‘Not a Position for a Gentleman’: Sir Matthew Nathan as Colonial Administrator: From Cape Coast Castle to Dublin Castle via Natal

This article examines the role of Sir Matthew Nathan, British permanent under secretary for Ireland at the time of the Easter Rising in April 1916, and how critical events in his career as soldier, colonial governor and civil servant shaped his conduct and reaction to events in Ireland as the Rising unfolded around him. The article raises issues of identities: namely Nathan's own identity as an English gentleman, when, given his Jewish background, he was an outsider to that caste. Nathan's brief military career and lengthier career as a colonial governor earned him high praise as a model bureaucrat. In this paper Nathan's track from the War Office through government houses situated in West Africa, Hong Kong and Natal to Dublin Castle is traced to illustrate the changes in his character from decisiveness to indecision. While Nathan clearly misread the volatile situation in Ireland over the 1916 Easter weekend, his actions demonstrated both indecision and bureaucratic delaying tactics. It is argued that his experiences with obdurate settler ministers in Natal played a role in shaping his hesitancy at the time of crisis in Dublin and that this hesitancy provided an opportunity for the direct action of the Irish Volunteers. The conclusion is that, at the time of the Irish crisis, Nathan failed to exercise the ‘power of the personal influence’ expected of an experienced governor.     

Civitatis Ghaniensis Conditor: Kwame Nkrumah,symbolic nationalism and the iconography of Ghanaian money 1957 – the Golden Jubilee

ABSTRACT. During his tenure as premier from independence in 1957 until he was ousted by a military and police coup in 1966, Kwame Nkrumah was the living personification of the Ghanaian nation‐state. As the self‐proclaimed Civitatis Ghaniensis Conditor– Founder of the State of Ghana – his image was minted on the new national money and printed on postage stamps. He erected a monument of himself in Accra, changed the national anthem to make references to himself, customised the national flag to match the colors of his CPP party, made his birthday a national day of celebration (National Founder's Day), named streets and universities after himself, and amended the constitution whereby he became Life President. Since the coup, many of the symbols of nationhood that Nkrumah constructed have been debated, demolished, reconsidered and reengineered by successive governments to rewrite the Ghanaian historical narrative. This article analyses the contentions of one of Nkrumah's first expressions of symbolic nationalism – that of the national coinage.     

Pearl Millet and Kintampo Subsistence

Subsistence practices of the Kintampo cultural complex of sub-Saharan West Africa are now known to have included pearl millet cultivation, in addition to the utilization of tropical forest margin species such as oil palm. Charred plant remains recovered from the Birimi site, northern Ghana, suggest that the growing of pearl millet, possibly in uniform stands, was occurring amongst northerly Kintampo groups during the fourth millennium bp. The cultivation of this drought-tolerant crop facilitated the establishment of sedentary villages by providing a storable food resource enabling Kintampo people to survive the protracted dry season of the West African savanna.Nous savons maintenant que les pratiques de subsistance du complexe culturel Kintampo de l'Afrique de l'Ouest sub-saharien comprenaient la culture du mil à chandelle ainsi que l'utilisation d'espèces végétales qui poussaient en bordure de la forêt tropicale, comme le palmier à huile. Des restes de plantes carbonisé ont été récupérées du site du Birimi dans le Nord du Ghana; elles suggèrent que la pratique de la culture du mil à chandelle dont les plantations étaient peut-être déjà uniformes, se soit produite parmi les groupes Kintampo du Nord pendant le quatrième millénaire bp. La culture du mil à chandelle tolérait la sécheresse et avait ainsi facilité l'établissement de villages sédentaires car elle fournissait des ressources alimentaires entreposables. Cela permettait aux groupes Kintampo de survivre pendant la longue saison sèche de la savane de l'Afrique de l'Ouest.