The Fall of the Asante Empire

by Robert B. Edgerton

  At an imposing ceremony conducted before an assemblage of as many of the men of the army as could congregate in Kumase’s marketplace, the king appointed a general to the command of the army by three times tapping him lightly on the head with a gold-handled sword, then handing it to him. As thousands watched, the general swore to return it encrusted with the blood of the king’s enemies.19 All Asante soldiers had already taken a sacred oath to the chief of their district pledging their obedience to him, and when the army was assembled in Kumase, these commanders in turn swore their obedience to the king. As members of the court and inner council looked on, each commander approached the king and in a solemn ceremony removed his golden sandals before he unsheathed a ceremonial sword, raised its point to the sky, then lowered it to the earth, and prostrated himself. The king placed his left foot on the commander’s head and declared, “If you ever become my enemy, may the gods slay you.” Rising and gesticulating with his sword, the commander then repeated the following oath: “I speak the forbidden name of Thursday, I mention the great forbidden name that if I do not help you to rule this nation; that if I ever bear false witness against you; that if I ever make war upon you; that if you summon me by night, if you summon me by day, and I do not come, then I have incurred the penalty of speaking the great forbidden word and of speaking the forbidden name of Thursday.”20 The penalty for breaking this oath was death. The king now thanked the general and shook his hand. Next, sandal bearers returned the golden sandals to the commander, who would no longer be required to walk barefoot like a slave, and there was joyous cheering, drumming and horn blowing.

  One of these newly sworn commanders was a man named Apokoo, a descendant of one of the four original noble families that founded the state. Apokoo was so charming, courteous, and humorous that Bowdich was thoroughly taken by him during his visit to Kumase in 1817. His jokes were apparently as funny as they were frequent, because Bowdich commented on his excellent sense of humor. He owned many books in English, French, and Dutch, wanted to learn how to read and write, and even wanted Bowdich to teach him to box and play tennis, something the British visitors apparendy spoke about in Kumase. Apokoo was fascinated by British history, especially military campaigns, and could never hear Bowdich’s tales of the victorious British campaign in Spain often enough. He visited Bowdich almost daily and often invited him to dinner, occasions that the sensitive Englishman enjoyed. Yet Apokoo was first and foremost a general who had won many great victories, and he had reputation for ferocity in batde along with a taste for cruelty. His trademark was to order his prisoners’ arms cut off before telling them they were free to go. (Another general was famous for cutting off his prisoners’ legs before leaving them to die, and a third senior general killed his prisoners outright by crushing their skulls with rocks.)21

  Very much like the British army they would so often confront, this was an army led by men of high social class and, often, of great wealth. The high-ranking commanders who led the Asante went to war with their stools—the embodiment of their honor, their entitlement to rule, the souls of their family and their ancestors—and these they publicly swore to defend with their lives. They were every bit as serious about this vow as their British adversaries were about swearing to die rather than allow their regimental or queen’s batde flags (colours, as they were called) to fall to their enemies. British annals of war attest to the sacrifices of many officers and men who gave up their lives to save these batde flags. The Asante felt every bit as strongly about their stools, and many commanders chose to die when their stools were imperiled.

  Before finally leaving for batde, Asante officers repeated an oath that they would choose death over dishonor, and after several losing batdes Asante officers did kill themselves rather than live in shame after suffering defeat by the British. Others killed themselves rather than surrender. The common soldiers were usually astonishingly brave, but the Asante army sometimes suffered such severe reverses that these men broke from their disciplined formations despite the sword-wielding “military police” who tried to stop them. But Asante officers almost never fled. They stood by their stools and fought to the death or sometimes swallowed the poison they carried in small pouches or blew themselves up with gunpowder when defeat was unavoidable. One defeated officer tied heavy gold ornaments around his neck and dived into a river.22 Despite the common soldiers’ great bravery, it was the Asante officers who were the driving force behind the army. They were known as “pushers” (dompiato), because they literally drove their men from behind, exhorting their junior officers to push the slave soldiers forward to victory. The penalty for cowardice in batde was usually death, quickly inflicted by sword. Occasionally, a coward’s life might be spared in return for a large monetary payment, but such a man would be forced to wear women’s waist beads, his eyebrows were shaved off, his hair cut to signify cowardice, and his wife became legally available for seduction by anyone, without her disgraced husband having any right to claim damages.23

  The most senior of the Asante officers usually remained well back from the actual combat though the batde sometimes engulfed them, and it was not unheard of for senior commanders to be killed. Usually, however, the commander sat serenely under his huge umbrella, surrounded by his retinue of priests, wives, and bodyguards. While his personal band provided lighthearted music, the commander played a board game with one dignitary or another to display his utter indifference to danger and his confidence in victory. As the batde progressed, the heads of slain enemies were brought to him to serve as footrests. The hearts of high-ranking enemies were cut out by priests and eaten by the king (if he accompanied the army, as he often did on major campaigns) or by senior officers in order to partake of the bravery the enemy had shown. After a victorious batde, the fingers, bones, and teeth of distinguished enemies would be worn as symbols of conquest.24

