Tetteh Quarshie

Tetteh Quarshie (* 1842 in Teshie, † December 25, 1892 ) brought in 1876 (according to other sources 1879), the first cacao seeds in Ghana and the first time the cocoa growing on the African mainland.

Tetteh Quarshie was from Ghana (then the British colony of the Gold Coast) originating member of the language group of the Ga Andangme. He was trained by the Basel Mission as a blacksmith. From 1870 to 1876 he lived and worked on the off the West African coast, located in the Gulf of Guinea island of Bioko. Bioko was at this time Fernando Poo and was a Spanish colony. Here cocoa was grown at that time already, the export of young plants or seeds, however, was prohibited. Tetteh Quashie, who had probably worked on one of these first cocoa plantations off the coast of the African continent, smuggled some seeds from the island in his native Ghana. In place Mampong ( Akwapim ), he built the first time on the African mainland successful cocoa plants and so broke the Portuguese and Spanish monopoly. His plantation can still be seen there today.

The cocoa farming evolved in Ghana very successful - the Gold Coast was within a few decades the largest cocoa exporter in the world. Cocoa is still one of the main export products of the country.

According to legend, traveled Tetteh Quarshie later by the country and distributed - as a Ghanaian Johnny Appleseed - cacao seeds to poor farmers. Tetteh Quashie is a popular figure in present-day Ghana. According to him, for example, the Tetteh Quarshie Circle transportation hub in the capital Accra and the Tetteh Quarshie Memorial Hospital in Mampong named. The Ghanaian musicians Kobina Okine (1924-1985) composed in his honor a highlife song ' Tetteh Quarshie '.