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Four Years in Asante: One Source or Several?*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 May 2014

Adam Jone
Adam Jone*
Affiliation:
J. W. Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt am Main
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Extract

Since its publication in 1874-1875 the account by the Basel missionaries Friedrich (‘Fritz’) August Ramseyer (1842-1902) and Johannes Kühne (1840-1915) of their captivity in Asante, Vier Jahre in Asante, has constituted one of the major written sources on the nature of precolonial society in what is now southern Ghana. Stationed at Anum, near the east bank of the lower Volta, Ramseyer and Kühne were captured together with Ramseyer's wife and infant son in June 1869 by an Asante force which had invaded Ewe territory. They were taken to Asante and eventually, after a seven-month stay in a hamlet which they christened Ebenezer, to Kumase, where they were held hostage from December 1870 until the approach of a British military expedition in January 1874. Apart from the independent French trader Joseph-Marie Bonnat, who was captured in the same month and shared many of their experiences, Ramseyer and Kühne spent longer in Asante than any other author before the twentieth century. Moreover, as prisoners they were able to observe African society from an unusual perspective: “these men saw all from below; the white man was the slave, the negro the master.”

While the importance of this source is generally recognized, it has escaped the notice of most commentators that what Ramseyer and Kühne left us was not one source but at least five—a manuscript, two German editions, and an English and a French translation, all written within a relatively short period of time as part of what has been called “the scramble for Gold Coast Africana.” In this paper I shall explore some of the relationships among these different sources.

Type
Research Article
Information
History in Africa , Volume 18 , 1991 , pp. 173 - 203
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1991

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Footnotes

*

This paper arose from a seminar which Paul Jenkins invited me to hold with him for history students at the University of Basel. I am grateful to him for the stimulus he gave me, for the many lines of inquiry he suggested and for patiently answering my queries. I also wish to thank the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (Bonn) for supporting this research and the Basel Mission for its hospitality. I dedicate this paper in gratitude to the memory of Marion Johnson.

References

Notes

1. Vier Jahre in Asante: Tagebücher der Missionare Ramseyer und Kühne aus der Zeit ihrer Gefangenschaft, bearbeitet von H. Gundert (Basel, 1875)Google Scholar; ibid., “zweite verbesserte und vermehrte Auflage” (Basel, 1875). All citations in this paper are from the former unless otherwise stated. English translation: Four Years in Ashantee. By the Missionaries Ramseyer and Kühne. Edited by Mrs. Weitbrecht, with Introduction by Rev. Dr. Gundert, and Preface by Professor Christleib, D. D. (London and New York, 1875; 2nd ed: London, 1878).Google Scholar Anonymous French translation: Quatre ans chez les Achantis. Journal de Mm. Ramseyer et Kühne pendant le temps de leur captivité (Paris and Neuchâtel, 1876).Google Scholar I have not been able to examine the second English edition.

2. Gros, J., Voyages, Aventures et captivité de J. Bonnat chez les Achantis (Paris, 1884).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3. Four Years, xii.

4. Jenkins, Ray, “Confrontations with A. B. Ellis, a participant in the Scramble for Gold Coast Africana, 1874-1894,” Paideuma, 33 (1987), 313–35.Google Scholar Subsequently there appeared several “potted” versions (not considered here): Die Gefangenschaft der Missionare Ramseyer und Kühne in Asante und ihre Befreiung. Nach ihren Tagebüchern kurz dargestellt (Basel, 1875)Google Scholar; Vier Jahre in Asante […] bearbeitet nach den Tagebüchern (herausgegeben von H. Gundert) von Pastor August Emil Frey (New York: Lutherischer Verlags-Verein, 1877)Google Scholar; Steiner, Paul, Vier Jahre gefangen in Asante (Basel, 1892; 2nd ed.: 1895Google Scholar; French translation (Lausanne, ca. 1894); English translation (London, ca. 1901); idem, Ein Kampf um Asante (Basel, 1919), 3-45; Porret, Eugène, Clartés: Prisonniers des Achantis, Une extraordinaire aventure des temps héroïques de la Mission (Lausanne, 1969).Google Scholar

5. Basel Mission Archive, Protokoll der Kommittee, 46 § 209 (3 June 1874).

6. Basel Mission Archive, D-10.7. This is available on a single reel of microfilm from EP Microform Ltd. (East Ardsley, Wakefield WF3 2JH, England): The Ghana Archive of the Basel Mission 1828-1918, Reel 153.

