LABOUR, LAND AND CAPITAL IN GHANA Toyin Falola, Senior Editor The Frances Higginbotham Nalle Centennial Professor in History University of Texas at Austin (ISSN: 1092-5228) Power Relations in Nigeria: Ilorin Health, State, and Society in Kenya Slaves and Their Successors George Oduor Ndege Ann O’Hear Black Business and Economic Power Dilemmas of Democracy in Nigeria Edited by Alusine Jalloh and Edited by Paul Beckett and Toyin Falola Crawford Young Voices of the Poor in Africa Science and Power in Elizabeth Isichei Colonial Mauritius Colonial Rule and Crisis in Equatorial William Kelleher Storey Africa: Southern Gabon ca. 1850–1940 Namibia’s Post-Apartheid Regional Christopher J. Gray Institutions: The Founding Year The Politics of Frenchness in Colonial Joshua Bernard Forrest Algeria, 1930–1954 A Saro Community in the Niger Delta, Jonathan K. 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First published 2005 University of Rochester Press 668 Mt. Hope Avenue, Rochester, NY 14620, USA www.urpress.com and of Boydell & Brewer Limited PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF, UK www.boydellandbrewer.com ISBN 1–58046–161–1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Austin, Gareth. Labour, land and capital in Ghana : from slavery to free labour in Asante, 1807–1956 / Gareth Austin. p. cm. – (Rochester studies in African history and the diaspora, ISSN 1092-5228 [v. 18]) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-58046-161-1 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Ashanti (Kingdom)–Economic conditions–19th century. 2. Ashanti (Kingdom)–Economic conditions–20th century. 3. Land tenure–Ashanti (Kingdom)–History–19th century. 4. Land tenure–Ashanti (Kingdom)–History–20th century. 5. Labor–Ashanti (Kingdom)–History–19th century. 6. Labor–Ashanti (Kingdom)–History–20th century. I. Title. II. Series. HC1060.Z7A723 2004 330.9667'018–dc22 2004021237 A catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library. This publication is printed on acid-free paper. Printed in the United States of America. To my father and mother, who first stimulated my passions for Africa and history. CONTENTS List of Illustrations xi List of Tables xiii Preface xv Note on Names xix Maps xxi Note on the Maps xxiv 1 Introduction 1 Part I. Context and Concepts 2 Theories and Debates: Some Tools for Thinking about the History of Property and Markets in Asante and Beyond 23 3 Asante, 1807–1956: The State, Output and Resources 34 4 The Changing Relationship Between Inputs and Output, 1807–1956 72 Part II. Social Relations of Production and Trade, 1807–1896: Absent and Imperfect Factor Markets 5 Land Tenure, 1807–1896 99 vii viii Contents 6 The Mobilization of Labour, 1807–1896 106 Appendix: Nineteenth-Century Slave Prices 128 7 Capital and Credit, 1807–1896 135 Part III. Slavery as Hobson’s Choice: An Analysis of the Interaction of Markets and Coercion in Asante’s Era of ‘Legitimate Commerce’, 1807–1896 8 Factor Markets Without Free Labour: The Nieboer Hypothesis and Asante Slavery and Pawnship, 1807–1896 155 9 Gender and Kinship Aspects of the Social Relations of Production, 1807–1896 171 10 Exploitation and Welfare: Class and ‘Social Efficiency’ Implications of the Property Rights Regime, 1807–1896 181 Part IV. The Decline of Coercion in the Factor Markets of Colonial Asante: Cocoa and the Ending of Slavery, Pawnship and Corvée, 1896–c.1950 11 Why Was Prohibition So Long Delayed? The Nature and Motives of the Gradualism of the British ‘Men on the Spot’ 205 12 The Decline of Coerced Labour and Property in Persons in Practice: Change from Above and from Below in Colonial Asante, 1896–1950 215 13 Cocoa and the Ending of Labour Coercion, c.1900–c.1950 236 Contents ix Part V. Social Relations of Production and Trade, 1908–1956: Towards Integrated Factor Markets? 14 Land Tenure: What Kind of Transformation under Cash-Cropping and Colonial Rule? 253 15 Capital and Credit: Locking Farms to Credit 278 16 Free Labour: Family Workers, the Spread of Wage Contracts, and the Rise of Sharecropping 304 Part VI. Freedom and Forest Rent, 1908–1956 17 Land in a Tree-Farm Economy 325 18 Capital in a Tree-Farm Economy 356 19 Free Labour: Why the Newly-Emerged Regular Wage Contracts Were Eclipsed by Sharecropping 401 20 Conclusion 431 Abbreviations Used in the Notes 455 Notes 456 List of References 547 Index 574