The Ewe: A Case of Aggressive Solidarity
Unlike for Wolof-speakers or Temne-speakers, the ethnic identity of âthe Eweâ was an issue of public and even international debate from the 1940s. Their spokesmen won some fame as the first case of an African political movement attempting to use the stage of the United Nations.1 The Ewe unity movement seemed to be an institution with ancient roots, defined through identification with a common ethnicity.2 However, for the Ewe-speakers like for the Wolof and Temne, the interrelations of the different layers of identifications are complex and it is crucial to understand how they âsoldâ themselves to European residents and colonisers over the decades.
The relation between Ewe identification and Avatime identification is reminiscent of the complex relationship between the categories of âWolofâ and âSereerâ in coastal Senegambia. Today, the Avatime speak both the Central Togo minority language of the same name and Ewe. Their historical vision regards the Avatime as second-comers in an area having been inhabited by a quasi-mythical older population, the so-called âBayasâ, and as having arrived before any Ewe-speakers. However, the more significant event in this respect is the Asante invasion of the late 1860s.3 During these struggles, the Avatime presented their relationship to other Ewe-speakers as a military
The Avatime thus had a continuous relation with the larger ensemble of âthe Eweâ in the late nineteenth century and the twentieth century.
At first glance, Ewe group mobilisation seems exceptional, and the experience of the group has attracted much interest in scholarly research on sub-Saharan Africa. Their activity appears to be an impressive protest against artificial division by a colonial border (Maps 6 and 7).5 As Togo became, from 1919, a League of Nations trusteeship territory, then a United Nations mandate administered by the French and British colonial powers, the question of Ewe
In post-colonial Ghana, the Ewe seem to have followed a distinctive voting pattern. They were opponents of various Ghanaian presidents before 1979. In the 1980s, they turned into staunch supporters of Flight-Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings and his successors under the National Democratic Congress (ndc).7
In the more authoritarian post-colonial country of Togo under Gbassinje Eyadéma, the military ruler in power since his coup dâétat of 1967, the role of Ewe-ness in politics has been more severely limited. While local populations in the south of Togo continue to regard themselves as âEweâ, ethnic identification has receded as a factor of political group behaviour. Before Eyadémaâs introduction of single-party rule in the late 1960s, both dominant parties â the Comité dâUnion Togolaise (cut) and the Parti Togolais du Progrès (ptp) â were
An additional problem is the question of whether particular communities belong ultimately to the group of Ewe-speakers or not. The community of Accra, under the rule of the Ga Manche, and the communities of Ada on the western side of the Volta River close to its mouth, and those of Krobo with the towns of Odumase and Kpong, form a western socio-geographic boundary of âEwelandâ. Those communities speak Gã or Adangme, which distinguishes them from the Ewe, although they actually claimed political influence over Ewe-speaking communities during the first half of the nineteenth century.10 One particular Adangme-speaking group, the Agotime, live as a pocket among Ewe-speakers. Further to the north-west, Ewe-speakers bordered Twi-speaking groups. Akwamu, a small pre-colonial political entity, was the most immediate neighbour, but the relationship with the Asante was the crucial variable in the broader region. The Asante demanded tribute from a number of Ewe-speaking communities, and their invasions in the late 1860s were a traumatic experience for the latter.
To the north, the region of Buem was dominated by Lefana-speakers, a smaller language group, and by the Akposo. The Avatime live in the region between Kpandu to the north and Ho, a second important town centre in the region, to the south. In the east, the regions of Agu, Kuma, and Be, and the area of Notsie, are clearly part of the Ewe-speaking ensemble, but it becomes more complicated with Ge on the coast. Here, the language employed is Guin or Mina, which has similarities to Ewe, but whose alleged origins from the Gã language of the Accra region allow this community to claim that it is distinct from the Ewe-speaking cultural ensemble. While the rulers of Aného, the major town centre of the Ge community, have sometimes presented themselves as overlords of all of southern Togo, it remains questionable whether they ever were in such a situation. The representatives of other communities in Togoâs south-east, such as Glidji, are today unwilling to categorise themselves as âEweâ, and refer to their manifold bonds in the eastward direction.11 As a whole, it is, therefore, quite complicated even to give the current geographical limits of Ewe identifications.
Both Nugent and Lawrance treat the question of local group identifications as being at the heart of their particular perspectives. Nonetheless, while both approaches integrate several examples of conflicting layers of group identification, their implications do not point to the same problems that I intend to analyse from a comparative point of view. Nugent is interested, in particular, in how local populations made use of the colonial border, first between the British and the Germans, from 1884 to 1914, then between the British and the French from 1914 to 1957. Moreover, his study favours Likpe and the region of Buem over the Ewe-speaking areas to the south and south-east. Finally, Nugent does not concern himself with Ewe or non-Ewe group relations before the First World War.12
Lawrance focuses on a very particular perspective, which he calls the âperi-urbanâ dimension of âEwe identityâ: he concentrates on Ewe-speakers as inhabitants of the surrounding towns of a large city â Lomé â where an exceptional network of roads and railroads would have created an extraordinary setting for political mobilisation.13 This approach is stimulating â and Nugentâs even more so â but it does not question the basic principle of Ewe ethnic solidarity, nor does it discuss any alternative concepts to Ewe-ness. It is therefore challenging to focus on the engagement of the different groups and individuals
Sandra Greene regards Ewe identification as a principle mainly formulated in the 1930s, as a weapon in the struggle for resources in the Gold Coast, which was on its way towards modernisation. For the Wifeme group in Anlo â a pre-colonial state ruled by Ewe-speakers â Greene has shown that the view of the Wifeme as âstrangersâ was increasingly questioned over the years, as members of the group tended more and more to appeal to a joint âEwe identityâ that connected them to the other clans and kinship groups within the state.14
Ewe-speaking groups had contact with the Atlantic world through their early participation in the slave trade. Many of the local traditions collected by British anthropologists, above all in the 1920s, point to a strong engagement of different local groups in the trade.15 Aného (âLittle Popoâ) was the largest of the small ports of the immediate coastline of the later colony of Togo.16 Far more important, however, was the port of Ouidah with its three European fortresses, in present-day Benin, which was linked to the Ewe-speaking areas further westwards. This also brought the Ewe-speakers into indirect contact with the Kingdom of Dahomey, although Dahomean political activity was oriented eastwards.17 On the western side of the coastline, Keta was the most important slaving port for communities living close to the Volta River.
After colonial conquest, the different European powers drew borderlines that had an impact above all on the viability of trade networks in the region. They also proceeded with a rationalisation of power structures, and modified the latter through the organisation of âindirect ruleâ. German officials had a tendency to weaken rather than to strengthen existing political structures, while the French gave part of the local power back to the chefs de canton, but held them on a short leash.18 In contrast, British administrators believed, long before the protest movement of Ewe spokesmen in the 1940s, in the prior
Today, the Ewe-speakers â if we exclude Adangme-speakers and Guin-Mina-speakers â are a community of roughly one million individuals.20 According to Jakob Spieth, missionary of the Norddeutsche Missionsgesellschaft (or Bremen Mission) and author of a monumental account on the âEwe tribesâ based on interviews conducted in the early twentieth century, the Ewe-speakers were proud of their language, and used it strongly for their self-definition.21 Nevertheless, we have to take into account the bilingualism of many individuals in the region, which makes the definition of one single âEweâ identification through language alone rather complicated. Also, concrete regulations for marriage and family structure seemed to vary âfrom tribe to tribeâ.22
This problem was again expressed, in 1968, by B.W. Hodder who held that âthe area in which the Ewe call themselves Ewe for purposes of political action is not the same as the area inhabited by the Ewe âtribeââ.23
In the last four decades, we have not really come closer to a profound analysis of these contradictions and to a definition of Ewe claims for a collective identity. These complications go back to interpretations of testimonies from as early as 1912.24 It is unsurprising that European officials were frequently quite confused about local genealogies and conflicting claims to chieftaincies. Regents were nominated by the communities and often constituted an additional force, as did stool fathers, often being the authority to nominate the candidates, and Mankradowo, i.e. leading political councillors.25 âAmalgamationâ of divisions in British Togoland led to even more confusion â in extreme cases, such as Nkonya, a divisional chieftaincy could remain vacant for eight years.26
At the heart of these struggles, we find references to a certain notion of Ewe-ness. This is related to the idea, uncritically reiterated in some of the literature, that âthe Eweâ relied on âdecentralisedâ institutions, expressed through the role of the dufia (chief), with restricted powers, and under the obligation to cooperate with a council of elders representing the important lineages, the fomewo.27 A certain political language was connected to such institutions, as different contenders argued about âthe customs of Ewelandâ.28 In such cases, European officials were frequently only too ready to accept such references to customs, and to attack what was presented to them as âmost unusual in an Ewe tribe and [that] should be regarded with suspicionâ.29 However, states whose rulers claimed to be at the core of âEwe identityâ had political institutions that were very similar to those of neighbouring âAkanâ or âAdangmeâ states. Thus, Anlo was, from the eighteenth century onwards, organised with a ruling chief with his âwing chiefsâ, similar to those of Twi-speaking communities like Akwamu or even Asante.30
Patriotism here is extremely local, and very strong: The natural psychological tendency of the Togoland people is not to unite to create greater groups, but to split up into ever smaller ones. I once reported that the people of the Akpini State, for instance, do not call themselves by the name of their State, Akpinis, but rather by the names of their divisions â Kpandus, Sovies, Alavanyos etcetera [sic] in fact the process is more extreme than that; even inside a division people will call themselves by the names of their own towns and think primarily of the interests of their towns before they think of the interests of their division, â thus in the Gbi division they call themselves Wegbes, Attabus, Kpoetas, Blas etcetera, before they call themselves Gbis. And it does not stop there; every week a Captain in some Sub-Chiefâs town collects his people together and they go off to form a new town elsewhere; having set up on a new site he will call himself a Sub-Chief with Captains or Asafohenes of his own.32
Local divisional chiefs who were pressured to become part of larger politico-administrative entities were not at all happy with such developments. British administrators were certain that most chiefs would have preferred simply to continue with the âGerman situationâ, where hundreds of so-called âdivisionsâ had had their autonomous jurisdiction. In 1942, 96 so-called sub-chiefs even petitioned to reinstate the system existing before 1931, in which each group had had its own native court.33
While in the 1920s the different populations of the Ewe-speaking zones of the Gold Coast and the Togolands would intermittently mention their Ewe identification, this is difficult to corroborate as being a long-standing tradition. In the eighteenth century, Danish and British residents at Accra and Keta had had early contacts with the rulers of Akwamu, then a pre-colonial state in the interior, but they knew nothing of any âEweâ category.34 British and German officials, or missionaries from the Basle Mission or the Bremen Mission, were active in carving out this identification. There is nothing to indicate that Ewe-speakers defined themselves as a homogeneous group; only later, did the idea of Ewe unity become fashionable, and linguistic studies seemed to sustain it.35
Moreover, pre-colonial states like Anlo and Peki had a complicated relation to Ewe culture, whether or not we take it as a historical construct. The âtraditional rulerâ of Peki, the Pekihene (or Deiga in Ewe), who later claimed the overlordship of much of the Volta Area, stood, during the first quarter of the nineteenth century, in a close relationship to the very efficient military state of Akwamu; only around 1833 did the rulers of Peki finally break this bond. By then the Pekihene was attempting to profit from close cooperation with Ewe-speaking rulers further eastwards. The case of Anlo is even more complex and needs to be studied with caution.36 The Awoame Fiawo (the âtraditional rulersâ) of Anlo were long-standing allies of the Akwamuhene, in spite of âthe sharp cultural, social and linguistic differences between the two statesâ.37 Although in Anlo oral traditions from the 1980s, elders had an
We find a dispute amongst Ewe-speakers during the colonial period as to which were the âtraditionallyâ important Ewe states. Most traditions emphasised the role of the Pekihene, Kwadzo De iv, and of his successor, built up in the wars against the Anlo and the Asante, and which gave a pre-eminence to the Peki stool (the âtraditionalâ throne). However, even these claims were challenged. In 1946 Adai Kwasi Adem ix of Awudome â then belonging to the administrative Native Authority of Peki State â demanded Awudomeâs separation from Peki on the grounds that both âstatesâ had only once formed a military alliance against the Asante, and that Awudome had by far been a larger territory than Peki. The British district commissioners were unable to verify this argument: hereditary rights seemed unclear.39
Why then has Nana Akuamoah iv, whose people could be said to belong to the same stock and speak the same language of Lefana as the Buems of Jasikan, Borada, Guaman and Nsuta, found it necessary to declare himself independent of Nana Akpandja [the paramount chief of Buem]?41
The two different groups of people, the Kedjeomas (Kudjes) and the Boradas and others, were total strangers to each other and although they all spoke (and still speak) the same Lefana dialect yet that, in itself alone, is no ground for any assumption that all of them were one and the same people similarly as all the Ewe-speaking peoples of the Volta Region or the Nkonyas, Anums and Bosos or the Akims and Akwamus, for instance, do not, besides their common citizenship of the Republic of Ghana, claim a common origin because they all speak Ewe or Guan or Twi, respectively.42
Occasionally, however, local authorities and elders formulated clear antagonisms based on language. In the founding legend of the Ewe-speaking Anfoega community, the Asante war of the 1860s was explicitly explained as a conflict between language groups: the Twi-speakers from the west of the Volta, led by the Asante, battling the Ewe-speakers.43 The idea of solidarity between
Founding legends helped to sustain this possibility. The famous Notsie myth was a principal point of reference for Ewe-ness; and it appeared indeed in many of the local histories collected by Europeans in the first decades of the twentieth century. A number of allegedly Ewe-speaking groups were said to have escaped from the cruel methods of government of a legendary ruler of Notsie, Agokoli iii. The myth appears within the account on the history of Ho by Spieth, and in the early anthropological work of the British scholar-administrator, John Sutherland Rattray, in the 1920s; it was also told to the British officials in the Keta Lagoon Area. The myth is ever-present as a symbol of a broader group experience.44 Even so, a number of non-Ewe communities also claimed to have been in Notsie; details of the myth changed over the decades; and we do not have sufficient archaeological data to confirm elements of the legend.45
The accounts of scholar-administrators such as Captain C.C. Lilley and John Sutherland Rattray were well known to literate persons in Togoland communities, who re-employed these British attempts at classification. Thus, in a succession dispute, the elders of the small community of Tokokoe criticised Lilley for describing their group as not having come from Akwapim sixty years before, but having migrated over hundreds of years.46 These elders held that they knew the communityâs history better than any outsider! Like many other examples, this incident points to the flexibility of information on group origins. At best, an Ewe ethnic identification existed in principle in the late nineteenth century, but perhaps only as a latent possibility in competition with
European administrative information was subject to a number of changes. After the slow disappearance of the Danish presence by 1850, the British showed only lukewarm interest in territorial control over regions close to the Volta River. Until the 1880s, the British were mainly focused on neutralising the power of the Asante State in the west and north-west, and their alliances in the Volta Region were subsidiary to campaigns financed from Accra by the local community. The British interpretation of events east of the Volta River was therefore clearly biased through an âAccranâ perspective.
The sudden German interference in political issues on the âSlave Coastâ changed the whole picture. The protectorate agreement signed in Aného in 1884 consigned large parts of the coastline between Keta and Ouidah to German administration; it provoked a more aggressive competition and led both the British and the Germans to hastily collect information on the local communities. In 1890, the colonial border was finally negotiated, allowing both colonial powers to establish their own style of rule. British administration adhered to the principle of indirect rule and wished to take the cultural and political structures of the âdivisionsâ of Peki and Anlo, which had become part of the colony, as a model. The 1912 report of the Secretary of Native Affairs, Francis Crowther, reflected this bias in favour of claims coming from the rulers of Anlo and Peki, which continued well into the 1920s. In the 1930s and 1940s, the British administration remained generally interested in âtraditionalâ issues, which, they felt, had to be addressed in the regular reports to the League of Nations in Geneva.
The German version of colonialism, on the other hand, was far less attentive to the formulation of local identifications.47 While the Bremen missionaries were quite active in âresearchâ on Ewe culture, the interest of administrators in these issues was limited. The French, who occupied a part of the German colony in 1914, and received Lomé and large parts of the Ewe-speaking zone around the town centres of Kpalimé and Notsie at the end of the decade, shared these attitudes, and concentrated on the economic exploitation of the colony and on taxation. Only with the outbreak of a spectacular revolt at the heart of the Ewe-speaking zone under French rule, did these attitudes begin to change. On 24 and 25 January 1933, Lomé, now the capital of the French mandate in Togo, was the scene of an immense tax revolt, which led to widespread violence and a brutal reaction from the colonial government. As a consequence
Apocalypse Now: The Test for a Larger Ewe Community, 1867â1914
The label âEweâ is not a colonial creation. Paul Nugentâs claim that âEweâ as a category probably appeared for the first time in 1884 does not take into account the missionary activities of the Basle Mission and, in particular, of the Bremen Mission in the Volta area.49 As early as 1858, Reverend J. Bernhard Schlegel wrote an article on the history of the âEweerâ, based on local sources.50 However, it is plausible that this broader label was only reactivated during the traumatic incursion by armies coming into the region from the exterior, that is, in the late 1860s. In that sense, Nugent would be right.
The Asante campaign of the 1860s polarised the whole region.51 Asante commanders and individual Asante war-gang leaders cooperated with some local communities to attack villages and political units on the eastern side of the Volta River. Asante was allied with the Twi-speaking Akwamus â a small
During these conflicts, the alliances in the region bridged linguistic differences between the groups and complicated the picture: for instance, the Ewe-speaking communities of Volo and Dufor sided with Akwamu and were active as pirates on the Volta River; the Ewe-speaking state of Anlo remained allied to Akwamu and Asante; the Gã-speaking community of Accra, and the ruler of Ada, were opposed to the raiders, and allies of the majority of Ewe-speaking groups east of the Volta River. Among the latter groups, Peki was the most prominent of the groups in the anti-Asante coalition. The British only had more detailed information from the areas close to Accra and Keta, and from Basle and Bremen missionaries who at the end of the 1860s lived in Keta, in Odumase in the pre-colonial state of Krobo, and in Ho. This distorts our picture of political activities, because the missionaries were not very interested in political matters and gave only a minimal amount of information. Mounting pressure on them by Asante raids increased their activity in information-gathering.
Anlo, Akwamu, and Asante invasions have a particular role in âtraditionsâ amongst Ewe-speakers and other neighbours. For the Avatime, Lynne Brydon described the experience of the invasion of the late 1860s as a âcataclysmâ shaking the very fundaments of the group â which was anchored in collective memory â and this seems to have been also the case for other communities.54 The different groups regarded as âEweâ and interviewed by Rattray in the 1920s integrated these events into their accounts: the Akwamu wars and the Asante incursions appear as traumatic incidents, which could be reinterpreted as a common âEwe experienceâ.55
For European officials, the 1860s brought the very first experience in the interior of Voltaland. From 1869, British administrators and military officers were active in battling âpiratesâ on the Volta River. Thereby, they met Ewe-speaking communities in the hinterland of the Volta Estuary, such as those of Volo and Dufor. In the late 1870s and the first half of the 1880s, the British enlarged their control of the coastline to include Anlo. In 1888, British troops initiated a campaign to support the pre-colonial state of Peki against groups that had, two decades before, sided with the Asante invaders.
