DECLINE OF ENGLISH TRADE 107 
Henry Carlof-the same who has already been mentioned 1642-1672 
as probably having taken Cape Coast Castle from the CHAP. VI 
Swedes-who drove them out of the p lace and garrisoned 
it for the Danes. It was afterwards much enlarged and 
strengthened and renamed Christiansborg. A year later, 
in 1658, the Danes built a fort on a hill at Amanfu, about 
three-quarters of a mile to the east of Cape Coast, which 
. they named Fredericksborg. The hill itself was known as 
Deenstein or the Danish Mount, and it was the Governor 
of this place who enlarged and renamed Ursu Lodge. 
In 1651 the Cbarter granted twenty years earlier by 
Charles I was renewed and confirmed to Rowland Wilson 
and some other merchants by the English Commonwealth. 
The confusion of these times , however, had a most disas-
trous effect on the affairs of the Company, which had 
hitherto made large profits, with the result that the Dutch, 
Danes and Swedes increased their influence and trade on 
the Gold Coast at the expense of the English. So great 
were the losses of the English during the next few years 
owing to this competition of other nations, that, although 
a frigate was sent out in 1652 to protect the trade from 
the interference of the Dutch, and Lord Ambassador 
Whitelock was despatched to the Swedish Court in 1653 
to remonstrate against the encroachments of that nation, 
yet the losses of the private traders alone, apart from 
those of the Company, in ships and goods taken, are said 
to have amounted to considerably over a quarter of a 
million sterling . From 1660 onwards there were continual 
bickerings between the English and Dutch, which finally 
resulted in actual war. In that year a formal protest 
was lodged by the English Ambassador at the Hague, but 
so far from any benefit arising from it, the Dutch aggres-
sions against the English Company seem to have steadily 
increased during the ensuing years. In August 1661 the 
Dutch captured an English ship, the Merchant's Delight, 
and took her to Elmina, where her crew were imprisoned 
in the Castle by Governor Jasper van Houssen; while in 
the November of the following year further complaints 
'.>Jere made against the Dutch on account of aggressions at 
108 THE FIRST ANGLO-DUTCH WAR 
1&42-1672 Komenda and Cape Coast, at neither of which, according 
CHAP. VI to the English statements, had they any factory at that 
time. The Dutch were doubtless much annoyed to find 
that after they had achieved their ambition and driven 
out the Portuguese, they had even more competition to 
contend with than before. They were therefore doing 
their best to put a stop to this also, so that they might 
realize their dream of being supreme on the Gold Coast. 
In 1662 one of their men-of-war, the Golden Lyon, fired 
on the boats of an English ship as they were going ashore 
at Cape Coast, but, try as they \vould, they could riot 
succeed in driving their rivals from the Coast. 
In 1662 a new Company was formed under a Charter 
granted by Charles II and dated the 10th of January . 
This Company was called the Company of Royal Ad-
venturers of England Trading to Africa, and their Charter 
gave them the sole trading rights from the Straits of 
Gibraltar to the Cape of Good Hope. It included many 
influential persons, amongst whom was the King's brother 
James Duke of York,I undertook to supply 3,000 slaves 
yearly to the West Indies, and was to maintain posts at 
Cape Coast, Anashan, Komenda, Egya and Accra, besides 
a factory at Winneba and their fort at Kormantin. The 
headquarters, too, were to be removed from Kormantin 
to Cape Coast, where the Chief Agent was to be assisted 
by two other merchants, a warehouse-keeper, a gold-
taker, two accountants and three assistant factors. The 
Castle was to be garrisoned by fifty English soldiers and 
thirty slaves under the command of a captain and four 
sergeants. The garrison at Anashan was to consist of 
ten English soldiers and eight slaves, while two of each 
were allotted to each of the other lodges. The Slave 
Trade thus received the formal sanction of the Government 
and the direct patronage of the Royal Family. 
The forma bon of this Company was strongly resented by 
the Dutch. On the 28th of May 1663 the King 2 of Aguna, at 
their instigation, plundered the factory at Winneba; and 
less than a week later, on the I st of June, Governor Jean 
1 Afterwards King James II. 2 ? Queen. 
ANGLO-DUTCH QUARRELS 109 
Valkenburg lodged a formal protest against the action of 1642-1672 
the Company 's agents in setting up factories in places CHAP. VI 
which he asserted belonged to the Dutch West India 
Company by right of conquest of the Portuguese. A few 
days later the Dutch showed their animosity towards the 
Company by more active measures . They surprised the 
garrison of Cape Coast Castle, seized the fortress, and by 
means of bribes and promises induced the King of Fantin 
to attack the English fort at Kormantin, aft er first ar-
ranging with the King of Aguna to secure the person of 
John Cabes, the local Chief, who was a st aunch supporter 
of the English. The capture of Kormantin was prevented 
by the opportune arrival of Captain Stokes with reinforce-
ments, but the Dutch took the factory at Egya. 
As a result of these continual quarrels, the Company 
was quite unable to make any progress, and in 1664 repre-
sentations were made in Parliament on the subject of the 
insolence and aggression ' of the Dutch, and Sir George 
Downing was instructed to demand full reparation from 
the States-General. The Dutch Chief Factor 1 at Fort 
Nassau at the same time handed a written protest to 
Captain Stokes on board the Marmaduke complaining of 
the erection of the factory at Anashan by the English and 
setting forth that the Dutch had not only won the Coast 
from the Portuguese at great expense and at the cost of 
many lives, but that the monopoly of the whole trade had 
been formally granted to their West India Company. 
There was certainly a great deal of truth in these con-
tentions of the Dutch; but they had been so busy im-
proving Elmina and their other stations after the expulsion 
of the Portuguese, that they had not troubled to interfere 
very much with the English while they were still weak; 
and now that their position on the Coast was stronger and 
their trade had developed sufficiently to arouse the jealousy 
of the Dutch it was too late for the latter to protest. 
The Dutch had now committed a distinct act of war by 
seizing Cape Coast Castle, and Sir George Downing having 
failed to obtain any redress from the Government at the 
1 Huybert Van Gazeldoncq. 
110 THE FIRST ANGLO-DUTCH WAR 
1642-1672 Hague, Charles II at once despatched Captains Robert 
CHAP . VI Holmes 1 and Joseph Cubitts in the Jersey and another 
man-of-war, together with six frigates and the same 
number of smaller vessels, with secret orders to proceed 
to the West Coast of Africa and capture the Dutch fort at 
Goree; thus commencing the Dutch wars. Having taken 
Goree in accordance with these instructions, Holmes sailed 
down the Coast and, reaching Takoradi on the 9th of April, 
took Fort Witsen and left an English garrison in it. Fort 
St. Sebastian was the next to fall, and this was practically 
levelled with the ground and abandoned, so that the 
Dutch were able to reoccupy it almost at once. They built 
a palisade fence around it as a temporary protection and, 
though they were again attacked by the English and the 
people of J abi, succeeded in driving them off and eventually 
rebuilt the place. Cape Coast Castle was next recaptured 
on the 7th of May . I t had been defended by less than 
twenty Dutchmen, but Holmes now left a garrison of fifty 
men to hold it and supplied them with provisions for six 
months and materials and labourers for the repair of its 
defences. According to Barbot, who less than twenty 
years after these events was on very friendly terms with 
the Danes and used to visit them at Fort Fredericksborg,. 
they assisted the English on this occasion and were allowed 
to retain their position in return for these services. Fort 
Nassau at Mori and the lodges at Anamabo and · Egya 
were all taken in t urn, and according to Dapper the 
greatest barbarity was shown to the Dutch garrison of 
the latter place. He alleges that though the English had 
given quarter, they cut off the ears and noses of all their-
prisoners and afterwards cut the throats of some, butcher-
ing them like so many pigs. Others were flayed alive,. 
and even the dead were disinterred in order that their 
heads might be cut off and carried in triumph on the ends 
of the English pikes. In the plate of Fort St. Anthony at 
Axim in Barbot's work, the small island in front of the 
fort is marked as the" large rock on which Admiral Ruyter 
raised a battery of twelve guns with which he forced the-
1 Afterwards Admiral Sir Robert Holmes. 
/ 
i 
/ 
FORT WITSEN BLOWN UP I I I 
fort to surrender," 1 from which it appears that Holmes 1642-1672 
must have taken this place also. The Dutch had thus CHAP. VI 
been taken completely by surprise, and Holmes, having 
fully avenged the seizure of Cape Coast Castle by the 
capture of nearly all their forts, now returned to England. 
He left the English in a far stronger position than they 
had ever before occupied, but unfortunately they were not 
supplied with enough men to enable them to maintain it 
when the Dutch began to retaliate. 
The news of these depredations of Holmes had no 
sooner reached Holland than Admiral de Ruyter was 
ordered to sail from Gibraltar, where he then lay with a 
fleet of thirteen ships, to make good the losses of the 
Dutch Company. He began by recapturing Goree on the 
11th of October 1664, and then sailed on to the Coast to 
retake Cape Coast Castle, which was the principal object 
of his expedition. Having destroyed a few English 
factories between Sierra Leone and the Kru Coast, he made 
an unsuccessful attack on Fort Witsen on Christmas Day. 
Only a part of his force had been engaged; but he was 
then reinforced by 900 Elminas who had been sent down 
by Governor Valkenburg, and the fort was taken on the 
15th of January 1665. The village was burned and its 
whole population put to the sword, while the English 
garrison, which consisted of only some eight or ten men, 
half of whom were sick, were stripped naked and otherwise 
grossly ill-treated. The guns were taken off to the ship, 
but the fort itself was blown up with 1,200 pounds of 
powder, as it was thought that the cost of its maintenance 
would outweigh any profits that could be derived from its 
trade. This fort is said to have been at one time and 
another in the possession of the English, Dutch, Danes, 
Swedes, Brandenburgers and French; but though it 
doubtless witnessed some unrecorded changes, it can never 
have been held by the Brandenburgers, for they did not 
appear on the Coast until some years after it had been 
destroyed. It is quite possible, however, that all these 
1 He may have been misled by seeing the ruins of the watch-house 
ciescribed by Baker. 
112 THE FIRST ANGLO-DUTCH WAR 
164.2-1672 different na tions may have occupied the place, though not 
CHAP. VI this identical fort.l 
The Elmina auxiliaries are described as wearing helmets 
furnished with plumes of feathers and ornamented with 
one or two pairs of horns fixed to their front. They 
carried swords , the wooden hilts of which were carved in 
the shape of a leopard's jaw-bone,2 and many of them had 
pain ted their bodies red or yellow . 
De Ruyter next went down to Cape Coast Castle, which 
had now been repaired and further fortified by the English. 
Governor Valkenburg attached the very greatest im-
portance to the recapture of this place; for it was believed 
tha t if the English could only be deprived of the Castle, 
which was their chief stronghold on the Coast, they would 
give up all hope of r e-establishing themselves and retire 
from the Gold Coast altogether, leaving the Dutch in 
undisputed possession. On reconnoitring the place, how-
ever, De R uyter discovered that it was only possible to 
land in safety on one narrow strip of sand on the eastern 
side of the Castle, which, besides being swept by the guns, 
could easily have b een held by a hundred resolute men 
against a thousand. The people, moreover, refused to 
assist the Dutch and threatened to side with the English 
if necessary , so that, as it was clear that they could have 
stopped the paths and cut off all access to the fresh water 
and other supplies, and that any force he might ~mcceed 
in landing would be starving within two or three days if 
the Castle held out, D e Ruyter contented himself with 
expressing his astonishment that the Dutch should ever 
have permitted the English to retake the place when 
once they had gained it, and declined to risk an attempt 
that seemed bound to end in disaster. Leaving Cape 
Coast, therefore, he went to Mori, where, with the assistance 
of his E lmina allies, he recaptured Fort Nassau, repaired 
its fortifications, and left a garrison of Europeans with 
fifty na tives to hold it while he himself returned to Elmina. 
General Valkenburg had been deeply chagrined by the 
1 Vide note p. 64. 
2 More probably a human jaw-bone, a customary trophy. 
KORMANTIN ATTACKED 113 
Admiral's refusal to attack Cape Coast Castle, and now 1642-1672 
represented to him the great damage that was done to the CHAP. VI 
Dutch trade by the English forts at Anamabo and Kor-
mantin, urging him at least to attempt the capture of these 
places. He undertook to prove that the presence of the 
E nglish at Kormantin did more damage to the Dutch 
trade than Holmes had done during his whole expedition. 
