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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Correspondence of Jacob Dosoo Amenyah of Ada: part one, 1939-1956: part two, 1956-1965
Authors:Amenyah, Jacob DosooISNI
Lawler, NancyISNI
Wilks, IvorISNI
Year:2006
Periodical:Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana (ISSN 0855-3246)
Issue:10
Pages:1-48
Language:English
Notes:biblio. refs.
Geographic term:Ghana
Subjects:Ada polity
succession
local history
letters (form)
History, Archaeology
Amenyah, Jacob Dosoo--Correspondence
Ada (African people)
Ghana--History
About person:Jacob Dosoo Amenyah (1893-1977?)ISNI
External link:https://www.jstor.org/stable/41406732
Abstract:The archives of European trading companies indicate that in the late 17th and early 18th centuries the peoples of the Lower Volta (present-day Ghana), and particularly the Ada to the west of the delta and the Anlo to the east, came under the hegemony of Akwamu. Warriors from Akwamu were settled at various localities in the Lower Volta region where they began to create small states modelled on the Akan 'oman'. In Ada the incomers, Kabiawe-tsu and Kabiawe-yumu, alternated in providing a 'matse', 'father of the oman', and claimed that his authority was superior to that of the ancient 'wornorhi' or land-priests. For over 250 years, the question of whether the collapse of Imperial Akwamu in 1730 automatically nullified the authority of the Kabiawe or whether the Kabiawe were able to maintain themselves in power by virtue of the support they enjoyed from the army, a formidable force which they had raised from the wider Ada populace and organized on the Akan model, has remained unresolved. The letters of Jacob Dosoo Amenyah (1893-1977?) to Dr. M.J. Field, social anthropologist with the Gold Coast government from 1937 to 1944, and Ivor Wilks, on the staff at the University of the Gold Coast at Tamale, later at the University of Ghana, Legon, contain a great deal of information on the structure and history of the military and suggest that until the later 19th century it constituted a major force of stability in the Ada body politic. Amenyah, known customarily as Kanor Adjovu, belonged to the Kabiawe-tsu and may be regarded as their chronicler. His correspondence, published here, also documents issues surrounding the Ada chieftaincy, including the succession to the 'matse'-ship of Ada in the 1950s. [ASC Leiden abstract]
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