The Opportunity for Loss is Fully Appreciated, But: Theft and Conflicting Policy in the Making of the Gold Coast’s Diamond-Mining Industry, 1919–1950s

E. Sasu Kwame Sewordor

doi:10.3368/aeh.51.1.93

Abstract

This article reconstructs a history of diamond mining in the Gold Coast (colonial Ghana), with special emphasis on contentions about diamond stealing and government policy choices that shaped the making of the industry. Beginning in 1949 with a committee formed to investigate African diamond mining, and suggest ways to improve their operations in the industry, the article backtracks three decades and poses the following questions: Why did the 1949 enquiry target African diamond diggers alone when others were also involved in this extractive enterprise? Did the decision to prioritize rather than suppress the business interest of African diggers conflict the interests of the government and of expatriate firms? Building on existing literature on diamond mining in the Gold Coast, this article attempts to answer the above questions by introducing new archival evidence to the scholarship. The article argues that in the 1940s, when European companies grew suspicious that an increase in African-produced diamonds corresponding with a peak in theft from their properties, official colonial policy encouraged rather than impinged mining African enterprise.

KEYWORDS:

Introduction

On 2 February 1949, the Colonial Secretary of the Gold Coast dispatched a letter to three other political officials, inviting them to form a committee that will investigate African enterprise in diamond mining. The recipients—Judicial Advisor A. J. Loveridge, Commissioner of Lands G. W. Stacpoole, and acting Chief Inspector of Mines G. W. S. Bond—thereafter constituted a committee tasked to recommend ways to improve African diamond enterprise.¹ The letter commissioning the investigation echoed several concerns expressed in official correspondences throughout the 1940s relating to the licensing, protection, export and theft/loss of diamonds.² The colonial government enquiry into the African diamond enterprise was partly prompted by allegations from expatriate mining firms about theft, which they laid at the door of African diggers. To historically situate the committee’s enquiry, we need a broad overview of the diamond industry, which had already been operating for thirty years (1919–1949) by the time the Loveridge committee was formed. This article reconstructs the work of the committee and interrogates how its members privileged African diamond enterprises despite increasing complaints from expatriate mining companies that Africans were to blame for the rise in diamond theft from their concessions.

The article describes a shift from an initial restricted attention given to diamond mining by the colonial administration towards the gradual emergence of an unprecedented active interest among Africans in diamond mining during the first half of the 1900s. This article has two main objectives; first, to understand what logic informed the colonial administration’s seemingly contradictory position to consider African over European industrial interests in the Gold Coast’s diamond-mining industry by the end of the 1940s. Second, to examine a colonial discourse that contemplated diamond stealing as the foremost threat to that mining enterprise and tease out the inconsistencies in how colonial lawmakers dealt with the problem. While these two objectives define the scope of this present article, they are extended in my ongoing book project that examines economies of crime connected to the diamond industry in the Gold Coast. As a lens for framing this essay, the discourse about diamond theft offered here importantly exposes the inconsistences in counter-crime colonial economic policymaking and brings us close to ordinary diamond miners rather than prioritizing large corporations as much of the existing literature does.

The existing historical literature on the diamond mining about the Gold Coast rarely focuses on the effects of theft on the industry.³ Besides the path-breaking works of Peter Greenhalgh, critical attention has all but sporadically been given to the subject. Scholarly contributions are often contained in dissertations, public health and environmental or natural resource protection research, highlighting site-specific case studies.⁴ Often, the literature has treated diamond mining as subsidiary to gold and its related industries.⁵ This state of research is less surprising considering that diamond exports have historically contributed less (overall) to the Gold Coast’s foreign exchange earnings than other mined commodities like gold.⁶ This article is therefore an intervention that adds to the historical literature on diamond mining, with a particular focus on how theft threatened the enterprise. Building on Greenhalgh’s research especially this article will offer a historical analysis of the legal foundations of the diamond industry that emphasizes the perceived threats of African involvement to the industry. To achieve this, I have assembled and critically read archival materials which previous scholars have hardly examined.

The article consists of five sections. This introduction is followed by a broad historical and contextual overview of the diamond-mining industry, which sheds light on the business interests held by private mining firms and Africans on the one hand, and the regulatory stakes held by the colonial administrators on the other. The section after reveals the overarching official intention that informed the structure of the diamond-mining industry. This is achieved by closely reading colonial archival records. These records include the final report of the Loveridge committee published in 1949, letters, annual reports, minutes of the Legislative Council, and newspaper sources from London’s financial press. The materials were sourced from regional of the Public Record and Archives Administration Department (or PRAAD) plus the Akyem Abuakwa State Archives (or AASA). For one, these documents usefully provide relevant data used to numerically illustrate (see Table 1) the involvement of Africans in diamond mining and gives a spatial rendering of the industry. As part of the penultimate section, a map from the PRAAD office in Kumase (Fig. 5) is used to visualize a selected diamond-mining area. This visual approach supports the discussion of tensions between African diggers and European diamond-mining interests. Additionally, Fig. 5 foregrounds my evaluation of the findings of the Loveridge committee after its investigations into the work of African diamond diggers, and prompt further analysis into allegations European firms levelled against them as the people responsible for stealing diamonds from company concessions. The limitations of the said allegations are highlighted with concrete statistical references, also gleaned from the committee’s report. The conclusion reechoes my contention that the amendment laws passed by the colonial government, following the Loveridge committee’s recommendations, reflect official desire to strengthen rather than suppress the enterprise of African diggers—even if European companies thought otherwise. The article finally invites scholars to advance our understanding of African contributions to the history of the diamond-mining industry in the Gold Coast.

View this table:

Table 1.

Statistics of Diamond Prospecting Licenses, Carats Exported, and Their Respective Value, 1939–1951

The Birim-Pra and Bonsa Diamondiferous Areas

The colonial administration was slow to legislate the alluvial diamond-mining industry following the first documented discovery at Abomoso on the Birim River in the Akyem state in the Gold Coast by the Geological Survey Department in 1919.⁷ However, an industry only emerged in the following decade. In 1926, the colonial administration enacted tailored laws to guide the enterprise when it passed the Diamond Mining Industry Protection Ordinance (hereafter, DMIP). Until then, the Concessions Ordinance (first enacted in 1900) partly served as legal reference to control mining generally and de facto diamond winning.⁸

The richest occurrence of alluvial diamonds in the Gold Coast Colony were in two areas; the Birim-Pra, located in mid-western Akyem, within the arch forged by the Birim and Pra rivers; and Bonsa, situated west of Tarkwa (see hatched area in Fig. 1).⁹ By 1949 African workings were predominantly located in the Bonsa field, with some in the Birim-Pra area where they surrounded company-owned concessions.¹⁰ In the first half of the 1920s, several European diamond-mining companies were actively working in the Birim-Pra area. The Akim Diamond Fields Limited (ADFL) first began diamond mining in 1920. Two years later, ADFL was followed by the prominent African Selection Trust, which was subsequently merged with Anglo African Exploration (est. 1922) and recapitalized to form the Consolidated African Selection Trust (hereafter, CAST) in 1924.¹¹ Others toed in the steps of CAST, including Akim Concessions Limited or ACL (1922),¹² and West African Diamond Syndicate or WADS (1923).¹³

Figure 1.

