Hayford, Casely:

$750 · Offered by William Reese Company · No longer available

THE TRUTH ABOUT THE WEST AFRICAN LAND QUESTION. A significant association copy, tying together three early African and African American civil rights leaders, written by one of those leaders in opposition to the British Forest Bill of 1911. This copy is from John Wesley Cromwell's personal library with a gift inscription on the front free endpaper from the noted American journalist, historian, and Pan-African Nationalist, John Edward Bruce: "To my good friend John Wesley Cromwell, 'old reliable' with best wishes, John E. Bruce 'Grit', Yonkers, N.Y., 11/8/13." Above the inscription Cromwell wrote "Read it." The press notices at the back of the book include one credited to John Edward Bruce, which Cromwell bracketed and noted "Written by 'J.W.C.'" in the margin.The British Forest Bill allowed management of uncultivated lands, defined by the British as "waste lands," in the Central and Western Provinces of the Gold Coast to rest with the British government. Casely Hayford, a native of the Cape Coast Colony (now Ghana), a member of the Pan-African Nationalist movement and a member of the bar who studied at the Inner Temple, argues here that "under Ghanaian customary law, all land even that which appears abandoned or uncultivated, remained under ownership and thus could not be ceded or occupied under the territorial acquisition rules of jus publicum Europaeum" (Yusuf). In his argument, Hayford promotes the agenda of the of the Pan-African Nationalist movement by standing against Br

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