Gold Coast Euro-Africans

Gold Coast Euro-Africans
Regions with significant populations
Languages
Religion
Related ethnic groups

Gold Coast Euro-Africans were a historical demographic based in coastal urban settlements in colonial Ghana, that arose from unions between European men and African women from the late 15th century – the decade between 1471 and 1482, until the mid-20th century, circa 1957, when Ghana attained its independence.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7] In this period, different geographic areas of the Gold Coast were politically controlled at various times by the Portuguese, Germans, Swedes, Danes, Dutch and the British.[1][8][9][10] There are also records of merchants of other European nationalities such as the Spaniards, French, Italians and Irish, operating along the coast, in addition to American sailors and traders from New York, Massachusetts and Rhode Island.[11] Euro-Africans were influential in intellectual, technocratic, artisanal, commercial and public life in general, actively participating in multiple fields of scholarly and civic importance.[1][2][3][4][5][6][12][13][14][15] Scholars have referred to this Euro-African population of the Gold Coast as "mulattos", "mulatofoi" and "owulai" among other descriptions.[1][2][16] The term, owula conveys contemporary notions of "gentlemanliness, learning and urbanity" or "a salaried big man" in the Ga language.[2][16] The cross-cultural interactions between Europeans and Africans were mercantile-driven and an avenue to boost social capital for economic and political gain i.e. "wealth and power".[2][17][18] The growth and development of Christianity during the colonial period also instituted motifs of modernity vis-à-vis Euro-African identity.[2][19] This model created a spectrum of practices, ranging from a full celebration of native African customs to a total embrace and acculturation of European culture.[16][20]

  1. ^ a b c d "Gold Coast DataBase". gcdb.doortmontweb.org. Archived from the original on 8 September 2015. Retrieved 21 June 2018.
  2. ^ a b c d e f Jenkins, Paul (1998). The Recovery of the West African Past: African Pastors and African History in the Nineteenth Century : C.C. Reindorf & Samuel Johnson: Papers from an International Seminar Held in Basel, Switzerland, 25–28th October 1995 to Celebrate the Centenary of the Publication of C.C. Reindorf's History of the Gold Coast and Asante. Basler Afrika Bibliographien. pp. 31–46, 168–176, 192. ISBN 9783905141702. Archived from the original on 27 September 2017. Retrieved 28 May 2018.
  3. ^ a b Ipsen, Pernille (2013). ""The Christened Mulatresses": Euro-African Families in a Slave-Trading Town". The William and Mary Quarterly. 70 (2): 371–398. doi:10.5309/willmaryquar.70.2.0371. JSTOR 10.5309/willmaryquar.70.2.0371.
  4. ^ a b Everts, Natalie (16 August 2012). Green, Toby (ed.). A Motley Company: Differing Identities among Euro-Africans in Eighteenth-Century Elmina. British Academy. doi:10.5871/bacad/9780197265208.001.0001. ISBN 9780191754180.
  5. ^ a b "Black Women's History: Euro-African Marriages in Ghana and the Gold Coast – New Narratives - Beyond Black & White". Beyond Black & White. 24 February 2016. Archived from the original on 12 November 2017. Retrieved 21 June 2018.
  6. ^ a b Ipsen, Pernille (20 January 2015). Daughters of the Trade: Atlantic Slavers and Interracial Marriage on the Gold Coast. University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 9780812291971. Archived from the original on 21 June 2018.
  7. ^ Ray, Carina E. (15 October 2015). Crossing the Color Line: Race, Sex, and the Contested Politics of Colonialism in Ghana. Ohio University Press. ISBN 9780821445396.
  8. ^ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 22 July 2018. Retrieved 22 July 2018.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  9. ^ Meagan Ingerson, Independence Charter School, Philadelphia, PA (2013). Africa As Accessory Portrayals of Africans in Dutch art, 1600–1750 (PDF). London and Leiden: NEH Seminar For School Teachers; The Dutch Republic and Britain; National Endowment for the Humanities; University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. Archived from the original (PDF) on 22 July 2018. Retrieved 22 July 2018.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  10. ^ Weiss, Holger (2013). "The Danish Gold Coast as a Multinational and Entangled Space, c. 1700–1850". Scandinavian Colonialism and the Rise of Modernity. Contributions to Global Historical Archaeology. Vol. 37. pp. 243–260. doi:10.1007/978-1-4614-6202-6_14. ISBN 978-1-4614-6201-9. Retrieved 16 July 2019.
  11. ^ Cite error: The named reference :27 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  12. ^ Doortmont, Michel (2005). The Pen-pictures of Modern Africans and African Celebrities by Charles Francis Hutchison: A Collective Biography of Elite Society in the Gold Coast Colony. Brill. ISBN 9789004140974. Archived from the original on 14 March 2018.
  13. ^ Sill, Ulrike (2010). Encounters in Quest of Christian Womanhood: The Basel Mission in Pre- and Early Colonial Ghana. BRILL. pp. 133, 134, 139 175, 176. ISBN 978-9004188884. Archived from the original on 30 March 2017.
  14. ^ Bown, Lalage (9 October 2007). "Kwesi Brew". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Archived from the original on 6 March 2016. Retrieved 23 July 2017.
  15. ^ Quayson, Ato (13 August 2014). Oxford Street, Accra: City Life and the Itineraries of Transnationalism. Duke University Press. ISBN 9780822376293. Archived from the original on 14 March 2018.
  16. ^ a b c Simonsen, Gunvor (April 2015). "Belonging in Africa: Frederik Svane and Christian Protten on the Gold Coast in the Eighteenth Century". Itinerario. 39 (1): 91–115. doi:10.1017/S0165115315000145. ISSN 0165-1153. S2CID 162672218.
  17. ^ Reynolds, Edward (1974). "The Rise and Fall of an African Merchant Class on the Gold Coast 1830-1874". Cahiers d'Études Africaines (in French). 14 (54): 253–264. doi:10.3406/cea.1974.2644. ISSN 0008-0055. S2CID 144896027.
  18. ^ Green, Toby, ed. (16 August 2012). Brokers of Change: Atlantic Commerce and Cultures in Pre-Colonial Western Africa. British Academy. doi:10.5871/bacad/9780197265208.001.0001. ISBN 9780191754180.
  19. ^ Konadu, Kwasi (2009). "Euro-African Commerce and Social Chaos: Akan Societies in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries". History in Africa. 36: 265–292. doi:10.1353/hia.2010.0001. ISSN 1558-2744. S2CID 143251998. Archived from the original on 22 December 2018. Retrieved 22 December 2018.
  20. ^ Salm, Steven J.; Falola, Toyin (2002). Culture and Customs of Ghana. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 6–7. ISBN 9780313320507.