Photo credit: Geni
Joseph William De Graft Johnson (August 5, 1860- February 28, 1928), a Cape Coast merchant, popularly known as Kwesi Johnson, was closely connected with political movements in the Gold Coast in the later years of the 19th and earlier years of the 20th century.
He was born at Cape Coast in 1860, the son of Joseph Benjamin Johnson, a merchant who moved from Sierra Leone to the Gold Coast, and of Betsey de Graft, daughter of Joseph de Graft (1756-1843), a prominent Gold Coast figure. On his father’s side he was the grandson of Robert Swain Johnson, a British colonial secretary serving in Sierra Leone at the time when Freetown was the administrative centre for both the Gold Coast and Sierra Leone.
He was educated at the Colonial School, Cape Coast, under the supervision of his maternal uncle, John Coleman de Graft, a well-known political figure. Through his uncle’s influence, he added ‘de Graft’ to his name. Upon leaving school he served his apprenticeship in the employment of the well-known Gold Coast trading firm of F. and A. Swanzy, subsequently becoming the firm’s factor at Elmina in the early 1880s.
He first attracted public attention as the leader of a strike of shipping and landing clerks at Cape Coast, protesting a new regulation which legalised port labour on Sundays. In 1891 he was assaulted by a British officer on board a man-o’-war, and returned the assault. He left for the shore in his boat, being chased by the ship’s launch, but managing to escape. The next day he was extradited, and was tried by court martial on the British ship, but was cleared of the charges against him.
As the factor for the Swanzy firm at Elmina he acquired considerable commercial experience. In the course of the 1890s he established his own business, specialising in the silk trade, in which he became so successful that he was able to devote time and money to the promotion of education and agriculture.
It was partly due to him that the Wesleyan High School (later Mfantsipim) in the Cape Coast was not closed down permanently by the Methodist Church in 1889, but was reopened as the Collegiate School. Though an Anglican, he realised the serious set-back to education that would result from such a closure, and therefore gave the school some financial support. He also sought financial aid for the school from such contemporaries as John Mensah Sarbah and J.P. Brown, in order to have the school reopened under the headmastership of J.E Casely Hayford. Casely Hayford stated that de Graft Johnson was one of the three men who were mostly connected with the political movements in the country from 1886 to 1898.
He was a co-founder of the Aborigines’ Rights Protection Society (A.R.P.S), and suggested the inclusion of the words ‘Rights Protection’ in the society’s name. As a society member, he campaigned against the Lands Bill of 1897, which jeopardised the traditional African land tenure system, and which was withdrawn as a result of the A.R.P.S. opposition. For many years he was an elected and independent member of the Cape Coast Town Council, and remained a prominent member of the Cape Coast community until his death.
He married once, his wife from Kyebi in Akyem Abuakwa. But his wife died young, after which he married only in the customary way. He had 17 children, one of whom, Dr. J.W. de Graft Jphnson (1893-1971) was the author of Towards Nationhood in Africa (1928).
In 1928 he was mortally wounded by a falling tree at his farming cottage, called ‘Sisikor’, in the Assin Apimanim Traditional Area, some distance inland from Cape Coast. He died a few hours later in Cape Coast hospital.
J.C. DE GRAFT JOHNSON
