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Asante and the Akan and Mossi States (African Studies)

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  1. Introduction
  2. Studies of the Asante, Akan, and Mossi show the importance of migration, language, identity, polity, trade, and state expansion. Earlier works focused exclusively on either the Akan and the Asante as a subgroup or the Mossi. The current scholarly literature from various disciplines provides valuable insights into the evolution of West African societies, including their origins and migratory practices, as well as their cultural practices, how cultures interacted, and the ways in which discrete communities might have emerged as states or declined. The contemporary scholarship further expands its scope to address how imperial power, inheritance systems, gender, spirituality, and royal authority were intertwined in the West African region before and during migrations of the various groups. The West African groups on which attention has focused include the Akan of contemporary Ghana. Akan society consists of numerous subgroups, including the Asante, Fante, Brong, Akyem, Akwapim, Akwamu, Kwahu, Aowin, Wassa, Assin, Denkyira, Sewhi, and Adansi. Some Akan are also found in present-day Ivory Coast. Views on the origins of the Akan vary. While some earlier scholars suggested that the Akan and, by implication, the Asante originated in the vicinity of Ethiopia or the Niger-Chad region (Dupuis 1966, originally published in 1824, cited under Accounts by Non-Ghanaians) or Libya, Adu Boahen contends that based on linguistic and oral traditions and on archaeological evidence, the Akan might have emerged in the Chad-Benue region, the areas around the Lower Volta and middle Niger, the region between the Comoe and the Black Volta and the Pra River and Ofin River basin. Recent scholarship using archaeology and ethnography provides additional information on the debates about the Akan origins. Although the Asante kingdom is often mentioned in West African historiography, the Mossi state also played an important role in the precolonial period. Mossi people are another ethnic group who originally were located in the Mossi plateau in present-day Burkina Faso. Sources among French colonial authorities give some earlier historical data about the history and kingship systems as well as members of the Mossi society. Recent accounts shed further light on the socioeconomic organization and land use among the Mossi. Recent scholars in African studies who focus on dispersal of people have contended that the Mossi settled in areas such as Ouahigouya, Kongoussi, Kaya, Koudougou, Ougadougou, Manga, Tenkodogo, Koupela, and Bousla. The scholars argue that the Mossi state once constituted a strong kingdom that resisted the spread of Islam during its initial expansionary period. Mossi and Bamana formed the powerful Segu kingdom, which also flourished along the Saharan trade routes. The Mossi states were known for inland trading activities around the Niger River, where the ancient West African empires of Ghana, Mali, and Songhay flourished. When the trans-Saharan trade began to be eclipsed by European trade with West African states such as the Fante, Asante and the Brong, the Mossi shifted their trading ventures as they settled among the Asante and other societies south of their premigration locations.
  3. The Author wishes to thank anonymous reviewers for their comments and corrections to the first draft. Thanks are also due to Chelsey Leigh Phelan Baturin for helping to collate and research the various sources for this work.
  4. General Overviews
  5. The Akan, the Asante, and the Mossi states have been the focus of numerous scholarly works. The Akan, including the Asante, constitute about two-thirds of the population of Ghana and settled mainly in the semi-deciduous areas of the country. In addition to linguistic and cultural similarities among the Akan, they also share kingship systems. Scholars point out that the Mossi, whose indigenous language family is often called More, carried their farming, smithing, and pottery skills during their migrations to new lands that include present- day Akan areas. While the Mossi moved to other West African societies, their natal communities were also inhabited by the Mande from Mali. Similar to the Asante, the indigenous Mossi considered land as property that could not be bought or sold. The living family members, who are the custodians of the land, are responsible for the protection of the land because they inherited it from their ancestors. With the introduction of a monetized economy and the commodification of land and other properties under colonial rule, the Akan, Asante, and Mossi states underwent socioeconomic and political changes, as discussed by scholars, who have focused on the accumulation of wealth and the emergence of new statuses in West Africa. The authors also focus on how traditional roles as well as notions of royal power and their underpinning belief systems were changing while other aspects of life appeared to remain the same. The diverse perspectives brought together underscore the multidisciplinary studies that bring a rich and rigorous scholarly attention to the Mossi, Akan, and Asante states. This section presents works that identify the crucial time periods in political history as a basis for understanding the social, religious, economic, and cultural practices of these West African states. Wilks 1993, a large work, begins with the Akan as a larger political organization before it centers on the related history, politics, and culture of the Asante kingdom. The author has published some of the most extensive collections on Akan and Asante history. Kwadwo 2004 provides an examination of each of the various Asante states and the history of their stools, which is necessary to comprehend before delving into the more recent history and consolidation of the Asante kingdom. Kwadwo 2004 serves as a preliminary reading for Opoku-Ampomah 1995, which explains how each of these segmented communities united as the Asante Union under Osei Tutu in the 18th century. Claridge 2010 focuses on the dissolution of the Asante kingdom. The author discusses the various wars fought by the Asante with neighboring peoples as well as the British, who eventually annexed the Asante state. Tufuo and Donkor 1989 complements these works through an analysis based on archaeological research on Asante history and society. Izard 1970 provides a helpful introduction to the history of the Mossi states.
  6. Claridge, W. Walton. A History of the Gold Coast and Ashanti from the Earliest Times to the Commencement of the Twentieth Century. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Library, 2010.
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  8. Comments on factors that led to the dissolution of the Asante. The author details the series of battles the Asante fought against the Brong, the Fante, and their other neighbors as well as against the British before the Asante royal household was deported from the Gold Coast. It also touches on how the British extended their colonial rule after the annexation of the Asante state. Originally published in 1915.
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  10. Izard, Michel. “Introduction à l’histoire des royaumes mossi.” 2 vols. Recherches voltaïques 12–13. Paris: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1970.
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  12. Izard presents detailed a history of the Mossi kingdoms from the 15th and 16th centuries until the European conquest in 1896 and, within the context of three periods, the Mossi as a new entity, the colonial period, and the modern state.
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  14. Kwadwo, Osei. An Outline of Asante History. Vol. 2, Ashanti Region of Ghana: An Annotated Bibliography, from Earliest Times to 1973. Kumasi, Ghana: O. Kwadwo Enterprise, 2004.
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  16. Kwadwo continues his research from Volume 1. In this volume, he annotates each of the individual Asante states and the history of their stools before their political division. A strong base for understanding how the states unified to fight against the British and for the political state thereafter.
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  18. Opoku-Ampomah, J. K. The Asante Kingdom: Illustrated Asante History. Ghana, West Africa: J. K. Opoku-Ampomah, 1995.
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  20. Opoku-Ampomah examines how segmented communities in West Africa, especially the Akan and particularly the Asante, formed a united state in the 18th century under Osei Tutu. The Asante then began to expand their territory in West Africa under various Asante kings who came from the royal household.
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  22. Tufuo, J. W., and C. E. Donkor. Ashantis of Ghana: People with a Soul. Accra, Ghana: Anowuo Educational Publications, 1989.
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  24. Tufuo, an officer in the courts of three Ashanti kings, and Donkor, an anthropologist and a member of a Banda excavations team, provide a firsthand historical overview of Ashanti culture as influenced by myth and legend and under King Prempeh II. They emphasize topics that include communal life and women, religion, chieftaincy, and heritage in Ashanti history and present society.
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  26. Wilks, Ivor. Forests of Gold: Essays on the Akan and the Kingdom of Asante. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 1993.
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  28. In one volume, Wilks provides extensive information on the Akan states, particularly the Asante. Chapters 1 through 3 deal with the emergence of Akan society and its history. Chapters 4 through 7 focus on Asante culture while chapters 8 and 9 address Asante politics.
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  30. Bibliographies
  31. Extensive research has been published on the Akan states and the Asante as well as the Mossi states. Many of the sources published on the Mossi are written in French due to colonial influence. Though all three citations here are offered by the African Studies Centre at Leiden in the Netherlands, works by other scholars include extensive bibliographies, such as Wilks 1993 (cited under General Overviews) as well as others under Government and Politics. Asante Kingdom and ASA Online offer bibliographic documentation and journal abstracts while Africabib.org is actually a portal to four additional bibliographical databases with access to a breadth of information on the Akan, Asante, and Mossi states. Fage 1994 includes some of the most critical works that have framed much of contemporary discussion on precolonial West Africa, particularly the author’s collection of primary sources dating to before 1501.
  32. Africabib.org. African Studies Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands.
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  34. Provides access to four bibliographical databases that are useful for researching the Akan and Mossi states, including the Africana Periodical Literature, African Women, Women Travelers, Explorers and Missionaries to Africa, and Islam in Africa. The database provided by the African Studies Centre in Leiden, Netherlands (see also Asante Kingdom and ASA Online).
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  36. ASA Online. African Studies Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands.
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  38. Database that provides abstracts on a number of scholarly journal articles on Africa found in the ASC Library. Facilitates an efficient search for identifying the most recent journals published in Africa and those of leading scholars.
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  40. Asante Kingdom. African Studies Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands.
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  42. Founded in 1947, the African Studies Center offers scientific research and documentation. The Web dossier “Asante Kingdom” provides an extensive bibliography and introduction to the history and politics of the Asante.
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  44. Fage, J. D., ed. A Guide to Original Sources for Precolonial Western Africa Published in European Languages: For the Most Part in Book Form. Madison: African Studies Program, University of Wisconsin, 1994.
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  46. The scholar gives a complete annotated bibliography of published original sources on precolonial western African societies and traditional institutions of servitude. Author’s research begins in 1978–1979 and includes sources prior to 1501.
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  48. Reference Works
  49. The works here range from primary data collected by scholars and those produced by scholars describing and interpreting secondary sources. Encyclopaedia Britannica (Encyclopaedia Britannica 2001–) serves as one of the most basic sources of information on the subject as well as related topics of West Africa. The New Encyclopedia of Africa (Middleton and Miller 2008) and Shillington 2005 concentrate specifically on the African continent and can serve as a quick reference source for students. Shillington 2005 gives a basic and broad sweep of the history of Africa in examining the earliest evolution of humans to the beginnings of the 21st century. Middleton and Miller supplement Shillington 2005 in discussing the history of the slave trade from 1441 to the conquest in 1905. Akyeampong and Gates 2012 call attention to six volumes of African biographies that are more substantive and focused for researchers. The General History of Africa (UNESCO: International Scientific Committee for the Drafting of a General History of Africa 1981–1993) is an eight-volume collection of articles written by African authors in multiple languages on a wide range of topics from the African past to present-day. Anquandah 1982 and Owusu-Ansah 2014 are two sources that provide comparative resources for understanding the Akan and Mossi specifically. Anquandah 1982 presents archaeological and ethnographic evidence that covers early Akan history, including the slave trades, to modern issues of commercial activities. Owusu-Ansah 2014 also discusses the prehistory of the Akan. This fourth edition includes recent political events and contemporary debates on Ghanaian culture, linguistics, and society.
  50. Akyeampong, Emmanuel, and Henry Louis Gates Jr., eds., Dictionary of African Biography. 6 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.
  51. DOI: 10.1093/acref/9780195382075.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  52. Authors have compiled more than 2,100 biographies from the African continent useful for scholars who are interested in African personal and social biographies.
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  54. Anquandah, James. Rediscovering Ghana’s Past. Accra, Ghana: Sedco, 1982.
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  56. Author presents critical archaeological evidence, including ethnographic and linguistic research on the early hunter-gatherers of the Stone Age, farmers in small villages, and the rise of coastal kingdoms, including those of the Akan regions and Accra to the northern region. He also discusses the influences of the trans-Saharan and transatlantic trade on various sociocultural groups in Ghana.
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  58. Encyclopaedia Britannica. Encyclopaedia Britannica. Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2001–.
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  60. This volume offers a wide range of articles on every topic. Included are numerous relevant entries; see especially entries on Asante/Ashanti, Akan, and Mossi and related key terms.
