Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-j824f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T23:24:28.593Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Innovational Eclecticism: The Asante Empire and Europe in the Nineteenth Century*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2009

T. C. McCaskie
Affiliation:
Cambridge University

Extract

It is axiomatic to the expansion of Europe, informal or otherwise, that the perpetrators of that expansion—explorers, officials, missionaries et al.—brought to the societies they infiltrated the ideas, concepts, technology and prejudices of their own cultures. This was a process, which, by definition, encompassed great variations in its penetrative power, dependent as it was on frequently intermittent contact dictated by policy, opportunity, necessity, and numerous other factors. Cultural borrowing on the part of the recipient polity is often seen as mere technological osmosis, the acquisition of more efficient military techniques and weaponry, and the indiscriminate consumption of the externals of European life in the guise of ‘trade goods’. To rest our conclusions here does a considerable disservice to the subtlety of such contacts.

Type
Eclecticism in Borrowing
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1972

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 See inter alia: Huydecoper (1817), Bowdich (1817), Dupuis (1820), Hutton (1820), Freeman (1839 and 1841–2), Wharton (1846), Winniett (1848): Ramseyer and Kuhne (1869–74) and Bonnat (1870–4) were captives in Kumasi.

2 Beecham, J., Ashantee and the Gold Coast (1841) pp. 130–4.Google Scholar

3 See Bowdich, T., A Mission from Cape Coast Castle to Ashantee (1819);Google ScholarHutton, W., A Voyage to Africa (1821);Google ScholarDupuis, J., Journal of a Residence in Ashantee (1824) describing their ceremonial entries into Kumasi.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 See Wilks, I., ‘Ashanti Government in the 19th century’ in Forde, D., and Kaberry, P., ed., West African Kingdoms in the Nineteenth Century (1966) for an excellent discussion of this factor.Google Scholar

6 See Wilks, I., The Northern Factor in Ashanti History (1961).Google Scholar

7 Bowdich (1819) pp. 119–21.

8 See Wilks (1966) and Tordoff, W., ‘The Ashanti Confederacy’, Journal of African History, 3 (1962) pp. 399417, for a discussion of this problem.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 Wilks (1961) passim.

11 Ibid. p. 26.

12 Ramseyer, and Kühne, , Four years in Ashantee (1875) p. 71.Google Scholar

13 Hutchison, in Bowdich (1819) p. 397.Google Scholar

14 Dupuis (1824) p. 161.Google Scholar

15 Ramseyer, and Kühne, (1875) p. 231,Google Scholar and on this generally see Goody, J. in ‘Ashanti and the North-West’, Research Review, Institute of African Studies, Legon, Ghana, Supplement 1 (1965), p. 38.Google Scholar

16 Bowdich (1819) p. 66;Google ScholarFreeman, T. B., Two Visits to the Kingdom of Ashantee (1843) p. 58.Google Scholar

17 Bowdich (1819) p. 144.Google Scholar

18 Ibid. p. 88.

19 Ibid. p. 144.

20 Dupuis (1824) p. 139.Google Scholar

21 Bowdich (1819) p. 261Google Scholar and Cruickshank, B., Eighteen Years on the Gold Coast of Africa (1853) 2 vols., pp. 164–5.Google Scholar

22 Huydecoper, , Diary (of 18161817) translated by Irvine, G. (1962) p. 63.Google Scholar

23 Bowdich (1819) p. 144.Google Scholar

24 A generation after these events took place two Asante princes called Quantabisa and Ansa were in fact educated in Europe, and Ansa subsequently played a ubiquitous role in Asante politics. Ramseyer and Kühne (1875, passim) thought highly of him.

