殖民地时期加纳土地制度的变化

CHANGES OF LAND TENURE IN CHANA IN THE COLONIAL PERIOD

加纳是第二次世界大战后首先获得独立的黑非洲国家。以恩克鲁玛为代表的加纳民族主义者,对加纳和非洲的民族独立事业作出了重要的贡献,但他们对加纳的土地制度未作认真的考察,认识上摇摆不定。

Just like many oriental countries,Ghana preserved the communal land ownership on entering the slave society from the primitive commune. At a time when the slave system was yet to be fully developed,Ghana was invaded by the European colonists and reduced to be a British colony at the end of the 19th century.Both the Bill of 1894 and the Bill of 1897,with which the British colonists sought to grab the land from the Ghanaians,came to nought because of the vigorous opposition on the part of the Ghanaian people. Then the British colonialists encouraged the development of the monoculture of cocoa, built railways and highways, exploited the Ghanaian people through purchasing cocoa cheap and selling the industrial goods at high price,thus dragging the Ghanaian villages into the capitalist world market, that eventually led the communal land ownership to disintegration. Accordingly, class relationship in the rural areas also underwent changes with the emergence of such classes and stratum as landlords,rich farmers,owner-peasants,share-croppers,farm labourers and so on. Meanwhile, owing to the fact that the British colonialists retained many plitical and economic privileges of the chiefs at different levels and kept the outer covering of the communal land ownership and many customs,the disinte- gration of the commnual land ownersip took place within its very case,produced a false appearance and often gave people a wrong impression.