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John Mensah Sarbah: One of Ghana’s founding fathers & founding member of the pan-African organization ARPS
John Mensah Sarbah was a selfless nationalist, leader, and legal pioneer to end colonial rule. Born in Cape Coast in 1864. Sarbah was the eldest son of John Sarbah, a wealthy business merchant and well-educated elite. He is also known as a founder of Mfantsipim School.
John Mensah Sarbah was born on Friday, 3 June 1864, in Anomabu, in the Fante Confederacy in the Gold Coast. He was the eldest son of John Sarbah (1834–1892), a merchant of Anomabu and Cape Coast and a member of the Legislative Council of the Gold Coast, and his was wife Sarah.
Mensah Sarbah was educated at the Cape Coast Wesleyan School (later renamed – by Mensah Sarbah himself – as Mfantsipim School) and then at Queen’s College in Taunton, Somerset, England, matriculating in 1884. He subsequently entered Lincoln’s Inn in London to train as a barrister, and was called to the English bar in 1887 – the first African from his country to qualify in this way.
On his return from England in 1887, Mensah Sarbah at once plunged into politics. Both the chiefs and the educated elite were nursing grievances against the colonial government, and Sarbah became their chief spokesman. After the abortive Fanti Confederation scheme of 1868-1872, the Fante fought the Dutch in 1872 and defended and defeated a massive Asante attack in 1873. Both major and bloody wars resulted in a weakened and broke Confederation which was torn down by the British anyway. And then after an Asante-British war of 1874, the British government abandoned its haphazard rule and decided to start its new role as a full-scale colonial power. The chiefs had been made to understand that they would play an active role in the new colonial set-up. 3 7 The Legislative Council passed a Native Jurisdiction Ordinance in 1878 which endowed the chiefs with jurisdiction over minor crimes and civil disputes on the basis of African customary law. This ordinance was not put into practice for a variety of reasons, one of which was that the local British administrators were unwilling to tolerate any dual authority in their districts. The power of the chiefs was further undermined through the influence of missionaries, the spread of education, and the graduation from a subsistence to a money economy.
In 1897, along with J. W. de Graft-Johnson, J. W. Sey, J. P. Brown and J. E. Casely Hayford, Mensah Sarbah co-founded the Aborigines’ Rights Protection Society, which became the main political organisation that led organised and sustained opposition against the colonial government, laying the foundation for Ghanaian independence.
He was appointed a member of the Legislative Council in 1901, and was re-appointed in 1906.
In the first birthday honours of King George V, Mensah Sarbah was recognised with the award of a CMG in 1910, a few months before his sudden death at the age of 46, on Sunday, 27 November 1910.
Contributions to education
John Mensah Sarbah was dedicated to the promotion of secondary education and was responsible for various initiatives, including the founding of a Dutton scholarship at Queen’s College, Taunton, in memory of his younger brother, Joseph Dutton Sarbah, who had died there in 1892. In 1903, Sarbah and William Edward Sam promoted an enterprise called the Fanti Public Schools Limited and Sarbah also helped establish the Fanti National Education Fund, which aimed to improve educational facilities in the country and awarded scholarships. He founded a scholarship scheme called the Dutton Sarbah Scholarship at Mfantsipim School and helped pay the salaries of the staff when the school encountered financial difficulties.
Legacy
First Ghanaian Lawyer and Pan Africanist Activities
In 1897 he collaborated with Joseph Ephraim Casely Hayford, JP Brown, JW de Graft Johnson, and others to form the Aborigines’ Rights Protection Society (ARPS). The aims and objectives of ARPS basically were to protect the traditional land tenure norms of the Indigenous Gold Coast peoples and more concretely to ensure that every person may understand the concept of the Lands Bill of 1897 which was introduced by the crown colony.
John Mensah Sarbah was elected by his fellow colleagues to present the indigenous case against the Lands Bill to the Legislative Assembly, which at the time was composed only of British Crown representatives. Sarbah failed to influence the opinion of Governor Sir William Maxwell, however, his action sparked zeal among his colleagues.
In 1898 ARPS sent a delegation to London and successfully got the Lands Bill overturned. ARPS successfully defended the interests of native African people against colonizers for decades and began to form an early public meeting for opinions for independence. Publications such as Gold Coast Nation and Gold Coast Times came from this organization.
Sarbah’s intellectual leadership was recognized among his countrymen, the African elite across the continent, and even the Crown.
Relating to the Gold Coast Aborigines Rights Protection Society (A.R.P.S.), which was formed in 1898 as a protest movement against the local government’s Lands Bill of 1897, has hitherto tended to concentrate exclusively on the Society’s role in the local politics of the Gold Coast.’ It is not commonly appreciated that the Society also looked beyond the limits of its immediate objectives, and took interest in, and identified itself with, the worldwide movement of colored peoples and, following World War I, the vigorous assertion of race-consciousness in America and the West Indies. The nationalism of the early twentieth century Gold Coast was more complex than that of the nineteenth century. Its leaders thought of themselves as belonging to a race which would, in due course, try conclusions with the white peoples of the world. The Aborigines movement, with particular emphasis on its steady contacts with the anti-imperialists and pan-Africanists abroad culminated in its participation in the 1945 Pan-African Congress held in Manchester. Almost throughout the period of its existence, pan-African consciousness was very much evident in the thought and activities of the Aborigines Society. The leaders of the Society were keenly aware of their membership in the Negro race and were desirous to maintain the integrity and to assert the equality of that race. They identified themselves with the problems affecting the African continent as a whole and developed a sense of affinity with national movements in other parts of the world. Thus, since its inception, the Society received tremendous impetus from news from abroad about such outstanding events as the Japanese defeat of imperial Russia, one of the most formidable powers of conquering Europe, in January, 1905. Not long before the formation of the Society there had been similar news about the severe defeat which the Italians suffered at the hands of the Ethiopians at Adowa on March 1, 1896.
Honour at the University of Ghana
In 1963, a residence hall of the University of Ghana was named Mensah Sarbah Hall in his honour for his services to education, with a statue of John Mensah Sarbah is in front of it. Members of the hall are known as Vikings as a reference to him who is a true Viking for his country. Sarbah-Picot House at Mfantsipim School is named after him.
Selected bibliography
- 1897 – Fanti Customary Laws: a brief introduction to the principles of the native laws and customs of the Fanti and Akan districts of the Gold Coast, with a report of some cases thereon decided in the Law Courts
- 1904 – Fanti Law Reports
- 1906 – The Fanti National Constitution: a short treatise on the constitution and government of the Fanti, Asanti, and other Akan tribes of West Africa, together with a brief account of the discovery of the Gold Coast by Portuguese navigators, a short narration of English voyages, and a study of the rise of British Gold Coast jurisdiction, etc., etc.
- 1909 – The Palm Oil and Its Products
