1. Popular usage in the extant literature is “queen-mother.” The use of “queenmother” however does not adequately capture the institution that it purports to describe. Obviously, a colonial construct that tended to mean the mother of the queen instead of a queen in her own right. Throughout this study, I follow Kwame Arhin’s usage of ohemma or queen instead of queen-mother. See Kwame Arhin, “The Political and Military Roles of Akan Women,” in Female and Male in West Africa, ed. Christine Oppong (London, 1983), 93–97.
2. For the processes of abolition in the Gold Coast, see e.g., Gerald M. McSheffrey, “Slavery, Indentured Servitude, Legitimate Trade and the Impact of Abolition in the Gold Coast, 1874–1901.” Journal of African History 24 (1983): 349–268; Raymond Dumett and Marion Johnson, “Britain and the Suppression of Slavery in the Gold Coast Colony, Ashanti and the Northern Territories,” in The End of Slavery in Africa ed. Suzanne Miers and Richard Roberts (Madison 1988), 71–116; Kwabena Opare-Akurang [Akurang-Parry], “The Administration of the Abolition Laws, African Responses, and Post-Proclamation Slavery in Colonial Southern Ghana, 1874–1940,” Slavery and Abolition 19 (1998): 149–166. Kwabena O. Akurang-Parry, “Slavery and Abolition in the Gold Coast: Colonial Modes of Emancipation and African Initiatives.” Ghana Studies 1 (1998): 11–34; Kwabena O. Akurang-Parry, “‘A Smattering of Education’ and Petitions as Sources: A Study of African Slave-Holders’ Responses to Abolition in the Gold Coast, 1874–1875,” History in Africa 27 (2000): 39–60; Kwabena O. Akurang-Parry, “Rethinking the ‘Slaves of Salaga’: Post-Proclamation Slavery in the Gold Coast (Colonial Southern Ghana), 1874–1899,” Left History 8, no. 1 (2002): 33–60; and Peter Haenger, Slaves and Slave Holders on the Gold Coast (Basel, 2000).
3. See, e.g., Claire C. Robertson, “Post-Proclamation Slavery in Accra,” in Women and Slavery in Africa ed. Martin Klein and Claire C. Robertson (Madison, 1983), 220–245; Beverly Grier, “Pawns, Porters, and Petty Traders: Women in the Transition to Cash Crop Agriculture in Colonial Ghana,” in Pawnship in Africa: Debt Bondage in Historical Perspective ed. Toyin Falola and Paul E. Lovejoy (Boulder, 1994), 178–182; Gareth Austin, “Human Pawning in Asante, 1800–1950: Markets and Coercion, Gender and Cocoa,” in Pawnship in Africa, ed. Falola and Lovejoy, 119–159; Kwabena O. Akurang-Parry, “Colonial Forced Labor Policies for Road-Building in Southern Ghana and International Anti-Forced Labor Pressures, 1900–1940,” African Economic History 28 (2001): 1–25; Kwabena O. Akurang-Parry, “‘What is and What is not the Law:’ Imprisonment for Debt and the Institution of Pawnship in the Gold Coast, 1821–1899,” in Pawnship, Slavery, and Colonialism in Africa ed. Paul E. Lovejoy and Toyin Falola (Trenton, NJ, 2003), 427–447; Kwabena O. Akurang-Parry, “Labor Mobilization and African Responses to the Compulsory Labor Ordinance in the Gold Coast, 1875–1899,” Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana, forthcoming; and Kwabena O. Akurang-Parry, “‘The Loads Are Heavier than Usual’: Forced Labor by Women and Children in the Central Province of the Gold Coast (Colonial Ghana), 1900–1940,” African Economic History, forthcoming.
4. Claire Robertson, “Ga Women and Socioeconomic Change,” in Women in Africa: Studies in Social and Economic Change ed. Nancy J. Hafkin and Edna G. Bay (Stanford, 1976), 111–117; Agnes Akosua Aidoo, “Women in the History and Culture of Ghana,” in Women’s Studies with a Focus on Ghana ed. Mansa Prah (Schriesheim, 1995), 206–217; Haenger, Slaves and Holders, 32–48; Kwabena O. Akurang-Parry, “These are Matters … The Most Refreshing’: Aspects of Elite Women’s Agency and Activism in the Gold Coast (Colonial Ghana), 1874–1890,” International Journal of African Historical Studies, forthcoming.
5. See, e.g., Ivor Wilks, “She Who Blazed the Trail: Akyaawa Yikwan of Asante,” in Life Histories of African Women, ed. Patricia W. Romero (Atlantic Highlands, NJ, 1988), 113–139; Aidoo, “Asante Queen Mothers,” in Life Histories of African Women ed. Patricia W. Romero 65–77; and Arhin, “The Political and Military Roles of Akan Women,” 95–97.