Jakpa and the Foundation of Gonja

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Periodical article

Title:	Jakpa and the Foundation of Gonja
Author:	Jones, D.H.
Year:	1962
Periodical:	Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana
Volume:	6
Pages:	1-29
Language:	English
Geographic term:	Ghana
Subjects:	history Gonja polity Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) History and Exploration
External link:	https://www.jstor.org/stable/41405749
Abstract:	Gonja district, with over 14,000 sq. m. by far the largest in Ghana, is the poorest and most inhospitable region, with a population density of less than six. People's main occupation is subsistence agriculture. The associated Gonja chiefdoms constituted a regime super-imposed by a small imigrant ruling group upon the ethnically very mixed subject populations. Tradition confines the origin of this regime to a single warrior chief, Ndewura Jakpa, who came from the West, from Mande. Gonja is clearly a conquest state. This study furthermore examines the process by which modern Gonja came in to existence by describing the ethnic and political situation as it seems to have stood on the eve of the Gonja invasion. Notes; bibliography.