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Ashanti Empire

The Ashanti Empire (also spelled Asante) was an Akan empire and kingdom in what is now modern-day Ghana from 1670 to 1957. The empire also encompassed parts of modern day Côte d'Ivoire and Togo. The empire was known for its military prowess, wealth, architecture, sophisticated hierarchy and culture.

The Ashanti state, in effect, was a theocracy. The election of Kings and the Asantehene (King of Kings or emperor ) himself followed a pattern. The senior female of the kingly lineage nominated the eligible males. This senior female then consulted the elders, male and female, of that line. The final candidate is then selected. That nomination is then sent to a council of elders, who represent other lineages in the town or district. The Elders then present the nomination to the assembled people. If the assembled citizens disapprove of the nominee, the process is restarted.

The original palace of the Asantehene in Kumasi was burned down by the British in 1875. From European accounts, the edifice was massive and ornately built.

Winwood Reade described his visit to the Ashanti Royal Palace of Kumasi in 1874: “We went to the king’s palace, which consists of many courtyards, each surrounded with alcoves and verandahs, and having two gates or doors, so that each yard was a thoroughfare . . . But the part of the palace fronting the street was a stone house, Moorish in its style . . . with a flat roof and a parapet, and suites of apartments on the first floor. It was built by Fanti masons many years ago. The rooms upstairs remind me of Wardour Street. Each was a perfect Old Curiosity Shop. Books in many languages, Bohemian glass, clocks, silver plate, old furniture, Persian rugs, Kidderminster carpets, pictures and engravings, numberless chests and coffers. A sword bearing the inscription From Queen Victoria to the King of Ashantee. A copy of the Times, 17 October 1843. With these were many specimens of Moorish and Ashanti handicraft.”

Infrastructure such as road transport and communication throughout the Ashanti Kingdom was maintained via a network of well-kept roads from the Ashanti Kingdom to the Niger river and other trade cities.

Plants cultivated include plantains, yams, manioc, corn, sweet potatoes, millet, beans, onions, peanuts, tomatoes, and many fruits. The Ashanti prepared the fields by burning before the onset of the rainy season and cultivated with an iron hoe. Fields are left fallow for a couple years, usually after two to four years of cultivation.

The lands within the Ashanti Kingdom were also rich in river-gold, cocoa and kola nuts, and the Ashanti were soon trading with the Portuguese, the Songhai, and with the Hausa states.

The Ashanti invented the Fontomfrom, an Asante talking drum, and they also invented the Akan Drum. They drummed messages to distances of over 300 kilometres (200 mi), as rapidly as a telegraph. Asante dialect (Twi) and Akan, the language of the Ashanti people is tonal and more meaning is generated by tone. The drums reproduced these tones, punctuations, and the accents of a phrase so that the cultivated ear hears the entirety of the phrase itself.

The Ashanti readily heard and understood the phrases produced by these "talking drums". Standard phrases called for meetings of the chiefs or to arms, warned of danger, and broadcast announcements of the death of important figures. Some drums were used for proverbs and ceremonial presentations.

The Ashanti armies served the empire well, supporting its long period of expansion and subsequent resistance to European colonization. Armament was primarily with firearms, but some historians hold that indigenous organization and leadership probably played a more crucial role in Ashanti successes.

Slavery was historically a tradition in the Ashanti Empire, with slaves typically taken as captives from enemies in warfare. The welfare of their slaves varied from being able to acquire wealth and intermarry with the master's family to being sacrificed in funeral ceremonies.

Today, the Ashanti Kingdom survives as a constitutionally protected, sub-national proto-state and traditional state in union with the Republic of Ghana.








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References


Wikipedia contributors. (2019, January 27). Ashanti Empire. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 19:38, February 3, 2019, from Link