From this the conclusion

appears justified that the role of the British colonial administration in the economic

development of Ashanti was not to induce a capitalistic spirit into the Ashanti but to increase opportunities for investment and enterprise by drawing the people into a world market; and also to break down traditional political restraints on enterprise.

SUMMARY

Nineteenth-century Ashanti trade with Hausa, Mande, and Mossi caravans at 'transit' markets in the Ashanti hinterland was based on the exchange of kola, a forest product, for savannah, natural, and craft products. This forest vs. savannah

exchange was the centre of secondary exchanges involving European trade goods entering the trade system from the Gold Coast and the entrep6ts of the middle Niger and other goods, including slaves, from the regions traversed by the northern caravans. Ashanti traders consisted of three groups: 'target', state, and professional traders. These differed in the scale and continuity of their operations and in the types of labour used. The goods brought by these traders into Ashanti can be classified on the basis of the groups of traders and the use they made of their acquisitions into consumer, prestige, and capital goods: the third is further classifiable into trading or working capital. An explanation of the successful development of cocoa growing in Ashanti must take into account the capitalistic outlook and methods and resources

developed through the trade in kola.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

ARHIN, K. 1967. ' The Structure of Greater Ashanti ', Jornal of African History, viii, I, 65-85. BARTH, H. I859. Travels and Discoveries in North and Central Africa. London. Vol. iv. BINGER, L. G. 1892. Du Niger au Golfe de Guinie. Paris. Vol. ii.

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TRADE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 373 BOHANNAN, P. I955. ' Some Principles of Exchange and Investment among the Tiv', American Anthro-

pologist, Ivii. 6o-9. - and DALTON, G. I962. Markets in Africa. Evanston.

BOWDICH, T. E. I8I9. Mission From Cape Coast to Ashantee. London. CHRISTALLER, J. G. x88I. A Dictionary of the Asante and Fante Language. Basel. CLAPPERTON, H., and LANDER, R. I829. Journal of a Second Expedition into the Interior of Africa. London. DELAFOSSE, M. I931. The Negroes of Africa. (Translated by W. Fligelman.) Washington. FREEMAN, J. A. I898. Travels and Life in Ashanti and Jaman. London. GOODY, J. I964. ' The Mande and the Akan Hinterland ', in The Historian in Tropical Africa, eds. J. Vansina,

R. Mauny, and L. V. Thomas. London, 193-2I8. GOULDSBURY, V. S. I876. Report on Visit to Salaga Public Record Office (PRO), Colonial Office (CO), 879/9. HILL, P. I963. ' Three Types of Southern Ghanaian Cocoa Farmer ' in African Agrarian Systems, ed. D. Bie-

buyck. London, 203-23. LONSDALE, R. T. i882. Report on Mission to Kumasi, Salaga and Yendi, October, 1881 to February, x882,

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Africa, ed. P. Bohannan and G. Dalton. Evanston. RATTRAY, R. S. I929. Ashanti Law and Constitution. Oxford. ROBERTSON, G. 8 8. Notes on Africa. London. WILKS, I. I 962. ' A Medieval Trade-Route from the Niger to the Gulf of Guinea ', Journal of African History,

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' Asante Policy Towards the Hausa Trade in the Nineteenth Century ', in The Development of African Trade and Markets in West Africa, ed. C. Meillassoux. London.

Resume

CARACT1fRISTIQUES DU COMMERCE DES ASHANTI DU NORD AU 19mE SIiSCLE

CET article traite des echanges realises dans les marches Ashanti avec les commergants des caravanes Hausa, Mande et Mossi dans les villes de Bonduku (Est de la C6te d'Ivoire), Salaga (Nord du Ghana) avant I874, et a Kintampo (region Brong-Ahafo du Ghana) entre

1874 et I892. I1 tente egalement d'etablir la base des relations commerciales des Ashanti avec les gens du Nord; de distinguer diffdrents types de commercants Ashanti, le volume et les resultats de leurs operations; de decrire la production et la distribution de la cola prove- nant du pays Ashanti, et finalement d'attirer l'attention sur les particularites du commerce du i9gme siecle qui contribuent a expliquer l'apparition et la croissance du commerce du cacao au debut du 20ome siecle.

Au I9eme siecle, le commerce Ashanti avec les caravanes Hausa, Mande et Mossi dans les marches ' de transit' de l'arriere-pays Ashanti etait fonde sur l'echange de la cola, produit de foret, contre des produits de savane, bruts ou travailles. Cet echange foret-savane fut l'occasion d'echanges secondaires comportant des marchandises europeennes venues de Gold Coast et des entrepots du Moyen Niger, et d'autres marchandises, y compris les

esclaves, venues des regions qui traversaient les caravanes du nord. Les commercants Ashanti formaient trois groupes: les'commis voyageurs' qui visitaient les marches exterieurs, les commerjants d'Etat, et les commercants professionnels. Ils diffdraient par le volume et la continuite de leurs operations et par le genre des transactions realisees. Pour expliquer le succes de la culture du cacao chez les Ashanti, il faut prendre en considdration la perspective capitaliste Ashanti ainsi que les methodes et ressources developpees par le commerce de la cola.



aspects of the ashanti northern trade in the nineteenth century

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