“Diamond occurrences in the Gold Coast.”

Source: PRAAD, Accra.

Though it is possible to broadly categorize prospectors into groups of Africans and European-owned firms, some fine details are relevant for clarification. Africans mainly mined the Bonsa diamond field, with the consent of or permission of local chiefs who customarily owned lands. Formal arrangements such as signed agreements were common in the Birim-Pra area. In the Bonsa region, mining concessions were usually granted through contracts negotiated by word of mouth. Another unique characteristic of the Birim-Pra field was that it was worked by ethnic Nzima people from south-western Gold Coast, persons of present-day Nigerian decent, and to a limited degree Togolese.¹⁴ Since mining in Birim-Pra included prospectors who originated from different places (located within or outside the Gold Coast), chiefs insisted on making written agreements with African diggers¹⁵ before granting lands to mine diamonds (see Fig. 3).¹⁶ Women laborers worked in both the Birrim-Pra and Bonsa areas. Though rare, women sometimes made independent agreements for land to extract diamonds.¹⁷ Women, together with their male counterparts, worked for African diamond entrepreneurs “on a non royalty and non profit sharing basis” for about 3 or 4 shillings per day in the 1940s. In the Birim-Pra field especially, labor was employed on a tributary basis—i.e., involving contracted gangs of four or five who worked for 16 shillings and 4 dimes per carat discovered for the operator. The gangs used simple tools like pickaxes and shovels but sometimes jigs and shakers provided by their employer.¹⁸ A colonial report of their extraction technique was couched in the following words:

The coarse pebbles and gravels are first placed in the Shaker i.e., a large meshed sieve erected on rockers, and a man stand at each end rocking this contrivance whilst a third man pours water into the sieve. The gravel is collected at the bottom and the large pebbles and gravel on top of the sieve are thrown away. The fine gravel is then treated in a hand jig which consists of a very fine meshed sieve which is jerked up and down in a pit of water by a long arm working on a fulcrum by hand. This action washes off the light sand and gravel leaving the concentrates in the bottom from which the diamonds are again hand picked.¹⁹

Figure 2.

Agreement with S. F. Dare, 1950.

Source: PRAAD, Kumase.

Figure 3.

Agreement with Alabila Dandi, 1951.

Source: PRAAD, Kumase.

In both fields, African diamond miners were dispersed and only worked periodically, usually during the beginning and/or closing months of each year. Accordingly, their activities were quite fluid and difficult to track, thereby hampering the colonial administration’s capacity to effectively control African diamond miners or diggers. This condition brought the interests of European firms into direct conflict with those of the African diggers, especially relating to unclear and disputed concession boundaries. Both Europeans and Africans were protective of their respective mining sites; while the former feared trespassing into their concessions, the latter were described as capable of frustrating attempts by expatriate firms to obtain new concessions for diamond mining.²⁰

In 1928, Nana Sir Ofori Atta I—Paramount Chief of Akyem Abuakwa (Akan: Okyenhene), unofficial member of the Gold Coast Legislative Council (hereafter, the Council), and a director of ACL—stated in his address to shareholders at the sixth ordinary general meeting of the ACL in England that the Akyem Abuakwa stool was unaware that lands leased to ACL contained diamonds when the contract between the stool and the firm was originally signed.²¹ He added that the concession rights granted to ACL was for mining gold “but the rights embraced in that document enabled [ACL] to get the diamonds without paying for them.” In light of the discovery of diamonds, the Paramount Chief noted that not only would he be surprised if the company did not develop into a profitable enterprise but added that he did not intend to alter the existing agreement.²² Implicitly, Ofori Atta I indicated that companies formed for mining a given commodity could switch to extracting another if or when discovered within the company’s concessions, without further negotiations with the customary landowner(s). Standing at a crossroad, as it were, Ofori Atta I was aware of his twin responsibilities; firstly, to ACL as a director, and secondly, to protect the economic interests of the Akyem Abuakwa people as their Paramount Chief. He told the audience, “In my dual capacity as Paramount Chief, which has imposed upon me the duty of looking after the interest of my people, and as a director of your company, which places upon me the obligation of looking after the interests of the shareholders, I shall do all in my power to see that your labors are not in vain.”²³ Being very clear on his double mandate, Ofori Atta I carefully discharged his duties to European mining companies without unduly disadvantaging the commercial interests of the Akyem Abuakwa people.

Though African chiefs granted diamond-mining concessions to European companies, the alluvial nature of diamonds in the Gold Coast explains the significant participation of Africans in the industry. By 1950, for example, statistics show that African diggers constituted a larger portion of all licensed diamond prospectors in the Gold Coast (see Table 1).

African diggers were granted a prospecting license under colonial law after concluding an agreement with chiefs for a piece of diamondiferous land. The sample agreements that African diggers co-signed reveal the negotiated business terms under which they received land for mining diamonds. Similarly, these documents show the roles of colonial administrators in formalizing lease agreements between African diggers and chiefs, enforced through the processes of state licensing. Perusing these agreements, it becomes apparent that lumping African diamond prospectors or diggers together, as though constituting one coherent block of enterprising people, may blur the differentiated conditions under which they respectively operated. A notable aspect of these contracts is that, while African chiefs commonly received a fraction of the diggers’ net earnings, the agreements contained a clause that insisted that diamonds won be disposed of via banks alone. Altogether, the contracts are insightful because they unveil transactional practices among African actors involved in diamond mining and how banks mediated these exchanges as part of globalized financial transactions. Additionally, since the agreements are differently dated and worded, they give a sense of how different stakeholders continuously renegotiated the conditions of land lease and use to improve their respective financial entitlements. Cumulatively existing records of land leases granted to African diggers give us glimpses of the standardization of diamond mining, under conditions different from those followed by European companies.

Diamond Mining in the Gold Coast—A Local Enterprise within Global Marketing and Financial Economies

The diamond-mining enterprise was characterized by highly strategic dealings amongst companies during the 1920s. Transferring properties was notable. For example, in 1923, ACL sold parts of its concessions to WADS while preparing to start large-scale production. The chairman of ACL, Mr. Francis Allen, acknowledged that their transaction with WADS positioned his firm in a partnership with a “very powerful, well-known group of mining people in the City of London—the Russo-Asiatic Consolidated, Ltd.—and we have now the very best technical advice we could possibly have.”²⁴ In 1922 when the ACL was incorporated and prior to negotiations to capitalize the company, the African Selection Trust held sixty percent in capital and profits, while the (to be liquidated) Akim Diamond Fields held the remaining forty percent.²⁵ These strategic corporate arrangements between mining companies in the Gold Coast extended into southern Africa. According to The Financial Times, the Gold Fields Rhodesian Development Company Limited held shares in the Gold Coast Selection Trust (GCSC), which in turn held shares in other smaller mining companies including the Marlu Gold Mining Areas Limited, Ariston Gold Mines (1929) Limited, Amalgamated Banket Areas Limited, Bremang Gold Dredging Company Limited, and Gold Coast Main Reef Limited “all of which [were] either good dividend payers or are likely to become so in the not distant future.”²⁶ These maneuvers show that some early European-owned firms strategically hedged against losses by simultaneously investing in other mining companies across the African continent.

