International Journal of African Historical Studies Vol. 53, No. 2 (2020) 173 Copyright © 2020 by the Board of Trustees of Boston University Imperial Policing and the Antinomies of Power in Early Colonial Ghana By Sarah Balakrishnan University of Virginia (sb6wj@virginia.edu) Abstract: In the nineteenth century, constabulary officers in the British Gold Coast were emancipated slaves purchased for conscription. From 1870 to 1900, British officials bought enslaved men of “Hausa” origin, hailing from the Northern territories and the Niger hinterland. In Britain’s eyes, Hausas constituted a venerable “martial race,” ideal for policing. But to local communities, they were an ethnic group known for their enslaved past. This essay reassesses dynamics of policing and imprisonment in the colony through the histories of slavery and abolition. It argues that one result of Britain’s recruitment practices was that police wanted to escape the colonial state as much as the convicts under their care. The colonial prison was riven by a phenomenon of mutual escape. These conditions formed the antinomies of power in early colonial Ghana. Keywords: police, colonialism, slavery, prison, Ghana Introduction In each edition of the British state’s official newspaper, The Government Gazette, printed for the colony of the Gold Coast (present-day southern Ghana), ran two parallel columns of Wanted Ads. The first concerned a familiar provocateur. Resembling fugitive slave ads from a century prior, the circulars advertised the detailed profiles of escaped prisoners and offered £1 rewards for their recapture. A typical ad from 1878 reads: ESCAPED … whilst at work outside the Elmina Castle on the 7 th instant, Criminal Prisoner Dodo Garribah, Houssa, height 5 feet 1 inch; short and stout, complexion dark, round face, small eyes, three small scars on the left side back, left thumb disfigured by disease, left foot minus a toe, a scar (spear wound) on the left side of the head; age, about 30 years. 1 In the adjacent column, the second Wanted Ad concerned a somewhat less conventional felon: DESERTED from the Gold Coast Constabulary (Houssa), from Elmina, on the 1 st June 1882, No. 598 Acting Gunner Owonibi. Height, 5 feet 7 ½ inches; complexion, light; strongly built and stout; small eyes; hair, black and woolly; sharp nose; round face without marks; no beard, whiskers or moustache; country, Ackaye in Niger District. 2 Side by side with notices for escaped criminals were those for constables who served in the colony’s prison staff and police. Between 1870 and 1900, officers deserted this force in rates of 20–30 percent per annum, provoking the same £1 rewards for their 1 Government Gazette (Accra), 4 November 1878. 2 Government Gazette, 30 June 1882.