24/10/2023
TILLING FOR THE 'GOLD' IN THE GOLD COAST
After the fall of Benin city, the capital city of Benin empire, British set out to takeover the whole of West Africa for itself, with the French contending for coastal regions.
Ashanti Kingdom was one of the strongest kingdom at the coastal region of West Africa; a kingdom rich in gold, in such much quantity that 'the natives dug out gold nuggets in their backyards'. And as much as it sounds too good to be true, this was actually a fact around the lands of tribal groups like the Fante, Ahanta, Nzeemaa, Ashanti, ewe, Frafra and so on that occupied what we know today as republic of Ghana. This modern country differ, geographically, with the medieval kingdom of Ghanah (the word itself meaning gold in several West African languages), which was located in the lands of the Soninke people of what is today Mauritania, including Gambia and part of Senegal and western Sahara.
The Ashanti Kingdom had a strong alliance with the Benin empire which was centred around what is today southern parts of Nigeria toward the delta and the bight of Biafra toward the southern parts of (modern day) Cameroon to the east, down to what is Gabon today. The geographical area controlled by the Benin empire went through different changes from the 12th century CE to the 16th century CE, when the empire had, at this time, stretched to what became modern day Togo toward the west of the capital city of the empire. It was at this time that Benin empire had the strongest ties with The Ashanti Kingdom.
But by the 18th century CE, Dhahomey kingdom was carved out and became a go-between region with Benin empire on one hand and Ashanti Kingdom on the other.
Ashanti Kingdom also had strong inter-communal relations with groups in the southern borders of the Songhai empire(and formerly, the Mali empire) which had collapsed in the 1590s after Morocco hired mercenaries from Europe to loot and plunder Songhai empire. The relationship between these entities made thei