The Department of History and Political Science Education Seminar Series

Invitation to our Wednesday Seminar Series to be presented by Dr. Edward Abaka (University of Miami).

Topic: "Merchants, Carriers, Soldiers, and Educators: The Hausa Diaspora in Ghana (Asante and the Gold Coast ), 1860 - 1960"

Date: 15th March, 2017.

Time: 3:30 - 5:00 pm(GMT)

Chair: Dr. Briama A. Imurana (University of Education, Winneba)

Venue: Departmental Reading Room,LT 306

ABSTRACT:

The project discusses the role of the Hausa Diaspora in the political economy of the Gold Coast and Asante during the pre-colonial and colonial periods. As merchants, they moved commodities across the Volta Basin to the Central Sudan. They served as the carrier corps for the British colonial administration on the Gold Coast. When the British constituted the frontier police, and later the West African Frontier Force, the Hausa were front and center as the fulcrum around which the Hausa Constabulary and the West African Frontier Force was organized.  The spread of Islam was always associated with the spread of Islamic literacy.  The Hausa, largely, but not exclusively Muslim, spread Islamic literacy among some of their clients in the Volta basin.  That a Muslim school was established to promote Islamic literacy and Arabic education by the late 1890s speak to an important contribution to education (albeit Arabic literacy) in Asante and the Gold Coast.