Fritz Ramseyer

Friedrich Augustus Louis Ramseyer also Fritz Ramseyer  (7 October 1840 – 6 August 1914) was a Swiss-born Basel missionary, who was captured by the Asante in 1869 in colonial Ghana, together with his wife Rosa Louise Ramseyer (née Bontemps), Basel mission technical staff, Johannes Kühne and French trader, Marie-Joseph Bonnat. Ramseyer was later released in 1874 and pioneered the Christian mission in Kumasi and the rest of Asante. Additionally, he spearheaded the planting of churches in Abetifi. Apart from his evangelism, Ramseyer was instrumental in the expansion of opportunities in the fields of education, artisan industry training, land acquisition for building design and manpower development in the areas he lived and worked in.

Early life and education

Friedrich “Fritz” Augustus Louis Ramseyer was born on 7 October 1840, in Neuchâtel in Francophone region of Switzerland. He came from a watchmaking artisan family. Dating to 1646, Ramsyer's ancestry can be traced to the Emmental in the canton of Bern, known for its cheese-making industry. There is a village named Ramsei in Emmental, a valley in West Central Switzerland surrounded by limestone-rich ranges of the Jura Mountains. The Kwahu mountain range in Ghana is analogous in topography to the Jura Mountains. His father was Louis Adolph Ramseyer (1828 –1872) from Grandval, Moutier District in Bern. His mother was Marie Ramseyer, née Wuersten (1830 –1892), from Le Locle in Neuchâtel. Fritz Ramseyer's paternal grandparents were David Ludwig Ramseyer and Suzanne Marquerite Guerne, both of Bern. Rasmeyer had seven siblings, including Emma Aline Fiechter; Reynold Ramseyer; Hermann Ramseyer; Achilles Adolph Ramseyer; Elina Georgina Ramseyer and Lise Ramseyer.

At the age of eighteen, he studied German at a college where he became interested in missionary work and was involved in a Christian Youth Group, before completing his mandatory military service. Taking after his father who was a building contractor, Ramseyer trained as a builder and a mason in his hometown.

In 1861, when he was twenty-one years old, he proceeded to the Basel Mission Seminary in Basel, Switzerland to train as a mission technical staff. In 1864, Fritz Ramseyer arrived on the Gold Coast for the first time to assist the mission in its structural work, completing the construction of the Basel Mission Seminary buildings at Akropong. The Basel Mission then appointed Ramseyer the principal of the boys’ middle school at Akropong, where he began to learn the Twi language. He was later ordained a Protestant minister during a furlough home in 1875.

Work on the Gold Coast

Socio-political context

In 1865, the British colonial government was contemplating abandoning the Gold Coast as a colony due to perceived economic unviability in the impenetrable forested middle belt of Ghana. Eager to keep its missionary presence on the Gold Coast, the Basel Mission Home Committee assigned one of its missionaries, Elias Schrenk (1831–1913), on a fact-finding and diplomatic task; proving to Westminster that the development of infrastructure, particularly roads would open up the natural resource-rich forest Akan hinterland. He sailed to London and argued his case before the parliamentary committee after petitioning the Colonial Secretary. Schrenk was successful in his mission and the Gold Coast remained a British colony.

Between 1854 and 1859, Elias Schrenk studied at the Basel Mission Seminary in Switzerland before embarking to Ghana, where he lived until 1872. Schrenk, a believer in Pietist faith healing, was the General Treasurer of the Basel Mission Trading Company in Christiansborg and later experimented with cocoa planting in the early 1870s in Ghana. Gravely ill in 1858, Schrenk had visited faith healers in Germany, Johann Blumhardt at Bad Boll and subsequently Dorothea Trudel at Mannedorf between 1858 and March 1859, where he was fully healed.

In mapping out a route to Kumasi, the missionaries considered two options. Firstly, they sought to build up a focal station in Kyebi, the capital of the humid and densely-forested Akyem area – a region with a non-conducive climate to European missionaries. The Akyem paramount chieftain or Okyehene, Nana Amoako Atta I, was hostile to the work of the Basel missionaries. Atta owned 100 to 200 slaves who had converted to Christianity and had been freed by the British colonial authorities. Amoako Atta lost his revenue as a result. Eventually, he was exiled to Nigeria on charges of cruelty. The chief in turn accused the converts of pilfering £3500. After his sudden death, Christians were banished from the town and the chiefdom seized the mission station and chapel using them as the new king's official residence and durbar hall respectively. Amid various skirmishes, colonial soldiers stormed the town and restored law and order, leading to the eventual flourishing of the mission at the beginning of the twentieth century.

