Gold Coast Research Articles

PROMOTING PARTICIPATION IN COMMUNITY RUNNING FESTIVALS FOR INDIVIDUALS WITH PARKINSON’S DISEASE - A MODEL FOR MEANINGFUL PARTICIPATION

INTRODUCTION AND AIMS Community-based walking and running groups have become popular social phenomena in recent years. Integrating individuals with Parkinson’s disease into community-based walking and running events confers multiple socio-biological benefits, but may be problematic for individuals with Parkinson’s disease in the later stages of the disease progression. METHODS This research evaluates the participation of a group of individuals with Parkinson’s disease in a long-standing community running festival, the Gold Coast Marathon Festival. Evaluation of participation comprised: 1) description of the activities undertaken by the Exercise Physiologists to ensure the safe and effective participation of the interested parties; and 2) a qualitative evaluation of the participant’s experiences with the event. RESULTS Ten adults with Parkinson’s disease (70% male), mean age 69.6 ± 7.8 years (range = 57-79) participated. Time post-diagnosis ranged 1 to 15 years (mean = 6.7 ± 4.4 years). Participants registered to complete one of two distances: 5.7 km (n = 9) or 700 m (n = 1). Activities undertaken by the Exercise Physiologist prior to participating were divided into three themes: participation, safety, and administrative requirements. Participant experiential data was divided into six themes: preparation prior to participating; pre participation planning and organisation; reasons/meaning for choosing to participate; barriers for participating; event recovery; and event suitability. The data collated was triangulated to provide recommendations to facilitate participation in similar events. CONCLUSION The results of this study demonstrate that with effective planning and coordination, participation in community-based walking and running events confer physical and mental health benefits for individuals with Parkinson’s disease. However, significant barriers need to be addressed prior to participation to ensure meaningful participation. This paper provides recommendations for practicing Exercise Physiologists who wish to promote participation of their own clients with Parkinson’s disease in similar initiatives.

Subjective vs. objective assessment of the economic impacts of light rail transit: The case of G:Link in Gold Coast, Australia

While the current discourse surrounding the economic impacts of light rail transit (LRT) predominantly leans on objective metrics, emerging signs point to a possible disparity between subjective perceptions and these objective evaluations. This study endeavours to fill this void by scrutinizing the impacts of the G:Link in Gold Coast, Australia on local businesses, prompted by anecdotal commentary of adverse effects. Conducting 23 interviews with businesses in Surfers Paradise, located within the G:Link's influential zone, helped identify thematic economic effects. Subsequently, Difference-in-Difference and time-series regression models were estimated to objectively validate four of the identified thematic effects: changes in travel behaviour, business performance, customer base, and tourism activity. While businesses perceived the G:Link as ineffective in promoting public transport and blamed it for their economic downturns, objective data countered these perceptions. It revealed that the G:Link contributed to a 3.6% rise in public transport usage to Surfers Paradise. The economic downturn experienced by businesses cannot be linked to the LRT; rather, it mirrors a broader citywide temporal effect. Furthermore, in contrast to prevailing beliefs, there was a notable increase in both customer volumes and their dwell times. The findings offer nuanced insights into LRT's effects on individual businesses and aggregated impacts, highlighting prevalent misperceptions that could undermine public support, investment opportunities, and sustainable transport choices. Addressing these misunderstandings necessitates robust education and communication strategies.

Field Configuration Around a Major Sport Event: Boundary Work and Implications for Perpetuation of “The Legacy Rhetoric”

This research analyzed the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games (GC2018) as a field configuring event (FCE). The research develops understanding around the key actors, processes, and products of field configuration prompted in the host community of a major event. A qualitative single case study research design was used that relied on interview data, participant observations, and organizational documents. Findings demonstrated how boundary work by GC2018 field-level governance actors yielded a focus on achieving legacy outcomes for a select few host community stakeholders. This study adds new insight on the persistence of “the legacy rhetoric” in event management. Recognition of the exclusionary nature of boundary work associated with field governance around major events emerged as a key prerequisite for shifting thinking beyond the legacy rhetoric and towards a more holistic leveraging perspective.