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  62. Middleton, John, and Joseph C. Miller, eds. New Encyclopedia of Africa. Vol. 1. 2d ed. Detroit: Thomson/Gale, 2008.
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  64. The scholars have focused on a variety of ethnographic and historical records that shed light on Africa with particular reference to informative entries on West Africa.
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  66. Owusu-Ansah, David. The Historical Dictionary of Ghana. 4th ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014.
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  68. Author has given a detailed chronological history of Ghana beginning with the prehistory of human habitation. He provides new material such as the elections of 2000 and the inauguration day of the fourth government of the fourth republic of Ghana in 2005. The work mostly focuses on historical figures and places as well as cultural, linguistic, economic, and social issues.
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  70. Shillington, Kevin, ed. Encyclopedia of African History. New York: Fitzroy Dearborn, 2005.
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  72. This edited work provides rich and insightful findings on African history. See especially entries on Asante, Akan, and Kumasi.
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  74. UNESCO: International Scientific Committee for the Drafting of a General History of Africa. General History of Africa. 8 vols. London: Heinemann, 1981–1993.
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  76. A UNESCO-sponsored work written by native Africanist authors that focuses on diverse aspects of African history and culture up to present-day society. It is published in multiple languages, including, in addition to English, Arabic, Fulfuldo, Hausa, Portuguese, Pulaar, and Swahili.
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  78. West African Association of Archaeology. West African Association of Archaeology.
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  80. This is an essential source for accessing past and present archaeological findings related to West Africa.
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  82. Journals
  83. Cited here are most commonly referenced and highly esteemed journals with entries on Africa and African history published by a wide range of scholars, anthropologists, linguists, and others. African Studies Review is a highly reputable journal that includes contemporary research on Africa. International Journal of African Historical Studies, Journal des Africanistes and Africa include a vast and extensive range of biographies, research articles, and overviews on Africa, its history, people, and culture. Journal of African Studies/ Cahier d’Études Africaines is a French journal that serves as one of the most thorough databases providing access to anthropological and historical research on Africa and the African diaspora. Recherches voltaïques: Collection de travaux de sciences humaines sur la Haute Volta and Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana (Johnson 1965 cited under Consolidation; Hagan 1971 cited under Centralization) are both journals devoted solely to the study of Ghana. Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana is devoted to scholarly works on the history of Ghana, book reviews and area studies on Africa. Specifically, Recherches voltaïques: Collection de travaux de sciences humaines sur la Haute Volta focuses on the Upper Volta, located in both Ghana and Burkina Faso. It includes scholarly articles on the Mossi people, a subgroup of the Mole-Dagomba who reside on the border between northern Ghana and the southern region of Burkina Faso. African Archaeological Review sheds lights on archaeological evidence that may have been overlooked by scholars. African Economic History pertains specifically to the interlinked relationship between African history and economics.
  84. Africa. 1928–.
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  86. One of the most commonly used journals devoted to the study of African societies and cultures. Published by the International African Institute.
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  88. African Archaeological Review. 1983–.
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  90. It publishes works by Africanists that shed new light on evidence that might have been overlooked by scholars who did not incorporate archaeological evidence in their scholarship. Published by Springer.
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  92. African Economic History. 1976–.
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  94. This journal focuses readers attention on the interlinking relationship between history and economics in continental Africa, especially commercial activities among African nations within a global context. Published by the African Studies Program, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
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  96. African Studies Review. 1970–.
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  98. Publishes contemporary research on Africa. It is a reputable journal on African affairs that covers multidisciplinary works. Established in 1958 as the African Studies Bulletin. Published by Cambridge University Press.
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  100. International Journal of African Historical Studies. 1971–.
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  102. Founded in 1968 at Boston University, its articles are based on original research and historical analyses of the African past and present.
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  104. Journal des Africanistes. 1931–.
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  106. Formerly Journal de la société africanistes before 1976, this journal includes articles written by anthropologists, archaeologists, and linguists specializing in African history and peoples. The articles are published in French and English.
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  108. Journal of African Studies/ Cahier d’Études Africaines. 1960–.
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  110. It contains a comprehensive collection of anthropological and historical research articles on the African diaspora primarily focusing on Africa, the Antilles, and black America. Published in French though it is also available in English.
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  112. Recherches voltaïques: Collection de travaux de sciences humaines sur la Haute Volta. 1946–
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  114. It contains select articles by scholars on the history, people, geography, and other subjects relating to the Upper Volta, one of Ghana’s ten administrative regions and home to the Ewe people as well as the Mole and Dagomba from Burkina Faso (formerly called Upper Volta). See Pageard 1969 (cited under Mossi States), Izard 1970 (cited under General Overviews), Rémy 1972 (cited under Mossi), and Lallemand 1977 (cited under Family and Kinship).
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  116. Primary Sources
  117. This section has been divided into two subgroups: Accounts by Ghanaians and Accounts by Non-Ghanaians.
  118. Accounts by Ghanaians
  119. These works include local accounts by Ghanaians offer insights into how local Asante experienced and perceived colonial and missionary presences. Prempeh 2003 (originally published in 1907), based on the oral histories of Prempeh’s mother, is one of the most invaluable and most referenced primary sources by scholars regarding Asante politics beginning in the 17th century up to his exile by the British in 1896. Reindorf 2007, provides an interesting complement to Prempeh’s work written by a half-Ghanaian, half-Danish catechist of the Christian mission involved in local politics. Reindorf writes on early Asante wars to the 1860s, before Prempeh’s exile. Carretta and Reese 2010 is an introductory study of the bridge between the political and missionary work done by the British, while Hayford 1903 offers a more opinionated, argumentative case for the consequences of British imperialism on native institutions. Kyei 2001 is included to tie together the earlier sources and gives a more contemporary, but extremely personal account of daily Asante life.
  120. Carretta, Vincent, and Ty M. Reese, eds. The Life and Letters of Philip Quaque: The First African Anglican Missionary. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2010.
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  122. Provides details on how, in 1765, Quaque was the first African ordained as an Anglican priest and brought to England by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. Upon his return to Ghana, he served for fifty years as the society’s missionary. These letters provide insights into Quaque’s relations with European and African authorities, his observations of French imperialism, and his opposition to slavery through his correspondence with early abolitionists.
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  124. Hayford, J. E. Casely. Gold Coast Native Institutions: With Thoughts upon a Healthy Imperial Policy for the Gold Coast and Ashanti. London: Sweet and Maxwell, 1903.
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  126. A Ghanaian journalist, Hayford was hired by the British as a lawyer to work on cases between the British administration and Gold Coast natives, particularly the Ashanti. Through evidence collected for legal briefings, such as the Lands Bill of 1897, and descriptions of specific cases, Hayford proposes that native institutions would likely die out if the British did not allow local contributions to the establishment of the native inhabitants’ own state.
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  128. Kyei, T. E. Our Days Dwindle: Memories of My Childhood Days in Asante. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2001.
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  130. In this first volume of T. E. Kyei’s original four-volume memoir, the author in 1983 wrote about his life from early childhood (1910s) up until Ghana’s independence in 1957. Detailed and compelling account of daily life in rural Asante. Kyei’s insider perspective proves valuable for understanding Asante culture and the social and material life that often remains left out of historical accounts of colonial Asante.
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  132. Prempeh, A. The History of Ashanti Kings and the Whole Country Itself and Other Writings. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.
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  134. Based on the oral history of his mother the Asantehemaa Yaa Kyaa, Prempeh I records details of the Ashanti monarchy and British treatment of Ashanti rulers during the 17th to 19th centuries, with particular focus on the events of 1907, following the exile of Prempeh to the Seychelles by the British in 1896. It includes four introductory essays by leading scholars on Ghana. Originally published in 1907.
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  136. Reindorf, Carl C. History of the Gold Coast and Asante: Based on Traditions and Historical Facts, Comprising a Period of More Than Three Centuries from about 1500 to 1860. 3d ed. Accra, Ghana: Universities Press, 2007.
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  138. Written by a Ghanaian- Danish catechist of the Christian mission who was actively involved in local politics. He recounts in detail the history of the Asante, including the wars and causes of war, in the 19th century. Originally published in 1895.
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  140. Accounts by Non-Ghanaians
  141. De Marrée 1817–1818 and Justesen 2005 introduce the era of colonialism in Ghana. Both are accounts by Dutch officials on trade and rule over the Asante. Dupuis 1966 (originally published in 1824), one of the earliest written records of Asante society and British imperialism, and Law 1997–2001 are both British accounts of relations with the Asante, particularly through trade, from the late 17th to the early 19th centuries. Baden-Powell 1972 constituted a very personal account of the political collapse of the Asante, while Jenkins 1978, a volume of letters, offers an account of the Christian missionary work conducted through the Basel mission between 1828 and 1918. While many colonial accounts argue on behalf of an imperial presence, Bowdich 1966 criticizes the British presence on the Gold Coast. Marc 1909 and Tauxier 1924 provide administrative accounts of the Mossi people and their political wars.
  142. Baden-Powell, Robert S. S. The Downfall of Prempeh: A Diary of Life with the Native Levy in Ashanti, 1895–96. Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries Press, 1972.
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  144. First published in 1896. Baden-Powell, a retired British military officer who founded the Boy Scouts, recounts in his diary the British expedition in Ashanti leading to the collapse of Prempeh’s rule. Baden-Powell writes in a very intimate, powerful, reflective manner that captures the historical events but, more importantly, the indigenous reactions to British intervention and domination.
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  146. Bowdich, Thomas Edward. Mission from Cape Coast Castle to Ashantee, with a Descriptive Account of That Kingdom. London: Griffith and Farran, 1966.
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  148. A British traveler, writer, and negotiator with the Asante empire in 1819, Bowdich (b. 1791–d. 1824) provides the earliest known European account of the Asante. His criticisms of imperialistic practices partly contributed to the abolishment of the African Company of Merchants and the assumption of British rule over the Gold Coast administration. Originally published in 1824.
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  150. de Marrée, J. A. Reizen op en beschrijving van de Goudkust van Guinea. 2 vols. The Hague: Gebroeders van Cleef, 1817–1818.
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  152. Two volumes written in Dutch by the secretary to the Dutch government on the Gold Coast from 1801 to 1816 on the Dutch presence and rule of the Gold Coast. Important source for understanding Dutch influence as analyzed by de Marrée in his observations of fort St. George d’Elmina, one of the main trading terminals (also forts at Axim and Accra) with the Asante. Includes logs, maps, proofs, and illustrations.
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  154. Dupuis, J. Journal of a Residence in Ashantee: Notes and Researches Relative to the Coast and to the Interior of Western Africa, Illustrated with a Map and Plates. London: Frank Cass, 1966.
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  156. Written by an Englishman who was appointed by King Charles II to maintain relations with and gain the confidence of the king of Ashanti in order to advance British trade interests. Dupuis recounts his voyage to Kumasi in 1819 and his experiences, including his sickness, daily tasks, and negotiations with the Ashanti. Originally published in 1824.
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  158. Jenkins, Paul, ed. The Ghana Archive of the Basel Mission, 1828–1918. Basel, Switzerland: P. Jenkins, 1978.
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  160. A microform and written text on nineteenth century southern Ghana and the Basel Mission, a German missionary society (1815–2001) active in Ghana around 1828. The head of the Basel Mission archive in Switzerland from 1972 to 2003, Jenkins played a central role in the development of African studies in Basel. He includes more than one hundred volumes of official correspondence and letters outgoing from Ghana to Basel from 1828 to 1914.
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  162. Justesen, Ole, ed. Danish Sources for the History of Ghana, 1657–1754. Translated by James Manley. 2 vols. Copenhagen: Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskab, 2005.
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  164. An extensive and exhaustive collection of official reports of governors, local correspondence, and reports from the Danish administration that provide crucial insights into the economic, social, and political conditions and relations between Ghanaian societies and Europeans. Particularly useful for understanding Dutch forts, trade, and management of the Gold Coast and interactions with local societies, such as the Akwamu after 1685 and the Asante and Fante after 1742.
