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Tarnishing the Golden Stool Fenna Maximiliane Wächter Bucknell University

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Tarnishing the Golden Stool Fenna Maximiliane Wächter Bucknell University Bucknell University Bucknell Digital Commons Honors Theses Student Theses 2010 Tarnishing the Golden Stool Fenna Maximiliane Wächter Bucknell University Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.bucknell.edu/honors_theses Part of the History Commons Recommended Citation Wächter, Fenna Maximiliane, "Tarnishing the Golden Stool" (2010). Honors Theses. 31. https://digitalcommons.bucknell.edu/honors_theses/31 This Honors Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Theses at Bucknell Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Honors Theses by an authorized administrator of Bucknell Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. iv Acknowledgments First and foremost, I would like to thank Professor Richard Waller without whom the completion of this thesis would not have been possible. Willing to dedicate more hours to help me than I dared ask for, he not only provided help in the creation of the thesis in and of itself, but he has prepared me to conduct history research at a graduate level, and to tackle ambitious academic projects without losing my head (or courage), however overwhelming they may seem. I would also like to thank Dan who worked so hard to get me access to the Parliamentary Papers, based on my sometimes cryptic descriptions. Without his help it would have been a lot harder to write this. Last but not least, I want to thank my friends (especially Chris) who have put up with me throughout this stressful time and who never showed their frustration which I am sure they must have felt. Thank you for keeping me sane. v Contents Acknowledgments.......................................................................................................................... iv Contents .......................................................................................................................................... v Abstract ......................................................................................................................................... vii Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 1 Part I: Foundations of Asante Authority ......................................................................................... 6 The Emergence of Asante ........................................................................................................... 6 Asante Location and Resources .................................................................................................. 7 Trade ......................................................................................................................................... 10 The Political Structure of Asante .............................................................................................. 13 Succession and Destoolment..................................................................................................... 17 Bases of Legitimacy .................................................................................................................. 19 The Importance of People ......................................................................................................... 23 Gold and Accumulation of Wealth ........................................................................................... 27 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................ 31 Timeline ........................................................................................................................................ 33 Part II: The nineteenth century – a downward spiral .................................................................... 34 Asante-British Relations ........................................................................................................... 35 The Peace Treaty of 1831 ......................................................................................................... 36 The British Protectorate ............................................................................................................ 39 The War of 1873 ....................................................................................................................... 43 Developments in Asante throughout the nineteenth Century ................................................... 45 Responses to Pressure ............................................................................................................... 47 Changes in British Policy.......................................................................................................... 53 The Issue of Jurisdiction ........................................................................................................... 54 Part III: The Walls Come Tumbling Down .................................................................................. 57 Revolt against Mensa Bonsu ..................................................................................................... 57 Interregnum ............................................................................................................................... 59 vi A Young Asantehene ................................................................................................................ 62 British Intervention ................................................................................................................... 64 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 68 Glossary of Concepts .................................................................................................................... 73 Bibliographical Note ..................................................................................................................... 74 Bibliography ................................................................................................................................. 75 vii Abstract This thesis deals with the Asante federation (in modern-day Ghana ) in the nineteenth century, within the wider context of a general crisis of authority in African states in the later part of the century. African states were fighting against the external pressures of European imperial expansion while facing internal challenges to their structures of power. Asante was one of these states and this thesis examines why, because of a particular combination of internal and external challenges, Asante was unable to maintain its independence at the end of the nineteenth century. In the first part, the thesis looks at the emergence of Asante in the 1700s, and explains the bases of the ruler’s authority. It does so by drawing on both primary (including travellers’ accounts of Asante) and secondary literature. Parts Two and Three of the thesis contain narratives of events from the 1820s until the civil war of the 1880s and eventual British conquest of Kumasi, the Asante capital, ten years later. There are two narratives: one focusing on relations with the British, based close-by at Cape Coast, and on economic change; the other on internal events, such as the behavior of the Asante rulers. The thesis then reconciles both narratives and explains how they influenced each other. Much of the primary material for Parts Two and three in particular comes from British Colonial Office documents (mainly letters and reports from Cape Coast) held in the National Archives (Public Record Office) in London. Asante historiography so far has been split into two dominant approaches: formalist and substantivist. The former focuses on Asante responses to external change, including the challenge posed by the abolition of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, and to an increased British involvement in its affairs, consequent on the extension of British influence and control at the coast. The other approach explains Asante’s crisis through the internal contestation of authority, achievement, and wealth, and focuses particularly on the moral components of Asante’s crisis. The thesis combines both approaches, and explains how external factors led to internal repercussions, and vice versa. By combining both the formalist and the substantivist approach, the thesis also helps to close the gap between the historiographies of European imperialism and those rooted within African history. It demonstrates that both perspectives are needed to fully viii grasp the processes of the collapse of African states and their conquest by European powers at the end of the nineteenth century. 1 Introduction Imperial expansion on the African continent in the late nineteenth century resulted in the collapse and takeover of previously independent states. To explain this, historians such as David Fieldhouse have posited the idea of a “general crisis” caused by the increasing disparity in strategic, political, and economic power between African states and their Western trading partners. “Never had one continent possessed so immense a power advantage over the others or been in such close contact with them”.1 This created a conflicting mixture of opportunities and constraints. Contact with European powers provided opportunities for both African individuals and their rulers to gain wealth and power outside the accepted structures, but, at the same time, by undermining their authority, contact also tended to pressure their rulers
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