Wesleyans in West Africa
BEECHAM, John.
Ashantee and the Gold Coast: being a sketch of the history, social state, and superstitions of the inhabitants of those countries: with a notice of the state and prospects of Christianity among them …
London, sold by John Mason, 1841.
8vo, pp. xix, [1 (blank)], 376; with 1 folding map of Western Africa; some foxing to map; very good in original blue cloth, spine lettered in gilt, covers blocked in blind, yellow endpapers; spine sunned and slightly worn at head and foot, hinges slightly split; inscriptions of ‘Sture Lagercrantz -76’ to front free endpaper and title, arms embossed in blind at head of title.
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Ashantee and the Gold Coast: being a sketch of the history, social state, and superstitions of the inhabitants of those countries: with a notice of the state and prospects of Christianity among them …
Uncommon first edition, a study of the west African region around modern-day Ghana by the Wesleyan Methodist John Beecham.
Since 1831 Beecham had been central in organising the worldwide Wesleyan missionary efforts in his role as secretary of the Wesleyan Missionary Society. It was also this task which led him to embark on his study of the region around the Ashanti Empire and the British colony of Gold Coast, written in order to both satisfy recent demand for information concerning the region from ‘friends’ in the Christian missions and to lay the basis for the future establishment of a Wesleyan Mission and Christian schools there. Despite its missionizing context however Beecham’s study is far broader and more varied than his particular religious goal might suggest, containing chapters on the region’s history, geography, politics, customs, demographics, agriculture, arts, trade, language and what he calls ‘national taste’ (particularly music). The work does however end with two chapters in which Beecham discusses the history of Christian efforts in the region and the potential for spreading Christianity. Two appendices are devoted to the description of the slave war and the vocabulary of the Fanti language respectively. The former is the work of the Wesleyan convert Joseph Wright, then residing in Sierra Leone.
Provenance: from the library of the Swedish ethnographer and specialist in African cultures, Sture Lagercrantz (1910-2001), who taught at Uppsala University.