This latter operation made it possible to mark out territory against German activities. It also represented an attempt to avenge the murder of a British envoy in the Volta River Area, who had been assassinated by the followers of the ruler of Taviefe, a small Ewe-speaking community in the vicinity of Ho. For many of the local groups, this British campaign was quickly identified as a chance to take revenge against the few communities who had sided with the Asante and the Akwamu, to which Taviefe notably belonged.56 Local communities participated strongly in âinformingâ about group relations, as they bombarded the British with a huge number of narrations and petitions. The same participation by Ewe-speaking informants happened on the German side and featured in Spiethâs account.57
Some of the early British views are influenced by the Accra Ga Manche (the highest âtraditional rulerâ), Tackie, who claimed the overlordship of the south of the territories in the Volta River Region, including Anlo.58 Informants from Accra described the âVolloes and Dofforsâ as âpart of the Aquamboe tribeâ, and thus âtriballyâ juxtaposed with the other groups in the Volta Region.59 This does not go together with the regional pattern of linguistic groups, but it did not matter: the populations in question were often simply referred to as âeastern tribesâ. The Accra leaders only had rudimentary ideas about the political organisation of the respective groups. The same applies to the coastal region beyond Anlo, where the Accra dignitaries had contacts with allies in the region of
In 1869, the Ada Manche took the role of the advocate of the Agotime populations in dealings with the British authorities, and accused the Anlo of banditry and treason. In Agotime, the situation was obviously critical at the beginning of the dry season. The Ada ruler insisted that he was particularly concerned by the events in Agotime; he named the Agotime his âbrothersâ and strongly solicited a British intervention in the matter.64 This behaviour strengthened local claims of difference from their local neighbours and set the emphasis on language. Agotime informants confirmed this allegiance in 1888, insisting that the Agotime, while now being under âKrepi ruleâ, âbelong to the Adangme tribeâ, and âto Mr. W.N. Ocansey, of Addah [the Ada Manche]â.65
For the Asante incursions, Spieth believes that âwhile this war brought few advantages to the Ewe, it had nonetheless as its consequence that they began to get an understanding of their common tasks, tasks that would lead them to a slow but gradual sense of unityâ.68 In the British documents discussed above, however, the question of Ewe solidarity â so prominent also in retrospect in the interviews held with community leaders and chiefs in the 1920s â did not play the slightest role. On the contrary, one of the conflicts in which British troops and auxiliaries from Accra were most involved, the conflict between the small constituency of Bator and the warriors of Volo and Dufor, and a second that involved the Mafi and the ruler of Anlo â the latter four being allied to the Akwamu â was exactly a military conflict between different Ewe-speaking communities.69 The Fiawo of Volo still commemorated the lost battle against British troops more than 80 years later, as the employment of a British warship left Volo populations with traumatic memories, but without remembering the
The role of the Agbosome, a coastal Ewe-speaking community east of Keta, which had built up, in the bights of Lomé and Ve, a sort of free harbour for contraband trade into the territory of the British colony, was another apparently complex case.72 The British became increasingly interested in this community after the German intrusion and during the partition of the Volta Region between Berlin and London. The Agbosome were active as raiders on Anlo territory, the territory of the mighty Ewe-speaking Awoame Fia, and were long-standing enemies of an Anlo sub-group, the Anyako. Once again, cultural identification was not the principal motive for solidarity here.73
The British tested the coherence of communities on the coast during their conflict with Anlo.74 In January 1885, Assistant Inspector Stewart was sent to Keta and Anloga to obtain information about the prospective enemy. Based on oral reports of his Keta informants, Stewart described âthe Awoonahs and the Anyakosâ as the two major distinct groups, âwith many tribes who pay them feudal allegianceâ.75 With such terminology, Stewart managed to point out the
Still more interesting for our analysis is the fact that informants from the interior described community relations in the region in the sense of a clear difference between Anlo and âthe Crippiesâ (Krepis). However, for years it remained uncertain what exactly âKrepiâ meant.79 This label for an imagined community in the interior of the coastal region practically ceased to exist at the moment of the final Anglo-German partition of the Volta Region.80 The British claimed that they had bought the right of protection over a community named âKrepiâ from the Danish residents in Keta in 1850, but, once again, this was a label without concrete meaning!81 In 1858, Thomas Birch Freeman in his report of a journey into the interior described Kwadzo De iv as âParamount Chief of the Krepisâ. Even so, afterwards he commented that the Pekihene only ruled over his âsubject townsâ, while neighbouring âdivisionsâ such as Sokode
Thirty years later, most observers regarded âKrepiâ as the name of the territory dominated by Peki. Basle missionaries who visited Kpandu and Peki in the 1880s were convinced that the Pekihene was the ruler of a federation over âthe Efeâ (including Kpandu), referring to the alliance against the Asante. The Pekihene, Kwadzo De vi, did his best to give credence to this view, claiming âKrepiâ to be his territory.83 However, most of the other communities involved on the side of Peki and Ho in the Taviefe war, were not at all amused by such discourses of the Pekihene. They resisted accepting Pekiâs lasting overrule, although Kwadzo De initially had British support, as the British hoped to use his ârightsâ as an argument against German territorial claims. The German Commissioner of Togo, Jesko von Puttkamer, in June 1888, obtained information on the western parts of the German protectorate, mainly on Agotime and Ylo, and described âKrepiâ as an ancient âfederationâ, which had included Peki, Akwamu, Avatime, Agotime and others of the Volta Region communities and had ceased to exist sometime before 1850.84
The Avatime made a competing claim. In 1888, Adzatekpor of Vane, the ruler (and later paramount chief) of Avatime, had still been virtually unknown to British officials.85 However, in 1894 the Avatime received a British confirmation that they were the rulers of the former state of Krepi (although they were
In 1888, the Taviefe War, starting with the murder of British Assistant Inspector John Scott Dalrymple on 11 May 1888, again allowed for a refinement of local identifications and regional solidarities between the British conquerors and Ewe-speaking groups.89 Dalrympleâs mission had been to discipline Taviefe, Matse, and Adaklu, former allies of the Asante and Akwamu in 1870 and opponents of Peki between 1875 and 1877 â information on their âbehaviourâ had come from Kwadzo De vi and the ruler (Howusu) of Ho, and they were described as âtraitorsâ to the Ewe-speaking community.90 The British inspector had defined Kwadzo De vi as legitimate king âof all of Krepiâ threatened by unruly subjects. The British neither understood the interest of the Peki ruler in presenting the facts in a particular way, nor did they see that the alliance of the Pekihene included a number of Twi-speakers, in particular from Boso and Anum.91
After the failure of a planned peace conference with the Taviefe ruler, Bele Kobina, and Dalrympleâs death, an alliance organised by the British district
Buem, further to the north and at the margins of the Ewe-speaking area, had interested the British because of its strategic position for inland trade. The British had also (quite erroneously) concluded that the inhabitants of Buem spoke a language similar to the Ewe-speakers and were thus ânaturallyâ members of a British protectorate.95 Further south, the German and the British governments continued to discuss the âpossession rightsâ over Kpandu, Ho, Avatime, and Adaklu, until the border was fixed in 1890, with most of these âdivisionsâ remaining in German territory, and the Adaklu villages divided between the Keta District of the Gold Coast and the Misahöhe District of German Togo.96
As British officials struggled to come to an âauthenticâ organisation of local political units, many participants from the African side used their chance to sell themselves as rulers of their respective community. Issues of being an ethnolinguistic group did not play a role in that process. Smaller communities, such as Taviefe, Adaklu, or Ho, and pre-colonial states with Ewe-speaking rulers, such as Anlo and Peki, dominated questions of group identification. However, the hardening of the colonial border had an impact on categories, as had missionaries of the Bremen Mission in defining Ewe culture and politics. These missionaries and some linguists and early anthropologists, showed a
It is very easy to claim, with hindsight, that the different Ewe-speaking communities had already had a strong feeling of unity under German rule.99 However, there is no proof for such a hypothesis. German administrators were very much focused on labour issues, and attempts at engaging with community structures were mainly to be found where the ever-present problem of labour and labour evasion was particularly acute, as in the region of Sukpe. In this region, the administrator defined local populations as being members of the âAveno tribeâ, who had settled in the region only in 1850. These âAvenosâ would have bought land from the Ave, Agotime, and Adaklu communities, earlier settlers in the region.100 However, while in these concrete cases the Germans commented on the existence of different âdivisionsâ, we find little inclination (and information) to point out larger solidarities or to install
In contrast, the British (as in the Gambia or in Sierra Leone) wished to create a chieftaincy based on âtraditional rulesâ â which in Togoland opened the gate to constant disputes. In Ewe-speaking communities, a typical cause of disputes was the previously mentioned role of the âstool fatherâ (the zikpuito), whose function was unclear to the colonial rulers.102 With their agenda, the British had a clear objective of classifying populations according to their imagined larger affiliation. After 1915, the British imported these patterns into the western part of former German Togo, based on some established models. At the same time, not only British rule but also the Ewe language expanded. Ewe entered in the 1890s into regions such as South Akposo; in 1900, the Bremen Mission station official at Amedzofe, Ernst Bürgi, also reported a spectacular rise in the use of the language.103 This process started with an influx of refugees from the area between Lomé and Kpalimé, fleeing northwards from the reprisals of German soldiers and their auxiliaries. Other local populations also discovered the language to be useful.104 Moreover, German Catholic and Protestant missionaries contributed to this process by using Ewe as the principal language in education and codifying it, which was grudgingly accepted by the German colonial government. From 1904 onwards, an Ewe-speaking elite formulated its own interests, including in language politics.105 These elites were very vocal after the British conquest in 1914.
However, European rulers remained unsure as to how to employ âEweâ as a group label. In geographic terms, the Germans called the area of Asome,
In general, the experiences after colonial conquest do not confirm the hypothesis of a strong and continuous pan-Ewe sentiment that challenged colonial boundaries. Many locals attempted to obtain improved positions by reference to former allegiances and dependencies. âEwe-nessâ was a marginal part of this picture at best â in spite of the linguistic efforts of the missionaries.
The New Border and the Quest for âAuthenticâ Arrangements: British and French Readjustments of âEweâ Institutions after the First World War, 1914â1945
The French and British invasions of the German colony of Togo led to an extension, and, eventually, to an exacerbation of the administrative separation of different groups of Ewe-speakers. Local elites attempted, however, to âchooseâ what they regarded as the more benign European power of tutelage; and to improve trade contacts, as Lomé merchants hoped for free access to the port of Keta. Important spokesmen of the coastal elite, such as Octaviano Olympio, actively lobbied for British rule over Lomé. However, it has to be asked how far these actions were motivated by a feeling of Ewe-ness, as was suggested by D.E.K. Amenumey.109
Two examples show the complexity of this interpretation. During the First World War, the Awoame Fia, Togbe Sri ii, continued with the claims of overlordship of the eastern Volta Region, which Anlo rulers had already been formulated in the 1860s and 1870s. This explains the Anlo war effort in favour of the British side. Further east, the Lawson family in Aného appears to have claimed in 1922, under French rule, overlordship of populations in the south of Togo. However, again the label of âEweâ is nowhere employed in the evidence.110 From a broader perspective, it is also significant that we find no attempt by local populations to bring the question of the perils of the âEwe communityâ before the League of Nations. European officials would have been sensitive to identifying what they saw as correct âtribalâ settings. âThe Eweâ, however, did not play a prominent role in European reports on the Togoland mandate written in the 1920s. In the British 1927 report on the Togoland mandate sent to the League of Nations, the authors, while briefly mentioning the Ewe language, recommended installing âAkanâ structures of local government wherever possible!111 Even in the anthropological work of the famous scholar-administrator John S. Rattray, who interviewed communities about their Notsie experience, the fact of âEwe-nessâ and wish for Ewe unity do not at all appear.112
After the British conquest of western and southern Togo in 1914/15, claimants from the Gold Coast Colony and the Gold Coast Protectorate demanded their rights of political rule over ânatives from Togolandâ. The âTogoland communitiesâ themselves were more interested in revising local hierarchies installed by the Germans, like of the Adele paramount chief over the Adjuti. The other goal was to prevent a return of the German administration. In Ho, Noepe, Adame, Aflao, and Lomé, the chiefs petitioned for the continuation of British rule, pointing to German atrocities with regard to forced labour, violent tax requisition, and corporal punishment; and the Anfoega tried to free themselves from the Kpandu authority, imposed on them by the
Contrary to Amenumeyâs assumptions, local populations did not mention any idea of Ewe cohesion, and although some held that they âdo not want the Krepe tribe again split up between two separate European Governmentsâ; others, like the Agotime, now insisted that they had nothing to do with âKrepiâ.114 Indeed, communities in Togoland under British mandate were content to see the power of Anlo and Peki curtailed. The British obsession with the creation of ânative statesâ generated new tensions, as many chiefs refused any participation in that. To give one representative example: when the âDivisional Chiefâ of Taingbe applied to exert a levy to improve the infrastructure of Taingbe Town, he learned he was no longer the legal authority entitled to charge such a levy.115 In British administrative politics, ânative jurisdictionâ and ânative treasuryâ became the privilege of âstatesâ that had been a product of âamalgamated divisionsâ, which only created more problems. The French officials, while choosing a less elaborate terminology, basically attempted the same: local communities were put into chefferies de canton, without consultation.
In subsequent community conflicts before the 1940s, previous struggles between pre-colonial states were much more a point of reference than ethnic solidarity. One good example for British Togoland is the land conflict between the inhabitants of Taingbe and Tokokoe (in the zone north-east of Ho). Both sides mobilised historical âtraditionâ, but did not refer at all to their common âEwe pastâ. During a stool dispute within Tokokoe, between Agamah and Buankrah ii, which remained a constant problem through the whole of the
The question of the new border and its effects were another obvious problem. Most extreme was the situation of Agotime, where 29 villages became part of the French zone, while two villages, including the village of Kpetoe of the Agotime head chief, remained under the British.117 Another difficulty was the continuous importance of the former border between German Togo and the British Gold Coast Colony, now translated into an administrative border between Gold Coast and Togoland under British mandate. Some chiefs wished to settle old scores, as in the case of Agbosome, which continued its aggressive politics from the nineteenth century. The chief of Agbosome laid claim to the towns of Some and Have and thereby challenged Anlo rule.118 In all these conflicts, demands of the former pre-colonial states and the interests of smaller communities were far more important than any idea of larger (ethnic) group solidarity.
On the French side of the mandate, the situation was similar. In a 1930 report on the situation in the Cercle of Klouto, with the administrative centres of Kpalimé and Misahöhe, the French dealt with the âEwe problemâ in a very ambivalent way. The district commissioner argued that even in view of the common Notsie legend, the âEwe raceâ did not seem to know any more sustained solidarity. âThe village is the true ethnic groupâ, the French commented on the fragmentation of political solidarity in the area. The same comment applied to the border regions of Mission Tové and Akoviepe.119
The main pressures of the interwar period came, once again, from the âtraditional statesâ in the region, Anlo and Peki. In particular, the Pekihene hoped after 1915 for the creation of a larger regional paramountcy and reminded the British of earlier promises. The chiefs of Anfoega, Hlefi, Dsocho, Goviefe and Akrofu, Adaklu, Agotime, Dakpa, Zofe, Logba, and Botoku were all against any such paramountcy; the inhabitants of Akuope and Taingbe were even more explicit about the historical background, and they accused Peki of passiveness during their 1860s conflict with Anlo; and even in Abutia, which was initially positive, integration into Peki State was complicated.120
In the latter case, the Pekihene demanded the integration of Abutia into the state between the early 1920s and 1945, until the final refusal of the head chief of Abutia in July 1945 and Abutiaâs admission into the newly created Asogli State in Togoland. The Asogli solution helped to favourably solve land conflicts with neighbours.121 Within Abutia, the sub-chief of Abutia Kloe â one of Abutiaâs communities â tried to obtain Pekiâs help against his own paramount chief and nearly provoked a Peki intervention under Kwadzo De X. This initiative was brought down with British support.122 The ruler of the second largest community in the Abutia âdivisionâ, the Dufiaga (sub-chief) of Agove, Adja Dra V, had long been uninterested in the Peki initiatives. However, in 1933, he suddenly decided to back the petitions coming from Peki, and sent representatives into the Peki State Council. The conflicts with the paramount chief of
In 1945, in a last-minute attempt, the Agove sub-chief, S.K. Kumah, and the asafohene (military society leader) of Teti (the central division), Okai Debra, allied to call for integration of Abutia into Peki. The situation was little favourable for such an attempt: the Peki Ruler, Kwadzo De X, was seriously ill, and the British were not eager to change their established line of politics.124 Even so, Kumah and Debra mobilised part of the local populations, and organised a showdown at a divisional meeting of Abutia, where the Regent of Peki, Ayim V, and the Howusu of Ho as President of Asogli State, explained their claims. Even so, the attempt did not win a majority except in Agove, and in spite of the massive protests of the Peki authorities, the British urged Ayim V and his successor as regent, Donko, to renounce their claims. In the end, the Peki initiative remained fruitless.125
We have discussed the Peki-Abutia affair in so much detail because it was exemplary for many similar cases of the interwar period. Against their earlier preferences before 1914, in which the British had favoured a regrouping of
The experience of the Anlo rulers was similar: after their engagement for a larger political unit with common cultural characteristics during the First World War, they were unable even to create stronger relations with the Adaklu chiefs as a neighbouring community. Both groups were Ewe-speakers, adherent to a common version of the Notsie legend, and had been allies of the Asante in the late 1860s. However, this was insufficient.127 Discord between the two communities was expressed in an âoral traditionâ centred on an attack of Anlo units against Adaklu villages shortly after 1870, which had forced the Adaklu to flee into their strongholds near Adaklu Mountain. The respective tradition was rebuilt in the 1920s against attempts at integrating Adaklu villages into Anlo State.128 In a second oral tradition, reinterpreting events during the mythical exodus from Notsie, the Adaklu founding father, Foli Kuma, was described as equal of the founder of Anlo, Wenya. This tradition thus refused Anlo any pre-eminence.129
Thus Adaklu elites moulded their own, independent politics in the region, and refused integration into Anlo, but also into the new Asogli State around Ho. With regard to the latter, the Adaklu spokesmen claimed that subjects of the Howusu had regularly stolen land from them and were therefore long-standing enemies.130 When British pressure on Adaklu community leaders became stronger, the Adaklu adapted their traditions: they now held that their
Both these conflicting goals of different communities, and the very existence of the territorial border between the Gold Coast Colony and Togoland, prevented a strengthening of Anlo State as a genuine Ewe-speaking political unit. British officials believed that it was easier first to tackle the question of Ewe-speaking groups that stood under the rule of the Ada Manche â also situated in the Gold Coast Colony â and to profit in this context from the circumstance that the paramount chief of Ada State had been suspended.134 The district commissioners of Keta and Ada assembled the âEwe chiefsâ of Ada State in Tefle and inquired whether they wished to leave Ada overlordship. Most of those chiefs indeed claimed they would prefer to belong to Anlo, as they said âfor reasons of tribal linksâ â using the British âtribalâ argument. Some chiefs, such as of Sukpe and Bator, who had been suspended and expected to be destooled before the British initiative took shape, used the development to save their position.135 Thus, the divisions of Agave, Sukpe, Tefle, Vume, Bakpa, Bator, and Mepe â âthe Ewe Divisionsâ â within Ada State, made a ârequest for
Agave is the best illustrated of these cases. The Agave did not argue with questions of âEwe identityâ, but focused on relations between political entities: they claimed they had fought constant wars with Anlo, and that they had been the overlords of the Ada Manche and were thus on the same level as the Awoame Fia! Language was only an additional argument, with the Agave pointing out that as Ewe-speakers they were distinct from Adaâs Adangme-speakers. It is remarkable that they styled themselves with Ewe titles on this particular occasion, but relied elsewhere on a political terminology, the âwing systemâ, that was normally defined as âAkanâ.137 As a whole, the demand of Ewe-speaking rulers from Ada State was pending for a period, and then merged into the large current of Ewe activities of the immediate post-Second World War years, which I will analyse below.
In Anlo State itself, the rhetorics of power also became increasingly confused, as the Awoame Fia lost control over the state council based in Anloga, which many chiefs of the neighbouring âdivisionsâ did not attend anymore. In 1943, the âEwe Unionâ, a nascent pan-Ewe institution counting in its ranks many âintellectualsâ and a good part of the less influential chiefs of the state, showed its strength. The Awoame Fiaâs tax policy had enraged many of the local chiefs even further, and had provoked the opposition of the Ewe Union.138 However, the main thrust of resistance against any more centralised politics came from the old Anlo capital of Anloga, whose headmen, in 1944/45, virtually paralysed Anlo State.139
Doubtless, the colonial border between German and British, then between French and British possessions, created its own dynamics that had an effect on identifications. Illicit commerce and seizures of cattle and even land were typical.140 In Kuma on French territory, villagers complained about the confiscation of their lands lying in the now-British zone by Togoland villagers, with the alleged tacit support of the administration; in the opposite direction, villagers of Bogo Achlo in the French zone had occupied land belonging to peasants of Baglo, who were now living in British Togoland.141 Such acts, started first during the general instability of the war years, created new, long-lasting enmities.
Migration from the French into the British mandate also became typical. Those migrants were described by the inhabitants of the Volta area as ânatives of the French zoneâ and became the occasional victims of xenophobic rhetoric from a âproto-nationalâ perspective, even if they were Ewe-speaking. Therefore, aside from local discourses, and before the idea of Ewe unity became important, the image of the âproto-nationalâ stranger, with reference to the colonial territory of origin, already had an impact.142 There were some more âethnicallyâ oriented exceptions to this rule. An early example was given by the political evolution of Buem in the British zone, where the populations were, in their large majority, not Ewe-speakers and did not share in the Notsie tradition.143 As in the cases of Asogli and Awatime States, British administrators wanted to
Hence, we do not find an ethnic Ewe movement in the interwar period, and Ewe identifications were weak if they existed. The question is whether, as Amenumey suggests, such solidarities were simply implicit, or if incidents like the tax revolt in Lomé on 23 January 1933 can be read as expression of Ewe unity, as is held by Benjamin Lawrance. We do not have the slightest evidence in that regard, to say the least.147 As exemplified by the Bund der
Succession conflicts under the French mandate were similar to situations in British Togoland â and frequent in the rural constituencies, in particular those close to Kpalimé, even with the theoretically stricter French control of African authorities. In Agu-Nyogbo, one of the large districts, the death of the paramount chief, Kofi Pebi, in 1939, led to weeks-long troubles.149 In the case of Danyi, historical âtraditionsâ were mobilised: Paramount Chief Bassa having been replaced by Gabla, there was an intense production of evidence relating to the dispute, promoted by an Ewe Presbyterian Church (epc) preacher from Kete-Krachi, Reverend Wampah. This âtraditionâ separated two groups in the region, the Daye Kakpa and the Daye Atigba, which both had Ewe origins and had been in Notsie before migration. According to this âtraditionâ it had always been the first-comer of the two groups that had had the right to the paramountcy.150
In other cases, land was at stake: such as between the two Kpele villages of Goudève and Elé, or Woame and Mayondi. Issues were complicated if the land in question was to be found between two villages lying in different cantons, such as between Bogo Achlo and Daye.151 Only rarely did the creation of âtraditional historiesâ to be used in land disputes have to do with Ewe myths. Finally, even the immigration of Muslim populations from the north into the zongos (âMuslim quartersâ) of Lomé and Kpalimé failed to trigger a discourse on âothernessâ directed against northerners on the part of the Ewe-speakers.152 Thus mobilisation under ethnic banners never became a particularity of the Ewe-speaking communities of Lomé, Kpalimé, and Tsévié, at least not before 1945.
We are Natives of that part of Togoland known as the French Togoland and we are called and styled âGanyiâ by all the people who are described by the Gold Coast Government as the Ewe speaking people. We are entirely a race or tribe different and distinct from the rest of the Ewe speaking people. We have different customs and ceremonies. Our ceremonial rites are entirely different. Our names are distinct from the rest of the Ewe People and thus you see, we do not form part of either the Anlos and the Pekis who are known as the Ewe speaking people.154
Exaggerations abounded during this power struggle between different Ewe-speaking or related groups in Accra. However, whenever such groups felt threatened, as by Paramount Chief Keami Osaabo in the Akwapim town of Nsawam, they eventually applied to the British authorities pointing to their common âEwe nationalityâ.155
Even so, in the British-controlled territories, most conflicts and discussions between Ewe-speakers tended towards rather âregularâ land conflicts, and were unrelated to any questions of Ewe solidarity. The relations between the settlements of Ziavi and Klepe (west of Ho) are typical for such conflicts.156 Sometimes, these land conflicts were reported upon in connection to histories of loyalty and betrayal, such as in the conflicts between the Fiervier community and the chief of Sukpe, both Ewe-speaking units within Ada State before 1945. Each side claimed that the other had immigrated into the land and had been sheltered by their own group, with the Fiervier suggesting that the Sukpe had illegally taken over power. This conflict went on in the 1940s when both entities belonged to the Tongu Confederacy, with the Sukpe paramountcy finally being confirmed through the intervention of the colonial power.157
In Sokode Division, smaller communities also mobilised history to escape from the allegedly abusive Sokode paramount chief. Thus the Hoviepe elders complained they had once, in the battles against Asante, Akwamu, and Taviefe, accepted the Fia of Sokode, Ampim Danku ii, as leader in a war alliance. Now, the current Sokode chief, Tenkloe Koku ii, had created a false myth of the Hoviepe settlers coming from Klepe. Gbogame, another âsubdivisionâ of Sokode, followed the Hoviepe initiative and also claimed âindependenceâ from a false political dependency.158
Finally, we need to come back to identifications in Agotime during the interwar period. The Dufia of Agotime living in Kpetoe, Hene Hoe Keteku ii, was subject to opposition in the 1920s, as he was challenged by a legal complaint from the Chief of Agotime Afegame, Mahumasro, before the Supreme Court of the Gold Coast. The latter claimed that the paramount chiefs of âthe Agotime nationâ had âalwaysâ come from Afegame and that the preference for Kpetoe had been a product of German misunderstandings and manipulation by one Mati Sukpor. After Ketekuâs destoolment, i.e. his removal, the Afegame claim was again intensified in the early 1940s, with the mankrado in Afegame also advocating Agotimeâs integration into Asogli.159 Again, an opposition between rightful
All in all, the British may have hoped, in the interwar period, for a pan-Ewe âtribalâ feeling that would have allowed them to better control the territory. As Anlo or Peki were too weak to be used for political matters in Togoland, some British authorities had indeed hoped in the 1930s that âan Ewe Confederacy will in due course settle this matterâ. This did not seem to happen.161 Ironically, however, the category of Ewe unity suddenly enjoyed unexpected successes after 1945, and the British would in the end be forced to fight this idea of unity.
