The Creation of Inequality: How Our Prehistoric Ancestors Set the Stage for Monarchy, Slavery, and Empire (69 page)

Off to the west of the Niger lay the Oda and Ofin, smaller rivers that flowed south to the Gulf of Guinea. These rivers had a resource the Niger lacked: their alluvium was gold-bearing. Indeed, one stretch of the Ofin floodplain came to be known as Suwiri Sika, “the flood of gold.” Here one could mine soil from either bank of the river and then wash gold from the earth.

The region of the Oda and Ofin came to be known as Akan, and its gold was sought by both European and North African traders. By 1482 the Portuguese had established their first trading post on the coast of Akan. Multiple kingdoms arose in the region, basing their wealth not only on gold but on ivory, copper, iron, and slaves.

Between 1660 and 1690, according to historian Thomas McCaskie, a kingdom called the Denkyira was considered the dominant power in Akan. The Denkyira spoke a language called Twi. Their ruler, known as the
denkyirahene,
maintained his capital at Abankeseso on the Oda River. There he welcomed trade emissaries from the Dutch and English, who had by then broken the Portuguese monopoly on Akan gold.

Among the neighboring ethnic groups forced to pay tribute to the Denkyira were the ancestors of today’s Asante. They were Twi speakers who lived to the north of Abankeseso, between the Oda and Ofin. The protohistoric Asante grew yams and plantains, raised sheep and chickens, and fished in the local lakes and rivers. They also dug for gold in the alluvium and competed with neighboring groups for control of the trading center of Tafo.

The sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Asante had eight major matrilineal clans and a series of hereditary leaders called
abirempon.
The most tenacious and ambitious abirempon, according to McCaskie, “eventually institutionalized their wealth in chiefship … converting their economic clients into a political following of retainers.” Sixteenth-century Asante chiefs used three main symbols of authority: a spear, an elephant tail, and a
dwa,
or carved wooden stool.

One strategy used by the Denkyira to ensure the obedience of their tribute-paying neighbors was to require each of those groups to send a person of high rank to the court at Abankeseso. While treated as a guest, this person could become a hostage if his ethnic group rebelled.

During the 1660s or 1670s, according to oral histories, the Asante sent a young man named Osei Tutu to Abankeseso. Osei Tutu was the son of Maanu, a highly ranked woman of the Oyoko clan.

Osei Tutu’s stay in Abankeseso took place under the Denkyira ruler Boamponsem, who reigned for some 40 years. Greatly admired by European observers, Boamponsem is considered by many the most successful denkyirahene. His court was the ideal place for a young Asante to learn political and diplomatic skills.

After a few years at Abankeseso, Osei Tutu traveled east to the Volta River and lived in the court of Ansara Sasraku, the ruler of a powerful group called the Akwamu. There, according to political scientist Naomi Chazan, Osei Tutu learned the essential features of military formation. Akwamu armies consisted of the following five elements: the
twifo
(foreguard);
adonten
(center);
nifa
(right flank);
benkum
(left flank); and
kyidom
(rearguard). Osei Tutu now possessed the political and military skills that he would need later. He purchased Western firearms before returning to the Asante.

Two events then changed the course of Akan history. First, the Asante chief Obiri Yeboa was killed by Domaa warriors during one of his battles for the gold trading center of Tafo. Second, Boamponsem’s death (in or around 1694) left the Denkyira in the hands of Ntim Gyakari, described by McCaskie as “a capricious young man of uncertain judgment.”

Obiri Yeboa owed his high rank to his mother and could not simply be succeeded by his son. An Asante man inherited his
abusua,
or blood, from his mother; a chief could not inherit his father’s office, because his blood and his father’s came from women of different clans.

A number of men with highly ranked mothers were eager to succeed Obiri Yeboa, and it proved difficult to decide among them. The matter was placed in the hands of Anokye, a “possessed” or ecstatic priest. Anokye selected Osei Tutu and continued to act as his spiritual adviser.

