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J. E. Caseley Hayford: Architect of West African Unity, Arthur of earliest pan-African fiction and prominent African nationalist
Joseph Ephraim Casely Hayford, MBE (29 September 1866 – 11 August 1930), also known as Ekra-Agyeman, was a prominent Fante Gold Coast journalist, editor, author, lawyer, educator, and politician who supported pan-African nationalism. His 1911 novel Ethiopia Unbound is one of the earliest novels published in English by an African.
Biography
Joseph Ephraim Casely Hayford was born on 29 September 1866 in Cape Coast, in the Fante Confederacy, now Ghana.
His family, part of the Fante Anona clan and descendants of a dynasty of omanhens and okyeames, was part of the Fante coastal elite. His father, Joseph de Graft Hayford (1840–1919), was educated and ordained as a minister in the Methodist church, and was a prominent figure in Ghanaian politics.
Casely was one of Joseph’s middle names; he adopted Casely Hayford as a non-hyphenated double surname. His brothers were Ernest James Hayford, a doctor, and the Reverend Mark Hayford, a minister.
Casely Hayford attended Wesley Boys’ High School (now known as Mfantsipim) in Cape Coast, and Fourah Bay College in Freetown, Sierra Leone. While in Freetown, Casely Hayford became an avid follower of Edward Wilmot Blyden, the foremost pan-African figure at the time, who edited Negro, the first explicitly pan-African journal in West Africa.
Upon returning to Ghana, Casely Hayford became a high school teacher. He eventually was promoted to principal at Accra Wesleyan Boys’ High School. He was dismissed from his position at the school for his political activism.
Journalist and Educator
Hayford began his career as a journalist, serving as an assistant editor on the Western Echo (1885-1887) and as editor of the Gold Coast Echo (1888-1890). He edited the Gold Coast Chronicle and contributed articles to the Gold Coast Independent (1891-1893). Later he helped edit the Gold Coast Methodist Times and was closely associated with the Gold Coast Aborigines. In 1902 Hayford and three other colleagues founded the Gold Coast Leader, which became the main organ of his propaganda until his death.
Hayford’s formal career as a teacher was short-lived. He was headmaster of the Wesleyan Boys’ High School at Accra (1891-1893). But throughout his entire adult life he was a staunch advocate of education at all levels along “racial and national lines.” In 1902 he became one of the founders of the Mfantsi National Education Fund to provide for the “proper education” of the children of the Gold Coast. Children were to be taught to read and write in Fante, and the study of Gold Coast history, geography, institutions, and customs was to be emphasized. But the scheme was aborted.
In 1911, in his book Ethiopia Unbound, Hayford publicly advocated the establishment of a national university with a curriculum relevant to African needs and conditions. In 1919 he and other colleagues sought unsuccessfully to establish secular independent high schools through the newly formed Gold Coast National Education Scheme. Hayford’s educational dream was partly realized when the Gold Coast government opened Achimota College in 1927. Its curriculum was Africanized, and throughout the remainder of the colonial period, it was the premier primary and secondary educational institution in the Gold Coast. Hayford was a member of the Achimota Council and also served on the Gold Coast Board of Education.
Inner Temple and the bar
In 1893, Casely Hayford travelled to London to study as a barrister at the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple, and at Peterhouse, Cambridge. He was called to the Bar on 17 November 1896. That year, he returned with his second wife Adelaide to Ghana to private law practice in Cape Coast, Axim, Sekondi and Accra. He also continued his work as a journalist, editing the Gold Coast Leader. In 1904, he helped found the Mfantsipim School. In 1910, he succeeded John Mensah Sarbah as president of the Aborigines’ Rights Protection Society, the first anti-colonial organisation founded in the Gold Coast.
Political activism
Although a militant advocate of African and pan-African causes, Hayford never became bitter and always acted “constitutionally.” He was a dapper man of medium height, charming, and with a keen sense of humor.
As a lawyer-politician, Hayford successfully argued and agitated against two measures which would have resulted in the alienation of African lands to the British crown: the Lands Bill of 1897 and the proposed Forest Bill of 1911. The research for his briefs against these two bills formed the basis of three of his books: Gold Coast Native Institutions (1903), Gold Coast Land Tenure and the Forest Bill (1911), and The Truth about the West African Land Question (1913). In the Legislative Council he fearlessly criticized the shortcomings of colonial rule and constantly demanded a larger African say in running their affairs. He himself served on several government commissions.
Casely Hayford wrote several books, primarily as commentary and opposition to land management acts issued by the colonial government, such as the Crown Lands Bill of 1897, and the Forest Ordinance of 1911. His view was that African identity and African social stability were inextricably linked to conservation of existing conventions concerning land rights.
In his 1903 book Gold Coast Native Institutions, Hayford analyzed Fanti and Asante governmental institutions, and argued for a self-governing Gold Coast within a federal greater Britain.[5]
In 1910 he was elected president of the Aborigines Rights Protection Society (ARPS) the first nationalist movement founded in the Gold Coast in 1911 he then travelled to London to protest land management act issued by the British administration.
While visiting London to protest the Forest Ordinance of 1911, he was part of a group that gave financial assistance to Dusé Mohamed Ali to get his African Times and Orient Review off the ground. Others were Francis T. Dove and C. W. Betts from Sierra Leone and Dr. Oguntola Sapara from Lagos.[6]
Casely Hayford was also deeply involved in the political movement for African emancipation. He corresponded with W. E. B. Du Bois, and participated in Booker T. Washington‘s International Conference on the Negro in 1912. Casely Hayford’s correspondence with Washington fostered the pan-African movement in both Africa and the United States.
