The Introduction of Cocoa in the Gold Coast: The Roles of the Basel Mission and Tetteh Quarshie

Introduction

This entry was inspired in part by an excursion I embarked on with a team of scholars and research students from the Akrofi-Christaller Institute of Theology, Mission and Culture and universities of Basel and Ghana to the Tetteh Quarshie Cocoa Farm at Mampong-Akuapem in the Eastern region of Ghana in January 2024. The excursion formed part of the joint research project to reclaim the Basel Mission (BM) legacies in Ghana. At the farm, the local guides took us through the history of cocoa and the importance of cocoa to the economy of Ghana, highlighting Tetteh Quarshie’s role and contributions. The guide’s submission on Tetteh Quarshie sparked a conversation and further generated a debate among us. Some of my visiting colleagues raised questions about the sources of the information they were receiving on Ghana’s cocoa history. It was at this point that I saw the need to research the introduction of cocoa in Ghana, highlighting the roles of the BM and Tetteh Quarshie.

The Controversy Surrounding the Introduction of Cocoa in Ghana

Cocoa was introduced in Ghana in the nineteenth century from Latin America. Since its introduction, cocoa has witnessed the most spectacular growth, impacting all spheres of life in Ghana.[1] As a subject of interest to many stakeholders, the debate over who pioneered Ghana’s cocoa industry started over a century ago. The West African magazine reported on the issue. The genesis of the issue, according to a publication in the March 1929 edition of the magazine was triggered by a government decision to honour the illustrious African statesman, Tetteh Quarshie, for his public service to the Gold Coast.[2] The people of the Gold Coast urged the government to honour Tetteh Quarshie for his role in pioneering the cocoa industry in Ghana with the seedlings he brought from Fernando Po. Tetteh Quarshie, in addition to bringing the cocoa seedlings to the Gold Coast, tended and brought the seedlings into the “the stage of profitable yield, thus laying the foundation of the present vast export.”[3] It was Quarshie’s service that partly contributed to the export of Gold Coast cocoa which exceeded £30,000,000 in 1929.[4] To commemorate Quarshie’s cocoa achievements, the colonial government directed the Gold Coast Treasury in 1929 to give a grant of £250 to the surviving members of Tetteh Quarshie’s family. The opinion held by people of the Gold Coast at the time was that the £250 was “not proper recognition” of Tetteh Quarshie, considering the pioneering role he played in pioneering the cocoa industry.

Some also maintained that William Brandford Griffith, a former Governor of Gold Coast, had laid the foundation of the cocoa industry on the Gold Coast. Governor Griffith had established cocoa nurseries throughout the Gold Coast colony.[5] According to Sir W. Brandford Griffith, son of Governor Griffith, he witnessed how his father planted cocoa seedlings from Sao Thome at Aburi gardens and distributed the remaining seedlings to the chiefs and the BM. It was from those seedlings and seedlings from their fruits that the “gigantic cocoa industry of the Gold Coast” originated.[6]

In a letter to the West Africa dated February 22, 1929, William Preiswerk-Imhoff, the Chairman of the Basel Mission Trading Co. Ltd., heavily relied on documentary sources from the Basel Mission Archives and made the case that the BM had been responsible for early growing of cocoa in the Gold Coast. Preiswerk-Imhoff referred to three Swiss farmers, Johannes Haas, Jakob Lang and Henri Marchand who were then working with the BM as lay missionaries, as pioneers of Gold Coast cocoa industry. The three Swiss farmers experimented with cocoa cultivation at the mission agricultural farm at Akropong from 1858 to 1868.[7] It was from the remnants of those seedlings that the BM distributed cocoa seedlings to other stations like Aburi, Mampong and Odumase.[8] Though Preiswerk-Imhoff acknowledged the contributions of Quarshie and Governor Griffith to “the romantic development of the cocoa industry in the Gold Coast Colony,” he did not mince the point that it was the BM that cultivated Ghana’s first cocoa trees.[9]

The Earliest Attempt at Cocoa Cultivation in the Gold Coast

Historian Robert Addo-Fening traced the initial attempt of cocoa cultivation in the Gold Coast to c. 1800 at Elmina.[10] A documentary source at the Basel Mission Archives also noted that cocoa was “first mentioned as having been grown in the Gold Coast in a Dutch book published in 1815.”[11] There is no evidence from these sources to suggest that the initial attempt of cocoa cultivation in the Gold Coast in the early nineteenth century was successful, until the BM started experimenting cocoa cultivation in Akuapem in the 1850s and 1860s.

