Galamsey - On Gold, Clan Commonwealth and Trade

As a member of a state every citizen had a right to mine gold, with only minor restrictions.
By custom he was expected to, give

two-thirds of all gold nuggets and all treasure troves to the chief,
The Temptation of St. Anthony - Salvador Dal - 1946
galamsey
on gold and empire -
clan commonwealth and
trade
The individual had absolute right to all that accrued to him as a result of his labor on the land, but all that was
beneath the 'land belonged to the community. ... - Aspects of Precolonial Akan Economy - K. Y. Daaku 1.
As a member of a state every citizen had a right to mine gold, with only minor restrictions. By custom he was expected to, give
curated and compiled by

amma birago
The individual had absolute right to all that accrued to him

as a result of his labor on the land, but all that was beneath
the 'land belonged to the community.
in the early seventeenth century all of Holland came to depend

solely on gold from the Akan mines in Ghana for its coinage.
Aspects of Precolonial Akan Economy
K. Y. Daaku
"Sika fre mmogya" ...

"money brings all blood relations together."
Intellectually and in terms of belief, the 1880s and 1890s were a period when the tensions
engendered by cognitive dissonance became insupportable. And in this context it is highly
significant that the majority of Asante who forged a new intellectual framework and belief
structure for their lives did so as refugees in the Gold Coast Colony. The future in fact lay with
such people,
You cannot cook and eat royalty;

money is what it is all about.
Asante Proverb
The individual had absolute right to all that accrued to him as a result of his labor on the land,
but all that was beneath the 'land belonged to the community. As a member of a state every
citizen had a right to mine gold, with only minor restrictions. By custom he was expected to, give
two-thirds of all gold nuggets and all treasure troves to the chief, who was also entitled to, part
of the ivory captured.
This egalitarian system of land tenure opened up trade for all. The individual in his trading
efforts was unlimited and completely responsible, and rulers were at best to provide a peaceful
framework within which trade could operate.

K. Y. Daaku
The testimony of Miles and his fellow slavers to the effect that Fante institutions were as free
and just as any in the world may have been self-serving but is congruent with virtually all other
evidence. Despite this, and despite the fact that the principal economic activities in Fanteland
continued to consist of such things as subsistence agriculture and fishing, the effects of the
Fante traffic with the Europeans did permeate the whole of their society. Gold became a form of
wealth in the confederacy itself, (though a secondary one according to Miles), and the Fante
economy became partially monetarized.
Akan
Consumption Patterns in the 1770s
George Metcalf A Microcosm of why Africans Sold Slaves
Africa And The Africans

In The Age Of The Atlantic Slave Trade
Various Edited By: R. A. Guisepi
One of the most significant developments in the trade on the Ghana coast was the concentration
of about twenty European forts and castles along the Akan coastline between Assini and
Winneba. The establishment of these forts brought trade right to the Akan doorstep. On the
northern fringes of the forest, the important Mande trading centers of Buna and Begho, which
sent gold and kola to Djenne and other northern markets, were set up. Until the beginning of the
seventeenth century, both the coastal and northern markets were basically interested in the gold
trade. There is no doubt that the demand for gold at these trading centers plus an increasing
demand for kola nuts at the northern markets such as Begho and Buipe highlighted the problem
of inadequate labor for the Akan. To satisfy the increased demand, gold and kola production had
to increase. Gold mining is itself a labor-intensive industry and given the
unsophisticated implements at the disposal of the miners, many people must have
been deployed to the mines to satisfy this ever-increasing need. Moreover, conveying kola
to the north and headloading into the interior the pots, pans, and other goods now in
appreciably larger quantities at the European establishments called for a growing number of
carriers.

K. Y. Daaku
The egalitarian system of land tenure and the open door trade policy were measures designed to
enable the people to enrich themselves and indirectly to enrich the state. In the light of this it is
difficult to reconcile the popular assertion first put forward by T. E. Bowdich that the Asante
adopted measures to inhibit the development of a mercantile class because they feared that any
open encouragement of a merchant class would upset the neatly balanced socio-political system.
Interestingly, the statement is inferential rather than a fact Bowdich collected from the Asante
he interviewed. Such an argument ignores the highly interesting Akan concept of society. A
people who openly assert that Sika ne Panin, or "money is the elder," meaning that the rich
person has most influence in councils, must have reconciled the dichotomy between those who
became rich by their own efforts and those, with the wealth of the traditional aristocracy. As Ivor
Wilks has adequately demonstrated, Asante high office was available to commoners as well as
nobles, to non Asante as well as to Asante. The system of social mobility through economic
means was not a peculiar feature of Asante social organization, for "the Asante nation was but an
Akan state writ large."
The early seventeenth and eighteenth-century writers like Pieter de Marees, W. J. Muller, and
William Bosman had seen powerful traders integrated into the traditional order and given
polit-ical offices in addition to their trading activities. Admittedly, on the cast the presence of the
European forts and personnel in larger numbers and the fact that some powerful traders were
supported by the foreigners against the traditional rulers made the process of integration
difficult and led to what has been described as diffused authority. But in the inland states the
corrosive effects of trade and foreign culture on the people could only have been minimal, if
present at all. There are too many instances in local traditions of successful traders integrated
into the Akan states for a merchant class to have been a threat to the socio-political order.
Accumulation, Wealth and Belief in Asante History

to the Close of the Nineteenth Century.
T. C. McCaskie
such people, A significant consequence of this development is that, in retrospect, the
politicians and policies of the 1880s and early 1890s seem curiously irrelevant at both the social
and intellectual levels. The 'conservatives' - most notably the Akyempemhene Oheneba Owusu
Koko - were attempting (ultimately and desperately through violence) to turn the clock back to
a world that was fatally compromised and beyond restitution. By contrast, the 'modernisers' -
notably the English-educated Oheneba Owusu Ansa and his two sons - were trying to build a
brave new world from a European blueprint that, being eclectic and makeshift, commanded only
the most limited understanding and support throughout Asante society.
Kwame Afosa,
The Accounting Historians Journal
A good understanding of the sources of revenue and financial administration
of Ashanti calls for a comment on the political structure of Ashanti.

