Akyem Te: The Technology and Socio-Cultural Setting of the Abompe Bauxite-Beadmaking Industry, Ghana

Drawing primarily on data obtained from recent research at Akyem Abompe, Ghana, this paper examines the technology and socio-cultural setting of a stone-beadmaking industry in the forest zone of Ghana. Preliminary ethnographic observation of the industry not only reveals that it is community-based, but that it also interacts in a complex way with other local crafts in the village. The production process and marketing of the beads are discussed, as is the antiquity of the industry

SLAVERY AND RESISTANCE ON NINETEENTH CENTURY DANISH PLANTATIONS IN SOUTHEASTERN GOLD COAST, GHANA

From the turn of the 18th century to the mid-19th century AD, the Danes experimented with plantation agriculture in the foothills of the Akuapem Mountains on the southeastern coastland of the Gold Coast (Ghana). Enslaved Africans were used by the Danes to cultivate the plantations. The Danish planters imposed controls over the plantation landscape. The enslaved workers reacted to their entrapped situations by resisting the various forms of control imposed on the plantation set-up. In this paper, the socio-cultural relations that emanated from the interactions on the plantations are examined. The paper specifically investigates the dynamics of power manifested in diverse control mechanisms imposed by the planters and the corresponding reaction from the slaves to counteract these impositions