The West African newspaper press emerged during the first six decades of the nineteenth century through colonial administration, Atlantic migration, Christian missions, commerce and growing African participation. Freetown, Cape Coast, Monrovia and Abeokuta became important centres in a transformation that introduced the regularly printed newspaper to societies that already possessed extensive oral, political and commercial systems for circulating information.
Long before newspapers appeared, town criers, royal messengers, markets, religious institutions, trading networks and travellers carried news between African communities. Printing introduced another form of communication: a reproducible written medium through which announcements, reports and arguments could circulate among readers and remain available beyond the moment in which information was first delivered.
By 1867, newspaper publishing had developed from an activity closely associated with colonial governments and missionary institutions into a medium increasingly involving Black Atlantic settlers, African proprietors, printers and readers.
How the West African Newspaper Press Began in Freetown
Sierra Leone occupies a foundational place in the history of the West African newspaper press.
The Sierra Leone Gazette is generally dated to 1801, when Freetown was administered by the British-chartered Sierra Leone Company. Sierra Leone became a British Crown Colony in 1808.
Freetown was already an important Atlantic settlement. Alongside indigenous African communities were formerly enslaved and free Black settlers whose histories connected Sierra Leone with Britain, Nova Scotia, Jamaica and other parts of the Atlantic world.
The newspaper experienced interruptions, revivals and changes of title during its early history. The African Herald appeared in 1809, followed by a return to the Gazette name.
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Under Governor Charles MacCarthy, newspaper publication was revived in 1817 as the Royal Gazette and Sierra Leone Advertiser. The publication continued until 1827.
These early newspapers were closely connected with colonial administration. They circulated official notices, commercial information, advertisements and reports concerning events within and beyond the settlement.
Freetown consequently became one of the earliest centres of sustained newspaper activity in West Africa.
Cape Coast and the Royal Gold Coast Gazette of 1822
A second major development occurred on the Gold Coast.
The Royal Gold Coast Gazette and Commercial Intelligencer began publication at Cape Coast Castle in April 1822. An early surviving issue identifies William Cooling as its printer at Cape Coast Castle.
The newspaper was associated with the administration of Governor Sir Charles MacCarthy, who had previously governed Sierra Leone before assuming responsibility for British possessions on the Gold Coast.
Cape Coast was an important centre of British administration and Atlantic commerce during this period. The newspaper served an environment dominated by government officials, merchants and commercial interests.
Like the earlier Sierra Leone publications, the Royal Gold Coast Gazette and Commercial Intelligencer carried official and commercial information. Its establishment extended regular newspaper activity farther along the West African coast.
MacCarthy’s involvement also connected the early newspaper histories of Sierra Leone and the Gold Coast.
Liberia and the Black Atlantic Printing Connection
Another important strand of West African newspaper history developed in Liberia.
On 7 February 1826, Charles L. Force, a Black American printer, arrived at Cape Mesurado aboard the brig Vine. He brought printing equipment acquired with financial assistance from supporters of the American colonisation movement.
Force began work almost immediately.
On 16 February 1826, nine days after his arrival, he produced a prospectus announcing the Liberia Herald at Monrovia.
Force died only months after arriving in Liberia, and relatively few issues appeared under his direction. The newspaper was subsequently revived and became part of Liberia’s developing press tradition. John Brown Russwurm, a prominent Black American journalist who moved to Liberia in 1829, later became closely associated with the Liberia Herald.
The Liberian experience demonstrated the importance of Black Atlantic migration in the history of West African printing. Migrants from the Americas brought printing skills, literacy and publishing traditions across the Atlantic.
By the 1820s, newspaper culture in West Africa was being shaped by colonial governments in Sierra Leone and the Gold Coast, Black Atlantic migration in Liberia, commercial activity and Christian missions.
African Newspaper Ownership Begins to Expand
The character of West African journalism changed during the middle decades of the nineteenth century.
In the Gold Coast, Charles Bannerman established the Accra Herald in 1857. Early editions were handwritten and reproduced for circulation. The publication later became known as the West African Herald.
Bannerman’s newspaper represented an important development in African participation in journalism. Newspaper production was no longer confined to colonial government establishments and European missionary institutions.
African proprietors, editors and increasingly literate readers began playing larger roles in determining the subjects newspapers covered and the political arguments that appeared in print.
This development continued during the later nineteenth century as African-owned newspapers became increasingly prominent in debates over government, commerce, education, racial inequality and political representation.
Another important centre of newspaper activity was emerging farther east in Abeokuta.
Printing Reaches Calabar and Abeokuta
Printing existed in the territory that later became Nigeria before the establishment of its first newspaper.
In 1846, the Scottish Presbyterian mission brought printing equipment to Old Calabar. Missionary Hope Masterton Waddell arrived in Calabar that year, while Samuel Edgerley became associated with the mission’s printing activities.
The press produced religious and educational material for the mission and its expanding network of schools.
A second major printing centre developed in Abeokuta.
Church Missionary Society missionary Henry Townsend established a printing press there in 1854.
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Abeokuta had become an important political and commercial centre in nineteenth-century Yorubaland. Missionary schools were also contributing to the development of literacy among sections of the population.
Five years after establishing his press, Townsend founded the newspaper that became one of the most famous publications in Nigerian history.
Iwe Irohin and the West African Newspaper Press
In 1859, Henry Townsend founded Iwe Irohin fun Awon Ara Egba ati Yoruba, commonly translated as a newspaper for the Egba and Yoruba.
Historian Fred I. A. Omu dates its foundation to 23 November 1859, while 3 December 1859 is widely associated with its first published issue.
Iwe Irohin began as a Yoruba-language fortnightly.
