MC_A Concise History of Africa

West Africa

The Ashanti are famous for their myths, especially the stories about Anansi, who is a spider or a human being, or perhaps somewhere between the two. The legend of the “Golden Stool” is central to Ashanti nationhood, as it is believed to contain the spirit or soul of the Ashanti people. The Governor of the Gold Coast, Sir Frederick Hodgson, demanded to sit on the stool in 1900, outraging the Ashanti, after which they prepared for war. The Ashanti traded with the Portuguese, who had built their first fort in tropical Africa in 1482, on what became known as the Gold Coast. The Ashanti were skilled metalworkers, who became famous for their lost-wax method of casting. The purpose of the Ashanti state was to control the gold trade, among others, as well as farming.

The Ashanti had exported slaves throughout their history, but with the abolition of the slave trade were forced to rework their entire economy.

The Ashanti Located, during the 17th–19th centuries, in the area of modern Ghana, the Ashanti was the largest and most powerful of a series of linguistically connected Akan states, which used their wealth to buy slaves from Europeans and other Africans, the first European involvement having been the trade in selling Africans to other Africans. The slaves were put to work panning for gold and in the gold mines, and were used to clear dense areas of forest. The Akan had once been hunter-gatherers, but with the clearing of the forest took to farming, growing traditional crops, such as yams and rice, and later new crops imported from America – maize and cassava (manioc) among other useful plants – which allowed them to feed the by now greatly increased population.

The Ashanti The Ashanti was one of the few African states to

offer serious resistance to European colonizers. Between 1823 and 1896, Britain fought four wars against the Ashanti kings (the Anglo-Ashanti Wars). In 1900, the British finally defeated the Ashanti state and incorporated it into the Gold Coast colony. Today the Ashanti are dominant in West Africa, being better educated and richer than other groups.

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