Dissertation Information for Rebecca ShumwayNAME:
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SCHOOL: ADVISORS: COMMITTEE MEMBERS: MPACT Status: Fully Complete Title: Between the castle and the golden stool: Transformations in Fante society in the eighteenth century Abstract: This dissertation explores how the Fante society of southern Ghana reconfigured its social, economic and political institutions during the 18 th century, and how these developments affected, and were affected by, trans-Atlantic trade. It shows how the rise of Fante economic and political influence in the region took the form of coalition-building rather than state formation, differing in striking ways from their Asante neighbors in the same period. Within Fante society, it explains why the escalation in violence associated with the trade in enslaved Africans led to the formation of locally-based, highly organized militias. This examination of the complex negotiations taking place between the chief of Anomabo (Ghana's most active slave-trading port) and the Africa-based administration of the British Company of Merchants in the second half of the 18 th century reveals an intricate connection between Fante leaders and their European commercial partners during the peak years of the slave trade. The correspondence between Anomabo's chief and the Governor at Cape Coast Castle reveals a remarkable interdependence between these two figures as each struggled to benefit from the unstable environment of Atlantic trade on the African coast. The final chapter analyzes how the solidification of Fante identity after Britain's abolition of the slave trade and Asante's conquest of Fanteland--both of which occurred in 1807--drew primarily on the social and political institutions that formed during the era of the slave trade in Fanteland. The dissertation draws on oral and archival sources from Ghana, as well as contemporary English and Dutch documents from the 18 th century. |
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