Publication History:

Place of Publication:  Accra, Ghana, West Africa

Frequency: Unknown

Volume and Issue Data: Published from 1858, for 16 years; “circulated among 300 subscribers, two-thirds of them African”

Size and Format: “handwritten”

Editor/Publisher: Charles Bannerman, “first African to publish a newspaper in West Africa” (according to Akufo-Addo)

Title Changes and Continuation: Unknown

General Description and Notes:

According to John Chick, the paper appeared in 1857, the year of Ghanaian independence. However, according to the BBC, the year was 1858:

The first African produced paper in West Africa was Charles Bannerman’s Accra Herald, produced in 1858 in the Gold Coast (modern Ghana).

Akufo-Addo also support the 1858 date. He claims that Charles Bannerman was  the first African to publish a newspaper in West Africa.

According to Hasty,

The first newspaper, The Gold Coast Gazette and Commercial Intelligencer, was published from 1822-25 by Sir Charles MacCarthy, governor of the British Gold Coast settlements. As a semi-official organ of the colonial government, the central goal of this Cape Coast newspaper was to provide information to European merchants and civil servants in the colony. Recognizing the growing number of mission-educated Africans in the Gold Coast, the paper also aimed at promoting literacy, encouraging rural development, and quelling the political aspirations of this class of native elites by securing their loyalty and conformity with the colonial system.

The appropriation of print media by local African elites began in mid-century with the publication of The Accra Herald by Charles Bannerman, son of a British lieutenant governor and a princess from the Asante royal family. Handwritten like MacCarthy’s former colonial paper, The Accra Herald was circulated to some 300 subscribers, two-thirds of them African. Enduring for 16 years, the success of Bannerman’s paper stimulated a proliferation of African-owned newspapers in the late nineteenth century . . . (emphasis added)

Information Sources:

Bibliography:  John D. Chick, “The Asanti Times: A Footnote in Ghanaian Press History,” African Affairs, 76:302 (1977), p. 80 (fn.3); “The Story of Africa: African History from the Dawn of Time,” BBC World Service, accessed August 18, 2011; Nano Akufo-Addo, “Welcome Back! A Goodwill Message,” The Statesman, republished on the Modern Ghana website, March 21, 2011; Jennifer Hasty, “Ghana,” World Press Encyclopedia (2003);  JenniferHasty,  Big Language and Brown Envelopes: The Press and Political Culture in Ghana,  Ph.D. Dissertation, Duke University, 1999

Locations:  Unknown