Area of study: Côte dâIvoire-Ghana border
SOURCE: DRAWN BY ETTORE MORELLI ON ARCGIS ONLINE
1 The Hyperbole of African Borders
Schooled since the early 1980s in the âinvention of traditionâ, the âmaking of customary lawâ and the âcreation of tribalismâ, we have come to see âtraditionalâ African institutions as inventions of colonial authorities and missionaries colluding with African elders to establish colonial hegemony
⦠however, the emphasis on colonial invention (defined as devising, contriving or fabricating) has led historians to neglect the historical development and complexity of the interpretative processes involved. Such constructions were rarely without local historical precedents, and they had to be perceived as legitimate to be effective. Local discourse played a vital role as people continually reinterpreted and reconstructed tradition in the context of broader socio-economic change.1
In short, Spear wisely recalls that nothing comes from nothing, emphasizing the need to bring those âlocal historical precedentsâ at the core of any credible process of reconstruction and historiographical interpretation.
A hyperbole of long and undisputed success has regarded the total artificiality of the borders between todayâs African states, commonly understood as an exclusive product of the colonial partition of the late nineteenth century, which radically upset and redesigned the framework of previous human and political-territorial aggregations. Since decolonization did not question such artificial frontiers â thus the argument goes â independent Africa wholly inherited borders imposed by exogenous interests, which at times separated what had previously been united and, in other instances, brought together socio-political units which in the nineteenth century had been differentiated and autonomous. Hence it is not surprising that the state structures housed within should present macroscopic problems of national homogeneity. Nor is it surprising, given these spurious origins and the political-institutional fragility of many states, that borders often tend to be weak and debated, except in the formality of international relations.2
In a considerable number of spaces in Africa, borders either essentially do not exist in the Westphalian sense â being ignored by actors such as
local populations and refugees â or they are strategically used by (often self-styled) representatives of the state to extract resources and rents.3
The argument is not new, as even a perfunctory analysis of pre-colonial states reveals. In the precolonial context, borders were hardly firm lines of delimitation between powers, but rather porous fields of encounter and interaction between different power influences.4 But the key issue is that there has long been a tendency in studies on regionalism to make reductive interpretations of the international border and at times to give misleadingly short shrift to its differentiation with respect to the âinternal borderâ (understood in the widest variety of territorial, environmental, administrative, historical-regional, ethnic-cultural, religious, linguistic, etc., delimitations). It is, to say the least, questionable to deduce, from specific methods of perception and management of the international border, a judgment of absolute value on the international border as a consolidated historical reality and a continually essential presence in the system of inter-African relations.
First, there must be a clear awareness that the specific border situations greatly differ from each other by type and historical genesis. In many instances, it is perfectly legitimate to regard them as pure and simple assertions of colonial power interests. What else could be said about the Kongo lands, crisscrossed by the borders of four different colonial entities within the space of a few hundred kilometres? Or Azandeâs by three, or Kanem-Bornuâs, split as it was between various British, German and French colonial territories? And what of the borders of Sahelian and Saharan countries, whose straight lines, functional to French administrative geography, often run through areas with negligible population density or even devoid of a stable population.
However, well-grounded as it is in several cases, this conclusion does not fit the entire spectrum of historical evidence. Indeed, a fair number of African borders have complex histories that go beyond European colonial enterprise. The delimitation of colonial borders, that is, was often deeply influenced by dynamics which developed on the spot and which pertained to aspects of inter-African relations that went back in time and that made these borders
2 The Ghana-Côte dâIvoire Border
In Nugentâs argument, the driving force behind the drawing on the new frontier is completely exogenous, even if local agents proved of fundamental importance in carrying out the action. The Ghana/Côte dâIvoire frontier offers yet another case. This is often portrayed as a textbook example of the impact of European colonial enterprise, which split up areas and communities with long histories of interconnection and sometime unity.7 In broad terms, and limiting ourselves to the central and southern portion of this border, we can say that the colonial partition cut off the western half of the Akan group of peoples from its core in central and south Ghana. The new frontier secured to the French the Gyaman kingdom, separating it from the rest of the Abron homeland. In the same way, the southern section of the boundary cut into two halves two pretty homogeneous areas: the Anyi speaking and the Nzema speaking regions. The Anyi ancestral core â namely Aowin â went over to the British, while its western expansions, Sanwi and the Ndenye polities, became French. Nzema lost its western chunk to the French Colony.
Côte dâIvoireâs decolonization and independence (1960) was accompanied by serious, prolonged turbulence caused by the attempted secession of the Anyi-speaking Kingdom of Sanwi, in the extreme south-east of the country. However what the Sanwi secessionist leadership called into question was the subordination of the Kingdom to Abidjan, not the international boundary as such, which they fully recognized as the eastern frontier of their polity.8
The history of Sanwi in the twentieth century is closely linked to that of Aowin and Nzema. The mass crossing of the international border by the Sanwi elite and population, taking refuge with Ghanaian neighbours and relatives, has repeatedly characterized moments of crisis in the history of the region. After the colonial partition, Sanwi repeatedly played the pro-British card against the now overwhelming power of the French. The most effective move in this sense occurred in 1916â20, leading to the temporary exodus to Aowin and Nzema of most of the chiefs and over 50% of the population.9 Other, smaller-scale, exoduses marked the secessionist crisis from 1958 to 1970.
When the politics of chieftaincy are considered, trans-border liaisons endured throughout the twentieth century â colonial and post-colonial. Suffice it to mention that currently a good many members of the royal matrilineage of Beyin â one of the two main Nzema Stools of Ghana â are Ivorian and reside in the Côte dâIvoire. Conversely, the Ghanaian Nzema Stools played â and play â a crucial role in the ethnic politics of Ivorian Nzema communities. In 2006, for instance, the Nzema of Grand Bassam provided themselves with a paramount ethnic ruler by, in short, âcreatingâ a âtraditionalâ authority. The institution procedures and the choice of how to define the hereditary access to the office (i.e. to which matrilineage or matrilineages it was to be entrusted) benefited from the assistance and advice of the Paramount Chief of Beyin and
The deep relationship between the two halves of Nzema also affected âhighâ, state, politics. In Felix Houphouët-Boignyâs Côte dâIvoire a consensus was constructed by observing delicate but precise rules of equilibrium in the governing bodies between the representatives of different communities. The Nzema community, numerically small but geographically close to Abidjan and the heart of the state and its institutions, and, not incidentally, enjoying a relatively high level of education, was invariably present in the upper ranks. Interestingly, the core group of Nzema power-brokers in the Côte dâIvoire revolved around an influential matrilineage, the MafolÉ, whose center is in Beyin, Ghana, but which control several Stools in Côte d âIvoire. The Mafole of Beyin are among the main supporters of the Paramount Stool, and several exponents of the past and present Ghanaian Nzema elite have come from their ranks, including the late Lee Ocran, a well-known veteran of national politics, a member of the government in the years of J.J. Rawlings, head of the MafolÉ family and an underchief of Beyin. What is of interest here is that, at the time of the formation of the first post-Houphouët government, in 1994, chaired by Konan Bediè, the MafolÉ were expressly asked to choose one of their members for the group, even if, in the event, they decided to pass on the offer for lack of eligible members in their ranks. It was the Mafole matrilineage as such that was consulted and it was its largely Ghanaian top exponents who made the decision.11
But at the same time, the Ivorianness of the westernmost Nzema communities is an incontrovertible and macroscopic fact, their profound identification with the history of the country being attested by the numerous national figures hailing from this group. To name but a few: Gabriel Dadié, his son Bernard, and Jean-Baptiste Mockey. Gabriel Dadié, the first Ivorian to obtain French citizenship, was a planter and the main founding father, in 1944, of the Syndicat agricole africain (SAA), cradle of nascent anti-colonial nationalism; Bernard Dadié, a renowned playwright, was a leading activist of the anti-colonial movement, and a politician of independence; the famous politician Jean-Baptiste Mockey,
Many political analysts would be ready to point to such case as obvious evidence of the institutional weakness of the African nation-state â a weakness compounded by the undefined nature of a frontier which was established without regard for the human and historical frameworks of the region concerned. I would object that exactly the opposite is true: that frontier is so deeply embedded into the long-term history of the region to the extent of becoming the tangible pivot of all its internal relational dynamics.
