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the south. By 13th Century, for
example, the town of Jenné
in the empire of Mali had established
commercial connections with the
ethnic groups in the savannah woodland
areas of the northern two-thirds
of the Volta Basin in modern Ghana.
Jenné was also the headquarters
of the Dyula, Muslim traders who
dealt with the ancestors of the
Akan-speaking peoples who occupy
most of the southern half of the
country.
The
growth of trade stimulated the development
of early Akan states located on
the trade route to the goldfields
in the forest zone of the south.
The forest itself was thinly populated,
but Akan speaking peoples began
to move into it toward the end of
the 15th Century with the arrival
of crops from Southeast Asia and
the New World that could be adapted
to forest conditions. These new
crops included sorghum, bananas,
and cassava. By the beginning of
the 16th Century, European sources
noted the existence of the gold
rich states of Akan and Twifu in
the Ofin River Valley.
Also in the same period, some of
the Mande who had stimulated the
development of states in what is
now northern Nigeria (the Hausa
states and those of the Lake Chad
area), moved south-westward and
imposed themselves on many of the
indigenous peoples of the northern
half of modern Ghana and of Burkina
Faso (Burkina, formerly Upper Volta),
founding the states of Dagomba and
Mamprusi. The Mande also influenced
the rise of the Gonja state.
It
seems clear from oral traditions
as well as from archaeological evidence
that the Mole-Dagbane states of
Mamprusi, Dagomba, and Gonja, as
well as the Mossi states of Yatenga
and Wagadugu, were among the earliest
Kingdoms to emerge in modern Ghana,
being well established by the close
of the 16th Century. The Mossi and
Gonja rulers came to speak the languages
of the people they dominated. In
general, however, members of the
ruling class retained their traditions,
and even today some of them can
recite accounts of their northern
origins.
Although
the rulers themselves were not usually
Muslims, they either brought with
them or welcomed Muslims as scribes
and medicine men, and Muslims also
played a significant role in the
trade that linked southern with
northern Ghana. As a result of their
presence, Islam substantially influenced
the north. Muslim influence, spread
by the activities of merchants and
clerics, has been recorded even
among the Asante to the south. Although
most Ghanaians retained their traditional
beliefs, the Muslims brought with
them certain skills, including writing,
and introduced certain beliefs and
practices that became part of the
culture of the peoples among whom
they settled
In the broad belt of rugged country
between the northern boundaries
of the Muslim-influenced states
of Gonja, Mamprusi, and Dagomba
and the southernmost outposts of
the Mossi Kingdoms, lived a number
of peoples who were not incorporated
into these entities. Among these
peoples were the Sisala, Kasena,
Kusase, and Talensi, agriculturalists
closely related to the Mossi. Rather
than establishing centralised states
themselves, they lived in so-called
segmented societies, bound together
by kinship ties and ruled by the
heads of their clans. Trade between
the Akan states to the south and
the Mossi Kingdoms to the north
flowed through their homelands,
subjecting them to Islamic influence
and to the depredations of these
more powerful neighbours.
Of
the components that would later
make up Ghana, the state of Asante
was to have the most cohesive history
and would exercise the greatest
influence. The Asante are members
of the Twi-speaking branch of the
Akan people. The groups that came
to constitute the core of the Asante
confederacy moved north to settle
in the vicinity of Lake Bosumtwe.
Before the mid-17th Century, the
Asante began an expansion under
a series of militant leaders that
led to the domination of surrounding
peoples and to the formation of
the most powerful of the states
of the central forest zone.
Under
Chief Oti Akenten a series of successful
military operations against neighbouring
Akan states brought a larger surrounding
territory into alliance with Asante.
At the end of the 17th Century,
Osei Tutu became Asantehene (King
of Asante). Under Osei Tutu's rule,
the confederacy of Asante states
was transformed into an empire with
its capital at Kumasi. Political
and military consolidation ensued,
resulting in firmly established
centralised authority. Osei Tutu
was strongly influenced by the high
priest, Anokye, who, tradition asserts,
caused a stool of gold to descend
from the sky to seal the union of
Asante states. Stools already functioned
as traditional symbols of chieftainship,
but the Golden Stool of Asante represented
the united spirit of all the allied
states and established a dual allegiance
that superimposed the confederacy
over the individual component states.
The Golden Stool remains a respected
national symbol of the traditional
past and figures extensively in
Asante ritual.
Osei
Tutu permitted newly conquered territories
that joined the confederation to
retain their own customs and Chiefs,
who were given seats on the Asante
state council. Osei Tutu's gesture
made the process relatively easy
and non-disruptive, because most
of the earlier conquests had subjugated
other Akan peoples. Within the Asante
portions of the confederacy, each
minor state continued to exercise
internal self-rule, and its Chief
jealously guarded the state's prerogatives
against encroachment by the central
authority. A strong unity developed,
however, as the various communities
subordinated their individual interests
to central authority in matters
of national concern.
By
the mid-18th Century, Asante was
a highly organised state. The wars
of expansion that brought the northern
states of Mamprusi, Dagomba, and
Gonja under Asante influence were
won during the reign of Asantehene
Opoku Ware I successor to Osei Tutu.
By the 1820s, successive rulers
had extended Asante boundaries southward.
Although the northern expansions
linked Asante with trade networks
across the desert and in Hausaland
to the east, movements into the
south brought the Asante into contact,
sometimes antagonistic, with the
coastal Fante, Ga-Adangbe, and Ewe
people, as well as with the various
European merchants whose fortresses
dotted the Gold Coast |
