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Hernon: 187:Golden Stool said to have descended from the heavens on a Friday in 1700 to provide the king with a symbol of his authority. Stool became a symbol of unity of all Ashanti people, living and dead. Portuguese first to establish trading posts and forts on Gold Coast, followed closely by the Dutch and British. The main trade was in gold and ivory purchased from the local Fanti tribes. From WP: link to Portuguese Gold Coast, Dutch Gold Coast, Gold Coast (British colony). Portuguese established settlements from 1482, beginning with Elmina Castle, the capital of the colony - lost castle to Dutch on 29 August 1637 and ceded their colony to the Dutch on 9 January 1642 and incorporated into Dutch Gold Coast. Dutch established colonies in 1598, purchased by Britain on 21 February 1871 and incorporated into British Gold Coast. 188: The trade was valuable and so the three nations fought with each other and the Spanish, Danes, French, Swedes and Brandenburgers. Trade developed from gold and ivory to wood and local produce to slaves. The British alone at one stage were shipping 40,000 slaves a year from the Gold Coast to the West Indies and America. One of the main suppliers was the Ashanti empire which controlled an area of forest 150 miles to the North. The slaves were drawn from prisoners taken in the Ashanti's war with other tribes, though the Ashanti kept their own slaves and used others for human sacrifices. The Ashanti were a union of smaller states established in the 17th century by immigrants of the Akan tribe from the west. Prior to teh appearance of teh Golden Stool they paid tribute to the Denkera, a large empire to the south-west. After the stool unified the Ashanti they were able to defeat the Denkera and become independent. Stool said to have been summoned from the sky at a great assembly by the priest Anokye and descended onto the lap of new king Osei Tutu. Anokye then declared that the stool contained the spirits of the Ashanti ancestors and that the nation itself depended upon the stool to survive. From then on every Ashanti had allegiance to the stool and to the king, its guardian, and also to the stool of his state, guarded by his chief. Following defeat of Denkera the Ashanti extended their empire north to encompass the states of Sefwi, Tekyiman, Gyaman, Banda, Wassaw and Akwapim, each conquest providing more slaves for trade. The Ashanti were brought into conflict with the British as they wished to extend their empire to the coast to control the export of slaves and import of western-made munitions and weapons. 189:The slave trade was banned in all British territories in 1807. Later in 1807 the Ashanti crossed the River Prah, attacked the Fanti people and reached the coast. The local British and Dutch commanders then accepted Ashanti control of the area and agreed to pay rent to the Ashanti for their trading posts. The Dutch gradually retired from the region following the abolition of the slave trade and teh British merchants switched to palm oil. Roads were built from the interior to the coast for the transport of the oil but these were vulnerable to attack by the Ashanti and the Fanti subjects, which the Ashanti refused to bear responsibility for. In 1821 the British government assumed control of the coastal area and refused to continue with rent payments. Sir Charles McCarthy, a strong abolitionist, was appointed Crown Governor and refused to accept Ashanti domination of the Fanti. He launched an expedition against an Ashanti incursion into Fanti territory during which his Fanti troops deserted and he ran out of ammunition. McCarthy was decapitated and his head taken to Kumasi, the capital of Ashanti, for use as a ceremonial drinking cup. Nearly 40 years of peace followed during which the British established a protectorate over the coast region and the Ashanti traded in palm oil, gold, hardwood, maize, manioc, plantain, bananas and yams. In 1873 King Kofi Karikari invaded the protectorate with an army of 12,000 warriors, easily defeating the Fanti forces opposing them. British sailors and marines held the Ashanti at several coastal forts whilst an expeditionary force under Major-General Sir Garnet Wolseley was dispatched from Liverpool. Following fierce fighting Wolseley entered Kumasi at dawn on 4 February 1874. 