British West Africa

The United Kingdom held varying parts of these territories or the whole throughout the 19th century. From west to east, the colonies became the independent countries of The Gambia, Sierra Leone, Ghana and Nigeria. Until independence, Ghana was referred to as the Gold Coast.

Historical jurisdiction

British West Africa constituted during two periods (17 October 1821, until its first dissolution on 13 January 1850, and again 19 February 1866, until its final demise on 28 November 1888) as an administrative entity under a governor-in-chief (comparable in rank to a governor-general), an office vested in the governor of Sierra Leone (at Freetown).

The other colonies originally included in the jurisdiction were the Gambia and the British Gold Coast (modern Ghana). Also western Nigeria, eastern Nigeria and northern Nigeria were included.

Africa's present makeup includes Ghana, Sierra Leone, Gambia, Western Nigeria, Eastern Nigeria and Northern Nigeria. These countries and areas are artifacts of the post-colonial period, or what the Ghanaian writer Kwame Appiah dubs neo-colonialism.

British West Africa was originally founded at the urging of the prominent abolitionist Fowell Buxton, who felt that ending the Atlantic slave trade required some level of British control of the coastline. Development was solely based on modernization, and autonomous educational systems were the first step to modernising indigenous culture. Cultures and interests of indigenous peoples were ignored. A new social order, as well as European influences within schools and libraries and local traditions, helped mould British West Africa's culture. The British West African colonial school curriculum helped play a role in this. Local elites developed, with new values and philosophies, who changed the overall cultural development.