T. C. McCaskie
Thus, at the very moment when the state was applying the death penalty in order to practise and
to facilitate quite illegitimate levels of appropriation, there were rapidly increasing numbers of
people in Asante with something significant to lose.
Gareth Austin, 'No elders were present':

Commoners and private ownership in Asante, 1807-96
Wilks showed that in the last decade of Asante independence, a group of wealthy Asante exiles
based at Cape Coast tried to persuade the British administration to intervene in Asante to
depose the new Asantehene Agyeman Prempe I and establish British overrule. This, they
believed, would provide a liberal tax regime presenting no obstacle to the private accumulation
of wealth. In petitions to the governor of the Gold Coast in I 894 they took what might in
French Revolution terms be described as a bourgeois as opposed to an aristocratic
stance: 'In this vast country, Gold alone is king. If any get that wealth he is king.
We are all free aborigines of this country.'
Such an argument ignores the highly interesting Akan concept of society. A people who openly
assert that Sika ne Panin, or "money is the elder," meaning that the rich person has most
influence in councils, must have reconciled the dichotomy between those who became rich by
their own efforts and those, with the wealth of the traditional aristocracy. As Ivor Wilks has
adequately demonstrated, Asante high office was available to commoners as well as nobles, to
non Asante as well as to Asante.

K. Y. Daaku
"Sika peredwan da kurom a ewo amansan"

any capital in a town belongs to all the townsmen

K. Y. Daaku
Huge quantities of firearms were poured into West Africa during the major period of the slave
trade. While Africans deplored the ever growing demand of Europeans for captives, Europeans
were disturbed by the increasing African demand for guns. Bosman (1704) explained to the
citizens of Amsterdam in 1700 that Africans were sold "incredible quantities of muskets and
carbines, in the management of which they are wonderful dexterous." He feared that the sale of
these weapons was giving the Africans "a knife to cut our throats," but realized that any
European trader "who stopped supplying firearms would quickly find himself displaced by a
rival."
De Marees reported that the Portuguese sold guns to the Elminas, who knew how to use them,
and who understood that a long musket had a greater range than a short one. The Dutch began
trading on the Gold Coast in 159I or 1592, and firearms formed a part of their ships' cargoes. In
I594 the ship De Goede Hoop conveyed an unspecified number of muskets to the Gold Coast,
and the following year another ship carried inter alia ' musketten ende roers'. Between 1593 and
1607 more than 200 Dutch ships visited the Gold Coast, and many of them probably carried
guns. De Marees stated that in 16o1 the Dutch were not only selling guns at various places on the
Gold Coast, but were also teaching the local people how to use them. A few firearms may have
reached the Gold Coast interior at this time.
Both Davidson (1 961: 242) and Williams (1966: 82) record that at the height of the
eighteenth-century slave trade, Birmingham (England) gun-smiths alone were exporting
muskets to Africa at the rate of between 100,000 and 150,000 a year. Williams writes that "with
the British government and the East India Company, Africa ranked as the most important
customer of the Birmingham gunmakers." The rulers of coastal Africa struggled against the
worst excesses of the slave trade, but it proved too strong for them in the end.
There were special circumstances which induced Africans to participate in the slave trade.
Indeed, Africans may have had few alternatives. The introduction of firearms upset the
traditional military balance of power among African states. The availability of firearms may have
set off a gun-slave cycle in which an African state used the weapons to capture more slaves so as
to buy more arms, and so on.
K. Y. Daaku

Asante Proverb

K. Y. Daaku
The latter part of the seventeenth century saw the increasing importation of firearms into
Ghana, with the Dutch and the English competing to outsell each other in the new commodity.
Indeed, by the end of the century the importance of firearms overshadowed all other European
imports into Ghana. Much has been said about the effects of the arms and the slave trades on
African societies.

