SLAVERY AND RESISTANCE ON NINETEENTH CENTURY DANISH PLANTATIONS IN SOUTHEASTERN GOLD COAST, GHANA

Abstract

From the turn of the 18th century to the mid-19th century AD, the Danes experimented with plantation agriculture in the foothills of the Akuapem Mountains on the southeastern coastland of the Gold Coast (Ghana). Enslaved Africans were used by the Danes to cultivate the plantations. The Danish planters imposed controls over the plantation landscape. The enslaved workers reacted to their entrapped situations by resisting the various forms of control imposed on the plantation set-up. In this paper, the socio-cultural relations that emanated from the interactions on the plantations are examined. The paper specifically investigates the dynamics of power manifested in diverse control mechanisms imposed by the planters and the corresponding reaction from the slaves to counteract these impositions.