Osei Tutu set for himself the goal of punishing the Domaa who had killed Obiri Yeboa. After defeating them he went on to conquer the neighboring Tafo, Kaase, and Amakom, guaranteeing control of the local gold trade. Osei Tutu established his capital at nearby Kumase and was named the first
asantehene,
or King of the Asante.

There were several keys to Osei Tutu’s military success. First, he adopted the five-part formation of the Akwamu army. Second, he strengthened his forces by using subordinate Asante nobles as combat officers, giving his whole corps of administrators a stake in his military campaigns. Third, any defeated rival who agreed to be loyal was allowed to attach his forces to Osei Tutu’s. And, finally, at the core of Osei Tutu’s army was a contingent of experienced fusiliers on loan from the Akwamu ruler Ansara Sasraku.

While Osei Tutu was rising to power, the Denkyira kingdom was suffering under Ntim Gyakari. Encouraged by the ecstatic priest Anokye, many of Ntim Gyakari’s subjects began to switch their loyalties to Osei Tutu. All were welcomed.

Ntim Gyakari was angered by the fact that Osei Tutu had attacked his Domaa vassals without permission. He was further irritated by the fact that Osei Tutu was providing sanctuary to groups fleeing Denkyira rule. In addition, both the Asante and Domaa had now stopped paying tribute to the Denkyira. Ntim Gyakari therefore sent messengers to the Asante with the following list of demands:

  1. The Asante were ordered to fill a large brass vessel with gold for the Denkyira.

  2. The Asante were ordered to send Ntim Gyakari a long necklace of precious beads, similar to those worn by the asantehene’s wives.

  3. The Asante king and each of his provincial governors were ordered to surrender their favorite wives to the messengers, who would escort them back to be married to Ntim Gyakari.

  4. The Asante king and each of his provincial governors were ordered to surrender their most beloved children to Ntim Gyakari.

Osei Tutu rejected all the Denkyira demands, which was a de facto declaration of war. The Asante and Denkyira then began three tense years of preparation for the final showdown. Anokye advised Osei Tutu that his only hope of victory was to encourage more of Ntim Gyakari’s vassals to defect to the Asante. According to legend, Anokye brought about a number of key defections by performing miracles.

One by one the Asabi, Anwianwia, and Awu Dawu threw in their lot with the Asante. In addition, a Denkyira man who had been Osei Tutu’s personal servant during his years in Boamponsem’s court defected and was made a general in Osei Tutu’s army. As the Swazi might have expressed it, Osei Tutu let hundreds of immigrants “flee to the safety of his armpit.”

Finally, in 1701, Denyira forces under Ntim Gyakari began advancing north from Abankeseso. At first the Asante fell back, encouraging the Denkyira to pursue them to Feyiase near the Oda River. Here Osei Tutu’s main force was waiting. In the ensuing battle of Feyiase the Asante soundly defeated the Denkyira, beheading Ntim Gyakari in the process. Some 166 years later, according to McCaskie, Ntim Gyakari’s skull was still kept near Osei Tutu’s coffin in the royal Asante mausoleum.

The Asante kingdom was now the most powerful in the region. The Asante had gone from being tribute payers to tribute receivers. Their preeminent position cried out for a miraculous ceremony, one that would reflect the revised ideology of a newly created state. The miracle, orchestrated by Anokye, drew on the principle of the stool as a symbol of authority.

In preparation, Osei Tutu buried the stools of all the kings and chiefs he had vanquished. Anokye then selected a day on which the king, the Asante elders, the provincial governors, and the local chiefs should assemble to see the miracle. Anokye put himself into an ecstatic state and then, according to legend, a fabulous golden stool descended from the sky and landed gently in Osei Tutu’s lap.

In this golden stool, or
sika dwa,
the souls of all the Asante people were said to be enshrined (
Figure 63
). From that point on, the administrative hierarchy of the Asante monarchy would be symbolized as follows. Kingship was associated with the golden stool; the governors of provinces owned silver stools; and local chiefs or headmen owned carved wooden stools.

