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Research ArticleArticle

“Intimate Knowledge of the Country”

Factionalism in the Mid-Nineteenth-Century Gold Coast Administration

KOFI TAKYI ASANTE
African Economic History, January 2018, 46 (2) 63-92; DOI: https://doi.org/10.3368/aeh.46.2.63
KOFI TAKYI ASANTE
Kofi Takyi Asante () is a research fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse (IAST). He obtained a doctorate in Sociology from Northwestern University, where he wrote a dissertation on African initiatives in colonial state formation. His research interests include historical sociology, sociology of the state, and citizenship.
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Abstract

This article examines conflicts around questions of policy formulation and the intrusion of private interests in official actions which arose between factions in the early British colonial administration in the Gold Coast. The circumstances surrounding the transfer of administrative control from the Company of Merchants to the Colonial Office generated distrust and hostility between two British factions on the coast: merchants and metropolitan appointees. Mercantile resentment stemmed from fear that metropolitan control was likely to erode the gains of the previous administration and undermine their commercial interests, since newly appointed officials lacked local knowledge and had no commercial or personal ties to the Gold Coast. These circumstances provided fertile grounds for the conflicts that embroiled officials of the colonial administration from 1844. However, when allowed the opportunity to influence administrative policy, merchants adopted cordial relations with the new officials and readily offered their cooperation. This study suggests that we cannot assume that colonial administrations functioned as coherent units. Another implication is that uncritically accepting the “colonizer” and “colonized” dichotomy obscures many important differences within each category and blinds us to the important social and political implications of these internal divisions.

  • © 2018 by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System
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African Economic History: 46 (2)
African Economic History
Vol. 46, Issue 2
1 Jan 2018
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“Intimate Knowledge of the Country”
KOFI TAKYI ASANTE
African Economic History Jan 2018, 46 (2) 63-92; DOI: 10.3368/aeh.46.2.63

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“Intimate Knowledge of the Country”
KOFI TAKYI ASANTE
African Economic History Jan 2018, 46 (2) 63-92; DOI: 10.3368/aeh.46.2.63
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  • Article
    • Abstract
    • Introduction
    • A Note on Colonial Governance in the Nineteenth-Century Gold Coast
    • Mercantile and Metropolitan Governance
    • A Question of Administrative Control
    • Factions and Colonial Politics
    • Conclusion
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