Tetteh Quarshie Did Not Swallow Cocoa Bean To Ghana- Historian

Tetteh Quarshie is credited with the introduction of cocoa to the Gold Coast(Ghana) and commercializing its production in Ghana. But the legend that he swallowed the beans into the country has been dismissed as unrealistic and totally false.

According to Yaw Anokye, Tetteh Quarshie, as a pioneer blacksmith in the Gold Coast trained by the Presbyterian Church was sent to Fernando Po, where he plied his trade for six years.

As a lover of agriculture, Tetteh Quarshie took interest in the blossoming cocoa industry in Fernando Po and while returning to Ghana, he hid six pods of cocoa among his blacksmith tools so as to prevent the Portuguese authorities seizing them or charging him a costly duty on the pods.

“In actual fact, what Tetteh Quarshie did was to bring six of the pods. The pods carry the beans. But before he could get to the Gold Coast, he realized that the Island was a Portuguese territory not an English territory. So it will not be possible for him, a foreigner, to easily transport it to the Gold Coast. So in order to avoid every problem, either being made to pay a heavy duty on it or it being taken from his hand completely, he decided to pack it under his tools, a lot of iron tools, under the guise of the Basel mission. So not much search was done on him,” he said in an interview with Kafui Dey on GTV.

Tetteh Quarshie is widely respected in Ghana as the agriculturist who began a cocoa farm that has become a mainstay of Ghana’s economy.

Source:leakynews