On 8 March 1860, an English-language supplement was introduced. The development widened the newspaper’s readership and created a bilingual publication capable of addressing Yoruba and English-reading audiences.
Although Townsend was a Christian missionary, the newspaper covered considerably more than religious instruction.
Its pages contained material concerning education, commerce, geography, public affairs, warfare and political developments. News from Abeokuta and other areas gave readers access to information extending beyond their immediate communities.
The newspaper also became involved in the politics of nineteenth-century Yorubaland.
Townsend maintained close connections with Egba political affairs, and Iwe Irohin increasingly reflected Egba interests during periods of regional conflict.
The publication consequently combined educational, religious, informational and political functions.
Iwe Irohin and Nigeria’s Newspaper History
Iwe Irohin appeared several decades after newspapers had been established elsewhere in Africa.
Sierra Leone, the Gold Coast and Liberia had newspaper traditions before its foundation in 1859. Newspaper publishing was also developing in southern Africa.
The isiXhosa publication Umshumayeli Wendaba began appearing in southern Africa in 1837. Other Xhosa-language publications included Ikwezi in 1844 and Isitunywa sennyanga in 1850.
Iwe Irohin became the first newspaper published in the territory that later became Nigeria and one of the pioneering Yoruba-language newspapers of West Africa.
Nigeria had not yet emerged as a unified colonial political entity in 1859. The British amalgamation of the Northern and Southern Nigerian administrations created the Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria in 1914.
Townsend’s newspaper therefore belongs to the history of nineteenth-century Abeokuta and Yorubaland as well as to the later history of Nigerian journalism.
The Ifole and the End of Iwe Irohin
By the middle of the 1860s, conditions surrounding Iwe Irohin had become increasingly difficult.
Townsend’s political influence in Abeokuta had weakened, while the newspaper faced declining circulation and growing political tensions. Publication arrangements for its Yoruba and English material were altered during its final years.
The decisive crisis came during the Ifole of October 1867.
Tensions between the Egba authorities and European missionaries erupted into open hostility. European residents were expelled from Abeokuta, mission properties were attacked and Townsend’s printing establishment was destroyed.
The newspaper ceased publication in 1867.
Its eight-year existence had established a significant precedent for newspaper publishing in what later became Nigeria. It had brought together literacy, missionary activity, public information and politics within a single publication.
From Government Gazettes to a Wider African Press
The development of newspapers between Freetown and Abeokuta reflected broader changes taking place across nineteenth-century West Africa.
The earliest publications were often closely connected with government administration. Their pages contained proclamations, official information, commercial intelligence and notices aimed primarily at officials, merchants and other literate readers.
Missionary printing introduced another major element. Churches required books, translations, educational material and texts for newly established schools. Printing presses therefore became closely associated with missionary expansion and literacy programmes.
African participation gradually became more prominent.
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Black Atlantic settlers brought printing experience to Liberia. African newspaper proprietors emerged in the Gold Coast. Literate African readers increasingly formed part of newspaper audiences. Publications also became platforms through which competing political interests could be expressed.
These developments laid foundations for the much larger African newspaper culture that emerged during the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Conclusion
Between the opening of the nineteenth century and 1867, newspapers established themselves in several important West African centres.
Freetown developed one of the region’s earliest newspaper traditions with the Sierra Leone Gazette at the beginning of the century. The Royal Gold Coast Gazette and Commercial Intelligencer appeared at Cape Coast Castle in 1822. Charles L. Force brought Black Atlantic printing experience to Liberia and launched the Liberia Herald in 1826. Charles Bannerman established the African-owned Accra Herald in the Gold Coast in 1857. Henry Townsend founded Iwe Irohin in Abeokuta in 1859.
The West African newspaper press grew through the combined influence of colonial administrations, missionary institutions, Black Atlantic migration, commerce, literacy and African enterprise.
Newspapers gradually became more than vehicles for government announcements and missionary teaching. They became instruments for education, commerce, political communication and public debate.
The traditions established in Freetown, Cape Coast, Monrovia and Abeokuta helped prepare the foundations upon which later generations of West African journalists, editors and political campaigners would build.
Author’s Note
The emergence of newspapers in nineteenth-century West Africa marked an important transformation in the region’s history of communication. Printing existed alongside much older African systems for transmitting news, but it created new opportunities to preserve information, reach literate audiences and participate in political debate. The experiences of Freetown, Cape Coast, Monrovia and Abeokuta show that West African journalism developed through many influences and increasingly became a medium in which Africans themselves participated as printers, proprietors, writers and readers.
References
Fred I. A. Omu, “The ‘Iwe Irohin’, 1859–1867”, Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria, Vol. 4, No. 1, December 1967, pp. 35–44.
Henry B. Cole, “The Press in Liberia”, Liberian Studies Journal, Vol. IV, No. 2, 1971–1972, pp. 147–156.
Jennifer Hasty, The Press and Political Culture in Ghana. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005.
Abiodun Salawu, “Not Iwe Irohin but Umshumayeli: A Revisit of the Historiography of the Early African Language Press”, African Identities, Vol. 13, No. 2, 2015, pp. 157–170.
Hope Masterton Waddell, Twenty-Nine Years in the West Indies and Central Africa: A Review of Missionary Work and Adventure, 1829–1858. London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1863.
K. A. B. Jones-Quartey, studies on the development of the nineteenth-century press in Sierra Leone and the Gold Coast.
Royal Gold Coast Gazette and Commercial Intelligencer, Cape Coast Castle, 1822–1823, surviving issues and bibliographic records.
Royal Gazette and Sierra Leone Advertiser, Freetown, 1817–1827, surviving issues and archival records.
