Anglo-Ashanti Wars

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The Anglo-Ashanti Wars were a series of four wars between the British and the Ashanti Confederacy in 1826, 1873, 1893-1894 and 1895-1896.^[1] The Ashanti, a major ethnic group in what is now Ghana, was one of the few African nations to offer substantial resistance to British imperial ambitions in Africa. Britain annexed the territories of the Ashanti and the neighbouring Fanti in 1896, after the fourth war. The Ashanti were finally overcome by the British in 1900 with the suppression of the Ashanti Uprising led by Yaa Asantewaa, Queen Mother of Ejisu.

The First Anglo-Ashanti War began in 1823 after the Ashanti defeated a small British force commanded by Sir Charles McCarthy. An Ashanti army was defeated near the coast in 1826, but did not move inland. There was further conflict between the Ashanti and the British protectorate of the Fanti in 1863, which led to casualties on both sides.

The Second Anglo-Ashanti War began in 1873, after Britain took control of Dutch trading posts on the coast. The Ashanti invaded the new British protectorate. General Wolseley defeated the Ashanti, and occupied Kumasi briefly. The Ashantehene (the king of the Ashanti) signed a British treaty of protection in July 1874 to end the war.

The British started the Third Anglo-Ashanti War in 1894 on the pretext of acts of cruelty committed by the new Ashantehene, Prempeh I. The British also wished to secure the territory of the Ashanti (and its gold) from the advances of the French colonial forces in west Africa. Britain annexed the territories of the Ashanti and the Fanti in 1896, and Ashanti leaders were sent into exile in the Seychelles. Robert Baden-Powell led the British in this campaign.

In 1900, the British governor Sir Frederick Hodgson demanded the right to sit on the Golden Stool, a sacred gold-plated stool which stood at the heart of the entire Ashanti religious and feudal power structure and which only the Asantehene is permitted to touch. The offence triggered the discontended Ashanti to revolt. The British defeated the Ashanti Uprising in 1900, and occupied Kumasi. The Crown Colony of Gold Coast was created on 26 September 1901.