More Than an Intermediary: James Bannerman and Colonial Space-Making on the Nineteenth-Century Gold Coast

Abstract Scholars have emphasized the importance and autonomy of African intermediaries in European imperial projects. However, intermediaries have not been studied as founders of (proto) colonial administrations. Between 1840 and 1874, the inchoate British establishment on the Gold Coast was largely a project of Anglo-African merchants, rooted in their political visions of “progress.” Merchants like James Bannerman provided infrastructure, institutions, and material form to the administration and intended it as a force for development. Ultimately, the British administration exercised its hegemony through Euro-African infrastructures, spaces, and ideas. Consequently, merchants like Bannerman undermined their local networks, rulers, and dependents who opposed British domination.

Ray Kea and the Historians of the Gold Coast: Debates Over Continuity and Rupture in African and African Diaspora Atlantic Histories

The central role of Gold Coast societies, ports, and cities in the emerging Atlantic circuit is critical to understanding the history of the Atlantic world. The study of the causes and effects of Gold Coast societies’ transition from African polities and economies to transatlantic entrepots and trading emporiums and their subsequent impact on the Americas has been the hallmark of Ray Kea's scholarship. Since the beginning of his career, Kea has been a significant contributor to the study of the African Atlantic, and the field's various debates and disciplinary evolutions. While many scholars of the Gold Coast recognize Kea's work as foundational to scholarship on the Gold Coast, engagement with his work has not been rigorous. Kea is often cited in bibliographies and aspects of his work have served as benchmarks for other forays into Gold Coast histories. However, there is a need to go beyond an appreciation for Kea as a trailblazer, passing reference of his scholarship, and bibliographic citation of his work to a more thorough and consistent discourse with his major ideas and propositions. Kea has been, for example, adept at integrating innovations and ideas in various disciplinary arenas. He dexterously applies Marxist and postmodernist theories, diverse historiographies of the Atlantic world, and conceptual tools to traditional archival and oral historical data in his analyses of Gold Coast and diasporic societies. This review essay argues for Kea's importance and the need for a deeper engagement with his work in the field by putting his work into conversation with both classic Atlantic historiographies and recent scholarship that has built off Kea's.

Changing land and labour relations on cocoa farms in Sefwi, Ghana: Continuity and change

Ever since the late 1880s when cocoa began to be grown commercially in Ghana, land and labour has been mobilized to expand the area under cocoa trees and cultivate the crop. The first cocoa farmers ingeniously used and adapted existing social norms for land acquisition and recruitment of labour from both the extended family and from migrants. The resulting development of cocoa was a remarkable story of African innovation and enterprise that made the then Gold Coast one of the most prosperous parts of Africa by the mid-twentieth century. We look at how land and labour has been mobilized for cocoa in Sefwi, western Ghana, from the start of cocoa growing in the region in the 1940s through to 2019. We ask what current norms are, how they have evolved, and why changes to them have been made. Changes in land and labour relations in the area have not followed the linear evolutionary theory of land tenure change neither have they remained as unique immutable customary structures. We note a flexible, reversible and highly pragmatic logic in tandem with the ruling exigencies that account for patterns of change over time.

The History of Togoland Under the British Rule (1914‒1956)

The article is devoted to the history of British Togoland, in particular, the central part of the Volta region (southeast of modern Ghana). The time frame of the study covers the period from the First World War to the incorporation of the Volta region into the Gold Coast. During the pre-colonial period, the region was a zone of active commercial networks, both in the slave trade and in a wide range of goods, which varied according to local and international demand. The ethnic majority living in the region is the Ewe group of peoples. The transition from the German colonial rule (1890–1914) – a short-term, but fundamentally important factor for the history of the region – led to the need of the Bremen missionaries work adaptation to the new conditions, the formation of Ewe’s own synod and political associations. Until 1957, the inhabitants of the central part of the Volta region tried to defend their right to unite the territory of the former German Togoland and maintain contacts with the Germans. The management of Togoland was also complicated by the location of the colonial government’s main office in the Gold Coast: by 1920s the Bremen missionary schools had already been transferred to the Gold Coast Department of Education, and the United Free Church of Scotland had to act as intermediaries between the British colonial government and German missionaries, most of the time remotely.

