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GOLD MINING IN ASANTE AND GOLD IN ASANTE CULTURE


Negros washing gold in a river

Gravure from Olfert Dapper, Naukeurige Besschryvinge der Afrikaensche gewesten, Amsterdam, 1668

From A. van Dantzig, Het Nederlandse aandeel in de Slavenhandel, Fibula-van Dishoeck, Bussum, 1968

Credit: Den Haag, Koninklijke Bibliotheek, 185 B 11

OTHER REFERENCES

Blake, John W, Africa The Quest for God and Gold 1454-1578

Dumett, Raymond E.  EL DORADO IN WEST AFRICA: The Gold-Mining Frontier, African Labour, & Colonial Capitalism in the Gold Coast, 1875-1900.  B/w illus, tables, gloss, notes, bib, index, 441pp, James Currey UK & Ohio University Press USA 1998 PB

Explores the goldrush in late nineteenth century Ghana in all its dimensions: land, labour, capital, traditional African mining, technology, transport, management, the clash of cultures, and colonial rule. Dumett reviews  the controversy between himself and Emmanuel Terray concerning the extent to which traditional mining was based on slave labour. He concludes that "there were at least three different ways or organizing gold production in Akan traditional gold mining" but that "this does not rule out the occasional use of royal slaves to mine for gold, especially in the more centralized states such as Asante and Gyaman."

Garrard, Timothy F. Akan Weights and the Gold Trade. London: Longman, 1980.

 

Stuart J M, The Ancient Gold Fields of Africa (in The Gold Coast to Mashonaland, London, 1891)