Casely Hayford’s career in public office began with his nomination to the Legislative Council of the Gold Coast in 1916. As a legislator he served on various public commissions, and received an MBE in the 1919 Birthday Honours for services in aid of the Prince of Wales’s Patriotic Fund. In the same year he formed West Africa’s first nationalist movement, the National Congress of British West Africa, one of the earliest formal organisations working toward African emancipation from colonial rule. He represented the Congress in London in 1920, to demand constitutional reforms from the colonial secretary, and address the League of Nations Union. He became the first patron of the West African Students’ Union in 1925, and was elected as municipal member for Sekondi in September 1927. The National Congress was dissolved shortly after Casely Hayford’s death in 1930.
He published a novel entitled Ethiopia Unbound (1911), which is one of the first novels in English by an African. It has been cited as the earliest pan-African fiction. The novel is set in both Africa and England. It relies on philosophical debates between an African and his English friend, as well as references to contemporary African events and ancient African history, to provide a context for its exploration of African identity and the struggle for emancipation.
Pan-African Leader
Early in his career Hayford came to see the essential problem of Africans—both in the ancestral home and abroad—as regaining self-confidence and self-respect, which had been crushed by European exploitation and degradation. He therefore inveighed strongly against the uncritical acceptance of European ideas, customs, and institutions. In 1888 he publicly stressed the need to retain African languages and African dress. In his newspapers he regularly recalled the achievement of outstanding Africans so as to foster racial pride. In 1916 he published William Waddy Harris: The Man and His Message, a biography of an outstanding African religious prophet.
Hayford took an especially keen interest in Afro-Americans and encouraged the pan-African aspirations of Dr. W. E. B. Du Bois and Marcus Garvey and their followers. Hayford’s last pamphlet, The Disabilities of Black Folk and Their Treatment, with an Appeal to the Labour Party, was in the tradition of pan-African protest.
In West Africa, Hayford’s pan-African dream took the form of an independent federation of the British colonies— Gambia, Sierra Leone, Gold Coast, and Nigeria—within the British Commonwealth. In 1914 he began seriously to discuss the idea of a conference of representatives from the four British colonies. In 1919 he made the case for West African unity in a pamphlet, United West Africa.
In March 1920 he succeeded in convening a conference in Accra of some 50 British West African delegates which resulted in the National Congress of British West Africa. The Congress met on three subsequent occasions: Freetown in 1923, Bathurst at the turn of the year 1925/1926, and Lagos in 1929. The Congress lacked mass support and did not realize any of its goals. However, it did act as an important stimulus to African nationalism. With Hayford’s death on Aug. 11, 1930, the guiding spirit of the Congress was removed, and it became defunct.
In 1916 he was elected to the legislative council of the Gold Coast and received an MBE in 1919 Birthday Honours for services in aid of the Prince of Wales’ Patriotic Fund. That year, immediately following the war, he founded the National Congress of British West Africa (NCBWA), the first inter territorial national movement in Africa .The congress aimed to promote economic development, education, and democratic institutions, while remaining under British rule.
J.E Casley died in 1930, leaving behind a son and daughter. After his death the National Congress for British West Africa (NCBWA) collapsed. In addition to his writing and books, he was in partnership with many prominent pan African thinkers of his time , including W.E Dubois, Booker T Washington, Duse Muhammed Ali and was an inspiration for Ghana’s independence journey.
Casely Hayford Hall. Popularly known as Casford is the only male hall at the University of Cape Coast. It was established in 1967 and named after the illustrious son of Ghana. Joseph Ephraim Casely Hayford, MBE, who was a prominent Fante Gold Coast journalist, editor, author, lawyer, educator, and politician who supported pan-African nationalism.
Marriage and family
Casely Hayford was the progenitor of the Casely-Hayford family of Ghana and Britain. His descendants have served as part of the latter country’s Black British elite.
He was first married to Beatrice Madeline Pinnock. The couple’s son Archie Casely-Hayford became a barrister, district magistrate and the first Minister of Agriculture and Natural Resources in the First Republic of Ghana.
While in London studying at the Inner Temple and lodging at a hostel for African bachelors in 1893, Casely Hayford met Adelaide Smith, a lady of Sierra Leonean Creole and partly Fante royal origins. They later married, and she returned with him to the Gold Coast in 1896 after he was received by the bar. She became a prominent writer and established a Freetown girl’s vocational school. Adelaide and Joseph had a daughter, Gladys May Casely-Hayford (1904–1950), who was a teacher, an artist and a poet, publishing some of her poems under the pen name of Aquah Laluah.
Bibliography
- The Truth About The West African Land Question (1898. Reprinted, 1913. Reprinted London: Frank Cass, 1971)
- Gold Coast Native Institutions: With Thoughts Upon A Healthy Imperial Policy for the Gold Coast and Ashanti (1903. Reprinted London: Frank Cass, 1970, ISBN 0-7146-1754-7)
- Ethiopia Unbound: Studies in Race Emancipation (1911. Reprinted London: Frank Cass, 1969, ISBN 0-7146-1753-9. Black Classic Press, with an Introduction by Molefi Kete Asante, 2011)
- Gold Coast Land Tenure and the Forest Bill (1911)
- William Waddy Harris, the West African reformer (1915)
- United West Africa (1919)
- West African Leadership: Public speeches delivered by the Honourable J. E. Casely Hayford; edited by Magnus J. Sampson (1951)
