The Gold Coast Missionaries

Local historian and Seasider, Gerald Grant, like many other local lads, served in the British Army during the Second World War in the former British West African colony, known as the Gold Coast, and now called Ghana.

Gerald was stationed in the village of Teshi, 7 miles from Accra, the Capital, close to the Christian, Borg Castle, which featured in a TV programme as the place where slaves were assembled before shipment to the Americas. One side of the castle was whitewashed by the sea, and the door by which the slaves left remained hundreds of years later.

Gerald recalled the day, during his wartime service, that missionaries arrived at the village looking for converts. A meeting was set up and he went along to listen to what they had to say. The gathering proved to be lively as questions and answers shot back and forth between the missionaries and the Africans. One memorable question was asked by a young African who spoke up and said

‘You say we are all brothers, if this is so why are we of different colours, black, white, and yellow?’

The missionaries were not distracted by this question and one of them replied in a matter of fact manner that,

‘One day in the Garden of Eden, God was walking around and saw that the people working were covered in sweat and dust from their labours. He asked to them to stop and told them that after they had washed they should rest.

'The first group of people went into the pool and after they had bathed they came out clean and their skin was white. These people, God explained, were called European.

'The second group of workers were sent to bathe and by now the water had become discoloured and not so plentiful as before. When this group had finished and they came out of the water they were a slightly brownish colour and they were known as Asiatics, Middle Eastern or Palestinian.

'The last group took their turn, but there was hardly any water left and it was very dirty. There was only enough to stand in, and the workers could only wet their hands.’

The missionaries explained that this was the reason why people are coloured and why an African’s soles of his feet and the palms of his hands are white.

One can just imagine the look on the servicemen’s faces and what the Africans must have thought of this explanation of their origins.