Unlike many other states, however, the Akan, whose political organization was but an
enlargement of the nuclear family, saw in the state the fulfillment of the aspirations of all its
members. From the fifteenth century trade had proved the best source of wealth. It was
therefore open to all. Through trade rather than con-quest the states were able to regularly
incorporate other sources of capital, such as goods and slaves, to sustain their economy. The
openness of the society in which outsiders were so easily integrated enabled the Akan polities to
survive.
H. Hymer has suggested that the egalitarian nature of the Akan land tenure militated against the
emergence of a landowning class, which would have capitalized on the land and turned the
states into modern capitalist societies.
In-deed, most of the trade which was carried on between the Akans and the Europeans
throughout the precolonial era seems to have depended on the efforts of individuals. What made
such a development possible was the nature of the system of land tenure. Like many West
African, systems, the Akan system was egalitarian and prevented any artificial shortage of land,"
which was corporately owned and so could not easily be alienated.
The individual had absolute right to all that accrued to him as a result of his labor on the land,
but all that was beneath the 'land belonged to the community. As a member of a state every
K. Y. Daaku
Kwame Afosa,
A good understanding of the sources of revenue and financial administration
of Ashanti calls for a comment on the political structure of Ashanti.
Ashanti was an empire which flourished in the forest region of present- day Ghana in the 16th
and 17th centuries. Ashanti was a monarchy with a bureaucracy financed through taxes. The
system of tax collection was one of apportionment among the levels of the social strata that were
required to bear the tax burden. Accounting controls over funds which finally reached the coffers
of the monarch involved boxes. The operations and uses of Adaka Kesie (the Big Box) and Apim
Adaka (the Box of Thousand) could be likened to a current account and a petty cash account
respectively. Ghana evolved through amalgamation of three separate units - the Colony, the
Ashanti Region, and the Northern Territories, known as the Gold Coast. Prior to British
colonisation of the Gold Coast it was inhabited by various tribes, and civilisation flourished in
the forest and savannah regions. States like Ashanti, Akwamu, Denkyira, Akim, Kwahu, Fanti
(known collectively as Akans) developed in the forest region, and Mossi and Tallensi in the
savannah region.
Each of these ethnic groups developed a monarchical and civilised form of government, with the
modern facets of administration, completely independent of any European influence. What is
relevant with respect to the government of these nation-states is their finance, and more
specifically their taxation - the raising of revenue to carry on the numerous activities of
government. They never developed a complex system of taxation by modern standards;
however, they established systems that served their needs.
A good understanding of the sources of revenue and financial administration of Ashanti calls for
a comment on the political structure of Ashanti.
The fact that the extensive importation of firearms into the Gold Coast took place in the
eighteenth century (when slaves were the main export) was related to the state of innovation in
Europe and the ability to mass-produce firearms. Nevertheless, the import of firearms had a
special relevance for slave-raiding states, including those of Akan origin which switched from
gold to slave exports. New methods of fighting were soon adopted by Akan armies to make
maximum use of their new firepower; and while they did continue to struggle among
themselves, the brunt of the attacks were borne by the nonAkan population in the north.
Firearms were obviously of limited value in internal recruitment, but constituted a key factor in
the capturing of dunks. They therefore fitted into a pattern of already evolving political relations
and were employed to extend the system. European weapons never made weak African states
strong, but they preserved and strengthened the strong. This is the most satisfactory explanation
of the paradoxical way in which coastal states which first acquired firearms remained small and
weak.
The Gold Coast littoral did not produce powerful states before the European advent, and
Europe's intrusion confirmed the political fragmentation. The Akan states in the hinterland,
which already had a solidity based on gold, were able to defend themselves with firearms, to the
detriment of their northern neighbours and to the profit of European buyers. These
developments strongly suggest not merely a mechanical process of interaction but also an
awareness on the part of the Akan rulers. Their policy in the gold-producing states was to
rationalize the Atlantic slave trade as it affected them, and to neutralize the threat of internal
disintegration. The comparison attempted here between gold and slave exports from the Gold
Coast can be repeated in other areas of West Africa by examining local products which were
valuable exports, such as gum in Senegal and camwood in Sierra Leone.
Kwame Afosa,

The latter part of the seventeenth century saw the increasing importation of firearms into
Ghana, with the Dutch and the English competing to outsell each other in the new commodity.
Indeed, by the end of the century the importance of firearms overshadowed all other European
imports into Ghana. Much has been said about the effects of the arms and the slave trades on
African societies.

K. Y. Daaku

T. C. McCaskie
What, I think, is of paramount importance is that
it was in this period that Asante became massively exposed to novel options,
to different (and even contradictory) ways of looking at the world.
K. Y. Daaku
European tribalism and African Nationalism

Mazi Okoro Ojiaku
On the evidence referred to here, however, this seems too undifferentiated a picture of state
structures in crisis. It appears, to the contrary, that African power-holders began to shift for
themselves, increasingly in competition with the central powers of their kingdoms, for the
continued control of marketable surpluses. To some extent, therefore, the intensification of
European trade and the onset of colonial rule promoted and benefited from the
rise of a newly conscious class, men whose career opportunities had been created
first by centralization, then by the increasing power of chiefs over kings, and now,
with the growing commodity trade, by the opportunity to put public power to private profit.
The colonial period would not by any means everywhere cut the ground from under their feet.
As indicated, during his lifetime the individual accumulator of wealth received public or social
acknowledgement of his achievement on behalf of society - ultimately and at the highest level by
being invested with the title of obiremopon.
the process of accumulation, principally from trading, in Asante before colonial rule. ... In the
last quarter of the nineteenth century, long-distance traders who operated on the coast and had
obtained a different view of what would today be called political economy rejected the Asante
tradition of communalism, and welcomed those aspects of colonial rule that removed the
constraints placed by the Asante state on the pursuit of wealth.

'In this vast country, Gold alone is king. If any get that wealth he is king.
We are all free aborigines of this country.'
In the last quarter of the century, the commoner merchants became 'gold-takers', that is,
brokers in the gold trade on the coast, and also turned to rubber production and exchange,
principally in the Brong-Ahafo districts.
"Sika peredwan da kurom a ewo amansan"
any capital in a town belongs to all the townsmen
"Sika fre mmogya" ...