3 Main Actors and Bit Players
In conventional historical reconstruction, the creation of the Gold Coast/Côte dâIvoire boundary takes the form of a linear process, mirroring the progress of European powers in the interior of West Africa and the more general logic informing the âScrambleâ.12 The process is invariably presented as having been set in motion by European powers (be they competing or colluding among themselves) as a function of their positions and interests in the region. Holding all the cards, they are the primary actors throughout the story, and lead it to its foreseeable conclusions. Africans, however, were not secondary actors and cannot be dismissed as bit players in a plot which they did not themselves conceive.
The colonial delimitation has its precedents in an agreement concluded in 1869 between the French and the Dutch, establishing a coastal boundary
Newtown is located on the long strip of coastland separating the DwÉnye Lagoon, formed by the River Tano, from the Atlantic Ocean. More precisely, the town is built on a very narrow strip of littoral squeezed between the Ocean and a small sheet of water, the Belinbangara lagoon, laying a short distance south of the DwÉnyeâs shore, and unconnected with the main body of water. In 1877 two British officers â Lieutenant Colonel Frederick Tyrrell, Colonial Engineer and Capt. Alexander Grant, District Commissioner of Axim â cut a few hundred yards long road at the western outskirts of Newtown connecting the ferry dock on the Belibangara Lagoon with the Ocean shore. This road was adopted in local convention as marking the border between the British and the French territories.15
Already in 1880, however, the British wanted to push the boundary about 6 miles further west, based on a demarcation point established fifty years earlier by the Nzema belemgbunli (ruler, king) Nyanzu Aka I (reigned c. 1816/17-1832) as the divide between Nzema and Sanwi.
Indeed this claim made a great difference for the British. The version of the Boundary at Newtown, supported by the French, indicated the course of the Tano River as separating their territory from the Gold Coast, while the British version implied a claim to a large chunk of the forest region to the west of the river bank and to the north of the Lagoons as part of their Colony. The issue at stake was of some substance: the area in question included the gold-rich district of Dissou, which was regarded as very promising for mining projects.
In 1882 a mixed Anglo-French Commission was appointed to settle the issue, but it separated in January 1884, after failing to reach an agreement.
But the respective positions of the English and French in this dispute overlapped and coincided with those of other local actors, establishing a direct continuity with the hegemonic disputes that had been taking place in the region for at least a couple of centuries, well before the Europeans came to the forefront of local politics.
The 1882â1884 Assinie Border Commission
Legend: dashed circle = Newtown; dashed square = Assoho or Assongu Island. From the original source: continuous line = âThe Western Boundary of Appollonia considered by the English Commissioners to be the Western Boundary of the Gold Coast Colonyâ; dashed line = âClaimed by the French Commissioners to be the Eastern Boudnary of the French Protectorateâ
SOURCE: TNA, CO 700/GC 22, MAP SHOWING THE TOWNS AND VILLAGES VISITED BY THE ASSINIE BOUNDARY COMMISSION IN DECEMBER 1883 & JANUARY 1884. ALSO THE COUNTRY TO THE NORTHWARD AFTERWARDS VISITED BY LIEUT. PULLEN [DETAIL], EDITED BY ETTORE MORELLI
What in terms of international relations was a minor colonial border issue became a protracted territorial conflict between Sanwi and Nzema, which witnessed violent outbreaks, the mediating intervention of Aowin â which in turn made its own territorial and jurisdictional demands â expulsions of communities and occupations of territory by formal reference to one of the two European flags, but actually in a context of poor knowledge and ability to control on the part of the local representatives of London and Paris.17
Negotiations for the delimitation of the frontier were resumed in 1888, leading to the Agreement signed in Paris on 10 August 1889. The boundary agreed upon was traced starting from a point immediately to the west of Newtown; it reached the midst of the DwÉnye Lagoon and turned east cutting the Lagoon in the middle through its length, leaving the south bank to the British and the north bank to the French; then it followed the course of the Tano up to the town of Nugua (or Nougoua). According to this diplomatic instrument, demarcation further north was to be agreed upon by commissioners on the bases of treaties concluded with local polities.
As far as the section of the boundary actually demarcated in 1889 is concerned, the Agreement marked a de facto the prevalence of the French version, while the British renounced their claims to the lands west of the Tano. However, the progress of their influence in the interior, especially with the inclusion of Sefwi in the Protectorate (1886), had by that time led to a substantial re-definition of British strategic priorities on the western frontier. While
The boundary delimitation process on the Western frontier went on throughout the following decade, accompanying the progression of Britain and France in the interior. In July 1893 a new Anglo-French agreement defined the boundary as far north as the 9th parallel. Finally, after the British invasion Asante in 1896 and their acquisition of the Northern Territories, it reached the 11th parallel, which was adopted as the reference for negotiating the northern boundary of the British Gold Coast with the West African domains of the French, who had by that time occupied the upper section of the Volta river basin (present-day Burkina Faso). The settlement of this frontier was formalized in the Anglo-French convention of 14 June 1898.18 However, the British full occupation of Asante was not finalized until 1901, with the defeat of Yaa Asantewaaâs insurgency. This process concluded, the delimitation and demarcation of the route, decreed by agreements in 1901 and 1902, took place in February-April 1903 and were validated through an agreement in 1905. Two verification missions in 1922 and 1926 re-established and increased the boundary stones.19
While in the border events of 1880â84 the competition between Europeans still in many ways depended on the logic of competition between the African powers and interests closest to the Atlantic coast, in 1889 â during the sudden and full manifestation of the Scramble at the continental level â the reasons and strategies of European actors clearly acquired their own substantial autonomy through the expansion of the chessboard of confrontation. Nonetheless, the success of the agreement remained linked to achieving a realistic compromise between the opposing demands of local African parties.
As for the southernmost section of the border, the disputed areas remained in French territory, but the Nzema people of the lagoons gained recognition and approval of their presence on the lands they occupied and their individuality as a community, despite being included in Sanwi. These communities came to play a crucial role in managing cross-border relations (including smuggling)
The delimitation and demarcation of the border was a fairly slow process, with various land issues and negotiations between the two European powers, but with the decisive contribution of the Africans, in a context of latent tension and, at times, open conflict between political entities and local communities, in some instances more or less secretly manipulated by Europeans, in others eminently endogenous.
More than any other consideration, it was the same set of facts that we have summarized that shows the importance of local African action in giving rise to, and then managing, a significant phase of the process of partitioning this part of West Africa. The Sanwi and Nzema ruling groups exploited and indeed were to some extent successful in directing the rivalry between British and French interests in order that it might serve their own long rooted strategies.
This surfaces very clearly in the analysis of the verbal proceedings of the Anglo-French joint commissions for the delimitation of the border.20 The demarcation proceedings involved substantial collections of local historical traditions by official representatives of the two colonial powers. Rulers, notables, communities, factions within communities, etc. told their own versions of who they were, where they came from, who they served or refused to serve, what their rights were or what their claims were on the land they had settled. A limited group of individuals, with different degrees of power, wealth and influence gave public voice to these claims, and their statements were recorded. This established the relevant parameters for later enquiries and historical research. No doubt, this type of African agency interacted with the vested interests and strategies of the European powers, contributing greatly to the consolidation of a new status quo, whose most visible legacy was the colonial border when it was finally agreed upon.
The corpus of narratives created by the demarcation of the border came to constitute a fundamental text for a new status quo, and it profoundly re-shaped the region. This text also powerfully influenced successive formulations of local history â both oral and written â and twentieth-century academic research in and on the area.
In short, African actions interacted in the background with the interests and strategies of Europeans and contributed in a fundamental way to formulating the new territorial and political status quo of the region in the colonial era, whose most evident product was the borderline ultimately agreed upon. It might
4 A Long History of Bordering
The new border responded to a need strongly felt and shared by local society. To fully understand this datum we need however to shift the focus from the relations between late nineteenth century competing European Colonial powers to the specific long-term historical dynamics of this West African region. In this perspective, the definition of the Anglo/French frontier emerges as the final act in a process that had begun at least a couple of centuries earlier and whose main actors were local African powers.
The regions through which the central-southern section of the Ghana-Côte dâIvoire border runs are historically characterized by their being open to and projected towards one of the great âfrontiersâ of this part of Africa. Here the term âfrontierâ must be understood not in its most common sense of border line, but rather with reference to the notion of âinternalâ frontier developed by I. Kopytoff: that is to say, an âinterstitialâ space existing between coherent and organized societies or political realities; in this reading, the frontier is a liminal and transitional space, of the most varied dimensions and little or not at all structured demographically and politically.22
A crucial space of connection and transition between the Akan âepicentreâ and its western âFrontierâ periphery included the communities solidly structured around the courses of the Tano and Bia rivers and their coastal lagoon system. This role as a âgateâ to the West strongly determined the character of the region as a meeting or exchange place, or â conversely â as an arena of conflict between different worlds. These characteristics have endured throughout later historical phases, including the colonial period, and still have fundamental implications in the present.
