Gold Coast Aborigines' Rights Protection Society

rdf:langString Gold Coast Aborigines' Rights Protection Society

rdf:langString The Gold Coast Aborigines' Rights Protection Society (ARPS) was an African anti-colonialist organization formed in 1897 in the Gold Coast, as Ghana was then known. Originally established by traditional leaders and the educated elite to protest the Crown Lands Bill of 1896 and the Lands Bill of 1897, which threatened traditional land tenure, the Gold Coast ARPS became the main political organisation that led organised and sustained opposition against the colonial government in the Gold Coast, laying the foundation for political action that would ultimately lead to Ghanaian independence. Its delegates were active in international organizations and at the 1945 Pan-African Congress, it gained support from Kwame Nkrumah, who later became the main leader of the independence movement. However, the middle class intellectuals who supported the Society broke with Nkrumah because they were less committed to full-scale revolutionary effort. Consequently, the Society declined as a major political force. J.W. de Graft-Johnson, Jacob Wilson Sey, J. P. Brown, J. E. Casely Hayford, and John Mensah Sarbah were co-founders.