‘The Chiefs, Elders, and People Have for Many Years Suffered Untold Hardships’: Protests by Coalitions of the Excluded in British Northern Togoland, Un Trusteeship Territory, 1950–7

Abstract

This article examines the use of tradition by minority groups whose territorial incorporation into British Northern Togoland under UN trusteeship was marked by political exclusion. This contrasts with the more typical pattern of productive and inclusive relations developing between chiefs and the administering authority within the boundaries of what was to become Ghana. In East Gonja, marginalized groups produced their own chiefs while simultaneously appealing to the UN Trusteeship Council to protect their native rights. The article contributes to studies on the limits of the ‘invention of tradition’ by showing the influence of external structures on African agency and organization. As the minority groups sought UN support on the basis of their native status, the colonial power affirmed alternative versions of tradition that were perceived locally as illegitimate and thereby rendered ineffective.

Rule and Rupture: State Formation through the Production of Property and Citizenship

“…The Nawuri, for example, aspired to become a recognized ethnic group in colonial Ghana. They failed to become institutionally visible and have disappeared from Ghana's administrative system (Stacey, ). Ideologies and legalities structure the categories through which legitimate claims to land and other valuable resources can be put forward.…”

Between Tradition and Modernity: Customary Structures as Agents in Local Governance in Ghana

“…For instance, Ntewusu (2016: 2) points out that the 1899 Treaty that was signed between the British and the Germans placed Kpandai District as a German colonial territory administered from Kete Krachi. The recognition of the Nawuri was evidenced on the German map (Karte von Togo) of 1906, on which Nawuri was written in bold letters and the Gonja customary institution Kanankulai was written in somewhat smaller letters (Stacey, 2014: 426–427). However, the significant role of the leaders of the Nawuri was limited by the Kanankulaiwura 6 during this period.…”

Rethinking the Making and Breaking of Traditional and Statutory Institutions in Post-Nkrumah Ghana

“…Recognition given to Gonja claims meant the colonial state recognized Nawuri and Nchrumbru as Gonja traditional subjects and the status of their own chiefs was negated: they were not incorporated into the colonial order as middlemen to communities, nor did they fulfill any colonial duties. 10 The result, to use Charles Tilly’s phrase (2005:6), was a situation of “contentious politics.” In the decade before independence in 1957, for example, the Nawuri produced their own chiefs in defiance of their professed traditional ties to the Gonja, and their struggle for autonomy became enmeshed with the international question of the future status of Togoland (Stacey 2014).…”