The Anglo-Ashanti Wars: The History and Legacy of the Conflicts Between the British and the Ashanti Empire in Africa

By the mid-19th century, other European powers became interested not only in the exploration of Africa but the exploitation of it, especially once the German Empire unified after the Franco-Prussian War. This began a rush, spearheaded mainly by European commercial interests in the form of chartered companies, to penetrate the African interior and woo its leadership with guns, trinkets and alcohol, and having thus obtained their marks or seals upon spurious treaties, begin establishing boundaries of future European colonies. The ease with which this was achieved was due to the fact that, at that point, traditional African leadership was disunited, and the people had just staggered back from centuries of concussion inflicted by the slave trade. Thus, to usurp authority, to intimidate an already broken society, and to play one leader against the other was a diplomatic task so simple, much of Africa would come under European influence in a short time.

Of course, there were exceptions to this rule, with the most famous perhaps being the resistance put up by the Zulu. It required a British colonial war, the much storied Anglo-Zulu War of 1879, to affect pacification. Another was the amaNdebele, an offshoot of the Zulu, established as early as the 1830s in the southeastern quarter of what would become Rhodesia, and later still, Zimbabwe, in the future. Both were powerful, centralized monarchies, fortified by an organized and aggressive professional army, subdivided into regiments, and owing fanatical loyalty to the crown. Although treaties and British gunboat diplomacy played a role, it was ultimately war, conquest, and defeat in battle that brought them to heel.

For almost a century, the British in West Africa were faced with a powerful and stubborn African opponent: the Ashanti Empire. The Ashanti were formed by alliance and the conquest of the Akan people in the rainforest zone between the West African coast and the Sahel country to the north.

The Ashanti fought the British in five wars over the nineteenth century, and they were the only West African people inflicting more than one defeat on the British. War in tropical West Africa was different from most of the rest of the world. The prevalence of endemic diseases like malaria typically killed half of the Europeans posted there per year; it was called “The White Man’s Grave” for a reason. A second factor was the presence of the tsetse fly that carried a disease able to kill horses quickly. Military expeditions were left to move entirely on foot, carrying whatever drafted or hired laborers could carry. There were no carts, no wagons, no pack animals, and no cavalry.

The Ashanti Empire began expanding in the late 1600s and eventually ruled over a territory well over 100,000 square miles in area, centered on what is today Ghana, an area larger than Great Britain. The Ashanti were prosperous, with an economy based on mining gold and selling slaves and other products such as kola nuts. Gold was an important part of the region’s trade, going back many centuries, and so much was available for export that the coastal region, where the trading sites were located, was called the Gold Coast. Trade in gold eventually took over the area, contributing to Ashanti’s prosperity.

The Ashanti developed a considerable military strength based on the import and large-scale use of Dane guns, a firearm of which the Europeans sold millions in Africa. The Ashanti were the only West African people to organize an army built around firearms, and their army was formidable. The Ashanti also developed a sophisticated administration for diplomacy, economics, and war and used gold dust as currency. They built their capital at Kumasi, and their loyalty was organized around their king, the Asantihene. Ashanti kings were elected, meaning the kingship was not hereditary, which resulted in the best candidate available being chosen.