7. Der Heidenbote 47/6, pp. 55-58; 47/7, pp. 69-70 (July-August 1874). The differences between this and the corresponding section in the Ramseyer manuscript (ff. 797ff) are almost exclusively stylistic.

8. See, e.g., the letter published in Der Heidenbote (1871), 25.

9. Sometimes wrongly referred to as Sutterlin script. The latter, a style of writing especially used in schools, was not developed until later.

10. Vier Jahre, 76; cf. Gros, Voyages, 164.

11. The Basel Mission Archive contains an example of the diary form being used in this way, likewise relating to the Gold Coast in the nineteenth century: D-10.27, 8, Debrunner, Hans, ed., Andreas Riis. A Diary Based on Original Sources in the Basel Mission Archive (typescript, 1983).Google Scholar

12. Vier Jahre, 59.

13. Ibid., 72-73. They also used a pencil in May 1870 (ibid., 65), but it does not appear to have remained in their hands. See below, n. 65.

14. Vier Jahre, i.

15. Gundert produced the standard Malayalam-English dictionary and laid the foundations for the study of the Malayalam language. The centenary of his death will be celebrated in 1993 by an international conference on his life with strong participation from southern India.

16. Vier Jahre, 125.

17. See, e.g., Vier Jahre, ii-iv, 70, 243-44, 254-56. One of his sources was probably Hesse, Johannes, Der Asante-Krieg und die Mission auf der Goldküste in einem kurzen geschichtlichen Ueberblick (Basel, 1874).Google Scholar

18. Gundert, Hermann, Calwer Tagebuch, 1859-1893, ed. Frenz, Albrecht (Stuttgart, 1986).Google Scholar

19. Cf. Vier Jahre, 157-67.

20. Gundert, , Calwer Tagebuch, 443Google Scholar, my translation. The last sentence, referring to the Gyaasewahene Adu Bofo (d. 1883), is interesting as an indication of how Gundert incorporated oral material, for it recurs in more or less the same words in Vier Jahre, 238.

21. These portraits were likewise published by Gundert, in the Evangelisches Missionsmagazin, 18 (1874), opp. 481.Google Scholar

22. See, for example, Basel Mission Archive, Protokoll der Kommittee, Vol. 46 § 342 (22 September 1875).

23. Following the appearance of the first edition, at any rate, Gundert wrote to both Ramseyer and Kühne inviting their criticisms: Basel Mission Archive, BV 235 #100, Gundert 19 December 1874. It therefore seems likely that he corresponded with them before this. The Museum für Völkerkunde in Berlin possesses a letter written by Kühne in Görbersdorf (Silesia) on 6 August 1874, offering the museum some of the objects he had collected in Asante. Unfortunately, I have been refused access to the museum's records on the grounds that they are in a dilapidated condition.

24. Basel Mission Archive, Protokoll der Kommittee, Vol. 46 § 502. A summary of the book's contents also appeared in the Evangelisches Missionsmagazin (edited by Gundert, ) for 1874 (18: 506–11)Google Scholar; here too the date of the book's publication was given as 1875.

25. Revelation 22:18-19.

26. The date given in Gundert, Calwer Tagebuch, is 19 November—probably a mistake. Gundert ofen wrote up his diary long after the events to which it referred (Albrecht Frenz, personal communication).

27. Basel Mission Archive, BV 235 #100, Gundert, 19 December 1874 to Josenhans. Cf. Gundert, , Calwer Tagebuch, entry for 19 November [19 December?] 1874.Google Scholar

28. Basel Mission Archive, BV 627, Ramseyer, 23 December 1874 to Josenhans.

29. Gundert, , Calwer Tagebuch, entry for 15 January 1875.Google Scholar There may have been a sense of professional rivalry between Kühne and Bonnat, both of whom were traders. News of the Franco-Prussian war of 1870 made matters worse, since Kühne was a subject of the Prussian monarchy.