"money brings all blood relations together."
K. Y. Daaku
As indicated, during his lifetime the individual accumulator of wealth received public or social
acknowledgement of his achievement on behalf of society - ultimately and at the highest level by
being invested with the title of obiremopon. However, at his death, his accumulated wealth- the
evidence of his capacity for and his skill at increase, the benchmark of his social responsibility -
passed from his individual purview into culture; it belonged to the nation (Asanteman) in the
symbolic personage of the Asantehene, the custodian of the Golden Stool - which, in turn, was
the quintessential embodiment of the continuity of historic culture (sunsum).
'In this vast country, Gold alone is king. If any get that
wealth he is king. We are all free aborigines of this country.'
Thus, at its most fundamental, the accumulation of wealth

was basically about the amplification of cultural space over historical time.
And, at the level of the state's reification of this world view, the rationalisations
and mechanisms involved are extensively documented
In the last quarter of the century, the commoner merchants became 'gold-takers', that is,
brokers in the gold trade on the coast, and also turned to rubber production and exchange,
principally in the Brong-Ahafo districts.
In the event of the lineage being the ruling one of the place, its ancestors are automatically the
ancestors of the whole place. Therefore the national ancestors are those of the oyokoo-clan. The
head of each clan represents it in giving due veneration to the lineage ancestral spirits.

Firstly, the individual accumulator of surplus or 'big man' (Obiremon; pl., Abirenpon);
secondly, the phenomenon of aggrandised and territorially competitive petty chiefships (the
consolidation and institutionalisation through ritual of the most successful abirenpon); and
thirdly, the unitary state presided over by the Asantehene (construed in this aspect as the
superordinate Obironmon). The developments summarised above spanned some two hundred
years - from the late fifteenth to the late seventeenth centuries - and in their gestation they
imparted to the Asante social formation some of its most basic ethical imperatives, its most
enduring grundnorms.
These are, firstly, the Asante construction of the nature process (the indivisibility of the
continuum of ancestors-living-unborn). Within the foregoing intellectualist framework, the
ultimate meaning of accumulation and of wealth was construed as being social rather than
individual. That is, all accumulation constituted an act of societal rather than individual increase
- an obligatory aggrandisement or enlargement of the stock of human (Asante) capital,
undertaken in conscious discharge of duties towards the achievement of the ancestors and of
responsibilities towards the 'historic' future represented by the unborn. Thus, at its most
fundamental, the accumulation of wealth was basically about the amplification of cultural space
over historical time.
T. C. McCaskie
Unlike many other states, however, the Akan, whose political organization was but an
enlargement of the nuclear family, saw in the state the fulfillment of the aspirations of all its
members. From the fifteenth century trade had proved the best source of wealth. It was
therefore open to all. Through trade rather than con-quest the states were able to regularly
incorporate other sources of capital, such as goods and slaves, to sustain their economy. The
openness of the society in which outsiders were so easily integrated enabled the Akan polities to
survive.
H. Hymer has suggested that the egalitarian nature of the Akan land tenure militated against the
emergence of a landowning class, which would have capitalized on the land and turned the
states into modern capitalist societies.
K. Y. Daaku
The Sacred Stools of Ashanti.

Peter Kwasi Sarpong
On the higher national or clan levels, the gods assume proportionate responsibilities and play an
important part in the welfare of the nation or the clan. The whole of Ashanti is composed of
seven or eight clans. Each clan may have members, headed by an elder, in the various towns and
villages. Every genuine Ashanti man or woman must belong to one of these. The vernacular
word for a clan is abusua.
Each clan may have members, headed by an elder, in the various towns and villages. Every
genuine Ashanti man or woman must belong to one of these. The vernacular word for a clan is
abusua. In a village or town where two or more clans are found, only one of them is, by virtue of
first occupation or otherwise, the permanent ruling lineage there. This is not necessarily that
from which the rulers of the district are chosen. Thus the chief of our village is chosen from the
shoona-clan, those of the division (Offinso State) are selected from the asona-group while the
oyokoo-lineage has the honour and duty to provide the Ashanti nation with its kings. In a given
area, the deceased members of a lineage who satisfy the above conditions are ancestors of that
group. In the event of the lineage being the ruling one of the place, its ancestors are
automatically the ancestors of the whole place. Therefore the national ancestors are those of the
oyokoo-clan. The head of each clan represents it in giving due veneration to the lineage ancestral
spirits.

