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Research ArticleArticle

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

African Interests in Gold Coast Mines, Protecting Gold, and the Politics of Legislation, 1907–1948

E. SASU KWAME SEWORDOR
African Economic History, January 2020, 48 (2) 138-168; DOI: https://doi.org/10.3368/aeh.48.2.138
E. SASU KWAME SEWORDOR
E. Sasu Kwame Sewordor () earned his first two degrees in History at the University of Ghana, Legon and currently is a doctoral student at the University of Basel, Switzerland.
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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.

  • © 2020 by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System
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African Economic History: 48 (2)
African Economic History
Vol. 48, Issue 2
1 Jan 2020
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“We Sympathise with the Mines for Pilfery That Goes on but …”
E. SASU KWAME SEWORDOR
African Economic History Jan 2020, 48 (2) 138-168; DOI: 10.3368/aeh.48.2.138

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“We Sympathise with the Mines for Pilfery That Goes on but …”
E. SASU KWAME SEWORDOR
African Economic History Jan 2020, 48 (2) 138-168; DOI: 10.3368/aeh.48.2.138
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  • Article
    • Abstract
    • Introduction
    • J. Mensah Sarbah et al: The G.M.P.P. Ordinance, and Making a Gold Industry, 1907–1909
    • Nana Ofori Atta and Co.: Towards a Further Amendment of the G.M.P.P. Ordinance, 1938
    • For Empire/Colony?: Surveilling Crime, Labor (Union) Anxiety, and Petitions, 1939–1948
    • Sample Petitions
    • Conclusion
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