Archives in Stone: Cemeteries, Burial, and Urban Ownership in Late Colonial Ghana

While many scholars have examined the influence of European law, writing, and record-keeping on African land rights and property, few have analyzed semi-textual records such as cemetery gravestones. This essay argues that urban cemeteries, introduced by the British colonial state to the Gold Coast Colony (southern Ghana) in the nineteenth century, became archives in stone. As one of the few public records forums available inside Gold Coast towns, cemeteries offered basic, but crucial, information. They indirectly dated immigration history and reflected ancestral political status. Over the course of colonial rule, Gold Coast citizens petitioned the state to have their elders buried in particular cemeteries to augment their claims to land and authority. This essay demonstrates that urban ownership—the status of belonging to a town as an authochthon—came to depend partly upon cemetery burial. Like any archive, cemeteries were highly curated collections, shaping legal contestations over residency, leadership, and land ownership.

Urban Nature Preservation and Conservation Strategies Based on Biophilic Institutions and Governance: A Lesson Learned from Gold Coast City for Indonesian Cities

Biophilic urbanism is considered as one approach to solve the problem of city’s over-development and may provide opportunities for citizens to connect with the natural environment. This research project is using argumentative approach in attempts to analyse urban nature preservation strategy of the Gold Coast City, based on the biophilic urbanism concept, with a focus on institutions and governance aspect, including biodiversity-related action plans, biophilic support organizations, environmental education, budgets for biophilic urbanism projects, and biophilic-related projects and initiatives. Moreover, it also analyses the constraints to implementing good biophilic governance based on the political/legal, economic, socio-cultural, and technological factors. To determine urban nature conservation and preservation strategies for the Gold Coast’s future, a SWOT analysis was undertaken. The results of this study could usefully give a brief reflection on the possibility of implementing the biophilic city concept for Indonesian cities in general.

Host gene expression signatures to identify infection type and organ dysfunction in children evaluated for sepsis: a multicentre cohort study

Sepsis is defined as dysregulated host response to infection that leads to life-threatening organ dysfunction. Biomarkers characterising the dysregulated host response in sepsis are lacking. We aimed to develop host gene expression signatures to predict organ dysfunction in children with bacterial or viral infection. This cohort study was done in emergency departments and intensive care units of four hospitals in Queensland, Australia, and recruited children aged 1 month to 17 years who, upon admission, underwent a diagnostic test, including blood cultures, for suspected sepsis. Whole-blood RNA sequencing of blood was performed with Illumina NovaSeq (San Diego, CA, USA). Samples with completed phenotyping, monitoring, and RNA extraction by March 31, 2020, were included in the discovery cohort; samples collected or completed thereafter and by Oct 27, 2021, constituted the Rapid Paediatric Infection Diagnosis in Sepsis (RAPIDS) internal validation cohort. An external validation cohort was assembled from RNA sequencing gene expression count data from the observational European Childhood Life-threatening Infectious Disease Study (EUCLIDS), which recruited children with severe infection in nine European countries between 2012 and 2016. Feature selection approaches were applied to derive novel gene signatures for disease class (bacterial vs viral infection) and disease severity (presence vs absence of organ dysfunction 24 h post-sampling). The primary endpoint was the presence of organ dysfunction 24 h after blood sampling in the presence of confirmed bacterial versus viral infection. Gene signature performance is reported as area under the receiver operating characteristic curves (AUCs) and 95% CI. Between Sept 25, 2017, and Oct 27, 2021, 907 patients were enrolled. Blood samples from 595 patients were included in the discovery cohort, and samples from 312 children were included in the RAPIDS validation cohort. We derived a ten-gene disease class signature that achieved an AUC of 94·1% (95% CI 90·6-97·7) in distinguishing bacterial from viral infections in the RAPIDS validation cohort. A ten-gene disease severity signature achieved an AUC of 82·2% (95% CI 76·3-88·1) in predicting organ dysfunction within 24 h of sampling in the RAPIDS validation cohort. Used in tandem, the disease class and disease severity signatures predicted organ dysfunction within 24 h of sampling with an AUC of 90·5% (95% CI 83·3-97·6) for patients with predicted bacterial infection and 94·7% (87·8-100·0) for patients with predicted viral infection. In the external EUCLIDS validation dataset (n=362), the disease class and disease severity predicted organ dysfunction at time of sampling with an AUC of 70·1% (95% CI 44·1-96·2) for patients with predicted bacterial infection and 69·6% (53·1-86·0) for patients with predicted viral infection. In children evaluated for sepsis, novel host transcriptomic signatures specific for bacterial and viral infection can identify dysregulated host response leading to organ dysfunction. Australian Government Medical Research Future Fund Genomic Health Futures Mission, Children's Hospital Foundation Queensland, Brisbane Diamantina Health Partners, Emergency Medicine Foundation, Gold Coast Hospital Foundation, Far North Queensland Foundation, Townsville Hospital and Health Services SERTA Grant, and Australian Infectious Diseases Research Centre.