The Missionary Pioneers

The BM pioneering efforts at cultivating cocoa is traced to three Swiss farmers who were lay missionaries of the BM in the Gold Coast between 1858 and 1868.[12] The missionaries grew cocoa seedlings brought from Surinam and Cape Palmas and experimented other exotic crops such as banana, coffee and some vegetables.[13] The missionaries were frustrated with many challenges in their early attempt to cultivate cocoa in Akuapem.  The trees were not able to grow well because of poor climatic conditions. The lay missionary Lang reported in 1864 that the weather conditions in the Akropong station were not favourable to cocoa cultivation. According to Lang, cocoa trees took 6 to 10 years to bear fruits in low temperature regions. He even noted that the seedlings they imported easily spoiled due to climatic conditions.[14] In 1866, Lang reported to his superiors in Basel that it would “take years until some income might result from the cocoa trees as three years are needed until the trees are planted.”[15] Producing cocoa in commercial quantities and sharing their knowledge for the benefit of “the Africans, especially the Christians” would require years of great efforts.[16] Lang and others captured in their reports that beetles, little ants and worms caused considerable damage to the growth of the cocoa trees.[17] Marchand also reported poor soil quality at Akropong: “One morning I found that in the night about half of the cocoa trees which were in the garden were bitten off; many others planted 3 years ago are still very small and can hardly grow any more as the soil is poor.”[18]

Despite those challenges, the missionaries remained resolute in their experimentation with cocoa at Akropong. Year after year, particularly from 1858 to 1868, the missionaries grew new cocoa seedlings, applied various chemicals such as chloride and lime mixed with hog and further ensured that the cocoa trees were secured in a board fence.[19] These pioneering mission efforts at cultivating cocoa yielded some considerable results. This is evident in the missionaries’ observation that despite the problems of little ants, they were optimistic that the cocoa trees “…mature” and “…some fruits may be obtained.”[20] The missionaries pursued their cocoa cultivation and saw some seedlings dried and others flourishing “beautifully.”[21] 

The lay missionary reported in 1868 that the mission plantation was enlarged and cocoa was planted among other crops.[22] Even before 1868, Lang reported in 1865 that “the cocoa trees grow now very beautifully and is continuously in blossom for several months.”[23] Lang further reported in 1866 that the mission grew cocoa siblings alongside coffee and many vegetables. The mission was able to obtain seedlings from the cocoa trees they had already planted. Some of the seedlings were replanted on the mission’s farm at Akropong and the remaining seedlings were given to other stations.[24] This means that from 1866 onwards, the BM had achieved considerable success in its cocoa experimentation at Akropong and had started cocoa cultivation in other parts of Akuapem and other places where they stationed. It was also quite obvious that many Africans had now recognized the value of cocoa and they had started stealing the commodity from the missionaries as captured in Marchand’s reports for the year 1868.[25] From these snippets of evidence, we can say that before Tetteh Quarshie embarked on his cocoa cultivation in 1879, cocoa was already in Akuapem and in other places in the Eastern Province of the Gold Coast.

The Black West Indian Christians from Jamaica who came to Akropong in 1843, under the auspices of the BM, introduced varieties of agricultural crops of which cocoa was a part. The West Indian Christians also engaged in cocoa cultivation, shared their experiences with their African brethren and boosted cocoa production in the Gold Coast.[26] The BM promoted cocoa cultivation in the Gold Coast by importing pods of cocoa from the West Indies and sold the seeds to the African farmers.[27] The BM further dedicated its available resources to boost cocoa production in the Gold Coast. From the BM’s school system that combined literary and industrial training, learners were taught new arts of cultivation in the school’s experimental farms. The local farmers also learnt those new agricultural methods from the schools.[28] Many of the products of the BM’s school joined the working force of Gold Coast as farmers, and as farmers they settled in the plantation villages, where many of them engaged in cocoa-growing business.[29] The BM’s educated farmers had healthier and more yielding farms than their uneducated colleagues.[30] The BM further encouraged its African agents and members of the BM Church in the Gold Coast to seize the agricultural opportunities available. Some of the agents and members heeded to the advice and cultivated cocoa and other crops.[31]

