ABSTRACT
ƆPriests and traditions of kᴐmfo Anokye highlighted elements of these Guan, Ga and Akan peoples. Anokye’s elusiveness in late seventeenth- and eighteenth-century history juxtaposed his ubiquity in later nineteenth century nationalist remembrances. Narratives that Anokye engendered magic to protect Awukugua tested oracular evidence and aptness of an eclectic multi-discipline method in analyses of pre-colonial West African history. The tradition downplayed inter-ethnic animosity and political systems of dominance that validated established authority and arguably diminished collective resistance to capture by the inhabitants of Akuapem from Akwamu or others, indigenous or foreign. In Jamaica, histories of slave rebellion, maroonage and free blacks from Grey’s Estate at Guanaboa Vale in 1685 to the Maroon treaties in 1739–1740 elicited theoretical tension related to historicity of Gold Coast idealized (re)-constructions of identity, spirituality and freedom. Early Maroon bands included Taino Indians, Senegambians, Kongolese, Malagasy, Bight of Biafra and Bight of Benin and small numbers of peoples from in and around the southern Akan states.