The Admiral was at first rather reluctant to attack Kor-
mantin, but having been assured of the friendship and 
assistance of the Anamabos and Egyas, he agreed to make 
the attempt. Leaving Elmina, he touched at Mori and 
embarked the Dutch garrison of Fort Nassau, and then 
sailed on to Kormantin, anchoring off it on the 6th of 
February 1665 in company with a fleet of four or five 
hundred canoes manned by the Elminas. On the 7th, 
900 men were detached and sent with the Elminas in the 
ships' boats to effect a landing at Anamabo, where, though 
there was a small lodge in the possession of the English, 
the landing was much safer than at Kormantin and De 
Ruyter expected to be joined by his other allies. On 
nearing the landing-place after a hard pull against wind 
and tide , the boats were fired upon by the Kormantins, 
who, led by their Chief John Cabes, had marched over and 
were lying concealed behind the rocks and bushes. So 
heavy was their fire and that of the English lodge that 
the Dutch, believing that the King of Anamabo must 
have played them false, turned round and rowed back to 
their ships . But though the English had thus succeeded 
in beating off the enemy, it was more than they had 
expected. So confident indeed had they felt that the 
Dutch would land and attack their fort at Egya on their 
way to Kormantin, that the garrison had mined it and 
lighted a long fuse calculated to blow the place up when 
the enemy reached and entered it. They had then aban-
doned it and retired to Kormantin . The explosion followed 
in due course and wrecked the fort, but the unexpected 
retreat of the Dutch foiled the second part of their scheme. 
In spite of this reverse, De Ruyter did not despair of 
taking Kormantin. He had now been joined by Valken-
1-8 
114 THE FIRST ANGLO-DUTCH WAR 
164.2-1672 burg, and that evening messengers arrived from the King 
CHAP. VI of Anamabo bringing hostages and assuring the Dutch 
of his fidelity. The Anamabos explained that the failure 
in the morning was not due to any fault of theirs, but to 
the fact that the Dutch had made the attempt too soon 
and before they had had time to win over the Kormantins. 
That same night a second messenger, named Antonio, 
came from the King bringing word that he hoped to 
complete his arrangements by the next morning, and that 
as soon as he had done so he would hoist the Dutch flag 
on the ruins of Egya Fort as a signal to them to land . 
On the morning of the 8th this signal was seen, and, as 
there was very little surf, the Dutch force landed in good 
order near Egya. Here they were joined by their allies, 
and by midday the whole force, consisting of between 1,000 
and 1,100 Europeans and 3,000 natives, was concentrated 
at Anamabo. The allies were then provided with white 
scarves to distinguish them from those of the English. 
General Valkenburg now sent a letter to the English 
Commandant of Kormantin summoning him to surrender, 
and moved his whole force on to a hill a little to the west 
of the fort and about a musket shot from it. Here they 
met with a far more determined resistance than had been 
anticipated . Not only was a terrific fire maintained from 
the fort, but a force of about three hundred Kormantins 
was also opposed to them. These men, led by John 
Cabes, inflicted such heavy losses on the Dutch allies 
that the paths soon became blocked with the bodies of 
their slain. Brave however as the Kormantins were, it 
was impossible that they could hold out for long against 
the immensely superior numbers of the Dutch force, and , 
though they stubbornly disputed every yard of ground, 
they were slowly driven back on to the fort . The Dutch 
now set fire to the village, and under cover of the smoke, 
which was blown directly on to the fort, brought up 
grenades and mortars and prepared to make the final 
assault . But the English garrison, realizing that their 
position was now hopeless, and finding such numbers of 
the enemy close under their very walls, removed the red 
FALL OF KORMANTIN I I 5 
cross from their flag,I thus converting it into a flag of truce , 1642-1672 
and opened the gate. CHAP. VJ 
The Dutch took 150 pounds weight of gold in this fort 
and gave quarter to the garrison, leaving eighty of their 
own soldiers from Elmina and Mori in their place. The 
gallant Chief of Kormantin, John Cabes, who had been so 
ardent a supporter of the English, committed suicide rather 
than fall into the enemy's hands. The Dutch offered a 
large reward for his head, but he was buried by his people 
at Old Kormantin, and the only satisfaction his enemies 
obtained was the little they could derive from blowing up 
his house. On the fall of Kormantin, the few men in the 
lodge at Anamabo at once capitulated. The Dutch had 
paid a heavy price for their victory however; they lost 
forty-nine Europeans alone and their levies had fared even 
worse. These levies were paid sixty-two marks (£1 ,984) for 
their services, and the Fantis expressed great satisfaction 
at seeing the Dutch reinstated at Kormantin, complaining 
bitterly of the inconveniences they had suffered during 
the English occupation. They took this opportunity to 
gain an important concession from the Dutch, who agreed 
to pay them 300 guilders (£26 5S.) for everyone of the 
Company's vessels, other than slave ships, that traded 
there. This cost the Dutch a great deal in the end; for 
the people soon demanded and obtained payment for every 
ship alike. The Dutch named this fort Fort Amsterdam, 
and a few years later, in 1681 and 1682, considerably 
enlarged it and improved its defences. 
By the time De Ruyter left the Coast the only post left 
to the English was Cape Coast Castle, and the Company 
of Royal Adventurers petitioned the King on the subject 
of their losses . They tried to represent themselves as the 
innocent sufferers for the misdeeds of Holmes , and declared 
that they had neither sanctioned nor profited by those 
actions of his which had now brought upon them the 
reprisals of De Ruyter. They entirely ignored the fact 
that their factors and troops had occupied all the Dutch 
1 The Union Jack was flown only by the Governor at Cape Coast 
Castle: all other posts displayed the St. George's Cross. 
116 THE FIRST ANGLO-DUTCH WAR 
1642-1672 forts that Holmes had taken, and that had matters turned 
CHAP. VI out differently they would have been the very first to have 
hailed him as a hero and benefactor instead of lodging 
complaints against him. They further alleged that they 
had, since the formation of the Company, established and 
maintained forts and trading posts at Cape Coast, Tantum-
kweri, Kormantin, Anashan, Ahanta (probably Butri), 
Winneba and Accra, besides other places beyond the 
confines of the Gold Coast, and had, since their incorpora-
tion, sent out goods to the total value of £158,000 and 
brought away gold to the annual value of. £200,000 and 
slaves worth another £[00,000. The whole o'f this 
lucrative trade had now been ruined by De Ruyter, and 
they prayed that the Dutch prizes that had been taken 
during the war might be handed over to them as some 
compensation for the losses they had sustained. This 
appeal was doubtless supported by the Duke of York 
and others who were financially interested in the well 
being of the Company, and was, to some extent at any rate, 
granted, for in April 1666 the Dutch man-of-war Golden 
Lyon was handed over to the Company. 
In 1666 Villault made his voyage to the Gold Coast, 
and from the account he wrote of it the condition of 
affairs at that time appears to have been as follows. The 
Dutch were in possession of Elmina, Kormantin, Axim, 
Mori and Butri, and had lodges at Anamabo and Fantin 
(? Egya). Cape Coast Castle belonged to the English, 
who had also re-established themselves at Anashan, and 
the Danes held Fredericksborg and Christiansborg. While 
he was lying near Sekondi, Villault received a letter from 
Harry Dalbreckhe of Hamburg, who was then Governor 
of Fredericksborg, offering him the use of his harbour in 
consideration of the alliance between their respective 
countries and asking him to reserve him some of his goods. 
Villault therefore aJilchored off the fort, and the Governor's 
secretary came off to fetch the goods that had been ordered, 
but was prevented from returning on shore that night by 
a tornado that suddenly sprang up. The next morning, as 
he was being rowed back from the ship, the English at Cape 
THE TREATY OF BREDA 117 
Coast Cast le fired on his boat, t he b all fa lling within a 164.2- 1672 
few feet of it. Fort Freder icksborg immediately replied CHAP. VI 
with a shot at the Castle which" fell at the foot of the 
second battery," whereupon the E nglish, seeing that they 
were under the Danish Governor's protection, fired a 
round of blank . He says that although war had been 
declared between the English and Danes on account of 
the Dutch, y et the Governors of Cape Coast Castle and 
Fredericksborg had a mutual understanding by which 
they remained neutral and on good terms with each 
other, the two garrisons meeting and drinking together 
daily . The Danish Governor informed Villault that the 
natives had been continuously at war with one another 
for the past four years, and that, as a result, the country 
around Accra had been so devastat ed that the garrison at 
Christiansborg were unable to obtain supplies locally and 
provisions had to be sent them regularly from Fredericks-
borg . Villault further learned that the Axims had recently 
murdered the Dutch Commandant of Fort St. Anthony 
and declared for the English j but if this be true, nothing 
seems to have come of it . He was also told that the 
English had been intriguing with the King of Fantin to 
help them to regain possession of t heir fort at Kormantin, 
and had taken his son as a hostage j but finding him 
unable or unwilling to fulfil his par t of the contract, they 
now refused to give up the son . T he King had, therefore, 
tried to lay hands on some of the Dutch in the hope of 
effecting an exchange, and had recently seized the Com-
mandant of Kormantin and four others while they were 
on a visit to Anamabo, killing t wo of their escort in the 
scuffle. The Fantis also made a night attack on the Saboes 
while Villault was at Anashan , killing four men and taking 
others prisoners, and thus st arted a war between the two 
tribes . 
Peace was r estored between England and Holland by 
the conclusion of the Treaty of Breda in 1667. By the 
third article it was stipulated that each side should be 
restored to the places it had held before the war. The 
Dutch retained Kormantin and the English Cape Coast j 
118 THE FIRST ANGLO-DUTCH WAR 
1642-1672 but though this Treaty ended the war, it did not entirely 
CHAP. VI put a stop to the quarrels between the English and Dutch 
on the Gold Coast . The English soon re-established them-
selves at Egya, and of this the Dutch complained in 1668, 
affirming that, as the post was under the guns of Kormantin , 
it must necessarily have been ceded to them with it. In 
July of the same year the Komendas rose against the 
Dutch, plundered their factory there and murdered the 
garrison; to avenge which the Dutch declared a blockade 
of the Coast, which was to include not only Komenda but 
the whole of Fetu and Cape Coast, the people of which 
were suspected of having connived with the' Komendas in 
making this attack. The English, however, on being called 
upon to assist in enforcing this measure, very naturally 
declined to do so on the ground that their principal fort 
lay within the proscribed area. It could not, therefore, 
be carried out. In the following year, 1669, another war 
broke out between the Akwamus and Accras, which lasted 
for many years and laid waste a vast extent of country. 
The Company of Royal Adventurers had had a most 
unfortunate career. Floated as it was at a most inoppor-
tune moment, great difficulty had been found in persuading 
people to risk their money in what at that time was 
generally regarded as a very speculative concern. The 
result was that the Company had been compelled to start 
business with insufficient stock, and the outbreak of 
hostilities with the Dutch so soon afterwards led to ex-
penses and losses which they were quite unable to bear, 
and left them in debt for very large amounts. They had 
now not only lost a great deal of what they had originally 
had, but were by no means certain of being able to retain 
what still remained to them, and certainly had no prospects 
of being able to extend their Possessions. Had they 
started with a larger capital in the first instance, they might 
have been able to weather the storm, and, in time, make 
good their losses ; but as matters stood they were com-
pelled to surrender their Charter to the Crown and, for a 
fixed sum, transferred all their Possessions and interests 
to another Company which was about to be formed. 
CHAPTER VII 
TRIBAL WARS AND ATTACKS ON THE FORTS 
THE Company of Royal Adventurers having been hope- 1672-1694 
lessly ruined by the Dutch wars and having surrendered its CHAP. VII 
Charter to the Crown, a new Company, called the Royal 
African Company, was established by Letters Patent under 
the Great Seal on the 27th of September 1672. This 
Company, which was under the patronage of the King, 
the Duke of York and many other members of the nobility, 
was granted an exclusive right to the countries and trade 
between Port Sallee in Southern Barbary and the Cape of 
Good Hope for a term of a thousand years, and all His 
Majesty's subjects were prohibited from frequenting these 
coasts without its license . Books were promptly opened 
for the receipt of subscriptions; but so great was the 
distrust with which most people regarded the African 
trade while the misfortunes of the late Company were 
still fresh in their memory, that though the books re-
mained open for twelve months, the total of the subscrip-
tions only amounted to £I I I ,lOa. This sum was far too 
small, but the Company had perforce to commence business 
and do the best it could with it. 
Cape Coast Castle was the only station on the Gold 
Coast that still remained in the possession of the outgoing 
Company, and this was first purchased, together with their 
fort on Bunce Island at Sierra Leone and James Fort in 
the River Gambia, for £34,000. In order to better their 
position as much as possible, the Company greatly im-
proved Cape Coast Castle, strengthening its fortifications 
II9 
120 TRIBAL WARS AND ATTACKS ON FORTS 
1672-1694 and enlarging it. They also built a fort, which they named 
CHAP. VII James Fort in honour of the Duke of York, at Accra in 
1673 and other forts at Komenda and Anamabo. By 
these active measures they succeeded in securing to 
themselves a fair amount of the Gold Coast trade, and 
in 1673 fifty thousand guineas 1 were coined in England, 
being so called because the gold from which they were 
struck had been brought from Guinea by the Royal African 
Company. These first guineas bore the Company's stamp, 
an elephant, a privilege that had been specially granted by 
King Charles II in order to encourage the importation of 
gold for coining. Five-pound pieces were also struck, 
which were similar to the guineas in design, but had the 
inscription round the rim like the crown piece. 