  As brave and loyal as most Asante generals were, there were occasional exceptions. Several high-ranking officers were tried and executed for cowardice, and others were found guilty of stealing from the king.25 In 1817, for example, two generals were accused by other officers of selling prisoners as slaves for their private profit as well as stealing gold that also rightfully belonged to the king. One of these men, a senior commander, was dethroned from his stool, and all his gold, land, and slaves were confiscated along with twenty-nine of his thirty wives. He was publicly humiliated by having his legs shackled to a large log for three days.26

  Before the army could march out of Kumase on a major campaign, every religious precaution was taken to assure its invincibility. At least twelve days of ritual preparation were needed before the army could be declared ready for war. Men were provided with new talismans, especially bits of paper inscribed with Koranic verses, or strips of cured flesh taken from brave enemies. Some of their weapons were loaded with potent magical materials thought capable of weakening their enemies, and numerous dramatic protective rituals were carried out. On the eve of one great battle, the king had the bones of his recently deceased mother and sister disinterred from the royal tomb of Bantama. After they were carefully washed in a mixture of rum and water, numerous executions were carried out, including those of some prominent men, to obtain the blood needed to wash these bones and assure victory in the coming war. After the bones had been immersed in human blood, they were cleaned and wrapped in silk, strings of gold, and other valuable cloths before being reburied.27

  Most important of all, priests were required to determine the most propitious day for the army to march. The Asante calendar was marked by perhaps as many as two hundred “evil” days during the year when no serious government business could be undertaken and the army could not march or engage in combat unless attacked.28 Sunday was a particularly unlucky day for battle, but as events unfolded, several crucial British attacks against the Asante came on that day. September was the most favorable month for war, but few battles against the British took place during this month because it was the rainy season and the Europeans usually avoi
ded battle during the rains.29

  As the army made its preparations to march, women throughout metropolitan Asante stripped themselves naked, decorated their bodies with white clay, and marched through the streets beating drums. If they came upon a man who had failed to join the army, they beat him as well. They also sang songs of ridicule so wounding that war shirkers might be driven to suicide.30 While the army was away, these women, brandishing wooden swords and guns, danced war pantomimes in the main streets of their villages to assure the safety and success of the absent men. A European witness called these women “ferocious.”31 Some wives even followed their husbands to war, where they cooked for them and, during battle, provided them with water and reserves of powder. They also encouraged them by singing songs of heroism.

  The army was also accompanied by carpenters to build shelters, blacksmiths to repair weapons, and sutlers to sell food and drink. There were even moneylenders who would lend men gold dust at high interest rates so that they could make purchases from the sutlers.32 There were also many thousands of slaves who carried supplies of all sorts from gin to gunpowder, with the value of the former being nearly as great as the latter. During battle these men waited behind the firing line, making a sound like the whistling of bullets by tapping the straw porter’s pillows they wore on their heads with their fingers. These sounds were so realistic that when some European captives passed by them in 1873, they ducked their heads in fear.33

  When the ritual preparations had been completed and a propitious day was finally identified, the army left Kumase in narrow columns of men who slowly wound their way out of the city. The size of a fully mobilized Asante army is difficult to exaggerate, and its impression on onlookers must have been profound. The one that marched out of Kumase early in 1874 to meet the invading British troops began to march by the palace at 8 A.M. The last troops did not clear the city until eleven hours later, shortly after dark at 7 P.M. (This army was more than twice as large as the Confederate army Robert E. Lee had led north from Virginia to fight at Gettysburg ten years before. An even larger army had marched to the coast in 1806.) Once the army left Kumase, it typically split into several divisions that took different routes in order to deceive the enemy about its true destination and to avoid exhausting its food supplies.

  As the army marched, bands played, their horns trumpeting the power and menace of one great man after another, and “talking” drums batted out standardized messages such as one that meant, “Tomorrow we shall kill you, very, very early in the morning.”34 The horns also played well-known flourishes. One went like this:

  The hero loves a fight, The hero loves a, fight, You love a good fight, a good fight, Fighting is good, yes … Fighting is good, yes …35

  In addition to these martial airs, there was good-natured bantering among the men, but discipline was ordinarily nearly as strict as it was in the tightly controlled British army. The army usually marched slowly with many halts. Some halts were made as a show of force in a tributary state, some because the rains were too heavy, and many because the day was not thought to be propitious for travel. When a large river had to be crossed, and there were many, canoes had to be found or bridges constructed by pounding four large forked tree trunks into the stream bed, placing beams along these forked pillars, then positioning cross-beams that were finally covered with four to six inches of dirt.36 Although the army seldom chose to move rapidly, it could move at great speed when called on to do so. European prisoners who marched with an Asante army unit in 1873 wrote that they were “able to march day after day at a quick, steady pace, with short intervals of rest, and a modicum of food. They lie down to sound sleep at night, after a light supper of corn, waking refreshed and strengthened to resume their way at sunrise.”37

  Highway police maintained order along the line of march, cooking fires were prohibited when the enemy was nearby, and officers’ orders were obeyed at all times, even in the heat of battle. For example, during a battle in 1824, a British officer was wounded and lost consciousness. He suddenly regained consciousness when an Asante soldier began to cut his head off. Too weak to resist, he expected to die and was amazed when an Asante officer, whom he recognized as a man he had once done a small kindness while the man was on a trading mission to the coast, ordered the soldier to stop. Despite the heat of the moment, the man immediately obeyed the order. This was only one example of Asante discipline. In battle after battle, Asante troops marched in perfect order, their guns carried at exactly the same angle, before they turned toward the enemy and fired volleys on command, the only African army that was known to do so. A European army could hardly have been better drilled, as several British officers who saw them in action observed.

