‘I Could Not Look After My Body Or Health’: Marriage, Slavery, Colonialism, And Abina Trevor R....

‘I Could Not Look After My Body Or

Health’:

Marriage, Slavery, Colonialism, And Abina

Trevor R. Getz

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Regina v. Quamina Eddoo, 1876, Cape Coast Judicial Assessors Court

William Melton, Acting Judicial Assessor

James Davis, prosecutor Abina Mansah, appearing

for the prosecution Adjuah N’yamiwheh,

appearing for the prosecution

James Hutton Brew, defense attorney

Quamina Eddoo, defendant Eccoah Croom, appearing

for the defense Yawowhah, appearing for

the defense

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Three geographic levels of interpretation

1. The Gold Coast Colony and Protectorate as “state”

2. The British Empire as “network” and “system”

3. Akan (Twi-speakers) as socio-cultural community

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Abina’s stories in “three keys”

SCOPE FOCUS METHODS AND SOURCES

INTERPRETIVE FRAME

The colony Negotiation and impact of abolition

Converging documents and courtroom testimony

Social history

Imperial/global

The colonial courtroom and the meaning of “slavery”

Thick interpretation

World history

Akan cultural world

Marriage Linguistic analysis, oral histories, and proverbs

Gender studies and ethno-history – informing a critical world history

A social history of abolition on the Gold Coast1

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1874 colonial establishment

Coastal towns: “The Colony”

1874 Colony and Protectorate: the “Protectorate” is the broader area

Asante Confederation:

Adanse

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British Press cover 1873-1874 war

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Abolition of slavery in Gold Coast July 1874 – Anglo-Asante war ends July - August 1874 – Anti-Slavery

Societies lobby for abolition August1874 – Parliament investigates

several models for gradual emancipation. Chiefs and “educated men” send petitions opposing abolition.

September 1874 – Governor and Executive Council adopt “Indian Model”.

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“Success” of Indian Model

Abolitionists largely satisfied, yet little economic or political dislocation

Under the surface – slave/master negotiation

Rise in importation of young, female captives

Basel Mission postcard from Gold Coast, 1896: “The freed slave children say ‘thank you’”

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Abina’s testimony

Abina Mansah, having been promised and declared that she would speak the truth says:

“A man called Yowawhah brought me from Ashantee. I was his wife. He brought me to Salt Pond. Yowawhah went on purchasing goods. On the same day as he finished, he handed me over to defendant to be with with him, and said that he was going back and would return………”

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World history in the Gold Coast courtroom

Law: The “Indian Model” – adapted from the Raj (India)

Palm oil as imperial commodity Abolitionism as a British middle-class core value Conceptualizing slavery as the binary opposite

of “freedom” Paternalism and ethnography:

“Women and children are…. So much property, which [the head of the Akan household] can sell, pawn, or give away at his pleasure” – Brodie Cruickshank

“Slavery here is an emanation of parental and family authority” – 1874 Fairfield Report

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Did any money change hands, or were any rituals denoting enslavement carried out?

Was the witness physically abused? Was the witness called a slave (such local

terms as “donko” or “amerfefley”)? What sort of labor was the witness

required to do, and was he or she paid for it?

Was the witness brought into the protectorate from outside?

Melton’s formulation of slavery

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The making of James Hutton Brew – attorney for the defense and cultural broker

1750 - Irishman Richard Brew arrived in Gold Coast. He had two children with Afina Anson, the daughter of a local paramount Chief.

Grandson Richard Brew II - court interpreter and magistrate for the British.

Grandson Samuel Kante Brew - “scholar” and slave trader who operated under the Spanish flag.

Son Samuel Collins Brew – merchant and magistrate, married heiress to state of Abora Dunkwa.Son James Hutton Brew – prince, newspaper founder, and lawyer. Defended Quamina Eddoo

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Abina’s arguments

“when a free person is sitting down at ease the slave is working that is what I know”.

“I had been sold and I had no will of my own and I could not look after my body and health”.

“As they were in defendant’s house long before if the defendant had done anything for them I could not tell but as for me he did nothing good for me”.

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“Health” – 19th century Akan conceptions

abusua clan

(matrikin)

Relationships

Sodalities

(patrikin)

Spouse

Spiritual protectio

n

Physical needs met

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Marriage Proverbs

“A woman’s glory is her marriage” “An unmarried person eats scantily” “A single person is like a dead

chicken” “A new marriage, brother-in-law

benefits from it.”

Peggy Appiah, Kwame Anthoy Appiah, and Ivor Agyeman-Duah, Bu Me Be: Proverbs of the Akans

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Cognates for marriage?

Rattray’s Akan categories of marriage adehye awadie – marriage between a

free man and a free women mpena awadie – concubinage awowa awadie – marriage between a free

man and a pawn afona awadie – marriage between a free

man and a slave kuna awadie – levirate marriage ayete awadie – sororate marriage

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Head drink and marriage riteJohn Kofi Fynn – Fante oral histories

“The family of the woman is consulted and the necessary formalities performed.”

“When a man loves a woman he first sends envoys to the woman’s father. If the girl is not married the father informs the family. 2 pounds is first charged as Head drink; 4 pounds is secondly charged as marriage rite.”

“The man proposes to the woman, if the woman approves the parents are informed and if they like the man or his character then a day is fixed for the marriage rites.”

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Divorce ProverbsPeggy Appiah, Kwame Anthoy Appiah, and Ivor Agyeman-Duah, Bu Me Be: Proverbs of the Akans

“If a marriage stinks, we don’t sleep with it so that the scent becomes good.”

“Divorce does not destroy the town.” “It is not difficult to get a divorce.”

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Cognates for “slave”?

Rattray’s Akan categories of slavery akoa - “servant” awowa - “debt pawn” donko - “domestic slave” dommum - “war captive” akyere - “slave under capital punishment”

1896 Basel Mission image labeled simply “slave children”

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afona awadie marriages – 1870s

Expanded dramatically with increased importation of women with “donko” status.

Far more affordable than marriage to “free” women with extensive matrilineages.

British magistrates accepted that wives were not slaves.

Wives had neither recourse to divorce nor protection of courts.

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Yaw Awoah marries Abina

Three advantages for Yaw: Provided him with a legal

justification bring her into the Colony and Protectorate.

Abina as his wife provided him essentially free labor for carrying his goods to the coast.

The relationship may have made Abina amenable to sexual access for Yaw during the period of their relationship.

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- “Whether the defendant purchased me or not I do not know. If the defendant had not given me in marriage, I could not have formed any idea that he had purchased me.”

- “Because defendant gave me in marriage I knew I had been sold”

- “I asked him how it was (that when I had been left by Yowahwah to live with him, and that he would return), that he had given me in marriage to one of his people. On this I thought that I had been sold and I ran away. “PRAAD SCT 5-4-19 Regina v Quamina Eddoo 10 Nov 1876, Testimony of Abina Mansah.

Quamina Eddoo tries to force Abina to marry Tandoe

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Abina expresses preference

“My master said that I should be married to Tandoe, and that he would give me plenty of cloths, and I said I did not like him.”

“Defendant asked me if I liked him and I said I did not.”

PRAAD SCT 5-4-19 Regina v Quamina Eddoo 10 Nov 1876, Testimony of Abina Mansah.