In 1679 the Winnebas attacked the English factory 
there and completely ransacked it. The Factor was 
severely wounded, and h e and his garrison only saved their 
lives by escaping in a canoe by night to Cape Coast, where 
Barbot saw them land the next morning, and says the 
Factor was " much wounded and all embrued in his own 
blood." " 
In the same year the Portuguese made an attempt to 
re-establish themselves on the Gold Coast. The Governor 
of the Danish fort at Christiansborg at this time was John 
Olricks of Gluckstad. One of his officers, a Greek named 
Peter Bolt, conspired with the natives, who treacherously 
murdered Olricks and installed Bolt in his place. He soon 
afterwards sold the place to Julian de Campo Baretto, an 
ex-Governor of the Portuguese Island of San Thome , for 
the paltry sum of £224, and the Portuguese Government 
then supplied a small garrison. The Portuguese made 
some improvements and extensions in the building, and 
named it the Castle of St. Francis Xavier. They raised 
the curtains and batteries another 3 ft., and built a small 
chapel inside the Castle, where Mass was said by a black 
1 These guineas were nominally worth twenty shillings, but, being 
actually worth eightpence more, gradually came to be accepted as. 
twenty-one shillings. 
• Barbot, p. 180. 
ACCRA-AKWAMU WAR 121 
priest who had been ordained by the Bishop of San Thome. 1672-1694 
They maintained a garrison of forty-five white men, but CHAP. vn 
employed no natives, as they were so well hated all along 
the Coast that they could get none to serve under them. 
They also constructed a small turf redoubt at Anashan, 
where ten or twelve men were stationed under Lorenzo 
Perez Branco and carried on a small trade in tobacco, 
rum, soap and other American goods. They were still 
there three years later, but how much longer they re-
mained or what afterwards became of them is unknown. 
The war that had broken out in 1669 between the Accras 
and Akwamus lasted until 1680. During this time a vast 
extent of country had been laid waste, many towns had 
been burned and all the plantations destroyed . The 
Accras were completely crushed, and their country was 
reduced to the position of a tributary province of Akwamu. 
Those who had escaped the victorious arms of the enemy 
either found refuge in the European forts or fled to Popo, 
and their King, Furi, sought protection under Penin 
Ashrive the King of Fetu, to whom he was related. Little 
Accra, the town under the Dutch fort, was burned to the 
ground and some of its inhabitants removed to Soko under 
the walls of J ames Fort. Such was the devastation caused 
by this prolonged struggle that not only during the war, 
but for several years after the cessation of actual hostilities, 
the forts at Accra and Christiansborg had to be supplied 
with provisions from the windward Settlements. The 
Accras who had fled to Popo were at constant war with 
the Awunas. These quarrels are said to have been 
fomented by the King of Akwamu in order to distract 
their attention from his own country and give them no 
time to attempt to gain possession of some rich gold 
mines that he had there. He was careful, however , to 
keep the balance of power fairly even, assisting either side 
from time to time as might be necessary, so that neither 
was ever allowed to gain any signal advantage; and 
though the Accras in 1700 succeeded in driving the 
Awunas from their country, they were very soon afterwards 
leinsta ted. 
122 TRIBAL WARS AND ATTACKS ON FORTS 
1672-1694 The Dutch at this time had a fort at Sekondi called 
CHAP. VII Fort Orange, but it is not known exactly when it was 
built: probably in about 1670-75. Captain Henry Nurse, 
Agent for the English Company, also built a fort there 
a few years later. Both these buildings were of about the 
same size and only a gun-shot apart, that of the English 
standing on rather lower ground than Fort Orange. 
It was now some years since the Dutch had been on 
really good terms with the Elminas, and in 1680 or 1681 
matters were brought to a head and the people broke out 
into open rebellion. The actual cause of this was an 
attempt by the Dutch to destroy the independence that 
the Elminas had gained under the Portuguese. The 
Elminas were joined by the Komendas and laid siege to 
the Castle, and for not less than ten months kept its 
garrison and that of Fort Conraadsburg closely confined 
and made two separate attempts to take the Castle by 
assault. Neither of these was successful however, for 
the Castle is indeed impregnable so far as African warfare 
is concerned and could only be reduced by bombardment. 
The Dutch lost only four men, but the Elminas had about 
eighty killed and several others were taken prisoners and 
kept stark naked, chained and exposed to all weathers, 
on the land batteries for over nine months. When they 
at last realized that the capture of the Castle was im-
possible, many of the Elminas burned their houses and 
emigrated to other towns and the siege was then raised . 
In 1681, too, a great riot occurred at Cape Coast. This 
originated in the flight of eighteen slaves who escaped 
from the Castle and found refuge in the town. Neither 
threats nor persuasion would induce the people to give 
these men up, and when the guns were trained on the 
town to compel them to obey, at least 700 men turned out 
and boldly attacked the Castle. In the fighting that 
ensued the garrison had several men killed and fifty or 
sixty of the 'people also fell. The King, so soon as he heard 
of this outbreak, hurried in from Efutu with only twelve 
attendants to assure the English Agent of his own loyalty. 
He remained for eight days beneath a fetish tree which 
THE BRANDEN BURGERS 12 3 
then stood near the Castle, and it was principally due to 1672-1694 
his mediation and persistent reasoning with the people CHAP . VII 
that the dispute was finally settled and the alliance between 
them and the English renewed. 
Yet another European nation, the Brandenburgers 
(Prussians), tempted by the enormous profits that were 
being derived by others from the Slave Trade, now ap-
p eared on the Gold Coast. The Elector of Brandenburg 
despat ched two frigates, one of thirty-two guns manned 
by sixty men and the other of eighteen guns and fifty men, 
under Captains Mathieu de Vos and Philip Pieter Bloncq, 
who had orders to form a Settlement. They arrived off 
Cape T hree Points in May 1682 and, landing their men 
at " Poquefoe " (Princes), set up the Brandenburg flag . 
Bloncq had already made several voyages to the Coast and 
was well known to the people here. He therefore found 
little difficulty in persuading the Chief to grant them 
p ermission to build a fort on Manfro (or Montfort) Hill 
where they could trade. Some cannon were brought ashore 
and carried up the hill, where they were mounted and 
surrounded by earthworks and a palisade fence, within 
which houses were a t once built for the storage of ammuni-
tion , merchandize and provisions and the accommodation 
of the garrison. Having thus formed a temporary Settle-
m ent, Bloncq took some of the Chiefs back with him to 
Hamburg and thence to Berlin, where they were well 
entert ained and shown all the pomp and glory of the 
Elector 's Court and army. A year later he returned, 
bringing the Chiefs back, and built a proper fort , which he 
named Groot Fredericksburg in honour of his sovereign . 
The Brandenburgers soon afterwards built a small fort at 
Akoda (Akwida) and named it Fort Dorothea. This, which 
was little more than a lodge when it was first built, was 
cap t ured by the Dutch in 1690 and much improved by 
them ; but in 1698 the Dutch West India Company ordered 
them to restore it to the Prussians. They also built a 
small fort at Takrama in 1694 to guard the adjacent 
watering-place, where they levied a toll of {,IO from every 
ioreign ship that put in for wood and water . 
124 TRIBAL WARS AND ATTACKS ON FORTS 
1672-1694 In 1682 Baretto, the Portuguese Governor of Christians-
CHAP. VII borg Castle, was made a prisoner by his own garrison, who 
rose against him and kept him closely confined in the tower 
of the fortress. Barbot, who had known him in Prince's 
Island three years before, went to visit him, but was only 
allowed to " salute him at the window ... from a consider-
able distance." 1 The Portuguese Factor, who had refused 
him admission, told Barbot that he was prepared to justify 
what he had done, but that if the prisoner wished to return 
with him (Barbot) to Europe he might do so. Baretto 
however sent out a message that he would on no account 
leave his post except by order of the King of Portugal , 
but he sent a letter by Barbot to the Court at Lisbon . 
The garrison was in a miser'able condition, and had no 
provisions, not even bread, and less than sixty pounds ' 
worth of goods in their warehouse. The Danes at Fort 
Fredericksborg had offered to buy them out for any 
reasonable sum, but in vain. Eventually, however, the 
garrison became so reduced by deaths and was in such a 
wretched condition from shortage of provisions and lack 
of discipline, that the King of Portugal was glad to accept 
the offer of the Danes, and they were accordingly allowed 
to redeem the place . 
The African Company had for a long time been anxious 
to gain possession of the Danish Fort Fredericksborg at 
Amanfu, which, being situated on a hill within gun-shot of 
their Castle at Cape Coast, constituted a serious menace 
to its safety. Conscious of their insecurity, the English 
had hitherto been compelled to humour the Danes and 
live as amicably with them as possible; for it would have 
been an easy matter to have levelled Cape Coast Castle 
with the ground with a few good guns on the Danish 
Mount. Barbot, who knew it well and was on very 
friendly terms with its Commandant, says that he had 
often seen the garrison walking about in Cape Coast Castle 
from this fort; but it was a poor enough place, which its 
owners never seem to have tried to improve, for he describes 
it as " only a pretty large, almost triangular enclosure, 
1 Barbot. p . r83. 
FORT ROYAL 12 5 
or indifferent thick wall of stone and clay mix'd together, 1672-1694 
always falling to decay, with a round flanker towards the CHAP. VII 
sea-side, and two other sorry small bastions to the land, 
of the same materials as the wall and curtains, one of them 
pointing east and the other west, towards Cape Corso; 
on all which there are fifteen or sixteen old iron guns, 
in no good order. Within the enclosure, or walls, is a 
disorderly heap of old clay buildings , thatch'd, like those 
of the Blacks, and all out of repair ." 1 In 1 685 arrange-
ments were completed for the purchase of this place by 
the English, and it was formally handed over by its 
Commandant, Hans Luck, to Captain Henry Nurse, the 
Company's Agent at Cape Coast, by whom it was renamed 
Fort Royal. But the English, once they had acquired it , 
do npt seem to have troubled any more about it, and 
though they had the precedent of Elmina Castle and St. 
J ago's Hill to warn them of the possible results of such 
carelessness, it was allowed to fall into decay even greater 
than that which had existed while the Danes held it. The 
walls were merely patched with clay and the houses 
thatched with reeds, so that it can have been little if .any 
better than a native hut, and certainly did not deserve 
to be called a fort. Nevertheless, it was allowed to remain 
in this state for many years. 
\Vhen Barbot was on the Coast in 1682, he was much 
impressed by the friendship shown by the Komendas 
for the French. The King of Eguafo, too, sent his second 
son to him as -a hostage and invited him to corne and see 
him and discuss the formation of a French Settlement. 
On his return to Europe, therefore, Barbot laid this proposal 
before the French Ministry and advised them to accept 
the offer and choose Ampeni as the most suitable place for 
their purpose . In 1688 M. du Casse was sent out with 
four French meri-of-war from Rochfort and established a 
factory at Komenda, and then sailed down to the Slave 
Coast to make further Settlements . The Dutch, however, 
contrived to pick a quarrel with the Eguafos a few months 
later, and in the w.ar that ensued the King was killed 
1 Barbot, p. 172 . 
126 TRIBAL WARS AND ATTACKS ON FORTS 
1672-1694 and the French factory pillaged. Its garrison fled to the 
CHAP. VII English at Cape Coast for protection. 
The Dutch now decided to build a fort at Komenda to 
compete with the English, who had been established there 
for some time ; but they met with a great deal of opposition 
from the people, who were probably stirred up by the 
English Commandant to resist the new-comers . Eventu-
ally, however, Governor Sweerts collected troops from all 
their other forts and defeated the Komendas, who lost 
their Chief and several of their principal Captains, and a 
fort was then built about a quarter of a mile to eastward 
of the English post and named Fort Vredenburg. 
In r690 a most disastrous war broke out between the 
Adorns, who were soon joined by the people of Ja bi, and 
the Ahantas. This war lasted three or four years, and 
ended in the total defeat of the Ahantas, whose losses were 
so terrible that, by the time peace was restored, Sekondi, 
which had previously been a rich and prosperous town, had 
been burned to the ground and many other places which, 
prior to the war, had been large and populous, contained 
not more than ten families. The majority of the survivors 
settled under the Dutch fort at Butri, whence, in spite of 
the severe punishment that they had already received, 
they still continued to bid their enemies defiance. 
