Power and State Formation in West Africa: Appolonia from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century by Pierluigi Valsecchi (review)

This is a translation of a book published in Italian in 2002; it is also said to have been abbreviated, although the nature and extent of changes from the original version are not specified. It deals with the Nzema, an Akan-speaking group located at the western end of the Gold Coast, straddling the boundary between the modern states of Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana. More specifically, it studies processes of political change among the western Nzema, between the rivers Tano and Ankobra. The name ‘Appolonia’ (or ‘Apollonia’) for this region derives from Cape Saint Apolonia, so named by the Portuguese navigators who first reached this section of the coast in 1471. The author’s account of political developments is situated within the context of the recurrent intrusion of more powerful African states in the interior –Denkyira, Wassa, Aowin, Asante – as well as of European commercial engagement. European trade here was initially for gold, brought from the interior, but in the eighteenth century also for slaves, many of whom were captured in local wars. The main centre of European commerce was the fort of São Antonio at Axim, just east of the Ankobra, established by the Portuguese in 1552, but taken over by the Dutch from 1642. Other Europeans also sought to insert themselves into the trade of the region from time to time; in the long run the British were most successful, in 1765 establishing Fort Apollonia at Beyin, within the western Nzema region itself. The characterization of the process of change as ‘state formation’ is not intended to imply a transition from a ‘stateless’ condition, since it is acknowledged that societies organized in ‘some form of state’ (p. 4) existed from the earliest period of recorded history of this region. It is a question rather of an expansion of territorial scale, in effect of political unification. Originally the Nzema area was fragmented politically, with a large number of micro-states, whose fluctuating fortunes are reconstructed in meticulous (indeed, occasionally wearying) detail. In the first half of the eighteenth century, however, it was consolidated into a single state, called by Europeans the ‘Kingdom of Appolonia’; this European usage is adopted by the author in preference to its indigenous name Amanahea, as the latter is not documented before the nineteenth century. The establishment of the British fort at Beyin, freeing the local rulers from the commercial dominance of the Dutch at Axim, is seen as crowning their achievement of independent authority. Yet even this new enlarged kingdom, with a population estimated at no more than 20,000, was small by comparison with other African (including Akan) states. Methodologically, the study is based on a combination of contemporary European documents and local traditional sources, deftly collated, and informed by a deep understanding of the recent anthropology of the region. The analysis stresses the critical role in the mobilization of political support of ‘associative networks’ that transcended state boundaries. These were often based on (or at least expressed in the idiom of) kinship, including not only the well-known Akan matriclans, but also patrilineal links and marriage alliances. But these were supplemented by the taking of ritual oaths of loyalty and cooperation, and the establishment of dependency through moneylending. The analysis is persuasive in itself, and the narrative of political change that it underpins is convincing, but the emphasis on wider networks arguably leaves the reasons for the emergence of a Africa 83 (2) 2013: 340–58