The International Agenda: Ewe-ness as an Anti-colonial Weapon, 1945â1957
The panorama of group mobilisation in the Trans-Volta region, which in the interwar period gave little room for discussions of Ewe community sentiment, changed completely in the 1940s. In 1945, the question of Ewe unification seemed easily to overshadow all the other political problems. A strong lobby group of so-called Ewe âunificationistsâ had a clear intuition for the French political and military weakness after the war, and its members started an impressive campaign.162 The transition of the official administration of the
The pan-Ewe movement operated, during its roughly two decades of existence, under different labels, but the All Ewe Conference (aec) was the most famous of all those groups. aec leaders initially enjoyed enormous prestige at the local level, instead of being just an elitist movement: from 1945 to 1947, the offspring of the aec as a political party, the Comité dâUnion Togolaise (cut), won the elections in Togo under the French mandate; Sylvanus Olympio became a deputy in the French National Assembly, and the cut dominated the Territorial Assembly in Lomé. By 1948, the party could count on a considerable grass-roots support in southern Togo. This was followed by a period of decline, which was due both to French repression and to disappointment of party members with the apparent failure of the rather ambitious unification plans. The Parti Togolais du Progrès (ptp), the main competitor party, also had its strongest base among Ewe-speakers, but distanced itself from any pan-Ewe programme.165
In British Togoland, the All-Ewe Conference was also influential, but it soon lost out against the Togo Union (tu), later transformed into the Togoland Congress. As aec activists appeared too radically ethnicist, the non Ewe-speakers of the Volta Region refrained from taking part in their initiatives. The tu easily captured these voters and the more moderate Ewe-speaking electorate.
In its early phase the pan-Ewe movement sought a particular âEwe traditionâ, which was both reinvented and popularised through the effort of Ewe-speaking journalism. An important role in this context was played by the Ewe News-Letter, a journal edited by the Anlo-born activist Daniel Chapman. Chapman and his collaborators greatly extended the length and scope of the âtraditionâ, stretching âEwe legendsâ beyond the Notsie myth back to Oyo and the Nigerian city-states. The authors of the Ewe News-Letter also tended to use an inclusive approach that involved all the communities of southern Togoland, whether they were in the end Ewe-speaking or not.166 Chapman also came to the (rather problematic) conclusion that the âpureâ Ewe groups had been âPekiâ, âAnloâ, and âTonguâ, in spite of the fact that the creation of the Tongu Confederacy after the Second World War was mainly a colonial idea.167
British and French officials attempted to formulate a joint position with regard to the Ewe claim, but this was complicated, given that the French regarded this claim as subversive and invented by Communists, and did not have much interest in discussing the âtruthâ behind the ethnic arguments.168 Inside the British administration, the position was more ambiguous. In June 1945, the French commissioner of Togo, Jean Noutary, turned the Ewe argument against them: if a âmajorityâ of the Ewe lived under French rule, this was all the better for them. To prove their point, the French counted all speakers of languages related to Ewe as ethnic Ewe, changing their older categorisations, according to which not more than 14.4 per cent of their mandate was to be seen as âEweâ. It was a particularly weak point of the aec that the movement had no response to these claims.169
For British officials, it was seemingly easier to accept the basic assumption that âthe Eweâ as defined by the activists, were indeed a single unit and that there had previously been âEwe statesâ, such as Peki and Anlo.170 âEwe identityâ now became an issue in the Togoland Reports to the United Nations committee, where the British authors claimed that âEweâ was the majority culture in all of the southern section of Togoland, with the single exception of Buem State, where âAkanâ was said to be dominant. Smaller, non Ewe-speaking groups were said to be totally âeclipsedâ by âthe Ewe or the Akanâ. British officials had thus entirely bought the story of âEwe unityâ: the Central Togo minorities, or the Lefana in Buem, no longer counted.171 Nevertheless, British officials argued that the two mandates could not be integrated into the Gold Coast â although they sympathised with Ewe âtribalâ sentiment.
Officials on both sides of the colonial border were in agreement about seeing a âstrong national feelingâ among Ewe-speaking populations. When Ewe-speakers from Anlo went to clinics recently built in the nearby Lomé area, British officials held that âthe Ewe people do not consider themselves French and British, but simply Eweâ.172 Even so, these observations frequently overlooked the other, parallel, discourses. One of those favoured Togoland identifications over Ewe identifications, and drove some of the All-Ewe Conference activists under British rule into the arms of Kwame Nkrumahâs Convention Peopleâs Party (cpp). The latter benefited from these contradictions by winning a part of the Ewe-speaking electorate of the southern section of Togoland, during the Legislative Assembly Elections of the 1950s and during the Togoland Referendum of 1956. Togolese politicians in French institutions also played on both concepts, that is Togolese versus Ewe identifications.173 Some of the former sympathisers of the Ewe reunification idea
British administrators accepted the claim for an ethnic âEwe identityâ, but worried from the outset about the âchauvinismâ of âthe Ewesâ who wished to marginalise other southern Togoland populations, as for example in Buem.175 However, during the peak of pan-Ewe militancy, in the late 1940s, we even find a conflict within the movement about the definition of âEwe-nessâ. The activists did not want to see a Peki or Anlo dominance within the movement, as those communities were not original âTogolandersâ.176 The meetings of the chiefs of the four existing ânative statesâ on Togoland territory under British mandate, Akpini, Asogli, Awatime, and Buem â officially discussing the nomination of a delegate of the southern section of Togoland to the Legislative Council in Accra â had indeed an ambiguous position towards pan-Ewe statements. The Togo Union rapidly dominated these occasions, and most chiefs lost their sympathies for the more radical positions of the All-Ewe Conference. Therefore, âEwe unificationâ disappeared from the agenda by the late 1940s.177
Between 1944 and 1949, however, the question of âEwe identityâ also became part of a generational conflict. In Anlo, the younger literate populations supporting the Ewe Union campaigned for pan-Ewe activist Daniel Chapman of Achimota as future âEwe representativeâ for the Gold Coast Legislative Council in January 1945, against the candidate of the Awoame Fia, Julius Tamakloe.178 In British Togoland, young activists rebelled against their limited rights under âEwe customsâ, which subordinated them in political communication to their asafofiawo (age set leaders) and their stool fathers. Under the cover of Ewe
The Togo Union and the Togoland Youth Association pushed the Ewe issue increasingly into the background in favour of the joint Togoland discourse â which turned against the âGold Coast Ewesâ organised first in the aec, and, later on, in the cpp. The inhabitants of southern Togoland complained that âforeignersâ were attempting to take over political power in âtheir countryâ.180 In French Togo, the political competition between two âEweâ leaders pursuing distinct programmes lowered the interest in the Ewe issue from the late 1940s. The colonial administration believed in âEwe propagandaâ as a conspiracy by the Nkrumah government in Accra to annex the French-mandated territory.181 This was a misinterpretation. While Sylvanus Olympio and the cut achieved unexpected political success in 1958 and took over political power in the mandate, the Ewe issue had by then long disappeared from the cutâs agenda.
In British Togoland, we find until 1953 an odd parallelism between local demands and British belief in the amalgamation of divisions that followed the strategies of the interwar period. This became obvious during a 1949 meeting of representatives of the four ânative statesâ and of delegates from the âunamalgamated divisionsâ in Sovie. The Ewe issue had disappeared; the All-Ewe Conference was not present; and Ewe-speakers from the Gold Coast Colony were excluded from the discussions.182 In local conflicts, some âEwe
In 1951, in Togoland under British mandate, the pan-Ewe idea had lost its impetus. The question now was whether Togoland could become an independent territory outside of the Gold Coast, and leaders of the Togo Union now accused the Gold Coast cpp of âsubvertingâ the region and lobbied for a common territory for all âTogolandersâ.184 Nevertheless, Nkrumahâs cpp made inroads in parts of the populations of Voltalandâs southern section and won the support of discontented populations of several smaller areas. This was not sufficient to win the referendum for integration into the Gold Coast in the southern part of the trusteeship territory â they received the necessary votes through an overwhelming cpp majority in the north â but the regionalist âTogolanderâ sentiment, even in the south, only had a narrow majority. As the votes were counted as a single regional block, British Togoland finally became Ghanaâs Trans-Volta Togoland District in 1957.185
In French Togo, the cutâs 1958 electoral victory made Olympio the Prime Minister of a now autonomous state, and brought about the countryâs independence in 1960. This could have brought the unification issue back onto the agenda of the larger region, but it did not. Leaders of Olympioâs party were content to establish cut rule in the ârecalcitrantâ parts of the country and to punish ptp supporters through levies for having voted for the âwrong partyâ.186
âThe Bigmen Get Small; The Small Ones Bigâ:188The Regional Scope of the Battle for Autonomy and Resource Allocation
Apart from the international discussion, the reorganisation of Togoland in the British-mandated part, and communal reform on the French side, created a hidden local dimension of conflict and change, in which âEwe mobilisationâ had a different sense.189 Some local struggles involved established paramount rulers and sub-chiefs, others mobilised so-called âyoungmenâ.190 These conflicts appeared, above all, in Anlo and the Tongu Confederacy: they led to the creation of militias â such as by the fiawo of Tefle, Sukpe, and Vume â and to violent clashes in the first half of the 1950s.191 Everyone referred to United Nations trusteeship: in September 1945, the divisional chiefs of the mainly Ewe-speaking communities of Liati, Fudome, and Vli refused to pay
Anlo in the 1940s was a particularly violent case. The nobility of Anloga was annoyed that Togbe Sri ii preferred to live in Keta, close to the office of the British district commissioner.193 The issue of âEwe-nessâ was strategically used to impress the colonial power: the Anloga headmen claimed that the Awoame Fiaâs âabsenceâ damaged the administration of taxes, which led to a lack of funds for the New Africa College, according to them the best such institution âin the entire area occupied by the Ewe speaking tribesâ.194 Also, during the internal debates in Anlo before 1949, representatives of the âEwe partiesâ were duly invited to boost the prestige of the chiefs.195 Reference to Ewe-ness was, however, most useful when it came to excluding groups on âtraditional groundsâ. In 1946, the Awoame Fia of Anlo withdrew authority from the Atiavi Council, and defined the Lostofi clan as autonomous from the Atiavi. Furious, the Atiavi chiefs first tried to convince the Awoame Fia of his âerrorâ. Then, in a long petition to the British authorities, they explained that they were the descendants of the respective Ewe groups coming from Notsie and settling in Anlo, and that the Lostofi were former slaves coming from somewhere else. Thereby, the Atiavi managed to bring ethnic matters to the fore against a local decision regarded as unfair.196 The second issue involved discussions about pre-eminence amongst clans within the states: the members of the kinship group
The Pekihene encountered a period of similar difficulties in the 1940s and the rest of his power eroded. The Fia of Awudome and Benkumhene of Peki State, Togbe Adai Kwasi Adom ix, withdrew from this native state, challenging the âtraditional paramountcyâ of Kwadzo De X of Peki. The Awudome supported this decision with alleged âhistorical traditionâ, claiming that their community had been the first to revolt against Akwamu rule, back in 1829. They also demanded, repeatedly, a United Nations inquiry into the matter. However, the British, who at this point were still convinced that the future lay in Ewe
In the âamalgamated statesâ, problems were similar, and the power of the paramount chiefs waned. In the case of Akpini, the state council in Kpandu failed to intervene in the struggle for the chieftaincy of Wusuta, which had become increasingly violent.203 In Alavanyo, the Akpini State Council also attempted to press the reinstallation of formerly destooled ex-chief Godwin Anku as Atakora V, but failed as much as in Tsrukpe.204 As no established mechanisms had been created for conflict resolution, ânative statesâ such as
In these internal conflicts, the attention was focused on hostilities between the âcentral divisionâ of the ânative statesâ, and groups in other âdivisionsâ, which led to memoranda and reflections on pre-colonial history. The asset of âEwe unityâ, and the related âtraditionsâ, seemed useful for a short time. Even so, very quickly after the peak of international pan-Ewe campaigns, the Ewe issue disappeared as an argument. In 1953, divisional chiefs within the Tongu Confederacy even demanded the deletion of the reference to âEwe statesâ in the State Councils (Colony and Southern Togoland) Ordinance No. 8, to the astonishment of the British administrators.206
Many Togoland communities believed nonetheless that they needed legal protection against future interventions of the Pekihene or of the Awoame Fia: the fear of the âclassicalâ states lingered on. This was in part irrational, but chiefs such as in the Tongu Confederacy tried to shut out the Awoame Fia and the Pekihene from Trans-Volta Togoland regional entities forever. Local chiefs feared historical prerogatives of these âtraditional Ewe rulersâ. Even so, most local rulers did not refrain from strategic alliances with Anlo and Peki, whenever they were politically advantageous.207
A good example of the manoeuvres of population groups between states are the Mafi, who were divided between Anlo and Ada, and later the Tongu Confederacy. In 1912, the British had described this separation as âtraditionalâ. This idea was based on Mafi behaviour in an 1865 war, and indeed supported by the Anlo Mafi Union â an association that included many local dignitaries.208 In the 1940s, however, many leaders of Mafi villages wished to bring the
In a pending case whose resolution remained unclear until 1953, representatives of Mafi communities from both sides of the Gold Coast-Togoland border employed the Notsie myth of âall Ewe tribesâ and the joint exodus.211 A minority part of the communities on Gold Coast territory refused the new arrangement
In some more marginal communities, the use of the Ewe argument in local conflict was even more attractive. We have already seen this for rulers of âEweâ communities which had previously been part of Ada State, who knew how, when it suited them, to play on the concept of Ewe unification to further their interests. In January 1945, spokesmen of these communities had convinced the district commissioner that â56,000 Ewes being controlled by the Ada Mancheâ needed to be liberated. It was unclear how this was supposed to happen. The chief of Agrave, one of those âEwe unitsâ, refused to become a future member of a joint division of the eight communities as he feared Anlo interference.213 Other chiefs agreed with this critique.
Another issue was the relationship of the communities of the Volta Region to the state of Akwamu. The relations between Ewe-speaking locals and the Akwamu authorities â descendants of the âplunderersâ of the 1870s â were particularly interesting. In the 1940s, the region of Volo, now a small fiagadom (rulership), had been exempted from Akwamu rule and become part of the newly created Tongu Confederacy.214 After some violence in 1937, the Akwamuhene also accepted that Dufor would leave Akwamu rule.215 However, the Akwamu Native Authority reserved for itself a part of its rights
Frankadua, a small town but with an important market, was a test case. Kwasi Abliza iii, the Fia of Volo, claimed rights over this town.216 The British administrators east of the Volta intended to solve the issue, but their colleagues in the Gold Coast Colony were more interested in maintaining the prestige of the Akwamuhene.217 For a period of five years, the situation of Frankadua thus remained unclear: tax payments were suspended; police forces from both Akwamu and the Tongu Confederacy occasionally entered the town and several inhabitants were shot.218 The âVolosâ in Frankadua produced numerous pages of âtraditional claimsâ, explaining why the town had to be separated from Akwamu. The Akwamu councils argued with âtraditional rightsâ.219 Kwasi Abliza iii accused âthe Akwamusâ of having usurped the land Volo had been given in 1873.220 Part of Ablizaâs interest was in improving his own position in Dufor, where he was a contested ruler, through success in the Frankadua issue and the hereditary conflict with Akwamu.221 In the 1950s, the debate became even more heated. The Volo headmen pointed to a census in which 607 inhabitants of the market town defined themselves as âEweâ (and, oddly, 50 more as âEwe-Voloâ), while only 12 had identified themselves as âAkwamuâ.222 Volo rulers were now insistent that the inhabitants of Frankadua were âEweâ who wished to live with their âkinsmenâ
In 1953, the village chief of Frankadua, Kofi Tulasi ii, and a number of the communityâs leaders won over the deputy of the Volta Region in the Gold Coast Legislative Assembly, P.D. Adjani, to their cause. They complained bitterly in Keta that âfrom time memorial [sic] we the inhabitants of Frankadua are Ewe speaking peopleâ; that they felt like Ewe and were part of the âTongu sub-groupâ of their ethnic grouping; and that they wished to become part of a local council that only involved Ewe communities.224 British officials were sympathetic to the campaign, but the final decision was left to the Nkrumah government.225 Even nowadays, Frankadua retains its difficult legacy, after becoming a part of the Volta District in post-colonial Ghana. As recently as in 1999, âethnic tensionsâ provoked a near-battle between âAnlosâ (now meaning the Ewe-speakers of the town, which is somewhat curious) and âAkwamusâ.226
Smaller groups like the Togome and Fodjoku followed the Volo and Dufor initiatives, and in November 1946 they obtained, after protests, the promise of the paramount chief of Akwamu to be integrated within the Tongu Confederacy. The question of symbolic allegiance to the Akwamuhene was, however, a problem.227 In a meeting before the Akwamu Native Authority, âtraditionsâ were mobilised. The Wirempihene challenged the Togome claim, criticising the group because they âspeak Eve, yetâ¦stay on Akwamu landâ. According to this
British officials agreed that those groups âare quite clearly Ewesâ and âshould join their brothers in the Tongu Confederacyâ, but they struggled to understand the old Akwamu-Togome-Fodjoku alliance or the realities of local rule. Nkwanta, the Fia of Togome, insisted on the existence of a historical border with Akwamu; the Fodjoku added to the confusion by holding that the Togome were âAnlosâ and, hence, another type of âEweâ. Also, the accounts of behaviour during the Akwamu invasion were very contradictory.229 At the end of the 1940s, the senior district commissioner in Ho was desperate: the Togome and Fodjoku communities were âEwe speakersâ and wanted to âjoin their Ewe brethrenâ, but had various claims against each other. This led colonial officials to fear the worst for other, larger cases.230
âEweâ solidarity in times of the impressively large, ethnically expressed group mobilisation of the aec and of similar organisations, was often only a part of the picture. Elsewhere, the old, local conflicts continued unaffected by the pan-Ewe idea. At the heart of the various ânative statesâ, conflicts were often local: within the Tongu Confederacy, Tefle inhabitants claimed they had to defend themselves against Bakpa attempts at occupying their land; the paramountcy of the Ho Division â the central division of the Asogli Native State â was contested over decades between the villages of Dome and Bankoe.231 In the latter case as in many, ethnic arguments were sometimes employed, when convenient: thus the contenders from Ho-Bankoe accused the Howusu of being a member of a âstrangerâ group that had only learned its proficiency in the Ewe language after its arrival in the Ho region.232
As we have seen, in the Adaklu community the break with Anlo had been an obvious goal until the end of the Second World War. However, after 1945 the Adaklu suddenly wished for a âreturnâ to Anlo rule. They referred to the ancient political AnloâAdaklu alliance formed against Ho and âthe other Ewe divisionsâ and their old cooperation with the Asante invaders.233
The debate on Ewe-ness could even be employed as argument for local debates in non-Ewe-speaking regions, such as Buem. It was used in the conflict about local education policy and the creation of schools in the first half of the 1950s. Buem elites refused to send their children to Ho Secondary School, as they feared compulsory education in the Ewe language. Under pressure, the British officials had to assure that âno student is compelled to study Eweâ. However, as the conflict between Twi-speakers and Lefana-speakers escalated in the 1950s, the Ewe question faded into the background.234 In that respect, the Omanhene of Buem accused the Twi-speaking militants of âtribalisingâ the conflict. Other, minority linguistic communities such as the Bowiri joined in the protest; and it also became connected to internal conflicts about the hierarchy of divisions and their leaders within the Buem Native State, but this was no longer about the Ewe.235
However, âEwe mobilisationâ was used as a model outside of the Ewe-speaking areas. In the case of the tensions between the Lolobi and Akpafu in Buem, the Lolobi profited from their knowledge of the Ewe process to express political protest. Lolobi dignitaries argued that they should have been represented in the important debates at Lake Success in the United States, where the spokesmen âof the Eweâ formulated their claims towards the trusteeship council of the United Nations. They claimed they did not, of course, have an âEwe identityâ, but they believed that even smaller ethnic groups should have the same right of mobilisation.236 Therefore, the Ewe example had an immense impact as a blueprint for local rhetorics.
The border continued to have its own dynamics. In 1943, the Fiaga of Bator had, in a land claim, described his opponents as âKpele strangers from Eveâ; we find no solidarity between âEweâ when land rights and immigration were involved. Frequently, Ewe-speaking local councils voted for the expulsion of Ewe-speaking immigrants from community land, and if the latter came from the other side of the colonial border, they would often be insulted as âFrench strangersâ.237 By the same logic, in Agu Tafié, at the French side of the border in the Kpalimé region, the elders refused to accept the nephew of the retired paramount chief, Aboyo, as new âtraditional rulerâ, on the grounds that he had lived for the largest part of his life in the Gold Coast and thus adopted foreign manners!238 The colonial border could in that regard be exploited, in the perception of locals, beyond the ethnic solidarities.