30. Basel Mission Archive, BV 235 #102, Gundert, 18 May 1875 to Josenhans.

31. All the additions relate to the westernmost portion of the map: arrows pointing towards Serem in the northwest and Apollonia in the southwest; the inclusion of the villages Bekwae, Kwisa, and “Secondah” (Sekondi); and one change in orthography (from “Duro” to “Two”).

32. The English version omits these two appendices. In the French version all the appendices are omitted.

33. The same list is to be found in a letter addressed by Kühne to the Berlin Museum für Völkerkunde on 6 August 1874. The orthography was radically revised for publication, perhaps in consultation with Christaller, J. G., whose Dictionary of the Asante and Fante Language Called Tshi (Chwee, Twi) (Basel, 1881), 636Google Scholar, gives the list in its published version.

34. The list in the first edition may be compared with the information attributed to Kühne in Brackenbury, Henry, The Ashanti War (2 vols.: London, 1874), 2:332.Google Scholar This contains twelve of the eighteen names in Gundert's first edition (albeit in different orthography) and one given only in the second edition (“Quasi Doomfie, a general of great distinction”).

35. This includes the drawing of the chair used by the top three ranks.

36. Four men are described as privy councillors, two as stadtholders in Kumase; Mensa Kukua (“Mensa Kakea” in the first list) is added to the group of domestic officials. Bobie's office, previously not mentioned, is given as “town police and direction of building operations.”

37. Wilks, Ivor, “Asante Officialdom: A Further Note on Rank,” Asantesem, 7 (June 1977) 21Google Scholar, points out that the head of the court criers and the head of the eunuchs are mentioned in the English edition only, but he offers no explanation. I have been unable to identify an English source that might have been used in this way. The most obvious choice would have been the information obtained from Owusu Ansa and published under the title “The King of Ashantee” in The Times on 29 July 1873 (reproduced by Maier-Weaver, Donna in Asante Seminar 2 [April 1975], 13–15Google Scholar). But although this was certainly used by other authors, such as Brackenbury, I have found no evidence that it had any influence on the English translation or second edition of Vier Jahre.

38. de Montesquieu, Charles, Lettres persanes (Cologne 1721), letter CXXVIII.Google Scholar

39. Ellis, Notably A. B., The Tshi-Speaking Peoples of the Gold Coast of West Africa (London, 1887)Google Scholar; Gros, Voyages.

40. Rattray, R. S., Religion and Art in Ashanti (Oxford, 1927), 110–12.Google Scholar

41. Although the German book is mentioned by McCaskie, Thomas C., “Death and the Asantehene: A Historical Meditation,” JAH, 30 (1989), 417–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar; by Baesjou, René, An Asante Embassy on the Gold Coast: The Mission of Akyempon Yaw to Elmina, 1869-1872 (Leiden, 1979)Google Scholar; and by Yarak, Larry, “The ‘Elmina Note’: Myth and Reality in Asante-Dutch Relations,” HA, 13 (1986), 363–82Google Scholar, and Asante and the Dutch, 1744-1873 (Oxford, 1990)Google Scholar, none of these scholars appears to have paid much attention to the differences between it and the English version. The only scholar to have commented on these is Wilks, “Asante Officialdom,” 19: “The rank list in the English translations […] is regrettably corrupt. That in the German edition[…] is clearly preferable, being based directly upon the diaries of the two missionaries.”

42. My emphasis: a surprising misprint. Theodore Christ lieb (1833-89) was Professor for Practical Theology in Bonn and one of the editors of the Allgemeine Missions-Zeitschrift. He had been a pastor in London from 1858 to 1865. The idea of inviting him to write the preface was suggested by the publisher, Nisbet, to Mrs. Weitbrecht, who passed it on via Ramseyer to the Basel Mission: Basel Mission Archive, BV 627, Ramseyer 22 November 1874 to Josenhans.

43. Mary (alias Martha) Weitbrecht, née Edwards (18097-1888), was the widow of the C. M. S. missionary Johann Jakob Weitbrecht (1802-52), whom she had married in India after the death of her first husband, an L. M. S. missionary. By 1875 she was living in London and had published several books relating to her missionary work, most of them with the London publisher Nisbet who was also chosen for Four Years. Whereas in her publications her name is given either as “Mrs. Weitbrecht” or as “Mary Weitbrecht,” according to the records of the Basel Mission her Christian name was Martha. In translating Gundert's book she was assisted by her daughter: Basel Mission Archive, BV 627, Ramseyer 22 November 1874 to Josenhans.