The different communities which dwelled in this region were organized in several micro-polities with a distinct territorial characterization. Competition and conflict between, and within, these units were constant. At the same time, they were strictly interconnected by links of affinity and allegiance among their ruling groups. The peculiarity of the environment underpinned a system of functional interdependence which linked different groups and communities within each polity and across the entire area, but also well beyond it. Communities of farmers, salt-makers and fishermen complemented one another, and the role played by fresh water fishing communities in enabling connections and providing transportation through their fleets of canoes was crucial for the conduct of trade all over a very wide riverine and lagoon region.25
Nzema or Appolonia and neighbouring areas
legend: triangles = armory / powder warehouse; circled names = frontline defences; dashed circle = Newtown; dashed square = Assoho or Assongu Island; names in majuscules = precolo-nial states; dashed perimeter = Amanzule wetlands and Lake
SOURCE: DRAWN BY ETTORE MORELLI ON ARCGIS ONLINE FROM DATA PROVIDED BY PIERLUIGI VALSECCHI
The Nzema polity â know to the Europeans as Appolonia â centred in the area between the Ankobra river and the small chain of hills known as Cape Appolonia, expanded westwards, incorporating the area called AdwÉmÉlÉ, an entity of some importance during the seventeenth century, which overlooks the lower course of the Tano and the lagoons. The process of subjugation saw the migration westward of part of the population, which in some cases joined the Ewuture communities of the lagoons. Those who accepted the rule of the new lords came to occupy an important intermediate position in the new Nzema power structure, ensuring the defence of the western flank of the polity, whose royal headquarters were in Beyin and Atuabo. The mouth of the small Eloni river, crossed by a system of palisades, marked the limit between the land directly controlled by the Nzemaâs belemgbunli (ruler) and the one managed by his âautochthonousâ subordinate allies, the so-called Azanwule â today the name connotes one of the great Nzema and Anyi matrifamilies.28 On the coast, the expansion of the new Nzema polity also included some active coastal market towns, organized as small autonomous polities: in particular Edobo and Awiane. The second was the ancestor settlement of todayâs town of the same name, which became known in the second half of the nineteenth century as Half Assini. In this era, and throughout much of the nineteenth century, Awiane was in particular controlled by other âautochthonousâ allies of the Nzema polity, namely the AlÉnwÉba matrifamily.29
Communities in the extensive borderland were constantly the target of pressures to align themselves with one or other of the power centres, along with attempts to secure influence or control over prestigious local shrines, which were also important territorial landmarks.32 The entire system of water bodies created by the Tano river â DwÉnye Lagoon (Dwen or Juen or Tando on
The need to define some form of delimitation between the spheres of domination or influence of the two polities was quite evident even before mid-century, when Sanwi attempted to take control of the lagoon Ewuture communities. These were supported in their struggle by Nzema, where they took refuge en masse, leaving the lagoon areas unguarded. Later, the Sanwi rulers reached an agreement with the Nzema rulers, and a part of the refugees returned, but the situation thus created was actually a sort of temporary âneutralizationâ of the bodies of water and their shores, continually threatened by the attempts of the two powers to gain stable access to the resources of the area: natural ones (fishing and gold deposits) and strategic ones (the lagoons and rivers were crucial communication arteries).34
During the 1760s, Sanwi allied itself with the Dutch, who tried to strangle the political and commercial autonomy of Nzema, which however managed to launch a series of offensives and, in 1765, struck an alliance with the British.35 The pact was sanctioned by a written agreement in which the two brothers and co-rulers of the area, Amihyia Kpanyinli and Boa Kpanyinli, provided a geographic definition of the territory over which they claimed dominion: extending along the Atlantic littoral westward from River Ankobraâs mouth, to a point located about thirteen miles west of the chain of coastal hills known
The conflict between Sanwi and Nzema erupted recurrently in the following decades. Since the 1780s the Asante kingdom expanded its presence in the region and by the beginning of the nineteenth century both polities were subject to some form of effective control by Kumasi, the Asante metropolis, through a network of resident officers (mainly tribute collectors).38 However Nzema/Sanwi relations continued to be marked by chronic conflict, with periodic outbursts of actual warfare, up to the long campaign led by the Nzema ruler Æzoa Kpanyinli (reigned 1800â1805) in 1802â1804, which ended with a negotiation between the parties and a later attack in 1807 by his brother and successor, Æzoa Kyi (reigned 1805â1817/18).39
We have clear evidence of what, in 1815, both the Nzema rulers and the English considered âthe Frontier Croom [town or village] dividing Assinee from Appoloniaâ. To be precise, the settlement belonged to âa Man named Cudjoe Hoblakyâ and was located 10 hoursâ walk west of Beyin, where the English post stood.40 The character in question is Kodwo HÉba Kyi, leader of the AlÉnwÉba matrilineage that had settled in the area of modern Awiane or Half Assini.41
Around 1830, during another phase of war between Nzema and Sanwi,43 belemgbunli Nyanzu Aka I of Nzema landed on the lagoon island of Assoho or Assongu. According to oral histories and direct witnesses, the landing by Nyanzu Akaâs forces was seen as a profanation, and preoccupying oracular responses urged the king to present a man and a woman to his enemy, the ruler of Sanwi, AtÉkpola in order to give the two to the people of Mâbrati as ritual offerings to the bozonle. Nyanzu Aka then had to withdraw the boundary of the occupied area, moving it from the stream Eyessuru, a very short distance to the east of Mâbrati, to a point further east, marked by the presence of a great ÉzÉbÉ tree (azobé or red ironwood, s.n. lophira alata), in the midst of a dense forest area stretching just east of the island of Assoho.44 The new demarcation point on the mainland brought the extreme Nzema front very clearly into the area of the DwÉnye Lagoon and at a certain distance from the southern Aby
5 Nzema limes and Nzema limen
Nyanzu Akaâs successor, the famous and notorious Kaku Aka (reigned 1832â1848), developed a strategy of consolidating his hegemonic hold in the commercial and political-military fields, which involved the deployment of territorial garrisons for managing border areas in certain very well defined cases. Nzema was a relevant regional power in the western Gold Coast, and an oceanic commercial outlet of considerable importance for the Asante Kingdom in the 1830s and 1840s, as an alternative to the central Gold Coastâs coastal markets. It was all the more important â especially for supplying war materials through trade at anchor â for its freedom from stable European presences, as it was only nominally linked to the English.45 However, in this context there arose an intense competition between Nzema and Sanwi as the western terminals of Asante trade. Hence the resort to competing control strategies on the internal road nodes, and especially those of the lower course of the Tano and the Aowin area, a primary cause of the conflict between the two centres of power.46 On its northern and eastern fronts, Kaku Aka kept up a recurring conflict with Wassa and Axim. The situation involved periodic phases of great tension with the Dutch base in Axim and with the English, to whom, like Wassa, Kaku Aka was at least nominally linked by an alliance agreement. George Maclean, President of the Committee of Merchants of the Gold Coast between 1830 and 1843, led a difficult and ineffective punitive expedition against Kaku Aka in 1835. He succeeded in obtaining a series of financial reparations from the ruler and in imposing a code of conduct for the future, which effectively
Macleanâs 1835 expedition had called into question the presumption of Nzemaâs impregnability with respect to attacks from the east, inducing Kaku Aka to undertake an overall strategy of permanent military garrison of the territory under his control, completing it at the beginning of the following decade. The new defensive and offensive system implemented by the ruler hinged on three armoury buildings. The major one stood within the royal quarter in Atuabo, Kaku Akaâs residence. This armoury and gunpowder deposit was a large building of masonry. It was under construction in 1841. This building had two more replicas in the gunpowder magazines built by Kaku Aka on the edges of his domain.49
The creation of the settlement of Sanwoma, with its armory building, reported by the Commandant of Axim Fort, Rühle, in September 1841, was tantamount to appropriating the river crossing, which had hitherto been served by a ferry based on the Axim bank. Kaku Aka had the ferryman ordered âto remove from there because the King Quacoe Accah had appropriated the river Ancobraâ. Moreover, he had a series of boats of various sizes built that controlled the mouth and the surrounding coast from Sanwoma.52
This development marked a turning point in Kaku Akaâs plans in the Ankobra region. With the foundation of Sanwoma, the lower river course and mouth acquired for the ruler the clear status of a boundary and an entrenchment. This was in contrast with the past, when the first defensive front for the Nzema rulers had been the stronghold of Asanta, located less than 2 miles west from the river. The intermediate strip of territory was considered a sort of âno manâs landâ, already the subject, at the end of the seventeenth century, of disputes by the Dutch from the fort of Axim, in their attempt to assert the right to control the crossing of the river and also over Asanta, on the basis of claims dating
Awiane became the fortified outpost at the western edge of the coastline falling under Kaku Akaâs undisputed control, and the operational base for his aggressive policy towards Sanwi. By about 1842, the ruler had strengthened the garrison of the area by ordering Ebuloni TanoÉ, of the NtweafÉo matrifamily, to move his residence to Awiane with his armed men and dependents. Later Kaku Aka called on his main general, asafo-safohyenle Koasi Amakye, to organize the military reinforcement of the outpost by having a large powder magazine built in the city with lime extracted from the lagoon. The building is mentioned by Brodie Cruickshank who, after the British-led military expedition that finally defeated and captured Kaku Aka in April 1848, went as far as the French post of Assini and spent the night in Awiane: âI have established myself in the Kingâs Powder Magazine, which appears to be the most respectable place in the whole townâ.54
The three gunpowder magazines were the coastal architectural markings of Kaku Akaâs hegemonic strategy, which was supported within his domain by a string of garrison towns placed in an advanced position along different routes, such as BasakÉ, in the vicinity of Anyinasie, and Etikobo II, in the forest area between Anyinasie and Nuba, both frontline defences on the roads to Wassa. Focusing on the western section of the kingdom, the course of the River Tano became the backbone of a system of frontline defences against Sanwi, connecting Half Assini with Adusuazo, a fortified outpost in the dispute with Sanwi over control of the terminal course of the Tano. The town, lying on raised ground just over a mile from the course of the river as the crow flies, was the rear base for a flotilla that safeguarded Nzemaâs fishing activities in the lagoons to the west.55 Also, the communication line that ran between Nuba, northwest of the Amanzule lake and the towns along the Tano (especially Elenda, Elubo and Nugua) played a crucial defensive role for the territory and for a fundamental commercial thoroughfare.