The Adorns were led by a Chief named Ankwa; but it 
was to their own valour rather than to his that they owed 
their success. He was a blood-thirsty bully and an arrant 
coward, who, though for ever stirring up strife, usually 
took to his heels on the day of battle. Bosman says of 
him : "This Barbarous Monster having in an Ingagement 
taken five of his principal Antese Enemies, Anno 1691, he 
wounded them all over; after which, with a more than 
Brutal Fury, he Satiated, tho' not Tired himself, by 
sucking their Blood at their gaping Wounds; but bearing 
a more than ordinary Grudge against one of them, and 
not contented with the mentioned Savage Cruelty, he 
caused him to be laid bound at his Feet, and his Body to 
be pierc'd with hot Irons, gathering the Blood that issued 
from him in a Vessel, one half of which he Drank, and 
ANKWA 
Offer'd up the rest unto his God. In this Manner doth 1672-1694 
this Merciless Bloody Wretch treat his Conquer'd Enemies; CHAP. VII 
and no Wonder, for if Opportunity be wanting to exercise 
his Cruelty on them, his own Subjects always supply their 
Place; for his insatiable thirst after Blood must one 
way or other be Satisfied. In the year 1692, When he 
. took the Field the second time against the Antese, I went 
to give him a Visit in his Camp, near Chama; he receiv'd 
me very Civilly, and Treated me very well, according to 
the Custom of the Country: But whilst he and I were 
diverting; our selves together, a fresh Opportunity offer'd it 
self for the Exercise of his Brutish Cruelty: which was 
only a Negroe observing that one of his Wives had a new 
Fashion'd Coral on, and taking a part of it in his Hand to 
look on, without taking it off her Neck; which she not 
thinking any hurt, freely permitted him to do. I should 
here inform you by the way, that these Negroes allow 
their Wives all honest liberty of Conversation, even with 
their Slaves. But Ankwa so resented this innocent 
Freedom, that as soon as I was out of the Camp, he caus'd 
both Wife and Slave to be put to Death, drinking their 
Blood, as he useth to do those of his Enemies . For such 
another trivial Crime, a little before, he had caused the 
Hands of one of his Wives to be cut off; after which, in 
Derision, he used to command her to look his Head for 
Vermin, which being impossible with her Stumps, afforded 
him no small Diversion." 1 
Dixcove Fort was commenced by the English in 1691 
after a long dispute with the Brandenburgers, who had 
set up their flag there. The latter, however, found that 
the trade was very insignificant and waived all further 
claims to the place. The building was proceeded with ill 
a very dilatory fashion, and it was not until six years 
later that the fort was finished and named Metal Cross 
Fort. 
In 1693 Christiansborg Castle once more changed 
hands, passing this time into the possession of the natives . 
The garrison had been much reduced by deaths and only 
1 Bosman, p . 23 . 
128 TRIBAL WARS AND ATTACKS ON FORTS 
1672- 1694 numbered about twenty-five men; and the Akwamus, 
CHAP. VII observing this, determined to avail themselves of so 
favourable an opportunity to seize the place. They were 
prompted to this partly by the hope of plunder and partly 
by a wish to avenge some real or fancied insults that had 
been offered to them by the Danes, with whom they had 
been on bad terms for some time. The affair was planned 
and managed by a man named Assameni, who had formerly 
been a cook at one of the English factories but had now 
set up in business as a kind of commission agent and 
used to bring traders from the interior to the fort. The 
Danish Governor reposed great confidence in him. This 
man came up to the Castle one day and told the Governor 
that he would soon be bringing a number of traders who 
had come down to the coast to buy firearms and advised 
him to raise the price. A few days later, he presented 
himself at the gate with about eighty Akwamus carrying 
ivory and gold, who he said were the traders he had spoken 
about. 
The Danes, not suspecting any treachery, admitted 
the men, and the Factor began to sell them guns and 
powder. It was a common practice with the traders to 
allow the people who bought guns to test them with a 
blank charge before completing the purchase, and this the 
Akwamus now prepared to do. But they had secretly 
brought in some slugs, which they now slipped into their 
guns, thus fully loading them. Then, after stabbing the 
Factor who was serving them, they suddenly turned on 
the garrison and made them all prisoners. The Governor, 
who was upstairs, heard the noise and ran out of his room, 
sword in hand, but was at once attacked by two of the 
men. He held his ground for some time, calling for assist-
ance; but finding that none came, and seeing more of the 
Akwamus pressing forward to the attack, he turned back, 
and, jumping through a window, made his escape to the 
Dutch Fort Creve Creur. He had been wounded in several 
places and his left arm was disabled. After remaining 
with the Dutch for a time, he went to Cape Coast Castle 
in the hope of finding a Danish ship that would take him 
ASSAMENI 129 
back and help him to recover the Castle. Assameni took 1672-1694 
gold and goods in the Castle to the value of about seven CHAP. VIl 
thousand pounds, and then occupied it with a garrison of 
his Akwamus. He flew a white flag emblazoned with a 
device of a Negro brandishing a sword, dressed himself 
in the Danish Governor's uniform and caused himself to 
be treated in every way as Governor. He also required 
every ship that passed the fort to salute his flag and 
himself saluted all those that came there to trade. He was 
in fact lavish with his powder, often indulging himself with a 
salute, and the guns would thunder forth in his honour at 
all hours of the day or night whenever the fancy seized him. 
While Assameni was thus installed at Christiansborg, 
Captain Thomas Phillips made a voyage to the Coast, and 
on reaching Accra purchased a canoe from him . Phillips, 
with Nicholas Buckeridge and John Bloom, the English 
Commandants of Winneba and James Fort, were then 
invited to dine at the Castle . The black Governor sent 
hammocks for his guests, but on their arrival at the gate 
the guard demanded their swords. Bloom and Buckeridge 
gave theirs up, but Phillips flatly refused to follow their 
example. Assameni was therefore informed and came 
down to the gate and explained that it was the usual 
custom; to which Phillips replied that " that might be 
so, but it was never the custom of English commanders 
to deliver their swords upon any account whatever." 
This seemed to satisfy Assameni, who then led the way to 
the dining-room, which was entered by mounting a ladder 
and passing through a hole in the floor . Here he drank 
to his visitors while a salute was fired from the Castle 
guns, and Phillips greatly pleased him by taking off his 
sword of his own accord and passing it to his boy to hold . 
Assameni's previous experiences as cook enabled him to 
give his guests a very good dinner, at which he presided 
with a boy armed with a pistol standing on either side of 
his chair as guard. He repeatedly drank the healths of 
the King of England , the Royal African Company and each 
of his guests, with volleys of cannon to accompany each 
toast, about two hundred rounds being fired in all. 
1-9 
130 TRIBAL WARS AND ATTACKS ON FORTS 
1672-1694 In 1694, however, two Danish ships of twenty-six guns 
CHAP. VIl each wer'e sent out to treat for the redemption of the 
Castle. They anchored off Christiansborg on the 13th of 
May, and the place was soon afterwards restored to the 
Danes on payment of fifty marks in gold (£1,600) and the 
renunciation of all claims upon the people for compensa-
tion. These negotiations were arranged through the 
Dutch and the King of Akwamu, to whom the Danes had 
given a large present. The Governor who had been in 
office when the Castle was taken, then went on board the 
ships to return to Denmark, where he was much afraid 
he would be severely punished for his carelessness; 
but, as it happened, the ships had been so weakened by 
the loss of the men who had been left to garrison Christians-
borg that they soon afterwards fell an easy prey to Avery 
(or Every, " Long Ben ") the pirate, who plundered and 
burned them at Prince's Island. 
Some years after the expulsion of the Portuguese, the 
Dutch endeavoured to follow their example and establish 
themselves in the gold-bearing districts behind Axim. 
They met with the same difficulties as the Portugu~se had 
had to contend with, and for several years the hostility 
of the Awoins prevented any advance into the interior. 
At last, however, they adopted the expedient of fomenting 
a quarrel between this tribe and the Ahantas, and by help-
ing the latter whenever necessary, gradually succeeded in 
driving the Awoins back and populating a large proportion 
of their country with Ahantas. They then rebuilt the old 
Portuguese Fort Duma, and, penetrating still farther 
inland in search of gold, followed the River Ankobra as 
far as the rapids at Abadama and built a second fort 
there, which they named Fort Ruyghaver. This was about 
forty miles above Fort Duma and in the heart of the gold-
bearing country. They also built a third fort, Fort Elise 
Carthago, on the river near its mouth. At about this time 
one of these forts seems to have fallen into the hands of 
the natives. Probably it was Fort Ruyghaver that was 
captured by the Awoins. The Dutch then laid siege to 
the place, and the Chief, finding himself hard pressed, is 
FORT RUYGHAVER 13 1 
said to have shot bullets of gold instead of lead to intimate 1672-1694 
to the Dutch that he was ready to treat and resume trade CHAP. VII 
with them . By these means he induced them to enter 
the fort to discuss the terms of its surrender; but he 
had first arranged with a slave to hide himself behind 
a curtain and put a match to a quantity of powder when 
he heard him stamp his foot . Bribed by a promise of 
some new clothes, he foolishly obeyed these instructions 
and blew up the whole place and everyone who was in it. 
One of the Dutch slaves, who happened to notice these 
preparations and escaped in time, was the sole survivor 
and brought the news of the catastrophe to the Dutch at 
Elmina . 
This is the account of this event that is given by Bosman, 
who says (writing in 1703- 05) that it happened" several 
y ears past" and that his version of it is " as Fame reports." 
It is quite clear, however, that it was the Dutch who were 
outside the fort ; for he says, " the Commander in Chief 
of the Negroes, being closely Besieged by our Men" ; 1 
but some other writers, notably Ellis, make it appear that 
it was the Dutch who were besieged, and that their Com-
m andant, finding it impossible to hold out any longer 
as he had lost all his men, mined the place before surrender-
ing, and then blew up his enemies and himself when they 
came in to take the gold that they expected to find in 
the fort. This account of the affair may possibly be in 
accordance with some local tradition , or it may only be 
due to a misreading or imperfect recollection of what 
Bosman says. Be this as it may, there is no room to 
doubt that the fort was blown up by one or other party, 
and, so far as is known, the Dutch never made any attempt 
to re-establish themselves in this district. 
The Dutch, so long as the Portuguese were a t Elmina , 
!1ad used every means to conciliate the various tribes and 
keep on friendly terms with them; but they had no sooner 
achieved their ambition and established themselves in 
their place than they began to show the people far less 
consideration, and, in trying to enforce their authority, 
1 Bosman, p. 12. 
132 TRIBAL WARS AND ATTACKS ON FORTS 
1672-1694 came into fairly frequent conflict with them. According 
CHAP. VII to Barbot, the King of Eguafo sent one of the Chiefs of 
Ampeni, named Coucoumy (Kukumi), as his ambassador 
to the King of France when he as~ed that a French fort 
might be built in his country, and this man complained 
that the people were tired of the overbearing treatment 
they had been receiving at the hands of the Dutch, who 
had frequently burned their coast villages. The Dutch 
also imposed tolls on the fisheries at Axim, Shama, Elmina 
and Mori, exacting a fifth of the fish caught at each of 
these places. Besides this, they began to take cognizance 
of the civil and criminal proceedings of the native Courts, 
a thing that the Portuguese had never attempted to do, 
and even assumed the power of life and death. Barbot, 
writing of this, says: "The Dutch Opper-Koopman, or 
chief factor, has an absolute authority over the whole 
country of Axim ; the natives being so entirely reduc'd 
under subjection by those people, that they dare not 
refuse him anything, but are obliged to serve him to the 
, utmost; nor will they presume to decide any controversy 
of moment without his knowledge and approbation; he 
being as a chief judge or justice, to punish even the greatest 
. of the Blacks. All fines imposed are paid into the said 
factor's hands, who distributes them to the injur'd persons, 
first deducting his own fees, which are very large. For 
example, if a Black be fined a hundred crowns for any 
crime,the factor's fees amount to two-thirds, and the 
assembly of Caboceiros has the other third; but in cases 
of murder, or robbery, or compelling them to pay their 
debts, three-fourths of the whole are the plaintif's, and the 
other fourth is for the factor and the Caboceiros; the 
former taking two-thirds thereof, and the latter one. So 
great is the authority of this factor at Axim, and through-
out the country of Ankober, that the Blacks dare not 
shelter a criminal, but must deliver him up to be punish'd 
by him, according to his offence." 1 The Dutch, too, 
followed the example of the Portuguese in inflicting the 
severest penalties on those whom they found trading with 
1 Barbot. p. 150, 
THE DUTCH ESTABLISHMENT 133 
other nations, and in refusing to open their warehouses 1672-1694 
until sufficient gold had been brought into the Castle to CHAP. VII 
guarantee that the trade would compensate them for the 
trouble of getting out their goods. They are said to have 
required at least six marks (£192) for this purpose. 
It was this arrogation of judicial powers and the im-
position of tolls and heavy fines that brought about the 
estrangement between the Dutch and the people that had 
culminated in the attack on the Castle and the subsequent 
evacuation of the greater part of the town in 1682. 
