Aborigines' Rights Protection Society

The Gold Coast Aborigines' Rights Protection Society (ARPS) was an association critical of colonial rule, formed in 1897 in the former Gold Coast, as Ghana was known. Originally formed by traditional leaders and the educated elite to protest the Crown Lands Bill of 1896 and the Lands Bill of 1897 that threatened traditional land tenure, the Aborigines' Rights Protection Society became the main political organisation that led organised and sustained opposition against the Colonial Government, laying the foundation for political action that would ultimately lead to Ghanaian independence.[1][2] J. W. Sey, J. P. Brown, J. E. Casely Hayford and John Mensah Sarbah were co-founders.[3]

Miss Wood in Accra presenting the Address of the Gold Coast Aborigines Rights Society to the Prince of Wales. Behind Miss Wood can be seen the James Town Manche, Mr. Van Hien, and the Hon. Casely Hayford.

Foundation

Entrenched in the founding of the Gold Coast Aborigines' Rights Protection Society as a response to the Lands Bill of 1897 was a belief that both the political actions of the ARPS and the movement against foreign encroachments on native lands were “joint vehicles of nationalism."[4] Moreover, the key players in the ARPS predicated their belief in a movement against the Lands Bill of 1897 on a false notion that “the economic interests of the [village] chiefs were identical with those of the rural population as a whole.”[4] This false assumption was necessary in the cultivation of support for the opposition of the Lands Bill of 1897 because it fueled public support for a return to traditional forms of land tenure that had vested land ownership in the hands of rural peoples instead of in the hands of foreign actors.

Influences on Founding of ARPS

The formation of the ARPS came at a period during the late 19th century in which the educated Gold Coast elite were systematically barred from high-ranking positions in the colonial government.[5] It was this exclusion, in part, that fueled both the “cultural nationalism” and “anti-colonial political activity” that led to the creation of the Gold Coast Aborigines Rights Protection Society in 1897.[5] As part of the emergence of cultural nationalism during the late nineteenth century, members of the educated elite throughout the Western African region began to return to their traditional roots by either reclaiming their “original African names, when these could be discovered,…” or … “new African names when they could not, …”.[6] This reclamation of nomenclature influenced the naming of the Gold Coast Aborigines Rights Protection Society, as it was originally conceived as a branch of the Aborigines' Protection Society of London but later renamed so as to serve as its own unique entity with a direct connection to the African continent in general and the Gold Coast in particular.[6]

Legacy

Global Interaction

An analysis of the impact of the Gold Coast Aborigines Rights Protection Society (ARPS) is typically constrained to the society’s impact on local politics in the Gold Coast region. However, the Gold Coast Aborigines Rights Protection Society was interested not only in the protection of the rights of the native and colored peoples in the Gold Coast but also with the larger global struggle of colored people everywhere from America to Britain and the West Indies.[7] The Society’s interest in the affairs of people of color abroad was predicated on the notion of the salience of race beyond the confines of an African context and the global usage of race as a basis for oppression. The connection of the ARPS with the global movements for freedom and rights for people of color began with interactions between the leaders of ARPS and other anti-imperialist and pan-Africanist leaders abroad and ended with ARPS’ involvement with the 1945 Manchester Pan-African Congress.[7]

The ARPS’ interest in global movements initially gained momentum as news of the success of various anti-colonial efforts reached the Gold Coast, particularly the “Japanese defeat of imperial Russia” and the Ethiopian defeat of the Italians.[7] In addition to the news of successful anti-colonial movements, the ARPS was interested in the growing formation of pan-African conferences that sought to discuss “questions ‘affecting the Native races’ ”.[7] The ARPS was particularly interested in the Pan-African Conference that took place in July 1900 in London as it was the first conference of its kind to occur. The influence of this conference on the ARPS was a renewed belief that, eventually, the native and colored African peoples would be able to successfully rise up against the imperialist powers that had subjugated them for centuries and begin to govern themselves. This interest in Pan-Africanism manifested itself in attempts by the ARPS to hold a similar conference on the Gold Coast, although the idea never came to fruition. Despite this inability to create their own Pan-African conference, the ARPS participated in a conference at, what is now, Tuskegee University in 1912.[7]