Figure 4.

Agreement with Sanusi Lagos, 1951.

Source: PRAAD, Kumase.

Greenhalgh has traced the expansion of CAST, the largest expatriate diamond-mining company in the Gold Coast, into south and west African colonies and documented the financial and political influence consequently amassed. In Sierra Leone, CAST received monopoly rights over diamond-bearing lands from the colonial authorities.²⁷ While CAST positioned itself to take advantage of securing a monopoly in Sierra Leone, it faced competition in the Gold Coast. Within the larger scheme of affairs however, CAST negotiated mutually beneficial deals with De Beers Consolidated Mines to keep the latter out of West Africa to protect CAST’s interests.²⁸ In addition to maneuvers to secure territories free of competition to mine diamond, CAST went beyond the British empire into French West African colonies.²⁹ In the decades following the discovery of diamonds in the Gold Coast, the enterprise that emerged was thus tucked into global markets controlled by capitalist businesses and financial interests.³⁰

Diamonds were discovered in the Gold Coast in 1919. Yet, it was in the next decade that Africans took any meaningful prospecting interest in diamond mining. Though unclear precisely when African operations started, some records date it to circa 1933.³¹ Interest in diamond mining amongst Africans grew slowly. International exhibitions such as one held in England in 1924 whipped up public interest.³² The Financial Times published a commentary about the event and promised readers that Africans from the Gold Coast will demonstrate diamond mining at the exhibition.³³ Once an industry took off, African diggers and European companies co-existed. During the first few decades however, the colonial administration only paid sporadic attention to diamond mining. This inattentiveness echoes Greenhalgh’s assertion that before “the late 1940s the Government had taken no [sustained] interest in the African diamond industry with the exception of issuing diamond export licences to […] two banks to facilitate the export of African won diamonds.”³⁴ He further notes that the colonial authorities only became interested in the diamond-mining industry following the breakdown of law and order in the enterprise in the 1940s.³⁵ This chaotic state of the industry mostly affected the profits of expatriate diamond-mining firms. As we shall see in detail below, one mining firm surmised that the situation translated Africans stealing into from its concessions.

Two decades before the 1940s, a principal ordinance to specifically regulate diamond winning was enacted. The intention in official colonial minds was to curb unauthorized dealings in diamonds.³⁶ At this point, the thought that uncanny practices would soon plague the diamond industry if left unregulated, was not without basis. Nana Ofori Atta I, put it succinctly when he said “that since every development of an industry carries with it or produces its own class of expert swindlers, the diamond industry was no exception.”³⁷ A contemporary colonial annual report similarly reminds us that the DMIP’s “provisions [were] however only such as have been deemed appropriate to local condition, and [were] not characterised by the same stringency as marks the corresponding legislation of some other countries, where the local conditions are different.”³⁸ More importantly, crafting the ordinance to be sensitive to local conditions is striking. The reason being that it was a position first taken from a colonial administrative standpoint rather than one African members of the Council argued. What is curious is that section 11(3) of the 1926 DMIP criminalized the unexplained possession of diamonds and placed the burden of proving innocence on anyone accused before a magistrate.³⁹

Six months after the DMIP was first passed, Nana Ofori Atta I reminded the Council of the original position the African members took regarding the principle of the ordinance. He underscored that he and his colleagues “had no doubts then as to the reasonableness of the restrictions that might follow [the passing of the DMIP]. Consequently, none of us opposed the principle of the Bill at the time.”⁴⁰ It is clear therefore that the unofficial African members of the Council agreed with the underlying reasoning for the DMIP, and thus did not needlessly hamper its original passing. Nonetheless, the problematic way a regulation (no. 15 of 1926) enacted under the DMIP was implemented caused the unofficial African members to question colonial practices and pushed the unofficial African members to re-evaluate their initial support. After some chiefs and people in Akwatia expressed their dissatisfaction about land that had been controversially brought under the control of CAST and WADS for mining purposes, the Council revisited the DMIP on 30 August 1926.⁴¹ Nana Ofori Atta I, firmly contested the event in an erudite submission directed at Governor J. C. Maxwell; the Paramount Chief maintained that CAST and WADS only had scattered concessions dotting lands otherwise owned by the surrounding African communities.⁴²

The African unofficial members of the Council insisted that the government allowed the two diamond-mining companies to intrude into African-owned lands, which the companies had not procured as concessions, and similarly which the colonial state had not lawfully acquired. This was the first practical instance where African members of the Council contested the government’s position regarding an aspect of the overall legal frame guiding diamond mining. It must however be noted that already in November 1919, Nana Ofori Atta I had warned of the potential dangers of blindly copying regulatory precedent for diamond mining from South Africa. Though he then assured the colonial administration that chiefs were not going to work diamonds themselves, he is later reported in 1934 to have said: “I have with much gratification noted a desire on the part of some Chiefs to work and find diamonds themselves on their stool lands rather than dispose or lease such lands to non-natives.”⁴³ This shows how chiefs appropriated aspects of diamond-mining regulations and safeguarded their interests, personal or not. By the end of 1926, the DMIP was amended following several discussions.⁴⁴

“It was hoped”, reiterated a colonial annual report about the objective for enacting the DMIP, “that the provisions of these Ordinances will effectively safeguard the interests of this industry, without bearing with undue hardness on the native inhabitants.”⁴⁵ Although the interests of Africans were clearly acknowledged here, they were obviously not the only actors with stakes in the diamond-mining industry. African and other vested interests actively shaped the Council’s debates and eventually translated into the letter of the DMIP.⁴⁶ Such interests included those of banking institutions—especially the Bank of British West Africa (forthwith, BBWA), which by 1949 dominated the buying and onward shipment of African-won diamonds to the United Kingdom.⁴⁷ BBWA dominated the purchase of diamonds from African diggers although Barclays Bank (Dominion, Colonial, and Overseas) Limited had a dealer’s license and at least five branches throughout the Gold Coast.⁴⁸ Consequently, the DMIP reduced competitive bidding for reasonably fair prices at which Africans could have sold their diamonds.