In the region of Kpalimé, cut leaders attempted to restore the popularity of their movement, which had come under mounting pressure in 1950, through
Most of the conflicts in the Kpalimé area remained on the strictly local level. They essentially reflected problems with decisions taken in the pre-colonial period, such as, in particular, fusions of villages in the Kuma region. The inhabitants of Totsi and Yokele complained that, during the confusions of the Asante incursions, the leader of Tsame had usurped the chieftaincy over the sub-region of the canton. This was then connected to longstanding land conflicts between Tsame and Totsi, which went on from the 1930s to 1970. Other, internal, conflicts as in Kuma-Apoti, or in Agu-Apegame, were also linked to the traumatic experience of the Asante invasions, but not the Ewe legends.240 Finally, the fate of the chiefs of Agu Nyogbo Agbetiko was discussed during the whole of the late colonial and the post-colonial phases: in the 1950s, this particular conflict was linked to the battles between the ptp (still in territorial power) and the cut, hostilities that reappeared once again in 1970.241 As in
Here we refer to the notion of the Councillor of the French Union, Mr Savi de Tove, who defends a principle adopted as well by our representatives in the Local Assembly, which says the following: âThe nomination of the Ewe chiefs by the administration is not in line with the indigenous customs. This is the reason for great troubles. From this motive, it is necessary to abolish the decree [speaking of the text from 1st March 1945, about indigenous rule in Togo] and leave the people their liberty to choose their chiefs to their convenience. This would be far more democraticâ.242
In spite of such threats coming from local elites, most local inhabitants, including the Ewe-speakers and Mina-speakers, were not at all interested in creating a real conflict. When the chief was elected, the âstrangerâ Adama Dali managed to maintain, with support of a group of elders, that he was the âtraditional heirâ of the ruling family, and he celebrated a crushing victory over his Ewe-speaking
Therefore, the reference to Ewe identifications was subject to rather strong limitations. First of all, it obviously needed an âothernessâ present on the spot that could be defined as ethnically different, as against a âFonâ in Fongbe, or between Ewe-speakers and the linguistic groups of Buem. Reference to Ewe-ness did not serve as a language of reconciliation in matters of conflicts between different smaller Ewe-speaking communities. Even in the territory of Togo under French mandate, which lacked other larger political entities to rely on, ethnic mobilisation did not, in the local practice, become a particularly important principle.
Ewe from Outside: The Avatime and the Question of Ewe Solidarity
To illustrate these points through a local case over the decades, we will now go back to the Avatime communities. The Avatime as speakers of a Central Togo language are, of course, at first glance distinct from Ewe-speakers in linguistic terms.244 Nonetheless, in the late nineteenth century the communityâs mastership of the Ewe language was so outstanding that German Governor Jesko von Puttkamer remarked that, in contrast to other Ewe-speakers, the people of âAwatimé have the pure Ewe dialectâ!245 As in the mixed and fluent communities of Joal-Fadiouth and Port Loko, Avatime settlements thus represented a local view on different options and cleavages at different times.
In the 1920s, Avatime informants redefined âhistorical traditionâ into a more independent narrative: only some of them had come from Notsie, the rest from Ahanta in the Gold Coast (setting them apart from the majority of Ewe communities). Also, according to this version, the Avatime had formerly been Twi-speakers, and were linguistically part of the groups west of the Volta River. This version seems to be a clear invention and is particularly curious.246 Under
European residents helped with this idea, as German missionaries tended to treat the Avatime as an âEwe tribeâ. African missionary personnel recruited for work in the area around Gebi Mountain were obliged to undergo training in Ewe, even if destined for the more isolated Avatime villages, such as Kolenin. Moreover, the growing group of Christian converts was, in this early phase, rather eager to accept an all-embracing Ewe culture (including the Notsie founding legend).247 Missionary attitudes in the 1900s were ambivalent and mixed with very practical issues. Consequently, as one example, the Bremen Mission recruited local recruits from Avatime, such as Godwin Banimanve, who were installed as auxiliary teachers in places like Amedzofe, because they were able to teach undergraduates in the local language. In 1890, Andreas Aku, a Bremen Mission catechist from Keta, described villages such as Amedzofe and Gbadzeme as bilingual. In Spiethâs account, the Avatime are implicitly considered to be one of the âEweland tribesâ. Around 1900, the Avatime thus had the two options of ethnic identification in their repertoire.248
After the First World War, the Avatime populations attempted to maintain the image of being a particularly âindependentâ community, and as especially anti-German. They accused their neighbours, the Tafi, of having been the first to âdefectâ to the Germans in the 1890s, and described them and the Logba as âweakâ as opposed to the fierce cruelty of their own warrior community; the Agotime and the Adangbe north-east of Lomé have the same origin legend that emphasises cruel acts during wars. It makes good sense that three Trans-Volta communities thereby underline their
The British âamalgamationâ project of the late 1920s brought the Avatime under stronger pressure to define their group identification in relation to neighbouring communities. They continued to reject Pekiâs leading role, as the Peki had been, from that perspective, a weaker ally during the Akwamu and Asante incursions.250 Their discussion with British administrators did not yet touch on the question of âEwe identityâ. With regard to Anlo, the Avatime claimed that there had never been any tributary arrangements, but only trade relations between partner âstatesâ on equal terms.251
In the 1920s, Adzatekpor nevertheless became nominated an arbitrator in stool disputes within âEweâ communities. For the Wadze Stool Dispute, he also claimed to have âknowledge of the native customsâ of the Ewe.252 The Avatime chief managed to impress the British so much that in 1931 he was exclusively spared from confiscations to enforce the payment of debts. However, this relative success made the head chiefs of neighbouring divisions strongly suspicious of Avatime intentions: the divisional chiefs of Honuta, and, obviously, of Tafi were hostile to the creation of an âamalgamated stateâ. The Avatime reputation for violence did not help. In early 1928, Avatime warriors from Dzokpe destroyed the village of Tafi Atome, which antagonised not only the Tafi but also the Logba, and poisoned the atmosphere in the region.253
While Avatime informants presented the Tafi as spoilers of peace agreements, the rulers of the other communities were infuriated by the Avatime attack and refused any future cooperation. In June 1930, Adzatekpor V finally gave in and agreed to the restitution of pillaged Tafi possessions and to legal arbitration from Accra. This also opened discussions on identifications. The villagers of Tafi stated that they were the autochthons on the land in question, and the Avatime held that their Dzokpe branch had âspear-wonâ the same land. Some reference was made to the Notsie legend, but none to âEweâ identity.254
In 1932, âAwatime Stateâ nonetheless became created as a larger political unit; this new ânative stateâ promoted by the British was an entity that included many Ewe-speaking communities including former adversaries. In the 1930s, the new State Council began to engage in questions of infrastructure, land use and heritage in Ewe-speaking places like Dudome or Izola. However, Adzatekpor, as president of the ânative stateâ, was regularly shunned by the fiawo of the different Ewe-speaking communities in the state who preferred to apply directly to the British authorities.255 Awatime State remained a loose alliance of practically equal partners, in which the rulers of Avatime did not really manage to mark any dominance.
With regard to group identifications, the Avatime and other members of the ânative stateâ were hostile to immigrants regarded as âPekiâ. The question of making Philip Tekedu the headman of the âPekisâ of Honuta was thus controversially discussed; the communities feared that this headman would act as a
During the 1930s, Adzatekporâs rule over the core lands of Avatime became shaky. The paramount chief had reached a peak of unpopularity by introducing the head tax, which was attacked by many elders and other opponents as a return to practices from German times.258 The resistance of the âyoungmenâ with open and outspoken support by many elders became in the end untenable, and the stool father, Traugott Tekpe, even called for the destoolment of Adzatekpor in November 1937.259 In 1938, the Avatime chief was no longer being invited to the court sessions of his own State Tribunal, and he was replaced there by the chief of Amedzofe. However, neither the British nor the members of the other âdivisionsâ, agreed to Adzatekporâs destoolment. In 1939, an uneasy peace was brokered between Adzatekpor V and the âyoungmenâ engaged in a symbolic cleaning procedure of the Vane-Dzolo-Kpoeta road.
The emergence of the pan-Ewe campaign, in 1942, came at the right time. It gave a new opportunity to Adzatekpor to change the odds, and the tone of the Avatime paramount chief became different. He appeared at the forefront of the Ewe unity adherents, where he emphasised the necessity of Ewe reunification. After seven decades of a discourse insisting on Avatimeâs distinctiveness, this community was suddenly no longer different from the âEweâ. Adzatekpor V demanded Ewe unification on the grounds that the borderline âdeprives us, the Ewe from our privileges for trade as due to the effects of the war of 1914â and he wished âthat we the Ewes enjoy our former privilege for harmony of our works in Togolandâ.262 The ruler obviously tried to satisfy some of the divisional chiefs inside Awatime State, but also to profit from the widespread enthusiasm. The British official in charge in Ho commented in 1945 that Awatime State as an entity was indeed âentirely Eweâ!263 Over
This surprising flexibility of âtraditionâ â which demonstrates the particular usefulness of our approach of âcolonial history on the groundâ through written accounts â can notably be compared with Agotime. Like the Avatime, the members of this community normally presented themselves as non-Ewe, but could appear as part of âthe Eweâ whenever this was useful. In the 1920s, âtraditionsâ showed a clear sense of flexibility with regard to relations between Agotime and Ewe-speakers.265 Some of these âtraditionsâ insisted there had been Ewe settlers as part of the original Agotime community foundation, and argued that the schism between the Agotime and the Howusu of Ho had appeared through a misunderstanding during the Asante war. Mahumasro as a chief and candidate for the stool of the head chief in 1932 probably had his own reasons in promoting such a version, which became accepted.266
Therefore, members of the so-called Central Togo Minorities or the Adangme-speaking Agotime were quite capable of managing their identifications according to the regional necessities. In the late nineteenth century, the political entity was the central point of reference. However, these entities suffered under the German intrusion, and the Awatime Native State was only a shadow of the pre-colonial states. During the Ewe unification campaign, these chiefs supported the grand project, although their communities had over the years quite often insisted that they were not Ewe. Where the interest of the ruling dynasty was at stake, flexibility in identification was very possible.
Outlook: Political Ewe-ness in the Ghana Volta Region, Neutralised Ewe-ness in Togo
British Togoland lost its status as a separate territorial unit in 1957. In spite of more than twelve years of Ewe unification campaigns, and of some ten years of Togoland reunification propaganda, the cpp was successful against the programme of the Togoland Congress (tc). Some of the local chiefs participated actively in the defeat of the tc, such as in the case of Anfoega where Togbe Tepre Hodo intimidated tc activists and organised riots against tc electoral campaign meetings.267
After the cpp victory in the Trans-Volta Togoland Region, the Nkrumah government started to become more relaxed about Ewe issues in its rhetoric, and even to invoke âEwe solidarityâ whenever this was useful. With regard to communities like Mafi, Awudome, Fodjoku, and Togome, Nkrumahâs cabinet members urged politicians and chiefs from Togoland to consider more cooperation with âEwes in the Gold Coastâ. This could now easily be used as an argument to refuse political reform.268 Nevertheless, and in spite of the electoral victories of the cpp in the tvt Region, the representatives of the new Ghanaian administration remained distrustful. In Ho, in the first half of the 1960s, the majority of civil servants in place were deliberately not taken from the group of Ewe-speakers.269 Such decisions alienated former supporters in the area from the cpp politics. The idea that particular âforcesâ in the region worked for secession and armed resistance existed over decades.
In Togo, there was a similar uneasiness about a possible arms trade and a possible Ghanaian invasion in the region of Kpalimé.270 However, the post-colonial centralised state focused on controlling the local communities and their chiefs through the préfets (district commissioners), and on local distribution of resources. These conditions played against ethnic allegiance. In the canton of Agu, the seat of the paramount chief was removed from Kebu Dzigbe to Toubadji.271 In the neighbouring canton of Kuma, the long-standing
The category of âEweâ retained some of its importance in land issues and similar administrative practices. This can be shown in the numerous conflicts in the Kpalimé region of Togo during the 1960s and 1970s, as during those between Village Chief Léléklélé ii and the youth association of Agbétiko.273 Similarly, when in 1972 an alliance of dignitaries and elders attempted to remove Théophile Dom Gamety V as paramount chief (chef de canton) of Kuma, they claimed that among other alleged misdeeds he had betrayed common Ewe origins. The fact that Dom Gamety V had not participated in the yearly festivities in Notsie, was employed to demand his retirement.274 This shows that sensitivities with regard to Ewe culture could indeed be employed under particular circumstances.
However, most group conflicts in Gbassinje Eyadémaâs Togo remained concentrated on the local level, including on issues of identification and group mobilisation. In the context of migration to Lomé, locals organised in associations of originaires. As in the case of Agu Nyogbo Agbetiko, these associations would attempt to influence developments in their village community of origin, but would no longer represent a larger group idea. Ewe-ness was unimportant in comparison to local affiliation.
Amongst the Ewe-speakers, ethnic solidarity was one option of mobilisation. It became more attractive as pre-colonial political entities such as Peki or Anlo often did not manage to offer a convincing alternative. Even so, it remained in the background for a long period, as âdivisionalâ group identities continued to be the principal form of group idenfications in the Trans-Volta Region. The pan-Ewe mobilisation of the 1940s was a spectacular exception. However, it had a surprisingly low impact on the long-term situation, as it did not enduringly eclipse local orientations.
The broad context appears in Welch, Claude E., Dream of Unity: Pan-Africanism and Political Unification in West Africa (Ithaca/ny: Cornell University Press, 1966), 42â73.
This was first formulated by Amenumey, D.E.K., âThe pre-1947 background to the Ewe unification question: a preliminary sketchâ, Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana 10, 1969, 65â85, 65â6, 71.
Brydon, Lynne, âRice, Yams and Chiefs in Avatime: Speculations on the Development of a Social Orderâ, Africa 51(2), 1981, 659â77, 659â60; Brydon, Lynne, âConstructing Avatime: Questions of History and Identity in a West African Polity, c. 1690s to the Twentieth Centuryâ, Journal of African History 49(1), 2008, 23â42, 32â4.
Interview with Kwame Asiah, Regent of Fume on behalf of his brother, Fia Togbe Adzesi iv, Fume, 17 August 2007.
Callaway, Barbara, âLocal politics in Ho and Abaâ, Canadian Journal of African Studies 4(1), 1970, 121â44, 129.
Pauvert, Jean-Claude, âLâévolution politique des Eweâ, Cahiers des Etudes Africaines 1(2), 1960, 161â92, 161; Austin, âFrontierâ, 144â5; Nugent, Smugglers, 202â30; Brown, David, âBorderline Politics in Ghana: The National Liberation Movement of Western Togolandâ, Journal of Modern African Studies 18(4), 1980, 575â609, 586â90.
Ametewee, Victor K., âEthnicity and Ethnic Relations in Ghanaâ, in Steve Tonah (ed.), Ethnicity, Conflicts and Consensus in Ghana (Accra: Woeli Publishing Services, 2007), 25â41, 34, 38; Morrison, Minion K.C., and Jae Woo Hong, âGhanaâs political parties: how ethno/regional variations sustain the national two-party systemâ, Journal of Modern African Studies 44(4), 2006, 623â47, 634; Brown, David, âSieges and Scapegoats: The Politics of Pluralism in Ghana and Togoâ, Journal of Modern African Studies 21(3), 1983, 431â60, 439â41; Brown, David, âWho are the Tribalists? Social Pluralism and Political Ideology in Ghanaâ, African Affairs 81(322), 37â69, passim; Chazan, Naomi, âEthnicity and Politics in Ghanaâ, Political Science Quarterly 97(3), 1982, 461â85, 465, 475; Fridy, Kevin S., âThe Elephant, Umbrella, and Quarrelling Cocks: Disaggregating Partisanship in Ghanaâs Fourth Republicâ, African Affairs, 106(423), 2007, 281â305, 285, 292â4; Owusu, Maxwell, âRebellion, Revolution, and Tradition: Reinterpreting Coups in Ghanaâ, Comparative Studies in Society and History 31(2), 1989, 372â97, 380â1; Nugent, Paul, âLiving in the past: Urban, Rural and Ethnic Themes in the 1992 and 1996 Elections in Ghanaâ, Journal of Modern African Studies 37(2), 1999, 287â319, 307.
Barbier, Jean-Claude, âJalons pour une sociologie électorale du Togo: 1958, 1985â, Politique Africaine 27, 1987, 6â18, 14â15; Brown, âSiegesâ, 437, 444â5.
Amenumey, D.E.K., The Ewe in Pre-Colonial Times (Accra: Sedco, 1986), 4â5; Gayibor, Nicoué Lodjou (ed.), Histoire des Togolais. Vol. 2: De 1884 à 1960 (Lomé: Presses de lâUniversité du Bénin, 2005); Nugent, Smugglers; Lawrance, Benjamin N., Locality, Mobility, and âNationâ: Periurban Colonialism in Togoâs Eweland 1900â1960 (Rochester/ny: University of Rochester Press, 2006); Meyer, Birgit, Translating the Devil: Religion and Modernity among the Ewe in Ghana (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1999); Greene, Sandra, Gender, Ethnicity and Social Change on the Slave Coast: A History of the Anlo-Ewe (Portsmouth: Heinemann â London: James Currey, 1996); Amenumey, D.E.K., The Ewe Unification Movement: a political history (Accra: Ghana Universities Press, 1989); Agbedor, Paul, and Assiba Johnson, âNaming Practicesâ, in Benjamin N. Lawrance (ed.), A Handbook of Eweland: The Ewe of Togo and Benin (Accra: Woeli Publishing Services, 2005), 161â82, 164â6.
European slave-traders in the early eighteenth century were largely unable to distinguish between Ewe-speakers and neighbouring groups speaking other languages, see Lohse, Russell, âSlave-Trade Nomenclature and African Ethnicities in the Americas: Evidence from Early Eighteenth-Century Costa Ricaâ, Slavery & Abolition 23(3), 2002, 73â92.
Information given during an audience at the palace of the royal family of Glidji, Togo, 8 August 2009.
Nugent, Smugglers, 18, 96, 132â46.
Lawrance, Locality, 13â8.
Greene, Gender, 147â51.
praad (Accra), adm 11/1/1624, Rattray, Report by Mr. R.S. Rattray (without number), without date, 42 (Vakpos); 44 (Tafi about Avatime).
Strickrodt, Silke, âAfro-European Trade Relations on the Western Slave Coast, 16th to 19th Centuriesâ (unpublished PhD thesis, Univ. of Stirling, 2002).
Gayibor, Nicoué Lodjou, Le Genyi: Un Royaume oublié de la Côte de Guinée au Temps de la Traite des Noirs (Lomé: Haho â Paris: Karthala, 1990), 176â82; Law, Robin, Ouidah: The Social History of a West African Slaving âPortâ 1727â1892 (Athens/oh: Ohio University Press â Oxford: James Currey, 2004), 19.
Amegan, Francis Kwassivi, âLes administateurs allemands de la ville de Lomé (1884â1914)â, in Nicoué Lodjou Gayibor, Yves Marguerat, and Gabriel K. Nyassogbo (eds.), Le Centenaire de Lomé, Capitale du Togo (1897â1997): Actes du colloque de Lomé (3â6 mars 1997) (Lomé: Presses de lâUniversité du Bénin, 1998), 95â109, 104â7.
Nugent, Paul, ââA few lesser peoplesâ: the Central Togo minorities and their Ewe neighboursâ, in Carola Lentz and Paul Nugent (eds.), Ethnicity in Ghana: The Limits of Invention (London â New York: Macmillan â Saint Martinâs Press, 2000), 163â82, 167â8. The ânative statesâ were Akpini, Asogli, Awatime (written as such), and Buem, joined by the Tongu Confederacy after 1945. On criticisms coming from local rulers, see praad (Accra), adm 39/1/458, V.M. Kofi ii., Howusu of Ho, to Rooke, District Commissioner of Ho (without number), 24 Dec. 1951.
This concerns the Ewe-speaking Watchi groups, or the populations of Atakpamé. Part of the confusion becomes visible in Robert Cornevinâs response to D.E.K. Amenumeyâs attempts to draw a map of âEwelandâ, see Cornevin, Robert, âNote au Sujet Des Limites de LâEwelandâ, Journal of African History 9(3), 1968, 501â2. On the Watchi, see Lovell, Nadia, âThe Watchi-Ewe: Histories and Originsâ, in Benjamin N. Lawrance (ed.), A Handbook of Eweland: The Ewe of Togo and Benin (Accra: Woeli Publishing Services, 2005), 90â114, 95â8.
Spieth, Jakob, Die Ewe-Stämme: Material zur Kunde des Ewe-Volkes in Deutsch-Togo (Berlin: Dietrich Reimer (Ernst Vohsen), 1906), 57*.
Spieth, Ewe-Stämme, 62*.
Hodder, B.W., âThe Ewe problem: a reassessmentâ, in Charles A. Fisher (ed.), Essays in Political Geography (London: Methuen, 1968), 271â83, 276.
praad (Accra), adm 11/1/1068, Crowther, Secretary of Native Affairs of the Gold Coast, Extract from Notes of Evidence given before a Commission of Inquiry held in the Quittah District by Francis Crowther, Esquireâ¦(without number), 13 April 1912.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/569, Acting Senior District Commissioner of Ho to Commissioner of the Eastern Province, Nkonya Native Affairs (n° S.0046/8.), 19 Dec. 1947, 2.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/96, Senior District Commissioner of Ho to Chief Commissioner of Gold Coast Colony, Election and Installation of Chiefs. (n° S.0062/11012.), 12 Sep. 1951.
Verdon, Michael, The Abutia Ewe of West Africa: A Chiefdom that Never Was (Berlin â New York â Amsterdam: Mouton, 1983), 37â74; Laumann, âHistoryâ, 18â9.
Pauvert, âEvolutionâ, 167â8; praad (Accra), adm 39/1/460, S.K. Afege, Asafoatse of Atsiati, to District Commissioner of Ho (without number), 14 Nov. 1946.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/460, District Commissioner of Ho to Commissioner of the Eastern Province, Akoepe Native Affairs. (n° 0106/S.F.1/7.), 4 Dec. 1946.
tna, pro, CO/96/738/6, Warrington, Commissioner of the Eastern Province, Annual Report for the Eastern Province for the Year 1936â1937 (without number), without date, 10.
Amenumey holds, on the contrary, that only an âunfortunateâ eighteenth-century rivalry between Anlo and Ge accounts for the non-emergence of an Ewe state, see Amenumey, Ewe, 27.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/288, Mead, Acting District Commissioner of Kpandu, to Commissioner of the Eastern Province (n° 1755/165/1931), 27 Nov. 1942, 1â2.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/288, W.R. Goskell, Commissioner of the Eastern Province to Secretary of Native Affairs (without number), 1 Dec. 1942, 1.
Amenumey, Ewe, 32â6. Harnæs, Per, âAfrican Power Struggle and European Opportunity: Danish Expansion on the Early 18th-Century Gold Coastâ, Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana, New Series 7, 2003, 1â92, 2â13; Wilson, Louis E., âThe "Bloodless Conquest" in Southeastern Ghana: the Huza and Territorial Expansion of the Krobo in the 19th Centuryâ, International Journal of African Historical Studies 23(2), 1990, 269â97, 274, 290; Hair, âContinuityâ, 261; Rupp-Eisenreich, Britta, âLâethnicité, critère descriptif au xviiie siècle: le cas de la traite danoiseâ, in Jean-Pierre Chrétien and Gérard Prunier (eds.), Les ethnies ont une histoire (second edition, Paris: Karthala, 2003), 49â60, 55â6.
