Modern World History

Colonization & Resistance

Precolonial Societies - Ghana

Directions: Read, highlight, and annotate this document with your group (may want to divide up
the work). Be able to share what you learned about the following:
different groups/ethnicities/languages
political systems
economic systems & products
cultural practices
organization of society

Marks, Robert B. The Origins of the Modern World: A Global and Ecological Narrative. Boston:
Rowman & Littlefield, 2002. Print.
By 500 CE the social, economic, and culturally complex characteristic of highly civilized people had
spread throughout Africa, and great empires soon arose, the largest of which was Ghana in west
Africa. Situated at the juncture of three different ecosystemsthe savanna, the tropical rainforest,
and the Sahara Desertand therefore able to take advantage of the products from all, Ghana was
the most strategically located state at the time of the Muslim arrival in north Africa. After the
explosion of Islam across the Mediterranean in the 7th century, all for the African empires that
traded north across the Sahara converted to Islam between the 10th and 12th centuries CE. After the
kings of Ghana converted to Islam, their kingdom continued to expand. The kingdom of Ghana
produced some gold itself, but the Muslims demand for it proved sufficiently strong and the goods
they brought to trade in sufficient demand in west Africa (cloth, from India, horses, beads, mirrors,
and most important, salt, which was not locally available) that gold flowed into the capital of Ghana,
Koumbi-Saleh, fueling an already thriving trade.

La Verle Berry, ed. Ghana: A Country Study. Washington: GPO for the Library of
Congress, 1994. Web. 1 Sept. 2016.

MOST ETHNIC GROUPS constituting the population of Ghana (formerly the British colony of the
Gold Coast) had settled in their present locations by the sixteenth century. Prior to British control in
the nineteenth century, political developments in the area largely revolved around the formation,
expansion, and contraction of a number of states--a situation that often entailed much population
movement. Some people, however, lived in so-called segmentary societies and did not form states,
particularly in northern Ghana. According to tradition, most present-day Ghanaians are descended
not from the area's earliest inhabitants but from various migrant groups, the first of which probably
came down the Volta River in the early thirteenth century.

Early states in Ghana made every effort to participate in, or, if possible, to control, trade with
Europeans, who first arrived on the coast in the late fifteenth century. These efforts in turn
influenced state formation and development. Much more important to the evolution of these states,
however, were their responses to pre-European patterns of trade.

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Of the components that would later make up Ghana, the state of Asante was to have the most
cohesive history and would exercise the greatest influence. The Asante (also seen as Ashanti) are
members of the Twi-speaking branch of the Akan people. The groups that came to constitute the
core of the Asante confederacy [league or alliance] moved north to settle in the vicinity of Lake
Bosumtwi. Before the mid-seventeenth century, the Asante began an expansion under a series of
militant leaders that led to the domination of surrounding peoples and to the formation of the most
powerful of the states of the central forest zone.

Osei Tutu permitted newly conquered territories that joined the confederation to retain their own
customs and chiefs, who were given seats on the Asante state council. Tutu's gesture made the
process relatively easy and nondisruptive, because most of the earlier conquests had subjugated
[brought under control; dominated; conquered] other Akan peoples. Within the Asante portions of
the confederacy, each minor state continued to exercise internal self-rule, and its chief jealously
guarded the state's prerogatives [exclusive right or privilege] against encroachment [intrusion into
territory] by the central authority. A strong unity developed, however, as the various communities
subordinated [made of lesser importance] their individual interests to central authority in matters
of national concern.

By the mid-eighteenth century, Asante was a highly organized state. The wars of expansion that
brought the northern states of Mamprusi, Dagomba, and Gonja under Asante influence were won
during the reign of Asantehene Opoku Ware I (d. 1750), successor to Osei Tutu. By the 1820s,
successive rulers had extended Asante boundaries southward. Although the northern expansions
linked Asante with trade networks across the desert and in Hausaland to the east, movements into
the south brought the Asante into contact, sometimes antagonistic [in conflict], with the coastal
Fante, Ga-Adangbe, and Ewe peoples, as well as with the various European merchants whose
fortresses dotted the Gold Coast.