The DMIP ensured effective control over the burgeoning industry and clamped down on illicit dealings.⁴⁹ Licensing was crucial. Anyone extracting, buying, and/or exporting diamonds was required under the ordinance to apply to the colonial government for a license.⁵⁰ Although licensing mining activities was generally known, its use to particularly regulate diamond miners appealed to the colonial government. A core difference between the diamond and gold-mining industry was that the former included only a handful of European companies in addition to thousands of independent African diggers, while the latter was dominated by expatriate firms and without the involvement of a significant number of African entrepreneurs.⁵¹ Furthermore, in keeping with the colonial administration’s intention to closely guard the industry, colonial officials took care not to allow companies or persons of questionable reputation to begin dealing in diamonds. In the early 1930, Theodore Taylor, the managing director of Theodore Taylor and Company Limited, (renamed, in 1932, Akim Ashanti Mining Company Limited) applied for a license to prospect and purchase diamonds. Colonial officials denied both applicants licenses.⁵² The Executive Council “advised that the sale and purchase of diamonds locally should be confined only to the Banks, if they are willing to undertake the business.”⁵³ As such, several applications from Africans for a dealer’s license were rejected.⁵⁴ After 1945, concerns regarding illicit dealings surged, particularly with respect to increasing cases of illegal diamond mining. As a result, mining companies prioritized expenditure on security operations.⁵⁵

Under the marketing arrangements outlined above, Africans could not easily maximize their financial returns on the diamonds they sold through the banks. African diggers directly felt the impact of international diamond marketing operations even if it was an intricate world of financial transactions they barely understood.⁵⁶ Through the channels of deposit points, examination (i.e., weighing and classification), customs, export, and final valuation, the stones journeyed away from their diggers into a bank in London. At different points in this chain, the depositor gained credit in cash payments; first, some 50 to 60 per cent of the estimated value of the diamonds when initially deposited, and second following valuation in London.⁵⁷ The amount finally earned was minus further deductions including bank commission, cost of portage, cost of valuation, and royalty paid to chiefs.⁵⁸ Archival sources show that during WWII, BBWA considered halting payments of advances to African diamond diggers.⁵⁹ Furthermore, BBWA suggested postponing the valuation of its diamonds due to rampant air-raids over London by Germany in order to avoid losses not covered by the existing colonial insurance policy.⁶⁰ The fear of diamond loss due to air raids dominates official correspondences in the 1940s. In a letter from the Commissioner of the Western Province to the Colonial Secretary, he reiterated the reasoning by BBWA to discontinue paying advances to African diamond diggers:

While the diamonds are in Britain awaiting sale, for sometimes as much as two months, in the possession of a valuer for taxation purposes. This valuer has not got adequate accommodation for protection of the diamonds against air-raid risk and it is for this reason that the Bank has felt unable to continue the system of advances, unless the producers are in a position to repay the advances should their consignments be lost by enemy action. This is the only risk which apparently cannot be insured against.⁶¹

The Commissioner and Colonial Secretary sided with this thinking but bore in mind that if a satisfactory scheme could be adopted in lieu of cancelling advances, it would alleviate the financial hardships that African diggers were bound to face.⁶² Hence, to arrive at some definite modus operandi, the Governor referred the matter to the Secretary of State in London. “In absence of advances this growing industry on which three Stools largely depend for revenue and several hundred individuals for livelihood may collapse,” he wrote. He estimated that the banks advanced some £30,000 and earned £35,000 from diamonds each year.⁶³ After weighing the matter, the Colonial Office in London relayed to officials in the Gold Coast that the War Risks Insurance Office in the Ministry of Shipping agreed to expedite the valuation of diamonds and increase the insurance cover for diamonds received in London from two weeks to a month. Thought unclear if this extension covered loss caused by “enemy action” the new conditions satisfied both BBWA officials in London and the Gold Coast and BBWA thus resumed giving African diggers advances against deposited diamonds.⁶⁴

Almost all African diamond diggers subsisted on the proceeds from their work. A committee report published in 1949 described the condition aptly when it stated that “The financial structure of the industry cannot be regarded as satisfactory because no liquid capital is available to the digger who constantly operate[s] on money borrowed from the Bank at interest.”⁶⁵ For African operators, their limited access to financial capital translated into the resort to mining methods that yielded below possible profit margins comparted to more effective techniques used by European companies. Consequently, Africans were caught in a disabling cycle whereby low profits translated into the inability to recapitalize their enterprise.⁶⁶

Despite the vulnerability of Africans to the entrapments of global capitalism, their agency demonstrates their ability to negotiate colonial economic realities. As previously intimated, licensing sustained the legal design to streamline overseeing the operations of African diamond miners. Mining was understood in colonial legislation as an extractive activity undertaken on a concession with the support of mechanical equipment and technical infrastructure. Yet not all mining activities followed this assumption. Unlike European companies, Africans were not compelled under law to take concession but were required to have a prospecting license, which only allowed them to search for and not commercially extract diamonds.⁶⁷ However, African diggers mostly ignored this requirement and systematically did more than simply assess the possibility of commencing sustained mining on a site for which their prospecting license was valid.⁶⁸ Africans maneuvered the centralized system of licensing, and exposed the limitations of colonial government regulation. An additional conflict in the DMIP related to what may initially appear as simple questions of definition; for instance, what it meant to be a “native.”⁶⁹ By defining “native” under the DMIP, colonial lawmakers aimed to clearly differentiate the indigenes of the Gold Coast from European or expatriate diamond miners,⁷⁰ and thus stipulate the conditions under which they could access land or concessions for mining purposes. However, the active presence of Yorùbá ethnic people in the industry made this objective moot. On the one hand, the Yorùbá people were not indigenous to the Gold Coast but in certain cases could make claims to land and, in a way, become entitled to allodial rights that a “native” naturally had. Furthermore, though the DMIP provided for general prospecting to restrict the activities of license holders to traceable sites, actual mining operations eluded such tracing (as elaborated in the next section).

Disparities between the letter of the DMIP and the reality raise further questions. Regardless of colonial official efforts to align African enterprise with a formally regulated commercial economy, the above-noted legal gaps frustrated attempts to consolidate African digger activities. The resulting conflicts and sometimes tensions manifest clearly when the vested interests of the colonial administration, private mining firms, and African diggers—respectively seeking centralized control/regulatory power, maximum return on capital investment, and subsistence—are juxtaposed. African diamond mining was usually seasonal and partly determined by ecological factors such as the availability of natural water to facilitate washing the concentrate for example. Accordingly, it is plausible to suggest that in the absence of any serious capital, the earning of African diamond diggers was exhausted hand-to-mouth, or added to other sources of income.⁷¹ Conversely, it may be argued that if the Gold Coast had become the second largest producer of diamonds worldwide by 1938—less than three decades after diamonds were first discovered in the Colony—then it presumably corresponded to wealth accumulation for those engaged in the industry.⁷² However, the latter argument ignores the point that by design colonial law had criminalized unexplained possession of diamonds, thus anyone in possession of diamonds was reasonably inclined to dispose of them (and the irregular income spent) rather than getting into trouble. This meant that African diggers were deprived of gaining from future value the stones may accrue if they could hold onto them without the risk of being criminally charged under colonial law.⁷³ Additionally, diamonds never truly attained any cultural significance among Africans to become an article passed on as inherited property during the colonial era. Hence, diamonds were more likely to be sold rather than retained for their material and/or cultural relevance at the risk of avoidable prosecution.⁷⁴

Interrogating a Company’s Complaints against African Diamond Diggers, Colonial Response, and the Immediate Aftermath

In the early 1940s, ongoing tensions between African diggers and European diamond-mining companies crystallized, as illicit dealings in diamonds became serious.⁷⁵ A memo reportedly presented to the colonial administration by CAST to complain about illicit diamond buying (henceforth, IDB) highlight the mounting threats to the industry. The company attributed the cause of the menace to the increased presence of African diggers flanking its concessions. CAST’s management thought that it was only reasonable to suggest that known cases of IDB meant African diggers trespassed the company’s boundaries to mine on its property. CAST accordingly encouraged the colonial administration to regulate the movements of African diggers to cut revenue losses, and impress on them, over time, the need to mine in line with so-called modern methods.⁷⁶