44. Ibid. Certainly this was one of the Mission's reasons for sending him to London: Basel Mission Archive, Protokoll der Kommittee, Vol. 45 § 423 (28 October 1874).

45. E.g., Four Years, 267n.

46. Basel Mission Archive, BV 627, Ramseyer 26 December 1874 to Josenhans.

47. Cf. Cole, Herbert M. and Ross, Doran H., The Arts of Ghana (Los Angeles, 1977), 134–42.Google Scholar

48. The description in Gros, Voyages, 182, based partly on the French translation of Gundert's book and partly on Bonnat's manuscript, refers to the Golden Stool's age more cautiously: “paraît-il, très-vieux.” Both Bonnat and Ramseyer probably drew their conclusions on this matter simply from the fact that the stool was, in Bonnat's words: “tordue et en mauvais état de conservation.” An additional reason for regarding the figure 400 with scepticism is that it occurs in the previous paragraph in an entirely different context: “We walked about 400 paces.”

49. See Ehrlich, Martha J., “A Catalogue of Ashanti Art Taken from Kumasi in the Anglo-Ashanti War of 1874,” (Ph.D., Indiana University, 1981).Google Scholar

50. Cf. Cole, /Ross, , Arts of Ghana, 44–47.Google Scholar

51. For Owusu Ansa's role in Asante politics at this time see Vier Jahre, Appendix IV, and Wilks, Ivor, Asante in the Nineteenth Century: The Structure and Evolution of a Political Order (Cambridge, 1975; 2nd ed., 1989), 600–01.Google Scholar In October 1874 Ramseyer received a letter from the Wesleyan missionary Benjamin Tregaskis, who had accompanied him on the voyage from Sierra Leone to Liverpool five months earlier. Responding to Tregaskis' complaint that the Basel Mission had not acknowledged Owusu Ansa's help, Ramseyer and Kühne agreed that the English version of their book should contain such an acknowledgement (Basel Mission Archive, BV 627, Ramseyer, 13 October 1874 to Josenhans). Yet no significant changes were made.

52. Rattray, , Religion and Art, 110–12.Google Scholar

53. By carelessly adding two commas, Rattray completely distorted the meaning: “On our Rosa's birthday, the 2nd, crown prince Mensa Kuma died […].” He even added a footnote explaining why this “date” (2 September) did not tally with one given a few pages later!

54. This too was miscopied by Rattray: “Kwantabo.” Even Weitbrecht's version (“Kwantiabo”) was presumably a slip (for “Kwantabisa” or “Kwanta Bissu”), assuming that she did not receive new information on this subject.

55. Here again Rattray miscopied the English version, giving “streets” instead of “street.” There are a number of other minor differences between the English version and Rattray's attempt to reproduce it.

56. Here Ramseyer devoted a paragraph to his daughter and the chair which Bonnat gavé her as a birthday present. Gundert evidently decided that it was inappropriate to mention private concerns on such an important occasion.

57. The manuscript reads: “[…] wo wir bei der Predigtstrasse stehen”—clearly a slip: “Strassenpredigt” is obviously intended.

58. Rattray, , Religion and Art, 110.Google Scholar

59. This may be deduced from the fact that Der Heidenbote followed the Ramseyer manuscript fairly closely: see note 7 above.

60. Weitbrecht wrongly implied that this was a name. Cf. Christaller, , Dictionary, 309Google Scholar: “amràdò, amràdow [Port, governador?] governor.”