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  166. Law, Robin, ed. The English in West Africa: The Local Correspondence of the Royal African Company of England, 1681–1699. 2 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997–2001.
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  168. One of the most substantial and extensive sources published on European trade (mostly gold and slaves) and the history of West Africa. These letter-books of the Royal African Company of England, which held a legal monopoly of English trade with West Africa, detail the daily operations of the company and its interactions with the local African societies of the Gold Coast, notably Ghana, in the late 17th century.
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  170. Marc, Lucien. Le pays mossi. Paris: Éditions Larose, 1909.
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  172. Written by a lieutenant of the colonial infantry who spent five years in Ouagadougou, it covers Mossi relationships with Europeans, Mossi meteorology, geography, repartition of vegetation and farm animal space. Marc provides a detailed categorization of his notion of “racial classifications” of Mossi people native to the Volta region (in present-day Burkina Faso) followed by ethnographical analysis.
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  174. Tauxier, L. Nouvelles notes sur le mossi et le gourounsi. Paris: Éditions Larose, 1924.
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  176. Written by a colonial administrator, it gives a detailed account of the origins of the Mossi people and a chronology of Mossi kings followed by a brief summary of the Mossi-Bambara war of the 18th century and the Mossi sun cult.
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  178. The Akan States and Pre-Asante Kingdom and Migrations
  179. At present the Akan groups include the Asante, Fante, Brong, Akyem, Akwapim, Akwamu, Kwahu, Aowin, Wassa, Assin, Denkyira, Sewhi, and Adansi. The Akan and their subgroup the Asante have had a history of movements due to many factors. Scholars cite multiple causes in debates as to why and how the Akan groups migrated. While some scholars allude to external factors, such as famine, that necessitated the migrations, other scholars point to internal motivations of the Asante, who sought to expand their empire to secure access and control over resources especially during their encounters with the European nations. In the early 1600s, present-day Ghana was occupied mostly by the Denkyira, the Adansi (made up of three Akyem military posts), and the Akwamu. The Akyem, who were part of the Adansi kingdom, are considered one of the largest Akan groups and were also known as one of the first Akan clans to migrate south after the fall of the Songhai empire. When the Adansi kingdom was absorbed by the Asante and the Denkyira were annexed by the Asante, the Akyem fled across the Pra River. The Akyem clans were initially too strong to be absorbed by the Denkyira. The following sources provide overviews of pre-Asante states and insights into the migrations that led to establishments around and in Kumasi. Obeng 1988 and Boaten 1971 discuss internal factors of migration. Daaku 1966 focuses more on Asante agency as a complex but sophisticated organization that was able to take over these pre-Asante states for a variety of reasons. The remaining works provide insights into specific Akan communities, whose histories and interactions with Europeans and other Gold Coast peoples played critical roles in the development of present-day Ghana. Deffontaine 1993 and Wilks 2001 investigate the Fetu and Akwamu kingdoms, respectively, and their confrontations with neighboring peoples, who they either defeated or by whom they were defeated during the 15th to the mid-18th centuries. Chouin 1998 analyzes the interactions of the Eguafo kingdom with the Dutch and French militaries in the 17th century. It is during this century that the Europeans established strong trading partnerships with the Gold Coast communities and that the Asante rose to power as the strongest Gold Coast kingdom. As such, Kea 1982 sheds light on these transformations within individual Gold Coast polities. Affrifah 2000 concentrates on changes that the Akyem states underwent in the 18th century.
  180. Affrifah, Kofi. The Akyem Factor in Ghana’s History, 1700–1875. Accra, Ghana: Lightning Source, 2000.
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  182. This is an important history written on Akyem polities and the vital role they played in Gold Coast history from the period 1699 to 1875. The 18th-century Akyem states located in areas found in Ghana today are discussed as a homogenous people in most historical works, but Affrifah examines them separately, laying a foundation for contemporary researchers of post-colonial Ghana historiography.
  183. Find this resource:
  184. Boaten, Kwasi. “The Asante before 1700.” Research Review 8.1 (1971): 50–65.
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  186. Boaten argues that most Akan clans originated in Adanse, and they migrated northward due to internal factors, including dynastic disputes and overpopulation. While the Dutch created a map of the Gold Coast in 1629, they did not include the Asante states, which leads Boaten to estimate that Akan clans migrated sometime after this date, around the death of the third king of the Denkyira in 1632.
  187. Find this resource:
  188. Chouin, Gerard. Eguafo: Un royaume africain “au coeur francois,” 1637–1688: Mutations socio-économiques et politiques européenne d’un état de la Côte de l’Or (Ghana) au XVIIe siècle. Paris: AFERA, 1998.
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  190. In contrast to works that concentrate on the power struggles between Europeans in West Africa, Chouin analyzes how the Eguafo’s military alliances with the Dutch and the French provide an important example of the ingenuity and political astuteness of a Gold Coast (present-day Ghana) ethnic community that was able to negotiate power relations with a foreign authority. Chouin also highlights how the tensions that existed between matrilineal legitimacy and the rise of patrilineal rule were linked to military power.
  191. Find this resource:
  192. Daaku, K. “Pre-Ashanti States: Trade and Politics on the Gold Coast, 1600–1700.” Ghana Notes and Queries 9 (1966): 10–13.
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  194. Daaku surveys the states that now make up the Ashanti nation. Information on twenty-nine Gold Coast pre-Ashanti states was first gathered by the Dutch during the late 1620s, and the Dutch also drew a 1629 map of the Gold Coast interior. Daaku goes further in focusing on the reasons why the Ashanti state was able to take over these already established states in and around Kumasi.
  195. Find this resource:
  196. Deffontaine, Yann. Guerre et société au royaume de Fetu (Efutu): Des débuts du commerce atlantique à la constitution de la fédération fanti (Ghana, Côte de l’Or, 1471–1720). Paris: Karthala, 1993.
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  198. The author approaches the subject through an original study of war as a social phenomenon in understanding the Gold Coast kingdom of Fetu, including its relations with the other Akan clans during the Komenda wars. The work focuses on strategies of resistance and forms of assimilation of the Fetu during the early wars with neighboring tribes, the Komenda wars with the Akan over access to commerce with the Europeans, and then later the wars with the Europeans during the slave trade.
  199. Find this resource:
  200. Kea, R. A. Settlements, Trade, and Polities in the Seventeenth-Century Gold Coast. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982.
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  202. See pp. 97–104. Kea draws on Danish and Dutch archives more efficiently than many other scholars to demonstrate that 17th-century Gold Coast political bodies underwent transformations as Europeans fought for control over trade and slaves and as the asafo, or “political warriors,” fought back. Analyzes the political hierarchy and commercial order of 17th-century Akan society. Includes a Dutch map of 1629 that identifies at least forty-three indigenous polities on the Gold Coast.
  203. Find this resource:
  204. Obeng, Ernest Emmanuel. Ancient Ashanti Chieftaincy. Tema: Ghana Publishing, 1988.
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  206. The author chronicles the settlement patterns of the ancient Akan clans before 1700 and the waves of mass migrations that resulted in the establishment of Kumasi. The study further interprets archaeological evidence that links the Akan clans to their natal lands and their occupation of new land. This important work focuses on internal factors of Akan mass migrations while other scholars, in works such as Wilks 2001, consider external factors.
  207. Find this resource:
  208. Wilks, Ivor. Akwamu, 1640–1750: A Study of the Rise and Fall of a West African Empire. Trondheim: Norwegian University of Science and Technology, 2001.
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  210. Originally written as an master’s thesis in 1958, Wilks’s study provides a critical analysis of the Akwamu, an early Akan state established in present-day southern Ghana. The Akwamu became the largest Akan state by 1710 after its takeover of the Ewe. It expanded at a critical moment during the slave trade but was then taken over by the Asante in 1731.
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  212. Imperial Asante from State to Kingdom (post-1670s)
  213. This section is divided into three subsections—Expansion, Consolidation, and Centralization—that characterize the transformation of the Asante states into a unified empire. The subsection on expansion suggests how and why the Asante were able to expand while the subsection on consolidation highlights the specific strategies of consolidating power into one unified body. Centralization then touches on the embodiments of power, such as political emblems, government reforms, and an emerging governing bureaucracy, that sustained the empire’s authoritative hold on power.
  214. Expansion
  215. During the late 1600s, the Asante began building up capacity to expand their nation through trade in gold and weapons with the Europeans. This allowed them in part to conquer neighboring peoples in and around Kumasi and beyond. Arhin 1967a discusses exactly how the Asante funded their expansion through trade, while Sanders 1979 considers why the Asante rather than the Fante rose to power through these commercial exchanges. Wilks 1961 also introduces the Mande people of the north, who also funded Asante operations through trade and who also influenced the Asante’s expansion through the spread of Islam. Wilks 1989 focuses on the core ideology of nationalism and on the political unity that permitted repeated Asante victories. Asante political structure is further elaborated on in Arhin 1967b, while Pescheux 2003 offers a unique perspective on kinship and lineage characteristics, particularly of the ruling dynasty under Osei Tutu, that also played a role in Asante structure and power. Anti 1996 provides a comprehensive analysis of how the topics discussed by the previous authors have resulted in present-day Ghana. Finally, Yarak 1986 analyzes the long history of relations between the Asante and Elmina. In this sense, Yarak 1986 challenges the historio-geographical debate on Asante power that commonly approaches the subject through economic, military, or political prowess, as hitherto presented in Arhin 1967b, Pescheux 2003, and Wilks 1961.
  216. Anti, A. A. Kumase in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, 1700–1900. Accra, Ghana: Damage Control, 1996.
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  218. Anti introduces the history of the Gold Coast and how the nation evolved to become modern Ghana through descriptions of daily life, politics, and culture and with an emphasis on Asante kings, who were noted for their cultural impact on the country’s politics. The work attributes modern-day Ghana culture, especially its present chieftaincy system, to ancient Kumasi/Asante influence.
  219. Find this resource:
  220. Arhin, Kwame. “The Financing of the Ashanti Expansion, 1700–1820.” Africa 37.3 (1967a): 283–291.
  221. DOI: 10.2307/1158151Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  222. The author covers a wide range of topics, including how guns were introduced to the Ashanti in the 17th century. Europeans traded arms and ammunition in exchange for gold, enslaved people and ivory. Arhin discusses the internal and external sources of revenue, such as a tax on guns, that financed Ashanti wars while the enslaved were the principal source of this economy.
  223. Find this resource:
  224. Arhin, Kwame. “The Structure of Greater Ashanti, 1700–1824.” Journal of African History 8.1 (1967b): 65–85.
  225. DOI: 10.1017/S0021853700006836Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  226. Author provides a comprehensive analysis of how the Ashanti wars between 1700 to 1824 led to the Greater Ashanti political structure as divided into provinces, protectorates and tributaries. Boundaries among the three divisions fluctuated according to Ashanti military or political successes.
  227. Find this resource:
  228. Pescheux, Gérard. Le royaume asante (Ghana): Parenté, pouvoir, histoire, XVIIe–Xxe siècle. Paris: Karthala, 2003.
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  230. The first part of the work offers a detailed history and overview of the Ashanti and expansion of the Akan states from the 17th to the 20th centuries. The second part discusses Asante kinship and lineage characteristics. The third part presents the Oyoko dynasty through analysis of political leaders, conflicts, and kinships. The work includes in-depth discussion of theories proposed by McCaskie, Meyerowitz, Obeng, Rattray, and Wilks.
  231. Find this resource:
  232. Sanders, James. “The Expansion of the Fante and the Emergence of Asante in the Eighteenth Century.” Journal of African History 20.3 (1979): 349–364.
  233. DOI: 10.1017/S0021853700017357Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  234. This is a case study of the Fante in the 18th century. Despite the Fante’s strategic location on the coast, which made them the first native people to be contacted by Europeans, the Asante became the major trade partner due to the gold, diamonds, cocoa, and other resources that they possessed. This case study of the Fante assesses the impact that the consolidation of the Fante during the 18th century had on European maritime trade and the rise of the Asante.
