George Ekem Ferguson the designer of the map of Ghana

George Ekem Ferguson was a man of great ability. In 1864 he was born at Anomabo; he went from there to school at Cape Coast and later then to Wesleyan High School in Freetown.On his return he was a teacher for a short time but 1881 he entered the civil service and became the clerk to the Governor. He soon showed himself so able to that he was sent on a government scholarship to study surveying and map making in England at the Royal School of Mines. Throughout all his life, he was keen observer and his experience of Europe must have made him aware of the power that industrial Revolution had given to Europeans.

On his return to Cape Coast, he was sent to make a good relation with the people of Attebubu and to write a report on these people.

On August 10,1899 British and the French sign a peaceful treaty on demarcating the boundary between Gold Coast and Ivory coast.

Governor Griffith then Gold Coast governor, chose George Ekem Ferguson a fante Gold Coast surveyer for that important missions

It was George Ekem Ferguson who designed the map of Ghana.

Ferguson showed himself to be so able to get on so well with people that the British Government used him to make treaties with the rulers of the peoples North of Ashanti. In this work he was more often successful than either the French or the Germans. On one occasion the French arrived at Wa and wanted to make a treaty with the chief but the chief told them he had already made a treaty with Mr Ekem Ferguson. The French took it away, saying it was no account and the treaty ‘of black man’. But the chief did not agree: and that is one reason that Wa is part of Ghana today.It was the scramble for Africa that made George Ekem Ferguson help the British in taking the over the North.

Some of Ferguson’s work to unite people’s was undone by the colonial powers. In 1898 the present Western and Northern parts of Ghana were fixed by the British and French in Europe.

George Ekem Ferguson, the designer of the Map of Ghana died in 1897 as results of wounds