Colony and Metropolis: Some Aspects of British Rule in Gold Coast and Their Implications for an Understanding of Ghana Today

Ghana is very small, in size, population, and economic and strategic significance. In the history of colonialism the Gold Coast was never remarkable for violent conflict, for spectacular instances of exploitation, for conflict over land or labor, or even as the subject of acute controversy there, in Britain, or elsewhere. Its independence was achieved relatively early, peacefully, over no vigorous opposition. The independence movement was markedly free of violence, extremism, or even sharp ideological conflict. Economically the peoples of the Gold Coast had a higher real income than in comparable areas of the colonial and tropical world and a greater degree of economic security. There were no giant plantation or mining activities which elsewhere have served as a focus of infection for rebellion. Its lands were not alienated; its people were not violently disrupted (at least since the end of the slave trade); and its education and civil and social services were generally superior to those in other parts of Africa. There were problems of political unification facing the new independent government, but the transition to independence was, again in relative terms, orderly, smooth, and well-prepared. There was practically no specifically racial or religious animosity or conflict. The mass bases for radical political movements—an uprooted wage-earning proletariat and/or a land-hungry or rack-rented peasantry did not exist. There was no feudal aristocracy, warrior caste, compradore or white settler group. The Convention People's Party had no political obligations abroad. By African standards, forced labor, the pass system, the color bar, and arbitrary military rule were conspicuously absent.