Upper motor neuron assessment in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis using the patellar tendon reflex and motor-evoked potentials to the lower limbs

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) diagnosis relies on signs of progressive damage to both lower motoneuron (LMN), given by clinical examination and electromyography (EMG), and upper motoneuron (UMN), given by clinical examination only. Recognition of UMN involvement, however, is still difficult, so that diagnostic delay often remains too long. Shortening the time to clinical and genetic diagnosis is essential in order to provide accurate information to patients and families, avoid time-consuming investigations and for appropriate care management. This study investigates whether combined patellar tendon reflex recording with motor-evoked potentials to the lower limbs (T-MEP-LL) is relevant to assess corticospinal function in ALS, so that it might serve as a tool improving diagnosis. T-MEP-LL were recorded in 135 patients with suspected motor neuron disease (MND) from February 2010 to March 2021. The sensitivity, specificity, and ability to improve diagnosis when added to Awaji and Gold Coast criteria were determined. The main finding of the study is that T-MEP-LL can detect UMN dysfunction with a 70% sensitivity and 63% specificity when UMN clinical signs are lacking. The sensitivity reaches 82% when considering all MND patients. Moreover, at first evaluation, using T-MEP-LL to quantify reflex briskness and to measure central conduction time, can improve the diagnostic accuracy. T-MEP-LL is easy to perform and does not need any electrical stimulation, making the test rapid, and painless. By the simultaneous quantification of both UMN and LMN system, it could also help to identify different phenotype with more accuracy than clinical examination in this broad-spectrum pathology. The question whether T-MEP-LL could further be a real biomarker need further prospective studies.

The Christian Faith in Context: A Reflection on the Question of the Ontological Dilemma of a Pure Ga and True Christian

Abstract The Ga people of southeastern Ghana were the first to receive a sustained and impactful mission in the then Gold Coast. Recently, however, Ga Christians are rediscovering the essence of their native Kpele religion and culture. There is the dilemma of how a true Ga could ever be a true Christian. This essay engages a theological correlational analysis of a true Ga Christian confronted with two distinct natures of true Ga and true Christian in one personality. The reflection shows that true Ga identity is an aspiration that is hinged on love and faith. And, fragmented as it is, true Ga identity could be realized fully only by uniting with God through Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit and in anticipation of the coming Kingdom of God at the end of the cosmos.

First Report of Mixed Infection of Jasmine Mosaic-Associated Virus (JMaV) and Jasmine Virus H (JaVH) in Jasmine Species in Florida, United States

Over the past 24 years, virus-like symptoms have been observed on Jasminum spp. in Florida. In September 2018, symptomatic Angelwing jasmine leaves from a hedge in Alachua, Florida, were tested for jasmine mosaic-associated virus (JMaV) and jasmine virus H (JaVH). Identification of expected size amplicons was confirmed by sequencing (accession numbers MN245037, MT559755). In December 2018, symptomatic samples from two Gold Coast jasmine plants from St. Lucie County, Florida, were similarly tested. Only JaVH tested positive (accession number MN442626). In July 2019, Angelwing jasmine hedge in Orange County, Florida, exhibiting similar symptoms tested positive only for JaVH (GenBank accession number MN442627). In April 2023, samples from a symptomatic Gold Coast jasmine hedge in Indian River County, Florida, also tested positive only for JaVH. In May 2023, a symptomatic Angelwing jasmine sample from Miami-Dade County tested positive for both JMaV and JaVH. This is the first report of JMaV and JaVH in single or mixed infections in jasmine in Florida, adding to the known virus species infecting jasmine in the state. Because jasmine is propagated vegetatively, it is likely that dissemination of cuttings made from infected plants is responsible for widespread distribution of these viruses.