The impact of the ARPS’ interaction with global Pan-Africanist and anti-imperialist movements rested on the ability of these interactions to not only bring the grievances of the Gold Coast natives to the global stage but also to help the ARPS gain leverage with which to lobby the colonial government in Gold Coast to recognize the legitimacy of their cultural nationalist and political aims. Another consequence of the ARPS’ interaction with other global movements was the attainment of knowledge about how successful African domination of colonial rule could take place. An idea of particular interest to the ARPS was the creation of trade amongst the “all of us who are of African blood”.[7]

Criticism

A common critique of the ARPS was that its members sought to garner greater financial and political gain for the African bourgeoisie and elites, rather than for the common people. Part of this critique lies in a disjuncture between the espoused values of cultural nationalism by the ARPS that advocated a fight for the native peoples and the connection that the ARPS had with the colonial government.[8] Specifically, many of the members of the ARPS had been educated abroad and were part of the elite class that would take over the rule of the Gold Coast should the British colonial rulers leave. Moreover, in the attempts by the ARPS to engage globally with other anti-imperialist and pan-Africanist movements , the ARPS required large sums of money to fund their trips that they often acquired by unfairly charging tribal heads of local communities disproportionate fees to become members of the ARPS.[8] These criticisms of the desires and true motives of the ARPS are strengthened by the outcome of the Native Administration Ordinance of 1927 that allowed chiefs of indigenous Gold Coast groups to have direct interaction with the colonial rulers. It was at the same time as the implementation of this ordinance that the Gold Coast ARPS began to lose some of their power, as they could no longer use the Gold Coast indigenous chiefs as leverage from which to gain funds. Some also critique members of the ARPS because of the fact that many did not return to their ancestral African roots, despite their constant praise of a need to return to African roots as a way to fully realize the cultural nationalist policies that they supported.

Presidents

John Peter Allotey Hammond was the Secretary and later a member of the Coussey Committee Joseph William Egyanka Appiah (later Jemisimiham Jehu-Appiah) later became a member through Attoh Ahuma, and was part of the delegation that went to UK to protest to the Queen to release all Ghana lands into the hands of natives.

References

  1. ↑ Ghana - Early Manifestations of Nationalism, Library of Congress A Country Study: Ghana
  2. ↑ Nti, Kwaku, "Action and Reaction: An Overview of the Ding Dong Relationship between the Colonial Government and the People of Cape Coast", Nordic Journal of African Studies 11(1): 1-37 (2002)
  3. ↑ Michael R. Doortmont, The Pen-Pictures of Modern Africans and African Celebrities by Charles Francis Hutchison: A Collective Biography of Elite Society in the Gold Coast Colony, Brill, 2005, p. 28.
  4. 1 2 Grove, Richard; Falola, Toyin (1996-01-01). "Chiefs, Boundaries, and Sacred Woodlands: Early Nationalism and the Defeat of Colonial Conservationism in the Gold Coast and Nigeria, 1870-1916". African Economic History (24): 1–23. doi:10.2307/3601843.
  5. 1 2 Johnson, Terence J. (1972-05-01). "Protest: tradition and change". Economy and Society. 1 (2): 164–193. doi:10.1080/03085147200000009. ISSN 0308-5147.
  6. 1 2 Shepperson, George (1964-01-01). "Abolitionism and African Political Thought". Transition (12): 22–26. doi:10.2307/2934486.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Asante, S. K. B. (1975-01-01). "The Neglected Aspects of the Activities of the Gold Coast Aborigines Rights Protection Society". Phylon (1960-). 36 (1): 32–45. doi:10.2307/274843.
  8. 1 2 Obatala, J. K. (1972-01-01). "An African Case Study in the Bourgeois Origins of Cultural Nationalism". Science & Society. 36 (3): 302–313.
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