on the natives of the gold coast

On the Natives of the Gold Coast.Author(s): James MarshallSource: The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 16(1887), pp. 180-182Published by: Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and IrelandStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2841800 .

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180 SIR J. MARSHALL.-On the Natives of the Gold Coast.

On the NATIVES of the GOLD COAST.

BY SIR JAMES MARSHALL, C.M.G.

THE portion of Africa of which I have specially to speak is one of the oldest of the British Colonial possessions, but I fear it reinains to this day about the most savage, uncivilised, and uiicared-for portion of the empire. I mean the Gold Coast.

It first came under the direct influence of Great Britain in 1672, when the Ptoyal African Company took possession of the coast and built a number of forts aloing it. This company was succeeded in 1750 by the African Company of Merchants, con- stituted by Act of Parliament, which in 1821 was dissolved, and the country ruled by the Crown, through the Governor of Sierra Leone. A disastrous war with Ashanti, in which the Governor, Sir Charles Macarthy, lost his life, caused the British Govern- ment to transfer its powers back to a mercantile corporation, which continued until 1843, when the Government again assumed the ruling power, and has continued to do so under various forms until now.

In my opinion, the result of this changing and experimental mode of ruling has not been beneficial to the native population as a whole, but has broken down and destroyed what that population possessed in their modes of government and life without raisino them to anything better.

The Gold Coast is not a country which can, at all events in our time, be made a colony where Europeans can settle. It must remain the country of the natives, with but a handful of Europeans among them. But these few Europeans have the power by which they rule these people and enforce obedience. And whenever this rule is carried out and enforced according to European ideas, without any consideration of the ideas, equally ancient and equally deep, which pervade the minds of the natives, it may break and destroy, but does not promote any real improvement. It is like a collision between a powerful steam engine and an old-fashioned cart. It might be better for the cart if it could become a steam engine, but a forcible collision between the two, merely smashes the cart.

The handful of Europeans who represent the steam engine are utterly out of sympathy with the ways, customs and beliefs of the mass of the population among whom they are settled, and who represent the cart. The Europeans do not understand them, and therefore are apt to treat thein alternately with ridicule anid abuse. The natives do not understand European ideas, and are unable to accominodate themselves to those ideas. And so there are constant collisions which cause destruction without



SIR J. MARSHALL.-On the Natives of the Gold Coast. 181

sipplying anything, better to take the place of what has been destroyed.

My own experience of the west coast of Africa is that that Government has for the time succeeded best with the natives which has treated them with consideration for their native laws, habits and customs, instead of ordering all these to be sup- pressed as nonsense, and insisting upon the wondering negro at once submitting to the British constitution, and adopting our ideas of life and civilisation.

The most successful Government appears to have been at the time when the British Government, disheartened at the defeat and death of Sir Charles Macarthy in 1824, again handed over the reins of power to a mercantile Government who secured as their Governor Mr. George Maclean, whose rule is to this day remembered and spoken of by the natives of the Gold Coast with affection and respect. He is thus described in the Colonial Office List: "This gentleman, with a force of no more than 100 men at command, and a revenue of only about ?4,000 a year, contrived to extend and maintain the influence of his government over the whole tract of country now known as the Gold Coast Protectorate. Here he preserved peace, remedied injustice, and repressed the cruel customs of the native chiefs and priesthood." When the British Governinent again assumed the supreme authority, Mr. Maclean's influence over the natives was maintained by his being appointed to the office of Judicial Assessor to the native chiefs. I can speak of this office from personal experience as I was appointed to it in 1873, and was the last of the race, as in 1874 all judicial power was merged in a Supreme Court of approved English construction.

As Judicial Assessor I was a sort of head chief, and sat with the local chiefs in Court, heariiig causes brought by natives among themselves. By this I learned that a complete system of laws connected with both land and personal property existed among them, which had been handed down by oral tradition from time immemorial, and was better suited to them than our moderate, elaborate, and intricate laws of real and personal property.

Time does not permit me to go into these matters. What I wish to say is that the natives of the Gold Coast and the West Coast of Africa have a system of laws and customs which it would be better to guide, modify, and amend, rather than to destroy by ordinances and force.

So also they have their chiefs, with court forms and etiquette, and their own custorns and mode of living which will not be improved by ridicule or by forced abolition.

The result of my own experience is that the way to rule and VOL. XVI. 0



182 J. THOMSON.-Note on the African Tribes

improve these native populations is to take theni as we find them, making use of what we believe to be good or harmless, whilst repressing what is cruel and unjust.

Anyone who treats these natives with consideration and, as far as possible, with respect for the beliefs, laws, and customs which are theirs, and which have come down to them from their forefathers, soon finds that he gains an influence among them which nothing else will bring him. Instead of starting a steam engine and smashing the cart, get into the cart and ride with the native driver and do what you can to make him improve his cart, so that in time he may prefer the engine and take to it.

Even in their fetish superstitions there is no use treating them as folly. Fetishism is a tremendous power throughout Africa, and cannot be put down by ridicule or contempt. We look at their fetish charins and wonder how people can be so foolish, but these are but outward signs of what is of immense significance to the unfortunate native.

I have no time for more, and will ask you to look at specimens of the native industries which will prove to you that they have a civilisation of their own, however inferior it may be to ours.

NOTE on the AFRICAN TRIBES of the BRITISH EMPIRE.

By JOSEPH THOMSON, F.R.G.S.

CONSIDERING the narrow limit of time allotted to the discussion on the African races of the British Empire, it would have been better-instead of calling upon such as I--to have given more scope to those gentlemen who, like Sir James Marshall, are so well able, from prolonged residence among the peoples in ques- tion, to speak with authority.

You ask me to address you on the West African tribes when in truth my acquaintance with them has been but slight. A rapid run along the coast, and an equally rapid trip up the Niger to Sokoto, constitute the whole of my claim to be Ileard on this subject, and when I further inform you that I was only seven montlhs out of England, you will perceive that I can have had but few opportunities for anthropologgical research.

Your chairman, Mr. Galton, in his opening remarks, alluded to one subject about which, he said, it would be of special in- terest to acquire some information. What influence had contact with Europeans had upon the natives of Africa ? Had contact been atternded with good or evil results ? Now this happens to be a subject in which I have always been greatly interested, and



on the natives of the gold coast

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