HISTORY
Ashanti Empire:
The Formation,
Politics & Legal
Systems.
In this meeting the Golden Stool was com-
manded down from the heavens by Okomfo
Anokye, chief-priest or sage advisor to
Asantehene Osei Tutu I and floated down
from the heavens into the lap of Osei Tutu I
T
he Ashanti Empire
(also spelled Asante)
was an Akan empire
and kingdom in what is now
modern-day Ghana from 1670
to 1957. The Ashanti Empire
expanded from Ashanti to
include the Brong-Ahafo
Region, Central Region, East-
ern Region, Greater Accra
Region and Western Region
of present-day Ghana. Due to
the empire’s military prowess,
wealth, architecture, sophis-
ticated hierarchy and culture,
the Ashanti Kingdom has
been extensively studied and
has more historiographies by
European, primarily British
authors than any other indig-
enous culture of Sub-Saharan
Africa. Starting in the late 17th
century, the Ashanti king Osei
Tutu (c. 1695 – 1717) and his
adviser Okomfo Anokye estab-
lished the Ashanti Kingdom,
62 | Colossium . December 2018
with the Golden Stool of As-
ante as a sole unifying symbol.
Osei Tutu oversaw a massive
Ashanti territorial expan-
sion,building up the army by
introducing new organisation
and turning a disciplined royal
and paramilitary army into an
effective fighting machine.In
1701, the Ashanti army con-
quered Denkyira, giving the
Ashanti access to the Gulf of
Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean
coastal trade with Europeans,
notably the Dutch. Today, the
Ashanti Kingdom survives as
a constitutionally protected,
sub-national proto-state and
traditional state in union with
the Republic of Ghana. The
current king of the Ashanti
Kingdom is Otumfuo Osei Tutu
II Asantehene. The Ashanti
Kingdom is the home to Lake
Bosumtwi, Ghana’s only nat-
ural lake. The state’s current
economic revenue is derived
mainly from trading in gold
bars, cocoa, kola nuts and ag-
riculture; forest has also been
cleared to plant cassava, maize
and yams.
Etymology and origins
T
he name Asante means
“because of war”. The
word derives from the
twi words asa meaning “war”
and nti meaning “because of”.
This name comes from the
Asante’s origin as a kingdom
created to fight the Denkyira
kingdom.The variant name
“Ashanti” comes from Brit-
ish reports that transcribing
“Asante” as the British heard it
pronounced, as-hanti. The hy-
phenation was subsequently
dropped and the name Ashan-
ti remained, with various
spellings including Ashantee
common into the early 20th