Asante territory now extended 150 to 200 miles from the capital. The time required to reach its limits depended on whether one was traveling through forest or savanna. To facilitate forest travel, the Asante maintained a series of roads analogous to the ones that connected early Maya cities such as Calakmul to their Level 2 centers.

Unfortunately for Osei Tutu, he did not live to see the Asante kingdom reach its greatest extent. In 1717, sixteen years after his victory over the Denkyira, he died in battle while trying to subdue the Akyem. He was succeeded by Opoku Ware, a great-grandson of Osei Tutu’s mother. Opoku Ware continued to expand against the neighbors of the Asante. He beheaded numerous rival leaders—five of whose skulls were still in the royal Asante mausoleum a century later—and increased the size of the kingdom to 100,000 square miles. One of the skulls Opoku Ware added to the royal collection was that of the Akyem ruler responsible for Osei Tutu’s death.

FIGURE 63.
   The souls of all the Asante people were enshrined in the
sika dwa,
or golden stool. When not in use, the stool was stored on its side, as shown; here it is accompanied by royal bronze bells, as well as golden figurines of the enemies slain by the king. When an Asante king died, many people were sacrificed to serve him in the afterlife. Some of them were beheaded by an
abrafo,
or executioner.

The royal Asante mausoleum was a large, mud-walled structure at the village of Bantama, only a mile from Kumase. There the ritually cleansed and reassembled skeletons of past asantehenes were curated so that their
asamanfo,
or ancestral spirits, would continue to protect the Asante people. Near the remains of each ruler were the skulls of the most important enemies he had beheaded. Periodically these skulls were placed in a great brass vessel and displayed to the general populace; afterward, each was carefully returned to its proper place in the mausoleum.

Opoku Ware was succeeded by a distant cousin, Kusi Obodom. The fourth asantehene was Osei Kwadwo, who added more skulls to the mausoleum between 1765 and 1774. The fifth asantehene, Osei Kwame, contributed still others.

By the 1820s the British were attempting to extend their colonial rule to the Asante. The Asante did not take kindly to the idea. The fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth asantehenes, all of whom were siblings, battled to maintain Asante independence.

In 1824 Osei Yaw, the eighth asantehene, delivered to the Bantama mausoleum a skull so valuable that Asante priests did not risk damaging it by carrying it around. This was the head of the unfortunate Sir Charles McCarthy, who up until the moment of his beheading had been the British governor of the Gold Coast.

Finally, after a half century of bitter fighting, the Asante lost their autonomy. Agyeman Prempe I, the 13th asantehene, surrendered to the British and was exiled in 1896. According to oral history, the Asante felt that if they continued to oppose the well-armed British forces, they risked losing their golden stool. There was little question about Asante priorities: they kept the stool and surrendered their king.

The Elusive Stool

Between 1896 and 1901 a number of Asante nobles figured out how to make the most of the colonial system. A prominent man named Kwabena Kuofor made a fortune from the rubber trade. He then used the colonial courts to establish his right to the golden stool. The British appointed him to the stool in 1901, in part because he was the wealthiest man on the Gold Coast.

Few colonial administrators fully understood that the
sunsum,
or collective soul, of the Asante people was enshrined in the golden stool. Nor did most of them understand that Asante stools had gender. A male stool could never be used by a woman, or vice versa. When word came that Queen Victoria wanted to sit upon the golden stool to symbolize her authority, the Asante were scandalized. They hid that priceless male stool and attacked the British at Kumase. When the dust had settled and the British realized the impropriety of their request, the Asante created a female silver stool for Princess Mary as a gesture of goodwill. “We bind to this stool,” the Asante are quoted as saying, “all our love of queen mothers and women.”

There were other aspects of Asante society that colonial authorities understood poorly. One was the reckoning of descent in the mother’s line. In Europe a king was typically succeeded by his firstborn son. The choosing of his successor did not revert to his mother’s clan.

Particularly revealing is a comment made by an Asante elder to Robert Rattray. Rattray, a former British customs officer, had become fluent in Twi. He became the principal investigator of “Ashanti culture” (as it was then spelled) in the Gold Coast colony.