CAST’s memo was not the only effort the company made to register its concerns. In fact, while the Loveridge committee was undertaking its enquiry, CAST exchanged several letters with top-level colonial officials. While the company constantly emphasized its ongoing anti-IDB initiatives,⁷⁷ it sought special powers to protect its mining concessions by suggesting that the Governor confers on the company’s security officer district magisterial powers enabling him to issue search warrants. CAST argued its case to the acting Colonial Secretary as follows:

We have the honour to approach you on the possibility of our applying to His Excellency the Governor to exercise his powers under Sub Section (1) of Section 39 of the Courts Ordinance Cap. 4 of the Laws, to appoint our Security Officer Douglas Gray Wilson, to act as a District Magistrate for the purposes of issuing Search Warrants under the Diamond Mining Industry Protection Ordinance Cap. 130 of the Laws.
We are hampered in our counter I.D.B., operations by the time required for the Gold Coast Police to obtain a warrant for searching premises where we have reason to suspect I.D.B., operations are being carried on.⁷⁸

Following deliberations among colonial administrators, CAST’s request,⁷⁹ was hesitantly granted because colonial officials feared that company agents may over-zealously enforce such powers. Yet, the government was careful not to have its response interpreted as being noncooperative with the management of CAST.⁸⁰ Consequently, the Colonial Secretary granted CAST the powers it had sought in late March 1950.⁸¹ Official colonial precaution notwithstanding, the government admitted that granting such powers to CAST was inevitable since the state lacked officials who could have alternatively dispensed the responsibility in the area where the company worked.⁸²

To mainly focus on CAST’s memo reported by the committee and carefully unpack the allegations therein could gainfully build on key objections raised by the Loveridge committee. First, the committee found the suggestion by CAST that there is a link between the increased presence of African diggers around company concessions and IDB to be weak and unsatisfactory. Second, it held that regulations could not fully make Africans mine along modern lines. Third, it concluded that African diamond operations in the Bonsa field did not flank CAST’s concessions in a disadvantageous manner as put out by the company. Though the committee noted that African diggers flanked CAST’s concessions in the Birim-Pra area, the company made no complaints at this time.⁸³ Lastly, the committee pointed out that by complaining at all, CAST contradicted itself since Africans only started working the lands in question after CAST had abandoned the said sites.⁸⁴ Furthermore, in contrast to the large concessions held by European companies including CAST (see Fig. 5), Africans sometimes produced diamonds of far greater quality than some companies.⁸⁵ Ultimately, the committee dismissed the company’s claims and refused any official intervention that may handicap the enterprise of African diggers.⁸⁶

Figure 5.

A color-coded map showing diamond mining fields respectively worked, being worked, or to be worked by Africans and European enterprises in the Birim-Pra area, 1949.

Source: PRAAD, Kumase.

The committee’s verdict is best put by quoting from their final report: “In the sense that the industry has grown, without prompting, by African enterprise, successfully, and to its present size, its position can be fairly regarded as being of great political importance and even its inefficiency may be to some degree tolerated if some degree of true self-confidence can be maintained in an African community.”⁸⁷ To be clear, the committee dismissed CAST’s case regarding IDB, but did not ignore existing concerns about the problem.⁸⁸ In addition to acknowledging the menace, the committee argued against suppressing African enterprise in diamond mining. “The increased opportunities for loss of diamonds by reason of numerous adjacent operators is fully and sympathetically appreciated but we cannot get away from the position that the mining companies are primarily liable for the protection of their property and the apprehension which they feel cannot in our view give rise to a duty in Government to suppress the native industry in any way.”⁸⁹ It is interesting to note that statistical evidence of Africans employed by European-owned diamond-mining companies show marginal decrease, overall: i.e., 1934/1935–1950/1951, from 4,118 to 3,462. However, the figures for 1947/1948 and 1948/1949 were respectively 3,239 and 3,382, showing a slight increase.⁹⁰ A basic point that could be inferred from these figures is that, if expatriate diamond firms employed fewer Africans, then at least some of them may have shifted to mining for themselves or with other Africans without association to European companies.⁹¹ Upon this assumption, it can be argued that CAST’s fear was not unreasonable despite their unsuccessful argument linking increased African presence around their concessions to IDB in 1948/1949.⁹² In fact, the number of African diggers more than doubled from 1944 to 1948. After reviewing statistical records of diamond crimes for the same period, the committee resisted CAST’s invitation to correspond increased African diggings near concessions with diamond theft and thus rejected the company’s complaint that African diggers promoted IDB.⁹³ By opposing CAST’s nudge to strictly regulate African diggers, the committee did not contradict its position on curbing IDB.

The committee’s retrospective opinion was that the DMIP sufficiently regulated the disposal of diamonds, but not the industry overall.⁹⁴ Beyond recognizing this as the foremost limitation of the DMIP and the committee made suggestions to deal with this major gap in the existing ordinance. The committee members reported that “It has occurred to us too that this would be a suitable occasion for re-enacting all subsidiary legislation made under a previous Concessions Ordinance […].”⁹⁵ The end of the committee’s work marked the start of correspondences among colonial administrators to consider the recommendations and eventually revise the relevant regulatory laws. The committee’s suggestions received support and were consequently laid before members of the Council in early 1950. After pointing to several contradictions in the DMIP, colonial lawmakers realized the need to improve laws guiding the diamond industry and give it attention.⁹⁶ In the process, a consideration not to unduly suppress the work of African diamond diggers under law was prioritized without prompting by African legislators in the Council. If this position set a precedent in government to improve African diamond mining, it only tackled the IDB menace halfheartedly.

Conclusion

For the first time in 1951 the Mines Department’s annual report included a sub-section highlighting the work of African diamond diggers, reflecting a changing awareness of the significance of the sector prompted by the committee’s work. The same report announced new regulations (the Prospecting and Digging Licenses Regulation) passed under Section 5 of the Concessions Ordinance. These new regulations were intended to improve African mining activities in the diamond fields.⁹⁷ While colonial laws regulating diamond mining had some inconsistences where tackling IDB was concerned, these lapses did not contradict the reasoning that informed the official decision to consider the interests of African diggers. The broader implication of this argument offsets banal consideration of the colonial experience as a binary and questions scholarly framing of imperial history that pitches Europeans against Africans.

To conclude, it is useful to restate an intent of this essay, namely, to revisit the history of the Gold Coast’s diamond-mining industry. The intention of this article is to stimulate new research into previously underdeveloped aspects of diamond mining in the Gold Coast and unearth fresh perspectives. For instance, the contributions of Yorùbá and Nzima ethnic peoples to the making of the enterprise invite further exploration.

Acknowledgement

This article has benefited from the generosity of several people, all of whom cannot be listed here. I thank Marianne Dhenin and Stephan Meyer, both at the University of Basel, for their support as I wrote this essay; the peer reviewers for their constructive comments; and the editorial team at AEH for their time.

