S3E7: Kusi Obodom - The Enlightened Ashanti King?

 

Map showing the general areas of control of various factions, including in gold the areas that broke away from Ashanti influence (The Gonja region is said to have rebelled, but that the rebellion was put down pretty quickly)

This episode begins with the collapse of the Ashanti government. As will continue to be a major factor throughout this series, power disputes between the newly created Nsafohene (government bureaucrats) and Amanhene (local governors) came to a head around the end of Opoku Ware's time on the throne. His precarious efforts to balance power between these two institutions resulted in him receiving the favor of neither, and a 1748 coup in Kumasi forced the asantehene to flee from the capital city to Juaben.

When Opoku Ware died in 1750, the tensions between the nsafohene and amanhene boiled over into an outright civil war. The nsafohene supported Dako, Opoku Ware's assigned heir who promised to continue his uncle's policy of centralizing the government's power. The amanhene sided with Kusi Obodom, a half-blind, elderly, and alcoholic ruler who sought to allow more self-government to the amanhene. While the details of the war are lost, after seven years of hard fighting, the amanhenes' faction came out on top.

Despite keeping his promise to delegate much of his power to the amanhenes, Kusi Obodom did actively reform many aspects of Ashanti life, including the empire's law code. Many aspects of Ashanti Law which he viewed as unnecessarily harsh or draconian, including the right to hold accused people in jail before their trial indefinitely, and the punishment of executing people for insulting the golden stool, were abolished, as limits to pre-trial jailtime were instituted and the penalty for insulting the stool was lowered to time in prison. 

Additionally, Ashanti laws at this time were modified to include additional punishments committed by members of abusua (tribes) against members of other abusua. This was done to prevent intertribal conflicts from escalating into cycles of familial violence, and to increase the confidence among tribal families in the ability of the Ashanti state to dole out proper justice.

When reading through Ashanti law-codes, I saw an interesting passage in the section on incest. Ashanti law prohibits sexual activity not only with blood relatives, but with relatives by marriage as well. As the law code lists off which in-laws are off limits, they include a reference to a "sister's wife" as someone you should not court. This provoked further interest in the Ashanti's stance on homosexuality, which I cover in the latest premium episode available on Patreon. The answer is unlikely to be what you expect, as Ashanti society had dramatically different stances on lesbianism and homosexuality among men.

In the end, however, the civil war resulted in the amanhenes controlling much of the true power in the Ashanti Empire. As we'll see, the issue of control between the amanhenes and nsafohenes will not be resolved by this civil war, and remain a common theme throughout Ashanti history.

Ghana continues to have traditional amanhene today, who act as local traditional leaders. Pictured here is the amanhene of Gyadam, a town in Ghana's eastern region.

S3E6: Opoku Ware - the Empire Builder

 

In this episode, we chart the life of Opoku Ware, a man who nobody expected to become the asantehene. He was not among the first in line to become the next king of the Ashanti, nor was he the commander of a strong military. In fact, calling him a man at the start of his reign is a bit misleading, as most estimates believe him to have been a teenager when he was first enstooled. Despite his young age, however, Opoku Ware would not only prove to be a surprisingly successful ruler, but would in fact rescue the Ashanti Empire from the brink of destruction.

James C. Lewis' Take on Opoku Ware

After the death of the first asantehene, Osei Tutu, when on campaign against the Akyem, the nascent Ashanti Empire quickly devolved into infighting. Multiple of Osei Tutu's nephews sought to take their uncle's place on the golden stool, while many local noblemen and military leaders endorsed and supported their favorite candidate. Soon, the question of who would succeed Osei Tutu devolved into a military crisis, and then a civil war. As the Ashanti took up arms against each other, their vassals, enemies, and allies alike sought to take advantage of the turmoil. In the southwest, the vassal king of the Wasa took the opportunity to declare independence from the Ashanti, instead aligning himself with the neighboring Aowin people. To the East, the Ashanti's Akwamu allies entrenched themselves in the conflict, providing arms and men to support their favorite faction in the civil war. However, the crisis reached its highest point in 1716, when the Aowin army launched a raid into Ashanti lands. With the Ashanti busy fighting each other, the Aowin marched uncontested to the Ashanti capital of Kumasi, sacking the city of its valuables and enslaving thousands of the city's inhabitants. The fact that a foreign army could march into an undefended Ashanti city and inflict such damage served as a wakeup call to many of the Ashanti elites. Understanding that the Ashanti had to end the conflict, the various factions of the civil war agreed to a settlement. None of the militant factions would take over. Rather, the next asantehene would be a teenage boy named Opoku Ware, Osei Tutu's grand-nephew. This teenager would, presumably, serve as a weak monarch, but restore the peace. Each faction in the civil war would be pardoned for their actions, and there would be no retribution for past wrongdoings.

With peace restored among the Ashanti, Opoku Ware and the Ashanti army began the long and arduous journey to dealing with their many external foes. The Akyem signed a peace treaty with the Ashanti, while the Aowin, Wasa, Bono, and Gonja were defeated with force of arms. The Akwamu were subdued through surreptitious means. Opoku Ware offered military support to a faction in an ongoing Akwamu succession crisis, reviving the alliance between the Ashanti and the victorious faction. A =fter the Ashanti intervention in the Akwamu succession crisis, many of the Akwamu aligned with the defeated faction were sold into slavery to the Danish at Accra. Finally Opoku Ware threatened the king of Dagbon into becoming a tributary of the Ashanti, an offer which the Dagomba king reluctantly accepted.

After being sold to the Danish, Akwamu slaves staged a nearly successful revolt on the Caribbean island of St. Thomas

By 1747, Opoku Ware had more than doubled Ashanti territory. To administrate his newly conquered states, he set up a new system of bureaucracy. Known as "amanhene", these bureaucrats essentially acted as governors of a conquered region. They had the power to enforce the law, act as judges, collect taxes, and raise local militias. However, their power was not limitless. Each year, these governors were required to make a return journey to Kumasi and take an annual pledge of loyalty to the asantehene.

Despite the frequent pledges of loyalty, the question of the power of the amanhene vs. the power of the central government at Kumasi will become an increasingly tense policy issue throughout the remainder of the podcast. The next episode will focus on how, after all this hard work expanding and strengthening the empire, Opoku Ware's reign will end with the contraction of the imperial territories and a regression back into civil war.