Ghana stretches over three climatic zones. Whilst the swampy coastal zone with its grassland characterizes the South, the South Western part of the country is covered by thick rain forest and its climate is hot and humid. The Northern savannah zone is hot and dry most of the year;
current environmental issues include droughts in the North, deforestation, overgrazing, soil erosion, wild animal habitat destruction and water pollution. Further, the provision of potable water is yet insufficient. Ghana, which became independent from the United Kingdom in 1957, is today a constitutional democracy. It has joined a number of international environmental agreements, concerning e.g. biodiversity, desertification and the Kyoto Protocol for Climate Change. Owning to its rich natural resources, the country has a GDP of 2.500 $, which is roughly double the GDP of other countries in West Africa. Despite this, the country depends on external donors and technical development intervention continues. It is a part of the HIPC program (Heavily Indebted Poor Country Program) since 2002 as well as of the G-8 debt relief program since 2005. A large part of the population faces poverty, but this poverty and related problems are unevenly distributed across the country. “The poorest areas of Ghana are the savannah regions of the north […] poverty often has a hold on entire rural communities […] In the Upper East region almost nine out of ten people live in poverty. More than eight out of ten people in the Upper West region are poor. In the Northern region, poverty affects seven out of ten people, and slightly less than half the population of the Central region is poor”(Rural Poverty portal homepage).
Box 3 Country profile Ghana
Population: 22.409.572 people Median age: 19, 9 years Life expectancy: 58, 87 years Population growth rate: 2, 07 %
Territory: 239.460 km2 (total), 230.940km2 (land mass), 8.520 km2 (water)
Natural resources: gold, timber, industrial diamonds, bauxite, manganese, fish, rubber, hydropower, petroleum, silver, salt, limestone
Agricultural products: cocoa, rice, coffee, cassava, groundnut, corn, Shea nut, banana, timber Industries: mining, aluminium smelting, food processing
Source: CIA World Fact Book (2006)
According to Buah, a Ghanaian historian, the country today is divided “into two main zones of land: the savannah to the north, and the rich forest lands to the south” (Buah 1998: 2, my emphasis), which are separated by an upland range. The Northern part of what is today Ghana consists of a “distinct geographic entity due to a combination of historical, socio-political and ecological factors” (Bacho 2001b: 15). The history of the region can be written and interpreted from different perspectives. While most authors wrote a history of marginalization and exploitation, Lentz took a more differentiated perspective when she wrote the history of Northwest Ghana by rethinking boundaries, identities and ethnicity (Lentz 1998).
The northern part of Ghana is populated by Mole-Dagbane speaking societies. The area was sparsely populated by small communities in late Holocene, which rather lived in isolation from each other before their settlements became the final destination of in-migrating family groups from areas more north and north-east. The late Holocene starts from 3rd century B.C.;
the period from 4.100 to 2.500 B.C. was characterized by a temperature decline, which resulted in an abrupt shift of savannah vegetation. From 3.200 to 3.000 B.C. deserts became drier and the desertification of the Sahara started, which led to migration movements towards the bigger river basins (wikipedia, 05.03.2007, Casey 2000). These migrated family groups integrated and mixed with the older settlers or started new settlements. For example, the people referred to as Kassena-Nankane, are assumed to be of heterogeneous origin. Kassena came mainly from the North whereby Nankana are thought of as a conglomerate from autochthones and in-migrants from different origins. Laube argues that given a hostile environment (wild animals, frequent fighting and later also slave raids) and availability of land, the strategy to include new settlers into existing communities was advantageous as it ensured security (Laube 2005: 61). Even though land close to settlements was allocated to the new settlers, the remaining land was occupied and the new settlers established squatter’s rights on it. Once allocated or squatted, it remained under the ownership of the concerned family group as long as they made use of it or upheld their claims of ownership. Local communities in the region administered land through custodians. It is the oldest settlers in a particular place, from which the custodians originate. It is because it was these groups who
first established ancestral relationships with the land in the form of ancestral spirits, which have their seat in natural objects, such as trees, stones or water bodies.