Spieth, Ewe-Stämme, 11*.
Rosenthal, Judy, âReligious Traditions of the Togo and Benin Eweâ, in Benjamin N. Lawrance (ed.), A Handbook of Eweland: The Ewe of Togo and Benin (Accra: Woeli Publishing Services, 2005), 183â96, 193â4.
Kea, Ray, âAkwamu-Anlo relations, c. 1750â1813â, Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana 10, 1969, 29â63, 29. The central account of Anlo origins emphasised the participation and leading role in the mythical flight from Notsie, but also presented the forefathers of the Anlo communities as relatives of many local groups, not only the Ewe-speakers. See ant, 2APA, Cercle de Klouto, 331, A Brief Ethnographic Account of the Ewes of the Anlo State. The Common âEweâ Origin and the Central Group of Royal Authority (without number), without date [dated by French Administration of Togo as â1918â].
Greene, Sandra E., âThe Past and Present of an Anlo-Ewe Oral Traditionâ, History in Africa 12, 1985, 73â87, 74; tna, pro, CO/96/738/6, Warrington, Annual Report for the Eastern Province for the Year 1936â1937 (without number), without date, 69.
praad (Ho Branch), DA/D 302 (also contained in DA/D 307), Adai Kwasi Adem ix, Fia of Awudome, Petition of the Fiaga and People of Awudome (without number), 7 May 1946, 1, 9; praad (Ho Branch), DA/D 307, Acting District Commissioner of Akuse to Provincial Commissioner (n° 1141/190/1920.), 28 May 1946, 1; Amenumey, Ewe, 81.
Meyer, Birgit, âChristianity and the Ewe Nation: German Pietist Missionaries, Ewe Converts and the Politics of Cultureâ, Journal of Religion in Africa 32(2), 2002, 167â99, 176â80; Lawrance, Benjamin N., âThe History of the Ewe Language and Ewe Language Educationâ, in Benjamin N. Lawrance (ed.), A Handbook of Eweland: The Ewe of Togo and Benin (Accra: Woeli Publishing Services, 2005), 215â29, 218â20; Alsheimer, Rainer, Zwischen Sklaverei und christlicher Ethnogenese: Die vorkoloniale Missionierung der Ewe in Westafrika (1847âca. 1890) (Münster etc.: Waxmann, 2007), 231â45, 270â1; Azamede, Kokou, Transkulturationen? Ewe-Christen zwischen Deutschland and Westafrika, 1884â1939 (Stuttgart: Steiner, 2010).
praad (Ho Branch), NA/47 (dossier not classified), S.G. Okraku, District Administrative Officer in Jasikan, to Regional Administration Officer, Ho, Buem Traditional Council (sa.1/164), 28 Sep. 1967, 1.
praad (Ho Branch), NA/47 (dossier not classified), Nana Akuamoa iv, Nifahene of Buem Traditional Area and Chief of Kudje, to Clerk of Volta Region House of Chiefs, Buem Traditional Affairs (without number), 10 May 1965, 4.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/216, Abstract of Anfoaga Traditional History (without number), without date, 1.
Spieth, Ewe-Stämme, 1 (for âTogolandâ); Akyeampong, Emmanuel Kwaku, Between the Sea & the Lagoon: An Eco-social History of the Anlo of Southeastern Ghana c. 1850 to Recent Times (Oxford: James Currey â Athens/oh: Ohio University Press, 2001), 24â6 (for the Keta Lagoon area).
Gayibor, Nicoue Lodjou, âAgÉkÉli et la dispersion de NÉtséâ, in François de Medeiros (ed.), âPeuples du golfe du Bénin â aja-éwé: colloque de Cotonouâ (Paris: Karthala, 1985), 21â34, 33; Greene, Sandra, âNotsie Narratives: History, Memory, and Meaning in West Africaâ, South Atlantic Quarterly 101(4), 2002, 1015â41, 1019â20, 1032â4; Gayibor, Nicoue Lodjou, and Angèle Aguigah, âEarly Settlements and Archaeology of the Adja-Tado Cultural Zoneâ, in Benjamin N. Lawrance (ed.), A Handbook of Eweland: The Ewe of Togo and Benin (Accra: Woeli Publishing Services, 2005), 1â13, 9â10. This is erroneously taken by D.E.K. Amenumey (Ewe, 2â6) and Benjamin Lawrance (Locality, 27â8) as corroborated.
praad (Ho Branch), DA/D/296, Peteprebi Danyi (of Avenyi); and others, to District Commissioner of Ho, Ref: Tokokoe Dispute, Buankrah vrs Agama. (without number), 12 April 1934.
Zurstrassen, Bettina, âEin Stück deutscher Erde schaffenâ: koloniale Beamte in Togo 1884â1914 (Frankfurt: Campus, 2008), 29â39.
ant, 2APA, Cercle de Lomé, 18, De Guise, Governor of Togo, to District Commissioner of Lomé, Visite à Tsévié du 20 Février (n° 173), 8 March 1933, 1.
Nugent, Paul, âPutting the History Back into Ethnicity: Enslavement, Religion, and Cultural Brokerage in the Construction of Mandinka/Jola and Ewe/Agotime Identities in West Africa, c. 1650â1930â, Comparative Studies in Society and History 50(4), 2008, 920â48, 939. Elsewhere, Nugent holds that the term is ânot in common currency before 1920â, which seems more adequate, see Nugent, Paul, âA Regional Melting Pot: The Ewe and Their Neighbours in the Ghana-Togo Borderlandsâ, in Benjamin N. Lawrance (ed.), A Handbook of Eweland: The Ewe of Togo and Benin (Accra: Woeli Publishing Services, 2005), 29â43, 29.
Schlegel, J. Bernhard, âBeitrag zur Geschichte, Welt- und Religionsanschauung des WeÂÂstÂafrikaners, namentlich des Eweersâ, Monatsblatt der norddeutschen Missionsgesellschaft 8(94), 1858, 406â8.
Johnson, Marion, âAshanti East of the Voltaâ, Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana 8, 1965, 33â59, 44â7.
tna, pro, CO/96/88, Memo embracing a brief sketch of the facts connected with the existing disturbances in the Volta District from the commencement in March 1865 to the present date, drawn up for the information of His Excellency the Governor General. (without number), without date, 32â3; Amenumey, D.E.K., âThe extension of British rule to Anlo (South-east Ghana), 1850â1890â, Journal of African History 9(1), 1968, 99â117, 103â4.
tna, pro, CO/96/88, Lozogbagba, (Awoame Fia); and others, to Kennedy (without number), 10 May 1871, 1.
Brydon, âConstructingâ, 28; Interview with Kwame Asiah, 17 August 2007. Spiethâs knowledge of the same event must come from a different version, see Spieth, Ewe-Stämme, 19*.
See Rattrayâs decisive remarks on the âEweâ in the 1920s in praad (Accra), adm 11/1/1624, Rattray, Report by Mr. R.S. Rattray (without number), without date, 46â7.
Louis, Wm. Roger, Great Britain and Germanyâs Lost Colonies, 1914â1919 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967), 20â3.
Spieth, Ewe-Stämme, 76*â7*.
Akurang-Parry, Kwabena O., âThe administration of the abolition laws, African responses, and post-proclamation slavery in the gold coast, 1874â1940â, Slavery & Abolition, 19(2), 1998, 149â66, 154.
tna, pro, CO/96/84, King Cudjoe of Accra; and others, to Ussher, The Petitionâ¦to His Excellency Herbert Taylor Ussher Administrator of the Gold Coast (without number), 11 Feb. 1870, 1; tna, pro, CO/96/81, Lutterodt; Hesse; and others, to Russell, British Chief Commandant in Accra (without number), 14 Aug. 1869, 4.
tna, pro, CO/96/81, King Dosu Okanzie; King Oklu; and others to Acting Administrator in Cape Coast (without number), 28 Aug. 1869, 3; tna, pro, CO/96/81, Simpson to Chief Administrator of Sierra Leone (n° 108), 3 Sep. 1869, 3.
tna, pro, CO/96/81, Simpson to Chief Administrator of Sierra Leone (n° 108), 3 Oct. 1869, 2â4; tna, pro, CO/96/81, Saketi, Krobohene, to Lees (without number), 24 Aug. 1869, 2.
tna, pro, CO/96/81, Simpson to Lees (without number), 21 Aug. 1869, 4.
tna, pro, CO/96/81, Dompre to Addo (without number), 27 Aug. 1869, 1, 3. The later Ho tradition excludes such a dependency of the city from Agotime, perhaps due to the quest for historical primacy by the Howusu of Ho; praad (Accra), adm 11/1/1624, Rattray, Report by Mr. R.S. Rattray (without number), without date, 33.
tna, pro, CO/96/81, Dosu, Ada Manche, to Simpson (without number), 7 Oct. 1869.
tna, pro, CO/879/28, African Confidential Print No. 351, Williams, British District Commissioner of Volta District, Statement taken by C. Riby Williams, District Commissioner, Volta District (without number), 2 July 1888, 144bis (1 of 1).
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/216, The Preliminary History of the Agotime. (without number), without date; this account taken in the 1920s is strongly negative to any Agotime connection with Ada; in a probably earlier account, the Agotime claim they have in the past been erroneously regarded as Adas, see praad (Accra), adm 11/1/1624, Rattray, Report by Mr. R.S. Rattray (without number), without date, 39. However, in the early 1960s, Agotime was confirmed to be primarily Adangme-speaking, with Ewe as an important, but only secondary language. See Sprigge, R.G.S., âEwelandâs Adangbe: An Enquiry into an Oral Traditionâ, Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana 10, 1969, 87â123, 92â3; which stands in contrast to the assertion of Spieth, who regarded the Adangme language as disappearing, while Ewe was taking over, see Spieth, Ewe-Stämme, 41*.
Spieth, Ewe-Stämme, 38*.
Ibid., 55*.
tna, pro, CO/96/85, Ussher to Kennedy (n° 80), 22 June 1870, 7; tna, pro, CO/96/85, Glover to Kennedy (without number), 22 June 1870, 5; tna, pro, CO/96/84, Cleland to Lees (without number), 11 Dec. 1869, 1; tna, pro, CO/96/85, Kennedy to Granville (n° 71), 4 July 1870, 2â3.
praad (Ho Branch), DA/D 311, Togbe Kwasi Abliza iii, Dufiaga of Volo State, Tongu Confederacy Council, to Dixon, Senior District Commissioner of Ho (n° ka 275/SP30/50), 27 Feb. 1950, 1â2.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/108, Togbe Kwasi Abliza iii to Senior District Commissioner of Ho (without number), 30 April 1949, 1.
tna, pro, CO/96/157, Young, Governor of the Gold Coast, to Derby (n° 255), 29 April 1884, 34â8.
tna, pro, CO/96/157, Firminger, Inspector of Gold Coast Colony in Keta, to Acting Colonial Secretary (without number), 26 March 1884, 4â7, 12â13; tna, pro, CO/879/21, African Confidential Print No. 268, Assistant Inspector Stewart to Colonial Secretary of the Gold Coast (without number, Enclosure 3 in No. 86), 30 Jan. 1885, 2.
tna, pro, CO/96/166, Captain Brydon to Colonial Secretary of the Gold Coast (n° 190), 4 Oct. 1876, 2â3.
tna, pro, CO/879/21, African Confidential Print No. 268, Assistant Inspector Stewart to Colonial Secretary of the Gold Coast (without number, Enclosure 3 in No. 86), 30 Jan. 1885, 1.
tna, pro, CO/96/88, Binder, Bremen missionary in Keta, to Kennedy (without number), 6 May 1871, 1; tna, pro, CO/96/85, Ussher to Kennedy (n° 90), 8 July 1870, 17â8; Meyer, Translating, 5.
tna, pro, CO/879/21, African Confidential Print No. 268, Chase Parr, Commander of hms Frolic, to Young (without number, Enclosure 1 in No. 86.), 5 Feb. 1885.
tna, pro, CO/879/21, African Confidential Print No. 268, Dudley, Acting Inspector-General, to Colonial Secretary of the Gold Coast (without number, Enclosure 2 in No. 86), 5 Feb. 1885, 2.
tna, pro, CO/96/166, Information collected from Mr. W.A. Blavo, about the police Station (without number), without date, 1, 3. European eighteenth-century accounts had described that, according to local usage, âKrepiâ was âall the land lying east of River Volta and north of this lake [east of Ada], as well as several hundred miles up riverâ, see Rømer, Ludewig Ferdinand, A Reliable Account of the Coast of Guinea (1760), translated and edited by Selena Axelrod Winsnes (Oxford etc.: Oxford University Press, 2000 [originally 1756 and 1760]), 129. On the vagueness of the term see also Amenumey, Ewe, 66â7.
In 1888, British administrators were still convinced that Krepi was a political institution in its own right, including nearly 500,000 inhabitants. See tna, pro, CO/879/28, African Confidential Print No. 356, Williams, District Commissioner of Volta District, to Griffith, British Governor of the Gold Coast (n° 1), 2 January 1888, 451 (1 of 1).
ant, Fonds Allemand, FA1/196, no title (without number), 11 Feb. 1887, 1â2; ant, Fonds Allemand, FA1/196, British Embassy in Berlin, Memorandum on British and German Claims with Respect to the Crepee or Peki Country (n° 15585.), 18 Dec. 1887, 2â4.
tna, pro, CO/879/28, African Confidential Print No. 356, Freeman, Extract of Report of Mr. Freeman to Major H. Bird, dated 7th July 1858 (without number), without date, 1, 3.
[Christaller, J.C.], âRecent Explorations in the Basin of the Volta (Gold Coast) by Missionaries of the Basel Missionary Societyâ, Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society and Monthly Record of Geography, New Monthly Series 8(4), 1886, 246â56, 253, 256; tna, pro, CO/879/28, African Confidential Print No. 351, Bennett, District Commissioner of Akuse, to Griffith, Governor of the Gold Coast (n° 219., as Enclosure 1 in No. 18), 4 April 1888; tna, pro, CO/879/28, African Confidential Print No. 351, Kwadzo De âof Krepeâ to Bennett (without number), 3 April 1888, 1.
tna, pro, CO/879/28, African Confidential Print No. 356, von Puttkammer, (Extract.) [Memorandum on Peki] (without number, Enclosure 2 in No. 44), 30 June 1888, 1â2.
tna, pro, CO/879/28, African Confidential Print No. 351, Akers, British Assistant Inspector in Gold Coast, List of Countries for which English Flags are required (without number), 3 July 1888, 146bis.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/253, Griffith, District Commissioner of Keta, to Adzatekpor I of Vane, Avatime (as âKing Adjatekpor of Crepeâ [sic]) (n° 462/413), 9 Nov. 1894.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/238, Adzatekpor I, Paramount Chief of Avatime, to District Commissioner of Ho (without number), without date [1927].
Bundesarchiv, Berlin (BArch), R1001, 4310, Zimmerer, Acting Governor of Cameroon, to Bismarck, German Imperial Chancellor (n° 158), 6 Oct. 1887.
tna, pro, CO/879/28, African Confidential Print No. 351, Griffith; Evans, Colonial Secretary of the Gold Coast; Charles Pike, Treasurer, Minutes of the Proceedings of a Meeting of the Executive Council, held at Christiansborg Castle, on Monday the 28th day of May 1888 (without number, enclosure in No. 17), without date, 54.
tna, pro, CO/879/28, African Confidential Print No. 351, Dalrymple, Colonial Inspector, to Griffith (without number, enclosure in n° 11), 30 April 1888, 46 (1 of 2); tna, pro, CO/879/28, African Confidential Print No. 351, Kwadjo De vi, Pekihene, to Bennett, District Commissioner of Akuse (without number), 3 April 1888, 76 (1 of 1); tna, pro, CO/879/28, African Confidential Print No. 351, Evans to Dalrymple (without number, Enclosure 3 in No. 18), 9 April 1888, 76bis (1 of 2); tna, pro, CO/879/28, African Confidential Print No. 351, Dalrymple to Evans (without number, Enclosure 8 in No. 18), 20 April 1888, 78 (1 of 2). The nineteenth-century âtraditionâ collected by Spieth in Ho, describes the Taviefe as classic robbers and âhighwaymenâ, Spieth, Ewe-Stämme, 12â4.
tna, pro, CO/879/28, African Confidential Print No. 351, Dalrymple, [Conversation with Kwadjo Dei in Savie, 18 April 1888] (without number), without date, 78bis (1 of 2); tna, pro, CO/879/28, African Confidential Print No. 351, Dalrymple to Evans (without number, Enclosure 12 in No. 18), 24 April 1888, 80bis (2 of 2).
tna, pro, CO/879/28, African Confidential Print No. 351, Bennett, District Commissioner of Ho, to Evans (n° 277), 11 May 1888, 87bis (1 of 2); tna, pro, CO/879/28, African Confidential Print No. 351, Bennett to Evans (n° 280), 14 May 1888, 89 (1 of 2); tna, pro, CO/879/28, African Confidential Print No. 351, Evans to Brennan, Assistant Inspector, Gold Coast Constabulary (n° 2406), 17 May 1888, 86 (2 of 2); tna, pro, CO/879/28, African Confidential Print No. 351, Akers to Evans (without number, Enclosure in No. 22), 5 June 1888, 98 (2 of 3); tna, pro, CO/879/28, African Confidential Print No. 351, Bennett to Evans (n° 329), 6 June 1888, 110bis; tna, pro, CO/879/28, African Confidential Print No. 351, Akers, Interview with Tavieve Messengers (without number), 23 June 1888; tna, pro, CO/879/28, African Confidential Print No. 351, Akers to Evans, Report on Tavieve Expedition (without number, Enclosure 1 in No. 34), 29 June 1888, 135â6; tna, pro, CO/879/28, African Confidential Print No. 351, Griffith to Knutsford (n° 237), 7 July 1888, 129bis; tna, pro, CO/879/28, African Confidential Print No. 351, Agbovi, Head Chief of Potoi; Akakpwaley, Head Chief of Mawlu Agotime, and others, [Declaration] (without number), 3 July 1888, 143bis (1 of 1); tna, pro, CO/879/28, African Confidential Print No. 351, Riby Williams, District Commissioner, to Akers (without number), 2 July 1888, 144 (1 of 2); tna, pro, CO/879/28, African Confidential Print No. 351, Williams, Statement taken by C. Riby Williams, District Commissioner, Volta District (without number), 2 July 1888, 144bis (1 of 1); tna, pro, CO/879/28, African Confidential Print No. 351, Bogbi, Chief of Adaklu; Adzatekpor I, Chief of Avatime; Yaw Chei, Chief of Taviefe; and others, [Declaration] (without number), 3 July 1888, 143bisâ144; tna, pro, CO/879/28, African Confidential Print No. 351, Kumi, âChief of Anum and Head Chief of Buemâ, [Declaration] (without number), 3 July 1888, 144.
tna, pro, CO/879/28, African Confidential Print No. 356, Maurice Burtt to Griffith (without number, Enclosure in No. 6), 3 March 1888, 446bisâ447 (1 and 2 of 2).
tna, pro, CO/879/28, African Confidential Print No. 356, Evans to Akers (without number, Enclosure 1 in No. 23), 13 July 1888, 459 (2 of 2); tna, pro, CO/879/28, African Confidential Print No. 356, Evans to âChiefs of Agotimeâ (without number, Enclosure 2 in No. 23), 13 July 1888; tna, pro, CO/879/28, African Confidential Print No. 356, Evans to Kwadzo De vi, âKing of Krepiâ (without number, Enclosure 3 in No. 23), 459 (1 of 1).
tna, pro, CO/879/28, African Confidential Print No. 356, Extract from Mr. Firmingerâs Report of the 20th March 1888 (without number, Enclosure 1 in No. 7), without date, 447â447bis (1 and 2 of 2); tna, pro, CO/879/28, African Confidential Print No. 356, Williams to Griffith (n° 2), 25 July 1888, 465 (1 of 1); tna, pro, CO/879/28, African Confidential Print No. 356, Notes of Statement made by King of Buem, July 25, 1888 (without number), without date, 465â465bis (1 and 2 of 2).
tna, pro, CO/879/28, African Confidential Print No. 356, Puttkamer, German Commissioner of Togo, to Griffith (without number, translation, Enclosure 1 in No. 14), 31 May 1888, 452bisâ453 (1 to 2 of 2); tna, pro, CO/879/28, African Confidential Print No. 356, Griffith to Puttkamer (n° 351), 9 June 1888, 453 (1 of 1).
ant, Fonds Allemand, FA3/3079, District Administrator of Lome-Land, [Jahresbericht Lome-Land 1908/09] (without number), 3 Oct. 1909, 4â8; ant, Fonds Allemand, FA3/3079, District Administrator of Lome-Land, Berichtsjahr 1909/10 (without number), 2aâf, 5; ant, Fonds Allemand, FA3/3079, Bezirksamt Lome-Land to Von Zech, Governor of Togo, Berichtsjahr 1910/11 (n° 805/14), 10 May 1911, 2â2(1), 4â5; ant, Fonds Allemand, FA3/3079, Bezirksamt Lome-Land to Brückner, Governor of Togo, Berichtsjahr 1910/11 [sic!] (n° 991/12), 19 May 1912, 2â2a, 5; ant, Fonds Allemand, FA3/2123, Gruner, District Administrator of Misahöhe, Jahresbericht 1907/08. (without number), without date, 4â5; [Zöller, H.], âTogo-Land, the German Protectorate on the Slave Coastâ, Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society and Monthly Record of Geography, New Monthly Series 7(6), 1885, 377â80, passim; Jehle, A., âSoul, Spirit, Fate: According to the Notions of the Tshi and Ehwe Tribes (Gold Coast and Togo, W. Africa)â, Journal of the Royal African Society 6(24), 1907, 405â15, 414; Smith, Woodruff D., âThe Ideology of German Colonialism, 1840â1906â, Journal of Modern History 46(4), 1974, 641â62, 657â9.
Vischer, Hanns, âNative Education in German Africaâ, Journal of the Royal African Society 14(54), 1915, 123â42, 124â30; Ustorf, Werner, ââSurvival of the Fittestâ: German Protestant Missions, Nazism and Neocolonialism, 1933â1945â, Journal of Religion in Africa 28(1), 1998, 93â114, 101â2.