T. C. McCaskie
Firstly, the individual accumulator of surplus or 'big man' (Obiremon; pl., Abirenpon);
secondly, the phenomenon of aggrandised and territorially competitive petty chiefships (the
consolidation and institutionalisation through ritual of the most successful abirenpon); and
thirdly, the unitary state presided over by the Asantehene (construed in this aspect as the
superordinate Obironmon). The developments summarised above spanned some two hundred
years - from the late fifteenth to the late seventeenth centuries - and in their gestation they
imparted to the Asante social formation some of its most basic ethical imperatives, its most
enduring grundnorms.
These are, firstly, the Asante construction of the nature process (the indivisibility of the
continuum of ancestors-living-unborn). Within the foregoing intellectualist framework, the
ultimate meaning of accumulation and of wealth was construed as being social rather than
individual. That is, all accumulation constituted an act of societal rather than individual increase
- an obligatory aggrandisement or enlargement of the stock of human (Asante) capital,
undertaken in conscious discharge of duties towards the achievement of the ancestors and of
responsibilities towards the 'historic' future represented by the unborn. Thus, at its most
fundamental, the accumulation of wealth was basically about the amplification of cultural space
over historical time. And, at the level of the state's reification of this world view, the
rationalisations and mechanisms involved are extensively documented, and the general
operational principles are becoming understood. As indicated, during his lifetime the individual
accumulator of wealth received public or social acknowledgement of his achievement on behalf
of society - ultimately and at the highest level by being invested with the title of obiremopon.
However, at his death, his accumulated wealth- the evidence of his capacity for and his skill at
increase, the benchmark of his social responsibility - passed from his individual purview into
culture; it belonged to the nation (Asanteman) in the symbolic personage of the Asantehene, the
custodian of the Golden Stool - which, in turn, was the quintessential embodiment of the
continuity of historic culture (sunsum).
T. C. McCaskie
'In this vast country, Gold alone is king. If any get that
wealth he is king. We are all free aborigines of this country.'


T. C. McCaskie
in line with Asante practice, the agents of the state were the principal beneficiaries of these
developments; but, at this time, large numbers of lesser functionaries and a host of private
individuals had their horizons lifted to the vision of the man of wealth. Thus, at the very moment
when the state was applying the death penalty in order to practise and to facilitate quite
illegitimate levels of appropriation, there were rapidly increasing numbers of people in Asante
with something significant to lose.

K. Y. Daaku
Huge quantities of firearms were poured into West Africa during the major period of the slave
trade. While Africans deplored the ever growing demand of Europeans for captives, Europeans
were disturbed by the increasing African demand for guns. Bosman (1704) explained to the
citizens of Amsterdam in 1700 that Africans were sold "incredible quantities of muskets and
carbines, in the management of which they are wonderful dexterous." He feared that the sale of
these weapons was giving the Africans "a knife to cut our throats," but realized that any
European trader "who stopped supplying firearms would quickly find himself displaced by a
rival."
De Marees reported that the Portuguese sold guns to the Elminas, who knew how to use them,
and who understood that a long musket had a greater range than a short one. The Dutch began
trading on the Gold Coast in 159I or 1592, and firearms formed a part of their ships' cargoes. In
I594 the ship De Goede Hoop conveyed an unspecified number of muskets to the Gold Coast,
and the following year another ship carried inter alia ' musketten ende roers'. Between 1593 and
1607 more than 200 Dutch ships visited the Gold Coast, and many of them probably carried
guns. De Marees stated that in 16o1 the Dutch were not only selling guns at various places on the
Gold Coast, but were also teaching the local people how to use them. A few firearms may have
reached the Gold Coast interior at this time.
The individual had absolute right to all that accrued to him as a result of his labor on the
land, but all that was beneath the 'land belonged to the community. As a member of a state every
K. Y. Daaku

T. C. McCaskie

K. Y. Daaku

T. C. McCaskie
the primary answer to this question can be located only in the realms of thought, philosophy
and psychology, and by historic extension in the context of an evolved and formalised world
view. It is to be traced to the matrix of beliefs, values and social ethics that was first crystallised
in the creation of the social order;
Ashanti was a confederacy and had a decentralised bureaucracy. The head was Asantehene
(King of Ashanti), and below him were Divisional Chiefs. The state was composed of tiers of
authority, and its lowest and most characteristic unit was the village. The villages are normally
composed of clans. Within any village the clan contained a number of families, traditionally the
descendants of one female ancestress; each clan recognized a head.
Ashanti had a well-organised government; it was, therefore, necessary that they develop a good
fiscal system to finance the government. The main sources of revenue were tributes from
conquered tribes, death duties, land taxes in the form of food-stuffs and game, trading, dues
paid by traders, proceeds from stool farms, and special contributions.
The stool farms call for special comment because they show that the need for state participation
in economic activity in competing with private enterprise, and as a source of revenue, was
recognised by Ashanti long ago. And in most Akan areas of Ghana, stool farms still provide
much revenue today, but the proceeds from these farms are used solely by the chief.
The stool farms call for special comment because they show that the need for state participation
in economic activity in competing with private enterprise, and as a source of revenue, was
recognised by Ashanti long ago. And in most Akan areas of Ghana, stool farms still provide
much revenue today, but the proceeds from these farms are used solely by the chief.
The systemic monetary reification of gold as substance understood to be of other-worldly

provenance; ... It was held to embody the corporate essence or 'soul' (sunsum) of those beings
who were, are and will be Asante, and in direct and obvious consequence it was revered as a
hallowed or sacred object. In this aspect or mode the Golden Stool was a construct that framed
individual and collective identity, and that mediated - through its singularity, its uniqueness- the
basic referents of cultural discourse. It did this by furnishing an urvocabulary, by defining
essential ontologies; the distinction between 'us' and 'them' - the notion of a unique 'Asanteness'
that united the ancestors, the living and the unborn in an exclusive and seamless communion;
and, in refinement of this, the idea of a bounded and ordered culture (a legislated cultural
space), the people or nation (Asanteman) presided over by the Asantehene as the juridically
sanctioned custodian of the Golden Stool. At this level, then, the Golden Stool was the
irreducible medium, the vessel, of human (that is, Asante) identity and culture, and as such its
enabling involvement was deemed to be indispensable to the most crucial passages of Asante
ritual dramaturgy.
T. C. McCaskie
Society for American Archaeology.