  Sometimes weeks at a time were spent in huge encampments where the men slept on latticelike beds with backrests and carried out camp duties such as preparing food and maintaining their weapons with great care.38 One notable and puzzling failing was the lack of sanitation. The Asante were meticulous about disposing of human waste in their towns and villages, but the army on campaign did not dig latrines, and when it was camped in one area for any length of time, diseases such as dysentery and smallpox regularly took a huge toll of lives. Another problem was sexuality. The army might remain in a camp for weeks and even months at a time. Many officers and other men of high social rank had their wives with them, as did some of lesser rank, and they did not abstain from sexual relations at night, but most men had no women of their own, and most women in neighboring villages had either fled or were carefully guarded. Any female captives belonged to the king, who would later give them to deserving commanders, and ordinary soldiers were kept away from them on pain of death. As campaigns dragged on, tensions grew. The sounds of officers having sexual relations in their huts were not music to the ears of their sexually deprived soldiers.

  As an Asante army neared its enemy, omens became especially important. If necessary, the Asante would spend days hidden in forest camps while they awaited more information, avoided “evil” days, or heeded the omens sent by dreams, flights of birds or beetles, and the advice offered by the Muslim and Asante diviners and prophets who always accompanied the army on campaign. Long before an Asante army neared its enemy, spies had usually provided its commanders with precise information about everything of military importance. These spies were sometimes in place so long that it was said that the Asante “cooked their wars” for years before they attacked the enemy.39 For example, well in advance of a planned campaign, some Asante traders who visited a potentially hostile kingdom would publicly criticize their king and complain about Asante life to the enemy, hoping to be seen as disaffected malcontents. To reinforce their charade, some married local women and settled down to farm. When they had learned all they could about the local terrain, its defenses, and the enemy’s army, they returned home to serve as guides for the Asante army.40

  On his way to Kumase in 1816, Dutch envoy Huydecoper spent several days living in an Asante military camp. He said it was so large that a man could not walk all the way through it in a single day. While this immense army waited for orders from Kumase, the soldiers spent their time foraging for food, something they did so thoroughly that the surrounding area was soon plunged into famine. The officers had a well-developed interest in alcohol, especially the gin that Huydecoper carried with him in large quantities. A similar fondness for alcohol was shared by the dignitaries in Kumase. A large portion of the palace was used to store bottles of wine, and British visitors were served gin and brandy in such huge tumblers that they could do no more than sip while observing the Asante down theirs with no difficulty.41 It was with difficulty that Huydecoper was able to save any of his supply of gin to present to the king—or for himself as “solace” on the journey, as he put it.42 The camp was not disorderly, thanks partly to the use of elephanthide whips by the officers, but the soldiers sang a great deal and became boisterous at times. Even the otherwise austere officers allowed themselves some pleasure on propitious days. Huydecoper w
itnessed what he referred to as “general jollification” on a “good Sunday” (an Adae ceremony) when the officers danced to the music of drums, flutes, and horns all night and into the following midday.43

  In battle the Asante were so brave that they were universally feared by other West African states and well respected by the British. They could also be brutal. They often killed women and children, and enemy chiefs were sometimes tortured to death, their bodies dismembered before being apportioned, much as an animal killed by a hunter would be. As evidence of Asante victory, the jaws of the slain enemies were taken back to Kumase where they were displayed in the palace. But sometimes they treated prisoners with kindness, as some British captives were to learn. They were also greatly concerned about their own dead and wounded. When possible, for example, they smoked the bodies of their own slain commanders over a slow fire to preserve them until they could be returned to their families for burial.44

  Even when Asante military campaigns were successful, as most of them were, the army often suffered great losses from disease or starvation after the food resources of the conquered area had been exhausted. Nevertheless, the army’s return march to Kumase was typically conducted with great discipline. A starving army can easily become mutinous, particularly when so many of the soldiers were slaves taken from other ethnic groups, but the Asante commanders were able to maintain control. Even when a campaign had not been successful, it concluded with a rousing ceremony at the royal palace. The army camped outside Kumase until the time was propitious for it to receive the acclaim of the many thousands who gathered to honor it. When the soldiers marched into the city, they were preceded by their senior officers, who carried hundreds of jaws taken from their high-ranking enemies. On one occasion when the army returned with too few jaws to properly proclaim victory, jaws taken in earlier campaigns were smuggled to them from Kumase so that their entry would appear to be sufficiently triumphant.