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The Dismemberment and Revival of the Ashanti Confederacy1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2014

William Tordoff
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Extract

In the last two decades of the nineteenth century, Britain joined other European nations in the scramble for territory in Africa. Guided largely by strategic considerations, she showed little interest in exploiting the areas which she had acquired. In what might be called the first phase of colonial rule, lasting until about 1914, a thinly staffed colonial administration was preoccupied in each tropical African dependency with maintaining law and order and achieving economic self-sufficiency. To this end Africans were encouraged to grow crops such as cocoa and coffee, while a rudimentary communications system was established so that produce might find its distant markets. European plantation agriculture was allowed in only a few enclaves, such as the highlands of Kenya, but substantial mining concessions were widely granted to European companies. Politically, normal British policy was to retain and rule through such large traditional units of government as existed; among them were Buganda and the emirates of northern Nigeria. This policy was substantially modified in Ashanti, which therefore furnishes an important exception to the general pattern.

British policy remained essentially empirical throughout the second colonial phase, which roughly coincides with the interwar years. With the growth, however, of the notion of trusteeship, the British Government recognized a duty not only to govern but also to develop its dependencies economically, socially, and politically. After 1918 a modest expansion of government agricultural, medical, and educational programmes therefore took place — mainly financed, however, from local revenues.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of British Studies , Volume 7 , Issue 2 , May 1968 , pp. 151 - 168
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference of British Studies 1968

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Footnotes

1

For a detailed discussion of the issues raised here see William Tordoff, Ashanti under the Prempehs, 1888-1935 (London, 1965), pp. 1-44

References

2. Bowdich, T. E., Mission from Cape Coast Castle to Ashantee (London, 1819), pp. 252–53Google Scholar.

3. Omanhene (pl. Amanhene): chief (hene) of an oman or state.

4. Wilks, Ivor, “Ashanti Government in the 19th Century” [Institute of African Studies Draft Paper No. 3] (Legon, 1964), pp. 2, 13–18Google Scholar.

5. Busia, K. A., The Position of the Chief in the Modern Political System of Ashanti (London, 1951), pp. 26–27, 96Google Scholar.

6. PRO, minute by Joseph Chamberlain, Jan. 21, 1896, CO 96/270.

7. PRO, Sir Frederick Hodgson to Colonial Office, Jan. 29, 1901, Correspondence Relating to Ashanti War, 1900, Cmd. 501, Parliamentary Papers (1901), XLVIII, 443 ff.Google Scholar

8. Rattray, R. S., Ashanti Law and Constitution (Oxford, 1929), pp. 105–06Google Scholar.

9. PRO, Governor William Maxwell to Chamberlain (confid.), Feb. 22, 1896, and July 14, 1897, CO 96/270 and 295.

10. The symbol of chiefly office, used here in the broader sense of “tribe.” The Asantehene occupied the Golden Stool.

11. PRO, Governor Matthew Nathan to Chamberlain (confid.), Mar. 20, 1901, CO 96/378.

12. Papers Relating to the Restoration of the Ashanti Confederacy (Accra, 1935), p. 18, § 36Google Scholar.

13. PRO, Resident to Colonial Secretary, Accra, Aug. 4, 1901, encl. 1, in Nathan to Chamberlain, No. 427, Sep. 4, 1901, CO 96/382.

14. Ibid.

15. PRO, Nathan to Chamberlain (confid.), Mar. 31, 1903, CO 96/407.

16. Ashanti House of Chiefs, Kumasi, Proceedings of Meetings of Committee of Privileges, June 18, 1935-Jan. 3, 1936, pp. 216-20, 229-30, 234-35.

17. SirFuller, Francis, A Vanished Dynasty: Ashanti (London, 1921), pp. 217–18Google Scholar. Ghana National Archives, Kumasi District Record Book, I and II, passim, Accession Nos. 797/1952, 798/1952.

18. Ghana National Archives, Constitution and Organisation of Kumasi Stools, Case No. E.P. 200/1924, ADM. 11/1338.

19. Office of Regional Commissioner, Sunyani, Bechemhene's Golden Stick Dispute, Case No. S 63/24.

20. Office of Regional Commissioner, Sunyani, District Commissioner, Sunyani, to Asst. Chief Commissioner, Ashanti, Sep. 7, 1933, Constitution of Ashanti, Case No. Confid. 2/1932.

21. Papers of the Ashanti Confederacy, p. 18, § 36.

22. Ibid.

23. SirFrederick, Lugard, The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa (Edinburgh and London, 1922)Google Scholar.

24. Review of Events, Feb. 1926, quoted in Confid. Minute (16 Dec. 1929) by SirSlater, Ransford, Native Administration in the Gold Coast and Its Dependencies (Accra, 1930), p. 2, § 3Google Scholar.

25. Office of District Commissioner, Kumasi, Reports on Kumasi Division, half year ending Sep. 30, 1926, Case No. 29/26, S.P. 15/30.

26. Cf. memorandum by Rattray, 1926, quoted in Rattray, , Ashanti Law and Constitution, p. 106Google Scholar.

27. Ghana National Archives, The Benkum Wing of Ashanti, Case No. 9/1927 A.N.A., ADM. 11/1349.

28. Ntam kese had officially ceased to exist following Prempeh's removal. Under the traditional judicial system, a person found guilty by a lower court could lodge an appeal to the Asantehene by swearing the Great Oath. Behind the Oath were powerful religious sanctions, and these were invoked whenever the Oath was sworn. See Tordoff, , Ashanti under the Prempehs, pp. 12–13, 261–64Google Scholar.

29. The Further Retrenchment Committee, 1931: Report and Recommendations, Gold Coast Sessional Paper (1931), No. 10.

30. Office of Regional Commissioner, Sunyani, Chief Commissioner, Ashanti, to Colonial Secretary, Accra (confid.), Mar. 22, 1932, Constitution of Ashanti, Case No. Confid. 2/1932.

31. This view was subsequently revised. Speaking in the Legislative Council in 1934, Governor Sir Shenton Thomas described as a fallacy the belief that native administration could not function without direct taxation. Gold Coast Leg. Council Deb., Mar. 14, 1934.

32. Office of Regional Commissioner, Sunyani, Colonial Secretary, Accra, to Chief Commissioner, Ashanti (confid.), Apr. 2, 1932, Constitution of Ashanti, Case No. Confid. 2/1932.

33. Papers of the Ashanti Confederacy, Table III, p. 13, § 18.

34. The term “true Ashanti” was used in ibid. to differentiate the people living in the southern and heavily afforested part of the country from those (the Brongs) occupying the northern part, which consisted principally of orchard bush and savannah.

35. Both despatches are printed in ibid.

36. Wallace-Johnson, I. T. A., Restoration of the Ashanti Confederacy (Accra, 1935)Google Scholar.

37. See n. 16.

38. Wilks, , “Ashanti Government,” p. 2Google Scholar.

39. Busia, , The Position of the Chief, p. 189Google Scholar.

40. Ibid., pp. 173-75.

41. The literate commoners who served as extraordinary members of the Confederacy Council were drawn from the ranks of Kumasi society alone. They were not representative of the younger, educated Ashanti. See ibid., p. 194.

42. A local expression used to describe the “commoners” — broadly, the non-stoolholders — whether young or old. (It was sometimes used more narrowly to refer to the educated commoners who were likely to be among the younger generation and who especially resented exclusion from public office.)