Subj: Our Past, Present and Future : Part 3

Date: 18/02/97

To: Okyeame@mit.edu

CC: chronic@ghana.africaonline.com

CC: indep@ghana.africaonline.com

CC: ghana_think_tank@databack.com

Compatriots,

Twisted Facts and Concepts

One scours the textbooks and history journals in vain for a coherently articulated account of the how the Asante "empire" was built and operated. What one finds is a confusion of terminology in which a number of pro-Asante writers merely assume that wherever the Asante had conducted a raid or had a trade representative they must have had controlled. This is as absurd as it sounds. I personally would love to see a comprehensive elaboration of the "empire" thesis by its advocates.

The continued adherence to this unfounded thesis derives largely from the virtual absence or intolerance of a critical tradition in our history; the same reason that makes some believe that Okomfo Anokye's footprints can today be found on a tree in Kumasi in spite of the fact that the man lived around 1701 and the life-span of a palm tree is only a few decades! Could there be a calculated deception somewhere? What is the Asante word for "empire"? How did Labadi become part of the "empire" as the records show that after the decline of Ayawaso the Ga ceased to be centralised until 1826?

Were Accra, Osu, Teshi, and Labadi conquered separately? Or was the "conquest" of Accra assumed to imply the "conquest" of Labadi, etc.? All this is to omit the stark contradiction elsewhere in Boahen's writing that Accra was a protectorate of Asante. Could Kwame or Boahen tell us whether "protectorates" exist in traditional Ghanaian notions.

Both Bowdich and Joseph Dupius who journeyed to Kumasi and observed the nature of its government at close quarters incline to the view that the Asante wars were little more than raids upon northern tribes for slaves or "donkor" and battles with southern tribes to keep the trade routes open for the slave trade from the hinterland; neither of them mentioned the existence of an empire.

Claridge and Reindorf describe the both Accra and Elmina as allies of Asante. But in Boahen's work there is no such thing as allies only Asantes and conquered peoples. On this view, Ghana's present population comprises (a) Asantes and (b) non-Asantes or people whose ancestors served the Asante "empire". This is the view of Ghana many people have been peddling abroad. Perhaps Adu Boahen who stated at p. 77 of Topics in West African History that the Ga were conquered by Asante can answer this.

Kwame also mentions the exploits of the Asante army during the Yaa Asante war. I merely add the following from the account of a couple of combatants. Those can may refer to "The Ashanti Campaign Of 1900" By Captain C. H, Armitage, D.S.O. And Lieutenant-Colonel A. F. Montanaro, R.A. London, Sands & Co., 1901 p10-25.

"We must now glance at the events which occurred at Kumasi between the dates of our departure and return.

Dr Williams left for the Coast on the 29th and Captain Marshall on the 30th March .On the 1st April it was evident to the acting resident that some movement was on foot among the Ashantis assembled in the town, but it was not till evening that news was brought to him that Nentchwi and Efilfa had left Kumasi, taking with them all their followers the King of Bekwai, who, during the trying times which were so soon to turn the capital of Ashanti and its neighbourhood into one great war camp, remained unswervingly loyal to the gold coast Government, also left for his country.

On the following day Captain Houston was informed that my column was to be ambushed on its return at a village called Atchiassi, half way between Bali and Kumasi, and two Haussas were immediately despatched to warn me of the danger. The poor fellows were never heard of again.

Beyond doubt they were captured and done to death by the ashantis, who were assembling from their villages as the news reached them that the time had now come to drive the white man and his troops back to the coast. The old chief Obu abassa was brought to the fort and provided with a room, as it was considered that he would otherwise be spirited away by the Kumasis, among whom he had great influence. Captain Houston held several meetings with the kings, who insisted on their loyalty, and also met Yaa Asantewa, queen of Ejissu, who with her fighting men was encamped at a small village called Abercoom, situated close to Kumasi on the other side of the swamp …………………..

P.26-27

"In the afternoon a messenger from the queen of Ejissu at her camp of Abercoom , was brought to me. He said that the queen wished the white man to know that she had been misled by the ashanti kings, who had told her that they intended to take up arms against the white man; that she was an old woman, and that all she prayed for was to live quietly in her town of Ejissu. I told the messenger to return to the Queen and tell her that she had twenty-four hours in which to get back to Ejissu, there to wait with her chiefs until the Governor sent me to palaver with her. Should she fail to leave her camp no mercy would be shown. The messenger departed much impressed, and I went to report to the Governor.