The alternative chartered route to Asante was through the Northern Kwahu Mountains, where the Basel missionaries had set up a mission station. The insights into the terrain were gleaned by Fritz and Rosa Ramseyer during their capture in 1869 by the Asante army during their forced march from Anum, located on the Volta River’s eastern bank to Kumasi, via the Kwahu State where the mountain range is situated. Thus, they were able to acquaint themselves with the topography during the journey to the Asante capital. Earlier in 1868, Fritz and Rosa Ramseyer were sent to Anum to aid in the operationalisation of the new mission station there. Their captivity also allowed them to observe firsthand Asante geography, culture, customs, political philosophy and statecraft. Based on their experiences, the Ramseyer couple were well suited to act as consultants to the Basel Mission as the society made plans for establish a mission station in Asante.

The subsequent propagation of the Gospel in Kumasi, by the Basel missionaries paved the way for mission work in the western and northern parts of the country until World War I. The mission had a presence at Yendi – homeland of the Dagomba people, by 1913 and were in the early stages moving eastwards towards Northern Togoland. There were pockets of Christian communities along the away that had been pioneered by native alumni of Basel mission –education system along the coast. An example of a town that had Christian coverts, was Tamale, a town that had 6000 inhabitants in 1914. On 25 December – Christmas Day, passages from the Nativity of Jesus were narrated in the Dagbani language for the first time.

The First World War terminated the activities of the Basel mission on the Gold Coast as the Germans were opponents of the British during the war. The Basel missionaries who were mostly German or Swiss German were expelled from the colony. The Colonial Secretary wrote to G. Zurcher, the General Superintendent of the Basel Mission on the Gold Coast on 10 December 1917 with a deportation order. A propaganda piece by now-defunct Cape Coast-based newspaper, the ''Gold Coast Leader'' published in May 1917 accused the German missionaries of ''“seeking to persuade the people of the inevitability of a German victory.”'' The missionaries were summoned to Accra in the second week of December 1917 and deported on 16 December 1917. Eight missionaries, six Swiss, one Australian and one American, were forced to leave the Gold Coast. They were H. Stricker who was in charge of the Akropong College, G. Zurcher and H. Dewald at Chritiansborg, P. Dieterle at the Abokobi station, E. Scherrer of the Aburi station, N. Rhode and H. Henking at Abetifi and F. Jost at the Kumasi station. On 12 January 1918, it became unlawful for any European missionary to remain in Akuapem. By 2 February 1918, the Secretary of State in London had ordered all Basel missionaries to exit the Gold Coast with immediate effect. The colonial government also confiscated all Basel mission assets on the Gold Coast.

Missionaries from the United Free Church of Scotland, who were then based in Calabar, Nigeria took over the operations of the Basel mission's practice in Ghana. A new structure was set up handing over administration of the mission to Ghanaians, under a new name, the Presbyterian Church of the Gold Coast.

Life in captivity

On 12 June 1869, Fritz and Rosa Ramseyer, together with their nine-month old son, Fritzchen, were captured by the Asante troops led by the army captain, Aduboffour while on their first official assignment in Anum. Ramseyer and his family had arrived in Anum on 29 December 1868. He was put in charge of the mission station and the church there. The Asante army were in Anum at the behest of the Akwamuhene to join the war against the Krepis, now Peki in 1868. The Asante army defeated the Anum commune in the tribal conflict. The Akwamu used the war against Peki to punish their neighbour, Anum.  On rumours of war in Anum, Ramseyer noted in his diary, ''“We scarcely believed anything we heard, and concluded that as there was still a mixed population of young and old left in the town, the danger could not be imminent.”'' The Ramseyers hoped the cordial relationship between them and the natives of Anum would insulate them from the war. He believed that the enemy was only interested in material wealth so he hid jewellery and about £200 in the backyard garden. Ramseyer further stated, “''No idea of imprisonment or captivity in Coomassie'' umasi''ever occurred to us.”'' His fellow missionaries in Ho were willing to host Rosa Ramseyer and their baby but she refused to leave her husband given the uncertainties. Also taken in as captive of the Asante was the Brother Johannes Kühne, a Prussian who was a technical mission staff of the Basel Mission whose main responsibility included the industrial processing and export of cotton from the Gold Coast to Europe. The main site of the cotton ginning was Labolabo, a village near Anum. The Ramseyers and Kühne were taken on foot from the Volta Region through the Afram Plains and the Kwahu Range and finally to the Asante capital, Kumasi.