  235. Find this resource:
  236. Wilks, Ivor. “The Northern Factor in Ashanti: Begho and Mande.” Journal of African History 2 (1961): 25–34.
  237. DOI: 10.1017/S0021853700002127Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  238. Discusses how the early migrations of the Mande (or Mali, Mandingo) people, who brought with them Islam, the Mande language, and trade opportunities, contributed to the establishment and rise of the Ashanti kingdom during the 17th century.
  239. Find this resource:
  240. Wilks, Ivor. Asante in the Nineteenth Century: The Structure and Evolution of a Political Order. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1989.
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  242. Wilks examines how the various Asante administrations made decisions based on material factors and how the Asante core ideals of nationalism and political unity led to the emergence of a dynamic and transformative Asante nation. Discusses the structure of councils and the bureaucracy as well as the lineage system’s influence on kingship inheritance.
  243. Find this resource:
  244. Yarak, Larry W. “Elmina and Greater Asante in the Nineteenth Century.” Africa 56.1 (1986): 33–52.
  245. DOI: 10.2307/1159732Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  246. This is a short but succinct analysis of 19th-century Elmina (Edena) society and politics, including the history of Elmina relations with Asante. Examines sources of conflict within Elmina that posed a threat to the Asante. Yarak presents a new approach to understanding the Greater Asante through Elmina and his dissection of Asante structure. Parallels the efforts of Arhin, Fynn, and Wilks in proposing a new approach to studying the greater Asante structure within the common historiographical debate.
  247. Find this resource:
  248. Consolidation
  249. The birth of the unified Asante kingdom, thereafter known as the new Asante Union (Asanteman), is marked by Osei Tutu’s victory over and independence from Denkyira (Akan). Osei Tutu, of the Oyoko dynasty, centralized the nation into a hierarchical kingdom composed of an alliance of Akan peoples loyal to his rule. Wilks 1998 provides an invaluable analysis of Asante’s transformation into a centralized body through a series of three stages. Fynn 1972 and McCaskie 2007 focus particularly on Osei Tutu’s victory with an examination of his expansionist policy, though Fynn 1972 expands the analysis to include the reigns of Tutu’s successors. The remaining works transition into the colonial period as the Asante continue to maintain their presence as the strongest Gold Coast kingdom. Johnson 1965 discusses the wars in which the Asante engaged during this period, including the Asante’s defeat of the Gyaman, as noted in Britwum 1979. Fynn 1972–1973 complements other works on Asante power in commenting on the Akyem and Akwamu resistance strategies and successes against the Asante military.
  250. Britwum, K. A. “Kwadwo Adinkra of Gyaman: A Study of the Relations between the Brong Kingdom of Gyaman and Asante from c. 1800–1818.” In A Profile of Brong Kyempim: Essays on the Society, History and Politics of the Brong People. Edited by Kwame Arhin, 68–79. Accra, Ghana: Afram, 1979.
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  252. The author draws attention to the extent to which the Asante state in the exercise of its authority sought to subjugate its neighboring people. The Asante waged war against their northern neighbor and defeated the Gyaman. Britwum provides a historical context in which the Gyaman king was perceived as competing with the Asantehene (king) by virtue of the Gyaman king’s cloth design whose adornment of adinkra symbols communicate Akan cultural identity and social rank.
  253. Find this resource:
  254. Fynn, J. K. Asante and Its Neighbours, 1700–1807. Harlow, UK: Longman, 1972.
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  256. Fynn focuses mainly on the history and emergence of Ashanti as a nation-state in the 1700s and the reigns of Osei Tutu, Opoku Ware, Kusi Obodum, Osei Kwadwo, Osei Kwame, and Osei Esibe Bonsu. Specific analyses of Opoku Ware for his militant expansionist policy and Kusi Obodum for his nonmilitant diplomatic approach to neighboring nations and peoples.
  257. Find this resource:
  258. Fynn, J. K. “Asante and Akyem Relations, 1700–1831.” Research Review 9.1 (1972–1973): 58–83.
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  260. Fynn asserts that the Asante military expansionist efforts were resisted by other Akan states, such as the Akyem and Akwamu. The earlier Akan states challenged the “upstart” Asante because the latter sought to advance themselves on military, political, and economic fronts. The Asante between the 18th and early 20th centuries desired to forge commercial/trade relations with European countries that had begun to establish contacts with the peoples of West Africa, in general, and the Gold Coast, in particular.
  261. Find this resource:
  262. Johnson, M. “Ashanti East of the Volta.” Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana 8 (1965): 33–59.
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  264. Before 1869, Ashanti power did not extend east beyond the Volta. Johnson includes accounts of the 1869 war by writers and historians in discussing the Ashanti’s conquests.
  265. Find this resource:
  266. McCaskie, T. C. “Denkyira in the Making of Asante, c. 1660–1720.” Journal of African History 48 (2007): 1–25.
  267. DOI: 10.1017/S0021853706002507Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  268. Examination of the Ashanti conquest and domination of the Denkyira and the reasons why Asantehene Osei Tutu was able to claim a military victory. Also discusses Asante policy toward the Denkyira.
  269. Find this resource:
  270. Wilks, Ivor. “Unity and Progress: Asante Politics Revisited.” Ghana Studies 1 (1998): 151–179.
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  272. Wilks examines Asante strategies used to foster political and social alliances with their neighbors in efforts to consolidate power and emerge as a powerful state in West Africa before their defeat and annexation by the British. As a result, Wilks argues the Asante underwent a transformation in three phases: the Asanteman, the Crown Colony created in 1901, and the Ashanti Region, now the Republic of Ghana.
  273. Find this resource:
  274. Centralization
  275. When Osei Tutu assumed the throne, he enacted a series of governmental reforms, centralized the bureaucracy, and commemorated the birth of the new Asante Union through political emblems and festivals that would ensure a lasting stronghold of power in the Gold Coast. Patton 1979 offers detailed research on the Golden Stool, while McCaskie 1995 treats the odwira festival of Kumasi. Wilks 1966 examines the emerging administrative class of the 19th-century Asante bureaucracy resulting from Osei Kwadwo’s reforms of the late 1700s. However, Hagan 1971 proposes that the evolution of the Asante bureaucracy did not originate from Kwadwo’s reforms.
  276. Hagan, George P. “Ashanti Bureaucracy: A Study of the Growth of Centralized Administration in Ashanti from the Time of Osei Tutu to the Time of Osei Tutu Kwamina Esibe Bonsu.” Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana 12 (1971): 43–62.
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  278. The work discusses the origins and growth of Asante bureaucracy through what Wilks calls the “kwadwoan revolution”: the creation of a separate agency for nonmilitary functions and the Ashanti king’s patrilineal means of appointing officers to stools. Author argues that this revolution could not have originated from Osei Kwadwo. Rather, Hagan demonstrates that antecedent factors led to Asante bureaucracy.
  279. Find this resource:
  280. McCaskie, T. C. State and Society in Pre-colonial Asante. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
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  282. Critical theories and historiography are discussed in relation to key concepts and ideas of precolonial Asante during the 18th to 19th centuries. Central analysis focuses on the ritual of the Kumasi odwira festival, an annual celebration inaugurated during the establishment of Kumasi as the capital of the Asante Union. McCaskie provides gives a rich source of history for both specialists and those less familiar with Asante history.
  283. Find this resource:
  284. Patton, S. F. “The Stool and Asante Chieftaincy.” African Arts 13.1 (1979): 74–77.
  285. DOI: 10.2307/3335615Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  286. See also pp. 98–99. Discussion of the stool as a political emblem, specifically the Golden Stool that emblematized the birth of the Asante nation in 1701. The research was conducted on the basis of the traditional political division, the kronti (located west of Kumasi) and on the chiefs’ ownership and categorization of stools. Provides complimentary artistic-cultural knowledge to the popular belief concerning stools, including their styles, decoration, and naming.
  287. Find this resource:
  288. Wilks, Ivor. “Aspects of Bureaucratization in Ashanti in the Nineteenth Century.” Journal of African History 7.2 (1966): 215–232.
  289. DOI: 10.1017/S0021853700006289Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  290. A systematic reflection and analysis of Ashanti bureaucracy in the 19th century as an administrative class emerged from Osei Kwadwo’s reforms of the late 18th century. This led to increased government efficiency and a more absolutist Ashanti government.
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  292. Post-Imperial Asante
  293. The period following the Asante’s rise to power is identified by a constant state of war between 1790 and 1896 that weakened its military capacity against the British. Then, in 1896, the British exiled Prempeh I and, in 1902, the Asante empire was annexed into the British Gold Coast colony. This section is therefore is divided into two parts: Under Colonial Rule and Under the Prempehs, 1884–1970.
  294. Under Colonial Rule
  295. Edgerton 1995 introduces this colonial era through an in-depth study on the arrival of the British and on the Asante military response. Allman and Tashjian 2000 offers a feminist perspective in examining the experiences of men and women in encountering British influences on social, economic, and spiritual fronts. Arhin 1976 examines, in particular, the effects on Asante society of monetization, which was introduced by colonial authorities. The analysis in Zajaczkowski 1963 begins with Osei Tutu’s rule, which serves as a foundation for discussing the British exile of the Prempeh and the disintegration of the Asante empire. Though not specifically focused on colonial Asante, Konadu 2010 engages the modern debate on African diasporic trends through a presentation of the present-day Akan culture and society, which complements studies on how colonialists influenced the Gold Coast.
  296. Allman, Jean Marie, and Victoria Tashjian. I will Not Eat Stone: A Women’s History of Colonial Asante. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2000.
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  298. This is an important collaborative work that uses a women-centered analysis to demonstrate how the Asante adjusted to the ever-changing social and economic landscape brought on by cash cropping, trade, British rule, and Christian missions. Based on recollections of Asante men and women born between 1900 and 1925 and on archival sources. It provides a valuable contribution together with other feminist literature by scholars writing in the 1980s, such as Austin, Mikell, and Grier.
  299. Find this resource:
  300. Arhin, Kwame. “The Pressure of Cash and Its Political Consequences in Asante in the Colonial Period, 1900–1940.” Journal of African Studies 3.4 (1976): 453–468.
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  302. Explores the meanings attached to monetized social and private interactions during the colonial period. The text addresses how Asante society underwent changes in considering restrictions on the use and flow of money and on the use of money as a medium of exchange. Social and commercial activities as well as Asante notions of importance became quantified because of “new equivalences and comparisons.”
  303. Find this resource:
  304. Edgerton, Robert B. The Fall of the Asante Empire: The Hundred-Year War for Africa’s Gold Coast. New York: Free Press, 1995.
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  306. The first British envoy arrived in 1817 on the Gold Coast to meet the Asante king. This first encounter anticipated one of the longest and devastating wars of Europe’s conquest of Africa. Comprehensive overview of the war with attention to Asante’s highly sophisticated and advanced army, intelligence, and military institutions.
  307. Find this resource:
  308. Konadu, Kwasi. The Akan Diaspora in the Americas. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.
  309. DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195390643.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  310. Much literature on the transatlantic slave trade neglects the fact that the Akan made up almost 10 percent of the enslaved West Africans that were taken to the Americas. This book examines how the Akan’s amalgamated culture, leadership in warfare, politics, use of medicinal plants, and spiritual practices challenge the common diasporic themes of maroonage, resistance, and freedom and contribute to our understanding of the modern Akan diaspora’s engagement with Ghana and the Americas.
  311. Find this resource:
  312. Zajaczkowski, A. “La structure du pouvoir chez les Ashanti de la période de transition.” Cahiers d’études africaines 3.12 (1963): 458–473.
  313. DOI: 10.3406/cea.1963.3709Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  314. This work discusses the traditional Ashanti power structures, including Osei Tutu’s creation of a unified federal state at the start of the 18th century and its disintegration as marked by Britain’s deportation of Prempeh in 1900. Analyzes British indirect rule and its effects on the decomposition and transformation of Ashanti power structures.