Traditional Patterns of Social Relations

The extended family system is the hub around which traditional social organization revolves. This
unilineal descent group functions under customary law. It is a corporate group with definite
identity and membership that controls property, the application of social sanctions, and the
practice of religious rituals. Many local variations exist within the general framework of the lineage
system. In some ethnic groups, the individual's loyalty to his or her lineage overrides all other
loyalties; in other groups, a person marrying into the group, though never becoming a complete
member of the spouse's lineage, adopts its interests. Among the matrilineal [based on female
lineage] Akan, members of the extended family include the man's mother, his maternal uncles and
aunts, his sisters and their children, and his brothers. A man's children and those of his brothers
belong to the families of their respective mothers.

Family elders supervise the allocation of land and function as arbitrators in domestic quarrels; they
also oversee naming ceremonies for infants, supervise marriages, and arrange funerals. As
custodians of the political and spiritual authority of the unit, the headman and his elders ensure the
security of the family....The extended family, therefore, functions as a mutual aid society in which
each member has both the obligation to help others and the right to receive assistance from it in
case of need. To ensure that such obligations and privileges are properly carried out, the family also
functions as a socializing agency. The moral and ethical instruction of children is the responsibility
of the extended family. Traditional values may be transmitted to the young through proverbs,
songs, stories, rituals, and initiations associated with rites of passage.
 The Position of Women
Women in premodern Ghanaian society were seen as bearers of children, retailers of fish, and
farmers. Within the traditional sphere, the childbearing ability of women was explained as the
means by which lineage ancestors were allowed to be reborn. Barrenness was, therefore,
considered the greatest misfortune. In precolonial times, polygamy [having multiple spouses] was
encouraged, especially for wealthy men. Anthropologists have explained the practice as a
traditional method for well-to-do men to procreate additional labor. In patrilineal [based on male
lineage] societies, dowry [property/money a bride brings to the marriage] received from marrying
off daughters was also a traditional means for fathers to accumulate additional wealth. Given the
male dominance in traditional society, some economic anthropologists have explained a female's
ability to reproduce as the most important means by which women ensured social and economic
security for themselves, especially if they bore male children.
In rural areas of Ghana where non-commercial agricultural production was the main economic
activity, women worked the land. Coastal women also sold fish caught by men. Many of the financial
benefits that accrued to these women went into upkeep of the household, while those of the man
were reinvested in an enterprise that was often perceived as belonging to his extended family. This
traditional division of wealth placed women in positions subordinate to men. The persistence of
such values in traditional Ghanaian society may explain some of the resistance to female education
in the past.

In traditional society, marriage under customary law was often arranged or agreed upon by the
fathers and other senior kinsmen of the prospective bride and bridegroom. This type of marriage
served to link the two groups together in social relationships; hence, marriage within the ethnic
group and in the immediate locality was encouraged. The age at which marriage was arranged
varied among ethnic groups, but men generally married women somewhat younger than they were.
Some of the marriages were even arranged by the families long before the girl attained nubility. In
these matters, family considerations outweighed personal ones--a situation that further reinforced
the subservient position of the wife.

The alienation of women from the acquisition of wealth, even in conjugal relationships, was
strengthened by traditional living arrangements. Among matrilineal groups, such as the Akan,
married women continued to reside at their maternal homes. Meals prepared by the wife would be
carried to the husband at his maternal house. In polygamous situations, visitation schedules would
be arranged. The separate living patterns reinforced the idea that each spouse is subject to the
authority of a different household head, and because spouses are always members of different
lineages, each is ultimately subject to the authority of the senior men of his or her lineage. The wife,
as an outsider in the husband's family, would not inherit any of his property, other than that
granted to her by her husband as gifts in token appreciation of years of devotion. The children from
this matrilineal marriage would be expected to inherit from their mother's family.

Groups Political Economic Cultural Societal

Algeria
DRC

Ghana

Kenya

South
Africa

European Views Political Economic Slavery Imperialism

Africa &
Europe