Soon after the removal of Kaku Aka, the border issues between Nzema and Sanwi were discussed and adjusted in April and May 1848 as part of a comprehensive peace agreement between Sanwi and Nzema, mediated and witnessed by Brodie Cruickshank and Bissoo,57 a Chief of Cape Coast. The peace agreement between the Nzema chiefs and elders and the Sanwi envoys was sanctioned by an oath taking ceremony at Atuabo â the main royal residence during Kaku Akaâs reign â which was repeated at Assini on May 6 in the presence of blemgbi Amun Ndufu himself, Cruickshank, and two French officers.58 Cruickshank does not provide further details about the boundary matter but, at least from the point of view of the French, there undoubtedly remain areas of dissatisfaction in this regard. In 1849, the French commander of Assini, Rodolphe A. Darricau, lamented that the English had their agents deployed among all the chiefs and claimed that the border of the âpopulations de Kakoakaâ extended to the left bank of the Tano and that therefore the French blockhouse is on English territory and that the French could not communicate with the interior unless with English permission. For this Darricau ordered the blockhouse evacuation on the right bank, but leaving the French flag on the original site.59
I was present at Assinee with Bossu [Bissoo] and the Englishman âKukusanâ [Cruickshank] â¦. When we swore the great oath with Amatifou [Amun Ndufu], it was agreed to make peace; as Quacoe Akkah [Kaku Aka] had been taken away by the English. The oath was sworn and peace made; but when the dog was to be killed [the covenant-sanctioning sacrifice] the Kinjaboes [the Sanwi people; Krinjabo is the royal capital] wanted the head, and the Appolonians [the Nzemas] said, âNo! We have driven you back to Bianoon, and we must have the head as the conquerorsâ, therefore no dog was killed, as both parties claimed the head.60
I arrived at Eywee-Anoo [Awiane/Half Assini] the Frontier town of Appolonia ⦠a distance of upwards of 30 miles, however, intervenes between this place and Assinee, but the hostility which have so long existed between the two Tribes has made a perfect desert of this large district which has not a single human inhabitant throughout its whole extent.62
The King of Appolonia has managed to maintain the control of this inland sea [Tando or DwÉnye Lagoon], by means of which he has been in the habit of making predatory incursions upon the Assinees and the people of Iby [Aby] and Kinjabo [Krinjabo], all of whom inhabit the country on the west side of the river and lakes and are under the sovereignity of Amatiful [Amun Ndufu], who styles himself King of Attacla [from the name of Amun Ndufuâs predecessor, AtÉkpola]. After passing down the lake in a westerly direction for about 8 hours, we came in sight of another splendid sheet of water extending away to the northwest. Far as the eye could reach the plain was one immense sea of water, and in the back ground to the west was a high woody range of hills. This second expanse of waters is here called Igee [the Aby Lagoon], and on its northern border is situated Kinjabo the Capital of the King of Attacla and Assinee ⦠We had seen a whole fleet of Appolonia canoes fishing as we came down the Tendo [DwÉnye], which created some uneasiness among my crew of Assinees, and induced them to look to the priming of their pieces. When I asked, how they could have any alarm, after having taken Fetish together [the peace oath-taking], they said, that these people in the canoes almost lived entirely upon the water, and might not all yet know, that I had made them friends, and that at best Appolonians were very treacherous. The cause of alarm, however, vanished. The canoes one by one separated, and slunk away into the numerous creeks of the lake, the appearance of their sails stealing round small bulky head lands into the dark recesses of the jungle conveying to mind a disagreeable impression of stealthy and cunning and treachery. The Appolonians have completely monopolized the Tendo and the lake formed by it and even have huts for the fishermen erected in the bush upon its west banks. The depth of this sheet of water appears very unequal but generally it is shallow, and it is covered in many parts with the Appolonian stake nets. It appears to abound in fish. We disturbed some shoals of them, and they jumped high out of the water many of them falling in our canoes. The Igee [Aby Lagoon] belongs properly to the King of Attacla, but the Appolonians had latterly got so daring that they swept this fine sheet also and kept Amatifoul shut up in his Country.63
Johannes George Schnerr, one of the Dutch residents of Beyin during the brief Dutch tenure of the fort, provided illuminating details about what happened at this stage along the coast west of Awiane. In November 1869 Schnerr traveled along the entire coastal stretch between Beyin and the French post of Assini, where he went to define the already mentioned agreement that would specify the boundary between Nzema and Sanwi, i. e. the Dutch and the French. In his detailed account of the reoccupation of the coast west of Awiane, Schnerr enumerated and described all the settlements up to the village of Avolenu/Newtown, built only a few years earlier as a salt producing settlement. The place had a negligible population of less than 30 people, but a trading post was being built there by Captain Hoare, agent of Frank & Andrew Swanzyâs Merchant House of Cape Coast. Hoare was also an intimate friend and business associate of the great notable and wealthiest merchant of Beyin, Tanikyi, also known as John Tanikyi or, being the son of the late ruler Kaku Aka, Prince Tanikyi. Tanikyi was the main agent for Captain Hoare on the windward coast, and in his residence in Beyin a room was always kept ready to host Hoare during his frequent commercial passages along the coast.64 Avolenu/Newtown presented itself as especially favourable in terms of access to the lagoons and the course of the Tano: that is, the main connection axis between these
As already mentioned, Schnerr would return from this expedition with a fourfold agreement between Nzema/Dutch on one side and Sanwi/French on the other, which recognized the small village of Avolenu/Newtown as the boundary.65 The agreement would not be ratified by France, that would soon be involved in the disastrous Franco-Prussian war, and also lose its importance for the Netherlands. The Hague soon decided to cede all its interests and prerogatives in the Gold Coast to London, but these plans were upset by serious turbulence on the part of African opposition to the âexchangeâ of settlements with Great Britain. The whole matter was complicated by the Asante military intervention in the Gold Coast in 1870, followed by a state of generalized hostility that lasted until 1874 and that also massively affected the Nzema.
Throughout the next ten years, jurisdictions within the Sanwi/Nzema borderland remained somewhat fluid, but in essence the ideal line of coastal and lagoon demarcation that ran between Avolenu/Newtown and the ÉzÉbÉ tree, just west of Mahoa, continued to be regarded as the pivot of a system of conventional demarcation between the two powers, at least in the coastal and lagoon section of the extensive borderland running from the Nzema town of Awiane/Half Assini to the Sanwi town of Assini. But the exception raised by London in 1880, proposing to return to the older boundary established by Nyanzu Aka on the Eyessuru rivulet â a boundary that would have fostered the Nzema and Aowin claims on the Dissou gold area â undermined this balance.