190:Henry Stanley was with the party and he recorded his appreciation of the city's wide streets, wattle and daub houses and patterned stucco facades. Winwoode Reade covered the expedition for the Times and stated that the rooms in the King's palace reminded him of Wardour Street in London. He was fascinated by the king's possessions which included a sword inscribed "from Queen Victoria", velvet umbrellas, books in several languages, Persian rugs, Kidderminster carpets and the 17 October issue of his own newspaper. The British forces looted the palace, taking thirty porter loads of items, before demolishing it with dynamite. Most of the rest of the city was burnt to the ground. British forces left after two days. Wolseley had directed the battles of the expedition reclining in a portable hammock carried by four men. the Treaty of Fomena was signed by Karikari's envoys which compelled them to keep the Kumasi-Cape Coast Castle road open for trade and pay Britain 50,000 ounces of gold in reparations for the £200,000 Wolseley had budgeted for the expedition. Led to peace for 20 years. In 1895 Britain asked permission to station a garrison at Kumasi to guard against possible German and French incursions. This request was repeatedly turned down by King Prampeh I. 191:British column marched into Kumasi in 1896 without firing a shot. They found numerous human skulls and evidence of human sacrifice. Prampeh I and thirty relatives and officials were arrested and taken to Elmina Castle. They were charged with failure to provide the 1874 reparations in gold and exiled to Sierra Leone and the Seychelles. Seven British military and administration officers were stationed at Kumasi and a small fort built, garrisoned by Hausa troops from Nigeria with British officers. A British president was also established. Ref to Anglo-Ashanti wars In the Ashanti-Fante War of 1806-07, the British refused to hand over two rebels pursued by the Asante, but eventually handed one over (the other escaped). The Ashanti-Fante War (1806 - 1807) was fought between the Ashanti Confederacy and the Fante Confederacy of present-day Ghana. The Ashanti Confederacy was a major African kingdom on the Gold Coast. Rivalry between the Ashanti and Fante was long held but grew much more serious in the beginning of 19th century. The British were usually allies of the Fante, and the Dutch of the Ashanti. The war began when the Asantehene of the Ashanti charged some people with robbing graves. The Fante promptly gave refuge to the accused, who were people from Assin, and Osei Bonsu thus sent an army against the Fante. At Abora, four miles from Cape Coast, a battle was fought, in which the Ashanti were able to capture their own people charged for robbing the grave - this was their victory. However, the Fante were but a handful compared to the Mighty Ashanti army and still managed to see off the thousand men sent awaiting for a thousand more to come. A British agent representing the African Company of Merchants at Cape Coast sheltered the accused grave robbers, whilst the Ashanti went on to attack the fort at Kormantine (Fort Amsterdam) of their old allies the Dutch. The British then tried to make friends with the Ashanti, and Colonel Torrane, who was in charge at Cape Coast, most treacherously handed an old and blind Assin king called Kwadwo Otibu to the Asantehene, although he knew the old man would be killed; which he was. In the Ga-Fante War of 1811, the Akwapim captured a British fort at Tantamkweri and a Dutch fort at Apam. The Ga-Fante War in 1811 was a tribal war in the Ashanti Confederacy situated roughly in present day Ghana. It involved a series of battles between the Asante and their allies, the Ga people of Accra and tribes of Elmina, against an alliance of the Fanti, Akim and Akwapim tribes. The Asante won the pitched battle, but then had to retreat in the face of the guerrilla tactics used by the Akwapim in the Akwapim Hills, where the Asante had the disadvantage of not knowing the terrain. The Akwapim also fought against the Europeans, capturing the Dutch fort at Apam and a British fort at Tantamkweri. In the Ashanti-Akim-Akwapim War of 1814-16 the Ashanti defeated the Akim-Akwapim alliance. Local British, Dutch, and Danish authorities all had to come to terms with the Ashanti. In 1817 the (British) African Company of Merchants signed a treaty of friendship that recognized Ashanti claims to sovereignty over much of the coast. The Ashanti-Akim-Akwapim War, also known as the Ashanti Invasion of the Gold Coast was the expansion of West African Empire of Ashanti against the alliance of Akim and Akwapim tribes from 1814 until 1816. European colonial powers were also involved in conflict. In 1814 the Ashanti, under the leadership of Asantehene Osei Bonsu, defeated the outnumbered yet brave Akim-Akwapim alliance, but when they followed up their victory by pillaging the city of Accra, instead of attacking the Europeans, they lost a valuable ally in the Ga people. 