An hour later some friendly Ashantis rushed to my house with news that the queen of Ejissu and her war men had abandoned Abercoom, leaving their cooking pots, containing the evening meal of plantains, on their fires, even forgetting in their haste to take some of their drums with them. This is an instance of the panic to which I have previously reffered.

Later in the afternoon a force of Haussas, numbering 107 rank and file, commanded by Captain Middlemist, and accompanied by Captains Marshall and Bishop, the former having received permission to return from prahsu, and Dr. Hay, marched into Kumasi and formed up before the Fort. This fort had met with no opposition, the only indication of an abnormal state of affairs being the presence of a few armed men at Karsi. The King of Bekwai sent his "linguist" and one of his court officials with an escort of 27 fighting men to announce to the governor his safe arrival at his town, and to show his loyalty to the Government. These men remained with us during the siege".

Kwame further states that the Asante "conquered" the British at Nsanmankow. Perhaps he does not recognise any distinction between a defeat and a conquest. For example, although the Asante were defeated at Katamanso it would be absurd to say that they were conquered; they were not. Conquest involves complete defeat and the assertion of political control over the vanquished. Did this happen after Nsamankow? What is the basis for the claim that Asante bought three war planes for Britain during World War Two. If this extraordinary assertion is correct, one wonders why the Asante in their act of magnanimity chose not to act as part of the erstwhile Gold Coast.

Kwame further describes the Asante as the saviours of the Gold Coast. To begin with the Asante only became part of the Gold Coast after 1900. Prior to that date they were busily fighting both the British colonial army and various peoples in the Gold Coast. The causes of these battles are well-documented; nowhere did the Asante attempt to save anybody but themselves.

It was Mensah Sarbah, Attoh Ahumah, Kobina Sekyi, J.E. Casely-Hayford, John Cleland and others who valiantly fought mainly through the Aborigines' Rights Protection Society and their writings to preserve the Gold Coast from the Crown Lands Bill of 1897 which would have invested all lands in the King.

Thanks largely to "General Mosquito", the Gold Coast was never in danger of becoming a settler colony like South Africa or Rhodesia. How then could Asantes have saved Ghanaians from South-African style apartheid. It was Kwame Nkrumah, inheriting the works of Sarbah et. al., who decisively and irreversibly won independence for Ghana.

Another strange claim is the assertion that the Asante chased the British from Cape Coast to Accra whence the Asante traced them and sent the British packing. I say simply that the Asante had no role in the departure of the British for Accra, and except in cooperation with other Ghanaians, did not play a unique role in the fight for independence.

As to the other unwarranted statements by Kwame that no other people in Ghana resisted the British, one must simply remind him of the famous Poll Tax rebellion in Labadi and Christiansborg, the activities of the Ewe merchant Geraldo de Lima, the Krobo rebellion, the resistance of the Fanti Confederation and sending into exile of King Tackie Tawiah of Accra, intriguingly for helping the people of New Juaben (founding members of the Asante Amantuo) assert their independence from Kumasi. It should not be imagined that these events did not happen because some historians chose not to emphasise them.

"Cooking wars", is not peculiar to Asante, and the assertions that Nkrumah's free education programme was financed with Asante money is palpably false. Kwame also talks about Asante "Kookoo sika" without mentioning that cocoa was introduced to Ghana by Tetteh Quarshie, a non-Asante. If Kwame and his like want to really know which groups nurtured and established the cocoa industry in Ghana I would simply refer him to Polly Hill's Migrant Cocoa Farmers of Southern Ghana, London: Cambridge University Press 1963.

He would find throughout this remarkable book, particularly the Appendices, that it was Akuapem, Akyem, Guan, Ga, Shai, and Krobo farmers, particularly the latter through their "huza" farming system who built the cocoa industry. Once Kwame reads Poll Hill's book he might then qualify his views. As Ghana originally belonged to the Guan's, I find Kwame's claim of exclusive possession of mineral wealth by specific non-Guan groups unsustainable.

To be Continued

Onukpa Kwei