After several weeks of walking, the captives arrived on the outskirts of Kumasi in a small hamlet called Abankoro, where they were joined by the French merchant, Marie-Joseph Bonnat who had been captured in Ho, a few miles from the Ghana-Togo frontier. Abankoro was a transit point for prisoners as Asante customs required waiting there for many weeks or months before the captives were presented before the Asante king. The prisoners were housed in a traditional hut which Fritz Ramseyer christened “Ebenezer”, meaning ''“Thus far the Lord had brought us”''. The name, Ebenezer, became commonplace in Ghana for religious buildings such as the stone-built Ebenezer Presbyterian Church, Osu which was constructed by the Basel Mission in 1902. A small museum was built next to the central shrine of Abetifi by the Ghana Museums and Monuments Board as a testament of the first dwelling of the Ramseyers at Abetifi and a symbol of interreligious dialogue between traditionalists and Christians.

At Abankoro, the Asante soldiers removed the iron shackles around the captives’ ankles which had become sore from the long trek. At this point, their clothing and footwear were completely worn out and in tatters. The absence of proper washing and soap resulted in skin rashes. Carbuncles festered on Rosa Ramseyer’s scalp as she had no access to a hair comb and a pair of scissors. The captives were also bitten by several insects along the way. The escort leader of the prisoners, Ageana was noted for his cruelty. The missionaries wrote accounts of the reception of local chiefs and their subjects as they passed through the towns and villages within the Gold Coast territory. Fritzchen Ramseyer, the infant son of the Ramseyers died from malnutrition when the party was close to Juaben. His remains were buried under a banana tree on the periphery of Asokore, in the infant cemetery. To the Ramseyers, they perceived their son’s death as ''“God’s will”''.

The prisoners trekked through Kwahu/Tafo and Bokuruwa, a rocky terrain characterized by chiselled basalt. The group stopped in Abetifi for two days for a brief respite. At Abetifi, they were warmly received by the paramount chief and the townsfolk. On arrival at their final destination, Kumasi, they were allocated a former Methodist station for lodging. They were treated with respect by the Asantehene, Otumfuo Kofi Karikari who periodically sent the political prisoners the occasional sheep, food items and gold dust equivalent to £9 when the Asantehene celebrated the '' adae'' festivals bi-weekly. On 12 January 1871, Ramseyer celebrated the Adae festival where he paid his respect to the third court of the palace. The Asante stool gave the captives a parcel of land for farming. The Asantehene realised that Bonnat and Ramseyer had the technical knowhow in advanced building technology and used them to construct stone lodges. Some scholars have posited that the Asante king must have realised that the missionaries were not mercenaries trading in ammunition to enemy states of the Asante. The Basel Mission policy did not allow its agents to sell arms. The European hostages were used as political pawns in the Anglo-Ashanti impasse. Though the British Governor attempted to negotiate their freedom, he was hindered by the fact that the missionaries were not British subjects. Secondly, they were captured in commune east of the Volta River which was under German rule at the time. The Asante kingdom proposed a ransom of £2000 and later reduced the fee to £1000. Ramseyer rejected this option since in his view, paying a ransom in exchange for their freedom ''“would only reinforce the immoral habit of abducting people for ransom.”'' The negotiations stalled for almost half-a-decade. However, the Asante permitted them to preach on a limited basis and start an infant school.

In the royal household at the Manhyia Palace, the missionaries found a diplomatic ally in Owusu Ansa, a Western-educated prince whose father, Osei Bonsu (1801–1824) had been the Asantehene. Owusu Ansa had previously been handed over to the British as surety in a peace accord that was signed by the British and the Asante authorities at the conclusion of one of the many Anglo-Asante wars of that era. He was then taken to England where he was baptised in the Anglican faith and received formal education. On his return to his homeland, Kumasi in 1841, he assumed a new role as a diplomatic envoy between the British Governor and the Asantehene. As the de facto ambassador of the Ashanti in Cape Coast, he was the intermediary through whom the prisoners could receive presents and letters from their families and friends in Europe. Drawing on his interactions with Wesleyan missionaries whose schools had to close at Cape Coast due to lack of adult enrollment, Owusu Ansa advised Ramseyer to start an infant school and a nursery for the church instead.

