My research focuses on how British capitalist mining activities and heightened imperialism during colonial rule in West Africa triggered a power play between colonialists and imperial businessmen in Obuase, a goldfield in the Asante Kingdom of the Gold Coast between 1895 and 1968. I analyze how this power play weakened the foundations of a development agenda proposed by the Ashanti Goldfields Corporation (AGC), a key player in British mining activities in West Africa. The AGC, established in 1897, was one of the largest gold mining companies in the world at the time, and its operations significantly influenced the economic and political landscape of West Africa. With support from the University of Miami’s Center for Global Black Studies Summer Fellowship, I visited the Churchill Archives Center in the Churchill College at Cambridge, England, to look at the “Papers of the Major General Edward Spears (GBR/ 0014/SPRS 3/1 series). I delved into the professional life of Ghana’s most controversial foreign businessman and diplomat in the 1950s and 1960s. My research this summer taught me that when the foundations of colonial rule were shaken to its core after World War II, Major Spears, who was known as an “Imperialist of the most rigid type, interested in promoting only British interests,” was strategically brought in as AGC’s Chairman because of his strong connections to help save Britain’s most valuable asset in West Africa. I also learned that Major Spears succeeded, to a large extent, in achieving this goal by ensuring he remained in the good books of the Chiefs and people of Adansi by showering them with gifts and awards and also establishing a newspaper, The Ashanti Times, which served as a propaganda machine to inform the world of the Corporation’s “good deeds” and the actions of the Ghanaian government. The General also prevented Nkrumah’s government from nationalizing the AGC by sacrificing funds devoted to a development Agenda in Obuase to meet the government’s excessive tax requirements. The major challenge I faced was my inability to access the complete collection of the Ashanti Times newspaper at the British Library because of a cyberattack on their system.