The principal officers of the Dutch Establishment and 
their annual salaries were as follows: 
Office. Salary. 
Director-General or Governor, whose 
full title was Admiral and 
General of North and South 
Guinea and Angola (3,600 £ s. d. 
guilders) 315 0 0 
Chief Factor of Elmina 105 0 0 
Chief Factors of Mori and Kormantin 84 0 0 
Seven or eight Factors of out-stations 37 16 0 
Nine or ten Sub-Factors 25 4 0 
Eighteen or twenty Assistants or 
Clerks 16 16 0 
Chief Fiscal 52 10 0 
Accountant or Book-Keeper-General 73 IO 0 
Under Book-Keeper 30 10 0 
Book-Keeper of the Garrison. 25 4 0 
Secretary (sometimes) 52 IO 0 
Under Fiscal or " Informer" 21 0 0 
Chaplain 105 0 0 
Clerk of the Church 21 0 0 
Besides these there were a warehouse-keeper under the 
Chief Factor at Elmina, the officers and men of the garri-
sons, and a large number of workmen and labourers. 
Several of these officers drew allowances in addition to 
their salaries. The Chief Factor at Elmina, the Chief 
134 TRIBAL WARS AND ATTACKS ON FORTS 
1672-1694 Fiscal and the Chaplain lived with the Governor; but the 
CHAP. VII other Factors were given from £21 to £26 table allowance, 
and all the principal officers had an allowance for servants. 
The Governor was given a commission on the trade along 
the whole Coast, and, after three years' service, received 
an annual increment of £! 05. The Factors were all 
allowed a commission on the trade transacted in their 
own stations, and were given an advance to cover the cost 
of the customary presents to native merchants and agents, 
which was sufficiently liberal to enable them to make a 
profit on it.l The Chief Fiscal was entitled to a third of 
all the gold and goods that were forfeited by illicit traders , 
as well as a third of all the fines inflicted on the staff, 
and another tenth of all forfeitures was given to the Under 
Fiscal. 
The Sub-Factors received the gold that was brought in 
by traders and had to account for it to the Factor or Chief 
Factor, who, in turn, was responsible to the Company. 
Bosman says that the Factors had to watch these assistants 
very narrowly, for they sometimes contracted extravagant 
habits which resulted in a shortage of gold or goods that 
the Factor had to make good; and though he might have 
the offender punished, there was seldom any chance of 
recovering the money. He mentions one case in which a 
Factor was called upon to make good a loss of between 
£700 and £800. Promotions usually went by seniority in 
the service, and were made by the Council on the Coast as 
vacancies occurred; but the appointment of any officer 
to the post of Chief Factor at any of the three principal 
stations was only provisional until confirmed by the 
Directors of the Company. The Chief Factor of Elmina 
ranked next to the Governor, and, after having held his 
appointment for three years, was eligible for promotion 
to the Governorship when a vacancy arose. At this time, 
the Chief Factors of Kormantin and Mori used to make 
more by their commission on the Slave Trade than from 
any other source; but in 1699 the management of this 
trade was handed over to the Captains of the ships engaged 
1 Barbot. 
THE DUTCH ESTABLISHMENT I35 
in it. The accounts of the whole Coast were kept at 1672-1694 
Elmina, where the Book-Keeper-General and Under CHAP. VI! 
Book-Keeper had several assistants. The effects of any 
person dying on the Coast were sold by auction by the 
Book-Keeper of the Garrison, who was entitled to a 
commission of five per cent on the sum realized. The 
office of the Under Fiscal , who was usually spoken of as 
the Informer, was held in the greatest contempt. His 
duties consisted mainly in spying on the Factors and 
other officers and trying to detect them in trading on 
their own account. "In discharging this Trust," says 
Phillips, " he uses as much Subtilty and Rigour as the 
severest old Searcher in the Port of London; and in case 
of a Discovery, not only takes all the contraband Goods 
away, but possibly seizing upon all the Gold the Factor has 
for the Company's Use, carries his Person to the Mina, 
where he is imprisoned; and the gentlest Usage he meets 
with is to be well fined, and forced to carry a Musket in the 
Castle as a common Centinel, another being put into his 
Government." 1 All the officers were obliged to attend the 
garrison church daily on penalty of a fine, which was doubled 
on Sundays and Thursdays . 
The Council consisted of the Governor, Chief Fiscal , 
Chief Factors and the Officer Commanding the Garrison. 
Sometimes the Book-Keeper-General was also added, and, 
on special occasions, the Factors of out-stations. The 
Government was nominally administered by this Council, 
but, as Bosman is careful to explain, virtually by the 
Governor alone; for the members, being all under his 
authority, would seldom venture to oppose him, but, once 
they found out which way his opinion inclined, took care 
to agree with it themselves, understanding very well the 
meaning of the proverb, " Near is my shirt, but nearer is 
"'ly skin ." The Council, therefore, was a pure formality. 
The Governor only summoned it-" First, that the 
Directors of the Company may be informed that he did 
so; not knowing the use he made of that Assembly. 
Secondly, when Offenders are to be punished with Capital 
1 Astley, vol. ii, p. 397. 
i36 TRIBAL WARS AND ATTACKS ON FORTS 
1672-1694 or Corporal Punishments; that not being otherwise to 
CHAP. VII be done than in form of Law: and, thirdly, for the Govern-
ment of the Coast, which is resolved and settled in the 
Council, and least when anything happens wrong, the 
Governour should want an excuse, he now being able 
confidently to all edge that he acted by the Advice of the 
whole Council by whom it was also so resolved, tho' their 
real Opinions were at the same time as distant from their 
Suffrages as East and West. In short, the Council is of 
no other real use, than to participate of the Governour's 
Faults, and to shelter him from being answerable for them. 
Thus it clearly appears that it is impossible for the Com-
panies Affairs to succeed under an ill Governour." 1 
The headquarters of the English Royal African Company 
were at Cape Coast Castle, and its officials were much 
better paid than those of the Dutch. The Governor, who 
bore the title of Captain-General of the English Settlements 
on the Gold Coast of Guinea/ drew a salary of £2,000 a 
year. There were two Factors with him at Cape Coast 
with salaries of £300 a year each and a Secretary drawing 
£200. These officers composed the Council. With the 
exception of the more liberal salaries paid to its officials, 
the English Company seems to have conducted its affairs 
on very similar lines to the Dutch. Its officers were 
forbidden to trade on their own account. No Informer was 
employed to spy on them however; but they were re-
quired to take an oath to this effect, which Barbot 3 says 
they did not scruple to break, and this illicit trade, together 
with the competition of the interlopers,4 deprived the Com-
pany of the best part of the trade. As in the case of the 
Dutch, the Council nominally administered the Govern-
ment, but in practice had very little voice in any matter, 
the Governor's wishes invariably being unopposed and 
the members all voting with him as a matter of course . 
Besides these officers, there were the Factors of out-
1 Bosman, p . 102. 
2 Barbot (p. 170) gives his title as " General of Guinea from Sierra 
Leona to Angola." 
3 Barbot, p. 170. 
• Private traders not licensed by the Company. 
COURT OF FETU 137 
stations, the Officer Commanding the Garrison and a Chap- 1672-1694 
lain and Surgeon. As with the Dutch, the English Factors CHAP. VII 
were given a percentage on the trade done in their stations. 
The death-rate was appalling; nor, considering the 
conditions under which these men lived, is this surprising. 
Their food consisted almost entirely of what they could 
obtain in the local markets; their knowledge of medicine 
and their supply of drugs were most deficient; they were 
unsuitably dressed in a scarlet uniform and had to wear 
wigs, and all the contemporary writers are agreed that 
they drank to excess and more so than any other nation 
on the Coast" especially brandy, rum and punch," and 
constantly slept" in the open air ... when heated with 
debauchery ... having nothing on but a shirt." 1 
The English, even at this early date, seem to have taken 
some part in the judicial proceedings of the people; for 
Barbot, in his account of the Cape Coast district, says: 
" Besides the daily market I have mention 'd to be kept at 
the town of Corso, ther€ is a very considerable one at 
the town of Abramboe/ a large town, about twenty-seven 
miles northward from cape Corso; where by appointment 
of the King of Fetu, at a certain time of the year, is a 
rendevouz from all parts of his country, for public dancing, 
and it is call'd the dancing season, and lasts eight days. 
An incredible number of people repair to it from all parts, 
and spend all the day, and most of the night, in that 
toilsome diversion. At the same time, are also decided 
all suits and controversies, which could not be determin'd 
by the inferior justices, in their several districts. This 
supreme court is composed of the king of Fetu, his Dey, 
or prime minister, the Geroffo, and the Braffo, with two 
English factors of cape Corso castle . It is the agent's 
prerogative to send those agents to that court, and each of 
them is to have as many suits of clothes, as he stays there 
days, to appear every day in a different suit, which puts 
the company to three hundred pounds charges yearly." 3 
1 Barbot, p. 171. 
2 This Abramboe cannot have been Anamabo, for it is expressly 
stated that it lay at some distance inland: possibly it was Abakrampa. 
• Barbot, p. 172. 
138 TRIBAL WARS AND ATTACKS ON FORTS 
1672-1694 The Brandenburg Governor lived at Groot Fredericks-
CHAP. VII burg and bore the high-sounding title of Director-General 
under his Electoral Highness of Brandenburg and his 
African Company. These Governors were usually of 
Dutch extraction. The Prussian Possessions were small, 
and though nothing is known of their staff it was probably 
very similar to those of the Dutch and English, but on a 
proportionately smaller scale. The Brandenburg Governor 
also claimed some jurisdiction over the people and seems 
to have sat with the Chiefs as a kind of judicial assessor. 
Barbot says: "The Governor ... jointly with the Cabo-
ceiros of Poquefoe, and other neighbouring ' towns, de-
termines all cases and differences arising between the 
inhabitants, summoning them together on such occasions 
... into the fort ... whither immediately those Caboceiros 
repair; and there decide all causes, civil or criminal, and 
their sentences are executed accordingly, with all sub-
mission from the natives." 1 
Bosman thus describes the Brandenburg Governors who 
were in office while he was on the Coast at the close of 
the seventeenth century. "The first, John Nyman, an 
Embdener, a Man of sound Judgment, good Sence and 
great Experience, who discharged his Office with the 
greatest Fidelity and good Conduct, by which means he 
quitted this Country with a great deal of Honour and left 
a very good Name behind him: He was Succeeded by 
John and Jacob Ten-Hoost, the Father and Son, who both 
acquired a large share of Reputation, and kept their 
Subordinates in due Decorum; especially the Son, who by 
good Nature and a civil Address gain'd the Affection of 
the Blacks, and had every body at his devotion; By 
which means he Established the Brandenburghian Affairs 
in a much better Condition than any before him; and as 
they never had a better Governor, so 'tis very much to be 
doubted, they'll repent the time when they removed him, 
and appointed Gysbrecht van Hoogveldt in his Place; 
who before had been Factor in our Service at Axim, where 
he treated those under him so ill, that General Joel Smits 
1 Barbot, p. 431. 
and the Council were obliged to di charge and send him 1672-1694 
from the Coast, as incapable of their Service. However, CHAP. YII 
being now Commander in Chief, to Reconcile himself to 
the offended ::\egroes his old Enemies, he granted them 
seyeral Franchises and Pri-\iledges, which served not only 
to lessen the Power of the Brandenburghers, and lay the 
first Foundation of their Ruin, but after a short Goyern-
ment the Europeans and Blacks joyntly r ose again t him ; 
and after T~ing him, Discharged him once more the 
Go\-ernment and Coast; Choosing in his Place one JO M 
yan Laar an Anabaptist, who was found to haye a much 
better Talent at drinking of Brandy than at Business; 
and took so little Care of the Publick, th at all\yent to 
Ruin; and he himself ,vas timely R emoved by Death, to 
make way for J OM Visser his Successor, a Person, who 
wanting eyen Common Sense, was therefore incapable of 
that Trust. Shortly aft er his Eleyation his Factor at 
Akoda was killed by the Negroes, which he having neither 
sufficient Conduct nor P ower to R evenge, they continued 
their unbridled Outrages, at the Expense of the Li,-es of 
several of his Europeans; and lastly, seizing his Person 
they carry'd him into the Inland Country, and after 
miserably breaking almost all his Limbs, and fa telling 
abundance of stones about his Body, drowned him in the 
Sea. This Barbarous Murther was variously talked of 
here: but all agree that the Europeans under his Com-
mand consented to, and abetted it; and some assert it 
was done by their Order ; and Adrian Grobbe (Chosen 
by the _- egroes) his Successor , is generally Charged with 
the greatest share in this Crime; if he is Innocent I hope 
he will dear himself, but if guilty, may Heaven Ayenge 
it on him and his Accomplices: for it has very perniciously 
weakened the Power of all the Europeans on this Coast, 
and filled them with apprehensions not altogether ground-
less, that if this Bloody Fact escapes unpunished, no Body 
is here secure of Life." 1 With their affairs in such an 
appalling condition and going steadily from bad to worse, 
it is small wonder that the Brandenburgers were unable to 
1 Bosman, p. 8. 
140 TRIBAL WARS AND ATTACKS ON FORTS 
1672-1694 retain their Settlements on the Gold Coast for much 
CHAP. VII longer. 
