Today, the Ashanti (Asante) people number about 7 million and inhabit central Ghana, centred around the city of Kumasi. Their king, the Asantehene, continues to exert powerful social and cultural influence within Ghana, and his position is protected within the Ghanaian constitution. Ashanti kingship is similar in many respects to the chieftaincy system practised by other Akan peoples; however, the Ashanti distinguish themselves in their historical importance in the region. From the 17th to the 19th centuries, the Ashanti Kingdom was one of the most prominent states on the African continent, controlling territory outside the modern borders of Ghana. At its peak, the Asantehene ruled over approximately 3 million people. Understanding the history of Ashanti is necessary for understanding the Gold Coast region and the broader history of Africa.
In the 19th century, the Asante came into conflict with the British, and after a series of brutal wars, the Asante Empire was annexed by the British Empire in 1902 as a protectorate. Like the Zulu, the Asante were one of the few African kingdoms capable of exerting effective resistance against colonial European powers. This article discusses the origins of the Asante and their rise to dominance among the Akan peoples of West Africa. Roughly 20 million people speak Akan languages and reside in the Gold Coast region, today split between Ghana and the Ivory Coast. Though subdivided into multiple peoples, the Akan share matrilineal descent, a system of powerful chiefs (the chieftaincy), and related folklore.
The earliest Akan migrated from the Sahel region to the forests of the Gold Coast during the 11th century. Akan folklore suggests that their ancestors came from East Africa, even Abyssinia/Ethiopia. The ancestors of the Akan likely played a role in the society of the Ghana Empire (c. 300 – 1200 AD), though much about ethnicity in that state remains uncertain. Much Akan migration southward only occurred after the collapse of Ghana, and may have been in response to Islamic incursions in the region. The traditional Akan practice of ancestor-veneration would not have meshed well with Islamic monotheism.
At the time of the Akan migration, and after, tropical West Africa south of the Sahel was very sparsely populated. The tropical rainforests that dominated the coastal regions had poor soil unsuited for grain agriculture and were unable to sustain large numbers of people. However, the crops that were grown (yams, tree crops, and palm oil) were eventually able to sustain state-level societies after the introduction of iron technology in the 1st millennium AD. The first states to survive in the forests of West Africa were likely Igbo-Ukwu (fl. 9th century) in modern Nigeria, and remarkable Benin, which was founded c. 900 and lasted until the end of the 19th century. These were exceptions to the rule, however, and for the most part, states did not begin to emerge until the 17th century, largely due to the sociopolitical changes that accompanied the Transatlantic Slave Trade.
This situation was in contrast to the Sahel region to the north, which sustained several large empires after the fall of Ghana. The great Sahel gold mines of the Mali Empire (1235-1670) started to decline in the 13th century, which allowed the forest-dwelling Akan people to rise to prominence.
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