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 In 1821
the British Company of Merchants at Cape Coast handed its forts
on the Gold Coast (Cape Coast, Anomabu, Accra, Beyin, Dixcove, Kommenda, Winneba,
Sekondi, Prampram and Tantamkweri), like those in the Gambia, to the British
Crown as represented by the Governor of Sierra Leone. The Governor there at this time was Sir Charles
MacCarthy, who sailed to Cape
Coast at once to survey his new responsibilities. MacCarthy's mandate was to impose peace and to end the slave trade. He concluded that British
interests in the Gold Coast required the crushing of the powerful Ashanti (Asante)
Empire.
In 1824, after the Ashanti executed a Fante serving in a British garrison for
insulting the asantehene (king of the Ashanti), the British responded
with a military expedition into the Ashanti Empire. A 10,000
man Ashanti force massed near Bonsaso to face the British expeditionary force.
At the battle of Nsamankow (January 22, 1824) the Ashanti not only outnumbered the British but also used superior tactics.
MacCarthy was killed, and most of his force was wiped out.
By a strange chance, that same day (January 21,
1824) the asantehene, Osei Bonsu, died in Kumasi, and was succeeded by Osei Yaw
Akoto. The new king maintained Ashanti
resistance to the British by demanding that the latter give up Kwadwo Otibu of
Denkyera, their ally and an enemy of the Ashanti. At another battle at Efutu a
joint Denkyera and British force was defeated. But the Ashanti had now reached
the highest point of their success. When they tried to storm the strongly
fortified British headquarters at Cape Coast, they failed.
Whilst the Ashanti recovered their strength back in
Ashanti during the next
two years (1824-6), the British were building up a powerful alliance with the
Fante, Ga, Akim and Denkyera people, all of whom were now thoroughly afraid of
the Ashanti. In 1826 a reorganized and re-equipped Ashanti force invaded the coastal
regions in an attempt to bring the region under Ashanti control. The
Anglo-African alliance defeated the Ashanti at the battle of
Dodowa [also known as Katamanso or Akantamasu] on August 7, 1826. During the fighting on
the Accra Plains the
British used Congreve rockets, which frightened the Ashanti warriors, who fled
back to Kumasi. The new
governor, Sir Neil Campbell, however, found the Ashanti still strong enough to
refuse to sign any treaties.
In 1828, the British government reasoned that if it withdrew from the scene
a reconciliation between the merchants and peoples on the coast and the asantehene might prove easier to make. It therefore gave instructions to the
Governor of Sierra Leone, Sir Neil Campbell, that he should not make alliances
with African peoples who would expect Britain to protect them, and gave orders
that British officials and garrisons should be withdrawn from the Gold Coast
forts. The forts, however, were to remain British territory, and the British
Government paid the London Committee of Merchants 4,000 pounds a year to
maintain them. The settlements were to be governed by a Governor and an elected
Council which was to have jurisdiction only over British forts and harbors and
the people residing therein.
In 1830 the London Committee sent out as President of the Council (or
Governor) Captain George Maclean who, in 1831, came to terms with the Ashanti. He
achieved this in spite of the fact that he had not any real power and little
backing from the British government. Furthermore attempts of the British
government to come to terms with the Ashanti after Dodowa had been opposed by the
coastal peoples, who feared that the Ashanti would again assert their claim to
suzerainty over them. Even among the merchants there were some who thought
Maclean should confine his activities and authority to those actually living
within the British forts. By the terms of the treaty signed in 1831 by the
Governor (Maclean), two Ashanti delegates, six Fante chiefs, representatives of
Assin, Tufel and Denkyera and other African chiefs, the asantehene paid the
British 600 ounces of gold, gave two hostages from the royal family and recognized the independence of Denkyera and
Assin. The gold and the
hostages were later returned to Kumasi. One estimate of casualties suggests the
warfare resulted in 3000 Ashanti deaths and 100 British deaths.
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