The affairs of the Danes, as has been seen, were at this 
time in a very unsettled condition, and their Establish-
ment was a small one. Barbot describes their Government 
as being very precarious and uncertain. He says, " scarce 
anyone, who is sent over from Denmark, as a person of 
known integrity to the Company, as chief or general, lives 
long on the Coast, but is either snatched away by a natural 
death, or by the contrivance of his inferiors, assisted by 
the Blacks, the better to compass their own designs. Thus 
it sometimes comes to pass, that a gunner of the fort, or 
other such mean person, succeeds to that post, and so 
manages affairs according to his small capacity, or rather 
to his wicked inclination to enrich himself in as short a 
time as may be; knowing he must shortly be removed, or 
discharged by the Company, his command being only pro 
interim ... . Of the two Danish Generals I knew there 
during my voyages, the first had been the gunner of the 
fort, the latter, a lieutenant, as he said himself; but 
others told me he had been the other General's servant, a 
brisk, bold, daring, well-set man, and very young; both 
which advanced themselves by the aforesaid means. The 
first was murdered in his turn; but what became of the 
other I know not." 1 Of this latter man he relates a story 
that, finding the book-keeper would not keep his books in 
the way that he wished (probably falsely), he procured some 
natives to bring false accusations against him, and having 
tried him before a mixed Court of Europeans and Africans, 
all of whom were corrupted, sentenced him to death, and im-
mediately set him to make his own coffin and then shot him. 
Whether any of the other settlers ever brought European 
women to the Coast at this time is unknown, but the 
Danes certainly had done so. Barbot says that it had 
been observed that the Danish women could not live there 
long, and his brother James, who sailed along the Coast in 
1699, says that Mr. Trawne, the Governor of Christiansborg, 
" had his lady with him." 
1 Barbot, p. 173. 
CHAPTER VI I I 
THE DUTCH-KOMENDA WAR 
1694 TO 1699 
ON the 5th of September 1693, Captain Thomas Phillips 1694-1699 
sailed for the Gold Coast irr the Hannibal of 450 tons and CHAP. VIII 
36 guns, with Captain Thomas Shirley in the East India 
Merchant of 30 guns. They were engaged in a slaving 
voyage, and one of the partners in the venture was Samuel 
Stanyer the Sub-Governor of the Royal African Company. 
They also had some soldiers on board for the Company's 
garrisons, so that if they were not actually sailing under 
its flag, they doubtless held · its licence to trade. They 
arrived on the Coast in 1694, and the account of this voyage 
that has been left by Captain Phillips gives an excellent 
idea of the state of affairs and mode of life there at 
this time. 
In spite of the fact that the Dutch West India Company 
and the English Royal African Company had both been 
granted the monopoly of the Gold Coast trade and were 
vested by their respective Governments with the power to 
deal severely with those who infringed their rights, there 
were more than a dozen Dutch interlopers on the Coast 
when Phillips arrived there. This interloping trade was 
a profitable one. The ships, the majority of which were 
~ealanders or French, used to trade quite openly; and as 
they were always chosen for their speed and were well-
manned and armed, fighting desperately rather than be 
captured , it was but seldom that any of them were taken . 
These illicit traders moreover, having no Settlements to 
maintain, were able to sell their goods from twenty-five 
141 
142 THE DUTCH-KOMENDA WAR 
1694-1699 to thirty per cent cheaper than the Companies could, and 
CHAP. VIII thus did enormous damage to their trade. They could 
also afford to give better prices for slaves or other cargo 
when the supply was limited, and thereby shortened their 
stay on the Coast and had a quicker turn-over. Never-
theless, the occupation was not without its risks; for the 
Dutch had power to put criminals of their nation to death 
after trial by Court Martial, and, whenever they succeeded 
in capturing one of these poaching ships, used to execute 
the officers and confine the crews in the dungeons of 
Elmina, unless, as not infrequently happened, it was made 
worth their while to adopt more lenient measures. The 
English, however, had less power, and could only send the 
offenders in irons to take their trial in England . 
While he was lying off Axim, Phillips was visited by 
Rawlinson the Dutch Factor at Fort St. Anthony, who 
accepted his invitation to stay and" proved a boon Com-
panion, taking his Glass off very smartly, and singing and 
dancing several ]iggs by himself." I Presently, however, he 
saw a large twelve-hand canoe with a flag in it coming up 
from the eastward and showed so much alarm that Phillips 
offered to fire on her ; but Rawlinson, hastily begging him 
not to do so, sprang into his canoe and, lying flat on his 
belly in the bottom of the boat, was paddled as fast as 
possible to westward, and, following a circular course, 
eventually landed about a quarter of a mile from his fort . 
A little later, he sent a canoe out to scout, and then returned 
on board" resolved to have the other Jug with them." 2 
He explained that his sudden departure had been due to 
fear lest the canoe contained the Fiscal from Elmina on 
one of his periodical tours of inspection. It was, however, 
only one of the stewards-" Frank the Butler "-from 
Cape Coast Castle, who had been sent by the Company's. 
Agent with letters and instructions for Phillips and had 
picked up Buckeridge the Factor at Dixcove on his way. 
The fort at Dixcove, though begun three years earlier, 
was as yet but half finished, and a few small guns planted 
in the open on the rocks were its sole means of defence. 
1 Astley, vol. ii, p. 397. • Ibid., p. 398. 
JOHNSON 143 
At Sekondi they found the English Factor Johnson in 1694-1699 
bed raving mad, and his assistant, a mere lad who had CHAP. VIII 
but recently left the Bluecoat Hospital, in charge of the 
fort. johnson's madness was attributed to resentment 
against Van Hukeline, the Dutch Factor at Elmina. "One 
Taguba, a noted Negro Wench in Cape Coast Town being 
gotten with Child by some of the Soldiers of the Castle, 
was brought to-bed of a Mulatto Girl; who growing about 
eleven Years old, this Johnson, then a Factor at Cape 
Coast, had a great Fancy for her, and purposed to take her 
for his Wife (as they take Wives in Guinea), and being about 
that Time removed to be chief Factor at Sukkandi, in 
order to make sure of the Girl , he took her there to live 
with him, till she was of Age fit for conjugal Embraces; 
using her with much Tenderness, and taking great Satis-
faction in her Company for two or three Years: But when 
she was grown up, being a pretty Girl, Vanhukeline, by 
Bribes and Presents, corrupted her Mother Taguba, and 
prevailed with her to go to Sukkandi, and under Pretence 
of making a Visit to her Daughter, to bring her off in a 
swift Canoa, which he had ordered to lie under the Dutch 
Fort there for the Purpose. The Mother accordingly went, 
and having been kindly treated by Johnson, who suspected 
nothing, went with her Daughter to take a Walk. Being 
come near the Place appointed, the Watermen took her 
by Force into the Canoa, her Mother following, and carried 
them both away to Vanhukeline; who soon cracked the 
Nut Johnson had b een so long cooking to his own Tooth. 
When Phillips dined with the Dutch General at the Mina 
he saw her there , being brought-in to dance before them., 
very fi ne, bearing the Title of Madam Vanhukeline. This, 
and some other old Differences between him and the 
Dutchman, had quite turned his Brain." 1 
At Shama they had a good trade for gold; but both 
there and at Komenda the people stood in great awe of the 
Dutch, who they were afraid might seize their goods to 
punish them for having traded with the English . This 
they often did; and it was quite immaterial whether the 
1 Astley, vol. ii, p. 399. 
144 THE DUTCH-KOMENDA WAR 
1694-1699 purchases had been made from a ship or at one of the 
CHAP. VIII African Company's forts. 
As they passed down to Cape Coast, they saluted Elmina 
Castle with seven guns and then anchored off Cape Coast 
Castle, where they lay for some time as they had a great 
deal of cargo to land for the Company. While they were 
there, Clayton, the Commandant of Fort Royal, died and 
was buried in a spot known as Black Jack's Garden, be-
tween the Castle and Fort Royal, which was the usual 
burial-ground for Europeans. At Cape Coast they landed 
thirty soldiers for the Castle garrison, " in as good Health 
as they left England; but in two Months Time near half 
of them died." 1 On another occasion Captains Phillips 
and Shirley gave a dinner to the Agent and the rest of the 
Company's officers in a square summer-house which stood 
in the Castle garden. Each Captain took six of his quarter-
deck guns on shore, with which eleven rounds were fired 
as a salute at every toast. These volleys accompanying 
toasts was a regular custom at this time. 
Some time before this, the Dutch had instigated the 
King of Fetu to refuse the Assins permission to pass 
through his territory. TJ:1ese people used to bring a great 
deal of gold to Cape Coast Castle, and the Dutch hoped in 
this way to divert the trade to their own Settlements. The 
King having complied and plundered some of the traders on 
their way down, the Assins declared war against him and 
were assisted by the English with arms and ammunition. 
The King of Saboe was also paid to help them, and the 
allied army inflicted a crushing defeat on the Fetus, whose 
King was forced to fly to Elmina for protection. The 
victorious army, consisting of about 20,000 men under the 
King of Saboe and Nimfa the Tufuhin 2 of Assin, returned 
to Cape Coast while Phillips was there and was followed 
soon afterwards by the brother of the fugitive King of 
Fetu, who had been enstooled in his stead and had now 
come down to swear allegiance to the English. 
From Cape Coast Phillips and Shirley sa.iled to Anamabo, 
1 Astley. vol. ii. p. 400. 
• The principal war Chief or Commander-in-Chief. 
AGUNA SUCCESSION 145 
where they entertained Searle the Factor, and Cooper 1694-1699 
and Fasleman the Factors of Egya and the Dutch Fort CHAP. VIII 
Vredenburg. They then went to Winneba, where Nicholas 
Buckeridge was now in charge. The factory here was 
only a little thatched house with no defence beyond that 
afforded by its mud walls, so that it is not surprising that 
it should already have been twice plundered by the people 
and that the Factor lived in continual dread of another 
a ttack . A proper fort was built, however, in this year. 
T he Agunas were ruled by a Queen, which had been their 
cust om from time immemorial. She was not allowed to 
marry, but bought male slaves whenever she pleased as 
paramours. Her eldest daughter, who succeeded to the 
stool, was granted a similar privilege so soon as she attained 
a marriageable age. These slaves were sold again whenever 
t heir mistresses grew tired of them, but if caught intriguing 
with other women they lost their heads. All the female 
children were kept, but any males that were born to the 
Queen or the Heiress-Apparent were sold into slavery. 
This custom , so different to that of the neighbouring Akan 
tribes , together with the fact that the people have a 
language of their own which is entirely distinct from the 
Twi , strongly supports the belief that they are descended 
from some of the survivors of the original inhabitants of 
t he coast-line prior to the date of the great Fanti invasion . 
From Winneba the ships went to Accra, where Captain 
Shirley died and was buried with naval honours in James 
Fort. While the corpse was being towed ashore, his own 
ship fired minute guns, and after the ceremony was over 
she fired a salute of thirty guns, the Hannibal fired twenty-
SIX, Fort James twenty, and Fort Creve Creur and Chris-
tiansborg Castle (then in the hands of Assameni and his 
Akwamus) sixteen each. The pall-bearers were Captain 
:::'hillips , John Bloom the Factor of James Fort, Nicholas 
Buckeridge Factor at Winneba, and the Dutch Factor 
from Fort Creve Creur. 
In September 1694 the Dutch Fort Orange at Sekondi 
was surprised and plundered by the Ahantas, who at the 
same time massacred the crew of a Dutch vessel that 
J-IO 
146 THE DUTCH-KOMENDA WAR 
1694-1699 chanced to be at anchor in the road. The fort, however , 
CHAP. Vlll was not destroyed, and the Dutch soon afterwards re-
occupied it. 
The year 1694 saw the commencement of a war between 
the Dutch and the Komendas which was destined to last 
for some years, during which it did an immense amount of 
damage to the Dutch trade, besides costing them very large 
sums of money. When Mr. Sweerts, in 1688, had overcome 
the opposition of the Komendas and built Fort Vredenburg, 
he had only accomplished his object by force of arms, 
and the Komendas, who had never willingly submitted to 
the presence of the Dutch, had been nursing their resent-
ment ever since and only required an excuse to break 
out into open rebellion. Such a pretext was given to 
them now by an attempt by the Dutch to reopen the old 
gold mine which the Portuguese were known to have 
worked at Abrobi. A party of miners was sent out from 
Holland and set to work to locate the mine. They com-
menced operations in a hill just above Komenda, which 
they thought must contain the object of their search; but 
this hill was believed by the Komendas to be the residence 
of the chief local god, and a few days later the miners were 
suddenly attacked and robbed of all they possessed, several 
of them being captured and kept prisoners for some time. 