In captivity, Ramseyer ate local foods like the Asante delicacy, ''fufu'' and used local accessories such as a traditional stool, local water bottle and a large calabash used for bathing. He also became socially acquainted to the traditional festivals and customs. As a missionary, he co-existed with fetish priests in Kwaso and Abetifi. He also used shrine drums as a call to worship in his preaching as a prisoner in Asante which proved an effect method in proselytism. He also pioneered the propagation of the Gospel to royal courtiers in the “''Mission to Palace''” initiative which is now a contemporary feature of the Presbyterian Church’s ministry in Asante.

In 1871, David Asante, the first native Akan missionary of the Basel Mission was sent on a fact-finding expedition in Begoro, north of Kyebi, one of the divisions of the Akyem Abuakwa State to gather details about Ramseyer and Kühne. Nothing came of this activity. David Asante later visited Kumasi, where he met Ramseyer when the latter was working as a free missionary.

The missionaries were finally considered for release in January 1874, when it became clear the Asante army had lost a key battle against the British, more commonly known as the Sargrenti War (1873–74) led by Sir Garnet Wolseley, an Anglo-Irish field marshal. Approximately 2500 British troops burned down Kumasi on 4 February 1874. The Asante king ordered the release of the Basel missionaries as they were no longer useful political prisoners. As part of the reparation settlement, the vanquished Asante kingdom was required to pay the victor, the British, fifty thousand ounces of gold.

The capture of the Protestant missionaries made international news in German-speaking areas of Europe. Marie-Joseph Bonnat’s magnum opus, a record of his years in captivity was found in 1979 in an attic in his old family lodge in his hometown, Grièges in the French department of Ain. The content of the manuscript validated the Ramseyers’ accounts of their captivity, even though the narrative was written from two perspectives, that of a Swiss Protestant missionary and a Catholic French trader/prospector, united by a strong belief in Christian teaching. The work was edited by Albert van Dantzig and Claude-Hélène Perrot and published as ''Marie-Joseph et les Ashanti'' in 1994. Johannes Kühne, whose health deteriorated in captivity, was immediately repatriated to Europe after their liberation in 1874. Later, the diaries of Ramseyer/Kühne, translated into French and English, were published in Europe and the books became instant bestsellers. In Ramseyer's diary, he noted that he witnessed 2000 to 3000 slaves, prisoners of war and criminals being used as human sacrifices during his years in captivity in Kumasi. Though their stories were not the first European account of the culture and politics of the Asante, they provided a personable anthropological narrative as observed by the captives. The earliest illustration of the Asante by a European was carried out by the British envoy, Thomas Edward Bowdich in 1817.

Missionary activities

Upon their release, the Ramseyers went back to Switzerland to rest. The Ramseyers wished to return to Kumasi in 1874 as liberated missionaries but the political climate was not favourable to foreigners, especially former political prisoners. Besides, the Home Committee wanted them to wait due to the political situation Fritz Ramseyer decided to create a mission post right outside the Asante jurisdiction. The Ramseyers returned to the Gold Coast at the end of 1875 and initially settled at Kyebi in Akyem Abuakwa. With the approval of the Home Committee, he selected the mountainous Abetifi, situated on the Kwahu Ridge at an altitude of 600 metres above sea level. He had also considered setting up the mission base in Obo Kwahu, about three hours from Abetifi. There were also rumours that Kwahu desired to leave the Asante confederacy due to Ashanti's taxation policy of salt and gunpowder. Furthermore, Ramseyer did not want to another political imbroglio. The township was known for being hospitable to foreigners. The Ramseyers were temporarily settled at the Kubasehene Yaw Preko's house and fetish shrine under the auspices of the paramount chieftain of Abetifi, Nana Kofi Denkyi. Ramseyer had earlier stayed in this house as a captive on the march to Kumasi. Ramseyer, on his way to Kumasi as a captive, promised Nana Kofi Denkyi, a chief in Abetifi, that he would return to Abetifi if he is set free by his captors. This is due to the courtesies Nana Denkyi extended to him. True to his word, when he regained his freedom, Ramseyer returned to Abetifi, as an ordained minister. He brought Christianity to the people of Kwahu. Nana Kofi Denkyi and his people welcomed him to Abetifi and allocated him a forest in Abetifi called 'Oboyan' now called 'Christian Quarters'. He built a mission house there and the first chapel and started a congregation in 1877 with 20 people. This congregation is now referred to as the Abetifi Ramseyer Congregation. As a means of calling people to worship, he ordered a bell from Germany. On 5 May 1910, he built another chapel, which now houses the Abetifi Ramseyer Congregation Ramseyer started his school and fellowship in this same house, propagating the Gospel among the people. He sometimes held open-air vigils and religious revivals where many natives, including fetish priests, Agya Yaw Tawi and Otuo Kofi converted to Christianity. By 12 March 1877, the natives Ramseyer had baptised included Yaw Beeko and his wife, Buruwa, Otieku Kwadwo, Taetta and his wife, Ansaa, Jonathan Kofi Brebo and his wife, Akosua Angyie, Kwabena Gyane and his wife, Ansaa and Osei Yaw. They were first congregants at the church Ramseyer established at Abetifi.