1st The First Anglo-Asante War was from 1823 to 1831. In 1823 Sir Charles MacCarthy, rejecting Ashanti claims to Fanti areas of the coast and resisting overtures by the Ashanti to negotiate, led an invading force from the Cape Coast. He was defeated and killed by the Ashanti, and the heads of MacCarthy and Ensign Wetherall were kept as trophies. See Charles MacCarthy for details of the Battle of Nsamankow, when MacCarthy's troops (who had not joined up with the other columns) were overrun. Major Alexander Gordon Laing returned to Britain with news of their fate. The Ashanti swept down to the coast, but disease forced them back. The Ashanti were so successful in subsequent fighting that in 1826 they again moved on the coast. At first they fought very impressively in an open battle against superior numbers of British allied forces, including Denkyirans. However, the novelty of British Congreve rockets caused the Ashanti army to withdraw. [1] In 1831, the Pra River was accepted as the border in a treaty, and there were thirty years of peace. 2nd The Second Anglo-Asante War was from 1863 to 1864. With the exception of a few minor Ashanti skirmishes across the Pra in 1853 and 1854, the peace between Asanteman and the British Empire had remained unbroken for over 30 years. Then, in 1863, a large Ashanti delegation crossed the river pursuing a fugitive, Kwesi Gyana. There was fighting, with casualties on both sides, but the governor's request for troops from England was declined and sickness forced the withdrawal of his West Indian troops, with both sides losing more men to sickness than any other factor, and in 1864 the war ended in a stalemate. 3rd The Third Anglo-Asante War lasted from 1873 to 1874. In 1869 a German missionary family and a Swiss missionary had been taken to Kumasi. They were hospitably treated, but a ransom was required for them. In 1871 Britain purchased the Dutch Gold Coast from the Dutch, including Elmina which was claimed by the Ashanti. The Ashanti invaded the new British protectorate. General Wolseley with 2,500 British troops and several thousand West Indian and African troops (including some Fante) was sent against the Ashanti, and subsequently became a household name in Britain. The war was covered by war correspondents, including Henry Morton Stanley and G. A. Henty. Military and medical instructions were printed for the troops. [2] The British government refused appeals to interfere with British armaments manufacturers who sold to both sides.[3] Wolseley went to the Gold Coast in 1873, and made his plans before the arrival of his troops in January 1874. He fought the Battle of Amoaful on January 31 of that year, and, after five days' fighting, ended with the Battle of Ordahsu. The capital, Kumasi, which was abandoned by the Ashanti was briefly occupied by the British and burned. The British were impressed by the size of the palace and the scope of its contents, including "rows of books in many languages." [4] [5] The Asantahene, the ruler of the Ashanti (Asente) signed a harsh British treaty, the Treaty of Fomena in July 1874, to end the war. Wolseley completed the campaign in two months, and re-embarked them for home before the unhealthy season began. Most of the 300 British casualties were from disease. Wolseley left behind a power vacuum which led to more fighting, as the Asantahene could no longer control the former vassal tribes. Some British accounts pay tribute to the hard fighting of the Ashanti at Amoaful, particularly the tactical insight of their commander, Amanquatia: "The great Chief Amanquatia was among the killed. Admirable skill was shown in the position selected by Amanquatia, and the determination and generalship he displayed in the defence fully bore out his great reputation as an able tactician and gallant soldier."[6] 4th The Fourth Anglo-Ashanti War was a brief war, from 1894. The Ashanti turned down an unofficial offer to become a British protectorate in 1891, extending to 1894. Wanting to keep French and German forces out of Ashanti territory (and its gold), the British were anxious to conquer Asanteman once and for all. The war started on the pretext of failure to pay the fines levied on the Asante monarch by the Treaty of Fomena after the 1874 war. Sir Francis Scott left Cape Coast with the main expedition force of British and West Indian troops in December 1895, and arrived in Kumasi in January 1896. The Asantehene directed the Ashanti to not resist. Soon Governor William Maxwell arrived in Kumasi as well. Robert Baden-Powell led a native levy of several local tribes in the campaign. Asantehene Agyeman Prempeh was arrested and deposed. He was forced to sign a treaty of protection, and with other Asante leaders was sent into exile in the Seychelles.