Tetteh Quarshie’s Role in Pioneering the Cocoa Industry in Ghana

Tetteh Quarshie is a celebrated national hero in Ghana with his image imprinted in the plain star area of the Ghana cedis notes. An inter-change in Accra and a hospital at Mampong-Akuapem are also named after him. The name Tetteh Quarshie is a recurring motif in text books for Ghanaian school children, who learn about the pioneering role he played in the creation of Ghana’s cocoa industry. Tetteh Quarshie, who was trained by the BM, introduced cocoa seeds from Fernando Po into the Gold Coast in 1879.[32] Tetteh Quarshie started an experimental farm at Mampong-Akuapem with the new seeds. The first curator of the Aburi Government Botanical Garden visited the farm in 1890 and reported that he had seen about 300 cocoa trees, ranging from 2 to 4 years old with many of the larger trees having “as many as 50 large healthy pods.”[33] It was from Tetteh Quarshie’s example that the curator concluded and became fully convinced that cocoa would grow well in Akuapem.[34] The fact that it was after four years before some of the trees started bearing fruits means that by 1883 some of the pods were matured. Tetteh Quarshie’s example attracted other people and he started selling pods of cocoa to the farmers of Akuapem, who started cultivating cocoa in increasing numbers. That the cultivation of cocoa was successful during this period could be attributed to Tetteh Quarshie’s innovation and ideas. In the earlier report of the Aburi Garden curator, the author criticized aspects of what he saw at Tetteh Quarshie’s farms. The curator, among other things, held that the banana trees that were growing among the cocoa trees were “taking substance from the soil.” By this he implied that the banana trees were competing with the cocoa trees for the same nutrients in the soil so they needed to be taken out of the farms. In fact, however, the presence of the banana trees in the farm “suggests strongly that Tetteh Quashie had … brought back from Fernando Po knowledge of what was then and is still essential: planting crops to shade the young cocoa trees.”[35] Michelle Gilbert and Paul Jenkins are right because it was on the same Akuapem soil that the BM struggled in their pioneering efforts at cultivating cocoa in the Gold Coast in the 1850s and 1860s. Tetteh Quarshie’s success with cocoa cultivation could therefore be attributed to ideas he borrowed from Fernando Po and other personal experiences he gained in his cultivation of cocoa, an experience he shared with his fellow farmers.

Concluding Reflections

The introduction and the expansion of the cocoa industry in Ghana should not be treated as the singular responsibility of an individual or group of individuals. In that sense, Gustaf Adolf Wanner is right in saying that “the successful introduction of cocoa in Ghana, the former Gold Coast, was not the work of a single person or institution but was, perhaps could only have been achieved by a fortunate concurrence of several factors.”[36] On the basis of this understanding, I argue that the various positions being discussed here on the introduction of Ghana’s cocoa industry have merit in so far as they communicate a perspective on the pioneering contributions of some individuals like Tetteh Quarshie and Governor W. B Griffith and organizations like the BM to the development of Ghana’s cocoa industry.

The earlier debates that characterized the introduction and expansion of the cocoa industry in Ghana were silent on the collective contributions of the pioneer cocoa farmers who through their efforts won Ghana the enviable title, “the most important exporter of cocoa in the world” in 1911.[37] It was also partly through local farmers that “Ghana is virtually synonymous with cocoa to the world at large.”[38] It was due to this general lack of interest in the local cocoa farmers in the debate that I came up with the argument, in a recent publication, that the past and present achievements of Ghana’s cocoa industry should be equally attributed to the local farmers, who toiled and tilled the forestlands of Ghana for cocoa production. For it was through the collective efforts of the local farmers that the cocoa-growing industry spread and developed in Ghana.[39] My argument corroborates earlier claims of Christine Okali, Gareth Austin and Polly Hill, who consider the Ghanaian cocoa farmers as responsible for the creation of Ghana’s cocoa industry.[40] In the light of the above observations, I conclude this entry with this point: The creation of Ghana’s cocoa industry should not be attributed to a sole founder. The contributions of the various stakeholders, including the colonial government, the BM, Tetteh Quarshie and, more importantly, the many industrious and enterprising Ghanaian cocoa farmers must be equally acknowledged and respected.

Portrait Leonard Opoku Agyemang
About the author:Leonard Opoku Agyemang