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  316. Under the Prempehs, 1884–1970
  317. This section chronicles the members of the royal household who took on the title “Prempeh” before and after the first Prempeh was exiled and later returned to the Gold Coast. The exile imposed on the Asante king by the British aimed at breaking Asante military, political, and economic power so that the British could easily annex the Asante nation to extend their control in the Gold Coast. Adjaye 1990 investigates Prempeh I’s writings in analyzing early Asante and Asante under colonial rule. Tordoff 1965 offers a chronological political history of the Prempeh’s rule and the factors that led to his downfall. Lewin 1978 complements this history. The author draws on his personal research and field interviews with local Asante in offering insight and perspective on British intervention in Asante politics. Adjaye 1989 introduces a new facet of Prempeh’s rule, one based on his reputation as a collaborator with colonial diplomats. Finally, Boahen 1972, points to the significance of the social response to and the morale of the Asante after their king’s exile.
  318. Adjaye, Joseph K. “Asantehene Agyeman Prempe I and British Colonization of Asante: A Reassessment.” International Journal of African Historical Studies 2.2 (1989): 223–249.
  319. DOI: 10.2307/220032Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  320. Adjaye reassesses Agyeman Prempeh’s reputation as a “collaborator” through new material on Prempeh’s exile (1900–1923) in the Seychelles and Prempeh’s letters to colonial authorities in the Seychelles and to chiefs in Kumase. One of the few published sources available that offers information on Prempeh’s exile and suggests he resisted colonialism more than hitherto acknowledged due to his preference for diplomacy rather than military resistance.
  321. Find this resource:
  322. Adjaye, Joseph K. “Asantehene Agyeman Prempeh I, Asante History, and the Historian.” History in Africa 17 (1990): 1–29.
  323. DOI: 10.2307/3171803Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  324. This work is an examination of the historical collection of writings of King Prempeh I (1888–1931) on the history and origin of the Asante empire up until the late 19th century under British colonial influence; see Prempeh 2003 (cited under Primary Sources). This source references is one of the few primary sources of information available on the genealogical history of early Asante kinship.
  325. Find this resource:
  326. Boahen, A. Adu. “Prempeh I in Exile.” Research Review 8.3 (1972): 3–20.
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  328. The text examines the effect on the morale of the Asante when their king was exiled to the Seychelles. Most importantly, Boahen comments on how the king and his entourage survived and on their longing for their native land from which they had been uprooted by the British.
  329. Find this resource:
  330. Lewin, Thomas J. Asante before the British: The Prempean Years, 1875–1900. Lawrence: Regents Press of Kansas, 1978.
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  332. See pp. 283–293. Detailed analysis of late-19th-century political life in Asante. Lewin’s work includes research and field interviews (1970–1971) with local Asante, who offer original insight and perspective on British intervention in Asante politics and attempts to restore the Asante nation through the rise of Prempeh.
  333. Find this resource:
  334. Tordoff, William. Ashanti under the Prempehs, 1888–1935. London: Oxford University Press, 1965.
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  336. Tordoff chronicles the political history of the Asante under the successive rule of the Prempeh royal family members. Further, the book explores the pivotal role that Prempeh I’s reign plays in the political history of Asante. It also discusses factors that precipitated the exile of King Prempeh and the royal household to the Seychelles by the British.
  337. Find this resource:
  338. Establishment of Mossi and Mole-Dagbane States, 16th Century
  339. Like the Asante, the migratory life of the Mossi was driven by a series of internal and external forces. As the Mossi settled in their host societies, Mossi practices underwent changes as they were influenced by the ways of the host communities. Lahuec and Marchal 1979, Sautter 1980, and Schildkrout 1978 discuss the Mossi migrations and the reasons for the migrations. Skinner 1964 provides data analysis of fieldwork on Mossi government and state formation.
  340. Lahuec, Jean-Paul, and Jean-Yves Marchal. La mobilité du peuplement bissa et mossi. Paris: Office de la Recherche Scientifique et Technique d’Outre-Mer, 1979.
  341. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  342. The authors analyze two studies done between 1972 and 1975, the latter one exploring the relations between the Mossi and their neighbors, notably the Bissa. The work also addresses migratory practices and reasons for migrations among both groups.
  343. Find this resource:
  344. Sautter, Gilles. “Migrations, société et developpement en pays Mossi.” Cahiers d’études africaines 20.70 (1980): 215–253.
  345. DOI: 10.3406/cea.1980.2336Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  346. The work discusses Mossi migrations based on a study by the Office de la Recherche Scientifique et Technique d’Outre-Mer between 1971 and 1975. The author provides an overview of precolonial migrations toward the Ivory Coast and ancient Ghana and expands on reasons for and how these migrations occurred, which led to modern-day Mossi.
  347. Find this resource:
  348. Schildkrout, Enid. People of the Zongo: The Transformation of Ethnic Identity in Ghana. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1978.
  349. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511557620Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  350. The authors address some of the migratory practices of ethnic groups, including the Mossi. Some of the Mossi became migrant workers among the Asante society. Most of the Mossi who originated in parts of present- day Burkina Faso became migrant workers in their new communities of residence.
  351. Find this resource:
  352. Skinner, Elliott P. The Mossi of the Upper Volta: The Political Development of a Sudanese People. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1964.
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  354. This important collection of data analysis from fieldwork 1955 to 1957 in the kingdoms of Ouagadougou, Yatenga, Tenkodogo, and Fada-N’Gourma covers aspects of Mossi government and state formation from the 15th century to the present. It also touches on the influence of European conquest on Mossi political organization and on Mossi decline around the time of independence. The work offers analyses and conflicting theories on Mossi state formation by scholars such as Rattray, Fortes, Marc, and Tauxier.
  355. Find this resource:
  356. Mossi and French Colonization
  357. Kassoum 1966 examines the history of the Mossi in addressing the adverse impact on the people as a result of the French presence in West Africa. The negative impact of French rule on the Mossi highlights some of the disruptive influences that colonial regimes introduced into West African societies. Kohler 1971 expands on the focus of Kassoum 1966 with an analysis of the matrimonial system of the Mossi and the changing nature of their political systems and their migration during French colonial rule. Additional relevant information about the Mossi is given in Tiendrebéogo 1964, which focuses on the traditions and cultural practices surrounding the kingship system among the Mossi, given that their traditional rulers served as the glue that held the society together during precolonial times.
  358. Kassoum, Congo. Conséquences de la colonization sur la vie coutumière en pays mossi: Essai sur l’intégration du pays mossi dans le système français avec ses conséquences sur la vie archaïque. Paris: Presses du Palais Royal, 1966.
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  360. Kassoum recounts the history of the Mossi beginning with the brutal arrival of the French in 1896. Treats the influence of the French on Mossi society. Also covers French domination of local economy and infrastructure development. Originally published in 1955.
  361. Find this resource:
  362. Kohler, Jean-Marie. “Activities agricoles et changements sociaux dans l’Ouest-Mossi.” Paris: Office de la Recherche Scientifique et Technique d’Outre-Mer, 1971. Vol. 41, Issue 42.
  363. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  364. In a study conducted between 1965 and 1968 Kohler provides a detailed history and analysis of the matrimonial system, the traditional political structures, migrations, and the development of cotton production in Mossi under colonial influence.
  365. Find this resource:
  366. Tiendrebéogo, Yamba. Histoire et coutumes royales des mossi de Ouagadougou. Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso: Chez le Larhallé Naba, 1964.
  367. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  368. Written by a local Ouagadougou minister, or Larhallé Naba. Comprises three parts: The first part, “Traditional History of the Mossi from Ouagadougou,” originally published by the Journal de la Société des Africanistes and presents a chronological list of the Mogho Naba of Ouagadougou. The remaining two parts capture the point of view of the local minister of Moro Naba of Ouagadougou on the Mossi political structure and royal ceremonies in relation to local religious traditions.
  369. Find this resource:
  370. Government and Politics
  371. With the exile of the Asante king by the British, the Asante nation appeared to fall apart because their central authority figure, the king, had been dethroned. In addition, land disputes and apparent corruption of some of their leaders began to force individuals to question aspects of the efficacy of the polity and the status of their collective identity. It is here that the authors cited reveal the importance of Asante grundnorms (founding principles), which situate personhood and community on spiritual foundations. It is this spiritual basis from which they draw to establish legal systems that they use to govern themselves and settle disputes. This section is divided into four subgroups: Akan Traditional Law, Akan Female Power, Asante Modern Politics, and Mossi States.
  372. Akan Traditional Law
  373. Hagan 1980 serves as a brief but invaluable source for understanding the foundation of law and legal expression and practice in Asante society. Akutsu 1992 and Perrot 2005 discuss objects and political emblems that represent power among the Akan, though Akutsu 1992 approaches traditional Akan power through elaboration of the Akan kingship system, based on Akan notions of blood and soul, and the role of the Asante queen mother in determining the successor to the throne. Rattray 1929 provides one of the earliest studies to condemn Western imperialism and support indigenous legal systems. The author illustrates how colonial legal inventions, such as land tenure, diminished local authority. Similarly, Sarbah 1968 promotes traditional legal systems and the author supports his argument through descriptions of indigenous legal systems and discarded British documents.
  374. Akutsu, Shozo. “The Demise and Enthronement of the Asantehene: Political Aspects of Asante Kingship.” Senri Ethnological Studies 31 (1992): 503–534.
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  376. Focuses on the Asante kingship system, which is based on the Akan notions of blood and soul, and the critical role of the Asantehemma (Asante queen mother) in selecting the successor to the throne. The text concludes by paying attention to the relationship between Asante kingship and gold as powerful symbolic elements among the Asante.
  377. Find this resource:
  378. Hagan, George P. “The Rule of Law in Asante, a Traditional Akan State.” Présence Africaine: Revue culturelle du monde noir 113 (1980): 193–208.
  379. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  380. Author reveals how traditional rule of law and legal concepts are expressed and practiced in Asante society.
  381. Find this resource:
  382. Perrot, Claude-Hélène. “Du visible à l’invisible: Les supports du pouvoir en pays akan (Afrique de l’Ouest).” Bulletin du Centre de recherche du château de Versailles (2005).
  383. DOI: 10.4000/crcv.359Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  384. A brief introduction and explanation of the three categories of objects and emblems that represent royal power and ideology among Akan states and the Ivory Coast. Objects and symbols are discussed as inheritances of the past but, along with the rest of society, have been modernized through time. Simple overview and photographs of regalia included.
  385. Find this resource:
  386. Rattray, R. S. Ashanti Law and Constitution. Oxford: Clarendon, 1929.
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  388. One of the earliest studies to condemn Western imperialism and to comment on the preservation of indigenous custom and belief systems in framing modern law. Introduces the family and religion as central to Ashanti law and constitution but primarily discusses the constitutions of major Ashanti states. The author argues that land tenure has led to diminished power of the chiefs and local authority.
  389. Find this resource:
  390. Sarbah, John Mensah. Fanti National Constitution: A Short Treatise on the Constitution and Government of the Fante, Asante, and Other Akan Tribes of West Africa. 2 ed. London: F. Cass, 1968.
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  392. Sarbah was one of the earliest published activists who produced works against British suppression of African traditional law and custom. Here he presents original documents discarded by the British administration and describes indigenous legal system in order to defend such traditional authority. Originally published in 1906.
  393. Find this resource:
  394. Akan Female Power
  395. Traditional Akan authority as discussed under Akan Traditional Law depends largely on the role of the Asantehenna, or queen mother. Farrar 1997 introduces the topic through a discussion of other scholars’ studies on female power in precolonial Africa in general and then specifically on the queen mother’s role in Akan and Pabir societies. Boaten 1992 complements this study with a short discussion of the evolving role of the queen mother in Akan clans and her relationship to the chief.
  396. Boaten, I Nana Abayie. “The Changing Role of Queenmothers in the Akan Polity.” Institute of African Studies Research Review, New Series 8.1–2 (1992): 90–100.
