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The Development of Kwahu Business Enterprise in Ghana Since 1874—An Essay in Recent Oral Tradition

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

Peter C. Garlick
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The Kwahu, an Akan people living on the eastern border of Ashanti in Ghana, are well known for their business activities. An enquiry into the reasons for their predominance among the largest shopkeepers by turnover in Accra traced the history of Kwahu business activities back to the British—Ashanti War of 1874, when the Kwahu broke away from the Ashanti Confederacy. The Kwahu trade with the north in slaves was replaced by the rubber trade, which continued until 1914. Rubber was carried to the coast for sale, and fish, salt, and imported commodities, notably cloth, were sold on the return journey north. Other Kwahu activities at this time included trading in local products and African beads.

The development of cocoa in south-eastern Ghana provided opportunities for enterprising Kwahu traders to sell there the imported goods obtained at the coast. Previously itinerant traders, the Kwahu began to settle for short periods in market towns. In the 1920s, the construction of the railway from Accra to Kumasi, growing road transportation, and the establishment inland of branches of the European firms reduced the price differences which had made trading inland so profitable.

In the 1930S the spread of the cocoa disease, swollen shoot, in the hitherto prosperous south-east, finally turned Kwahu traders' attention to Accra.

Trading remained the most prestigious of Kwahu activities, and young men sought by whatever means they could to save the necessary capital to establish a shop. But Kwahu traders very rarely developed beyond one-man businesses. Profits were siphoned off into buildings and farms which would provide security for times of sickness and old age. (In this respect the Kwahu are typical of Ghanaian entrepreneurs, with some exceptions.)

There is little evidence that this enterprising group of people can provide the new entrepreneurial organization or capital required by a developing country.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 8 , Issue 3 , November 1967 , pp. 463 - 480
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1967

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References

1 Cambridge University Press, 1963.Google Scholar

2 Journal of African History, 1, nos. 1 and 2 (1960).Google Scholar

3 The collecting and piecing together of this kind of material from so many interviews and conversations involves many obligations. Acknowledgements must be made to Opanyin Charles Yao Abokyi, Opanyin Kwado Anini, Opanyin Kwame Antwi (Asafohene and Chief Linguist), Opanyin Kojo Mensah, Nana Charles Yao Kumnipah (Bamuhene), and Mr. W. Y. Obeng, all of Obo; to the Rev. Benjamin Franklin Ansong, Odehye Kwabena Boye, and Opanyin J. E. Sampong, of Abetifi; to Opanyin Kofi Kissi of Obomeng; to Opanyin Yao Marfo of Twenedurase; to several of my former colleagues in the University of Ghana, especially Miss Polly Hill, Dr T. Peter Omari, Dr William Tordoff, and Professor Ivor G. Wilks; to my research assistants Mr A. Osei-Boateng, Mr F. Prempeh, and Mr F. A. Tawmiah; and to very many other kindly disposed people, both Kwahu and non-Kwahu.Google Scholar

4 The 1960 census gives other, or alternative, spellings for some of the tribes mentioned in this paper, as follows: Akim (Akyem), Akwapim (Akuapem), Ashanti (Asante), Dagarti (Dagarte), Fanti (Fante), Grunshi (Grunsi), Kwahu (Kwawu), Moshi (Mosi), Zambrama (Zambrama). the spellings used here are the (hitherto) more widely used ones.Google Scholar

5 Though the trade in kola and slaves was a very old one, it may not have been so old for the Kwahu, and it might, in earlier days, have had its limits for ‘private enterprise’, at least from the slave-buying end. Rattray has a description of the trade as a monopoly of Ashanti stools, of which some Kwahu informants had some recollection. (Rattray, R. S., Ashanti Law and Constitution (O.U.P., 1929), 109–11.Google Scholar See also Busia, K. A., The Position of the Chief in the Modern Political Systems of Ashanti (O.U.P., 1951), 79–80;Google ScholarMeyerowitz, Eva L. R., Sacred State of the Akan (Faber, 1951), 206 (Mrs Meyerowitz also quotes Bowdich on this); and Winwood Reade, Ashantee Campaign (1874), 416.)Google Scholar

6 Cf. Rattray, R. S., Ashanti Law and Constitution, p. 36,Google Scholar and Wolfson, Freda, Pageant of Ghana (O.U.P., 1958), 182–7.Google Scholar

7 This is a tribal title commonly used imprecisely, and I am not sure that it is used precisely here. The Zambrama comprise several groups speaking the Zerma dialect of the Songhai language, roughly extending over an area covering part of Northern Nigeria and along the Niger from Dosso and Niamey north to about Gao. (See Rouch, Jean, Notes on Migrations into the Gold Coast (Musée de l'Homme, Paris, 1954), English translation, mimeographed, by P. E. O. and J. B. Heigham, pp. 11–12.)Google Scholar

8 Tramma—a term not now used, or even known in this sense by younger traders.Google Scholar

9 This is similar to the middlemen function at the coast in the rubber trade later, at the turn of the century, mentioned by informants. Both the lodging and commission systems were still practised in Kumasi in 1959. Cf. Garlick, Peter C., ‘The French trade de nouveau’, Economic Bulletin (Economic Society of Ghana, 02 1959.)Google Scholar

