The Gold Coast Aborigines abroad

The article discusses the contacts between the proto-nationalist Gold CoasAborigines' Rights Protection Societyt and left-wing and Communist organizations in Europe and in Britain during the 1930s. The Society represented the interests of chiefs, merchants and barristers who found their political and economic positions threatened by the depression and by the tightening up of colonial rule. The Society reacted by petitioning the British Government for greater political representation and for redress of specific grievances. Left-wing groups in Europe at first regarded the Society as a popular nationalist body and offered it support. The Profintern attempted to influence it, while organizations such as the League Against Imperialism helped the Society in its petitions to the Colonial Office and to the House of Commons. But the narrow social base of the Society made it deaf to a radical socialist programme, and incapable of organizing a mass movement which could effectively pressure the British Government.