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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Establishing Control: Violence along the Black Volta at the Beginning of Colonial Rule
Author:Goody, JackISNI
Year:1998
Periodical:Cahiers d'études africaines
Volume:38
Issue:150-152
Pages:227-244
Language:English
Geographic term:Ghana
Subjects:violence
colonialism
history
1890-1899
1900-1909
1910-1919
Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups)
Ethnic and Race Relations
History and Exploration
External link:https://doi.org/10.3406/cea.1998.1802
Abstract:At the time of the advent of colonial powers, levels of violence in the Volta region (present-day Ghana) were high. The author examines the kind of forces that were impinging on the lives of the inhabitants and the nature of the violence that obtained there, both external and internal, in order to see how the present incidence of political violence is structured by the earlier regimes, in the case of the successors of centralized States as well as of acephalous 'tribes'. Apart from local feuds and vengeance killings and apart from the conflict deriving from the advent of Europeans, there was considerable violence displayed not only by local States raiding for slaves but also by those trying to create their own dominions, such as Samory and Babatu. Colonial rule concentrated force in the hands of the new rulers who largely stopped these forms of violence (at the same time practising its own). The advent of independence and of appeals to majority voting has meant that the authority in traditional States has been threatened by subordinate groups, often constituting a majority, and their attempts to hold on to power have resulted in open conflict. Whereas violence was earlier the work of the 'tribal' areas, now it is often more common in traditional States. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. in English and French.
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