A historian identified as Yaw Anokye has brought to the finality the truth of how Tetteh Quarshie brought Cocoa to Ghana.
Growing up we’ve heard different stories of how Tetteh Quarshie brought Cocoa from Fernando Po to Ghana after he visited that country.
One of the stories claimed that the Ghanaian swallowed the cocoa beans he brought to Ghana because they wouldn’t allow him to take some of the beans along with him to Ghana.
According to the earlier story, when Tetteh Quarshie got to Ghana he excreted the beans he had swallowed to be able to transport them illegally to his home country.
But Historian Yaw Anokye has disclosed that the story which many people have believed all these years is not true.
He narrated that Tetteh Quarshie was sent to Fernando Po to work as a pioneering blacksmith for six years. He received his training from the Presbyterian Church.
Tetteh Quarshie, who loved farming, became interested in the growing cocoa business in Fernando Po. When he returned to Ghana, he hid six cocoa pods among his blacksmithing tools to avoid being taken by the Portuguese or having to pay a hefty duty for them.
“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