The Dutch complained to the Chief of Komenda, but he 
declined to accept any responsibility and said that the 
real author of this outrage was a native trader named 
John Kabes, who lived near Fort Vredenburg and had 
considerable dealings with the Dutch. 
This Kabes had formerly been concerned in the murder 
of some Dutchmen and had fled to Cape Coast, where he 
lived for some years as a servant or agerit under the 
English. Later, however, he got into their debt and went 
over to the Dutch Governor, Joel Smits, whom he bribed 
to let him off the punishment with which he had been 
threatened, and was given permission to settle in the 
village under Fort Vredenburg . In Bosman's opinion he 
was so arrant a coward that he would never have dared 
to commit such an outrage as this except by the express 
JOHN KABES 147 
orders of the Chief; and this allegation against him was, 1694-1699 
therefore, merely an excuse made by the latter, who, CHAP. VIII 
though secretly determined to sever all connection with 
the Dutch, did not wish to declare his intentions too soon. 
Mr. Smits, however, was a hasty-tempered man, and 
would neither listen to advice nor wait to inquire further 
into the facts of the case, but collected a force of Elminas 
and went direct to John Kabes' village. Kabes came out 
to meet him, leading a sheep as a present, preparatory to 
clearing himself of the charge that had been preferred 
against him. The Governor, however, was in no mood to 
listen to any arguments or excuses, and his men at once 
began to plunder Kabes' goods and loot the whole village ; 
but even John, coward though he might be, was not 
prepared to submit quietly to treatment like this, and 
when he and his people tried to defend their property a 
skirmish ensued, in which several men were wounded on 
either side. 
By this hasty proceeding the Dutch had only aggravated 
the difficulty of their position; for they had aroused the 
ill-will of John Kabes, who was now openly hostile, besides 
being still exposed to the secret enmity of the Komenda 
Chief. Kabes promptly invited the English to come to 
Komenda, and made his peace with them by giving them 
a temporary settlement in one of his salt villages and 
promising that so soon as he was able he would help them 
to re-establish themselves in their old fort, which had now 
been abandoned for some years. This they did very soon 
afterwards to the great embarrassment of the Dutch; for 
the English fort was not only fully as large and strong as 
Fort Vredenburg, but had better ordnance and a tower 
which overlooked it and was capable of being mounted 
with guns. 
War was now inevitable, and Mr. Smits engaged a 
force of Elmina and Cape Coast natives for about £5,000, 
and with this army might very well have succeeded in 
conquering the Komendas, whom they far outnumbered. 
But his rash disposition again asserted itself and led him 
to threaten the Fantis and Saboes that so soon as he had 
148 THE DUTCH-KOMENDA WAR 
1694.-1699 defeated the Komendas he would march his army against 
CHAP. VIII them also. The natural result of these premature boasts 
was the immediate alliance of the threatened tribes with 
the Komendas. The allied army opposed to the Dutch 
was thus made much stronger than their own, and in the 
first general engagement the Dutch mercenaries suffered 
terrible losses, and, as those who were neither killed nor 
taken prisoners only saved themselves by flight, the Dutch 
found themselves not only without an army and £5,000 
out of pocket, but with the most powerful of the Coast 
tribes at open war with them also. Fortunately for them, 
however, a division occurred among the enemy which 
gave them an opportunity of extricating themselves from 
their difficulties, of which they were only too glad to avail 
themselves. 
A dispute arose between Abe Teki the Chief of Komenda, 
and his brother Teki Ankan, as a result of which the 
latter came over to the Dutch, bringing the Adorns and 
some other allies with him. With the new army thus 
provided, a second attempt was made to subdue the 
Komendas, and in the battle which followed both sides 
fought with such 'valour and determination that for some 
time the issue was in doubt. But at length the Dutch 
auxiliaries, thinking they had gained the advantage, fell 
to plundering, and while they were thus engaged Abe Teki 
brought up reinforcements, who, advancing with their 
arms reversed, succeeded in deceiving the Dutch, who 
mistook them for a party of their friends. No sooner, 
however, had they got near enough than they opened so 
rapid and accurate a fire that the Dutch force was soon 
routed and fled in disorder to Fort Vredenburg, thus 
giving a second complete victory to the Komendas. 
No further action was taken until, on the death of Mr. 
Smits early in 16~5, his successor, J. Staphorst, seeing the 
great losses that the Company had already incurred by 
this war, opened negotiations for peace and succeeded so 
well that the Komendas even undertook to make good the 
losses that the Dutch had sustained. Such a satisfactory 
termination of the trouble, however, by no means suited 
FORT VREDENBURG ATTACKED 149 
the English, whose aim it was to profit by the expulsion 1694-1699 
of the Dutch and thus get the whole of the Komenda trade CHAP. VIll 
in to their own hands . They therefore pointed out to the 
Chief that after his two signal victories it was not for him 
to give satisfaction, but rather to dictate his own terms, 
and further supported their argument by showing that the 
Dutch were not in a position to refuse him but would have 
to purchase peace at whatever price he chose to demand. 
They a lso undertook to help him with arms and ammuni-
tion if he followed their advice . 
By these means the Komendas were prevailed upon to 
assume the offensive once more, and in 1695 they attacked 
Fort Vredenburg . William Bosman was the Commandant 
and had less than twenty men, half of whom were sick, 
to serve the twenty guns. Finding that the Komendas 
were resolved to attack him, he sent to Elmina reporting 
his weak condition and asking for reinforcements and 
ammunition . Two ships were sent and anchored off the 
for t , and Peter Hinken, the Captain of one of them, sent a 
boat full of men to join the garrison. They had no sooner 
set foot on the beach however, than they were furiously 
attacked by the Komendas under the very guns of the 
fort and lost several killed. Bosman could do nothing 
to help them , for on going to the guns to fire on the enemy 
he found that , through the treachery of the gunner, every 
one of them had been spiked . The gunner was therefore 
arrest ed and sent in irons to Elmina, but Bosman complains 
that though the Governor swore that he would make a 
terrible example of him, he never did anything of the kind, 
but released him almost at once and promoted him to an 
even b etter position elsewhere very soon afterwards. 
Fortunately for the garrison, the Komendas did not avail 
themselves of this opportunity to storm the fort , but went 
away to eat and thus gave the garrison time to put the 
guns in order again. 
In the evening, however , they returned and attacked 
the fort . The Dutch were at a great disadvantage, for 
many of the embrasures had no doors to them, and Bosman 
says " the Negroes pour'd Small-shot on us as thick as 
150 THE DUTCH-KOMENDA WAR 
1694-1699 Hail; insomuch that those few Doors which were left 
CHAP. VIII to some Gun-holes were become like a Target that had 
been shot at for a Mark, and the very Staff which our 
Flag was fasten'd on, tho' it took up so little room, did 
not escape shot-free." 1 On one occasion one of the 
enemy actually began to hack at the door with an axe, 
but he was killed and no further attempt was made to 
gain admission in that way. One of the soldiers, who 
had had the crown of his hat shot away, came to Bosman 
for some grenades, two of which he threw down to the 
enemy, telling them that they were something to eat. 
They at once crowded round and stood for a time watching 
them burn, " and were at first very agreeably diverted ; 
but when they burst they so gall'd them, that they had no 
great Stomach to such another Meal." 2 The fight lasted 
five hours, but the Dutch had only two men killed, and the 
Komendas, finding they could not take the fort, then 
drew off. 
The Dutch now realized that if they were to maintain 
their position and credit in the country, they must raise 
another army as quickly as possible. They therefore 
approached the Fantis, whose former enmity had by this 
time died out, and bargained with them to take the field 
and fight the Komendas until they had utterly exterminated 
them on payment of a sum of £900. But no sooner had 
this arrangement been made than the English paid the 
Fantis an additional £900 to remain neutral. Their Chief, 
who seems to have had some sense of honour, demurred 
at this, but was promptly deposed and his stool given to 
a less fastidious person; so that, as the Fantis infinitely 
preferred to do nothing for £1,800 rather than fight for 
only half that sum, the only result the Dutch attained by 
these negotiations was the loss of their money. The 
Adorns next agreed to ally themselves with the Dutch for 
something under £500, and a simi liar arrangement was 
made with the Assins and the people of Cape Coast. They 
disagreed among themselves, however, over the division 
of the money, and in the end all that could be got from 
1 Bosman, p. 27. • Ibid., p. 28. 
END OF THE WAR 151 
them was a promise that they would remain neutral. As 1694-1699 
a last resource the services of the Denkeras were engaged CHAP. VIII 
for £800, but before they could do anything a war broke 
out with their neighbours and they were compelled to stay 
and defend their own country instead of coming down to 
help the Dutch. Both they and the Adorns, however, 
had the honesty to return the money; but not a penny 
could ever be recovered from the Fantis. 
This, then, was the desperate condition of the Dutch 
when it occurred to them to employ their old ally Teki 
Ankan to sound his brother and report whether he was 
more in favour of peace or war. They found that he was 
as tired of the latter as they themselves were, and peace 
was then concluded on very satisfactory terms. 
In 1697 the Dutch began to build a small fort at Apam, 
but met with great opposition from the people, who be-
sieged them almost continuously until 1702, so that it was 
not completed for several years. The Dutch then com-
memorated the perseverance they had shown by naming 
the fort Fort Leydsaamheid.1 
Dixcove Fort had only recently been finished, and in 
this year the people laid siege to it and very nearly suc-
ceeded in taking it. As it was, they compelled the Factor 
to submit to their terms, by which he acknowledged that 
h e had no power or authority over them and agreed to 
join them in cheating all ships that called there by passing 
imitation gold on them. This compact was so well kept 
that the place soon became known as the" false mint of 
Guinea," and in 1701 two small ships, the cargo on one 
of which alone was valued at £1,700, sold their whole stock 
there and received nothing but this false gold in exchange. 
The manufacture of this imitation gold was a regular 
industry at Dixcove, and it was sold by the makers at the 
rate of a crown in good gold for false gold of the apparent 
value of twelve pounds. 
On the 1st of June 1698 the English fort at Sekondi 
was attacked. The Commandant, Johnson, and several of 
the garrison were killed, and the fort itself was p lundered 
1 Patience. 
152 THE DUTCH-KOMENDA WAR 
1694- 1699 and burned. Nothing remained but the blackened outer 
CHAP. VIII walls; and though in about 1700 several attempts were 
made to rebuild it, the people proved so hostile that nothing 
could be done and such trade as the place afforded re-
mained entirely in the hands of the Dutch. A new fort 
had, however, been built before 1726 when Smith, the 
African Company's Surveyor, visited the Gold Coast; for 
he gives a drawing of both forts and a ground plan of the 
English one. The Dutch had had several ships at Sekondi 
at this time and were strongly suspected of having in-
stigated the attack; but when a protest was forwarded 
to Director-General John Van Sevenhuysen, he denied any 
complicity and explained the presence of the Dutch ships 
by saying that they had come in search of interlopers 
But from some contemporary correspondence it seems quite 
clear that this charge against the Dutch was well founded. 
In a letter from the three English Agents to the Directors 
of the Royal African Company reporting this occurrence, 
and dated at Cape Coast the 26th of June 1698, it is stated 
that the people who took the fort had been sent from 
Elmina, some in canoes and others by land, and that the 
English, warned of their hostile intentions, sent to the 
Dutch Governor to protest. He admitted having sent 
them, but said that they had only come to collect a debt 
and refused to recall them. Moreover, from a letter from 
the English to the Dutch Governor, it appears that an 
English sloop was in Sekondi road at the time, having put 
in on account of bad weather. She had lost both her 
anchors, and her Captain, therefore, sent to borrow one 
from one of the Dutch ships; but the mate of the latter 
replied, " 'Tis true we have enough, but do you think we 
will spare any to you? Do you not see we are sent to 
take your fort, and can you expect our help?" The 
English answered, " We must then perish," to which the 
Dutchman replied, " Why, then, perish, and the Lord have 
mercy upon your souls." From a second letter, dated the 
2nd of June 1698, it further appears that the Dutch Factor 
allowed the goods that were taken from the English fort 
to be carried openly into Fort Orange, and that he turned 
MURDER OF ABE TEKI 153 
the garrison away almost naked and only ridiculed their 1694-1699 
misfortunes . In the face of this evidence, it is hardly CHAP. VIU 
possibly to acquit the Dutch of complicity in the attack. 