Exotic Goods and Everyday Chiefs
But money is neither culturally neutral nor morally invulnerable. It may well "corrupt" values
into numbers, In fact, the only recognized limits to the commodification process is the
preservation -albeit precarious- of selected items outside the cash nexus. This "singularization"
of certain goods, as Igor Kopytoff (1986) describes it, does not, however, seem to include money.
Instead, culture "marks" certain items as special and unexchangeable precisely by depriving
them of a price tag (see Radin 1987). Within this framework, money acts as a "contaminator" of
market values, immune to extraeconomic values and thus incapable of being itself marked as
singular, unique, or unexchangeable.
Society for American Archaeology.

Exotic Goods and Everyday Chiefs: Long-Distance Exchange and
Indigenous Sociopolitical Development in the South Central Andes
Paul S. Goldstein
The Sacred Stools of Ashanti

Peter Kwasi Sarpong
On the higher national or clan levels, the gods assume proportionate responsibilities and play an
important part in the welfare of the nation or the clan. The whole of Ashanti is composed of
seven or eight clans. Each clan may have members, headed by an elder, in the various towns and
villages. Every genuine Ashanti man or woman must belong to one of these. The vernacular
word for a clan is abusua.

Unlike Dahomey to' the east, Asante, the most powerful Akan state in the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries, made no attempt to prevent the populace from trading.' In-deed, most of
the trade which was carried on between the Akans and the Europeans throughout the
precolonial era seems to have depended on the efforts of individuals. What made such a
development possible was the nature of the system of land tenure. Like many West African,
systems, the Akan system was egalitarian and prevented any artificial shortage of land," which
was corporately owned and so could not easily be alienated. Chiefs and elders who, in theory
owned the land were only custodians for the living, the ancestors, and the generations not yet
born. The individual had absolute right to all that accrued to him as a result of his labor on the
land, but all that was beneath the 'land belonged to the community. As a member of a state every
K. Y. Daaku

T. C. McCaskie
Koko - were attempting (ultimately and desperately through violence) to turn the clock back to
a world that was fatally compromised and beyond restitution. By contrast, the 'modernisers' -
The Sacred Stools of Ashanti

Peter Kwasi Sarpong
The term "clan" refers to an exogamous division of a tribe, all the members of which are held to
be related to one another and bound together by a common tie. "This tie in Ashanti is a belief in
a common descent from some ancestress" (Sarpong 1961/62, p. 64). The whole of Ashanti is
composed of seven or eight clans. Each clan may have members, headed by an elder, in the
various towns and villages. Every genuine Ashanti man or woman must belong to one of these.
The vernacular word for a clan is abusua. In a village or town where two or more clans are
found, only one of them is, by virtue of first occupation or otherwise, the permanent ruling
lineage there. This is not necessarily that from which the rulers of the district are chosen. Thus
the chief of our village is chosen from the shoona-clan, those of the division (Offinso State) are
selected from the asona-gronp while the oyokoo-lme&ge has the honour and duty to provide the
Ashanti nation with its kings . In a given area, the deceased members of a lineage who satisfy the
above conditions are ancestors of that group. In the event of the lineage being the ruling one of
the place, its ancestors are automatically the ancestors of the whole place. Therefore the national
ancestors are those of the oyokoo-cldin. The head of each clan represents it in giving due
veneration to the lineage ancestral spirits.

One of the most significant developments in the trade on the Ghana coast was the concentration
of about twenty European forts and castles along the Akan coastline between Assini and
Winneba. The establishment of these forts brought trade right to the Akan doorstep. On the
northern fringes of the forest, the important Mande trading centers of Buna and Begho, which
sent gold and kola to Djenne and other northern markets, were set up. Until the beginning of the
seventeenth century, both the coastal and northern markets were basically interested in the gold
trade. There is no doubt that the demand for gold at these trading centers plus an increasing
demand for kola nuts at the northern markets such as Begho and Buipe highlighted the problem
of inadequate labor for the Akan. To satisfy the increased demand, gold and kola production had
to increase. Gold mining is itself a labor-intensive industry and given the unsophisticated
implements at the disposal of the miners, many people must have been deployed to the mines to
satisfy this ever-increasing need. Moreover, conveying kola to the north and headloading into
the interior the pots, pans, and other goods now in appreciably larger quantities at the European
establishments called for a growing number of carriers.