Schuerkens, Ulrike, Du Togo allemand aux Togo et Ghana indépendants: Changement social sous régime colonial (Paris: Harmattan, 2001), 37â8, 52, 58.
ant, Fonds Allemand, FA1/92, Schlettwein, Acting District Administrator of Misahöhe, [Bereisung von Sokpe] (n° 527/12), 24 April 1912, 1â2.
See Lawrance, Benjamin N., âBankoe V. Dome: Traditions and Petitions in the Ho-Asogli Amalgamation, British Mandated Togoland, 1919â39â, Journal of African History 46(2), 2005, 243â67, 250.
praad (Ho Branch), DA/D/301, Memorandum on Kpandu Native Affairs. (without number), without date, 13.
Staatsarchiv Bremen, 7, 1025 (Norddeutsche Missionsgesellschaft), 5/3, Bürgi, Mission Station principal at Amedzofe, Avatime, to Mission Inspector (without number), 28 April 1901, 2.
Staatsarchiv Bremen, 7, 1025 (Norddeutsche Missionsgesellschaft), 6/1, Bürgi to Mission Inspector (without number), 27 October 1901, 2.
Staatsarchiv Bremen, 7,1025 (Norddeutsche Missionsgesellschaft), 6/2, Bürgi to Mission Inspector (without number), 29 Sept. 1904, 2; Erbar, Ralph, Ein âPlatz an der Sonneâ?: die Verwaltungs â und Wirtschaftsgeschichte der deutschen Kolonie Togo 1884â1914 (Stuttgart: Steiner, 1991), 285â302; Crabtree, W.A., âTogolandâ, Journal of the Royal African Society 14(54), 1915, 168â84, 176â8.
Staatsarchiv Bremen, 7, 1025 (Norddeutsche Missionsgesellschaft), 19/6, Bürgi, Errichtung einer zweiten Küstenstation in Lome (without number), 22 Aug. 1891, 3, 6.
Staatsarchiv Bremen, 7,1025 (Norddeutsche Missionsgesellschaft), 19/6, Kommentar zum Stationsbau (without number), without date [1898].
praad (Ho Branch), DA/D/296, Taifota Tahuma to District Commissioner of Ho (without number), 6 April 1933.
Louis, âGreat Britainâ, 56â8; Nugent, Smugglers, 31â5; Lawrance, Benjamin N., âPetitioners, âBush Lawyers,â and Letter Writers: Court Access in British-Occupied Lomé, 1914â1920â, in Benjamin N. Lawrance, Emily Lynn Osborn, and Richard L. Roberts (eds.), Intermediaries, Interpreters, and Clerks: African Employees in the Making of Colonial Africa (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2006), 94â114, 108â9; Akyeampong, Sea, 191â2; Alsheimer, Sklaverei, 12â3, 269.
Lawrance, Locality, 45, 48, and 52â3 (in the latter pages, Lawrance interprets a respective song text).
Report by his Britannic Majestyâs Government to the Council of the League of Nations on the Administration of Togoland under British Mandate for the Year 1927, 6, in tna, pro, CO/96/681/13.
On Rattrayâs work in Asante, see Von Laue, Theodore H., âAnthropology and Power: R.S. Rattray among the Ashantiâ, African Affairs 75(298), 1976, 33â54, 52â3; praad (Accra), adm 11/1/1624, Rattray, Report by Mr. R.S. Rattray (without number), without date, 21â2, 24, 28, 33â42, 46â7.
praad (Accra), adm 11/1/572, Hobs, District Commissioner of Mpraeso, Kwahu, to Commissioner of the Eastern Province (n° K./30/14.), 26 May 1915; praad (Accra), adm 11/1/572, Messum, British District Political Officer, to British Senior Political Officer in Lomé (n° 29/1/14), 15 Nov. 1914, 4; praad (Accra), adm 11/1/1621, Furley, [Report of a Tour through the districts of Togoland] (without number), 17 April 1918, 5â8; praad (Accra), adm 11/1/1622, Furley, Notes of Statements taken before the Secretary of Native Affairs on his Tour in Togoland (without number), without date [1918], 10â3; praad (Accra), adm 11/1/1620, Nani Hode, Head Chief of Anfoega, An extract of the manuscript of the History of Anfoe (without number, Enclosure vi in Report), 9 Feb. 1918, 2; Crabtree, W.A., âThe Conquest of Togolandâ, Journal of the Royal African Society 14(56), 1915, 386â91, 390.
praad (Accra), adm 11/1/1621, Furley, [Report of a Tour through the districts of Togoland] (without number), 17 April 1918, 14.
praad (Ho Branch), DA/D/292, Assistant District Commissioner in Ho, to Divisional Chief of Taingbe, Collection of Levy (n° 288/28/1929.), 15 March 1930.
praad (Ho Branch), DA/D/292, Kwaku Agama, Divisional Chief of Tokokoe, to District Commissioner in Ho, Re: Anka Yawoe vs. Amedume Apomah (without number), 3 May 1934; praad (Ho Branch), DA/D/292, Anku Yawoe, resident of Taingbe Dzafe, to District Commissioner in Ho, Anku Yawoe vs. Amedume Apomah (without number), 26 Sept. 1934, 1; praad (Ho Branch), DA/D/296, Kwashikuma Peteprebi Dzogu to District Commissioner of Ho (without number), 30 Oct. 1934, 2; praad (Ho Branch), DA/D/296, Assistant District Commissioner of Ho to District Commissioner of Kpandu, Tokokoe Stool Dispute (n° 521/14/1929.), 31 July 1933, 4.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/199, Jackson, Commissioner of the Eastern Province, Memorandum on Anglo-French Togoland Boundary (without number), without date, 1â2; Nugent, Paul, âThe Historicity of Ethnicity: Mandinka/Jola and Ewe/Agotime Identities in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuriesâ, in Alexander Keese (ed.), Ethnicity and the long-term perspective: the African experience (Berne etc.: Peter Lang, 2010), 127â53, 141â2.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/199, Adamah ii, Fia of Agbosome, to District Commissioner of Keta (n° 014/31), 26 Dec. 1930, 1.
ant, 1APA/1, Monographie: Cercle de Klouto (without number), without date [1930], 7â8; ant, 2APA, Cercle de Tsévié, 2, Nativel, Administrator of Subdivision of Lomé, Rapport de la tournée effectuée par lâAdministrateur-Adjoint des Colonies Nativel, Chef de la Subdivision de Lomé dans les cantons dâAkoviépé et de Mission-Tové du 25 Janvier au 27 Janvier et du 5 Février au 8 Février 1934 (without number), without date.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/238, Ellershaw, District Commissioner of Ho, to Commissioner of Eastern Province in Koforidua (n° 542/725/28.), 5 Sep. 1928, 1; praad (Accra), adm 39/1/238, District Commissioner of Ho to Commissioner of the Eastern Province (n° 548/166./27.), 15 March 1927, 1; praad (Accra), adm 39/1/238, District Commissioner of Ho to Commissioner of the Eastern Province (n° 48/240/27.), 30 April 1927; praad (Accra), adm 39/1/238, Dalton, Assistant District Commissioner of Ho, to Commissioner of the Eastern Province (n° 545/212/27.), 14 April 1927.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/250, Abutia Kusadjo Gidi ii, Fiaga of Abutia, to Acting District Commissioner of Ho (without number), 10 July 1945.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/250, Assistant District Commissioner of Ho to District Commissioner of Kpandu, Abutia Kloe Stool Dispute (without number), 27 July 1930; praad (Accra), adm 39/1/250, Martin Yawo substituting Samuel Kofi, Stoolfather of Abutia Kloe, to District Commissioner of Ho (without number), 27 April 1931; praad (Accra), adm 39/1/250, Kwadzo De X, Paramount Chief of Peki, to Abutia Kwadzo xii (n° 331/24/29.), 1 Sep. 1930; praad (Accra), adm 39/1/250, Fiaga Abutia Kwadzo xii of Abutia to Assistant District Commissioner of Ho (without number), 2 Sep. 1930; praad (Accra), adm 39/1/250, T.A. Mead, Assistant District Commissioner of Ho, to District Commissioner of Kpandu, Abutia Native Affairs. (without number), 13 July [1944].
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/250, Adja Dra V, Dufiaga of Agove Abutia; and subchiefs of Agove, to Dufia Abutia Kwadzo xii, of Teti-Abutia, In the Meeting held at Agove-Abutia Before Togbe Adja Dra V Fiaga. His subchiefs. Amanklatos. Stoolfathers. Linguists and Elders on the 17th day of March 1932 (without number), without date, 1; praad (Accra), adm 39/1/250, Assistant District Commissioner of Ho to District Commissioner of Kpandu, Abutia Division. (n° 152/4/1929), 28 March 1933, 1â2; praad (Accra), adm 39/1/250, Assistant District Commissioner of Ho to District Commissioner of Kpandu, Abutia Affairs (n° 1112/4/1929.), 18 Dec. 1943.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/250, S.K. Kumah, Fiaga of Agove; and others, to Kwadzo De X, Pekihene (without number), 12 May 1945; praad (Accra), adm 39/1/250, Assistant District Commissioner of Ho to District Commissioner of Kpandu, Abutia Divisional Affairs (n° 725/4/29.), 20 June 1945, 1.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/250, Tsagbey, Peki Native Administration Secretary, Report on Abutia Amalgamation Meeting held at Abutia-Teti on the 27th October, 1945, to the District Commissioner, Volta River District, Akuse. (without number), 31 Oct. 1945, 1â2; praad (Accra), adm 39/1/250, Tsagbey, Minutes of the Peki and Abutia Re-Union Meeting held at Agove-Abutia on Th[u]rsday the 15th. November, 1945. (without number), without date, 1â2; praad (Accra), adm 39/1/250, Duncan, District Commissioner of Ho, to Commissioner of the Eastern Province, Proposed Amalgamation of Abutia Division with the Asogli State. (n° 20/4/1929.), 31 Oct. 1945, 1â2; praad (Accra), adm 39/1/250, McDevitt, Acting District Commissioner of Akuse, to Donko, Regent of Peki State, Abutia-Asogli Amalgamation. (n° 2320/183/43.), 26 Nov. 1945; praad (Accra), adm 39/1/250, Donko to McDevitt, Abutia-Asogli Amalgamation. (n° 312/25/37.), 7 Dec. 1945, 1.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/238, District Commissioner of Ho to Commissioner of the Eastern Province (n° 479/116./27.), 18 Feb. 1927, 1â3; praad (Accra), adm 39/1/238, Secretary for Native Affairs of Gold Coast to Commissioner of the Eastern Province, Unification of Tribes separated by the old Anglo-German Boundary. (n° â¦1713/1924.), 23 Nov. 1929, 1.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/254, Gbogbi iii, Headchief of Adaklu, to District Comissioner of Ho (without number), 30 Sep. 1929.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/254, Assistant District Commissioner of Ho, Adaklu Affairs. (without number), 11 Feb. 1944, 4.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/254, An Account of the Adaklus as from the Ancient Times â Our Origin and our Travels (without number, attached n° 2), without date, 2â3.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/254, Gbogbi iii, Fiaga of Adaklu; Lablulu, Asafohenega of Waya; and others, to Commissioner of the Eastern Province (without number), 26 July 1946, 1; praad (Accra), adm 39/1/254, Gbogbi iii and others, to Assistant District Commissioner of Ho (without number), 17 Feb. 1938, 1.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/254, Assistant District Commissioner of Ho to Commissioner of the Eastern Province (n° 888/32/29.), 7 Oct. 1943, 1â2.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/254, Assistant District Commissioner of Ho to District Commissioner of Kpandu, Adaklu Divisional Affairs. (n° 550/32/1929.), 17 May 1945; praad (Accra), adm 39/1/238, District Commissioner of Ho to Commissioner of the Eastern Province, Adaklu Villages in Keta District. (n° 29/469/27), 6 Oct. 1927.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/238, Guteh, Assistant District Commissioner, Report on the Tribes separated by the old Anglo German Boundary. (without number), without date, 2.
tna, pro, CO/96/738/6, Warrington, Provincial Commissioner, Annual Report for the Eastern Province for the Year 1936â1937 (without number), without date, 62.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/303, Lilley, District Commissioner of Keta, to Commissioner of the Eastern Province, Report on the Keta-Ada District for the March Quarter 1942. (n° 810/4/31.), 6 May 1942, 3.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/303, District Commissioner of Keta to Commissioner of the Eastern Province, Report on Keta â Ada District for Quarter ending 31st December, 1942. (without number), without date, 3.
praad (Ho Branch), DA/D 311, Togbe Hlitabo ii, âFiaga of Agaveâ, and others, Petition addressed to His Excellency Sir Charles Noble Arden-Clarke K.C.M.G. â¦(without number), without date, 2â3. See Stahl, Ann B., âEthnic Style and Ethnic Boundaries: A Diachronic Case Study from West-Central Ghanaâ, Ethnohistory 38(3), 1991, 250â75, 255, 262â3.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/303, District Commissioner of Keta to Commissioner of the Eastern Province, Report on Keta â Ada District. Quarter ending 30th June 1943. (without number), 24 July 1943, 1; praad (Accra), adm 39/1/303, District Commissioner of Keta to Commissioner of the Eastern Province, Report on Keta â Ada District. Quarter ending 30th September 1943. (n° 2519/4/31.), 28 Sep. 1943, 1.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/303, Mead, Report on Native Affairs â Keta District. Quarter Ending December 31st, 1945. (without number), without date, 3; praad (Accra), adm 39/1/469, Elder Seshie Zodanu Kwashie, âHead of Chief James Ocloo iii. of Keta Stool Familyâ, to Commissioner of the Eastern Province, Petition of Elder Seshie Zodanu Kwashie, etc. (without number), without date, 2.
ant, 2APA, Cercle de Klouto, 10, Administrator of Subdivision of Klouto, Cercle du Centre, 1937 â 2èmeTrimestre: Main dâÅuvre (n° 10), 13 Oct. 1938; praad (Accra), adm 39/1/241, District Commissioner of Ho to Administrator of cercle of Klouto, French Togo (without number), 17 Jan. 1927, 1â2.
ant, 2APA, Cercle de Klouto, 10, Administrator of Subdivision of Klouto, Cercle de Centre, Subdivision de Klouto: Rapport Trimestriel, Année 1938 â 4èmeTrimestre (without number), 23 Jan. 1939, 5.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/212, Ellershaw, District Commissioner of Kpandu, to Commissioner of the Eastern Province, Krachi â Kpandu District Boundary. (n° 147/82A/1921.), 17 Feb. 1937, 2; ant, 8APA/3/37, District Commissioner of Klouto in Misahöhe, Rapport Trimestriel pour le 2èmeTrimestre 1922 (without number), without date, 1; ant, 2APA, Cercle de Tsévié, 2, Perret, Rapport de la tournée effectuée du 19â20 et 29 Février 1936 dans le Canton de Dalavé par lâAdjoint des S.[ervices] C.[oloniaux] Perret. (without number), without date, 4â5.
See, for example, praad (Accra), adm 39/1/212, A Short History of Dodi. (without number), without date. See, also, Fred-Mensah, Ben K., âBases of traditional conflict management among the Buems of the Ghana borderâ, in William Zartman (ed.), Traditional Cures for Modern Conflicts: African Conflict âMedicineâ (Boulder â London: Lynne Rienner, 2000), 31â47, 32â3.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/212, Nana Kwaku Ntim Gyakari, Omanhene of Tapa State, and others, Reference Tapa State, and Buem State Amalgamation (without number, from Tapa Ahenekrom), 2 Aug. 1935; praad (Accra), adm 39/1/268, Nana Yaw Nyarko ii, Ohene of Worawora, and others, To the President and Members of the Buem State Council: Memorandum of the Akan Section of Buem State. (without number, from Buem-Kadjebi), 20 May 1944, 1, 4; praad (Ho Branch), DA/D 309, Nana Akuamoa ii, Acting President, Buem State Council, and others to District Commissioner of Ho (without number), August 1946, 2; praad (Ho Branch), DA/D 309, Nana Yaw Nyako ii, Omanhene of Worawora, and others, Reminder Petition of the Akan Section of Buem State to His Excellency Sir Alan Cuthbert Maxwell Burnsâ¦(without number), 1 Aug. 1946, 2.
praad (Ho Branch), DA/D/299, Mackay, Provincial Commissioner of the Eastern Province, to Chief Commissioner of Gold Coast Colony (n° 1308/2009/45.), 27 March 1946, 1.
praad (Ho Branch), DA/D/299, Sub-Chief Jacob Akoteh; Sub-Chief Marious Gymranos; and others to Burns (without number), without date, 2â3 and 7â8.
Amenumey, Movement, 22â7; Pauvert, âEvolutionâ, 178; Lawrance, Benjamin, âLa Révolte des Femmes: Economic Upheaval and the Gender of Political Authority in Lomé, Togo, 1931â33â, African Studies Review 46(1), 2003, 43â67, 58â60; with the argument being more limited in Lawrance, Locality, 69â89. See praad (Accra), adm 11/1/1624, Lome Disturbances (without number), without date [1933], 1â2.
tna, pro, CO/96/758/2, Fisher, Brigade Major, Gold Coast Regiment, Royal West African Frontier Force, Intelligence Report for Period ending 30th June, 1939. (without number), without date, 1â2; ant, 2APA, Cercle de Klouto, 10, Administrator of Subdivision of Klouto, Cercle de Centre, Subdivision de Klouto: Rapport Trimestriel, Année 1938 â 3èmeTrimestre (without number), 13 Oct. 1938, 3; ant, 8APA/3/37, Renseignements: a/s. Togo Bund (n° 491/BC), 22 Dec. 1949, 1; Amenumey, D.E.K., âGerman Administration in Southern Togoâ, Journal of African History 10(4), 1969, 623â39; Nugent, Smugglers, 63; Kwaku, Ken, âTradition, Colonialism and Politics in Rural Ghana: Local Politics in Have, Volta Regionâ, Canadian Journal of African Studies 10(1), 1976, 71â86, 77â8; Blackshire-Belay, Carol Aisha, âGerman Imperialism in Africa: The Distorted Images of Cameroon, Namibia, Tanzania, and Togoâ, Journal of Black Studies 23(2), 1992, 235â46, 237â8; Ekoko, A. Edho, âThe British Attitude towards Germanyâs Colonial Irredentism in Africa in the Inter-War Yearsâ, Journal of Contemporary History 14(2), 1979, 287â307, 299â300.
ant, 2APA, Cercle de Klouto, 10, Orly, Administrator of Subdivision of Klouto, Cercle de Centre (Subdivision de Klouto): Rapport Trimestriel, Année 1939 â 4èmeTrimestre (without number), 5 Jan. 1940, 3.
ant, 2APA, Cercle de Klouto, 330, Wampah, Teacher of the Ewe Presbyterian Church in Kete Krachi, to Bourgine, Commissioner of Togo (without number), 4 Sep. 1934; ant, 2APA, Cercle de Klouto, 330, Mary, District Commissioner of Klouto, to Bourgine, Canton dâAtigba (Daye) (without number), 1st Oct. 1934, 1, 4; ant, 2APA, Cercle de Klouto, 330, Bassah iii, Chef de Canton of Daye-Atigba, and Seth Akrodou, Secretary of the Paramount Chieftaincy, Lettre de permission à Monsieur le Commandant, Chef de la Subdivision de Klouto (Palimé) (without number), 2 Feb. 1945, 1â3; ant, 2APA, Cercle de Klouto, 18 add., Goujon, Rapport Concernant les Tournées Effectuées par lâAdministrateur des Colonies Goujon, Commandant de Cercle de Klouto Dans les régions de Daye Kakpa et Daye Atigba. Pendant le mois de Mars 1935. (without number), without date, 2â3.
ant, 2APA, Cercle de Klouto, 10, Administrator of Subdivision of Misahöhe, Cercle de Centre: Rapport Trimestriel, Année 1938 â 2èmeTrimestre (without number), 18 July 1938, 3; ant, 2APA, Cercle de Klouto, 10, Administrator of Subdivision of Klouto, Cercle du Centre: Rapport Trimestriel, Année 1937 â 4èmeTrimestre (without number), without date, 3; Nugent, Smugglers, 64â72; ant, 2APA, Cercle de Klouto, 10, Administrator of Subdivision of Klouto, Cercle de Centre, Subdivision de Klouto: Rapport Trimestriel, Année 1938 â 4èmeTrimestre (without number), 23 Jan. 1939, 5.
ant, 2APA, Cercle de Klouto, 10, Administrator of Subdivision of Misahöhe, Cercle de Centre: Rapport Trimestriel, Année 1938 â 2èmeTrimestre (without number), 18 July 1938, 4.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/295, Rutherford, District Commissioner of Accra, to Johnson, known as Ansah (n° 1463/87/34.), 4 Oct. 1934, 1; praad (Accra), adm 39/1/295, Ansah to Rutherford (without number), 6 Oct. 1934; praad (Accra), adm 39/1/295, Commissioner of the Eastern Province to Secretary for Native Affairs of Gold Coast, Headman of the Ewe speaking People and the French Togoland Community in Accra. (n° 3916/2223/34), 21 Nov. 1934; praad (Accra), adm 39/1/295, District Commissioner of Accra, to Commissioner of the Eastern Province (n° 1652/87/34.), 31 Oct. 1934, 1â3; praad (Accra), adm 39/1/295, John Feliga Adeku and others (âTomb ii AâNuk Pa weâ); Abraham Kpakpo Akueson, Secretary of âFrench Togoland Communityâ, to Northcote, Acting Governor of the Gold Coast (without number), 16 Oct. 1934, 3â4, 7. See Sanjek, Roger, âCognitive Maps of the Ethnic Domain in Urban Ghana: Reflections on Variability and Changeâ, American Ethnologist 4(4), 1977, 603â22, 610â4.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/295, John Feliga Adeku and othersâ¦to Northcote (without number), 16 Oct. 1934, 5.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/295, Gbekor, Secretary of âEwe Communityâ of settlers in Nsawam; J.A. Darku, Headman of the âEwe Communityâ; and others, to District Commissioner of Kpandu (without number), 8 Aug. 1936, 1â2; praad (Accra), adm 39/1/295, Gbekor to Commissioner of the Eastern Province (without number), 8 Aug. 1936.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/35, Togbe Anku Saklie vi to Assistant District Commissioner of Ho (without number), 1 Jan. 1934; praad (Accra), adm 39/1/39, Adja Mensa Ado, Chief of Klepe Achatime, to Assistant District Commissioner of Ho District, The Rueful Ill-Humour in Klepe-Achatime and its Desistance of. (without number), 11 Jan. 1944.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/294, Commissioner of the Eastern Province to District Commissioner of Ada (n° 2220/34.), Tongu Confederaci: Sukpe â Fiervier Dispute, December 1945; praad (Accra), adm 39/1/294, Captain Ahoklo ii of Fiervier, Ada District, to Commissioner of the Eastern Province (without number), 28 Jan. 1938, 1; praad (Accra), adm 39/1/137, Togbe Kwami Hadjor ii, Fiaga of Bakpa, President of Tongu Confederacy Native Administration, and A.A. Dugbazeh, Secretary, Report on Enquiry of Fervier and Sokpoe Native Affairs (without number), 9 April 1949, 5.
praad (Ho Branch), DA/D 290, Acloo, and others of Sokode Gbogame, to District Commissioner of Ho (without number), 23 April 1940, 3; praad (Ho Branch), DA/D 290, Elders of Hoviepe, Ho District, Asogli State, to Assistant District Commissioner of Ho (without number), without date; praad (Ho Branch), DA/D 290, Assistant District Commissioner of Ho to District Commissioner of Kpandu, Sokode Native Affairs (without number), 30 Aug. 1940; praad (Ho Branch), DA/D 290, E.K. Adintsriju, and others, all Sub-Chiefs; âEldersâ of Sokode Gbogame, to Assistant District Commissioner of Ho (without number), 4 June 1942 [?], 1.
praad (Ho Branch), DA/D 288, Hene Hoe Keteku ii, Divisional Chief of Kpetoe Agotime, to Assistant District Commissioner of Ho, Mankralo Dza & others vs: Adonu & others. (without number), 25 June 1926; praad (Ho Branch), DA/D 288, Supreme Court of the Gold Coast Colony, Eastern Province, Affidavit of Mahumansro the Head Chief of Agotime Afegame (without number), 10 Nov. 1930; praad (Ho Branch), DA/D 288, Mahumasro, Chief of Agotime Afegame, to Assistant District Commissioner of Ho (without number), 8 July 1932; praad (Ho Branch), DA/D 288, Ahoto Legba to District Commissioner of Ho (without number), 13 Dec. 1937; praad (Ho Branch), DA/D 288, Elvert, District Commissioner of Kpandu, to Assistant District Commissioner of Ho, Kpetoe Native Affairs. (n° 425/108A/1930.), 18 May 1937; praad (Ho Branch), DA/D 288, Regent of Kpetoe Agotime to District Commissioner of Ho (without number), 20 March 1938, 1. praad (Ho Branch), DA/D 288, Hene Hoe Keteku ii to Assistant District Commissioner of Ho (without number), 15 Feb. 1943, 1â2; praad (Ho Branch), DA/D 288, Klu Fiagbedzi and others to Assistant District Commissioner of Ho, Agotime Chieftaincy Dispute (without number), 22 July 1943; Nugent, âHistoricityâ, 137â9.
praad (Ho Branch), DA/D 288, Azasu Kafe and others (âeldersâ) to Assistant District Commissioner of Ho (without number), 18 Dec. 1942, 1; praad (Ho Branch), DA/D 288, Hene Hoe Keteku ii to Assistant District Commissioner of Ho, The Installation of the Anlo Headman (without number), 7 Dec. 1944.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/250, McDevitt to âJohnâ (n° 2140/183/43.), 5 Nov. 1945, 2.
