“We Sympathise with the Mines for Pilfery That Goes on but …”

Abstract

For decades, the British colonial establishment in the Gold Coast believed that setting its gaze on goldsmiths was pivotal to eliminating pilfery of gold from the mines. This assumption, commonly without concrete proof, hardened colonial paranoia and was shared with Ashanti Goldfields Corporation. Both entities thought that the continuous access to gold by goldsmiths, coupled with increasing gold theft were enough basis to surveil goldsmiths—the supposed pivotal actors in a fledging illicit trade in stolen mine gold. Yet, the problem remained. As this study shows, there was a paucity of successful prosecutions against persons caught in possession of stolen mine gold, and none against a goldsmith. Ultimately, it is argued that from 1907 to 1948, central colonial laws meant to regulate the growing gold mining industry and protect its finds in the Gold Coast reveal negotiations that more than realizing their primary principle(s), increasingly limited access to gold by many indigenes. While the latter sustained an emergent illicit market for pilfered gold from the mines, it simultaneously sparked a misplaced colonial state-led surveillance that targeted goldsmiths.