Ramseyer asked the Abetifi traditional authorities for a parcel of land to build a mission station. This move was opposed by the local shamans who viewed Ramseyer as a threat to their livelihoods as many indigenes were abandoning the traditional religion in favour of the Christian faith. On 5 February 1876, Ramseyer bought a plot of land from the Kubeasehene, Yaw Preko at a cost of £110. Coordinating the logistics for a mission outpost was difficult as transportation access to the town was spotty in that period. As the nearest major locale to Kumasi, the Basel Mission Home Committee was eager to establish a mission station in Abetifi as a springboard for further evangelism in Asante. It therefore imported hundred professional builders and labourers from Akropong in 1876 to build a mission house and chapel. Perched atop a hill, the two-storied eighteen-room structure built with limestone and solid timber, was consecrated in 1878. The doors and windows were made of wood as were the shingles used for roofing. Rainstorm nearly damaged the building during construction, requiring reinforcement with wooden beams on the upper level using the architectural engineering, commonly found in Switzerland and Germany, distinct for English-style Tudor houses. The building is still in use by the Presbyterian Church of Ghana and it underwent refurbishment in 1998–99. Ramseyer also considered nearby towns, Bompata and Petrensa as alternative towns to establish temporary mission station before the entry to Kumasi.

Ramseyer trained the native converts to become catechists to assist him in his missionary work. He tasked two native converts, Samuel K. Boateng and James Boama to oversee the operations of these two outposts. Today, catechists of the church are put-in-charge of congregations with no substantive ministers. The system helped in the numerical growth of the Presbyterian church of the Gold Coast. In August 1876, Ramseyer started the Kwahu Tafo mission station and later in December 1876, the outpost at Bokuruwa was established.

Moreover, in the Kwahu area, Fritz Ramseyer met and worked with Peter Hall, the son of West Indian missionaries, John and Mary Hall, recruited by Danish minister, Andreas Riis and had arrived on the Gold Coast from Jamaica in 1843 under the auspices of the Basel Mission. Peter Hall was elected the first Moderator of the Presbyterian Church of the Gold Coast from 1918 to 1922. There was always the constant fear of an insurgency by the Asante since Kwahu had become a political possession of Asante. Besides, Ramseyer suffered ill-health leading to a periodic home leave in Europe.

On 1 October 1871, through an arrangement made by a personal friend of Ramseyer and a member of the Asante royal family, Bosommuru, Fritz Ramseyer held his first open-air service on Asante soil. About hundred people gathered to listen to his message.

Earlier in 1877, in his report to Basel, Ramseyer stated that he and colleagues had started three schools with a total population of 311 pupils. By 1890, they had established eight schools, six outposts that housed more than 200 Christian converts. In September 1881, Ramseyer went to Kumasi with the Basel missionary, Joseph Mohr. They received a warm reception from the Asantehene who treated him as an old long-lost friend and presented to the king a Twi language Bible that had been translated by Johann Gottlieb Christaller, the German philologist and Basel missionary. The Asantehene, nonetheless, declined the gift. Other sources state that he presented an English Bible to the king a decade earlier on 29 June 1871. The permanent station in Kumasi was yet to be set up by Ramseyer due to the political atmosphere of that time. In 1882, Ramseyer and David Asante tried again to go to Kumasi with the objective of setting up a mission station; their attempt however failed. During this period, there was stool disputes in Juaben

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