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Ghana Social Change
Needless to say, contact with Europeans, Christians, and
Muslims as well as colonialism greatly affected and modified
indigenous customs, institutions, and values. A good example of
this process is the office of local chief. British influence has
been present for generations, and by the time of independence in
1957, the British had exercised substantial political authority
over certain southern regions for more than a century. The office
of the chief, traditionally used to manage the affairs of the
village community and the ethnic group, was retained by the British
as one of the most important agencies through which the populace
received colonial instructions. As the architect of the British
colonial policy of indirect rule, Frederick Lugard argued in his
Dual Mandate in British Tropical Afric that the preservation
of the office of the traditional chief was cost- effective because
it presented the appearance of continuity in the changing political
environment. As was the case in many British colonies in Africa,
traditional chiefs in Ghana were allowed to hold court in matters
relating to traditional customs. They also controlled some local
lands for agricultural production, even when the timber and mineral
resources were exploited by the colonial government.
Chiefs continued to be appointed by their own people during
colonial times, but native administrators became increasingly
accountable to the colonial government. Inevitably, the presence of
other colonial agents, such as the small but effective colonial
police and the resident commissioners, influenced the power of
chiefs. Also, with the abolition of slavery, the imposition of
colonial taxes, and the establishment of bureaucratic and judicial
procedures, the social relationships that had existed in the
precolonial period between chiefs and people were altered--at times
radically and always permanently. Some individuals and groups lost
power, while others gained influence as the British abolished some
traditional functions and established new ones.
A combination of factors affected customary notions about the
exercise of power--colonial rule, Christianity, the money economy,
and Western-style education. Christian missionaries established the
first Western schools
(see Education
, this ch.). Products of this
formal school system became the new elite class of literate
graduates who functioned as intermediaries between the indigenous
people and the colonial power and, later, the world at large. Freed
from lineage property as the sole means of attaining wealth and
social status, the new elite developed new forms of social
institutions and patterns of interaction. Such modes of behavior
associated with modernization and urbanization and acquired through
formal education and the formal market economy introduced certain
value systems that were distinctly different from those within the
traditional culture.
Of course, Western knowledge, technology, and organizations
were not uniformly introduced throughout the country. They appeared
first and in most concentrated form on the coast or in the Gold
Coast Colony, where European influence was greatest and where many
schools were established compared with Asante and other northern
regions. Consequently, the coastal and southern peoples were the
greatest beneficiaries of the new economic and social opportunities
and, conversely, suffered the greatest social upheaval--especially
in conflicts between the Western-educated Africans and their
traditional chiefs. Traditional society adapted with particular
swiftness to life in urban areas, in part because of the
concentration of economic development and social infrastructure in
such areas. The pace of change intensified in 1952 when Kwame
Nkrumah, the first African-born Prime Minister of the Gold Coast,
introduced the Accelerated Development Plan for Education
(see The Education System
, this ch.).
The impact of the urban region on rural, traditional life has
been great. Migrations from the rural to urban centers, either in
search of work or for the pure enjoyment of urban conditions,
greatly increased after 1969
(see Population Distribution
, this
ch.). The result was a decline in rural agricultural productivity
and an increased dependence on urban wage-earners by extended
family relatives. What has been described as "rural dependency on
the urban wage-earner" was acceptable to those within the
traditional system, who saw the individual as socially important
because he continued to function in a matrix of kin and personal
relationships and obligations, because his social identity could
not be separated from that of his lineage, and because the wealth
or positions attained could be shared by, or would benefit all,
members of the extended family. Such a position, however,
contradicted the Western view of the individual as a free and
separate social agent whose legal obligations were largely
contractual rather than kin-based and whose relationships with
other people depended on individual actions and interests. The very
difficult economic conditions of the 1970s brought even more
pressure to bear on the relationship between traditional and urban
values; nonetheless, the modern and the traditional societies
continued to exist side by side, and individuals continued to adapt
themselves to the requirements of each.
Data as of November 1994
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