While negotiations were ongoing, the Sanwi/French side responded to this demand with a forceful intervention in the disputed areas. In November 1882, the Ewuture population of Mâbriati, the custodians of the Assongu bozonle, and the Krinjabo armed men sent by Amandufo prevented the Second British Commissioner, Reginald E. Firminger, and belemgbunli Nyanzu Aka II of Beyin with his chiefs from reaching the ÉzÉbÉ tree, thereby eliminating the prospect of granting passage towards the Eyessuru rivulet, the pivot of the oldest Nzema advanced military front. At the same time, the envoy of Amun Ndufu, his son Ala Kwao, publicly recognized that the ÉzÉbÉ was the boundary
As previously stated, these British requests were not followed up after the resumption of border negotiations years later: by that point, London was willing to cede the territories claimed by France and Sanwi. But the very logic of border negotiations had completely changed and African agency was objectively weaker.
6 By Way of Conclusion
Until now I have refrained from venturing into a systematic treatment of the history of this border.68 The reason was that I perceived â and continued to see â the risk involved in attempting to verify âAfrican agencyâ by means of sources connoted to the point of excess by such evidently exogenous politico-diplomatic perspectives as those produced in the framework of the Scramble, for the purpose of demarcating areas of European territorial domination. Indeed, it is true that the local elite often proved able to influence the actions and choices of their respective European allies. It is also true that from at least as far back as the eighteenth century the confrontation between Sanwi and Nzema had assumed the clear makeup of a territorial competition, even going so far as to formulate hypotheses of spatial demarcations tantamount to an actual linear border. But after all, it was still undeniably the British and the French who were the mainspring of the colonial boundary operation.
But recently an important assist inspired me to investigate the circumstances of what is considered the historical precedent of the demarcation process of the 1880s, namely the modest 1869 accord between the French and the
The chiefs and elders of the country of Assinie have assembled for the purpose of providing all information in their knowledge concerning the probable limits of the countries of Appolonia and Assinie, the Gentelmen Commanders Martin and Schnerr having the mission of establishing the basis of a convention which clearly specify the line of demarcation of their respective territories, a convention which, in any case, must be submitted by them to the Commanders in Chief. After a discussion that did not exceed an hour, the Chiefs and elders of the country reached an agreement with the Staff-holder of King Améki as to the place where the territory of Assinie ends and where the territory of Appolonia begins. The discussion was conducted with the utmost good will, and, from the agreement between the parties, the following statement resulted. he town of Appolonia has its seacoast limit at the village called Afouliénou, or Niélalienou. Such village. although it was built by Appolonians and occupied by them, is located on Assinian land; the limit is at the exit of the village on the Appolonia side [i.e. to the east]. To the north it is limited by a straight line that, starting from the village Afouliénou, ends at the village of Mohua, located on the right bank of the Tando Lagoon, in the town of Assinie; there is no village in this place
on the Appolonia side; the point of reference for the natives is the village of Mohoua.69
Although Abonésiwa was designated in Beïn as the border krom, because the population consists of Appolonians (N.B. 8 persons), who have their residence there temporarily (to make salt; they return afterward to their birthplace and place of origin, Ewianoe), this was no reason whatsoever to claim land ownership from Appolonia. The King of Appolonia had also indicated that he wanted absolutely no palaver about 1 or 2 krommen with 10 or 20 inhabitants, as Appolonia was large enough, and counted too many inhabitants.70
These words emphasize a decisive point: the right/duty of jurisdiction over oneâs subjects does not â or does not necessarily â imply claims of ownership over the land. Amakye I implicitly recognized the right of those who now
Appolonia and Assini at their western and eastern borders, 1869
Legend: dashed circle = Newtown; dashed square = Assoho or Assongu Island
SOURCE: ARA, NL-HANA, KUST VAN GUINEA, 1.05.14, INV.NR. 1101, KAART DER GEDEELTEN VAN DE AFDEELINGEN APPOLONIA EN ASSINIE AAN HARE W. EN 0. GRENZEN, SCHNERR [SCANS 0184â0186], EDITED BY ETTORE MORELLI
Although the population of Afoeljinoe consists of Appolonians, and the village has been built by them, these inhabitants maintain very little relations to the other people of Appolonia; likewise, the king of Beïn has little say there, due to the distance; they always get their necessities from Assinie, insofar as they do not have them themselves. They are salt producers, and do their salt trading with Kinjabo and many other places in Assinie, located on the other side of the Tannou. They have joined up with the people of Assinie, so to speak. Furthermore, during my presence
there in 1869, the people have told me that they had never experienced any nuisance, not from the inhabitants, not from the [French] commander of Assinie; they do however give salt to the king of Assinie [Amun Ndufu] every once in a while for living there, but they are not opposed to this themselves. They also informed me that they would not hesitate to return to Ewianoe [Awiane] if they would start to experience nuisance, as their krom consisted of only a few houses.71
This was how the boundary at Avolenu/Newtown came about and how it was later consecrated, remaining the international border to this day, even if the border line, based on the road traced in 1877 by Tyrrell and Lang, was then established a few dozen meters further west than Avolenu, which lay completely within British territory.
It is also clear from Schnerrâs diaries that the first person who wished to negotiate and establish a border, thus attempting to put an end to the chronic tension with Sanwi and settle the trade disputes with an accord, was Amakye I himself. But in the end even the Sanwi ruler Amun Ndufu saw fit to establish a border line at this stage, though for a completely different reason, which had to do with the Sanwiâs search for autonomy from the true great power in the region at this time, the Asante Kingdom. Amakye I was a very loyal client of Asante â like the Dutch; much less so Sanwi, who tried desperately to keep Asante traders from going directly to the French posts, thus maintaining a very lucrative role of exclusive commercial intermediary between the French and the Asante.
In short, the establishment of a linear border in this phase was of crucial interest to the ruling groups of both Sanwi and Nzema, for reasons of âfreedomâ, one is tempted to add. For Amakye it signified the prospect of liberation from a situation of perennial conflict that had seriously limited his possibilities of access to the expanding markets further west; for the Sanwi ruler the
In the light of this precedent, perspectives that foreground African Agency in constructing the colonial border do make a lot of sense. When, later on, the frontier was formally established by the Europeans, it was also strongly wanted by local powers and interests, who took an extremely active part in its creation and who influenced and directed the process on the ground to an extent hitherto overlooked by historical and political analysis.
Acknowledgements
I am truly grateful to the two anonymous reviewers who commented my paper for their insightful remarks that gave me a glimpse of possible new avenues for my research on these issues. The research and the writing of this chapter were realised under the framework of the Research Project of National Interest (PRIN 2017) âGenealogies of African Freedomâ (code KFW5RJâ004), at the Research Unit of the University of Pavia.
Thomas Spear, âNeo-traditionalism and the Limits of Invention in British Colonial Africaâ, The Journal of African History, 44, 1, 2003, 3â27, 3â4.
Pierre Englebert, Stacy Tarango, Matthew Carter, âDismemberment and Suffocation: A Contribution to the Debate on African Boundariesâ, Comparative Political Studies, 35, 10, 2002, 1093â1118; see also Alberto Alesina, William Easterly, Janina Matuszeski, âArtificial Statesâ, Journal of the European Economic Association, 9, 2, 2011, 246â277, 266.
Fredrik Söderbaum, Ian Taylor, âConsidering Micro-regionalism in Africa in the Twenty-first Centuryâ, in Fredrik Söderbaum, Ian Taylor, eds., Afro-Regions: The Dynamics of Cross-Border Micro-Regionalism in Africa, Uppsala, Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, 2008, 13â31, 13â14.
For a concise discussion of this topic see Fabio Viti, âCentro e periferia negli Stati dellâAfrica precolonialeâ, in Pierluigi Valsecchi, ed., Africa tra Stato e società . Scritti in omaggio a Gianpaolo Calchi Novati, Milan, Franco Angeli, 2009, 13â32.
Jack Paine, Xiaoyan Qiu, Joan Ricart-Huguet, Endogenous Colonial Borders: Precolonial States and Geography in the Partition of Africa, SSRN, published online 11 October 2021, last revised 4 June 2023, available online https://ssrn.com/abstract=3934110, or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3934110 (last accessed on 29 September 2024).