The Yaa Asantewaa War, also known as the War of the Golden Stool, the Third Ashanti Expedition, the Ashanti Uprising or variations thereof, was the final war in a series of conflicts between the British Imperial government of the Gold Coast (later Ghana) and the Empire of Ashanti, a powerful, semi-autonomous African state which fractiously co-existed with the British and their vassal coastal tribes. When the Asante began rebelling against British rule, the British attempted to put down the unrest. Furthermore, the British governor, Lord Hodgson, demanded that the Asante turn over to the British the Golden Stool, i.e. the throne and a symbol of Asante independence. Capt. C. H. Armitage was sent to force the people to tell him where the Golden Stool was hidden and to bring it back. After going from village to village with no success, Armitage found at the village of Bare only children who said that their parents had gone hunting. In response, Armitage ordered the children to be beaten. When their parents came out of hiding to defend the children, he had them bound and beaten, too. The war ended with the Ashanti maintaining their de facto independence. Even though the Ashanti were annexed into the British Empire, they ruled themselves with little reference to the colonial power. However, when the British colony of the Gold Coast became the first independent, sub-Saharan African country in 1957, Ashanti was subsumed into the newly created Ghana. This war was the last conflict in Africa in which one of the sides was commanded by a woman.
[edit] The Brutality of the BritishBelow is an eyewitness account of Kwadwo Afodo
This act of brutality was the instigation for the Yaa Asantewaa War for Independence which began on March 28, 1900. Yaa Asantewaa mobilized the Ashanti troops and for three months laid siege to the British mission at the fort in Kumasi. The British had to bring in several thousand troops and artillery to break the cordon. Also, in retaliation, the British troops plundered the villages, killed much of the populace, confiscated their lands and left the remaining population dependent upon the British for their very survival. They also captured The Queen Mother of Ejisu, Yaa Asantewaa whom they exiled along with her close companions to the Seychelles Islands off Africa's east coast, while most of the captured chiefs became prisoners-of-war. Yaa Asantewaa died in exile 20 years later. However, the exiled Asantehene (King of all Ashanti), Prempeh I eventually returned to Ashanti, alive and well. The Stool was so important to the Ashanti, that they allowed the Asantehene Prempeh I to be exiled, rather than let it be stolen. Moreover after the war, the Ashanti were able to proclaim victory because their pre-war goal of protecting the Golden Stool was accomplished. [edit] The "Golden Stool" speechThus Hodgson advanced towards Kumasi with a small force of British soldiers and local levies, arriving on the 25 March 1900. Hodgson, as representative of a powerful nation himself, was accorded traditional honours upon entering the city and after ascending a platform, he made a speech to the assembled Ashanti leaders. The speech, or the closest surviving account which comes through an African translator, reportedly read:
Not understanding the significance of the stool, Hodgson clearly had no inkling of the storm his words would produce; the suggestion that he, a foreigner, should sit on the Golden Stool, the very embodiment of The Ashanti state, and very symbol of the Ashanti peoples, living, dead, and yet to be born, was far too disrespectful for the crowd. Almost immediately, the queen mother of the Ejisu dominion within the Ashanti kingdom, Yaa Asantewaa, was collecting men to form a force with which to attack the British and retrieve their exiled king. The enraged populace produced a large number of volunteers and as Hodgson's deputy, Captain Cecil Armitage, searched for the stool in nearby brush his force was surrounded and ambushed, only a sudden rainstorm allowing the survivors to retreat to the British offices in Kumasi. The offices were then fortified into a small stockade which housed 18 Europeans, dozens of mixed race colonial administrators and 500 Nigerian Hausas who possessed six small field guns and four Maxim Guns. The Ashanti, aware that they were unprepared for storming the fort settled into a long siege, only making one assault on the position on the 29 April which was unsuccessful. The Ashanti then continued to snipe at the defenders, cut the telegraph wires, blockaded food supplies and attack relief columns. As supplies ran low and disease took its toll on the defenders, another rescue party of 700 arrived in June. Recognising that it was necessary to escape from the trap and to preserve the remaining food for the wounded and sick, some of the healthier men were evacuated along with Hodgson, his wife and over a hundred of the Hausas. 