Footnotes

E. Sasu Kwame Sewordor (esk.sewordor{at}gmail.com, ORCID iD: 0000-0003-1790-3356) teaches African History at the University of Basel, Switzerland. He has published in African Economic History, the Canadian Journal of African Studies, Journal of West African History, and Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians.
↵1. ARG 1/5/1/27, “Report of a Committee to Review the Existing Position in Regard to the Winning of Diamonds by African Enterprise and Make Recommendations for the Proper Advancement of this Local Industry,” June 1949, Public Record and Archives Administration Department (hereafter, PRAAD), Kumase.
↵2. ARG 1/5/1/27, Letter from Superintendent of Police, Asante, to Chief Commissioner of Asante, Kumase, 24 August 1943, Letter from Superintendent of Police, Asante, to Chief Commissioner of Asante, Kumase, 29 December 1943, Letter from Chief Commissioner of Asante, Kumasi, to District Commissioner of Sefwi, Asante, 24 August 1943, and Letter from Inspector of Mines, Kumase, to Chief Commissioner of Asante, Kumase, 23 August 1949, PRAAD, Kumase.
↵3. The most notable scholarly works are Peter Greenhalgh, “An Economic History of the Ghanaian Diamond Industry 1919–1973” (PhD diss, University of Birmingham, 1974), 351–355, and Peter Greenhalgh, West African Diamonds 1919–1983: An Economic History (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1985). Important contemporaneous publications include N. R. Junner, “Geological Notes on the Birrim Diamond Field,” Geological Survey Department of the Gold Coast Annual Report (1931): 2–3, N. R. Junner, “The Bonsa Diamond Field, Gold Coast Colony,” Bulletin of the Imperial Institute 34, no. 3 (1936): 373–374, N. R. Junner, “Diamonds of the Gold Coast,” South African Mining and Engineering Journal 54, Part 1, no. 2636 (1943): 483–487, and M. N. Hennessey, “Diamond Mining by Gold Coast Africans,” Crown Colonist 10 (1950). For research on the contribution of African women to the industry, see Priscilla Oti-Akenteng, “Contributions of Women in the Mining Sector Towards the Economy of Ghana Using Akwatia as a Case Study” (BA thesis, University of Ghana, 2017).
↵4. Ronald Adamtey, Charles Peprah, and Kafui Ocloo, “Diamonds Are Forever: How Myths Can Contribute to Land Degradation by Small-Scale Diamond Mining in Akwatia, Ghana,” Ethiopian Journal of Environmental Studies & Management 7, no. 5 (2014): 468–477, Kaakpema Yelpaala and Saleem H. Ali, “Multiple Scales of Diamond Mining in Akwatia, Ghana: Addressing Environmental and Human Development Impact,” Resource Policy 20 (2005): 145–155.
↵5. Emmanuel A. Ofosu-Mensah, “Mining in Colonial Ghana: Extractive Capitalism and Its Social Benefits in Akyem Abuakwa Under Nana Ofori Atta I,” Africa Today 63, no. 1 (2016): 23–55.
↵6. See Gold Coast Annual Report for 1921, 52, and Gold Coast Annual Report for 1922–1923, 53.
↵7. Gold Coast Annual Report for 1926–1927, 45.
↵8. Of course, The Diamond Export Duty Ordinance (no. 12 of 1919) existed and was intended to accrue revenue for the colonial administration. Greenhalgh, West African Diamonds, 231.
↵9. Ofosu-Mensah, “Mining in Colonial Ghana,” 28. See also, A. J. A. (Bram) Janse, “A History of Diamond Sources in Africa: Part II,” Gems & Gemology 32, no. 1 (1996), 6–8.
↵10. ARG 1/5/1/27, “Report of a Committee,” 2, PRAAD, Kumase.
↵11. ARG 1/5/1/27, “Report of a Committee,” 1, PRAAD, Kumase. After CAST’s formation, it soon dominated diamond mining in West Africa. In the Gold Coast, CAST maintained its place as the leading firm until it was nationalized in 1972. Greenhalgh, West African Diamonds, 3, and 24. On the formation of CAST, see The Financial Times, “Diamonds in West Africa,” 27 February 1924, 3.
↵12. Akim Concessions Limited resulted from merging Akim Diamond Fields, Gold Fields of Eastern Akkim, and Akim Alluvials in 1921, and incorporated the following year.
↵13. The Financial Times, “Selection Trust,” 1 February 1923, 6, and The Financial Times, “Akim. Ltd,” 22 November 1923, 2.
↵14. ARG 7/5/37, “Diamond Digging Agreement,” (1951–1952), PRAAD, Kumase.
↵15. I use the term “African diggers” throughout this article in reference to both African colonial subjects who were “native” to the Gold Coast and those from outside the Colony.
↵16. ARG 1/5/1/27, “Report of a Committee,” 2, PRAAD, Kumase.
↵17. The case of one Madam Clara Atta is documented in AASA/6/28, Letter from Okyenhene to Manager of Holland Syndicate, 21 May 1955. See respectively for Madam Adelaide Darko and Madam Adjoa Asantewa in AASA/6/39, Letter from Lands Secretary to Clerk of Kade Local Council, 20 August 1957, and Letter from Clerk of Akwatia Local Council to Mr. E. K. Sakyi, 28 January 1957, Akyem Abuakwa State Archives (hereafter, Kyebi).
↵18. AASA/10/25, Letter from Okyenhene to Manager of Cayco (London) Limited, 8 April 1942, Letter from Okyenhene to Manager of Cayco (London) Limited, 8 April 1942, and Letter from Ag. Manager of Cayco (London) Limited to Okyenhene, 16 and 21 April 1942. Kyebi. See also ARG 1/5/1/27, “Report of a Committee,” 3, PRAAD, Kumase.
↵19. AASA/10–11/1/497, “Report of the Labour Enquiry Committee” (1953), 36–38, Kyebi.
↵20. ARG 1/5/1/27, “Report of a Committee,” 15, PRAAD, Kumase.
↵21. The relationship between the Akyem Abuakwa paramountcy and diamond-mining companies date to the year 1919. In 1923, Ofori Atta I was elected as a member of the board of directors of African Selection Trust, adding to one he similarly held in the Akim Diamond Field Limited (est., 1920). Greenhalgh, West African Diamonds, 37–45. See also The Financial Times, “Akim. Sir Ofori Atta’s Speech,” 3 July 1928, 4.
↵22. The Financial Times, “Akim,” 3 July 1928, 4.
↵23. The Financial Times, “Akim,” 3 July 1928, 4.
↵24. The Financial Times, “Akim. Ltd.” 22 November 1923, 2.
↵25. Further breakdown of the actual percentages allotted to both companies and other involved individuals appear in The Financial Times, “Diamonds in West Africa,” 27 February 1924, 3.