25 Bowdich (1819) p. 148.Google Scholar

26 Hutton (1821) pp. 257–8.Google Scholar

27 Bowdich (1819) p. 416.Google Scholar

28 Ibid. p. 418.

29 Bowdich, T., A Reply to the Quarterly Review (1820): Bowdich is quoting an extract from Hutchison's last despatch from Kumasi to John Hope-Smith, 3rd February, 1818. I am grateful to Ivor Wilks for drawing my attention to this despatch.Google Scholar

30 Freeman (1843) p. 150.Google Scholar

31 Moister, W., Henry Wharton: the story of his Life and Missionary Labours (1875) pp. 113–14.Google Scholar

32 Huydecoper (1962) p. 85.Google Scholar

33 Ramseyer, and Kühne, (1875) p. 123.Google Scholar

34 Wilks, (1961) p. 22.Google Scholar

35 Ramseyer, and Kühne, (1875) p. 134.Google Scholar

36 Hutton (1821) p. 386;Google ScholarRattray, R. S., Ashanti (1923) p. 147.Google Scholar

37 Cruickshank (1853) pp. 146–7.Google Scholar

38 Ibid. pp. 144–5.

39 Bowdich (1819), chapter on Materia Medica and diseases.

42 Reindorf, C. C., A History of the Gold Coast and Asante (1895) and 2nd edition (Basle, n.d.) p. 140.Google Scholar

43 Tedlie in Bowdich (1819) on Materia Medica.Google Scholar

44 Hutton (1821) frontispiece shows the one-eyed Adu Kwamina, remarkably recovered from a head wound sustained in the Gyaman war of 1819.

45 Ramseyer, and Kühne, (1875) pp. 118–19.Google Scholar

46 Rattray, R. S., Religion and Art in Ashanti (1927) p. 38.Google Scholar

47 Ibid. pp. 26 and 38.

48 Ibid. p. 39.

49 Ibid. pp. 147–8.

50 Ibid. pp. 39–40 and 148.

51 Tedlie in Bowdich (1819) on Materia Medico.

52 Bowdich (1819) p. 271.Google Scholar

53 Ibid. pp. 145–6.

54 ibid. p. 73.

55 Huydecoper (1962) p. 21.Google Scholar

56 Bowdich (1819) pp. 97 and 99.Google Scholar

57 ibid. p. 379.

58 Freeman (1843) p. 155.Google Scholar

59 Rattray (1927) p. 119, note 5.Google Scholar

60 Freeman (1843) p. 167.Google Scholar

61 Bowdich (1819) p. 37.Google Scholar

62 Ibid. p. 114.

63 Ibid. pp. 85 and 122.

64 Hutchison in Bowdich (1819) p. 399.Google Scholar

65 Hutton (1821) p. 209Google Scholar and Dupuis (1824) pp. 69 and 75.Google Scholar

66 Huydecoper (1962) p. 82Google Scholar and Bowdich (1819) p. 275.Google Scholar

67 Bowdich (1819) p. 309.Google Scholar

68 Dupuis (1824) p. 137.Google Scholar

69 Ibid. p. 153.

70 Duncan, J., Travels in Western Africa in 1845 and 1846 (1847) 2 vols.; (1967) 1 vol., pp. 273–4 and 277.Google Scholar

71 Ramseyer, and Kühne, (1875) p. 182.Google Scholar

72 ibid. p. 238.

73 Bowdich (1819) p. 246.Google Scholar

74 Dupuis (1824) p. 147.Google Scholar

75 Bowdich (1819) pp. 46–7.Google Scholar

76 Ibid. p. 74.

77 Ibid. pp. 122–3.

78 Dupuis (1824) p. 100.Google Scholar

79 Bowdich (1819) p. 122.Google Scholar

80 Ibid. p. 92.

82 Ibid. p. 93.

83 Hutton (1821) p. 270.Google Scholar

84 Hutchison in Bowdich (1819) p. 385.Google Scholar

85 Dupuis (1824) p. 175.Google Scholar

86 Ibid. p. 89.

87 Hutton (1821) p. 259.Google Scholar

88 Huydecoper (1962) p. 73.Google Scholar