Nugent, Paul, Smugglers, Secessionists, and Loyal Citizens on the Ghana-Togo Frontier: The Lie of the Borderlands since 1914, Athens, OH, Ohio University Press, 2002, 5.
See for instance E.O. Saffu, âThe Ghana-Ivory Coast Boundaryâ, Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria, 5, 2, 1970, 291â301; Stary, Bruno, âUn no manâs land forestier de lâartifice à lâartificialité : lâétatisation de la frontière CôtedâIvoire-Ghanaâ, Les Cahiers dâOutre-Mer, 222, 2003, 199â228, available online http://journals.openedition.org/com/878 (last accessed on 30 April 2019).
The Anyi majority and royal establishment of Sanwi felt threatened by the land claims of the lagoon and coastal communities â in particular the Ewuture (also known as Eotilé or Mekyibo) and Nzema â incorporated into the body of the kingdom starting from the eighteenth century, and felt little protected by the new balance of power that was being defined in Côte dâIvoire as part of the independence process. In 1958 they appealed directly to Paris, leveraging the guarantees of the protection treaty stipulated, and never abrogated, between France and Sanwi in 1843, and demanded explicit recognition of the individuality and sovereignty of the kingdom. The irredentists went so far as to successfully boycott Côte dâIvoire 1959 parliamentary elections and unilaterally declare Sanwiâs independence ahead of the rest of the country in February 1960. This prompted the French and Abidjanâs reaction and the flight to Ghana of the separatist leadership and militants. In the early 1960s, Ghana supported and hosted the exiled members of the Mouvement de liberation du Sanwi, fueling accusations of annexationist intentions against President Kwame Nkrumah. After his fall in 1966, the exiles were handed over to Côte dâIvoire, but Sanwi separatism exploded again in 1969â70, in connection with President Felix Houphouët-Boignyâs recognition of the secession of Biafra, giving rise to a claim with military aspects and soliciting the intervention of the OAU and the UN. The repression ordered by Houphouët-Boigny was extremely harsh. For several years Sanwi remained clearly marginalized and disadvantaged compared to the rest of eastern Côte dâIvoire. A reconciliation was only reached in 1981, when the president allowed the enthronement of a new blemgbi (ruler, king) of Sanwi. However, the aftermath of the conflict and the resentments linger on and are still tangible in the area. Amongst the scant literature on this less-known West African crisis, see in particular the precious information on the early stages of the crisis provided in A. R. Zolbergâs book, One-Party Government in the Ivory Coast, Princeton, Princeton Un. Press, 1964; W. Scott Thompson analyzed it briefly in the perspective of Nkrumahâs Foreign Policy in Ghanaâs Foreign Policy, 1957â1966, Princeton, Princeton Un. Press, 1969. Samba Diarra provided useful hints in Le faux complots dâ Houphouët-Boigny. Fracture dans le destin dâune nation (1959â1970), Paris. Karthala, 1997. Catherine Boone developed an interesting analysis in socio-economic terms of the unique position of the Sanwi ruling group within the Ivory Coast elite, and the reasons of its disaffection and insulation in âRural Interests and the Making of Modern African Statesâ, African Economic History, 23, 1995, 1â36 and in Political Topographies of the African State. Territorial Authority and Institutional Choice, Cambridge, Cambridge Un. Press, 2003. A comprehensive analysis from a Sanwi perspective is attempted by Lazare Koffi Koffi, La France contre la Côte dâIvoire. Aux origines, la guerre contre le Sanwi (1843â1940), Paris, LâHarmattan, 2011; Lazare Koffi Koffi, La France contre la Côte dâIvoire. Lâaffaire du Sanwi. Du malentendu politico-juridique à la tentative de sécession, LâHarmattan, Paris 2013.
In 1916 over 50% of Sanwi population crossed the Gold Coast Border to Aowin and Nzema, in a massive rejection of the puppet-king imposed by the French and conscription for the First World War. By 1920 most of them were back, but several refused to repatriate. In 1921 the French commandant de cercle still questioned the loyalty of the general population to France, complaining about âthe spirit of independence of the indigenesâ who understood English, kept up strong ties with their neighbours of the western God Coast, preferred the Shilling to the Franc and opposed Gold Coast regulation in terms of land-holding and chiefly powers to the more intrusive French colonial legislation. Archives Nationale de Côte dâIvoire (ANCI), Abidjan, Côte dâIvoire, 1EE (Affaires politiques) 24/1/4, X-27-14, Cercle dâAssinie, Rapport annuel 1921.
The Nzema term maanle in this context can be translated as âworldâ, country, state. The term â corresponding to the Twi Éman â loosely conceptualizes a community as an organic and historically grounded whole of human society, politics and territory and is applied equally to every non-elementary community level, regardless of its relative hierarchical position. In purely political terms, maanle can also be translated as âthe peopleâ, i.e. the whole of the community as opposed to the holders of power.
The information on the 1994 affair was given to the author by Hon. Lee Ocran, then Minister of State, during a coversation in Beyin, on 3 November 1996.
For a brief reconstruction of the delimitation process see William W. Claridge, A History of the Gold Coast and Ashanti, 2 vols., London, Frank Cass & Co., 1964 [1915], vol. 2, 159, 283, 328, 431.
The Franco-Dutch Agreement of 1869 is mentioned in Louis Sicking, Colonial Borderlands: France and the Netherlands in the Atlantic in the 19th Century, Leiden and Boston, MA, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2008, 87â88.
Douglas Coombs, The Gold Coast, Britain and the Netherlands, 1850â1874, London, Ibadan, and Accra, Oxford University Press, 1963; Sicking, Colonial Borderlands, 71â105.
The National Archives (TNA), Kew, United Kingdom, CO 879/19/10, n. 142, Report of the British Commissioners in re Assinee Boundary, Aburi, 2 April 1884, par. 5.
After the evacuation of the French contingent in Côte dâIvoire in 1870, following the defeat of Napoleon III in the War against Prussia, Arthur Verdier remained at Assini as resident and âguardian of the French flagâ until 1885. Verdier entrusted the management of Elima to his nephew Amédée Bretignere, who was joined in 1882 by Marcel Treich-Laplène, a well-known figure of âexplorerâ. For three classic readings on this phase in the history French presence in Côte dâIvoire see Henry Mouëzy, Assinie et le royaume de Krinjabo: histoire et coutumes, Paris, Larose, 1958; Paul Atger, La France en Côte dâIvoire de 1843 à 1893, Dakar, Université de Dakar, 1962; Bernard Schnapper, La politique et le commerce français dans le Golfe de Guinée de 1838 à 1871, Paris, Mouton, 1961.
Details on the border conflict are scattered throughout the documentary materials in TNA, CO 879/19/10, n. 142, 1884 Assinee Boundary Commission, Palavers; CO 879/37/3 Africa (West), n. 435, 1894 Further Correspondence respecting the Assinee Boundary, Gaman and Neighboring Territories; CO 879/25/6, 1886. On the events of the delimitation see also Captain Louis Gustave Binger, Du Niger au Golfe du Guinee par le pays de Kong et le Mossi, 2 vols., Paris, Hachette, 1892); Maurice Delafosse, Les frontières de la Côte dâOr et du Sudan, Paris, Masson et C.ie Ãditeurs, 1908.
Claridge, A History, vol. 2, 430â431.
Stary, âUn no manâs landâ, 4. See also Albert van Dantzig, âThe Demarcation of the Southern Section of the Border Between the Gold Coast and Ivory Coastâ, in Various authors, Les populations communes de la Côte-dâIvoire et du Ghana. Colloque interuniversitaire Ghana-Côte-dâIvoire, Bondoukou, Abidjan and Accra, Universités dâAbidjan et de Legon, 1974, 629â646.
Especially the documents in TNA, CO 879/19/10 and 879/37/3.
Paul Nugent outlines an interesting comparison between two border areas: one between Ghana and Togo, the other between Senegal and Gambia, highlighting how the dynamics of the border were shaped by the border populations as much as by the states concerned. The very perception of the State was conditioned by the appropriation and reinterpretation on the territory, both by local communities and by the institutions of state power, which, in specific contexts, often exhibited a perception of its own sovereignty and, from its derived implications, less rigid and all-encompassing, different from that officially asserted and more open to margins of negotiation. See Paul Nugent, âBorder Anomalies: The Role of Local Actors in Shaping Spaces Along the Senegal-Gambia and Ghana-Togo Bordersâ, in Alice Bellagamba and Georg Klute, eds., Beside the State: Emergent Powers in Contemporary Africa, Cologne, Koeppe Verlag, 2008, 121â138.
