BLANKSON, GEORGE KUNTU

George Kuntu Blankson (1809-August 23, 1898) was an outstanding 19th-century Gold Coast merchant, as well as a soldier, a skilled negotiator, and the first African unofficial member of the Gold Coast Legislative Council, on which he served from 1861-73.

PHOTO CAPTION: George Kuntu Blankson SOURCE: EA Library

He was born in 1809 at Sodufu, between the coastal ports of Elmina and Anomabu. War having broken out in 1807 between Fante states and the Asante, Blankson’s father, Chief Kuntu of Egya near Anomabu, had expected a Fante defeat, and so had moved his wife to Sodufu away from the danger zone.

Blankson anglicized his name Kuntu meaning “blanket” in Akan, to Blankson, following the pattern of the times. Blankson was accepted by Sir Charles Macarthy (governor of Sierra Leone and the Gold Coast 1822-24) as a student at the Colonial School at Anomabu Castle. Later, when the headmaster died, the school removed to Cape Coast Castle. At Cape Coast, Blankson learned English, and passed his examinations creditably.

On leaving school he was employed by a merchant named Thompson, and often travelled to Asante to trade on his own. It was during this period that in 1834 he was detained for 18 months by the Asantehene, Osei Yaw Akoto [ruled 1824-38], and employed as his secretary in his correspondence with the British colonial government.

In 1831, Blankson had joined William de Graft, John Sam, and others in forming the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, from which emerged the Wesleyan Mission of the Gold Coast which was founded in 1835 by the Rev. Joseph Dunwell. Blankson took an active part in mission work, and by 1843 was in charge of the Anomabu circuit, with six sub-agents under him. He left the church in 1847 to become a full-time trader, after becoming friends with a Scots trader. Brodie C. Cruickshank (later to become lieutenant-governor of the colony, 1853-54) who decided to transfer his business to him on accepting the post of judicial assessor in Cape Coast Castle. Blankson managed the business so well that he made huge profits in a short time.

Cruickshank was so pleased with Blankson’s success that he offered to take him to England. He did so, and in England Blankson was introduced to Cruickshank’s partners, Messrs. Forster and Smith. Upon his return home, Forster and Smith helped him to extend his business and to establish factories (trading posts) at a number of places in the coastal part of what is now the Central Region of Ghana, including Apam, Anomabu, Asaafa, Cape Coast, Kormantin, Mankoadze (4 mi, or 6 km, west of Winneba) and Winneba.

He built a mansion which still stands opposite Fort William in Anomabu, and owned several slaves. Among his numerous employees in the area was Kodwo Kwegyir, father of the famous educator Dr. J. E. K. Aggrey who acted as Blankson’s gold taker, or assayer. His popularity at the time is attested by a story which is told about an attempt in 1850 by some 19 fetish priests at the Naanam Mpow, a fetish shrine at Mankesim, to poison Blankson and two of his colleagues. Their plot was revealed to him by one of his former boat boys, and the culprits, both men and women, were arrested, tried, and sentenced to terms of imprisonment ranging from two to five years. It is said that this conspiracy was organized because Blankson and his colleagues had prevented the Fante chiefs and the fetish priests of Nanaam from carrying out the execution of converts to Christianity in the Fante area whom they had sentenced to death by drowning.

Though his business activities prevented him from playing his full part in church affairs, he contributed £ 300 towards the building of Ebenezer Church at Anomabu. He also built a school at Mankoadze, and paid for its operation for some years.

His career as a British agent had begun in 1853, when Major Stephen John Hill, governor from 1851-53, appointed him his general assistant, and attached him to the expeditionary force being organized at Dunkwa, 75 mi (120 km) north of Takoradi, under the command of Captain McCourt to rescue a British officer, Captain Brownell, from captivity in Asante. Blankson went on the mission accompanied by 100 men of his own army. It was in recognition of his services and because of his influence with the Asantehene that he was appointed an unofficial member of the Gold Coast Legislative Council by Queen Victoria, serving from 1861-73.

In 1863 when the Asante armies were about to invade Assin, one of the states to the south, the seven Asafo companies (units originally organized to defend the state in time of war) of Anomabu elected Blankson as their commander-in-chief. He accepted the post, armed his forces, supplied ammunition, and marched to meet the Asante forces at Assin Mansu (Manso), 30 mi (40 km) north-north-east of Cape Coast. When he learned that the forces of the Fante coastal state of Ekumfi had been defeated at the battle of Bobikuma, 25 mi (40 km) northwest of Winneba, he went to help them, putting Captain Williams of the Second West Indian Regiment in charge of his own troops.

Blankson was later visited in his camp at Ajumako, 35 mi (56 km) northeast of Cape Coast, by Governor Richard Pine (in office from 1862-65), where he was warmly congratulated for his services, and commissioned honorary lieutenant-colonel of the Native Forces. After the repulse of the Asante forces, the Asantehene closed the trade routes from Asante to the coast.

In 1866 Blankson volunteered to go to Asante to negotiate with the Asantehene, Kwaku Dua I [ruled 1834-67]. His mission, which was successful, resulting in the reopening of the trade routes, increased his popularity with the government. But during this period he lost three of his children, as well as his wife, who died in 1868. In 1869, when the people of Komenda captured some Dutch officers, and when the British emissary, a Dr. Jones, was unable to secure their release, Blankson was given the assignment, and succeeded in having the captives freed.

When the Asante armies invaded the British Protectorate of the Gold Coast in 1873, Blankson again commanded his forces, and encountered the invading army at Taatsi, 20 mi (32 km) north-north-east of Cape Coast, where he fought courageously and received a letter of thanks from Col. R. W. Harley, administrator of the colony from 1872-73. But at this time, unfortunately for Blankson, an informer named Kofi Karray reported to the Fante chiefs that when Blankson had been a captive in Asante in 1834, he had made a secret deal with Osei Yaw Akoto, and in consequence had later supplied him with information about the Protectorate. The Asantehene, Kofi Kakari (1867-74), also charged him at this time with having taken a bribe from an Asante chief while he was in detention in Kumase.

Blankson denied these accusations, but he became extremely unpopular. He was tried by the Fante chiefs and kings who would have killed him but for the timely intervention of Sir Samuel Rowe, a British military surgeon who was then acting as special commissioner, and who later became governor from 1881-84. Blankson was allowed by the Fante chiefs and kings to be sent to Cape Coast Castle as a prisoner and was kept there until October 1873 when Sir Garnet Wolseley, who commanded the military expedition to Kumase in the Asante war of 1873-74 (the Sagrenti War), ordered his release.

Blankson was tried in 1874 by a bench of magistrates, and was acquitted and discharged. But because feelings ran high against him, his plantations were plundered and his crops, buildings, and factories destroyed. After his acquittal he was forced to live a solitary life for 12 years. Under the influence of the Rev. T. B. Freeman, however, he joined the Methodist Church, acting as a lay preacher and officer of the church until 1896 when old age obliged him to retire.

His wealth made it possible for him to educate his children in England. Two of them–George Blankson Jr., who is said to have drawn up the articles of the constitution of the Fante confederation, promulgated in 1871, and a daughter, Mrs. Mercy Wrigley-became distinguished citizens.

Though Blankson frequently alluded to his troubles with the Fante kings and chiefs which overshadowed his later years, he regarded these troubles as a blessing in disguise, since in the years of isolation which he then experienced, he became a devout Christian. He died in 1898 at Anomabu.

L. H. OFOSU-APPIAH