James Hutton Brew (July 13, 1844- April 14, 1915) was an early advocate of representative government on the Gold Coast, and has been called the “pioneer of West African journalism”.
Also known as “Prince Brew of Dunkwa”, he was the son of Samuel Collins Brew (c. 1810-1881), a member of the Gold Coast Legislative Council from 1864-66, and an Anomabu merchant. His mother was Amba Opanwa of the stool family of Asokwa, near Abora Dunkwa, in what is now southwestern Ghana. He was descended on his father’s side from the 18th century British trader Richard Brew. (q. v.)
He was educated in England, where he was sent at the age of eight, and where he qualified as a solicitor in 1861. After his return home, he was licensed in 1864 to practise as one of the first Gold Coast attorneys. He continued his practice until 1880.
Within a short time he became deeply involved in the Fante Confederation, which was founded in 1868, and advocated a written constitution. Brew was invited by the chiefs to help draft a constitution that would give the Fante people a more effective central government within the framework of the traditional order.
Brew was appointed Under-Secretary of the Executive Council of the Confederation, and so became its spokesman in its dealings with the British at Cape Coast castle. On November 31, 1871, Brew and W. E. Davidson, Vice-President of the Executive Council, called on C. S. Salmon, the British Acting Administrator (1871- 72), at the castle, and presented him with a letter from the Fante National Assembly for the British Governor-in-Chief, together with a copy of the constitution for the benefit of the Secretary of State in London.
Salmon, however, considered the Confederation to be a conspiracy against the British government, and Brew to be “a penniless lawyer, with an awful character (a half caste).” He ordered the arrest and detention of the entire Confederation Executive. Brew was one of those who appeared in court on December 7 to answer a charge of conspiracy brought by the British government. Salmon’s action, however, was disapproved by the British Colonial Office, and those arrested were released.
After the collapse of the Fante Confederation and the British assumption of sovereignty on the Gold Coast in 1874, Brew tried hard to secure recognition of African rights. He campaigned for political reforms which would lead to self-government. He aimed at a representative form of government which would allow more scope than the prevailing regime gave for the expression of African opinion. In the mid-1880s, he proposed an elected Legislative Council exercising sovereign power in the country and to which the governor would be responsible.
He suggested that all identifiable groups in society, from illiterates to Europeans, should have representatives in the Council. By using the press and advocating the sending of deputations to Britain, he sought to show the British government the strength of local feeling. After the breakdown of the Confederation, he founded a succession of newspapers in Cape Coast. First came the Gold Coast Times (1874), and then the Western echo (1885), followed by the Gold Coast Echo (1888).
In these newspapers Brew emphasised the distinctive African culture of the Gold Coast, described the shortcomings of the British government, and carried on his movement for political reform. Copies of the Western Echo were sent regularly to the Colonial Office and to influential circles in Britain in order to highlight the African grievances.
He also used the press to urge that a deputation should be sent to the Colonial Office to express African views on the subject of representative government. As a result of his agitation, and because of fears that he might get questions asked in the British Parliament, the governor, in 1886, once more began to appoint African unofficial members in the Legislative Council, and after 1887 this became a normal practice.
Between 1888 and 1915, the year of his death, Brew lived in England. During this period he was preoccupied with the future of Asante, and with British land policy on the Gold Coast. In the 1890s the Asante feared that the growing British interest in the Gold Coast hinterland might result in the extension of British protection to Asante.
In 1895 they therefore sent a deputation to England to seek clarification of British intentions. Led by John and Albert Owusu Ansah, the deputation had the active support of Brew as its London spokesman and associate. In spite of Brew’s efforts, however, the Asante deputation was not received by the Colonial Office.
Brew also concerned himself with the Crown Lands Bill of 1894, which would have vested possession of “waste lands, forest lands, and minerals” in the Queen. In March 1895 he argued that the Gold Coast did not become a Protectorate as a result of “conquest, cession or treaty”, and so the British government’s powers did not extend to rights over land.
In 1898 a deputation sponsored by the Gold Coast Aborigines’ Rights Protection Society (A. R. P. S) obtained an audience at the Colonial Office, where it successfully made known the opposition of Africans to the Lands Bill, with the result that it was withdrawn.
In general, British officials regarded Brew as a self-seeking adventurer of doubtful character. Some of them maintained that the real aim of Brew- “the curse of the West Coast” as one official called him and other educated individuals – in proposing a deputation in the mid-1880s was to advance their own interests and to secure financing for a holiday overseas.
It is true that Brew had business interests. He had, for example, connections with the Gold Coast Native Concession Purchasing Company Ltd., founded in 1882. But he was not a penniless adventurer. From the perspective of time, he can now be seen as a genuine nationalist whose agitation achieved lasting results. He died in London on April 14, 1915. J. K. FYNN