↵26. The Financial Times, “Gold Fields Rhodesian Development,” 29 July 1939, 4.
↵27. Greenhalgh, West African Diamonds, 51.
↵28. Greenhalgh, West African Diamonds, 46–47.
↵29. Greenhalgh, West African Diamonds, 52–53.
↵30. Raymond Dumett, Imperialism, Economic Development and Social Change in West Africa (Durham, North Carolina: Carolina Academic Press, 2013), 496–497.
↵31. ARG 1/5/1/27, “Report of a Committee,” 3, PRAAD, Kumase.
↵32. AASA/6/6, Letter from A. Chester Beatty to Okyenhene, 27 August 1924, and Letter from Okyenhene to A. Chester Beatty, 23 October 1924, Kyebi.
↵33. The Financial Times, “Akim. Ltd,” 22 November 1923, 2.
↵34. Greenhalgh, West African Diamonds, 151.
↵35. Greenhalgh, West African Diamonds, 222.
↵36. Gold Coast Annual Report for 1926–1927, 45.
↵37. ADM 14/2/12, Legislative Council Debates (1926–1927), 461, 30 August 1926, PRAAD, Accra.
↵38. Gold Coast Annual Report for 1926–1927, 45. Similarly in the context of goldmining, see ADM 14/2/12, Legislative Council Debates (1926–1927), 462, 30 August 1926, PRAAD, Accra, ADM 14/1/9, Legislative Council Debates Minutes (1923), 316 and 318, 29 April 1907, PRAAD, Accra, and furthermore ARG 1/37/3, Letter from J. H. Thomas to F. G. Guggisberg, 21 October 1924, PRAAD, Kumase.
↵39. ADM 14/2/35, Legislative Council Debates (1940), 27, 2 October 1940, PRAAD, Accra. Refer to the law in ADM 4/1/124, Laws of the Gold Coast Colony, vol. 1 (1928), 613–617 (or chapter 42). Despite the resemblance in tone and purpose with some contents of the Gold Mining Product Protection (1938) amendment bill, the import of the above quote may initially seem to have eluded the usual scrutiny of African members of the Council at its original passing. See E. S. K. Sewordor, ““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,” African Economic History 48, no. 2 (2020), 138–168.
↵40. ADM 14/2/12, Legislative Council Debates (1926–1927), 462, 30 August 1926, PRAAD, Accra.
↵41. ADM 14/2/12, Legislative Council Debates (1926–1927), 460–476, 30 August 1926, PRAAD, Accra. See also AASA/6/10, Petition from Chief Kwamin Kuma and other of Akwatia to Ag. Governor James C. Maxwell, 30 June 1926, Kyebi.
↵42. ADM 14/2/12, Legislative Council Debates (1926–1927), 471, 30 August 1926, PRAAD, Accra.
↵43. Quoted in Greenhalgh, West African Diamonds, 160 (endnote 7). For Ofori Atta I’s original position, see ADM 14/2/6, Legislative Council Debates (1919–1920), 43, 17 November 1919, PRAAD, Accra. See also CSO 19/3/20, “Diamonds—Application by Kofi Asiedu, Odikro of Suponsu, for licence to export,” 1933–1934, PRAAD, Accra.
↵44. ADM 14/2/12, Legislative Council Debates (1926–1927), 510–12, 36 November 1926, PRAAD, Accra. The amended law (no. 29 of 1926) is listed verbatim under “An Ordinance to ament the Diamond Mining Industry Protection Ordinance, 1926,” in ADM 4/1/55, Ordinances of the Gold Coast, Ashanti and Northern Territories, and the British Sphere of Togoland (1926), 137–142.
↵45. Gold Coast Annual Report for 1926–1927, 45.
↵46. ADM 14/2/12, Legislative Council Debates (1926–1927), 477, 30 August 1926, PRAAD, Accra.
↵47. ARG 1/5/1/27, “Report of a Committee,” 4, PRAAD, Accra.
↵48. ARG 1/5/1/27, “Report of a Committee,” 4. See also Gold Coast Annual Report for 1927–1928, 45, and CSO 19/3/43, “Licensed Dealer’s Licence,” issued to BBWA and Barclays Bank (Dominion, Colonial and Overseas), 8 January 1940, PRAAD, Accra.
↵49. ADM 14/2/12, Legislative Council Debates (1926–1927), 460–463, 30 August 1926, PRAAD, Accra.
↵50. Gold Coast Annual Report for 1926–1927, 45.
↵51. In addition to CAST and WADS, small European-owned diamond mining companies included Alluvial Diamonds Company (operating Baibun concession), Morkwa Gold Estates (operating along River Pra), Cayco (London) Limited (operating at Topiramang), Holland Syndicate (operating around Kade), and Ayena Limited. See Gold Coast Annual Report for 1930–1931, 24, and Gold Coast Annual Report for 1935–1936, 34.
↵52. CSO 19/3/28, “Taylor Theodore—Enquiry respecting Diamond Mining Concessions,” 1930–1933, PRAAD, Accra. A related file is seen in CSO 19/3/38, Letter from Ag. Director of Geological Survey to Ag. Colonial Secretary, 22 October 1932, PRAAD, Accra. Similarly, see the case of the African Union Church & Commercial League Association Incorporated in CSO 19/3/22, “Diamond & Gold—Application by Mr. J. A. Love Ammafio, for licence to export,” 1934, PRAAD, Accra.
↵53. CSO 19/3/43, Extract from File 1846/30/S.3 of the Executive Council, 18 April 1935, PRAAD, Accra. See also CSO 19/3/43, Letter from Manager of BBWA to Colonial Secretary, 10 January 1940; and Letter from Manager of Barclays Bank (Dominion, Colonial and Overseas) to Colonial Secretary, 10 January 1940, PRAAD, Accra.
↵54. For example, see CSO 19/3/22, “Licence to export Gold and Diamonds—Application for by Mr. W. Baidoe-Ansah,” 1940, PRAAD, Accra.
↵55. Greenhalgh, West African Diamonds, 55.
↵56. Interview with Francis Kweku Bukru, ex-diamond digger, 3 May 2021, Ahwetieso, Tarkwa district.
↵57. See sample in AASA/6/27, Letter from BBWA to Mr. E. B. Odoi, Oda. 24 July 1945, Kyebi.
↵58. ARG 1/5/1/27, “Report of a Committee,” 3–4, and 12–13. For a description of similar arrangements vis-à-vis rubber extraction, see Keri Lambert, ““In the Nature of a Crusade”: Wartime Extraction and the Seeds of Industrialization in the Gold Coast,” Journal of West African History 6, no. 1 (2020), 73.
↵59. CSO 19/3/72, Letter from Commissioner of Western Province to Colonial Secretary, 15 March 1941, PRAAD, Accra.
↵60. CSO 19/3/43, Letter from CAST to Crown Agents, 8 September 1939, Letter from Colonial Secretary to Crown Agents for the Colonies, 23 February 1940, Letter from Colonial Secretary to Crown Agents, 1 December 1939, Letter from Crown Agents to Colonial Secretary, 27 December 1939, Letter from Crown Agents to CAST, 14 December 1939, and Letter from CAST to Crown Agents, 18 December 1939, PRAAD, Accra.
↵61. CSO 19/3/72, Letter from Commissioner of Western Province to Colonial Secretary, 15 March 1941, PRAAD, Accra.