Gabapentinoid detection in coronial casework in Gold Coast, Australia: a 5-year retrospective study

Gabapentinoid detection in coronial casework in Gold Coast, Australia: a 5-year retrospective study

Preparing for the expected: cyclone threats

The Gold Coast is a bustling region in South East Queensland with a large concentration of people and has dynamic and growing business and tourism activity. The region is subject to thunderstorms and tropical cyclones that can generate damaging winds. The Severe Wind Hazard Assessment for South East Queensland evaluates the risk posed by severe winds and has strategies for managing this risk (Edwards et al. 2022). Results from the most recent assessment showed that older residential houses were the most damaged by severe winds and that this contributed disproportionately to community risk. However, lessons from recent wind damage caused by Tropical Cyclone Seroja in Western Australia in 2021 indicated that modern house designs have important vulnerabilities. These findings are a concern for any exposed coastal area and, in particular, for South East Queensland. This paper presents a suite of scenarios developed to address this vulnerability. Specifically, we describe how emergency and disaster managers can conduct capability analyses with the goal to enhance intelligence and planning capabilities. An example of the City of Gold Coast was used to show how it has leveraged these capabilities to improve emergency risk-based planning and begin a community resilience transformation with effective places of refuge and evacuation centres for the community.

P223 Early prediction and objective criteria to define failure of rescue medical therapy in acute severe ulcerative colitis

Abstract Background Medical rescue therapy (MRT) is effective in intravenous corticosteroid refractory acute severe ulcerative colitis (ASUC). We recently described the ADMIT-ASC score to identify patients on admission at high risk of steroid failure. In this setting, our primary objective in this analysis is now to identify parameters at admission which could identify non-response to MRT, following corticosteroid failure. Co-primary objective is to develop and validate a model to identify non-responders to MRT. Methods Two cohorts were studied, for discovery and validation. Retrospective analysis of 66 adult ASUC admissions receiving MRT between 2015-19 at Gold Coast University Hospital and Logan Hospital was first performed. Clinical, endoscopic and laboratory data were collected. Non-response was defined as undergoing colectomy during the index admission. Univariable and multivariable logistic regression were employed to identify predictors of non-response. A predictive model was developed based on thresholds obtained from ROC curves. The predictive model was validated in 99 patients admitted to Gold Coast University Hospital and Sunshine Coast University Hospital between 2020-23. Results In the 2015-19 cohort, out of 66 episodes who received MRT, 11 episodes (16.7%) underwent colectomy during the same admission. UCEIS at admission was the strongest predictor of non-response to MRT [OR 3.03 (95%CI 1.47-6.22), p 0.033), AUROC 0.7552 (95%CI 0.6271 – 0.8832]. UCEIS score ≥6 had sensitivity 100%, specificity 41.7%, PPV 26.3%, NPV 100%, to predict non-response to MRT. CRP on day 3 after commencing rescue therapy (CRP Day R+3) was also a predictor for non-response to MRT (OR 1.02 (95%CI 1.00-1.05), p 0.015). A score comprising 2 points involving UCEIS ≥ 6 and CRP value of ≥ 22 mg/L on day R +3 was developed (1 point each). Score of 2 points had accuracy 79.6%, specificity 75%, sensitivity 100%, PPV 47.4%, NPV 100%, AUROC 0.8750 (95%CI 0.8070-0.9429) for non-response to MRT. In the validation cohort, 6 (6.1%) patients underwent colectomy during the same admission after failing MRT. On implementing the score, a score of 2 points had accuracy 86.7%, specificity 88.1%, sensitivity 66.7%, PPV 28.6%, NPV 97.4%, AUROC 0.8095 (95%CI 0.6423-0.9768) for predicting non-response to MRT. Conclusion UCEIS score at admission and CRP on day 3 after commencing MRT are predictors of non-response to MRT. We have developed and validated a model to identify non-response to medical rescue therapy, and objective criteria to mandate surgical intervention.

Malarial Encounters and Shifting Racial Recruitment Strategies by the Basel Mission on the Gold Coast, 1828-1849.

In the early- to mid-nineteenth century, European mortality rates in West Africa were the highest in the world. Mortality estimates included nine missionaries sent from the Basel Mission (established in what is now Switzerland) to the Gold Coast (present-day Ghana), eight of whom died between 1828 and 1840, mostly from "fevers." In response to high mortality rates, the Basel Mission recruited several Afro-West Indians to work as Christian missionaries in the Gold Coast, mostly based on the presumption that individuals of African descent would better survive the environment. The decision to recruit Afro-West Indians to evangelize on the Gold Coast seemed to the mission to be a rational decision, one not in need of further justification or an overarching theory of race, environment, and disease. Surprisingly, the Basel Mission did not justify this position Biblically either. Once arrived, the West Indian Christian missionaries mostly lived in the Akwapem hills above Accra at an elevation that would have provided some protection against malaria; subsequently, their mortality rates were significantly lower than the European missionaries. After quinine came to be used as a prophylactic against malaria after 1850, thus lowering European missionary mortality rates, no more Afro-West Indians were recruited by the Basel Mission.