Igor Kopytoff, ed., The African Frontier: The Reproduction of Traditional African Societies, Bloomington, IN, Indiana University Press, 1987. The category of âinternal frontierâ that Kopytoff applies to the African framework has a long intellectual genealogy, which connects it to the conceptualization of the F.J. Turnerâs Great American Frontier, by way of the idea of J.R.V. Prescottâ s âFrontiers of Separationâ, territories that divide different political entities without falling under the jurisdiction of any. See F.J. Turner, âThe Significance of the Frontier in American Historyâ, in R.A. Billington, ed., Frontier and Section: Selected Essays, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, Prentice-Hall, 1961, 28â36; J.R.V. Prescott, Boundaries and Frontiers, London, Croom Helm, 1978. See also the Introduction in the present volume.
Ray A. Kea, Settlements, Trade, and Polities in the Seventeenth-Century Gold Coast, Baltimore and London, MD, Johns Hopkins, 1982, 79.
Claude-Hélène Perrot, Les Anyi-Ndényé et le pouvoir aux 18e et 19e siècles, Abidjan and Paris, Ceda and Publications de la Sorbonne, 1982; Fabio Viti, Il potere debole. Antropologia politica dellâAitu nvle (Baule, Costa dâAvorio), Milan, Franco Angeli, 1998.
Pierluigi Valsecchi, Power and State Formation in West Africa: Appolonia From the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century, New York, NY, Palgrave Macmillan, 2012, 49â51; Claude-Hélène Perrot, Les Ãotilé de Côte dâIvoire aux XVIIIe et XIXe siècles. Pouvoir lignager et religion, Paris, Publications de la Sorbonne, 2008.
The name Assini, attributed by the Esuma to the new headquarters, was the same as the coastal area of origin, which remained in the toponymy and historical memory of the extreme western coastal stretch of Ghana, near todayâs settlement of Nzimitianu, Jomoro Municipal Assembly.
There is a substantial literature on the relationship between Assini and the French. I limit myself to indicating Paul Roussierâs fundamental collection, Paul Roussier, LâÃtablissement dâIssigny, 1687â1702. Voyages de Ducasse, Tibierge et dâAmon à la Côte de Guinée. Publiés pour la premère fois et suivis de la Relation du voyage du royaume dâIssiny du P. Godefroy Loyer, Paris, Larose, 1935.
Valsecchi, Power, 170â171; Perrot, Les Ãotilé, 76.
Pierluigi Valsecchi, I signori di Appolonia. Poteri e formazione dello Stato in Africa occidentale fra xvi e xviii secolo, Rome, Carocci, 2002, 170; Pierluigi Valsecchi, âThe âTrue Nzemaâ: A Layered Identityâ, Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, 71, 3, 2001, 391â425, 407.
For these Nzema terms cfr. P.A. Kwesi Aboagye, Nzema nee Nrelenza EdwÉbohilelÉ/Nzema English, English Nzema Dictionary, Accra, Bureau of Ghana Languages, 1992. For an historical and geographical discussion of the place name see René Baesjou, âThe Historical Evidence in Old Maps and Charts of Africa With Special Reference to West Africaâ, History in Africa, 15, 1988, 9â16.
Some ancient graphic variants such as Abini, Abany, Abane etc. could also suggest a derivation from abane: fence, wall, however associated with the idea of term, barrier, boundary.
Around April of 1764, a large joint force from Aowin and Wassa, which was also reinforced by men from the settlements along the Tano River, crossed the river and struck the forest communities subject to the Nzema ruler Amihyia Kpanyinli, as well as the Ewuture who had fled the lagoons and settled along the coast. The invaders destroyed the crops and captured 300 women and children. The effects of the attack were so devastating as to cause a serious famine. This was retaliation for a raid Amihyia had led some time before against the area of Ngatakro, on the Tano River. During this raid, Amihyia had been responsible for killing the chief custodian of the Tano bozonle (now in Nougoua) which was particularly revered by the Aowin peoples. This place was also an important meeting place for merchants from Wassa and Asante. Furley Collection (FC), Balme Library, Legon, Ghana, n. 106 (C), Dutch Letters from the Gold Coast, 1760â1764, âReport by J. Prehuysen, 15 May 1764â.
The island is still nowadays a main shrine of the Ewuture people of Côte dâIvoire and a pillar of their identity as a group.
Valsecchi, Power, 182â183; Valsecchi, I signori di Appolonia, 278â279; Henriette Diabaté, âLe Sannvin. Un royaume akan de la Côte dâIvoire (1701â1901), sources orales et histoire, 6 vols., Phd Thesis, Université de Paris I Sorbonne, 1984, vol. 1, 521â529.
Valsecchi, I signori di Appolonia, 261â301.
TNA, CO 388/54. âCopy of a Cession of Cape Appolonia to the British Nation, Appolonia 25th Dec. 1765, 5th of George IIIâs Reignâ. The agreement was signed by Boa, Amihyia, and other 44 âPrincipal Peopleâ, whose names are unfortunately not shown on the only known copy.
As late as 1848, Brodie Cruickshank was still indicating Awiane as the western boundary of Nzema. National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh, Scotland, MS 20324. Brodie Cruickshank, âLetters from the Gold Coast and Slave Coast with an Account of a Mission to the King of Dahomey, 1849â, Unpublished manuscript, Letter Atuambo 9 May 1848.
For discussions on the basis of available studies and sources see Pierluigi Valsecchi, âLo Nzema fra egemonia asante ed espansione europea nella prima metà del XIX secoloâ, Africa: Rivista trimestrale di studi e documentazione dellâIstituto Italiano per LâAfrica e lâOriente, 41, 4, 1986, 507â544; Pierluigi Valsecchi, âIl Sanwi e lâimpero asante: dati e ipotesi per una storia delle relazioni politicheâ, Africa: Rivista trimestrale di studi e documentazione dellâIstituto Italiano per LâAfrica e lâOriente, 44, 2, 1989, 175â210.
See TNA, T70/1004, Appolonia Day Book, Christopher Deey, 1 October-31 December 1802; 1 January-31 December 1803; 1 January-31 December 1804; Valsecchi, Power, 182â183.
TNA, T70/1599, D. Bayley to Governor Council, Appolonia Fort, 19 September 1815. Much of the cargo saved from the shipwreck had been recovered by the people of Assini and the Ewuture settlements on the lagoon. Nyanzu Aka arrived at the scene of the shipwreck only 24 hours later and had the remainder collected and transported to his residence in the area.
Shortly afterwards HÉba Kyi clashed with Nyanzu Aka I, the Nzema ruler, and abandoned the area with his men, actively siding with the ruler of Sanwi, AtÉkpala, against his previous lord and attacking and burning Awiane. Years later, one of his successors, Kyena Koame, made peace with the next Nzema ruler, Kaku Aka and broke with Sanwi, bringing the exiles back to Awiane. Public Records and Archives Administration Department of Ghana (PRAAD), Administration (ADM), Accra, Ghana, ADM 11/1/1699, F. Crowther, Commission of Enquiry into the Constitution of Apolonia, Notes of evidence, Nta Aka, Amo Soma, Honjah Kobbina, Beyin 14 March 1914.
TNA, T70/1599, D. Bayley to Governor Council, Appolonia Fort, 19 September 1815.
Around February 1830 the longstanding rivalry and hostility between Nyanzu Aka of Nzema and AtÉkpala of Sanwi developed into full fledged war. Algemeen Rijks Archief (ARA), National Archief (NL-HaNA), The Hague, The Netherlands, Kust van Guinea (Nederlandse Bezittingen op de Kust van Guinea), 1.05.14, inv.nr. 358, Journal, Elmina (Last), entry for 14 Februay 1830 [scan 0181]. See also J.Y. Ackah, âKaku Ackah and the Split of Nzemaâ, MA Thesis, University of Ghana, Legon, 1965, 80.
TNA CO 879/19/10, Chapum, 28 December 1883, 7.30 a.m.: Quabina Essan of Adikroom [Adusuazo]; Palaver at Nuam, 11 December, 2 p.m. present: the English Commissioner, Chief Attiala, 2nd do. Abbati Cudjoe, Assan Cudjoe.
