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certain Gold Coast chiefs under the so-called Bond of 1844. The process
was completed in 1876 with the institution of District Commissioners'
courts-as-wellasof a Supreme Gourtwith-appellatejurisdiction, and-the
creation of the office of Chief Justice to review the sentences passed by
District Commissioners (Ibidem: 303-5). The effect of these developments
was an inherent weakening of the judicial powers of the Chiefs not only
because, according to Mensah Sarbah, 'In the African mind, leadership
carries with it the administration of justice', but equally because the
increasing tendency to appeal to the British courts significantly reduced the
Chiefs' revenue from fines and fees.
Apart from the limited revenue which the hearing of cases continued
to bring in, 'the only [other] existing regular source of income was
the revenue from Stool lands, but this was usually barely sufficient to
maintain the upkeep of the Chiefs and the cost of the constant litigation
arising out of these lands' (Stone 1971: 8). Although we are convinced that
the general case is thus correctly stated, exceptions to it were of such
importance that they deserve special attention. These exceptions, which
allowed the custodians of the land - whether Paramount Chiefs, sub­
Chiefs or family heads - to earn considerable incomes, presented
themselves whenever a Stool or ebusua was in control of sizeable reserves
of unoccupied land which, having represented no special value until
colonial times, became subject to great demand in the latter part of the
nineteenth century. Firstly, there was the demand for mining concessions
which arose after foreign capitalists had reorganized the gold-mining
industry (cf. Dickson 1971: 182). Secondly, there was a growing demand for
timber concessions after British control did away with barriers to the use
of rivers as a means of transporting logs to the coast (Ibidem: 176).18
Thirdly, in some areas such as Akim Abuakwa, extensive tracts of .
unoccupied land attracted the interest of capitalist cocoa farmers.
It is thus understandable that it was suddenly important to establish
who, under Ghanaian land law, held the title to unoccupied lands and
therefore could rightfully decide to alienate such lands to concessionaires
or farmers. Those chiefs who had lost their revenues from lands which,
formally under their custody, were now being occupied and cultivated and
who now received little more than 'loyalty' (and at most an annual tokenpayment),
turned their attention immediately to the so-called' waste lands'
which previously had meant little or nothing to them.
The wave ofland deals in the 1870s and 1880s by which chiefs alienated
unoccupied lands to foreign capital interests for mining or logging
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