10 Bevin, H. J., ‘Some notes on Gold Coast exports i886–1919’, Economic Bulletin (Economic Society of Ghana, 01 1960).Google Scholar

11 The Gold Coast Census of Population (1891), 23, has a note on rubber adulteration, and on price differences between Accra and Cape Coast.Google Scholar

12 There was general agreement among old traders on this, but one informant, born in Cape Coast, was the son of an Ashanti middleman trading in rubber there.Google Scholar

13 The middleman trade of the coastal tribes is mentioned in Winwood Reade, op cit., 121; and Whitford, John, Trading Life in Western Africa (1877), 6.Google Scholar

14 One informant suggested that this was probably the reason for the introduction of advances by the big firms on the cocoa crop. The local agents of competing firms wanted to ensure their supplies of cocoa. There was no such system in the rubber trade, though something like it existed in the palm-oil industry of southern Nigeria.Google Scholar

15 Note on the Accra–Kumasi railway. The Sekondi–Kumasi line was completed in 1903. The Accra–Kumasi line was started in 1909, and the various sections of the line were opened as follows: Accra–Nsawam, 1910; Nsawam–Mangoase, 1913; Mangoase–Koforidua, 1915; Koforidua–Tafo, 1917. Work continued from the termini, Kumasi and Tafo: Kumasi– Juaso, 1922; Tafo–Nkawkaw, 1922; Juaso–Nkawkaw (completing the Accra-Kumasi line), 1923. (The Gold Coast Handbook (1928), 123.)Google Scholar

16 Before the great slump, the constituent firms of the United Africa Company (before the merger) had ten stores between them in New Mangoase, according to one old trader there.Google Scholar

17 Wallis, J. R., ‘The Kwahus—their connexion with the Afram Plains’, Transactions of the Gold Coast and Togoland Historical Society, vol I, part III(Achimota, 1953); and the personal recollections of Nana Charles Yaw Kumnipah, Bamuhene of Obo. Mr Wallis's article stimulated many of my questions.Google Scholar

18 There is a belief among the Kwahu that they will not succeed in business in Kumasi, and it is well known that they prefer the 100-mite journey south to Accra to the 60-mile journey west to Kumasi. They gave a number of reasons for this dislike of trading in Kumasi; for example, their earlier fear of the Ashanti; that Kumasi's trade is too seasonal; that the Ashanti are too fond of going to law over the most minor matters and, as time hasgone on, the pull of relatives settled in Accra. Most of the Kwahu in trade in Kumasi were employees of the big firms, or small market traders of whom many were women whose husbands had other occupations.Google Scholar

19 Mary Kingsley spoke deprecatingly of some of the skills, including tailoring, which were ‘not at present wanted’ but were being taught by the missions. All the missions had either already started technical schools or were collecting money to start them, she said, and ‘any technical school is better than non’ (Travels in West Africa (1897), 28, 669). Tailoring was being taught by the Basel Mission according to the Guggisbergs (p. 318), though not at Abetifi, according to the Rev. B. F. Ansong (who, born in 1876, was the only surviving member of the first class of twelve students at Abetifi). This may account for the more expert skills possessed, for example, by Ewe tailors.Google Scholar

20 Cf. Gold Coast Handbook (1923), 327–9.Google Scholar

21 Ahenemma means children of chiefs. It was suggested that this name had to do with chiefs, linguists and ‘royals’ who were entitled in the past to wear sandals. Sandals were significant in Akan ceremonial. While the number of ahenemma makers in Accra was small, the Kwahu were well represented, others being Ashanti, Akim, and Ga. Nearly all the makers of rubber sandals were Kwahu.Google Scholar

22 The 1921 Census figures were: Abetifi 3,874; Obo 3,800. The 1948 Census showed Obo (3,657) in third place in Kwahu, behind Nkawkaw (5,043) and Abetifi (4,030). Nkawkaw had 15,000 in the 1960 Census.Google Scholar

22 Moore, , Decima, , and Guggisberg, F.G. (Sir Gordon and Lady Guggisberg), We Two in West Africa (Heineman, 1909), 282.Google Scholar

24 An earlier rapid estimate, made from assessments of the cost of building from a walk round the outside, was made by two research assistants, Mr F. Prempeh and Mr F. A. Tawiah (Mr Tawiah had shared the cost of putting up his family house in Kwahu). They estimated the total cost of 129 houses, including some cement-faced swish houses, at over £400,000. It was because this figure seemed so high that it was thought worth while to check with a more detailed survey.Google Scholar

25 In a check made in December 1961, forty-six houses were described as having been built since the war (usually ‘since the looting’ of 1948). Most of these had been built by traders.Google Scholar

26 The only comparison that I have, however, is the cost of a funeral of a big Kwahu business man from nearby Mpraeso, who had traded in Accra for many years. His funeral rites in Accra and Mpraeso in 1956 cost the family £1,050 of which, they said, they got back £400 in donations. One records the alleged costs of funerals with reserve, but these are acceptable figures according to other Kwahu informants in a position to know.Google Scholar

27 Cf. Peter C. Garlick, ‘African-owned private-enterprise company formation in Ghan’ Economic Bulletin, Economic Society of Ghan, Accra, February 1960.Google Scholar