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The 1820s was a period of conflict between the British and the dominant Asante (Ashanti) kingdom to the hinterland.
Between 1815 and 1820, all the major European establishments sent emissaries to the Asante capital of Kumase to negotiate increased commercial relations.
However, disagreements between Asante officials and the British led to the war of 1823-1824, in which the newly appointed Governor of the Cape Coast, Castle Sir Charles MacCarthy was killed.
Later in 1826, the joint forces of the British, the Danes, and their local allies fought the Asante army in the plains of Accra. While trade into the interior certainly suffered from the conflict, historians are not specific on the extent to which the political instability affected the state of education at the castles.
In the 1831 treaty that renegotiated relations among the warring parties, however, two Asante royal youth—Owusu Ansa and Owusu Nkantabisa—were sent to Cape Coast as a sign of the kingdom’s commitment to peace.
The boys were schooled at the castle school and were later sent to England for a Christian education. It is not surprising that the Dutch, who had competed against the British from their post at Elmina, also sent Akwasi Boakye and Kwamina Poku (also from the Asante royal house) to the Netherlands in the mid-1830s to be educated.
Infact, by 1841 some 110 students were reported to be attending English schools on the Gold Coast.
The effort to provide Christian education on the Gold Coast took a decisive turn with the arrival of Wesleyan and Basel missionaries in 1835.
Thef irst Wesleyan (Methodist) school was at the Cape Coast Castle. The Rev Thomas B. Freeman reported that nine Wesleyan mission schools had been opened by 1841—six for boys and three for girls.
Despite the achievements on the coast, efforts to open schools in the Asante interior did not succeed. Even though Rev. Freeman returned the two royal youth to Kumase in 1841, the Europeans were prevented from opening schools in the territory.
Apparently, some of the senior Kumase chiefs expressed fear that western-style education would negatively impact local values. Wesleyan efforts to conduct schools continued to be limited to the coast throughout the nineteenth century.
Unlike the Wesleyan, the Basel (Presbyterian) mission headed for the higher and healthier elevations of the Akuampim Ridge while keeping its headquarters at Christiansborg near Accra.
By the 1850s, the Basel missionaries had boarding schools at Christiansborg and schools on the Akuapem Ridge, including one for girls at Aburi.
At their school at Akropong (also on the ridge), the Basel missionaries trained teachers, used the schools as agency for the spread of Christianity, and published an elementary grammar book and dictionary in the local Akan language.
To be sure, the popular linkage of western-style education to Christian conversion developed from these experiences.
In F. Wright’s 1905 essay on the “System of Education in the Gold, Coast,” a total of 132 mission schools were said to be in existence by 1901.
To be Continued…
Source: https://education.stateuniversity.com
