Ghana

E

Political Parties

The dominant political party in Ghana was the National Democratic Congress (NDC) until the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) won the December 2000 legislative and presidential elections. Also represented in Parliament are the People’s National Convention (PNC) party and the Convention People’s Party (CPP). Other parties include the National Convention Party (NCP) and the National Reform Party (NRP), which split off from the NDC in 1999.

F

Defense

The Ghana armed forces—including army, navy, and air force—totaled 7,000 personnel in 2004. With a total of 5,000 men and women, the army is the largest of the defense forces. Military service is voluntary. Ghana’s armed forces personnel have taken part in international peacekeeping activities in West Africa and around the world. Police force and civil defense units keep the peace at home.

G

International Organizations

Ghana has held membership in the United Nations (UN) and the Commonwealth of Nations since independence in 1957. Ghana is also a founding member of the African Union (AU) and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

VII

History

Archaeological evidence shows that human habitation in what is now Ghana dates back to 1500 bc. However, there is no evidence indicating that these early inhabitants were the ancestors of the current peoples of the country. From oral traditions historians have learned that the ancestors of many of Ghana's ethnic groups entered their present territories by the 10th century ad. For hundreds of years thereafter, upheaval caused by the rise and fall of powerful kingdoms on the upper Niger River contributed to population migrations into northern Ghana.

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The first of these states was the Kingdom of Ghana, which emerged as early as 500 ad, expanded greatly by the 9th century, and collapsed in the 11th century. The Kingdom of Ghana was located in what is now southeastern Mauritania and southwestern Mali. (The only relationship between this ancient kingdom and the modern nation of Ghana is a shared name. The former Gold Coast was renamed Ghana in 1957 to symbolize its historic place as the first black African nation to gain political independence from European colonial rule.)

The Kingdom of Ghana was succeeded by the Mali Empire and then Songhai. These later states developed commercial links with the people of what is now Ghana. For example, the ancient town of Begho, located on the margin between the forests of the south and the savanna of the north, emerged in the 15th century as an important commercial center. Here, savanna and Saharan goods such as cloth and metal wares were exchanged for gold and kola nuts from the south. Although no part of present-day Ghana was ever dominated by these empires to the northwest, Muslim traders came to influence the affairs of northern peoples such as the Gonja and Dagomba. Most significant was their introduction of Islam.

A

Early States and Kingdoms in Ghana

The ancestors of today’s Akan speakers settled in the forest region of central Ghana by the 13th century and became involved in the prosperous trade with the north by the 15th century. According to oral traditions, the Ga-speaking people of the coastal plains and the Ewes of the Volta region migrated to Ghana from the east around the 13th century.

By the second half of the 15th century when the first Europeans arrived in the area, the ancestors of most of today’s ethnic groups were already established in the present territories. In this period, the various groups began organizing into states. Over the years, trade contacts with the Islamic states of the north and, later, with the Europeans on the coast contributed to the rise and fall of these local states. The Ga people of the coastal plains organized into an effective political unit in approximately 1500. Islamic trade networks stimulated the development of Akan states, and the Akan-speaking Denkyira people of the southwest rose to become a dominant power by the 1650s. In the northern regions of the country, the Gonja, Dagomba, and Mamprusi contested for political power in the 1620s. However, it was the Ashanti Kingdom, located in south central Ghana, that was the most influential.

The Ashanti people, members of the Twi-speaking branch of the Akan, settled the upland region near Lake Bosumtwi by the mid-17th century. Under a series of military leaders, they expanded and gathered into five major political units. Around 1700 an Ashanti confederacy, under the leadership of Osei Tutu of Kumasi, conquered the Denkyira state. Osei Tutu was declared the first asantehene, the king of a united Ashanti nation. Under his leadership and that of his immediate successors, the new nation expanded rapidly into an empire.

Political relations in the Ashanti confederacy were defined, preserved, and regulated by an oral constitution. The asantehene held power as commander in chief of the Ashanti armies. He had the authority to hear citizens' appeals, and all major chiefs of the Ashanti nation swore an oath of allegiance to him. Rulers of the confederate states, however, were allowed many privileges, including control over the inheritance of land and the right to preside over cases brought before them. Ashanti expansion toward the coast began in the first decade of the 19th century. By 1820 Ashanti held some degree of military and political influence over all of its neighbors.

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