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  398. The author discusses how the queen mother in Akan clans as the head of Akan matrilineage has evolved from her traditional role and relationship to the chief. The work focuses specifically on the influence of Western education and the rising prominence of educated Stool mothers taking power within the Akan clans.
  399. Find this resource:
  400. Farrar, Tarikhu. “The Queenmother, Matriarchy, and the Question of Female Political Authority in Precolonial West African Monarchy.” Journal of Black Studies 24.5 (1997): 579–597.
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  402. As an introduction, Farrar provides a substantive discussion of other scholars’ studies on female political power in precolonial Africa as a foundation to examine female title-holders in the Akan and Pabir state systems. Farrar’s study complements Rattray 1923 (cited under Religion and Spirituality, pp. 81–85) and Rattray 1929 (cited under Akan Traditional Law, chapters 17 to 23) research on queen mothership.
  403. Find this resource:
  404. Asante Modern Politics
  405. In the late 15th century, the Portuguese were the first to arrive on the Gold Coast. They were driven primarily by economic interests, specifically seeking trade in gold, ivory, and pepper. However, Elmina Castle, which was built to serve as the permanent trading post, soon became a symbol of power over European competitors and Africans unwillingly to cooperate with imperial interests. The Dutch took over Elmina Castle in 1642 and assumed control over the trading port, though the British fought to maintain dominance over the coast. As a result, the economic alliances the Europeans forged with local chiefs soon encroached on the traditional political landscape that the Asante, especially, were constructing in line with their indigenous custom and law. Morton-Williams 1966 argues that the forest habitat and trade were the foundations of Asante political development. Yarak 1990 provides a foundation for understanding the colonial influence on the local legal and political systems through an analysis of the precolonial Asante and the influence that the initial Dutch presence had on the local government. Berry 1998 builds on Yarak 1990 in examining how this colonial presence further destabilized the Asante authority due to indebtedness of stools and corruption of some political officeholders. Agyemang 2011 first addresses the crisis of Asante authority and then delves further to examine the secular basis of decentralization efforts that destabilized traditional authority. Kyerematen 1971 examines another facet of colonial influence through land litigation. Wilks 1993 provides an overview and presents multiple reasons for the crisis in Asante politics spawned by colonial influences. Allman 1993 looks at the struggle of the mid-1950s in offering a more recent commentary on Asante nationalism.
  406. Agyemang, Yaw Sarkodie. “Crisis of Legitimacy: Secularisation and the Authority of Asante Traditional Rulers in Ghana’s Decentralization.” Perspectives on Global Development & Technology 10.2 (2011): 300–326.
  407. DOI: 10.1163/156914911X582440Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  408. The author argues that, as a result of decentralization efforts, the religious basis of the chieftaincy institutions in the confrontation with the secular basis of decentralized institutions, has led to a legitimacy crisis in Asante governance. As a result, secularization is a root cause of traditional authorities’ loss of hegemony over society.
  409. Find this resource:
  410. Allman, Jean Marie. Quills of the Porcupine: Asante Nationalism in an Emergent Ghana. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1993.
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  412. The author sheds light on the influence of the National Liberation Movement (NLM) of the mid-1950s, which promoted Ghanaian nationalism in the push for Asante self-determination. The work includes little comparison to other separatist movements but provides substantial insight into the rise of Asante nationalism within an emerging Ghana.
  413. Find this resource:
  414. Berry, Sara S. “Unsettled Accounts: Stool Debts, Chieftaincy Disputes and the Question of Asante Constitutionalism.” Journal of African History 39.1 (1998): 39–62.
  415. DOI: 10.1017/S0021853797007147Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  416. Early colonial rule in Asante constituted a time of tension and was marked by debate among colonial officials, chiefs, and society due to the persistent indebtedness of stools. Berry analyzes stool debt as both a symptom of and a cause of the struggle to define legitimate authority in Asante society. Examines the destabilization brought on by colonial rule. Includes 1915 to 1925 case study of stool of Kumawu.
  417. Find this resource:
  418. Kyerematen, A. A. Y. Inter-state Boundary Litigation in Ashanti. African Social Research Documents 4. Cambridge, UK: African Studies Centre, 1971.
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  420. A study of the history of land litigation as a major social and political issue beginning in Asante and extending throughout the Gold Coast during the colonial period and at the time of the disintegration of the Asante Union. Valuable source for understanding current land disputes and stool boundaries as well as Western social, economic, and political influences on the African state.
  421. Find this resource:
  422. Morton-Williams, P. “The Influence of Habitat and Trade on the Policies of Oyo and Ashanti.” African Note 4.3 (1966): 39–52.
  423. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  424. Many scholars have argued that ecological differences explain contrasts in the cultural, social, and political development of West African states. Through a comparison of the savannah state of Oyo and the forest state of Ashanti, the author supplements the classic theory with a brief description of the considerable role played by major trade routes on political development.
  425. Find this resource:
  426. Wilks, Ivor. “Dissidence in Asante Politics: Two Tracts from the Late Nineteenth Century.” In Forests of Gold: Essays on the Akan and the Kingdom of Asante. By Ivor Wilks, 169–183. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 1993.
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  428. Examines the aspects of and the importance of the 19th-century debate between the imperial party and the mercantile party, or those who advocated for less government control of the economy as opposed to those who believed in the principles of mercantilism, as crucial to understanding Asante politics. Analyzes 1894 propaganda tracts written by Asante exiles.
  429. Find this resource:
  430. Yarak, Larry W. Asante and the Dutch, 1744–1873. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990.
  431. DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198221562.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  432. A study of the Asante-Dutch relationship as key to understanding Asante government between 1744 and 1873 and more importantly the nature and development of precolonial Asante society, which Yarak argues was more patrimonial than bureaucratic.
  433. Find this resource:
  434. Mossi States
  435. Kabore 1962 problematizes the debate on whether or not the Mossi had a feudal system before the advent of the French. Unlike Kabore 1962, Pageard 1969 focuses on the Mossi judicial system to examine the personal and economic rights within their inheritance structure. These works bring to light the critical role that the precolonial Mossi settled disputes as well as on the importance of traditional authority and their overall legal systems.
  436. Kabore, Gomkoudougou V. “Caractère ‘féodal’ du système politique mossi.” Cahiers d’études africaines 2.4 (1962): 609.
  437. DOI: 10.3406/cea.1962.3260Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  438. Kabore examines the popular debate by scholars on whether the Mossi have a feudal political system namely one based on the subordination of man to man. He explores whether this system really exists and if it has a place in the modern age.
  439. Find this resource:
  440. Pageard, Robert. Le droit privé des mossi: Tradition et évolution. 2 vols. Recherches voltaïques 10–11. Paris: Centre National de la Recherche Scientique, 1969).
  441. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  442. A complete work centered on the sociological and judicial system of the Mossi people. Examines Mossi rights within the patrilineal, intralineal, and supralineal hierarchies. Distinctions made between personal and economic rights and the transmission of goods between lineages.
  443. Find this resource:
  444. Economy
  445. The works cited here touch on Asante local goods, especially farm products. In addition, the authors show the importance of the Asante notions of change and apparent stability in dealing with a monetized economy. Daaku 1972 investigates the precolonial Akan economy, particularly the trade in kola nuts and gold, and the effects of Portuguese interference on trade. Shumway 2011 challenges the Asante-centric approach to understanding the Asante economy prior to 1807 through an analysis of Fante middlemen and the transatlantic trade. Abaka 2005 also considers the kola nut in various African societies as a key player in the Asante political economy from 1820 to 1950. Arhin 1983 problematizes the issue about the Asante economy in providing insights on urban-rural relations in Kumasi and the Asante economy in an effort to understand the growth of the state specifically during the 19th century rather than relying on colonialism to understand this transformation. Arhin 1995 further explains this colonial transition in an examination of how the Asante modified the way they controlled and distributed wealth through the use of cowry and gold currencies when the British arrived. Wilks 1993 treats 19th-century Asante political economy through monetary systems, the structure of trade and production, and precapitalist Asante values. Similarly, Arhin 1990 also focuses on the 19th-century Asante economy but chooses to focus on how trade itself led to the accumulation of assets and wealth. Austin 2005 covers a much broader time span, from 1807 to 1956, in an in-depth analysis of the transition from precapitalist to capitalist Asante society and its agricultural export economy.
  446. Abaka, Edmund Kobina. “Kola Is God’s Gift”: Agricultural Production, Export Initiatives & the Kola Industry of Asante & the Gold Coast, c. 1820–1950. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2005.
  447. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  448. Discusses the social, religious, economic, and medicinal importance of the kola nut in various African societies. More importantly, the author analyzes kola nuts production and trade and its role in the political economy of the Asante, the largest kola nut producer and supplier during this time period studied.
  449. Find this resource:
  450. Arhin, Kwame. “Peasants in 19th-Century Asante.” Current Anthropology 24.4 (1983): 471–480.
  451. DOI: 10.1086/203032Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  452. Arhin claims that Kumasi dwellers and villagers exhibited deep social, economic, political, and cultural contrasts that were the result of the general growth of the state, not colonialism. The author examines the Asante economy and urban-rural relations to define villagers as a social category.
  453. Find this resource:
  454. Arhin, Kwame. “Trade, Accumulation and the State in Asante in the Nineteenth Century.” Africa 60.4 (1990): 524–537.
  455. DOI: 10.2307/1160206Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  456. Examines how trade contributed to the acquisition of assets, or accumulation, and its influence on Asante economic development during the 19th century. Also discusses the impact of both pre-colonial Asante and colonial rule in accumulating assets.
  457. Find this resource:
  458. Arhin, Kwame. Monetization and the Asante State Money Matters: Instability, Values and Social Payments in the Modern History of West African Communities. Edited by Jane I. Guyer, 97–110. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1995.
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  460. The state controlled the use of cowry and gold currencies among the Asante. Under the British colonial rule the Asante state no longer had the power to control or distribute wealth. Therefore the Asante state began to establish ways of influencing aspects of the social life by recalibrating rank and authority.
  461. Find this resource:
  462. Austin, Gareth. Labour, Land and Capital in Ghana: From Slavery to Free Labour in Asante, 1807–1956. Rochester Studies in African History and the Diaspora 18. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press 2005.
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  464. An in-depth study of the Asante forest zone and its transition between slavery and debt-bondage to paid labor and agricultural indebtedness. Austin bridges the gap between the precapitalist and capitalist debates on African economic institutional influence by examining the interactions among the various factors of economic development and how this dynamic mix (precapitalist/capitalist) led to the development of the Asante agricultural export economy, including land ownership and control of resources.
  465. Find this resource:
  466. Daaku, K. Y. “Aspects of Precolonial Akan Economy.” International Journal of African Historical Studies 5.2 (1972): 235–247.
  467. DOI: 10.2307/217516Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  468. Overview of precolonial Akan economy and the importance of trade in Akan beginning with the arrival of the Portuguese on the coast in 1471. Simple explanations of gold and kola nut trade and development up until the present as well as the influence of the slave trade on the local economy and the sociopolitical organization of the Akan. Includes a map of Akan region and major trade routes (1702, 1850).
  469. Find this resource:
  470. Shumway, Rebecca. The Fante and the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Rochester Studies in African History and the Diaspora 52. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press 2011.
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  472. Examines the transatlantic slave trade between 1700 and 1807 and the experience of southern Ghanaians with slave traders. Specifically focuses on how the Asante economy developed prior to 1807 through Fante middlemen and transatlantic trade. Challenges the “hinterland bias” of Gold Coast history of the 18th and 19th centuries by removing the Asante-centric focus. Author instead examines the role played by the Fante and the development of Fante identity as influenced by Asante expansion.
  473. Find this resource:
  474. Wilks, Ivor. “The Golden Stool and the Elephant Tail: An Essay on Wealth in Asante.” In Forests of Gold: Essays on the Akan and the Kingdom of Asante. By Ivor Wilks, 127–167. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 1993.