Kent, John, The internationalization of colonialism: Britain, France, and Black Africa, 1939â1956 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1992), 119â26, 239â62; Michel, Marc, âLe Togo dans les relations internationales au lendemain de la Guerre: prodrome de la décolonisation ou âpetite mésentente cordialeâ? (1945â1951)â, in Institut de lâHistoire du Temps Présent (ed.), Les Chemins de la Décolonisation de lâEmpire Colonial Français (Paris: cnrs Editions, 1986), 95â107, 100â4; Michel, Marc, âThe Decolonization of French Africa and the United States and Great Britain, 1945â1958â, in Roy Bridges (ed.), Imperialism, Decolonization and Africa: Studies Presented to John Hargreaves (London â New York: Macmillan, 2000), 153â77, 160â2.
Lawrance, Locality, 43.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/339, A.K. Amegashie; A.K. Anku; D.A. Chapman; and others, A Resolution on Eweland (without number), 31 Dec. 1945; see also Fieldhouse, David K., âBritish Merchants and French Decolonization: uac in Francophone Africa (1945â1960)â, in Charles-Robert Ageron and Marc Michel (eds.), LâAfrique noire française: lâheure des Indépendances (Paris: cnrs Editions, 1992), 489â98, 491â2.
Keese, Alexander, âRigged elections? Democracy and manipulation in the late colonial state in French West Africa and Togo, 1944â1958â, in Martin Thomas (ed.), The French Colonial Mind Vol. 1 (Lincoln â London: University of Nebraska Press, 2011), 324â46, 335â6; Amenumey, Movement, 156â61.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/339, Daniel A. Chapman; A.K. Mensah; G. Ameche, The Ewe News-Letter 1, 21 May 1945, 1â2; praad (Accra), adm 39/1/339, Daniel A. Chapman, The Ewe News-Letter 3, July 1945, 3.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/339, Daniel A. Chapman, The Ewe News-Letter 4, August 1945, 3. The idea of a âTongu identityâ is, however, referred to in Amenumey, Ewe, 16.
Keese, Alexander, âA Culture of Panic: âCommunistâ Scapegoats and Decolonization in French West Africa and French Polynesia (1945â1957)â, French Colonial History 9, 2008, 131â45, 138. The leaders of the ptp, as the major rival of Olympioâs cut, increasingly served up this argument in their electoral propaganda. See, for example, ant, 5APA/16, Parti Togolais du Progrès, [pamphlète sans titre] (without number), 2 June 1951.
ant, 8APA/3/37, District Commissioner of Klouto, Rapport: Cercle de Klouto 1951 (without number), without date, 1; praad (Accra), adm 39/1/303, Mead, Report on Native Affairs â Keta District. Quarter Ending September 30th, 1945. (without number), without date, 3. On the questions of categories such as âMinasâ, âWatchiâ, and âEweâ, compare the early historical account on Togo by the scholar-administrator Robert Cornevin, who only distinguishes the âAdangme-Gaâ from the âEweâ, in Cornevin, Robert, Histoire du Togo (Paris: Editions Berger-Levrault, 1962), 76â7.
tna, pro, CO/96/790/3, Extract from the Report of the Committee on Constitutional Reform in the Gold Coast. (without number, as Annex ii), without date.
Colonial Office, Reportâ¦to the General Assembly of the United Nations on the Administration of Togoland under United Kingdom Trusteeship for the Year 1948 (London: His Majestyâs Stationary Office, 1949), 5, to be found in tna, pro, CO/96/790/3.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/668, Jas Turner, Director of Medical Services, Medical Department in Accra, to Colonial Secretary of the Gold Coast (n° 1560/13), 28 Aug. 1948; praad (Accra), adm 39/1/668, J.C. Murphy, Medical Officer, Medical Department, Keta, to Turner, French Medical Authorities â Medical Treatment to Gold Coast Citizens. (n° Kl28/48â9.), 18 Aug. 1948.
Marguerat, Yves, ââNous ne sommes pas des AOFiensâ: Les difficiles relations du Togo et de lâaofâ, in Charles Becker, Saliou Mbaye, and Ibrahima Thioub (eds.), aof: réalités et héritages: Sociétés ouest-africaines et ordre colonial, 1895â1960 (Dakar: Direction des Archives du Sénégal, 1997), 273â82, 280.
ant, 2APA, Cercle de Klouto, 350, District Commissioner of Klouto to Cédile, French Commissioner of Togo, a/s chefferie du Canton dâAgou-Nyongbo: examen des requêtes en date du 14 et du 21 Novembre 1949 du Chef Léléklélé, du village indépendant dâAgou-Agbétiko (n° 305.), 25 Feb. 1950, 3.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/94, Chief Commissioner of Gold Coast Colony, Note: [Situation in Southern Togoland] (without number), 30 April 1949.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/446, District Commissioner of Kpandu, Quarterly Report on the Kpandu Area of the Ho/Kpandu District for the Quarter ending 30th June, 1946. (without number), without date, 1; Callaway, âPoliticsâ, 127.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/94, Dixon, Senior District Commissioner of Ho, to Mangin, Chief Commissioner of Gold Coast Colony (n° S.0167/16), 21 Dec. 1948; praad (Accra), adm 39/1/94, Dixon to Mangin, Representation of the Southern Section of Togoland in the Legislative Council (n° S.0167/25), 11 Jan. 1949, 1.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/303, Assistant District Commissioner of Keta, Keta District Native Affairs Report 1st Quarter, 1945. (without number), without date, 1.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/446, Hammerhurst, District Commissioner of Ho, Quarterly Report on Ho District for the Period 1st January, 1946 to 31st March, 1946. (without number), without date, 1.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/94, Michael Batse, Secretary-General of the Togo Union, to Trygve Lie, Secretary-General of the United Nations, Togoland Affairs (without number), 11 May 1951, 3; praad (Accra), adm 39/1/94, Andrews S.K. Ekpey, Secretary of Togoland Youth Association, to Trygve Lie, Togoland Affairs and Urgent Demand. (without number), 31 July 1951, 2; see Skinner, Kate, âWriting and Rallies: The Politics of âFreedomâ in Southern British Togoland, 1953â1956â, Journal of African History 48(1), 2007, 123â47, 132; and the brand-new Skinner, Kate, The Fruits of Freedom in British Togoland: Literacy, Politics and Nationalism, 1914â2014 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 122â53.
See ant, 2APA, Cercle de Klouto, 10, District Commissioner of Klouto to Péchoux, Commissioner of Togo (n° 97/CK), 18 Sep. 1952; ant, 2APA, Cercle de Klouto, 10, Procès-Verbal â Introduction sur le Territoire du Togo du Journal «âMotabiabiaâ» publié en langue indigène (Ewhe), par le nommé Alfred Kpedu, de Kpedze (n° 227), without date, 1; ant, 2APA, Cercle de Klouto, 23, Examen du Plan Secret du Gouvernement du Gold-Coast Relatif à lâAnnexion du Togo sous Tutelle Britannique â Divulgué en Juillet 1953 â Traduction in extenso (without number), without date, 2, 5.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/94, Dixon, Senior District Commissioner of Ho, to Mangin, Representation of the Southern Section of Togoland in the Legislative Council (n° S.0167/25), 11 Jan. 1949, 1; praad (Accra), adm 39/1/94, Chief Commissioner of the Colony, Note: [Situation in Southern Togoland] (without number), 30 April 1949.
praad (Ho Branch), DA/D 307, Copy: Draft Statement by the Minister of Justice (without number), without date; praad (Accra), adm 39/1/120, President of Ewe Youth Movement in Keta, to Arden-Clarke, Governor of Gold Coast, The Shooting Incident at Suipe in Avenor, Anlo State (without number), 10 Nov. 1950, 1.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/94, Michael Batse, Secretary-General of Togo Union, to Trygve Lie, Secretary-General of the United Nations, Togoland Affairs (without number), 11 May 1951, 2; praad (Accra), adm 39/1/94, Andrews S.K. Ekpey, Secretary of Togoland Youth Association, to Trygve Lie, Togoland Affairs and Urgent Demand. (without number), 31 July 1951, 1.
Nugent, Smugglers, 189â92.
These réglements de comptes become visible in a number of documents, see ant, 2APA, Cercle de Klouto, 23, Kokevi to District Commissioner of Klouto-Kpalimé (without number), 22 Dec. 1958; ant, 2APA, Cercle de Klouto, 23, Aff. Sowonou Antonio (without number), 27 Dec. 1958; ant, 2APA, Cercle de Klouto, 23, Adjoint du Chef de Circonscription of Klouto, Etat des sommes perçues par les dirigeants du C.U.T. après les élections du 27-4-1958 et 9-4-61 dans les villages Agou Nyongbo Dalave et Agou Nyongbo Agbetiko (without number), 28 Oct. 1963; Nieuwaal, E. Adriaan B. van Rouveroy van, âEwe Chiefs and Ewe Legal Traditions in Togo and Benin: The Evolution of Traditional Authority, 1940â1990â, in Benjamin Lawrance (ed.), A Handbook of Eweland: The Ewe of Togo and Benin (Accra: Woeli Publishing Services, 2005), 145â60, 157.
ant, 2APA, Cercle de Klouto, 350, E.K. Peby iv, Paramount Chief of canton of Agou Nyogbo; Hilaire Biem, President of cut section of Agou Nyogbo, and others, to Administrator of Subdivision of Klouto (without number), 24 March 1962, 1.
Quote is from Interview with Togbe Kutumua viii, Village Chief of Agu Kebo Dzigbe, Agu Region, Togo, 22 March 2009.
For the example of Have, see Kwaku, âTraditionâ, 79â80.
See, on these generational conflicts, Waller, Richard, âRebellious Youth in Colonial Africaâ, Journal of African History 47(1), 2006, 77â92, 89.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/712, Caldow, Assistant District Commissioner of Keta, Quarterly Report â Keta District January â March, 1951. (without number), 13 April 1951, 1; praad (Accra), adm 39/1/342, Gardner, Assistant District Commissioner of Keta, to Commissioner of the Eastern Province, Dabala Riot (without number), 4 Feb. 1947, 2.
praad (Ho Branch), DA/D/301, Asafoche Gavi, Chief of Liati Division, Akpini State, to Goldsworthy, Governor of the Gold Coast, The Petition of the People of Laiti [sic], Fudome and Vli (without number), 25 Sep. 1945, 1.
Greene, Sandra E., âSacred Terrain: Religion, Politics and Place in the History of Anloga (Ghana)â, International Journal of African Historical Studies 30(1), 1997, 1â22, 12â5.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/120, Kotsikui ii, Asafohene in Tsiame, Ve Division; Sogbe ii, Asafohene in Tsiame; Senu ii, Asafohene in Tsiame, all from the vicinity of Anloga, Anlo State, to Burns, Governor of Gold Coast (without number), 13 Nov. 1944.
See praad (Accra), adm 39/1/120, Sri ii, Awoame Fia of Anlo, as president; and other asafohenewa, and S.E. Akrobotu, Councillor and President of the Ewe Union in Keta, Anlo State Council Resolution â No. 3 of 1943: Resolution passed by the Anlo State Council in Regard to the Appointment of Finance Board Members. (n° 3), 4 March 1943; praad (Accra), adm 39/1/120, District Commissioner of Keta to Commissioner of the Eastern Province (n° 207/35/S.F.9.), 30 April 1945.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/120, Atiavishi, Fetish Priest, self-declared Descendant of âAncestor Dzoglamateâ; Chief Adia ii, President of the Town Council of Atiavi; and others, Petition from all the Chiefs and the Members of Atiavi Addressed to His Excellency the Governor Sir Alan Burns, K.C.MG etc. against Encroachment upon the National Rights of the People and the Continuous Injustice meted out to them by Hon. Togbi Sri ii, C.B.E. (without number), 15 March 1946.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/120, Agotelor to Mangin, Chief Commissioner of Gold Coast Colony (without number), 10 June 1949, 1; praad (Accra), adm 39/1/712, Peake, Assistant District Commissioner of Keta, Quarterly Report â Keta District. October â December, 1950. (without number), 17 Jan. 1951, 2.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/712, Cowley, Government Agent in Keta, Quarterly Report â Keta District April â June, 1952. (without number), 14 July 1952, 3; praad (Accra), adm 39/1/712, Cowley, Quarterly Report â Keta District July â September, 1952. (without number), 14 Oct. 1952, 1, 3.
Callaway, Barbara J., âTransitional Local Politics: Tradition in Local Government Elections in Aba, Nigeria; Keta, Ghanaâ, African Studies Review 15(3), 1972, 403â12, 406â8.
praad (Ho Branch), DA/D 302, Togbe Adai Kwasi Adom ix, Fia of Awudome; Togbe Adzesi Dzago vi, Fia of Avenui; and others, Resolution (without number), without date; praad (Ho Branch), DA/D 307, Acting District Commissioner of Akuse to Commissioner of the Eastern Province (n° 1141/190/1920.), 28 May 1946, 1; praad (Ho Branch), DA/D 302, Acting Provincial Commissioner of the Eastern Province to Chief Commissioner of Gold Coast Colony, Awudome-Peki Relation (without number), 24 June 1946, 1â2; praad (Ho Branch), DA/D 302, Adai Kwasi Adem ix, Fia of Awudome, Petition of the Fiaga and People of Awudome (without number), 7 May 1946, 4â5.
praad (Ho Branch), DA/D 302, District Commissioner of Akuse to Chief Commissioner of Gold Coast Colony, Awudome Affairs. (n° 0141/SF.5/56), 29 May 1951.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/529, Crawford for Chief Commissioner of Gold Coast Colony, to Government Agent in Akuse (n° 554/13), 27 May 1952; praad (Accra), adm 39/1/529, Saka Vume, Secretary of Awudome State Council, Address of Welcome by the People of Awudome to the Government Agent Ho on 1st Official Visit. (without number), 29 July 1952.
praad (Accra), Ho Branch, DA/D/301, John Green, Assistant District Commissioner of Kpandu, to Acting Senior District Commissioner of Ho, Wusuta Native Affairs (n° 0019/S.F.1/2), 18 June 1947, 1â2; praad (Accra), adm 39/1/673, Togbe Abiu Gedodoe, Adontenhene of Wusuta Division, Akpini State, to Assistant District Commissioner of Kpandu, Wusuta Constitutional Dispute (without number), 13 Oct. 1951.
praad (Ho Branch), DA/D/301, Senior District Commissioner of Ho to Chief Commissioner of Gold Coast Colony, Alavanyo Native Affairs (n° S.010/SF.3/26.), 24 April 1948, 1; praad (Ho Branch), DA/D/301, Senior District Commissioner of Ho to Chief Commissioner of Gold Coast Colony, Amalgamation of the Tsrukpe Division with the Akpini State (n° S.0097/23.), 21 May 1948, 1.
praad (Ho Branch), DA/D/301, Memorandum on Kpandu Native Affairs. (without number), without date, 16â7.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/697, Acting Senior District Commissioner of Ho to Chief Commissioner of Gold Coast Colony, Tongu Confederacy Resolution. (n° S.0114/10.), 23 April 1948; praad (Ho Branch), DA/D 311, Togbe C.K. Ruipah iii, Fiaga of Mepe, President of the Tongu Confederacy; Togbe Hlitabo ii, Fiaga of Agave; and others, Tongu Confederacy Resolutions. (without number), without date, 1.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/712, Caldow, Assistant District Commissioner of Keta, Quarterly Report â Keta District October â December, 1951. (without number), 28 Jan. 1952, 1, 3; praad (Accra), adm 39/1/712, Caldow, Quarterly Report â Keta District January â March, 1952 (without number), 8 April 1952, 1.
praad (Ho Branch), DA/D/300, Appendix âCâ: Summary of the Historical Background to the Division of the Mafis. (without number), without date [1950?].
praad (Ho Branch), DA/D/300, Kwazi Abliza iii, Fia of Volo and President of Tongu Confederacy Council; Hadjor ii, Fia of Bakpe and Vice-president; J.K. Zogah, Fia of Sukpe; C.K. Asipati iii, Fia of Mepe; Tongu Group Council Meeting â Fifth Session at Mafi Abidome on Wednesday the 17th of January, 1945. (without number), without date; praad (Ho Branch), DA/D/300, Assem iii, Fia of Mafi; J.K. Asafo iii, Makralo of Mafi; and others, Petition passed by the Mafi Divisional Council held at Adidome on the 14th Day of June, 1950, under the Presidency of Togbe Assem iii, of Mafi and the following membersâ¦(without number), 14 June 1950, 1; praad (Ho Branch), DA/D/300, Togbe Assim iii, Fia of Mafi; E.K.Awittor-Bedi, Secretary of Mafi Division, to Chairman of Select Committee on Local Government and Chief Commissioner of Gold Coast Colony, Re Unification of Mafi Divisions and Joining of Tongu Confederacy Council. (without number), 13 Sep. 1950, 1.
praad (Ho Branch), DA/D/300, Assem iii and others, Petition passed by the Mafi Divisional Council held at Adidome on the 14th Day of June, 1950 â¦, 2.
praad (Ho Branch), DA/D/300, âPeople of Northern Side Mafiâ, including Assem iii, Fiaga of Mafi and others; to Chief Commissioner of Gold Coast Colony (without number), 7 Sep. 1951, 2; praad (Ho Branch), DA/D/300, Asafo iii of Mafi to Gbedemah, Minister of Local Government of Gold Coast, Resolution passed by the Mafi State Council held at Adidome this 27th Day of July under the Chairmanship of Mankralo J.K. Asafo iii., of Mafi.: Resolution of the Unification of North/South of Mafi. (without number), 27 July 1951, 1; praad (Ho Branch), DA/D/300, Kwasinyi Agyeman iii, Chief of Adidome, Copy: Declaration (without number), 17 Oct. 1948, 1; praad (Ho Branch), DA/D/300, Assem iii, Fiaga of Mafi State; Mankralo Akpafo vi; and others, to Arden-Clarke, Governor of the Gold Coast, Resolution of the People of Anlo Mafi and Mafi Dugame for Reunion. (without number), 12 June 1953, 1; praad (Accra), adm 39/1/712, Assistant District Commissioner of Keta, Quarterly Report â Keta District â July â September, 1950. (without number), 4 Oct. 1950, 2.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/712, Caldow, Assistant District Commissioner of Keta, Quarterly Report â Keta District April â June, 1951. (without number), 20 July 1951, 4; praad (Ho Branch), DA/D/300, Thomas, Government Agent in Sogakope, to Regional Officer of Trans-Volta Togoland Region, Report on Mafi Unification and the possible Reorganisation of the Central Tongu Local Council (n° to.4/55), 17 Nov. 1952, 1â2; praad (Ho Branch), DA/D/300, G.K. Dordoye, Councillor of Mafi State; A. Die-Dordoye, Secretary-General of Mafi Youth Association (mya); J.K. Nutakor, Chairman of Central Tongu Local Council, and others, to Arden-Clarke, Unification of Mafi. (without number), 20 Aug. 1953, 1; praad (Ho Branch), DA/D/300, J.A. Cowley, Acting Regional Officer of Volta Region, to Secretary of Governor of the Gold Coast, Mafi Unification (0020/SF.4/Vol.2/315), 15 Oct. 1953, 1; praad (Ho Branch), DA/D/300, Appendix âAâ: Mafi Unification â Villages visited in Mafi Dugame Division (without number), without date.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/303, Assistant District Commissioner of Keta to Commissioner of the Eastern Province, Native Affairs Report [for Keta] â 4th Quarter, 1944. (n° 116/4/31.), 13 Jan. 1945, 3.
praad (Ho Branch), DA/D/295, District Commissioner of Keta to Commissioner of the Eastern Province in Koforidua, Duffor Native Affairs (n° 0010/35), 26 Nov. 1946.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/250, Abutia Kwadzo xii, Chief of Abutia Teti, to Assistant District Commissioner of Ho (without number), 21 Dec. 1937.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/108, P. Gardner, Acting District Commissioner of Keta, to Kwasi Abliza iii., Fia of Volo (n° 1881/SAD/45.), 24 Oct. 1946; praad (Accra), adm 39/1/108, Acting Senior District Commissioner of Keta to Commissioner of the Eastern Province, Volo-Akwamu Dispute over Frankadua (n° eo.S.0073/4.), 31 Oct. 1947.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/108, T.R.O. Mangin, Chief Commissioner of Gold Coast Colony, to Colonial Secretary of Gold Coast, Frankadua (Akwamu State) Native Affairs. (n° 025/SF.12/33.), 5 Feb. 1948, 2; praad (Accra), adm 39/1/108, Senior District Commissioner of Ho to Chief Commissioner of Gold Coast Colony, Volta River â Ada Districts Boundary â Akwamu â Tongu Affairs (n° 0409/41), 30 Aug. 1950.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/108, Senior District Commissioner of Ho to Chief Commissioner of Gold Coast Colony, Frankadua Affairs (n° 0409/33), 31 July 1950.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/108, Senior District Commissioner of Ho to Chief Commissioner of Gold Coast Colony, Akwamu â Tongu Native Affairs (n° 0409/47), Sept. 1950, 1â2.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/108, Kwasi Abliza iii, Fiaga of Volo, to Creasy, Governor of the Gold Coast, Volo â Akwamu Dispute: Petition of Kwasi Abliza iii Dufiaga of Volo State for and on behalf of the Duffor-Volo Native Authority (without number), 11 Oct. 1948, 1.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/713, Acting District Commissioner of Keta to Commissioner of the Eastern Province (n° 2070/94/96), 14 Nov. 1946.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/108, Frankadua (Extracted from file 30084PS124-125) (without number), without date.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/108, Dixon to Kerr, Senior District Commissioner in Akuse (n° 0068/SF.3/125), 5 Dec. 1950, 1.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/108, Smeham, Frankadua (n° 0068/S.F.3), 14 Feb. 1953; praad (Accra), adm 39/1/108, Kofi Tulasi ii, Tefia, and others; to Gbedemah, Minister of Local Government of the Gold Coast (without number), 12 Feb. 1953; praad (Accra), adm 39/1/108, District Commissioner of Keta to Adjani (n° S.0068/SF.3/149), 15 Feb. 1953.
praad (Ho Branch), DA/D 311, George Sinclair, Regional Officer of Togoland, to Secretary of Government of the Gold Coast, The Tongu Confederacy (n° S.0114/117), 20 Oct. 1952, 2.
