African Women 
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| Title: | Cherchez la Femme: Gender-Related Issues in Eighteenth-Century Elmina |
| Author: | Everts, Natalie |
| Year: | 1996 |
| Periodical: | Itinerario: European Journal of Overseas History |
| Volume: | 20 |
| Issue: | 1 |
| Pages: | 45-57 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic terms: | Ghana Netherlands |
| Subjects: | social structure Akan colonization mixed marriage family law children illegitimate children women History and Exploration Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) Women's Issues Cultural Roles Historical/Biographical Sex Roles |
| External link: | https://doi.org/10.1017/S0165115300021525 |
| Abstract: | In 1637 Dutch seafarers took Elmina castle (Gold Coast, now Ghana) by force and turned it into the West India Company headquarters in Africa. There was a great deal of everyday interaction between the European traders and Elmina society and the majority of European men had relationships with African or Euro-African women. European travellers and ministers of the Dutch Reformed Church paint a picture of the Euro-African children who were born from these liaisons moving automatically into the African world of their Akan mothers. Apart from some vague reproaches towards European fathers, mostly from ministers who accused them of indifference, none of the sources contain a clear causal explanation for the limited European influence in Euro-African children's upbringing. This paper assumes that the lack of power of a European with regard to his Euro-African children is related to the power of his African Akan partner and the fact that she is inextricably bound to her blood relations, her 'abusua' (matrilineal descent group). Her interests and wishes are dictated by this collective and in most cases, the dominance of the host culture means that the parent who represents cultural continuity prevails over the one who is at best only a temporary resident. Notes, ref. |
