² They were captured in 1869 by Adu Bofo, the Gyasewahene of Kumasi, who led the Ashanti Army in a campaign against the Ewe.—Ramseyer, F. and Kühne, J., Four Years in Ashantee (London, 1875), chs. III and IV.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³ Afua Kobe, the Queen Mother of Ashanti or Asantehemaa, was, according to Ramseyer and Kühne, Kofi Karikari's mother and niece of King Kwaku Dua I. Ibid. 308–9.

⁴ Ibid. 305.

⁵ Bowdich, T. E., Mission from Cape Coast Castle to Ashantee (London, 1819), 105, 252 and note, and 253.Google Scholar

⁶ Ramseyer and Kühne, op. cit. 307–8.Google Scholar

⁷ A small part of W. Hutchison's Diary is reproduced in Bowdich, op. cit. ch. XII;Google Scholar the remainder is (so far) missing. Hutton's, W. account, A Voyage to Africa (London, 1821),Google Scholar supplements the more informative work by Dupuis, J., Journal of a Residence in Ashantee (London, 1824).CrossRefGoogle Scholar For Huydecoper, the reference is: Archives of the Netherlands' Possessions on the Coast of Guinea.—Huydecoper's Journal of his Mission to Kumasi, 28 April 1816 to 18 May 1817, K.v.G. 349 (State Archives, The Hague).

⁸ Bowdich, op. cit. 235 and 252n.Google Scholar

⁹ See Rattray, R. S., Ashanti Law and Constitution (Oxford, 1929), 272;Google ScholarWilks, Ivor, “The Rise of the Akwamu Empire, 1650–1710’, Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana (Achimota, 1957), iii, Pt. 11, 526–7.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Busia, K. A., The Position of the Chief in tile Modern Political System of Ashanti (London, 1951), 90. Ivor Wilks of the University of Ghana informs me that the Akwamu (national) Army also had nifa nnaase and benkum nnaase.Google Scholar

¹¹ Wilks, Ivor, The Northern Factor in Ashanti History (Legon, 1961), 13.Google Scholar

¹² Bowdich, op. cit. 14–31, 167, 170–1, and 482–3.Google Scholar

¹³ Ibid. 181–5. This northern route was still of major importance in the late nineteenth century. See Freeman, R. A., Travels and Life in Ashanti and Jaman (London, 1898), 180.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁴ See Priestley, Margaret and Wilks, Ivor, ‘The Ashanti Kings in the Eighteenth Century: A Revised Chronology’, Journal of African History (1960), 1, no. 1, 84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For a contemporary account of the campaign, see Bosman, W., A New and Accurate Description of the Coast of Guinea (London, 1705), 77.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Dupuis was appointed by, and was responsible to, the British Government, as distinct from the British Company of Merchants (abolished in 1821).Google Scholar

¹⁶ Dupuis, op. cit. app., cxxxii, n.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Banda was incorporated in the Confederacy as an ‘auxiliary kingdom’, and the Gyamanhene was ‘reduced … to the condition of a tributary’.—Ibid. 230.

¹⁸ In respect of the Ashanti kings of the eighteenth century, I have adopted throughout the revised chronology of Priestley and Wilks.—op. cit. 96.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Reindorf, C. C., The History of the Gold Coast and Asante (Basel, 1895), 90.Google Scholar

²⁰ Bowdich, op. cit. 235.Google Scholar

²¹ Dupuis, op. cit. Pt. II, xxvi.Google Scholar

²² Ibid. 236.

²³ Bowdich, op. cit. 317.Google Scholar

²⁴ For the relationship between Ashanti and Akwamu, see Dupuis, op. cit. 234 and pt. II, xxvii;Google ScholarBowdich, op. cit. 236, and Wilks (1957), 226.Google Scholar

²⁵ Bowdich, op. cit. 179.Google Scholar

²⁶ Ibid. 181–2.

²⁷ See Wilks (1961), 15, n. 3.Google Scholar

²⁸ According to Dupuis, this was the fourth embassy to be sent to Kumasi by the kings of Dahomey, the first having been sent in the reign of Osei Tutu.—Dupuis, op. cit. 243 and note, 244 and 249.Google Scholar

²⁹ Ibid. 239.