↵62. CSO 19/3/72, Letter from Commissioner of Western Province to Colonial Secretary, 15 March 1941, PRAAD, Accra.
↵63. CSO 19/3/72, Telegram from Governor to Secretary of State, 3 April 1941, PRAAD, Accra. For related correspondences in the same file, see Letter from Ag. Colonial Secretary to Manager of BBWA, 30 April 1941, PRAAD, Accra.
↵64. CSO 19/3/72, Telegram from Secretary of State to Governor, 25 April 1941. PRAAD, Accra, and Letter from Manager of BBWA to Colonial Secretary, 7 May 1941, PRAAD, Accra.
↵65. ARG 1/5/1/27, “Report of a Committee,” 15, PRAAD, Kumase.
↵66. ARG 1/5/1/27, “Report of a Committee,” 15, PRAAD, Kumase.
↵67. This concern was also raised in CSO 19/3/43, Letter from Colonial Secretary to Provincial Commissioner, Sekonde, 21 May 1938, PRAAD, Accra. Similarly, in the case of gold mining, see CSO 19/2/47, notes by Colonial Secretary, 3 March 1931, PRAAD, Accra.
↵68. ARG 1/5/1/27, “Report of a Committee,” 5, and 15–16, PRAAD, Kumase.
↵69. Similarly, there was a problem with the legal interpretation of the word “possession.” See ADM 14/2/35, Legislative Council Debates (1940), 22–29, 2 October 1940, PRAAD, Accra.
↵70. ARG 1/5/1/27, “Report of a Committee,” 9, PRAAD, Kumase. See also, Gold Coast Annual Report for 1927–1928, 45.
↵71. Greenhalgh, West African Diamonds, 149.
↵72. Gold Coast Annual Report for 1937–1938, 56.
↵73. Interview with Francis Kweku Bukru, 3 May 2021.
↵74. ADM 14/2/12, Legislative Council Debates (1926–1927), 460–461, 30 August 1926, PRAAD, Accra. Similar debates respecting gold preoccupied the Council in 1938. See ADM 14/2/27, Legislative Council Debates (1938), 47–55, and 17 March 1938, PRAAD, Accra. Greenhalgh’s link between lack of local cultural relevance for diamond and the failure amongst Africans “to develop any great interest in the industry in the early decades” is weak. The reason being that at the time the extent to which Africans valued diamond was tied to profitability or the economic incentive for mining. Hence, if mining diamonds paid, it was obviously enough inducement for Africans to participate in this industry regardless of its local material cultural value. Greenhalgh, West African Diamonds, 150.
↵75. ARG 1/5/1/27, Letter from Superintendent of Police, Asante, to Chief Commissioners of Asante, Kumase, 29 December 1943, PRAAD, Kumase.
↵76. ARG 1/5/1/27, “Report of a Committee,” 11, PRAAD, Kumase.
↵77. For reports by CAST on their anti-IDB operations, see WRG 24/1/0113, Confidential report from Security Officer to Manager of CAST, 1950, and “Security Report for August, 1953” of CAST, 11 September 1953, PRAAD, Sekonde.
↵78. WRG 24/1/0113, Letter from Ag. Manager of CAST to Ag. Colonial Secretary, 29 November 1949, PRAAD, Sekonde.
↵79. WRG 24/1/0113, Letter from Chief Commissioner of Cape Coast to Asst. Commissioner of Police, Cape Coast, 15 December 1949, and Letter from Asst. Commissioner of Police, Cape Coast to Chief Commissioner of Cape Coast, 19 December 1949, PRAAD, Sekonde.
↵80. WRG 24/1/0113, Letter from Chief Commissioner of Cape Coast to Asst. Commissioner of Police, Cape Coast, 15 December 1949, PRAAD, Sekonde.
↵81. WRG 24/1/0113, “Notice of Appointment to act at a District Magistrate,” March 1950, PRAAD, Sekonde.
↵82. WRG 24/1/0113, Letter from Chief Commissioner of Cape Coast to Colonial Secretary, 11 March 1950, PRAAD, Sekonde.
↵83. Unlike CAST, WADS and Holland Syndicate furiously complained about theft on their concessions in the Birim-Pra are. See AASA/6/27, Letter from Manager of Cayco (London) Ltd. to Okyenhene, 10 April 1945. In this letter the manager reported that he supervised the burning down of “a small bush village” that had been “built in close proximity” to one of their plants. The manager suspected that this village (called Bisease) was established by one Kwame Donkor of Bawdua to facilitate IDB. Kwame rebuilt the settlement after it was first burnt. See also AASA/6/36, Letter from Manager of Holland Syndicate to Okyenhene, 6 June 1950, Kyebi.
↵84. The committee’s claim is corroborated by the report of the Mines Department for 1950. Mines Department Report for 1949–1950, 1. Furthermore, the practice involved here was commonly known in the diamond-mining industry as “first refusal agreement.” See AASA/6/27, Letter from Ag. Manager of CAST to Okyenhene, 23 September 1946, Kyebi.
↵85. ARG 1/5/1/27, “Report of a Committee,” 11, PRAAD, Kumase.
↵86. ARG 1/5/1/27, “Report of a Committee,” 11, PRAAD, Kumase.
↵87. ARG 1/5/1/27, “Report of a Committee,” 15, PRAAD, Kumase.
↵88. ARG 1/5/1/27, “Report of a Committee,” 11, PRAAD, Kumase. Strikingly, a careful perusal of sections of the Mines Department’s annual reports on the diamond industry for the years 1927–1928, 1928–1929, 1932–1933, 1934/5, 1935–1926, 1945–1946, 1948–1949, 1949–1950, and 1950–1951 indicate no instance of Africans accused/suspected of causing IDB. Yet, complaints about IDB during this period appear elsewhere. See ARG 1/5/1/27, Letter from Superintendent of Police, Asante, to Chief Commissioners of Asante, Kumase, 29 December 1943, PRAAD, Kumase. See further, specifically in Akyem Abuakwa, AASA/6/25, Letters from General Manager of Holland Syndicate to Okyenhene, 14 September 1941 and 17 September 1941, Kyebi.
↵89. ARG 1/5/1/27, “Report of a Committee,” 12, PRAAD, Kumase.
↵90. See Mines Department Report for 1950–1951, 11.
↵91. AASA/6/25, Letter from Emmanuel Charles Frimpong to Okyenhene, 27 September 1941, and AASA/6/27, Letter from E. C. Frimpong to Okyenhene, 8 September 1946, Kyebi.
↵92. Assuming CAST had no evidence in 1948/1949, it did in 1950. See AASA/6/36, Letter from Ag. Manager of CAST to Okyenhene, 1 November 1950, Kyebi.
↵93. ARG 1/5/1/27, “Report of a Committee,” 11, PRAAD, Kumase.
↵94. 1/5/1/27, “Report of a Committee,” 12, PRAAD, Kumase.
↵95. 1/5/1/27, “Report of a Committee,” 17, PRAAD, Kumase.
↵96. See Ashanti Pioneer, “African Diamond Mining Taps New Record,” 16 November 1951, 2.
↵97. Mines Department Report for 1950–1951, 7.