How Ghana Was Colonized

What up African world, it's Home Team here and I'm back at it with another video of African history, culture, and worldview. And today, we're going to talk about how Ghana came to be colonized. And as always, if you want to support the Home Team, you can do so on Patreon.com. I have some new rewards for you guys, including special illustrative videos on African history, so be sure to check that out. Also, go to Afrographics.com, a website where you can find unique illustrative infographics summarizing African history. The links to Patreon and Afrographics are in the description box below. Although Europeans have been in contact with the peoples of Ghana since the late 15th century, the actual colonization of Ghana didn't actually begin until the 1830s, during the administration of George Maclean, who was appointed by the Committee of British Merchants operating on the coast. It wasn't until July 1874 that after inflicting a decisive defeat on the Ashanti, Great Britain decided to convert the area south of the Praho Fin Confluence into a British crown colony and protectorate. From that time, the colonization of Ghana went through two phases, from 1875 to 1890, and from 1890 to 1901. From 1874 to 1879, Britain demonstrated a certain amount of enthusiasm for colonization, with the annexation of the coastal areas east of the Volta as far as Anlo and Afloa, and inland as far as Agbosom. This enthusiasm soon dried up, however, in 1884 in response to the sudden annexation of the coast of Togo by Germany, signaling the beginning of the scramble for West Africa. Great Britain rushed east of the Volta to conclude treaties with the states of Anlo, Mafi, Vome, Tefle, and Krepi in 1884, Akwamu in 1886, and Anoum in 1888. Britain also signed an agreement with Germany in 1888 declaring the area from Yeji to Yendi to the northeast as a sort of neutral zone. In 1890, Britain and Germany signed a treaty that divided Ewe land into two, the eastern half including Anlo, Some, Klikori, Peki, and Tongu falling to the British and becoming part of the Gold Coast Colony, while the rest of Ewe land fell to Germany and became Togo. In 1899, the neutral zone was also finally divided, splitting the Kingdom of Dagumba into British and German zones. Nothing illustrates the reluctant and hesitant nature of British colonization during this period better than the fact that in spite of its invasion and conquest of the Ashanti in 1874, Britain actually left the region alone. For whatever reason, the Ashanti just made the British think twice. For the most part, it wasn't until 1889 that partly to checkmate French expansion northward and eastward from Côte d'Ivoire and partly to prevent the revival of the power of the Ashanti, Britain sent its first mission to conclude treaties of protection with Gamman and Etobobo, states north of Ashanti. In 1895, the British rushed north in a race with the French to occupy Bole in the northwest and Gambaga in the northeast. The Anglo-German treaties of 1885 and 1890 defined the eastern boundaries of Ghana, while the Anglo-French treaties of 1889 and 1898 defined the present northern and western boundaries. It wasn't until 1891 that Britain really embarked on the colonization of the Ashanti with an offer of a treaty of protection. When this was firmly rejected by the Ashanti, it wasn't until 1894 that British repeated that offer and undertook to pay the Ashanti chiefs a monthly stipend if they would agree to accept a British resident in Kumasi. But this was also firmly rejected by the Ashanti. In 1895, however, alarmed by the possibility of a French occupation and more especially by the successful outcome of the negotiation for an alliance between Prempeh, the ruler of the Ashanti, and the great Mandingo leader, Almami Samori, the new Secretary of States for Colonies, Joseph Chamberlain ordered the invasion and conquest of the Ashanti. The British army entered Kumasi in January 1896 without firing a shot since Prempeh had decided not to fight. Prempeh sent a delegation to England to plead his case of ensuring the continued sovereign existence of his kingdom. This powerful delegation left Kumasi in November 1894 and arrived in England in April 1895. Though it remained in London until November, the British government refused to receive it. You see, war is deception and the British were especially good at it. It was while the delegation was in England that the Secretary of State ordered the invasion and conquest of the Ashanti. Despite all his moral efforts, Prempeh was arrested together with his mother, father, brother, and some Kumasi chiefs and exiled first to Sierra Leone in 1896 and then to Seychelles in 1900. The Ghanaian traditional rulers and their peoples did not sit down unconcerned to watch their sovereignty and culture being trampled upon, however, but they resorted to all sorts of strategies first to oppose the imposition of colonization, including direct confrontation, armed conflicts, and rebellions. Thus, from 1874 onward, the Anlo rebelled and attacked the British forces on the Glover, but they were defeated and forced to sign a treaty to accept British occupation, but they continued the resistance to the exercise of British jurisdiction in their area. In 1878, the people of Denu burned down the factory of the Alexander Miller Brothers and Company. In 1884 through 1885, with the assistance of Geraldo de Lima, a great trader, the Anlo again rebelled and led by their chiefs, Segou Enyako and Tengu Zokoto, they attacked the police escort sent to arrest de Lima and released him, but he was recaptured and detained at the Elmina Castle from May 1885 to November 1893. With an army of 3,000, the Anlo attacked the district commissioner of Queta, 14 miles west of Queta during which he was seriously wounded and two Hausa soldiers were killed. The most determined resistance during the period was put up by the Ashanti. It was this most unexpected arrest of their leader, Prenpe, and above all, the highly provocative and irreverent request by the governor for the Golden Stool, that sacred symbol of the soul of the unity of the Ashanti, on which even the Ashanti king never sits, to be surrendered to him, a white man, so that he could sit on. That blasphemy started the Ashanti Rebellion in 1900, also known as the War of the Golden Stool, under the leadership of Yaa Santawa, the old queen of Edweso of about 60 years of age. This rebellion began with the siege of the governor in the Kumasi Fort in April with a force of 6,000 men that lasted till June when the governor was compelled to leave the fort for the coast, and he and his detachment fought their way through rebel forces before he reached the coast in July 1900. Using the new method of stockades, which they built all over the place, the Ashanti were able to harass and resist all the relief reinforcements sent into Ashanti from the coast. It was not until November that the rebellion was suppressed. Yaa Santawa and the other rebel leaders were arrested and deported to join Prenpe. The moral victory had been secured, however, as the Ashanti were not going to allow a British man to sit on their golden throne, it would have been over their dead bodies. Having crushed the overall rebellion, the British completed the colonization of the country with the passing of three orders in council in September 1901 constituting Ashanti, Northern Territories, and the Crown Colony and Protectorate into the British Colony of the Gold Coast, now known today as Ghana. In the areas south of the Prague where colonization had been entrenched since 1874, the traditional rulers and their people also put up strong resistance, but not to drive out the imperialists, but to oppose or reform or seek participation in the new colonial measures and institutions that were introduced for the administration. The strategies that they resorted to consisted less of armed conflicts and more peaceful rallies, demonstrations, the press, and literary campaigns, and petitions and demonstrations to the local colonial administration or to the home government in London. These strategies were originally organized at the local level by the traditional rulers, but from the 1860s, national movements and societies formed led by the traditional rulers and the rising educated and professional elite. These movements included the Fante Confederation and the Accra Native Confederation of the 1860s and early 1870s, the Mfantsi Amanbuhu Feku or Fante National Society of the 1880s, which was converted into the Aborigines Rights Protection Society or ARPS of the 1890s. These societies demanded representation on the legislative council. They vehemently opposed the introduction of direct taxation and the appropriation of all so-called empty lands by the government, as well as the condemnation of African cultural names, dressing, religion, and traditions. All in all, even though Ghana was effectively colonized, a genuine argument can be made that one ethnic group, the Ashanti, were never truly conquered in a traditional sense. The Ashanti can be said to have maintained the quintessential aspects of their sovereignty all the way up until Ghana's independence.