K. Y. Daaku
The egalitarian system of land tenure and the open door trade policy were measures designed to
enable the people to enrich themselves and indirectly to enrich the state. In the light of this it is
difficult to reconcile the popular assertion first put forward by T. E. Bowdich that the Asante
adopted measures to inhibit the development of a mercantile class because they feared that any
open encouragement of a merchant class would upset the neatly balanced socio-political system.
Interestingly, the statement is inferential rather than a fact Bowdich collected from the Asante
he interviewed. Such an argument ignores the highly interesting Akan concept of society. A
people who openly assert that Sika ne Panin, or "money is the elder," meaning that the rich
person has most influence in councils, must have reconciled the dichotomy between those who
became rich by their own efforts and those, with the wealth of the traditional aristocracy. As Ivor
Wilks has adequately demonstrated, Asante high office was available to commoners as well as
nobles, to non Asante as well as to Asante. The system of social mobility through economic
means was not a peculiar feature of Asante social organization, for "the Asante nation was but an
Akan state writ large."
The early seventeenth and eighteenth-century writers like Pieter de Marees, W. J. Muller, and
William Bosman had seen powerful traders integrated into the traditional order and given
polit-ical offices in addition to their trading activities. Admittedly, on the cast the presence of the
European forts and personnel in larger numbers and the fact that some powerful traders were
supported by the foreigners against the traditional rulers made the process of integration
difficult and led to what has been described as diffused authority. But in the inland states the
corrosive effects of trade and foreign culture on the people could only have been minimal, if
present at all. There are too many instances in local traditions of successful traders integrated
into the Akan states for a merchant class to have been a threat to the socio-political order.
Koko - were attempting (ultimately and desperately through violence) to turn the clock back to a
world that was fatally compromised and beyond restitution. By contrast, the 'modernisers' -
K. Y. Daaku
Akan Consumption Patterns in the 1770s

The testimony of Miles and his fellow slavers to the effect that Fante institutions were as free
and just as any in the world may have been self-serving but is congruent with virtually all other
evidence. Despite this, and despite the fact that the principal economic activities in Fanteland
continued to consist of such things as subsistence agriculture and fishing, the effects of the
Fante traffic with the Europeans did permeate the whole of their society. Gold became a form of
wealth in the confederacy itself, (though a secondary one according to Miles), and the Fante
economy became partially monetarized.
Akan
Consumption Patterns in the 1770s
George Metcalf A Microcosm of why Africans Sold Slaves

In the area called the Gold Coast by the Europeans, the empire of Asante (Ashanti) rose to
prominence in the period of the slave trade. The Asante were members of the Akan people (the
major group of modern Ghana) who had settled in and around Kumasi, a region of gold and kola
nut production that lay between the coast and the Hausa and Mande trading centers to the
north. There were at least 20 small states based on the matrilineal clans that were common to all
the Akan peoples, but those of the Oyoko clan predominated.
Their cooperation and their access to firearms after 1650 initiated a period of centralization and
expansion. Under the vigorous Osei Tutu (d. 1717) the title of asantehene was created as
supreme civil and religious leader. His golden stool became the symbol of an Asante union that
was created by linking the many Akan clans under the authority of the asantehene but
recognizing the autonomy of subordinate areas. An all-Asante council advised the ruler, and an
ideology of unity was was used to overcome the traditional clan divisions. With this new
structure and a series of military reforms, conquest of the area began.
By 1700 the Dutch on the coast realized that a new power had emerged, and they began to deal
directly with it. With control of the gold-producing zones and a constant supply of prisoners to
be sold as slaves for more firearms, Asante maintained its power until the 1820s as the
dominant state of the Gold Coast. Although gold continued to be a major item of export, by the
end of the 17th century the value of slaves made up almost two-thirds of Asante's trade.


T. C. McCaskie
The systemic monetary reification of gold as substance (Wilks, 1975; McCaskie, 1980a; and
compare Codere, 1968, and Crump, 1978) understood to be of other-worldly provenance; it
descended from the sky on kofi, Friday (Prempe I, 1907; Prempe II, n.d.). It was held to embody
the corporate essence or 'soul' (sunsum) of those beings who were, are and will be Asante, and in
direct and obvious consequence it was revered as a hallowed or sacred object. To an almost
totally exclusive extent the state commanded and mediated access to wealth; in consequence, it
was the state's servants - office holders, lesser functionaries, nhenkwaa orasomfo of whatever
specialist service group- who were in effect the asikafo. Participation in government was the
principal and in effect the only serious road to great riches.
To an almost totally exclusive extent the state commanded and mediated access to wealth; in
consequence, it was the state's servants - office holders, lesser functionaries, nhenkwaa
orasomfo of whatever specialist service group - who were in effect the asikafo. Participation in
government was the principal and in effect the only serious road to great riches.
Thus, by the reign of the Asantehene Kwaku Dua Panin, and most especially following the
commercial boom of the early 1830s, great wealth was to be accumulated almost exclusively
through trade, investment and the deployment of gold in interest-yielding loans; indeed, it is
significant in this context that the enormously wealthy Manwerehene and Obironmon Kwasi
Brantuo (c. 1791-1865) Intellectually and in terms of belief, the 1880s and 1890s were a period
when the tensions engendered by cognitive dissonance became insupportable. And in this
context it is highly significant that the majority of Asante who forged a new intellectual
framework and belief structure for their lives did so as refugees in the Gold Coast Colony. The
future in fact lay with such people,
T. C. McCaskie
Sloan Mahone, The psychology of rebellion

A significant consequence of this development is that, in retrospect, the politicians and policies
of the 1880s and early 1890s seem curiously irrelevant at both the social and intellectual levels.
The 'conservatives' - most notably the Akyempemhene Oheneba Owusu Koko - were attempting
(ultimately and desperately through violence) to turn the clock back to a world that was fatally
compromised and beyond restitution. By contrast, the 'modernisers' - notably the
English-educated Oheneba Owusu Ansa and his two sons - were trying to build a brave new
world from a European blueprint that, being eclectic and makeshift, commanded only the most
limited understanding and support throughout Asante society.
Colonial medical responses to dissent in British East Africa.