Between the 11th and 13th centuries, the area was frequently invaded by warriors from the Lake Chad region or Zamfara in Hausaland of what is today Nigeria. The first arrival was led by Tohajije (also known as the Red Hunter). His grandson Bawa is thought of as the founder of the Mamprussi kingdom, whilst it is his descendants who founded the Dagomba, Nanumba and Mossi kingdoms, which developed into centralized states by the 15th century. Indigenous slavery was a widespread social institution in both centralised states as well as in decentrally organized societies of Northern Ghana. The period from 16th to 18th centuries was characterized by increasing in-migration and state building processes. Mande warriors invaded Gonja areas and established their rule over them (Buah 1998, Perby 2004). As a result, slave owning and trading grew in importance in the newly founded Gonja state. The Mole-Dagbani states such as Mamprussi, Dagomba and Gonja, and Mossi frequently sought to expand their influence and power through war against non-centralised societies. Captives were enslaved and contributed to the middlemen position of those states (linking desert, savannah and forest belt) in indigenous slave trade. Slave raiding and kidnapping became strategies to ensure frequent supplies in slaves. Short before the turn towards the 20th century, Mande warriors under Samory Toure invaded from the North and established local slave markets and tapped Mole-Dagbani societies as reservoir for slaves. A Muslim slave raider called Mossa caused havoc; whilst Zabarimas, who conquered a vast area reaching from Ouagadougou to Wa, also claimed their share by raiding for slaves in their area of control.
Especially, one of their leaders, Babatu is recalled in many oral traditions in Northern Ghana.
Zabarimas opened additional slave markets, one being situated in Kasena (Ibid. 2004). With the Transatlantic slave trade, the intensity of raiding increased and showed drastic demographic effects. “Oral and documentary reports relate how large areas of land in the northern part of Ghana were desolated and depopulated by domestic slave dealers.” (Ibid 2004: 64). “The ´Grushies´ suffered a lot from raids and kidnapping. The climax of slave raiding was reached in the 1880s and 1890s.” (Ibid. 2004: 56). The North went into the historical records has “rather lawless area” (Laube 2005: 63), which was shaped by a high degree of insecurity for local people, traders and travellers (Lentz 1998: 83). The situation became even more complex, when the British and French military started operating in the region to establish their domination and finally implemented colonial rule. In 1897, a political stabilization was reached, when the European forces pushed the slave raiding African
invaders back to the North and the border between the Northern Territories and Haute-Volta was fixed in 1898 (Ibid. 1998).
The colonial enterprise started in 1901, when the first British officers arrived in Navrongo.
The formal extension of the colony followed 1902 when about 30.000 square miles of savannah were sub-ordinate to the Northern Territories Protectorate. Military rule was established. Later, Northern Togoland, which was occupied by the Germans, fell to the British in 1919 and was incorporated into the Northern Territories (Plange 1978). The Northern Territories remained a political entity until 1956. When talking about Northern Ghana, most of the authors refer to the geographic area, which was defined as Northern Territories in 1919 under the British rule. Others refer to the present political regions Upper East, Upper West and Northern Region, which are often summarized as the Northern Regions of Ghana. Due a number of intra-administrative reorganization in colonial and post-colonial times (Bening 2001, Bacho 2001b: 17), the historical and present borders of the Ghana’s North are not exactly congruent.
Map 5 Ghana and Northern Ghana
As a by-effect, the resistance of the Asante state to colonial expansion which lasted until 1874 resulted in the late opening of the geographic areas North of Asante to European travellers, missionary attempts, trade relationships and scientific documentation of the environmental conditions and societies which lived there. Owning such historical circumstances, among the first texts describing the situation in the area are secondary sources written by Bowdich in 1819, by Clarke in the 1840s and by Koelle in 1854. It was only after the defeat of Asante, that sources based on observations gave a first hand insight on the area. When the British military expeditions started entering the area from 1890 onwards, the number of records increased, but first ethnographic documentation stated only by 1913, when the colonial administration was already established and diary writing was made a duty for all district commissioners (Kröger 2001). The ethnographic records available on the research region are discussed in chapter four.
Generally, the history of Northern Ghana has been interpreted as being shaped mainly by external influences. These include the violent invasion by other African societies, slave raids, Trans-Sahara trade and the resulting introduction of Islam before the 15th century A.D. as well as by the scramble of the colonial forces, and the British colonial enterprise. It is not well documented as to how local societies, who were exposed to these influences, reacted to it and what impact it had on their internal organization. What we know suggest that they were not only victims of their political environment but also important actors (Lentz 1998, Howell 1994, Laube 2005: 64). Laube suggests that a deep mistrust against intruders and “anything they brought” remained part of the collective memory (Ibid. 2005: 65).