Alcohol Diplomacy, Gender and Power in the Late Seventeenth-Century Gold Coast Slaving Complex

Abstract Across the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Atlantic African leaders confronted new challenges as the European demand for captive African labour transformed the political economy of the region and the experience of living within it. Among a range of new and remodelled strategies designed to protect their polities, West African leaders used alcohol diplomacy to facilitate political alliance, cross-cultural communication and economic exchange. This article draws on warehouse registers, European travelogues and joint-stock company correspondence to uncover Queen Tituba of Agona (c.1638–1707) in her efforts to manage the English Royal African Company. By tracing her adroit use of alcohol, it reveals how West Africans repurposed English commodities to fit their own patterns of consumption and exchange. From funnelling diplomatic gifts of brandy into Akan-speaking political hierarchies to resolving disputes over rum, the queen drew on alcohol to fortify her rule against other coastal powers and navigate the demands of her own officials, subjects and enslaved labourers. She deployed alcohol in these ways despite, and because of, the pressures placed on her as a woman political leader. Essential to trade and ritual, yet morally fraught, Queen Tituba’s use of alcohol upended the European hierarchies of race and gender that consigned West African women to the status of commodity rather than recognized them as strategic consumers. Following alcohol offers a way of unravelling the intersection between gender, consumption and authority in a period when the trafficking of enslaved African peoples fundamentally transformed Atlantic political economy.

Diagnostic utility of Gold Coast criteria for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis in Asia

Objective: This study aimed to reveal the diagnostic utility of Gold Coast (GC) criteria in Japanese patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) by comparing the sensitivity/specificity with revised El Escorial (R-EE) and Awaji criteria, because its utility has not been studied in Asian ALS. Methods: Consecutive 639 patients (529 with ALS and 110 with ALS mimics), who were suspected of ALS and referred to three Japanese ALS centers, were enrolled. Diagnostic accuracy and characteristics of false positive and negative in GC criteria were compared with those of the Awaji and R-EE criteria. Patients were categorized as definite, probable or possible ALS according to each criterion. Results: The sensitivity of GC criteria (96.8%, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 95.3–98.3%) was higher than that of Awaji (89.6%, 95% CI: 87.0–92.2%) and R-EEC (89.2, 95% CI: 86.6–91.8%) criteria (both, p < 0.001). The specificity was also higher with GC criteria (77.3%, 95% CI: 69.5–85.1%) than Awaji (65.5%, 95% CI: 56.6–74.4%) and R-EEC (66.4, 95% CI: 57.6–75.2%) criteria (both, p < 0.01). Using GC criteria, patients with cervical spondylosis and Parkinson’s syndrome tended to be diagnosed with ALS (i.e. “false positive”). Additionally, ALS patients diagnosed only by GC criteria less frequently had upper motor neuron (UMN) signs, compared with the other two criteria. Conclusion: Gold Coast criteria improve diagnostic accuracy for ALS in an Asian population, especially in patients with subtle UMN signs.

Exploring African Abolitionism: Fante Perspectives on Domestic Slavery in the Nineteenth-Century Gold Coast

AbstractThis article draws on a variety of primary sources to first illustrate the rise of African abolitionism in the Fante region in the mid-nineteenth century and then situate local abolitionists in the context of colonial legal abolition in the Gold Coast. When the British abolished slavery in 1874, various Fante groups had been developing local anti-slavery views and strategies closely connected to the evolution of a Fante ethnic identity fashioned against the “barbaric” Asante. Tensions arose between the Fante intelligentsia, which spearheaded local abolitionism, and British colonial elites. The article examines the rise of local abolitionism among the coastal Fante through specific ideas, individuals, and events, and discusses subsequent dynamics in the “first age” (1874–1900) of colonial abolitionism in the Gold Coast. It shows that the 1874 abolition was opposed by members of the Fante anti-slavery movement not—as has been argued—because Fante intellectuals were pro-slavery or opposed to the idea of abolition, but because they held different visions of emancipation and were critical of British abolition laws that, unlike in the West Indies, did not compensate slaveowners.