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.