12,000 Ashanti abrade (Warriors) were summoned to attack the escapees, who gained a lead on the long road back to the Crown Colony and avoided the main body of the Abrade. Days later the few survivors of the Abrade attack, took a ship for Accra, receiving all available medical attention. [edit] The rescue columnAs Hodgson arrived at the coast, a rescue force of 1,000 men assembled from various British units and police forces stationed across West Africa and under the command of Major James Willcocks had set out from Accra. On the march Willcocks's men had been repulsed from several well-defended forts belonging to groups allied with the Ashanti, most notably the stockade at Kokofu where they had suffered heavy casualties. During the march Willcocks was faced with constant trials of skirmishing with an enemy in his own element and maintaining his supply route in the face of effective guerilla opposition. In early July, his force arrived at Beckwai and prepared for the final assault on Kumasi, which began on the morning of the 14 July 1900. Using a force led by Yoroba warriors from Nigeria serving in the Frontier Force, Willcocks drove in four heavily guarded stockades, finally relieving the fort on the evening of the fifteenth, when the inhabitants were just two days from surrender. In September, after spending the summer recuperating and tending to the sick and wounded in captured Kumasi, Willcocks sent out flying columns to the neighbouring regions which had supported the uprising. His troops defeated an Ashanti force in a skirmish at Obassa on the 30 September and also succeeded in destroying the fort and town at Kokofu where he had been previously repulsed, using Nigerian levies to hunt Ashanti fugitives into the forests once the defenders fled after a stiff engagement. Following the storming of the town, Captain Charles John Melliss was awarded the Victoria Cross for his bravery in the attack, the only such award of the campaign although a number of other officers received the Distinguished Service Order. [edit] Yaa AsantewaaYaa Asantewaa was the queen mother of Ejisu in what is now modern day Ghana. At that time, the Gold Coast, as it was then known, was a British protectorate. The British supported their campaigns against the Ashanti using taxes they levied upon the local population. Additionally, they also took over the state-owned gold mines thus removing considerable revenue from the Ashanti State government. As missionaries established schools and began interfering in local affairs, the Ashanti began to deeply resent the British. In a speech, Yaa Asantewaa rallied resistance to the colonialists:
[edit] Return of the King Prempeh I to Ashanti"Thousands of people, white and black, flocked down to the beach to welcome him. They were sorely disappointed when the news flashed through that Nana Prempeh was not to be seen by anyone, and that he was to land at 5:30 pm and proceed straight away to Kumasi by a special train. Twenty minutes after the arrival of the train, a beautiful car brought Nana Prempeh into the midst of the assembly. It was difficult for us to realise even yet that he had arrived. A charming aristocratic-looking person in a black long suit with a fashionable black hat held up his hand to the cheers of the crowd. That noble figure was Nana Prempeh." Extract from the Gold Coast Leader newspaper, 27 Dec 1924. [edit] AftermathThe Ashanti were defeated on the battlefield, but they won the war. Even though, Kumasi was supposedly annexed into the British empire, the Ashanti still largely governed themselves. The Ashanti goal of protecting the Golden Stool from the British was successful. However, the following year numerous chiefs including the Queen Mother of Ejisu, Yaa Asantewaa were arrested and exiled to the Seychelles, not being allowed to return for twenty five years by which time many, including Yaa Asantewaa, had died. Kumasi City still retains a war memorial and several large colonial residences, although it, with the rest of the former Gold Coast, eventually became part of Ghana. The British never did capture the Golden Stool; it was hidden deep in the forests for the duration of the war, although efforts by the British to find it lasted until 1920. Shortly after this it was accidentally uncovered by some labourers who took the golden ornaments which adorned the stool, rendering it powerless in the eyes of the Ashanti people. The labourers were sentenced to death by an Ashanti court which had jurisdiction over them, but the British intervened, and the accused were exiled instead. The war cost the British and their allies 1,007 fatal casualties in total. Ashanti casualties are estimated to be around 2,000. [edit] See also[edit] Bibliography
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