³⁰ Ibid. pt. II, xxvi.

³¹ Whydah, on the border of modern Dahomey, formed part of the Akwanou empire from 1702 to 1727. For its relationship to Akwamu, see Wilks (1957), 124–5.Google Scholar

³² Dupuis, op. cit. pt. II, xxxix.Google Scholar

³³ See Bowdich, op. cit. 20–1.Google Scholar

³⁴ Ivor Wilks, ‘Some Developments in Akan Administrative Practice in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries’—paper read at the Annual Conference of the Historical Society of Ghana, Jan. 1959, and forthcoming in the Transactions of the Society.Google Scholar

³⁵ Akwamu had placed its ‘provinces’ under an administrator, drawn generally from the Akwamu royal family, appointed by and responsible to the king, and resident in the territory which he administered. Power was thus put into the hands of men who might try and usurp the paramount stool. Such a bid was made in 1729 by Amu, Governor of Accra and matrilineal uncle of the Akwamuhene, Ansa Kwao; its effect was disastrous— the overthrow by the Akims of the whole western part of the empire.—Wilks, Ivor, ‘Akwamu and Otublohum: An Eighteenth-Century Akan Marriage Arrangement’. Africa (London, 1959), xxix, no. 4, 393–404.Google Scholar

³⁶ An Asafohene was ‘chief of an asafo’ or body of fighting men, whether kinsmen, slaves, or freemen, who rendered military service in return for the chief's protection. The asafo was comprised of units known as auto, literally ‘guns’; and the number of ‘guns’ which an Asafohene had at his disposal was the measure of his strength. One traditional account, related by Busia, says that the Adumhene (for example) had atuo nson or seven ‘guns’.—Busia, op. cit. 92.Google Scholar

³⁷ Bowdich, op. cit. 235.Google Scholar

³⁸ Ibid. 235–6; and Dupuis, op. cit. 42, 67, and 99.

³⁹ Dupuis op. cit. 44.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Ibid. 45.

⁴¹ Bowdich, op. cit. 83 and 41.Google Scholar

⁴² Dupuis, op. cit. 235.Google Scholar

⁴³ See Bowdich, op. cit. 233.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Ibid. 232 and 256.

⁴⁵ Rattray, op. cit. 76–7, and chs. XVIII–XX, XXII, and XXIII.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ See Prince John Owusu-Ansa's Comment, quoted by Brackenbury, H., Narrative of the Ashanti War (2 vols., London, 1874), II, 224.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Rattray, op. cit. 120.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Ibid. 236. See also Rattray, R. S., Ashanti (Oxford, 1923), ch. XXIV.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Rattray (1929), ch. XXIV. A second version of the origin of the Golden Stool is to be found in Rattray (1923), ch. XXIII. See also Smith, E. W., The Golden Stool (London, 1926), ch. I.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ Bowdich, op. cit. 231.Google Scholar

⁵¹ Busia, op. cit. 52–6;Google ScholarRattray (1929), ch. XIII.Google Scholar

⁵² Busia, op. cit. 29–36;Google ScholarRattray, R. S., Religion and Art in Ashanti (Oxford, 1927), ch. XII.Google Scholar For an early, vivid description of the king's Odwira or Yam Custom, see Bowdich, op. cit. 274–80.Google Scholar

⁵³ Rattray (1929), 105 and ch. XIV.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Ibid. 187.

⁵⁵ Busia, op. cit. and 99. There is no doubt that tributaries could be destooled by the king. For an example, see Wilks (1961), 14.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ Rattray (1929), 212.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ Bowdich, op. cit. 256.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ Not all the Kumasi chiefs, however, held their land as a gift from the king. Both Tafo, ‘a large aboriginal Inta town’ (Ibid. 170), and Amakom had been established before Osei Tutu's invasion of Nta in the latter part of the seventeenth century. The struggle for control of the area surrounding the new capital, Kumasi—some three miles from Tafo—is recalled in oral tradition. Rattray (1929), 169, 199, and 235.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ Busia, op. cit. 53.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ Busia, op. cit. 13–14;Google ScholarRattray (1929), chs. XV and XVIIXXIII.Google Scholar

