Exhuming and highlighting the nearly forgotten Gold Coast intelligentsia: The life and times of Prince Kwamin Atta Amonoo V

Abstract

The name K. A. Amonoo sits in the Roll of Honour in the entrance hall of Queen’s College, Taunton, Somerset, England together with the names of other former pupils who served in the First World War. In recent times, focus on K. A. Amonoo has been on his palatial residence, which he built in Anomabo, a coastal town in Ghana, in colonial Gold Coast, as Micots (2015 and 2017) have sought to emphasize in terms of the architectural design of his residence. Therefore, what this paper seeks to do is to bring to light a historically significant narrative of who Amonoo was, as a case study to examine and foreground the contributions of some of the nearly forgotten African intelligentsia of coastal Ghana. Through close analysis, the paper also places a central gaze on his activism within colonial Gold Coast and Calabar in colonial Nigeria as subtle moves to counter the growing authority of the British administration. Utilizing a set of key biographical prompts, the paper reflects on thematic issues such as class and status, modernity, and resistance to British colonial hegemony.