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  476. An empirical description of 19th-century Asante political economy with a focus on the monetary system, the relationship between money and office, the structure of trade and production, and the perception of wealth according to precapitalist Asante values. Although specifically addresses Asante society during the 19th century, this work also shares the outlook concerning the practices of Akan society during the 17th-century described in Kea 1982 (cited under the Akan States and Pre-Asante Kingdom and Migrations).
  477. Find this resource:
  478. Society and Ethnography
  479. Works cited in this section provide deep insights into how the Asante deployed cultural symbols and notions of wealth and social importance to define and redefine the individual and the community as well as the role and person of the Asante king. Arhin 1983 highlights the different notions of wealth and status between the Fante and the Asante. The work shows that while the Fante under the Europeans individualized ideas about status based on the acquisition of education and conversion to Christianity, the Asante, on the other hand, based their understanding of rank and status on the attainment of power and access to resources. Kea 2012, focuses on how individual and groups of Akan benefited from organized trade with Europeans especially during the transatlantic slave trade. Modernity and its impact on the Asante is the subject of McCaskie 2000. Similar to Kwadwo 2002, McCaskie 2000 highlights the changes that affected Asante people’s identity, cultural practices, and religious life. Terray 1976 focuses on Asante courage and discipline, traits that enabled them to be successful at expanding their state despite the fact that they lacked sophisticated weapons.
  480. Arhin, Kwame. “Rank and Class among the Asante and Fante in the Nineteenth Century.” Africa 53.1 (1983): 2–22.
  481. DOI: 10.2307/1159771Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  482. The militarist state of Asante derived social status from the acquisition of power and resources while the European presence in Fante society determined social status based on an individual’s acquisition of property, education level, and conversion to Christianity. The author examines both societies in the 19th century is seeking to explain contemporary Ghanaian society.
  483. Find this resource:
  484. Kea, Ray A. A Cultural and Social History of Ghana from the Seventeenth to the Nineteenth Century: The Gold Coast in the Age of Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. 2 vols. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen, 2012.
  485. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  486. This two-volume study presents the African side of history, particularly the commercial, political, social, and cultural aspects of Gold Coast communities. Specifically, it examines the social and cultural elements that played a role in the organized trade with Europeans by powerful Akani merchants and the transatlantic slave trade that transformed internal relations of Akan society. Insightful biographical profiles of individuals and social groups provide an important look into early Gold Coast modernity.
  487. Find this resource:
  488. Kwadwo, O. A Handbook on Asante Culture. Kumasi, Ghana: O. Kwadwo Enterprise, 2002.
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  490. Covers a wide range of aspects of Asante culture, including education, stools, marriage, beliefs, music, dancing, and daily life.
  491. Find this resource:
  492. McCaskie, T. C. Asante Identities: History and Modernity in an African Village, 1850–1950. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2000.
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  494. Author details Asante daily life, culture, identity, and other topics between the mid-19th and the mid-20th centuries as recounted by the men and women of the village of Adeεbeba (histories collected by the Ashanti Social Survey in the 1940s). Includes ethnographic reports and historical analyses of Asante lives as part of efforts to further understand both the change and the continuity between precolonial and colonial Asante in relation to the notion of “modernity.”
  495. Find this resource:
  496. Terray, Emmanuel. “Contribution à une étude de l’armée asante.” Cahiers d’études africaines, Histoire Africaine, Contestations 16.61–62 (1976): 297–356.
  497. DOI: 10.3406/cea.1976.2905Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  498. The author focuses on how, despite its lack of weaponry technology, the Asante valued discipline and courage, which led to its emergence as one of the most powerful West African states. In focusing entirely on the expansion of its military power, the Asante neglected economic entrepreneurship, which eventually led to the state’s downfall.
  499. Find this resource:
  500. Cultural Symbols
  501. The works here discuss Asante cultural symbols, which incarnate and represent political power in the form of music, festivals, and physical artifacts. Rattray 1935 is one of the oldest available sources written on the Golden Stool, which represented the birth, and the soul, of the Asante nation in 1701 when Asantehene Osei Tutu assumed the throne. Boaten 1993 sheds light on the festival that event commemorates, namely the Adae kese festival, the day on which the Golden Stool descended from the heavens. Later in 1717, the Asantehene inaugurated the odwira festival, discussed recently in Adams 2010, which symbolizes the unification of the Asante states. Kaminski 2012 studies a particular symbol of the Asantehene’s political power, the ntahera, one of the ivory trumpet ensembles, which interacts with the Asante cosmological belief system.
  502. Adams, Frank Kwesi. Odwira and the Gospel: A Study of the Asante Odwira Festival and Its Significance for Christianity in Ghana. Oxford: Regnum Books International, 2010.
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  504. Established in 1717 by Asantehene Osei Tutu, the odwira festival symbolizes the unification of the Asante states an event at which the chiefs come together to affirm allegiance to the Asantehene and the state. This extensive study focuses on the religious and political contributions of the odwira festival in precolonial, colonial, and modern-day Asante.
  505. Find this resource:
  506. Boaten, Barfuo Akwasi Abayie. Akwasidae Kesee: A Festival of the Asante, People with a Culture. Accra, Ghana: National Commission on Culture, 1993.
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  508. Author asserts that Adae kese is an important festival among the Asante because it commemorates historic accomplishments and marks the day on which the Golden Stool was summoned from the sky to symbolically bind the dispersed Asante communities. The Asante king leads his people to honor and feed the royal ancestors. Adae kese began when the Asante became a nation after they defeated the Denkyira (Akan) in 1701.
  509. Find this resource:
  510. Kaminski, Joseph S. Asante Ntahera Trumpets in Ghana: Culture, Tradition, and Sound Barrage. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2012.
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  512. The ntahera, one of the seven ivory trumpet ensembles, symbolizes the political power of the Asantehene and plays a role in the Asante cosmological belief system. The author examines the structure, function, and value of the ensemble in history through modern-day Kumasi.
  513. Find this resource:
  514. Rattray, R. S. The Golden Stool of Ashanti: A Sacred Shrine Regarded as a Symbol of the Nation’s Soul, and Never Lost or Surrendered, Its True History, a Romance of African Colonial Administration. London: [s.n.], 1935.
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  516. The birth of the legend of the Ashanti stool began during Osei Tutu’s reign and the Ashanti high priest Okomfo Anokye, who commanded the Golden Stool to descend on the knees of the king. The Golden Stool contained the spirit, or sunsum, of the Ashanti nation.
  517. Find this resource:
  518. Art and Medicine
  519. African Craftsmen, the Ashanti (Phoenix Learning Group 2000) and Prussin 1980 shed light on Asante art, particularly wood carvings and architecture, respectively. Ross and Garrard 1983 addresses issues found in published works on Asante art history, specifically in a review of the origins of Asante metalwork. Maier 1979 then highlights an important aspect of Asante medical practices in the 19th century.
  520. Maier, D. “Nineteenth-Century Asante Medical Practices.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 21.1. (1979): 63–81.
  521. DOI: 10.1017/S0010417500012652Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  522. This study on 19th-century Asante medical practices treats the social implications of the Asante’s recognition for the need of healing through physical rather than spiritual means. This important work helps readers to understand the medical pluralism practiced among the Asante beginning in the 19th century.
  523. Find this resource:
  524. Phoenix Learning Group. African Craftsmen, the Ashanti. DVD. St Louis, MO: Phoenix Learning Group, 2000.
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  526. Short film on Ashanti craftsmanship in weaving of ceremonial robes and carving of wooden stools.
  527. Find this resource:
  528. Prussin, Labelle. “Traditional Asante Architecture.” African Arts 13.2. (1980): 57–65.
  529. DOI: 10.2307/3335517Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  530. See also pp. 78–82 and 85–87. The author’s illustrations provide a rich and new source of information about Asante architecture. It is one of the few sources available that attempts to trace the origins and development of Asante architecture. The author provides a historiographical overview with diagrams that helps the reader to appreciate Asante indigenous architecture.
  531. Find this resource:
  532. Ross, Doran H., and Timothy F. Garrard, eds. Akan Transformations: Problems in Ghanaian Art History. Monograph Series 21. Los Angeles: Museum of Cultural History, UCLA, 1983.
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  534. In this condensed volume of essays that examine the history and archaeology of Akan art, particularly Akan metalwork including vessels and swords, the scholars have speculated that those works of art might have originated from Islamic prototypes or from the trans-Saharan trade. Authors provide convincing evidence and documentation in addressing problems raised in research and study of Akan art history.
  535. Find this resource:
  536. Mossi
  537. The Mossi, whether dispersed or together in Burkina Faso, are depicted as a people whose political systems, commercial activities, and very identities have always been changing. The changes are used to highlight Mossi local agency without denying the external forces that have contributed to some of the changes. Rémy 1972, based on findings from case studies, offers valuable data on Mossi social groupings, political systems, and the nature of the people’s social interactions. Skinner 1974 discusses the changing Mossi political systems, religion, and social structures. The author highlights Mossi agency in transforming their cultural institutions to modernize their communities. McMillan 1995, an ethnographic work, also sheds new light on the economic reforms by the Burkina Faso government to promote investments in agriculture to enhance the general economic advancement for newly settled Mossi communities in underpopulated areas of the country.
  538. McMillan, Della E. Sahel Visions: Planned Settlement and River Blindness Control in Burkina Faso. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1995.
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  540. McMillan was an anthropology graduate student who conducted research in 1978 and 1979 (and has continued her research funded by the United Nations Development Programme) on the Valley Authority (AVV) created by the Burkina Faso government to encourage settlement, increase agricultural investment, and increase land and labor productivity and production in cotton to enhance economic development. McMillan’s studies examine the effects of the AVV on the newly settled Mossi in the underpopulated river valley.
  541. Find this resource:
  542. Rémy, Gérard. Donsin, les structures agraires d’un village mossi de la région de Nobere (cercle de Manga). Recherches voltaïques 15. Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso: Centre Voltaïque de la Recherche Scientifique, 1972.
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  544. Report on a case study conducted in 1966 and 1967 of the Donsin village in the Mossi region of Nobere, a political territory founded by the French administration. Provides an analysis of the social groups, relations, and political structures as part of a historical analysis for present agricultural civilizations in Mossi country.
  545. Find this resource:
  546. Skinner, Elliott P. African Urban Life: The Transformation of Ouagadougou. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1974.
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  548. Skinner’s work is based on his observational and ethnographic research from 1964 and 1965. He examines the social transformation of Ouagadougou, the traditional center of the Mossi state chief Mogho Naba, specifically in education, politics, religion, history, and kinship. The author argues that much of this change is brought on by Ouagadougou residents who manipulate local institutions in their effort to modernize the city.
  549. Find this resource:
  550. Family and Kinship
  551. While the Akan are made up of both matrilineal and patrilineal descent systems, the Asante family and kinship is characterized by matrilineal descent with the exogenous clan the most basic unit of social organization. Matrineality often ensures a child’s membership into the clan or abusua; however, many men can and do assume position as head of the clan. In Mossi society, kinship is uniquely by patrilineal descent grouped into larger exogenous clans. Fortes 1970, Fortes 1975, and Clark 1999 address the Asante social organization and family and kinship dynamics. McCaskie 1995 specifically focuses on the ruling dynasty interpersonal relations. Lallemand 1977 addresses the Mossi family and its relationship to the economy.
  552. Clark, Gracia. “Negotiating Asante Family Survival in Kumasi, Ghana.” Africa 69.1 (1999): 66–86.
  553. DOI: 10.2307/1161077Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  554. The Asante family as a unit defined by marriage and matrilineal kinship has remained extremely flexible and adaptable due to its ability to constantly renegotiate and restore family relations. Despite the dramatic changes in the economic and political environment of Ghana, Asante personal agency has allowed for long-run family and social consistency.
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  556. Fortes, Meyer. Kinship and the Social Order: The Legacy of Lewis Henry Morgan. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1970.
