This is an important book, which helps to recast a seemingly well-discussed theme (the two gold booms in the southern interior of the Gold Coast) into a fresh, well-structured discussion of labour recruitment and labour organization. At first glance, readers might see Cassandra Mark-Thiesen’s study as similar to the classic work of Raymond Dumett from 1996 (cited as EDiWA).1 However, the good news is that Mediators, Contract Men, and Colonial Capital delivers much more than simply to engage with some remaining open questions. The author was perhaps too modest to insist more on the innovative character of her results.

It is important to point to these innovative parts by distinguishing the approach from that of her predecessor. Dumett discussed the recruitment of Liberian Kru and Kpelle contract workers as standard practice for southern Gold Coast mines before 1900; their wages were lower than those of Ghanaian locals. According to Dumett, those workers from Liberia were not exactly subject to coerced recruitment but abuses and irregularities in repatriation were frequent (EDiWA, pp. 224–234). Worker discontent could become a serious problem for mining corporations, as in the case of the Gie Appanto Mining Company (EDiWA, pp. 249–250). Dumett also underlined that the Wassa (Gold Coast) Mining Company owed part of its success, when compared to other, less successful enterprises, to its reliance on Ghanaian workers. They continued mainly to be share tributors who worked independently and not wage earners (pp. 220–222).

Only in its first and early in its second chapter does Cassandra Mark-Thiessen’s study focus on deepening some of Dumett’s earlier conclusions, as when she discusses lobbying and bribery during the early boom (pp. 28–9), new statistics on gold output (p. 36), the trajectories of white veteran managers from Australia and South Africa (pp. 41, 46–7), and female roles in «traditional work» amongst locals in the mines (pp. 59–60).

This is followed by an insightful analysis of contract labour from Liberia. The Chinese option having failed, in spite of constant racial propaganda in its favour (pp. 62–64), and European staff being scarce and vulnerable to illness (pp. 70–74), mine managers now set their hopes on African labour agents who acted as «headmen» and brought in workers from Liberian territory. As in many regions which employed coolie labour, the relationship between Liberian agents (who then became work gang leaders in the Gold Coast) and the workers was an unstable and fascinating balance, aptly described by the author. Liberian recruits tended to choose their labour contracts freely, although deception in the first phase was possible (pp. 76–78). They were vulnerable as long as they did not understand the system and their wages could be artificially reduced or arbitrarily withheld, but they became a powerful party in negotiations through flight and often received new advances and benefits (pp. 82–83). The intermediaries needed to adapt to these responses as much as possible to be successful. In spite of instruments such as the Master-and-Servant-Legislation (criminalizing breach of contract, with consequences that could include imprisonment with hard labour), mine managers rarely managed to force workers to stay or to extend contracts (pp. 87–89). In one of the many impressive sections of this book, which could have found a more prominent place in the wider argument, Cassandra Mark-Thiesen examines and interprets a particularly fascinating source: a collection of letters from African contract labourers in the Migeod Papers, a manuscript collection held at the Cambridge University Library. Although there are relatively few
documented cases, they are sufficient in number to open a window on workers’ strategies and rationales, their family relations in Sierra Leone and Liberia, and the use of colonial and missionary schools (pp. 94–100).

From the late 1890s to 1904, access to Liberian labourers steadily diminished due to political changes on the Windward Coast (pp. 102–108). As the author demonstrates, this led to new agents entering the scene, including a former mineworker from Abosso, Quao Hammah, and the female Hausa labour recruiter Madam Mariam, and some white recruiters who did not succeed (pp. 109–114). Southern Ghanaian middlemen were also active, leading to poaching gang workers from other mines. Initially, European mine managers remained as weak as they had been when faced with Liberian work gangs (pp. 115–118).

Fundamental changes might have come about in the early twentieth century, as the colonial administration created a Transport Office and appointed Frederick W.H. Migeod as mediator. He occasionally took the side of workers protesting against abuses, such as when they were compelled to do deep mining (pp. 131–134). Through the Concessions Labour Ordinance of 1903, he also tried to implement a new system to stop labourers from fleeing their work, and to severely punish them if they were caught. Worker passes were suggested as a means to strictly control movement, as would have been thumbprint identification and the use of police repression. New certificates would have allowed employers to control the end of the contracts – and abuses clearly were on the horizon (pp. 137–140). However, it is significant that the British government of the Gold Coast Colony did not trust the mine managers or even its own official. Chief Justice William B. Griffith called the proposed measures drastic and unjustified, and expressed his fear that «native» workers would swiftly learn how to use existing channels for complaints and swamp the court with cases. The administration refused to implement the Ordinance as a law, leaving mine managers to deal with the problems of controlling workers on their own (pp. 141–144).

Cassandra Mark-Thiesen’s brief last chapter addresses the attempt to mobilize workers from the Gold Coast’s Northern Territories using forced recruitment implemented with the help of powerful local chiefs (pp. 145–149). However, local populations quickly voted with their feet and migrated into other labour schemes in the south of the Gold Coast, thereby depriving the mines of stronger and healthier workers, as only those young men who could not get away would be forcibly recruited. Local chiefs quickly reevaluated the bargain, and felt they were losing some of their subjects without being adequately compensated. This had been the main economic appeal of the practice for the mine managers and in part for the colonial government, so this experiment in forced recruitment was already over by 1909. That left only voluntary recruitment in the north, with all its difficulties (pp. 149–153).

Cassandra Mark-Thiesen delves deep into the complexities of labour recruitment for private economic activity during the early decades of colonial rule. She shows the thin line that existed between forced recruitment and free labour, with the labourers themselves (and, sometimes, their agents or headmen) being the stronger party in negotiations. This finding strongly modifies the narrative of the exploited and passive coolie, and instead emphasizes how these mostly male recruits reacted to their situation. Mediators, Contract Men, and Colonial Capital is thus an oustanding contribution to the debates about contract labour in colonial, and global, historiography during the period from 1850 to 1914.

1 Raymond E. Dumett, El Dorado in West Africa: The Gold-Mining Frontier, African Labor, and Colonial Capitalism in the Gold Coast, 1875–1900, Athens/OH, London 1998.

Zitierweise:
Keese, Alexander: Rezension zu: Mark-Thiesen , Cassandra: Mediators, Contract Men, and Colonial Capital. Mechanized Gold Mining in the Gold Coast Colony, 1879–1909, Rochester 2018. Zuerst erschienen in: Schweizerische Zeitschrift für Geschichte 70 (1), 2020, S. 156-158. Online: <https://doi.org/10.24894/2296-6013.00054>.