El Dorado in West Africa

Gold mining occupies a central place in the economic evolution of Ghana. This text examines the period of transition from traditional mining systems to mechanized, capitalized mining companies in the Akan area of the Gold Coast. Looking at the role of African as well as European mining entrepreneurs, female as well as male mining labour, this study encompasses issues of gender, ethnicity, business organization, pressure groups and exploitation. The authorseeks to reveal a new complexity in the economic and social history of mining in the late 19th century. In particular he concludes that it is in the individualization of land transfers to mining concessionaires, rather than in themobilization of a permanent unskilled wage labour force, that the greatest impact on economic and social change can be measured.