Asante Proverb
He analyzes the concept of money (identified in part with gold) and its relationship to office and
social status in Asante thought and practice since the 18th century. Death duties, said to have
been instituted in ca. 1720-1750, were the most powerful means of appropriatingw ealth into the
royal coffers and an importanti ssue as late as 1930. McCaskie (109), in the first of a two-part
analysis of Asante ideas about wealth and accumulation, expands on these topics by arguing that
the ideology of power embodied in gold must be analyzed in relation to religion as well as
politics (109, p. 29). He argues that the ethic of "achievement by accumulation"e mbodied in the
hierarchical relationshipo f the Golden Stool to the Golden ElephantT ail was transformed in the
mid-19th century in part by the appearance of an alternative model of social and economic
development.
He argues that the ethic of "achievement by accumulation" embodied in the hierarchical

relationship of the Golden Stool to the Golden Elephant Tail was transformed in the mid-19th
century in part by the appearance of an alternative model of social and economic development.
This was associated with the British occupation of the southern Gold Coast, but was probably
seen in context not as foreign but as another African view having revolutionary consequences
[the subject of the second as yet unpublished part of his analysis; see also (12)].
Colonial Encounters,
European Kettles, and the Magic of Mimesis in the Late Sixteenth
and Early Seventeenth Century Indigenous Northeast and Great Lakes
Meghan C. Howey
Mazi Okoro Ojiaku

European tribalism and Afriica nationalism
On the evidence referred to here, however, this seems too undifferentiated a picture of state
structures in crisis. It appears, to the contrary, that African power-holders began to shift for
themselves, increasingly in competition with the central powers of their kingdoms, for the
continued control of marketable surpluses. To some extent, therefore, the intensification of
European trade and the onset of colonial rule promoted and benefited from the rise of a newly
conscious class, men whose career opportunities had been created first by centralization, then
by the increasing power of chiefs over kings, and now, with the growing commodity trade, by the
opportunity to put public power to private profit. The colonial period would not by any means
everywhere cut the ground from under their feet.

principally from trading, in Asante before colonial rule. ... In the last quarter of the nineteenth
century, long-distance traders who operated on the coast and had obtained a different view of
what would today be called political economy rejected the Asante tradition of communalism,
and welcomed those aspects of colonial rule that removed the constraints placed by the Asante
state on the pursuit of wealth.

T. C. McCaskie

K. Y. Daaku
What the end will be, we are not gods to tell..

Our world is tumbling in the void of strangers.
Our world was never wrenched from Its true course
... If that world leaves its course
and smashes on the boulders of great void,
whose world will give us shelter?
Wole Soyinka
- Death and the Kings Horseman
The Temptation of St. Anthony - Salvador Dal - 1946
galamsey
on gold and empire -
clan commonwealth and
trade
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As a member of a state every citizen had a right to mine gold, with only minor restrictions.

By custom he was expected to, give

The Temptation of St. Anthony - Salvador Dal - 1946

curated and compiled by

The individual had absolute right to all that accrued to him

in the early seventeenth century all of Holland came to depend

"Sika fre mmogya" ...

You cannot cook and eat royalty;

Aspects of Precolonial Akan Economy

Africa And The Africans

Aspects of Precolonial Akan Economy

Accumulation, Wealth and Belief in Asante History

Accumulation, Wealth and Belief in Asante History

Gareth Austin, 'No elders were present':

Aspects of Precolonial Akan Economy

"Sika peredwan da kurom a ewo amansan"

Aspects of Precolonial Akan Economy

You cannot cook and eat royalty;

Aspects of Precolonial Akan Economy

in the early seventeenth century all of Holland came to depend

Aspects of Precolonial Akan Economy

in the early seventeenth century all of Holland came to depend

Accumulation, Wealth and Belief in Asante History

European tribalism and African Nationalism

Gareth Austin, 'No elders were present':

"Sika peredwan da kurom a ewo amansan"

any capital in a town belongs to all the townsmen

"Sika fre mmogya" ...

Thus, at its most fundamental, the accumulation of wealth

Accumulation, Wealth and Belief in Asante History

The Sacred Stools of Ashanti.

Accumulation, Wealth and Belief in Asante History

Gareth Austin, 'No elders were present':

Accumulation, Wealth and Belief in Asante History

Aspects of Precolonial Akan Economy

in the early seventeenth century all of Holland came to depend

Accumulation, Wealth and Belief in Asante History

Aspects of Precolonial Akan Economy

Accumulation, Wealth and Belief in Asante History

The systemic monetary reification of gold as substance understood to be of other-worldly

Society for American Archaeology.

Society for American Archaeology.

The Sacred Stools of Ashanti

Aspects of Precolonial Akan Economy

Accumulation, Wealth and Belief in Asante History

The Sacred Stools of Ashanti

Africa And The Africans

Aspects of Precolonial Akan Economy

Akan Consumption Patterns in the 1770s

Africa And The Africans

Africa And The Africans

Accumulation, Wealth and Belief in Asante History

Sloan Mahone, The psychology of rebellion

You cannot cook and eat royalty;

He argues that the ethic of "achievement by accumulation" embodied in the hierarchical

Mazi Okoro Ojiaku

Gareth Austin, 'No elders were present':

Accumulation, Wealth and Belief in Asante History

Aspects of Precolonial Akan Economy

What the end will be, we are not gods to tell..

The Temptation of St. Anthony - Salvador Dal - 1946

curated and compiled by

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