⁶¹ There were (and still are) two Adaes, one held on Sunday (Akwasidae) and one held on Wednesday (Awukudae)—the Great and Little Adae respectively, each celebrated at forty-two-day intervals. The purpose of these ceremonies was to honour and propitiate the spirits of the royal ancestors, and to solicit favours and mercy. Bowdich, op. cit. 281;Google ScholarBusia, op. cit. 27–9;Google ScholarRattray (1923), chs. V–IX.Google Scholar

⁶² Bowdich, op. cit. 256.Google Scholar

⁶³ Rattray (1929), ch. XII.Google Scholar

⁶⁴ The Mamponghene had no direct administrative contact with the subjects of his Abrempon, but dealt only with the latter themselves. Busia, op. cit. 61–2.Google Scholar

⁶⁵ In 1935 the Atenehene, a Kumasi chief, stated: ‘After the 1900 rising Government policy was that all people should serve the Omanhene near whom they lived, but should not come into Kumasi to serve …’—Proceedings of the Meetings of the Committee of Privileges held at Kumasi from the 18 June 1935, to the 3 Jan. 1936, 130; office of the Ashanti House of Chiefs, Kumasi. Thus, the villages in the Tano-Subin valley were placed under the Takyimanhene after the 1900 War. Ibid. 216–48.

⁶⁶ Archives of the Second Dutch West Indies Company. Despatch of 30 Sept. 1748 from Director-General van Voorst to the Presidial Chamber, Amsterdam, W.I.C. 490 (State Archives, The Hague). See also Dupuis, op. cit. 235.Google Scholar

⁶⁷ Dupuis, op. cit. 235–7;Google ScholarPriestley and Wilks, op. cit. 93 and n. 52.Google Scholar

⁶⁸ By 1817, when Bowdich visited Kumasi, there was a well-established, sizeable Muslim community, which occupied one street of the town exclusively. The community included some ‘men of education and talent’, who provided Dupuis with valuable information about Ashanti's past. Bowdich, op. cit. 129;Google ScholarDupuis, op. cit. pt. II, VI. For a discussion of ‘Islam in Ashanti’, see Wilks (1961), pt. II, 14–29.Google Scholar

⁶⁹ Dupuis, op. cit. 235–6.Google Scholar

⁷⁰ Bowdich, op. cit. 236 and 240.Google Scholar

⁷¹ Bowdich noted that the power of the King of Juaben was ‘equal to the King of Ashantee's’. Ibid. 105.

⁷² Ibid. 245–6.

⁷³ Ibid. 232 and 256.

⁷⁴ Rattray (1929), 173.Google Scholar

⁷⁵ Bowdich, op. cit. 252, n.Google Scholar

⁷⁶ Ibid. 236; and Bowdich, T. E., An Essay on the Superstitions, Customs, and Arts, common to the Ancient Egyptians, Abyssinians, and Ashantees (Paris, 1821), 54.Google Scholar

⁷⁷ An abusua is an exogamous matriclan.Google Scholar

⁷⁸ Busia, op. cit. 93. The subsequent British designation of all the leading Kumasi chiefs as ‘clan chiefs’ is therefore incorrect.Google Scholar

⁷⁹ Bowdich (1819), 252 and note.Google Scholar

⁸⁰ Ibid. 105.

⁸¹ Dupuis, op. cit. 99.Google Scholar

⁸² In the Kumasi, as in most Ashanti Divisions, the Akwamuhene was the Kontihene's ‘confrère and second-in-command’. Rattray (1929), 88–9.Google Scholar

⁸³ See Priestley and Wilks, op. cit. 87.Google Scholar

⁸⁴ Ibid. 88 and note; Rattray (1929), 175 and 202.

