I must also thank a number of institutions that generously provided the funding required for such a project. Research and travel to Ghana, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom was supported by a University of California Regents Fellowship and a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Research Grant, as well as generous funds and research leaves awarded by the College of Liberal Arts at Willamette University. I am also grateful for publication subvention support from CSUDH’s College of Arts and Humanities. I would especially like to acknowledge the Woodrow Wilson Junior Faculty Career Enhancement Fellowship Program; the research funds and one-year research leave it granted me was fundamental to bringing my manuscript to completion. Most important, its built-in mentorship program allowed me to work closely with Jean Allman, whose book “I Will Not Eat Stone”: A Woman’s History of Colonial Asante transformed the way I thought about history as a young undergraduate and has remained in heavy rotation on my course syllabi. Jean’s work as a scholar and her commitment to African Studies through institutional leadership, program building, and mentoring junior scholars continues to inspire me.
I am also indebted to many people who have offered good company and opened their homes to me during the research and writing of this book: in Abetifi and Santa Barbara, Lane Clark and Stephan Miescher; in Accra, Emily Asiedu; in Liverpool, Dmitri van den Bersalaar and Stephanie Decker; in London, Walter and Barbara Prime, and Jean Smith; and in Suhum, Elizabeth Konadu Yiadom, “Nana.” I would like to acknowledge colleagues who have become close friends for looking after me in their cities and proving to be some of the best traveling companions: Serena Dankwa, Gabriel Klager, Sophie Mew, Tim Mechlinski, Thomas Yarrow, Duncan Yoon, and Leandra Zarnow.
My gratitude also goes to the staff and series editors at Ohio University Press: Jean Allman, Allen Isaacman, and Derek Peterson, and to Gillian Berchowitz for believing in my research from the very beginning and guiding me through the process. This book has benefited tremendously from our conversations and their sharp editorial notes, as well as the feedback provided by two anonymous readers. Thank you also to David Lobenstine for editing assistance; your advice to “make these pages sing” guided me through each chapter revision.
I also owe an especially large intellectual and personal debt to Justin Bengry, Ellen Caldwell, Jonneke Koomen, Uri McMillian, Brooke Mascagni, and Roy Pérez for sharing so much of their brilliant minds and big hearts. For years our caffeinated writing dates, late-night phone chats, I5 carpool rides, shared meals; happy hours, shopping breaks, weekend excursions, and guaranteed laughs kept me grounded. I thank also my closest childhood friends, who are like sisters to me and who, often times without knowing it, helped me write this book; for so much love, thank you Megan Adams and Lauren Pfeiffer. And to my goddaughter Lucy Jane Williams, our special bond brings me joy.
Finally, I am grateful to my family for their unconditional love and support. I am especially thankful for growing up alongside so many smart, creative, and bold women: my grandmothers Elizabeth Mae Rubie and Vilma Susanna Saballos Nino Murillo; my aunts, the seven Rubie sisters, Carla, Diane, Jackie, Janice, Kathy, Liz, and Margaret; and my cousins Monica and Natalie Cuevas, who have been a constant source of friendship and empowerment. My father Alfonso Murillo and my younger brother Lucas have also encouraged and believed in me. Above all, I thank my mother, Teresa Rubie, for giving her everything to invest in me and my dreams. This book is dedicated to her.
Abbreviations
| AWAM | Association of West African Merchants |
| BMA | Basel Mission Archives |
| BRG | Brong-Ahafo Region |
| CFAO | Compagnie Française de l’Afrique Occidentale |
| CPP | Convention People’s Party |
| EAS | Export Advertising Service |
| FP | Frederick Pedler Papers |
| GBO | G. B. Ollivant |
| GNTC | Ghana National Trading Corporation |
| NAUK | National Archives of the United Kingdom |
| NLC | National Liberation Council |
| NRC | National Redemption Council |
| PNDC | Provisional National Defense Council |
| PRAAD-A | Public Records and Archives Administration Department, Accra |
| PRAAD-S | Public Records and Archives Administration Department, Sunyani |
| RHL | Rhodes House Library |
| SAT | Swiss African Trading Company |
| SCOA | Société Commerciale de l’Ouest African |
| SMC | Supreme Military Council |
| UAC | United Africa Company |
| UARM | Unilever Archives and Records Management |
| UGL | Unilever Ghana Limited Archive |
| UTC | Union Trading Company |
Introduction
Consuming Histories and Creating Economies
IN THE AFTERNOON ON Saturday, February 28, 1948, over a thousand African veterans gathered in the center of Accra, the capital of present-day Ghana (then called the Gold Coast). The men assembled on the Old Polo Grounds, opposite Parliament House, and headed toward the governor’s residence.1 Their goal was to demand compensation from the British colonial government for their service during the Second World War, and they intended to present their list of grievances to the governor in person. Having fought in the British Army alongside Allied forces in Burma, Ceylon, and India, many of these soldiers returned home and found themselves destitute. According to the Ex-Serviceman’s Union, the colonial government had made promises—of paid employment, disability pensions, business grants, and affordable housing—that were never fulfilled.2 Singing old war songs and marching in unison, the ex-servicemen, accompanied by more than two thousand supporters, were stopped en route by a group of armed police and instructed to turn back.
The official commission of inquiry that was appointed in the following weeks to investigate the events reported that the confrontation quickly became aggressive. The crowd, determined to pass, hurled stones and insults at officers. A few minutes later, just after 3:00 p.m., the head of police ordered his men to open fire in order to “control the mob.” Three demonstrators were shot dead and several others were wounded. The angry crowd retaliated. Yet they did not attack the governor’s residence, just a few blocks away, nor other centers of government power against which the men had been protesting; instead they burned and looted offices, warehouses, and wholesale and retail stores owned by Europeans and other foreigners.3
What became known as the Accra Riots have long been familiar to historians of Ghana. That day in February 1948 features consistently in nationalist narratives as a watershed moment that pushed the country on the path toward independence from Britain, which would come less than a decade later in 1957. But few have closely analyzed what it meant for a very different (though inextricably linked) path that the country was on—toward becoming an emerging nation of African consumers.4 Although sympathy for the veterans no doubt rallied supporters that Saturday afternoon, much of the crowd also consisted of those fed up with the restrictive economy that had been imposed under Britain’s rule. For decades the colonial government had enabled large foreign trading firms, mostly European, to control the West African import-export market. Allowed to operate with little government regulation, large firms dominated the commercial scene, controlling commodity prices, credit terms, and channels of distribution. During the war, essential imported commodities like rice, sugar, milk, kerosene, and cotton piece goods were in short supply, and the resulting spike in prices fueled resentment against these large firms, who by that point controlled more than two-thirds of all goods that were imported and sold in the colony.5 Various groups including African nationalists, businessmen, retailers, cocoa farmers, and consumers accused foreign firms, especially those belonging to the Association of West African Merchants (AWAM), of artificially inflating prices,