61. Cf. Hair, P. E. H., “Barbot, Dapper, Davity: A Critique of Sources on Sierra Leone and Cape Mount,” HA, 1 (1974), 25–54Google Scholar; van Dantzig, Albert, “English Bosman and Dutch Bosman: A Comparison of Texts,” HA, 2–11 (1975–1984)Google Scholar; Heintze, Beatrix, “Translations as Sources for African History,” HA, 11 (1984), 131–61Google Scholar; Johnson, Marion, “Interesting Document, Dangerous Translation,” HA, 14 (1987), 359–61Google Scholar; Winsnes, Selena, “Voices From the Past. Remarks on the Translation and Editing of Published Danish Sources for West African History during the 18th and 19th Centuries,” HA, 14 (1987), 275–85.Google Scholar

62. E.g., (to name but a few), Adjaye, Joseph K., Diplomacy and Diplomats in Nineteenth-Century Asante (Lanham, 1984)Google Scholar; idem, “Time, the Calendar, and History Among the Akan of Ghana,” Journal of Ethnic Studies, 15/3 (1987), 71-100; Arhin, Kwame, “The Missionary Role on the Gold Coast and in Ashanti: Reverend F. A Ramseyer and the British Take-Over of Ashanti, 1865-1874,” Research Review [University of Ghana, Institute of African Studies], 4/2 (1968), 1–15Google Scholar; Cole/Ross, Arts of Ghana; Garrard, Timothy F., Akan Weights and the Gold Trade (London, 1980)Google Scholar; Henige, David, The Chronology of Oral Tradition: Quest for a Chimera (Oxford, 1974), 172–73Google Scholar (curiously referring to “Franz” Ramseyer and “Fritz” Kühne); McCaskie, T. C., “Time and the Calendar in Nineteenth-Century Asante: An Exploratory Essay,” HA, 1 (1980), 179–200Google Scholar; Maier, Donna J. E., Priests and Power: The Case of the Dente Shrine in Nineteenth-Century Ghana (Bloomington, 1983)Google Scholar; idem, “Asante War Aims in the 1869 Invasion of Ewe,” in Enid Schildkrout, ed., The Golden Stool: Studies of the Asante Center and Periphery (New York, 1987), 232-44; idem., “Military Acquisition of Slaves in Asante” in David Henige and T.C. McCaskie, eds., West African Economic and Social History: Studies in Memory of Marion Johnson (Madison, 1990), 119-32; McLeod, M. D., The Asante (London, 1981)Google Scholar; Tordoff, William, Ashanti under the Prempehs, 1888-1935 (London, 1965)Google Scholar; Wilks, Asante.

63. For a similar case see Jenkins, Ray, “Impeachable Source? On the Use of the Second Edition of Reindorf s History as a Primary Source for the Study of Ghanaian History,” HA, 4 (1977), 123–47Google Scholar; 5 (1978), 82-99.

64. See Jones, Adam, Zur Quellenproblematik der Geschichte Westafrikas 1450-1900 (Stuttgart, 1990), 173–74.Google Scholar A comparable instance is that of Bonnat's manuscript, currently being prepared for publication by Claude-Hélène Perrot, which likewise differs markedly from the published version (Gros, Voyages).

65. Waltraud Haas and Jenkins, Paul, A Guide to the Basel Mission's Ghana Archive (Basel 1979; 2nd ed., 1985).Google Scholar In the mid-1970s Paul Jenkins began to identify the additional material in the Ramseyer manuscript; but he abandoned this work when it appeared that there was insufficient interest in this kind of scholarship to warrant the investment of time involved.

66. Basel Mission Archive, D-10.5, 19, three pages of pencil notes in miniscule Latin handwriting after p. 533, written in slightly imperfect German. They begin with thirteen terse entries (of four to ten words each), covering the first month of captivity. There follow four slightly longer entries (25-30 July 1869). The text page has been torn out; it evidently contained further notes. Then there is a page on which I have been unable to decipher more than thirty words, relating to May and June 1870; and the third page consisting of seven entries for July and August 1870. By the time he wrote the last of these, dated 19 August, Ramseyer had obtained a supply of paper, and so for the first time he allowed himself space for reflection: “When we see these people [a caravan of African prisoners], we are ashamed; for we are not sufficiently thankful to the Lord— we who are so well cared for.” The notes provided a skeleton framework—but no more—for the account that Ramseyer subsequently wrote.

67. Albrecht Frenz is currently transcribing Gundert's letters on computer disk. This valuable undertaking, which will make them available for consultation by scholars, is very time-consuming, and it will probably take another two years before he reaches the period 1874-75, which is of relevance to this paper.

68. One of the main sources to check would be the records of the Church Missionary Society, at present located in the library of the University of Birmingham.