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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 May 2014
The Ashanti Regional Office of the National Archives of Ghana is a repository of great value for historians and social scientists of Asante, and of major importance for Ghana studies generally. So far, its contents are semiorganized and they are decaying steadily. Having worked several stretches in it during the period from 1979 to August 1985, I offer the following account from a researcher's perspective, aimed at providing a guide to some practicalities of using this archive; at highlighting its need for greater resources; at going some way to clarify how its contents are arranged; and finally, at briefly illustrating their--hitherto underestimated--importance to scholars.
The NAG-K is situated in the grounds of the National Cultural Centre. The formal requirement for admission is a NAG Searcher's Ticket, obtainable on the spot or at the Accra headquarters, normally by means of a letter of introduction. The Archivist, Mr. C.A. Azangweo, and his often-changing staff have maintained an impressive friendliness and helpfulness over very difficult years. But as in the Ghanaian public service generally, low pay has led to an exodus of skilled personnel and contributed to low morale among most of those who remain, while suspension of non-salary expenditure has undermined conditions of work and, more importantly, the physical state of the documents themselves.
1. The completion of this report was made possible by a visit to the archive in August 1985, financed by a grant from the University of Ghana Research Fund. I wish to thank for their assistance S. Asamoah-Darko of the African and General Studies Department, University of Science and Technology, Kumase; C.A. Azangweo, the Archivist, NAG-K; and I. Tufuoh, History Department, University of Ghana.
2. Or by comparison with the sixty-hour researching week possible in the Ivoirian National Archives described in Welch, Ashton, “The National Archives of the Ivory Coast,” HA, 9 (1982), 378.Google Scholar
3. However, some turn up in the wrong covers, and a file of the same title and date as D359 is listed in the register of RAO Files on Shelves 8 and 9, No. 737.
4. The non-government records at Accra and Cape Coast are usefully described in Dumett, R.E., Survey of Research Materials in the National Archives of Ghana (Basel, 1974)Google Scholar, which concentrates on (the classified material in) those two branches.
5. A well-bound, typed register of these records is kept in the Search Room, but no member of staff could remember seeing them. They very probably lie in an obscure part of the repository.
6. This is the official position and appears to be very largely true, but I did come across an Agriculture Department file mysteriously present in a box labeled as containing Adansi-Fomena (District) records.
7. E.g., Perbi, Akosua A., “Domestic Slavery in Asante 1800-1920,” M.A. thesis, University of Ghana, 1978Google Scholar; Austin, Gareth, “Rural Capitalism and the Growth of Cocoa-Farming in South Ashanti, to 1914,” Ph. D., University of Birmingham, 1984.Google Scholar
8. The “unclassified” material is not cited in Wilks, Ivor, Asante in the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge, 1975)Google Scholar; Lewin, Thomas J., Asante Before the British (Lawrence, 1978)Google Scholar; or McCaskie, T.C., “Anti-Witchcraft Cults in Asante,” HA, 8 (1981), 125–54.Google Scholar
9. One RAO File listed as “destroyed” would otherwise have been sought after in view of the current interest in the decline of slavery and other changes in labor relations in the early colonial period: it was entitled “Desertion of Akosua From Her Mistress at Japa.”
10. The NTs Criminal Record Books are listed in a register: Civil Record Book, 1936-49 (SCT 24/86), Criminal Record Books, 1932-55 (SCT 25/55-8), Register of Criminal Cases, 1940-55 (SCT 25/61). Books of Minutes for Wechiau, Nadawli, Kaleo and Tumu Local Councils are kept (as of 1985) in the Search Room.
11. Including German Togoland (D1915, D2415).