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  558. Written by an anthropologist who established a framework for the study of African social organization. His book addresses popular kinship and social structure theory of early-19th- century anthropologist Lewis Henry Morgan. The latter part of his book returns to the essence of Morgan’s structuralist theory through an examination of the systematic application of kinship and descent in the Akan social system in “The Ashanti State and Citizenship.”
  559. Find this resource:
  560. Fortes, Meyer. “Kinship and Marriage among the Ashanti.” In African Systems of Kinship and Marriage. Edited by A. R. Radcliffe-Brown and Daryll Forde, 254–284. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975.
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  562. The author gives a brief overview of Ashanti kinship and recognizes both the matrilineal and the patrilineal descent in Ashanti social organization. Edited from Fortes’s original 1946 “Notes on Marriage and Divorce” on Ashanti kinship relations and marriage customs.
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  564. Lallemand, Suzanne. Une famille mossi. Recherches voltaïques 17. Paris: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1977.
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  566. Examines the characteristics of the Mossi family economy relative to cultivable land as the principal means of production; how the local ideology rooted in kinship relationships, marriage, and moral codes influence rights to land exploitation and economic organization at the familial level.
  567. Find this resource:
  568. McCaskie, T. C. “‘Konnurokusεm’: Kinship and Family in the History of the Oyoko KɔƦɔɔ Dynasty of Kumase.” Journal of African History 36.3 (1995): 357–389.
  569. DOI: 10.1017/S0021853700034460Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  570. Focuses on the konnurokusεm, a complex political conflict of the 1850s, to analyze the structural characteristics and interpersonal dynamics of the Asante ruling dynasty Oyoko KɔƦɔɔ abusua.
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  572. Religion and Spirituality
  573. Akan and Asante religion and spirituality is covered by a discussion on Christianity, Islam, local spirituality, gender, power, and death through the diverse sources on the topic. Modernity has not swept away all Asante precolonial notions of spiritual power. Rather, the works below point out that as the Asante king became Christian and other citizens embraced Christianity or Islam, together with some Western elements, they all appropriated modernity and the new faiths on their own terms. Rattray 1923 is one of the earliest published anthropological studies on Asante spirituality and custom. Obeng 1996 offers an informative introduction and extensive study of Asante Catholicism, while Akyeampong and Obeng 1995 and Obeng 1996 supplement the debate with a study of the role of spirituality in the construction of power and hierarchy. De Witte 2001 and Akyeampong 1999 comment on the ongoing transformations in local ritualization of spirituality. Owusu-Ansah 1991 focuses on the selective use of talismans and other sacred objects from Islam by the Asante, while Zaki and Muhammad 2000 is a collection of manuscripts found in Ghanaian libraries that highlight the Islamic faith.
  574. Akyeampong, Emmanuel. “Christianity, Modernity and the Weight of Tradition in the Life of Asantehene Agyeman Prempeh I, c. 1888–1931.” Africa 69.2 (1999): 279–311.
  575. DOI: 10.2307/1161026Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  576. While most research focuses on the political life of Prempeh I, Akyeampong reveals the more intimate details of the ruler’s personal life as a traditional ruler and as a Christian. In this sense, the author examines Prempeh I’s pioneering role in the compromise of tradition and modernity that has had a lasting impact on daily Asante life.
  577. Find this resource:
  578. Akyeampong, Emmanuel, and Pashington Obeng. “Spirituality, Gender, and Power in Asante History.” International Journal of African Historical Studies 28.3 (1995): 481–508.
  579. DOI: 10.2307/221171Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  580. The authors’ text foregrounds spirituality in the Asante construction of power and hierarchy. They argue that the spiritual has always been an important aspect of how the Asante have interpreted their material and social world. They focus on the critical role that Asante royal women played to assert their influence as they deployed spiritual power.
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  582. de Witte, Marleen. Long Live the Dead! Changing Funeral Celebrations in Asante, Ghana. Amsterdam: Aksant Academic, 2001.
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  584. Traditional rituals that occur during funerals are being transformed and expanded by more modern devices, such as mass media mortuaries. The author analyzes how these changes affect the way Asante interact and give meaning to burial and ancestorship.
  585. Find this resource:
  586. Obeng, Pashington. Asante Catholicism: Religious and Cultural Reproduction among the Akan of Ghana. New York: E. J. Brill, 1996.
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  588. The author explores the interaction between post-conciliar Roman Catholicism among the Asante and how they employ Catholicism and indigenous religion for self-definition and cultural renewal. Examines Asante religio-political institutions and the ways in which Catholics borrowed aspects of those institutions to articulate Christian faith and practice. Some of the innovations within Asante metaphysics and Christianity are expressed in how Jesus Christ is reconfigured as kurotwiamansa (leopard). The work contributes to discourses on social and religious change among the Asante.
  589. Find this resource:
  590. Owusu-Ansah, David. Islamic Talismanic Tradition in Nineteenth Century Asante. African Studies 21. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen, 1991.
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  592. The Ghanaian scholar on Islam and religious tolerance in West Africa, particularly in his recent study of Islamic education in Ghana, has brought a timely attention to the three Arabic manuscripts of the Asante found in 1963 at the Royal Library in Copenhagen on the use of Muslim charms and amulets in healing. Influential contribution to the history and study of medicinal practices in Asante society.
  593. Find this resource:
  594. Rattray, R. S. Ashanti. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1923.
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  596. First book in the trilogy of Rattray’s anthropological research commandeered by colonial Administrators to gain greater control over Ashanti through the understanding of them. Study conducted over twelve months centers religion as the focal point for understanding Ashanti social and spiritual beliefs, rites and customs. The majority of chapters cover Rattray’s observations at local religious ceremonies and his analyses. Includes numerous illustrations.
  597. Find this resource:
  598. Zaki, ‘Ali ‘Abd al-Mohsin, and Baba Yunus Muhammad. Catalogue of Manuscripts in Ghana Libraries. London: Al Furqan Islamic Heritage Foundation, 2000.
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  600. A collection of manuscripts found in sixteen Ghanaian libraries that includes writings by primarily Moroccan and Andalucian authors on Islamic interpretations of creed, jurisprudence, history, politics, dreams, and medicine. The text is in Arabic and local Ghanaian languages.
  601. Find this resource:
  602. Language and Thought
  603. The Akan speak a language known as Twi, a branch of the Kwa language group, while the Mossi speak Moré (also spelled “Mooré” or “Molé”) that is part of the Oti-Volta subgroup of the Gur languages also referred to by the French as the langues voltaïques. These sources cover a variety of aspects on the Twi and Mooré languages as well as some basics on the philosophical thought and conceptions reflected through language. Daaku 1971 establishes our understanding of language in both societies through an analysis of how oral tradition preserves and continues to preserve African society, though Brempong 1991, Brempong 1992, and Warren 1976 examine Twi etymology and Akan writings to understand Akan culture and to assert that written language began to occupy a privileged status. Yankah 1995 offers an alternative, subordinate method of language expression in Akan society, when an elder member of the community, an okyeame, transmits messages between the royalty and his people. Dzobo 1992 and Kwame 1987 further develop this notion of language as a component of philosophy and its use in the construction of conceptual schemes to understand and examine the Akan as individuals and political beings distinguishable from other African peoples. McCaskie 1983 provides a valuable source in exemplifying how the works of the former scholars in analyzing language and philosophy contribute to Akan ideologies on wealth. Yankah 1995 elaborates on how the Twi-speaking Asante kingdom conquered and incorporated Muslim and coastal Christian lands during the 18th century. Yankah 1995 indirectly draws attention to the significance of the writings of Western essayists and Arabic literacies during the Asante conquest. Although the author, with others, stresses orality, the Asante northern neighbors, especially those members belonging to the upper classes, were literate in Arabic. During this time period, other coastal ports along the Gold Coast absorbed by the Asante were inhabited by minority Christian Africans who were also literate in Danish, Dutch, English, and Portuguese Creole, among other languages. However, traces of the colonial era are still very much present today, as much academic scholarship excludes many of the writings of these Christian and Muslim subjects. Owusu-Ansah 1991 (cited under Religion and Spirituality) directly touches on Arabic literacy within Asante that resulted from Islamic influence. Comments on written texts help to enrich, as well as provide a necessary corrective to, the discussion on language and thought.
  604. Brempong, Owusu. “Twi Etymology: A Study in Ethno-Linguistics.” Institute of African Studies: Research Review, New Series 7.1–2 (1991): 93–110.
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  606. Owusu argues through his research with Twi speakers and his participant observation, that the Twi language and the lexemes that are assigned to specific Akan concepts are directly linked to cultural patterns and the behavior of Akan Twi-speaking peoples such that their way of life influences the language they speak.
  607. Find this resource:
  608. Brempong, Owusu. “Language as a Factor in Ethnographic Research.” Institute of African Studies Research Review, New Series, 8.1–2 (1992): 55–63.
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  610. An interpretation and evaluation of anthropological and native ethnographic writings on African societies, specifically on the Akan. Highlights limitations of the outsider’s understanding of Akan culture. The Akan Brempong, attempts to offer a native perspective coupled with his interpretations as influenced by his formal education.
  611. Find this resource:
  612. Daaku, Kwame Y. “History in the Oral Traditions of the Akan.” Journal of the Folklore Institute 8.2–3 (1971): 114–126.
  613. DOI: 10.2307/3814101Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  614. Daaku’s examination of the oral tradition, or the teaching of history from one generation to the next through word of mouth, has played and continues to play a crucial role in the preservation of Akan history and culture.
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  616. Dzobo, N. K. “Knowledge and Truth: Ewe and Akan Conceptions.” In Person and Community: Ghanaian Philosophical Studies I. Edited by Kwame Gyekye and Kwasi Wiredu, 73–84. Washington, DC: Council for Research in Values and Philosophy, 1992
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  618. Analysis of Ewe and Akan epistemology of everyday speech and oral literature. Centers discussion and epistemic analysis on knowledge as the fundamental ability to render someone as constituting a human being according to indigenous conceptions.
  619. Find this resource:
  620. Kwame, Gyekye. An Essay on African Philosophical Thought: The Akan Conceptual Scheme. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
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  622. Gyekye bases his discussion of concepts, beliefs, and propositions in Akan philosophical thought as grounded in cultural experience. He therefore analyzes the philosophical thought of some of the greatest Akan thinkers to reveal basic concepts that are common among many systems of thought among African peoples. Also discusses traditional Akan concepts of individuality and communalism and how they are understood in African culture.
  623. Find this resource:
  624. McCaskie, T. C. “Accumulation, Wealth and Belief in Asante History: I. To the Close of the Nineteenth Century.” Africa 53.1 (1983): 23–43.
  625. DOI: 10.2307/1159772Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  626. First of two articles to be read sequentially on the intellectual history of the Asante, particularly on the transformation of the ideology of wealth during the 19th and 20th centuries. This article offers an intellectual analysis of 19th-century changes in local Asante philosophy and ideologies concerning the nature and meaning of wealth.
  627. Find this resource:
  628. Warren, Dennis M. Bibliography and Vocabulary of the Akan (Twi-Fante) Language of Ghana. Indiana University Publications African Series 6. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1976.
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  630. A complete work of Akan language divided into Part I: Akan Bibliography which covers basic linguistic analyses, ethnography and history as well as texts written in the Akan language, and Part II which covers a range of Akan Vocabulary in the Arts, Religion and Sciences. Interesting resource in understanding the Twi language as transcribed by European explorers but also as a literary element of Akan culture.
  631. Find this resource:
  632. Yankah, Kwesi. Speaking for the Chief: Okyeame and the Politics of Akan Royal Oratory. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995.
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  634. A Ghanaian scholar of linguistics focuses on the communication methods between royalty and the people. Messages between the king and his people are verbalized indirectly through an elder, spokesperson or okyeame. The spokesperson often uses striking poetic and allusive language consisting of metaphor and proverb to engage in ritual customary practice that allows for mutual understanding between royalty and people.
  635. Find this resource:
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