Bioprospecting and Resistance: Transforming Poisoned Arrows into Strophantin Pills in Colonial Gold Coast, 1885-1922

Summary. The rise of pharmaceutical chemistry in Europe at the end of the nineteenth century dovetailed with the wars of imperial expansion in Africa. The drug strophanthin joined the official roster of the British Pharmacopoeia in 1898; meanwhile, British troops were the target of poisoned arrows on the Gold Coast. This article argues for a global history of drug discovery through the case of strophanthin in colonial West Africa. The drug's key ingredient, the seeds of various Strophanthus species, also critical to poison arrow manufacture, was at the centre of power struggles between colonial administrators and communities in the Northern Territories of the Gold Coast Colony and Togoland throughout the 1920s. In 1885, Africans had control of their land and unrestricted access to Strophanthus and other plants. By 1905, a British military presence had been established and poisoned arrows were outlawed. Simultaneously, breakthroughs in pharmaceutical chemistry increased international demand for Strophanthus seeds, prompting an unsuccessful export scheme from the Gold Coast during the First World War. Reading narratives of drug discovery in Europe against colonial politics in West Africa reveals the world history in which pharmaceuticals continue to be embedded. In August of 1899, a warrior of a 'Frafra' community in what became north-eastern Ghana released an arrow dipped in poison. The arrow pierced the shoulder of a Sergeant serving with the British forces, Igala Grunshi.1 Grunshi's men immediately ripped out the arrow, and conveyed him to the army surgeon. Dissatisfied with the solution of potassium permanganate offered to him, Grunshi begged the surgeon to allow the application of an indigenous antidote. Most likely a Gur-speaker fighting on the colonial side, Grunshi would have been familiar with the effects of arrow poison (capable of killing within the hour), and may have been inoculated against the toxin.2 The British surgeon,