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Ghana Early Manifestations of Nationalism
As early as the latter part of the nineteenth century, a
growing number of educated Africans increasingly found unacceptable
an arbitrary political system that placed almost all power in the
hands of the governor through his appointment of council members.
In the 1890s, some members of the educated coastal elite organized
themselves into the Aborigines' Rights Protection Society to
protest a land bill that threatened traditional land tenure. This
protest helped lay the foundation for political action that would
ultimately lead to independence. In 1920 one of the African members
of the Legislative Council, Joseph E. Casely-Hayford, convened the
National Congress of British West Africa, which sent a delegation
to London to urge the Colonial Office to consider the principle of
elected representation. The group, which claimed to speak for all
British West African colonies, represented the first expression of
political solidarity between intellectuals and nationalists of the
area. Even though the delegation was not received in London (on the
grounds that it represented only the interests of a small group of
urbanized Africans), its actions aroused considerable support among
the African elite at home.
Notwithstanding their call for elected representation as
opposed to a system whereby the governor appointed council members,
these nationalists insisted that they were loyal
to the British Crown and that they merely sought an extension of
British political and social practices to Africans. Notable leaders
included Africanus Horton, Jr.; J.M. Sarbah; and S.R.B.
Attah-Ahoma. Such men gave the nationalist movement a distinctly
elitist flavor that was to last until the late 1940s.
The constitution of 1925, promulgated by Guggisberg, created
provincial councils of paramount chiefs for all but the northern
provinces of the colony. These councils in turn elected six chiefs
as unofficial members of the Legislative Council. Although the new
constitution appeared to recognize African sentiments, Guggisberg
was concerned primarily with protecting British interests. For
example, he provided Africans with a limited voice in the central
government; yet, by limiting nominations to chiefs, he drove a
wedge between chiefs and their educated subjects. The intellectuals
believed that the chiefs, in return for British support, had
allowed the provincial councils to fall completely under control of
the government. By the mid-1930s, however, a gradual rapprochement
between chiefs and intellectuals had begun.
Agitation for more adequate representation continued.
Newspapers owned and managed by Africans played a major part in
provoking this discontent--six were being published in the 1930s.
As a result of the call for broader representation, two more
unofficial African members were added to the Executive Council in
1943. Changes in the Legislative Council, however, had to await a
different political climate in London, which came about only with
the postwar election of a British Labour Party government.
The new Gold Coast constitution of 1946 (also known as the
Burns constitution after the governor of the time) was a bold
document. For the first time, the concept of an official majority
was abandoned. The Legislative Council was now composed of six exofficio members, six nominated members, and eighteen elected
members. The 1946 constitution also admitted representatives from
Asante into the council for the first time. Even with a Labour
Party government in power, however, the British continued to view
the colonies as a source of raw materials that were needed to
strengthen their crippled economy. Change that would place real
power in African hands was not a priority among British leaders
until after rioting and looting in Accra and other towns and cities
in early 1948 over issues of pensions for ex-servicemen, the
dominate role of foreigners in the economy, the shortage of
housing, and other economic and political grievances.
With elected members in a decisive majority, Ghana had reached
a level of political maturity unequaled anywhere in colonial
Africa. The constitution did not, however, grant full
self-government. Executive power remained in the hands of the
governor, to whom the Legislative Council was responsible. Hence,
the constitution, although greeted with enthusiasm as a significant
milestone, soon encountered trouble. World War II had just ended,
and many Gold Coast veterans who had served in British overseas
expeditions returned to a country beset with shortages, inflation,
unemployment, and black-market practices. There veterans, along
with discontented urban elements, formed a nucleus of malcontents
ripe for disruptive action. They were now joined by farmers, who
resented drastic governmental measures required to cut out diseased
cacao trees in order to control an epidemic, and by many others who
were unhappy that the end of the war had not been followed by
economic improvements.
Data as of November 1994
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