The British post of Fort Appolonia, at Beyin, was formally abandoned in 1821. See United Kingdom, British Parliamentary papers (BPP), 1842-C.551. Report from the Select Committee on the West Coast of Africa; together with the Minutes of Evidence, Appendix, and Index. Part 1 â Report and Evidence, Ordered by the House of Commons to be Printed, 5 August 1842, F. Swanzy, 29 April 29 1842, (900). William Hutton, a merchant, had recommended abandoning the fort, arguing that it did not provide any real protection to British trade and was only a financial burden for the management of the settlements. William Hutton, A Voyage to Africa: Including a Narrative of an Embassy to One of the Interior Kingdoms in the Year 1820. With Remarks on the Course and Termination of the Niger, and Other Principal Rivers in that Country, London, Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1821, 77. Attempts by George Maclean to reoccupy the fort in the 1830s proved unsustainable.
See Valsecchi, âLo Nzema fra egemonia asante ed espansione europeaâ; âIl Sanwi e lâimpero asanteâ.
Archives Nationales dâOutre-Mer (AN-OM), Aix-en-Provence, France, Sénégal (Sénégal et dépendances), IV, 29 (a), Directeurs des Colonies au Ministre, Paris, 28 December 1842. The Nzema threat, along with the Asante threat, would induce the Sanwi to seek the protection of a European power. The treaty text is reported in Mouëzy, Assinie et le royaume de Krinjabo, 67â69. On the circumstances of the French establishing their post in Sanwi see also Atger, La France en Côte dâIvoire, First Part; Schnapper, La Politique et le Commerce, Chapters 1, 2, 3.
Not only that, but the new arrivals would also have planted their flag about ten miles further east, that is, well inside the âBritishâ area. But Macleanâs deduction was just a speculation and, as he himself specified in the letter, in Cape Coast Castle there were no documents relating to the 1765 agreement between Nzema and the English and he therefore had no way of verifying the limits of the territorial extension that this specified. In fact he was wrong: as we have seen, the western limit mentioned in 1765 did not go beyond Awiane. TNA, CO 96/4, Maclean to Lord Stanley, Cape Coast Castle, 2 February 1844: âMy limited means compelled me to abandon it [the fort]. It is true the great distance of Appolonia from Cape Coast Castle and the turbulent character of its present Chief, have rendered it impossible for meâ.
The construction of at least one of the two buildings got under way in early 1841, as witnessed by the Methodist missionary William Allen, who was a guest of Kaku Akaâs and who counted about twenty bricklayers at work on the project. BPP, 1842 C551-I, Minutes of Evidence taken before the Select Committee on West Coast of Africa, Rev. William Allenâs letter of 2 February 1842 quoted in J. Beecham, 31 May 1842 (3593).
The building was then completed in record time, between 23 and 26 September, by sixty men and ten women sent expressly by Kaku Aka. ARA, NL-HaNA, Kust van Guinea, 1.05.14, inv.nr. 522, Incoming papers from Outforts, Axim (Rühle), Report September 1841: entry for 2, 7, 9, 19, 20, 23, 26 Sept. [scans 0255, 0269â0270]; Kust van Guinea, 1.05.14, inv.nr. 364, Journal (Governor, Elmina), 1838 1 July 1841â31 December, 1841: entry for 16 September [0199].
ARA, NL-HaNA, Kust van Guinea, 1.05.14, inv.nr. 528, n° 40, Van Hien to Derx, Axim 2nd December 1846 [scans 0283â0284]; see also inv.nr. 366, Elmina Journal 1847, Derx, entry for 5 December [0117â0118].
NL-HaNA, Kust van Guinea, 1.05.14, inv.nr. 522, Incoming papers from Outforts, Axim (Rühle), Report September 1841: entries for 2, 7, 9 Sept. [scan 0255]. We can get an idea of the size of this flotilla from the fact that, according to Rühleâs information, Kaku Aka sent 200 paddles to Asanta.
Valsecchi, Power, 74, 235 fn78.
National Library of Scotland, MS 20324. Cruickshank, âLetters from the Gold Coast and Slave Coastâ, 9 May 1848.
For BasakÉ and Sanwoma as Garrison Towns see Ackah, Kaku, 89; R.W. Sanderson, âThe History of Nzima up to 1874â, Gold Coast Review, 1, 1, 1925, 101. For Etikobo (present Tikobo II) see my interview to nana Nda Bile II, Chief of Tikobo II, and assistant-abusua kpanyinli Awonzo MÉke, Tikobo II, 25 November. For Half Assini and Adusuazo see National Library of Scotland, MS 20324. Cruickshank, âLetters from the Gold Coast and Slave Coastâ, Atuambo, 9 May 1848.
Pierluigi Valsecchi, âThe Fall of Kaku Aka: Social and Political Change in the Mid-Nineteenth-Century Western Gold Coastâ, Journal of West African History, 2, 1, 2016, 1â26. At the end of a long internal conflict, the breakdown of the unity of the Nzema area was formally sanctioned in 1874 with a reconciliation and the British recognition of two separate polities: an eastern one, based in Atuabo and a western one, based in Beyin.
For the career of Bissoo, an enslaved northerner who turned a wealthy merchant and an influential notable at Cape Coast see Brodie Cruickshank, Eighteen Years on the Gold Coast of Africa, 2 vols., London, Frank Cass & Co., 1966 [1853], vol. 1, 243â244.
National Library of Scotland, MS 20324. Cruickshank, âLetters from the Gold Coast and Slave Coastâ, Atuambo, 30 April 1848; 9 May 1848.
Archives Nationales (AN), Paris, 200Mi Microfilms de complement, Archives de lâancien Gouvernement général de lâAfrique occidentale française, 1779â1940, 772 5G7, Darricau au Commandant en chef la Division navale des Côtes Occidentales dâAfrique, Poste dâAssinie, Exercice 1849.
TNA, CO 879/19/10, Chapum, 28 December 1883, 7.30 a.m.: Quabina Essan of Adikroom [Adusuazo].
See for instance TNA, CO 879/19/10, Newtown, 22 December, 3.15 p.m., statement bt Azooakoo, Chief o Urunguun (Aronguane) [Alangouanou].
National Library of Scotland, MS 20324. Cruickshank, âLetters from the Gold Coast and Slave Coastâ, Atuambo, 9 May 1848.
National Library of Scotland, MS 20324. Cruickshank, âLetters from the Gold Coast and Slave Coastâ, Atuambo, 9 May 1848.
Hugh McNeille Dyer, The West Coast of Africa as Seen from the Deck of a Man-of-War, London, J. Griffin & Co., 1876, 98.
ARA, NL-HaNA, Kust van Guinea, 1.05.14, inv.nr. 1101, Report 1: Journey from Beïn to the French post in Assinie, in November 1869, Schnerr, Beyin 18 January 1870 [scan 0177].
TNA, CO 879/19/10, T.F. Pullen, R.E. Firminger, Report of the British Commissioners in re Assinee Boundary. Abbreviations, Aburi, 2 April 1884, 221, 9; Palaver at Mahooa, 22 November 1883, 12 mer., 266â267.
TNA, CO 879/19/10, Newtown, 22 December, 3.15 p.m., statement by Azooakoo, Chief o Urunguun (Aronguane) [Alangouanou].
I presented some of the materials that inform this article in Pierluigi Valsecchi, âLa frontiera come storia. Politiche dellâappartenenza sul confine Ghana-Costa dâAvorioâ, Il Politico, 75, 3, 2010, 101â117.
The final declaration (in French) was signed by Schnerr, Martin and their staff Ch. Martin, Anan Barend and Alakamessa. ARA, NL-HaNA, Kust van Guinea, 1.05.14, inv.nr. 729, Assinie 13 November 1869 [0907â0909].
ARA, NL-HaNA, Kust van Guinea, 1.05.14, inv.nr. 1101, Register of outgoing letters, 16 November 1868 â 26 June 1870, Report 1: Journey from Beïn to the French post in Assinie, in November 1869, Schnerr, Beyin 18 January 1870 [0178].
ARA, NL-HaNA, Kust van Guinea, 1.05.14, inv.nr. 729, Note by the Resident J. G. Schnerr, former commander in the District Appolonia, currently in the District Axim, Axim 26 June 1870 [0929â0930]. Schnerr added: âThe [French] commander Gre. Martin also informed me that he would not claim any of [Avolenuâs Nzema settlers] rights. There should furthermore be made notice of the fact that the populations of the small krommen situated west from Afoeljinoe, namely Anjessoe, Eijennesoe, Abonésia no. 1 and 2, and Aankoeang, also consist of Appolonians, and that they have also been constructed by them; the inhabitants of the krom Assinie too were originally Appolonians, who back then were driven from Appolonia for murder, theft and other such things. As far as I am concerned, residence of Appolonians in a krom built by them on Assinian territory will not give rise to any troubleâ.