⁸⁵ See Ferguson's, G. E.Memorandum on Ashanti and the Brong Tribes, dated 24 Nov. 1893 and enclosed in confidential despatch of 7 Dec. 1893 from Hodgson to Ripon, C.O./ 96/239; and letter of 11 Feb. 1893 from Stewart and Vroom to Governor, enclosed in despatch of 15 Feb. 1895 from Brandford Griffith to Ripon, C.–7918.Google Scholar

⁸⁶ Busia, op. cit. 219.Google Scholar

⁸⁷ Bowdich (1819), 322.Google Scholar

⁸⁸ Information supplied by Nana Boakye Dankwa and Nana Charles Bonsu, respectively Akyempemhene and Hiahene of Kumasi.Google Scholar

⁸⁹ Bowdich found that the king's system of espionage was much spoken of ‘for its address and infallibility’—by Opoku Frefre, the Kumasi Gyasehene, and others. See Bowdich (1819), 294.Google Scholar

⁹⁰ Bowdich (1819), 252.Google Scholar

⁹¹ Ibid.

⁹² Bowdich found that the king and his chiefs spoke in scathing terms of the ‘lower order’ of Ashanti society—Osei Bonsu called them ‘the worst people existing, except the Fantees’. Ibid. 250.

⁹³ Ibid. 253.

⁹⁴ Ibid. 233.

⁹⁵ Ibid. 246.

⁹⁶ Ibid. 253.

⁹⁷ Wilks (1961), ‘Akan Administrative Practice’.Google Scholar

⁹⁸ Busia, op. cit. 100;Google ScholarRattray (1929), ch. XII.Google Scholar

⁹⁹ Busia, op. cit. 100.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁰ Ibid.; Wilks (1961), ‘Akan Administrative Practice’; Rattray (1929), 95.Google Scholar

¹⁰¹ Wilks (1961), ‘Akan Administrative Practice’.Google Scholar

¹⁰² Rattray (1929), 95–6.Google Scholar

¹⁰³ Revolt against Kumasi rule on the part of the distant provinces of the empire had been quite common in the eighteenth century. Thus, very soon after his accession to the Golden Stool in (or about) 1764, Osei Kojo had to wage a desperate war against Gyaman, as well as against Denkyera, Wassaw, and Twifo. Dupuis, op. cit. 241.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁴ Rattray (1929), 173 and 176.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁵ Ramseyer and Kuhne, op. cit. 308.Google Scholar It is difficult to account for the political importance of Nkoranza and Abesim at this time. Bowdich noted that Nkoranza was one of the states which the Ashanti had subdued, but ‘from fidelity, and a long period of military services’, it was generally excused the payment of tribute; he observed that the Asantehene had a high regard for the ability of its people. Bowdich (1819), 321 and 171. The Chief of Abesim was Kyidomhene of Dormaa. In 1893, G. E. Ferguson found that Prempeh's northern army included a contingent from Abesim. Ferguson, op. cit.; C.O./96/239.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁶ Ramseyer and Kühne, op. cit. 308.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁷ Ibid. 310–11.

¹⁰⁸ To take one example. In 1891 the Gold Coast Governor, acting without Colonial Office sanction, offered to take Ashanti under British protection. The national assembly sat ‘almost daily’ over much of the six-week period that H. M. Hull, the officer in charge of the British mission, was in Kumasi. The assembly was divided in opinion but eventually rejected the Governor's offer. See letters from Hull to Brandford Griffith, April/May 1891, in C.–7917.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁹ Busia, op. cit. 101;Google ScholarBowdich (1819), 274.Google Scholar

¹¹⁰ Dupuis, op. cit. 236–7.Google Scholar

¹¹¹ Cf. the Arabic chronicle, apparently of the late eighteenth century, which records the death of Muliki Asanti, the King of Ashanti (Opoku Ware), in A.H. 1163 (early in A.D. 1750): ‘… may God curse him … He it was who troubled the people of Gonja; Continually and at all times did he trouble them…. Whatever he wished, so he did, for he was all powerful in his rule.’ Manuscript Chronicle of Imam Imoru Konandi and Al Hajj Mahama, reproduced in translation in Goody, J., The Ethnography of tile Northern Territories of the Gold Coast, West of the White Volta (C.O., London, 1954), app. iv.Google Scholar

¹¹² Abolition was effected in two stages, by Acts of Parliament passed in 1807 and 1833. Osei Bonsu was anxious that the African slave-trade should be revived. See Bowdich (1819), 106 and 149.Google Scholar

¹¹³ This proverb was related to me by Nana H. Owusu-Ansah of Kumasi.Google Scholar

¹¹⁴ Busia, op. cit. 101.Google Scholar

¹¹⁵ Wilks (1961), ‘Akan Administrative Practice’.Google Scholar

¹¹⁶ See Rattray (1929), ch. XIV;Google ScholarBusia, op. cit. 78–84;Google ScholarBowdich (1819), 296–7.Google Scholar

¹¹⁷ Busia, op. cit. 82.Google Scholar

¹¹⁸ Ibid. 77.

