Imperial policing and the antinomies of power in early colonial Ghana

Abstract

In the nineteenth century, constabulary officers in the British Gold Coast were emancipated slaves purchased for conscription. From 1870 to 1900, British officials bought enslaved men of “Hausa” origin, hailing from the Northern territories and the Niger hinterland. In Britain’s eyes, Hausas constituted a venerable “martial race,” ideal for policing. But to local communities, they were an ethnic group known for their enslaved past. This essay reassesses dynamics of policing and imprisonment in the colony through the histories of slavery and abolition. It argues that one result of Britain’s recruitment practices was that police wanted to escape the colonial state as much as the convicts under their care. The colonial prison was riven by a phenomenon of mutual escape. These conditions formed the antinomies of power in early colonial Ghana.