United Nations, Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (cerd), Reports submitted by States Parties under Article 9 of the Convention â Seventeenth Periodic Reports of States Parties due in 2002: Addendum Ghana, 31 May 2002 (Geneva: United Nations, 2002), 31; Khan, Naefa, âThe Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice in Ghana: Working in the micro and around the macroâ, in Parlevliet, Michelle, Guy Lamb, and Victoria Maloka (eds.), Defenders of Human Rights, Managers of Conflict, Builders of Peace? (Cape Town: University of Cape Town, 2005), 64â82, 76â7.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/713, District Commissioner of Akuse to Commissioner of the Eastern Province, Togome and Forjoku Affairs. (n° 2715/186/08 Vol.iii.), 22 Nov. 1946.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/713, Discussion on Togome and Forjoku Affairs â during Akwamu Native Authority Meeting on Tuesday 12th November, 1946. (without number), without date.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/713, Gardner, District Commissioner of Keta, to Commissioner of the Eastern Province, Torgome and Forjoku Affairs. (n° 0048/5), 2 Dec. 1946 [dated â2 Dec. 1936â], 1â2; praad (Accra), adm 39/1/713, Judd, Acting Commissioner of the Eastern Province, 23-10-33: In the Supreme Court of the Gold Coast Colony, Eastern Province, held at Akuse on Monday the 23rd Day of October 1933, before his Worship Leonard Warner Judd, Acting Commissioner Eastern Province. â Chief Asamoa Nkwanta â Plaintiff Appellant vs: Agobodjo & Chief Afum Asare â Defendants â Respondents. (without number), without date, 1, 6, 12, 15.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/713, Senior District Commissioner of Ho to Commissioner of the Eastern Province (without number), without date [1948].
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/712, Caldow, Assistant District Commissioner of Keta, Quarterly Report â Keta District July â September, 1951. (without number), 16 Oct. 1951, 5.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/458, Assistant District Commissioner of Ho, Comments on the Resolution of the Bankoe âDivisionalâ Council dated the 2nd August 1951. (without number), without date, 1.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/254, Gbogbi iii, Fiaga of Adaklu; Lablublu iii of Waya; Agbi iii of Goefe; Krakani iii of Helekpe, and others, to Togbi Sri ii, Awoame Fia of Anlo (without number), 20 Feb. 1945, 1; praad (Accra), adm 39/1/254, Mead, District Commissioner of Ho, to Commissioner of the Eastern Province, Adaklu Division (Ho/Kpandu and Keta Districts) (n° 325/107/31.), 13 Feb. 1946, 1; praad (Accra), adm 39/1/454, W.J. Caldow, Assistant District Commissioner of Keta, to Senior District Commissioner of Ho, Southern Adaklu Affairs. (n° 0093/101.), 16 May 1951.
praad (Ho Branch), DA/D 309, Mangin, Chief Commissioner of Gold Coast Colony, to Commissioner of the Eastern Province (n° â¦/9/38), 13 July 1945, 1â2; praad (Ho Branch), DA/D/298, Nana Akuamoa iv, Omanhene of Buem, to Arden-Clarke, Jasikan Native Affairs. (without number), 8 May 1953; praad (Ho Branch), File No. 2009/29, Sub-File No. âAâ, Omanhene of Buem, Petition to His Excellency the Governor, Sir Alan Cuthbert Maxwell Burns, K.C.M.G., etc. etc. etc. on the Occasion of his Visit to the Buem State, Borada. 16th. February 1943. (without number), without date, 2; Dickson, A.G., âMass Education in Togolandâ, African Affairs 49(195), 1950, 136â50, 137.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/268, Nana Yaw Nyako ii, Ohene of Worawora; Nana Akompi Firam iii, Ohene of Kadjebi; Nana Kwasi Adu, and others, Petitionâ¦(without number), March 1945, 1; praad (Ho Branch), DA/D 309, Nana Akuamoa iv, Acting President, Buem State Council, to District Commissioner of Ho, Buem Native Authority Election of [sic] (without number), 19 June 1946, 1; praad (Ho Branch), DA/D 309, Nana K.O.Brantuo iii, Adontenhene of Buem, Chief of Jasikan, and asafohenes and stoolfathers, Petitionâ¦(without number, translated from Lelemi), 11 Sep. 1946, 1; praad (Ho Branch), DA/D 309, Nana Yaw Nyako ii, Woraworahene, to District Commissioner of Kpandu (without number), 6 Oct. 1946; praad (Accra), adm 39/1/571, Duncan, Assistant District Commissioner of Kpandu, to District Commissioner of Ho, Bowiri Affairs â Abdication of Divisional Chief (n° 2729/85/1921.), 27 Nov. 1946; praad (Ho Branch), DA/D/297, District Commissioner of Ho to Chief Commissioner of Gold Coast Colony, Petition from the Natural Rulers and Elders of Worawora Division (n° S. 0053/SF.2/Vol. 6/521.), 8 Dec. 1950, 2; praad (Ho Branch), DA/D/298, Telegram from Nana Asafohene and Nana Ampeh Tapahene, âon behalf of Akan groupâ, Kadjebi, to Senior District Commissioner in Ho (n° S. 0109/Vol.3/246.), 23 July 1952.
praad (Ho Branch), DA/D/299, Sub-Chief Jacob Akoteh, and others, to Burns (without number), without date, 2.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/5, Kofi Djerekey, Acting Mankralo of Bator, and Kodjo Fiagbor Wusu Yao, to Colonial Secretary of the Gold Coast (without number), 12 October 1943; praad (Ho Branch), NA/47, Nana Kataboa ii, Agesokubihene and Krontihene; and elders, to Amanyagle, and others, A Letter of Warning (n° AP3/1/56), 5 May 1956.
ant, 2APA, Cercle de Klouto, 10, Administrator of Subdivision of Klouto, Cercle de Centre, Subdivision de Klouto: Rapport Trimestriel, Année 1938 â 4èmeTrimestre (without number), 23 Jan. 1939, 5.
ant, 2APA, Cercle de Klouto, 23, District Commissioner of Klouto to Cédile, French Commissioner of Togo, a/s requête du Chef Nana Buaka iv de Baglo (n° 115/c.), 18 Sep. 1950, 1.
ant, 2APA, Cercle de Klouto, 358, Kossi Fiasi, Planter, representative of Collectivité Bokovi Asuka Edi in Totsi, to District Commissioner of Klouto (without number), 25 Oct. 1951; ant, 8APA/3/37, Tourot, District Commissioner of Klouto, to Péchoux, French Commissioner of Togo (n° 011/Cf.), 7 Feb. 1953, 1â2; ant, 2APA, Cercle de Klouto, 358, Bokovi Emmanuel, Secretary of Chief Edi ii of Kuma-Totsi, Discours à Monsieur lâAdministrateur de la F.O.M. Commandant le Cercle de Klouto; à lâoccasion de lâIntroduction de Joseph Koffi Edi ii, Chef de Village de Kouma-Totsi â Le 6 Septembre 1958. (without number), 6 Sep. 1958, 1; ant, 2APA, Cercle de Klouto, 358, W.M. Kludea; Bassah Eben-Ezer, Secretary; Thomas Gbago; Fritz Komassi, Jugement N° 35 du 27 Juillet 1959 du Tribunal Coutumier de Palimé: Affaire de Chefferie. Nyassem Assi Amoua Cultivateur à Kouma Apoti. Contre Gustave Amedome Chef du village Kouma Apoti. (without number), 27 July 1959; ant, 2APA, Cercle de Klouto, 358, cff, Note dâInformation: Différend entre les villages de Kouma-Tsomé et Kouma-Totsi. (n° 26.C/cff), 6 Oct. 1969, 1.
ant, 2APA, Cercle de Klouto, 350, Gidéon Avogan, notable; and others, all designed as âNotables, Anciens et Le Chef Léléklélé I du village autonome dâAgou Agbétikoâ, to Commander of Brigade of the Gendarmerie Nationale, Suppression inéluctable des fauts rapports et plaintes injustes de notre village. (without number), 15 Oct. 1953, 1, 3; ant, 2APA, Cercle de Klouto, 350, K. Franklin West, Adjutant-Chief of the Gendarmerie Nationale; Gabriel Agbo, Gendarme, Procès Verbal (numbers illegible), 13 Oct. 1970, 1â5; ant, 2APA, Cercle de Klouto, 350, Laurent Y. Agboyi, Secretary of Chief of Agou-Nyogbo-Agbetiko, to F.D. Ali, Acting Togolese Minister of the Interior (without number), 19 Oct. 1970, 1; ant, 2APA, Cercle de Klouto, 350, Antoine Agbenou, Attaché of the Administration, to Ministry of the Interior of Togo (n° 874/CK), 22 Oct. 1970.
ant, 2APA, Cercle de Tsévié, 4, Keisso Abena, chief of ward of Fongbe Apedome; and others; Zotaé Torglo, chief of ward of Boeti; Goli Apenon; Sogbo Awli, notables of Fongbe Boeti; to District Commissioner of Lomé, aff. des Fongbés (without number), 3 Nov. 1948, 1â3. The citation is on pages 2â3, passages in italics are underlined in the original text.
ant, 2APA, Cercle de Tsévié, 4, D. Videau, Administrator of Subdivision of Tsévié; J. Houessou, Interpreter, Procès-Verbal de consultation coutumière pour la nomination du Chef de Village Indépendant de Fongbé. â (without number), 28 Oct. 1949, 1â4.
[Christaller,] âExplorationsâ, 256.
tna, pro, CO/879/28, African Confidential Print No. 356, von Puttkamer, German Governor of Togo (Extract.) [Memorandum on Peki] (without number, Enclosure 2 in No. 44), 30 June 1888, 2.
praad (Accra), adm 11/1/1624, Rattray, Report by Mr. R.S. Rattray (without number), without date, 28.
Staatsarchiv Bremen, 7,1025 (Norddeutsche Missionsgesellschaft), 6/2, Schosser to Härtter (without number), 5 Aug. 1904, 1; Staatsarchiv Bremen, 7,1025 (Norddeutsche Missionsgesellschaft), 6/2, Schröder, missionary at Amedzofe, to Ohly, Mission Inspector (without number), without date, 2.
Staatsarchiv Bremen, 7,1025 (Norddeutsche Missionsgesellschaft), 19/6, Andreas Aku, Bremen Mission catechist in Keta, to Mission Inspector, Eine Ferienreisebeschreibung (without number), 20 to 25 Feb. 1890, 10; Staatsarchiv Bremen, 7,1025 (Norddeutsche Missionsgesellschaft), 6/2, Stations-Konferenz: Besetzung des Amedžowe-Bezirks 1907 (without number), 4 July 1906, 3; Spieth, Ewe-Stämme, 49*, 65*. According to Avatime legends, the community once had a female chief for the female population â a tradition that is, if I am not mistaken, not found anywhere else in the Trans-Volta region.
praad (Accra), adm 11/1/1621, Furley, [Report of a Tour through the districts of Togoland] (without number), 17 April 1918, 12; praad (Accra), adm 39/1/235, History of Avatime Division. (without number), without date, 1, 3; praad (Accra), adm 11/1/1624, Rattray, Report by Mr. R.S. Rattray (without number), without date, 38; ant, 2APA, Cercle de Lomé, 9, Nativel, Assistant District Commissioner of Lomé, Tournée effectuée par lâAdministrateur-Adjoint Nativel au cours du mois de Septembre 1930 dans les cantons dâAdangbé, Gati, Kodjo et Haavé â (without number), without date [October 1930], 3â4; Nugent, âHistoricityâ, 131â2.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/238, District Commissioner of Ho to Commissioner of the Eastern Province (n° 479/116./27.), 18 Feb. 1927, 2.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/253, Adzatekpor, Head Chief of Avatime; and others; to District Commissioner of Ho (without number), 12 Sep. 1927, 1.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/253, Ellershaw, Assistant District Commissioner of Ho, to Adzatekpor, Fiaga of Avatime (n° 665/536/28.), 23 July 1928.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/253, Lilley to Adzatekpor (n° 380/30/1929.), 11 Oct. 1929; praad (Accra), adm 39/1/258, Avatime Djokpo â Tafi Atomo disturbances. (without number), 1 Nov. 1927, 6â7; praad (Accra), adm 39/1/258, V.W. Bratton, Assistant District Commissioner of Kpandu, to District Commissioner of Ho (n° 769/2/20), 19 Nov. 1927; praad (Accra), adm 39/1/258, Assistant District Commissioner of Ho to Commissioner of the Eastern Province in Koforidua (n° 794/13/28.), 11 Jan. 1928, 1; praad (Accra), adm 39/1/258, Assistant District Commissioner of Ho to Commissioner of the Eastern Province (n° 791/346/28.), 10 May 1928, 1; praad (Accra), adm 39/1/501, Wimshurst, Acting Commissioner of the Eastern Province, to Chief Commissioner of Gold Coast Colony, Logba Division (Akpini State) Affairs. (n° 0179/S.F.5/4.), 6 Oct. 1947.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/258, An account of incidents on 24th October, 1927. (without number), without date, 1; praad (Accra), adm 39/1/253, District Commissioner of Kpandu to Commissioner of the Eastern Province (n° 651/2/20), 15 Oct. 1929, 2; praad (Accra), adm 39/1/216, District Commissioner of Kpandu to Adfa Kodadia, Head Chief of Tafi in Atome, Tafi-Avatime Land Dispute. (n° 491/65/1920.), 14 June 1930, 1; praad (Accra), adm 39/1/216, Adfa Kodadia, Headchief of Tafi Adome vs: Adodome Kpondolo, Dufia of Avatime Djokpe and others (n° 24/28), without date, 1, 3, 4, 12, 14.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/280, Maniye Gbagbo, Acting Adzatekpor V, Awatime State, Adja Tekpo Vâs Hearty Address to the Gathering of Today, 16th June, 1932 (without number), 16 June 1932, 1; praad (Accra), adm 39/1/66, Talafan-Dodome State Meeting (without number), 27 Nov. 1931; praad (Accra), adm 39/1/66, Assistant District Commissioner of Ho to Paramount Chief of Avatime (n° 773/193/1932.), 24 Nov. 1932, 1; praad (Accra), adm 39/1/66, Adzatekpor V to Assistant District Commissioner of Ho (without number), 24 Oct. 1942, 2, 4.
praad (Ho Branch), DA/D/293, Tachi Agble, Stool Father, in Hanvigba Station; to Assistant District Commissioner of Ho, Petitional Grounds of the Recidential [sic] Pekis for the Election of a headman at Luvudo (without number), 15 Oct. 1931, 1.
praad (Ho Branch), DA/D/293, Adzatekpor to District Commissioner of Ho, Election â Luvudo (without number), 15 Oct. 1931; praad (Ho Branch), DA/D/293, Assistant District Commissioner of Ho to Fiaga of Avatime, Election of Luvudo (n° 941/571929), 23 Oct. 1931; praad (Ho Branch), DA/D/293, Adzatekpor to Assistant District Commissioner of Ho, Re Headman Appointment for Luvudo Community. (without number), 2 Oct. 1931.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/280, Obia, Adaimsa; Stool Father Dako Tekpe substituting Traugott Tekpe, and others, to Lilley (without number), 21 Sep. 1937, 1.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/280, Heads of Sohes (youngmen), Lawrence K. Adzoto and others, to Commissioner of the Eastern Province (without number), 29 July 1937, 1â3; praad (Accra), adm 39/1/280, Fr. Traugott Adobo, Stool Father of Vane Avatime, to District Commissioner of Kpandu, Deposition and Installation Reports. (without number), 6 Nov. 1937, 1â2.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/280, S.W. Atsridom iv, Divisional Chief of Kpedze Awlime, to District Commissioner of Kpandu (without number), 9 May 1938, 1â2; praad (Accra), adm 39/1/280, District Commissioner of Ho to District Commissioner of Kpandu (without number), unclear date, 1; praad (Accra), adm 39/1/288, Assistant District Commissioner of Kpandu to District Commissioner of Ho (without number), without date, 1â2; praad (Accra), adm 39/1/280, Adzatekpor V, Fiaga of Avatime; and Avatime chiefs, to District Commissioner of Kpandu and Commissioner of the Eastern Province (without number), 27 May 1939, 1; praad (Ho Branch), DA/D 309, Handing over Notes from Mr. John Green â Ag. District Commissioner, to Mr. R.W. Woolley â District Commissioner (without number), without date, 7.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/288, Duncan-Johnston, Acting Commissioner of the Eastern Province in Koforidua, to Captain D.C. Walker, District Commissioner of Kpandu (n° 3730/2186/32.), 5 Sep. 1939; praad (Accra), adm 39/1/288, Secretary of Native Affairs, Accra, to Commissioner of the Eastern Province (n° 444/34/11.), 27 June 1939; praad (Accra), adm 39/1/343, Adzatekpor V, Paramount Chief of Avatime, to Chairman of District Education Committee, Petition from Adzatekpo V. for the Opening of a Senior School at Vane (without number), 15 Jan. 1947.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/288, Adzatekpor V, An Address and Petition of Felix Kwami Adza Tekpo V. during his Visit to Wane Awatime on the 17th Day of February, 1943. (without number), 17 Feb. 1943, 1. Italics are by the author.
praad (Ho Branch), DA/D 309, Handing over Notes from Mr. John Green â Ag. District Commssioner, to Mr. R.W. Woolley â District Commissioner (without number), without date [1945], 3; Colonial Office, Reportâ¦to the General Assembly of the United Nations on the Administration of Togoland under United Kingdom Trusteeship for the Year 1948 (London: His Majestyâs Stationary Office, 1949), 5, to be found in tna, pro, CO/96/790/3.
praad (Accra), adm 11/1/1624, Rattray, Report by Mr. R.S. Rattray (without number), without date, 38; Ward, Barbara, âSome Notes on Migration from Togolandâ, African Affairs 49(195), 1950, 129â35, 131; Ward, Barbara, âAn Analysis of the Distribution of Population in a Town in British Togolandâ, Man 55, 1955, 35â9, 35â6.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/216, Commissioner of the Eastern Province to Secretary for Native Affairs of Gold Coast, Preliminary History of Agotime (without number), 15 Feb. 1932, 1â2; Nugent, âPuttingâ, 939.
praad (Accra), adm 39/1/216, The Preliminary History of the Agotime. (without number), without date, 1â2.
praad (Ho Branch), rao G 1035, Animdi, Assistant Regional Secretary of Togoland Congress, to Registration Officer of Jasikan, Registration & Revision for Legislative Assembly and Local Council Elections, 1956. (without number), 1 June 1956; Rathbone, Nkrumah, 152â3; Nugent, Smugglers, 212â3.
praad (Ho Branch), DA/D 307, Copy: Draft Statement by the Minister of Justice (without number), without date, 1.
Callaway, âPoliticsâ, 141.
ant, 2APA, Cercle de Klouto, 358, Habel Akpama, Inspection Group of the Ministry of Finance, to âFofoâ (without number), 12 Dec. 1961, 1.
Interview with Togbe Kutumua viii, Village Chief of Kebo Dzigbe, Agu Region, Togo, 22 March 2009.
Interview with Grégoire Kofi Dom, grandson of Dom Gamety V in Kuma-Tokple, Kouma Region, Togo, 22 March 2009.
ant, 2APA, Cercle de Klouto, 350, K. Franklin West, Adjudant-Chef of the Gendarmerie Nationale; Gabriel Agbo, Gendarme, Procès Verbal (numbers not legible), 13 Oct. 1970, passim.
ant, 2APA, Cercle de Klouto, 358, P.G. Amevor, Administrator of Subdivision of Klouto; E.K. Apetoh, district secretary, Procès-Verbal dâenquête sur le Chef de Canton de Kouma Dhéha Théophile Gameti V (without number), without date [1972], 3.