¹¹⁹ This was Ntan kese or Great Oath of Ashanti, which recalled the death of the Asantehene on a Saturday (Memeneda) at Akromanti during the course of the disastrous campaign against the Akim in 1717. Since the body of the king was not recovered, his name became ‘a kunorokosem, something known but not to be mentioned, its utterance strongly tabooed (akyiwadie)’. See Priestley and Wilks, op. cit. 90–1.Google Scholar See also Bowdich (1819), 233 and 297;Google ScholarDupuis, op. cit. 232–3;Google ScholarBusia, op. cit. 75–6.Google Scholar

¹²⁰ Busia, op. cit. 75–7;Google ScholarRattray (1927), ch. XXII and (1929), ch. XXXVI.Google Scholar

¹²¹ For examples, see Busia, op. cit. 77–8.Google Scholar

¹²² Ibid. 26.

¹²³ Ibid. 24.

¹²⁴ ‘The religion of the Ashanti’, says Busia, ‘is mainly ancestor-worship.’ Ibid. 23.

¹²⁵ Ibid. chs. II–III; Colonial Reports, Ashanti, 1921. The subject of Ashanti religion has been treated very fully by Rattray—(1923), chs. IVXX; (1927), chs. I–XX.Google Scholar

¹²⁶ Busia, op. cit. 36–7.Google Scholar

¹²⁷ Ibid. 26–7.

¹²⁸ Thus, the failure of Osei Kwame (1777–c. 1801) to return to Kumasi for his own Odwira provided the Kumasi chiefs with a good ground for destooling a king who was, on other grounds, no longer acceptable to them. Dupuis, op. cit. 245;Google ScholarBowdich (1819), 238–9.Google Scholar

¹²⁹ See Busia, op. cit. 12.Google Scholar

¹³⁰ Kofi Karikari was banished to Akropong following his destoolment in 1874. Rattray (1929), 175. Moreover, a destooled chief was not placed, upon his death, with his royal ancestors in the mausoleum.Google Scholar

¹³¹ It is said that Karikari was destooled (1874) for rifling the royal mausoleum at Bantama, and Mensa Bonsu, his successor, for extortion and cruelty. Busia, op. cit. 21–2 and 99.Google Scholar

¹³² Ibid. 96.

¹³³ Ibid.

¹³⁴ Rattray (1927), 132.Google Scholar Busia maintains that the rites associated with the king's Odwira rekindled the ‘sentiments of solidarity and nationhood’ in the Ashanti chiefs who participated in them. Busia, op. cit. 101.Google Scholar Bowdich commented that the Odwira or Yam Custom ‘seems to have been instituted … to unite such various nations by a common festival’. Bowdich (1819), 256.Google Scholar

¹³⁵ Busia, op. cit. 54.Google Scholar

¹³⁶ Rattray (1929), 173. The revised chronology of the reigns of Osei Yaw Akoto and Kwaku Dua I (1834–1967) has been supplied by Ivor Wilks. K.v.G. 699: letters of 4 June, 19 July and 6 Aug. 1834; K.v.G. 389: letter of 20 Nov. 1836.Google Scholar

¹³⁷ Rattray (1929), 175–8.Google Scholar

¹³⁸ Claridge, W. W., A History of the Gold Coast and Ashanti (2 vols, London, 1915), II, passim.Google Scholar

¹³⁹ Thus, Bowdich noted that the Akims had, by the early nineteenth century, ‘risen from their dependence at least eight times’. Bowdich (1819), 237.Google Scholar

¹⁴⁰ See Papers relating to the Restoration of the Ashanti Confederacy (Accra, 1935), table III, 13, para. 18.Google Scholar