The fortunate termination of the Dutch troubles with 
the Komendas so exasperated the English that in Novem-
ber 1698 they treacherously murdered Abe Teki while he 
was visiting them at Cape Coast. The Komendas were 
determined to avenge the death of their Chief, and Teki 
Ankan, who was also concerned in this dastardly act, fled 
to Cape Coast and sought the protection of the English , 
whom he joined against his own people. The English 
then raised a large force of Saboes and Cape Coast men, 
and placing Teki Ankan in command sent him against the 
Komendas; but the Dutch, though invited to join, refused 
to mix themselves up in this new quarrel. The Komendas, 
who were outnumbered by four to one, were led by their 
Tufuhin, Amu Teki, and completely routed the force under 
Teki Ankan. Amu Teki then sent some of the enemy's 
skulls 1 to the Dutch Governor at Elmina in token of 
his victory and as a sign of fri endship . The messengers 
were well received, and sent back with presents for the 
Tufuhin and the Governor's thanks. T he Dutch were 
now on such friendly terms with the Komendas tha t they 
had the best possible opportunity to damage the English; 
but they seem to have been prevented from doing so 
principally by the intrigues of a native named Akim, who 
was much trusted by the Governor, who constantly allowed 
himself to be guided by this man 's advice. Akim used 
every means to irritate the Governor against the Komendas. 
Some Elmina women were murdered at this time, and Akim 
pretended that this outrage had been perpetrated by 
the Fetus, though there is good reason to believe that it 
was really committed by Agents of Akim and Teki Ankan 
in order that they might lay the blame a t the door of the 
Fetus, who were allies of the Komendas. Be this as it 
may, Akim persuaded the Governor to have a number of 
Fetus attacked when they came to the Castle to trade, 
several of whom were killed and eighty more t aken 
1 Probably the jaw-bones only. 
154 THE DUTCH-KOMENDA WAR 
1694-1699 prisoners. This treacherous act was committed without 
CHAP. VIII the sanctioFl or even the knowledge of the Council. 
The English now attacked the Komendas again, and 
this time met with better success; for Amu Teki, being 
wounded and dropping out of the fighting-line, the Ko-
mendas, missing their general, lost confidence, and Teki 
Ankan secured an easy victory, killing or taking prisoners 
many of the principal men. Teki Ankan thus became 
Chief of Komenda, and the continual state of warfare in 
which the country had been kept for the past four or five 
years at last came to an end. 
The affairs of the Royal African Company and the subject 
of the trade to Africa generally had now been considered 
by Parliament, and an Act 1 was passed laying open the 
trade to all His Majesty's subjects for a period of thirteen 
years from the 24th of June 1698. A duty of ten per cent 
ad valorem was to be collected on all goods and merchandize 
exported to Africa, and the amount thus raised was to be 
paid over to the Royal African Company to assist them in 
maintaining the castles and forts on which the safety of 
the trade so largely depended. 
In 1699 the Company sent out special orders to the 
Agent at Cape Coast to lose no time in putting Fort Royal 
in a thorough state of repair. This important position 
had been neglected far too long; nothing had been done 
to improve it since it was purchased from the Danes, and 
it was now little better than a heap of ruins. A model 
was now prepared however, which, if it had been followed, 
would have made this fort the strongest on the whole 
Coast; but though it was rebuilt, the original plan was 
only partly carried out. 
1 This was an outcome of the Declaration of Rights. 
CHAPTER IX 
THE GOLD COAST AT THE CLOSE OF THE SEVENTEENTH 
CENTURY 
I700 
A VERY fair idea of the condition of the Gold Coast at 1700 
the close of the seventeenth century can be gleaned from CHAI.' . I X 
the writings of Dapper,l Barbot,2 Bosman,3 Smith 4 and 
others who were in the country at or about that time. 
The seaboard was still divided into practically the same 
kingdoms as those that existed when the Portuguese 
settled on the Coast; but two centuries of trade with 
Europeans had increased the importance of the coast 
towns and raised them from the position of tiny fishing 
villages to that of populous trading centres, which either 
became the capitals of their respective kingdoms or rivalled 
the capitals in importance. Accra, however, was no longer 
independent, but a tributary of Akwamu, and the balance 
of power among some of the other tribes was also changed. 
Fetu, which had been divided against itself during the 
Komenda wars and had thus sustained a double loss, 
had now become so weak that it was practically under 
the protection of Komenda. Elmina and Cape Coast, too, 
had suffered greatly in these wars, and the former had, 
moreover, been decimated by an epidemic of small-pox 
in I686. Akron was divided into Great and Little Akron; 
the former lay inland and was a Commonwealth, while the 
latter was a petty kingdom on the seaboard . These two 
were independent of each other, but lived on friendly terms 
1 1686. 
2 Published in 1732, but apparently written soon after 1682. 
3 170 5. 
• 172 7. 
1.55 
156 THE GOLD COAST IN THE 17TH CENTURY 
1700 and were both under the protection of Fanti.1 The Adorns, 
CHAP. IX J abis and Akwamus were now the most powerful and 
warlike of the coast tribes; but the latter were continually 
at variance with the Akims, who claimed a feudal right 
over them and tried to exact an annual tribute. Akim 
would have been a much more powerful State than it was 
if its Chiefs had only been able to agree amongst them-
selves instead of being for ever engaged in petty quarrels 
and disputes so that their enemies had little cause to fear 
them. Some of the inland States now began to be heard 
of for' the first time. Of these Denkera was the richest 
and most powerful, and had recently conquered Awoin 
after a prolonged struggle, in which their ultimate success 
was largely due to the want of combination shown by the 
enemy. The Anamabos were especially truculent, and 
would sometimes keep the garrison shut up in the fort for 
days or weeks together, or, if they took a dislike to the 
Factor, thought nothing of sending him away in a canoe 
to Cape Coast. 
Most of the garrisons of the forts were very weak, 
especially those of the English. Atkins 2 describes them 
as " a Company of white Negroes," and says that they were 
entirely in the power of the Governor, who punished them 
for any fault" with Mulcts, Confinement, the Dungeon, 
Drubbing, or the wooden Horse; and for enduring this , 
they have each of them a Salary sufficient to buy Kanky, 
Palm-Oil, and a little fish, to keep them from starving: 
for though the Salaries sound tolerably in Leaden-hall-
street (as from fifty Pounds to ninety Pounds per annum 
a ' Factor; fifty Pounds for an Artificer), yet in Guinea, 
the General, for the Company's Good, pays them in 
Krakra, a false Money, current only upon the Spot, which 
disables them from taking any Advantage of buying 
Necessaries from Ships coasting down." In order to keep 
up the price of the stock, they were forbidden to buy 
anything except from the Company and were encouraged 
to run into debt, and then became practically exiled for 
life, for no one was ever allowed to leave the Coast until 
1 Barbot, p . 179. • Astley, vol. ii, p. 451. 
CLIMATE AND HEALTH 157 
his account had been settled. If a man was too sober to 1700 
run into debt, Atkins alleges that there were other means CHAP. IX 
of attaining the same end by " arts of mismanagement or 
loss of goods under his care." Similar methods were 
p ractised with the townspeople, many of whom thus 
becam e pawns to the Company and liable to be sold by 
the Governor at any time . "Most of the Factors ... had 
dwindled from the genteel Air they brought ; wear no 
Cane nor Snuff-box, idle in men of business, have lank 
Bodies, a pale Visage, their Pockets sewn up, or of no Use, 
and their Tongues tied ." 1 
T he unhealthiness of the climate and the insanitary 
habits of the people were as noticeable features of life 
on the Gold Coast in those days as they are at present. 
Bosman says: "The Stench of this unwholesome Mist is 
very much augmented by the Negroes' pernicious Custom 
of laying their Fish for five or six Days to putrify before 
t hey eat it, and their easing their Bodies round their 
Houses, and all over their Towns; and if this odious 
Mixture of noysome Stenches very much affects the State 
of Health here, it is not to be wondered , since 'tis next 
to impossibility, not only for new Comers, but those who 
have long continued here, to preserve themselves inti rely 
from its Malign Effects. The great Difference betwixt 
the European Air and this, is so observable, that few come 
hither who are not at first seized by a Sickness which 
carries off a great many, and that chiefly because we are 
so wretchedly unprovided with what should comfort and 
nourish these poor Men ; for we have no help to have 
recourse to but corrupted Med'cines, and unskilful Physi-
('ians, they being only ignorant Barbers, who bring several 
into the utmost danger of their Lives: Whereas Nature 
is strong enough, by the Assistance of good Nourishing 
Diet and Restoratives, it might probably recover the 
Patient . But, alas! how should he be able to get them? 
For our Medicines, as I have before told you, are most of 
t hem spoiled; and for Food, what is here to be gotten for 
the common People besides Fish and a dry lean Hen? 
1 Astley, vol. ii. p. 451. 
158 THE GOLD COAST IN THE 17TH CENTURY 
1700 And, indeed, were he able to pay for better, here is nothing 
CHAP. IX proper for a weak Stomach; for all the Oxen or Cows, 
Sheep and H ens , are dry, lean and tough: So that a sound 
Man, not to mention an infirm one, hath enough to do to 
eat them ." I The habits of many of the people have not 
noticeably improved during the two centuries that have 
elapsed since Bosman wrote, nor has the quality of t he 
fowls changed for the better; but the progress of civiliza-
tion, has, nevertheless, had some effect, and neither the 
want of provisions nor the dearth of medical comforts 
are now such marked characteristics of the Gold Coast as 
they once were. 
But though the lapse of time has failed entirely to 
abolish the defects complained of by Bosman, it has pro-
duced very great changes in the distribution of the wild 
animals of the country. In his day antelope, leopards, 
lions, elephants and other animals that are now rare or 
extinct along the coast-line were extremely common. He 
describes the slaughter of an elephant in Elmina itself as 
late as December 1700, and says that three had been killed 
there on different occasions, while several were killed 
daily in the districts around Axim. 
The elephant at Elmina came into the town about six 
o'clock in the morning, walking along the foot of St. Ja go's 
Hill, and numbers of the people, though unarmed , at 
once turned out and began to follow it. One of the Dutch 
officers came down from Fort Conraadsburg and shot at it, 
wounding it just above the eye; but in spite of this and 
a number of other shots that were fired by the Elminas, 
it continued to walk quietly on until it reached the Govern-
ment Garden, which it entered and began to pull down a 
clump of coco-nut palms. The Dutch Governor, with 
Bosman and several other officers, now came down, and 
while the elephant stood in the garden more than a hundred 
shots were fired into it at close range; but as only leaden 
balls were used, they did not penetrate very far and 
many of them even failed to pierce the thick skin, so that 
a fatal wound was not to be expected and all this firing 
1 Bosman, p. 105. 
ELEPHANT KILLED AT ELMINA 159 
had no effect beyond making the animal " bleed to that 1700 
degree as if an Ox had been killed." lOne of the Elminas CHAP. IX 
then" fancying himself able to deal with him, went softly 
behind him, catched his Tail in his Hand, designing to cut 
a piece of it off; but the Elephant being used to wear a 
Tail, would not permit it to be shortened in his Life-
time: Wherefore after giving the Negroe a stroke with 
his Snout, he drew him to him, and trod upon him two or 
three times; and, as if that was not sufficient, he bored in 
his Body two holes with his Teeth, large enough for a 
Man's double Fist to enter. Then he let him lye without 
making any farther attempt on him ; and stood still also 
whilst two Negroes fetched away the dead Body, not 
offering to meddle with them in the least." 2 The elephant 
then moved off in the direction of the River Benya, while 
the people scattered in all directions, most of them seeking 
safety up the slopes of St. J ago's Hill. Having reached 
the river , he began washing his wounds, and then broke 
up some water-barrels and a canoe that were lying there. 
Here the shooting was renewed, and the beast at length 
fell down exhausted from loss of blood " after which they 
immediately cut off his Snout, which was so hard and tough 
that it cost the Negroes thirty Stroaks ere they could 
separate it, which must be very painful to the Elephant, 
since it made him roar; which was the only Noise I heard 
him make." 3 The animal then died after more than 
three hundred shots had been fired into it. 
The arms of the people had now been augmented by 
the introduction of fire-arms, which were imported and 
sold to them in enormous quantities . Nor were they 
altogether satisfied with muskets alone; for some of the 
Chiefs had a few small cannon also. The King of Akwamu 
had a great many, and the King of Saboe had two; but 
they had very little idea of their use . The immense danger 
ot this traffic was already foreseen; but the profits were 
so great that in the absence of any agreement between 
the different Europeans on the Coast it was quite impossible 
to put a stop to it. Bosman points out that they were 
1 Bosman, p. 31 9. 2 Ibid. • Ibid., p. 321. 
160 THE GOLD COAST IN THE 17TH CENTURY 
1700 only obliging the people " with a Knife to cut our own 
CHAP. IX Throats," and Barbot prophesied that if the sale of cannon 
went on, it would only require some renegade white man 
to teach the people how to use them and then they might 
bid farewell to all the forts and castles and the Coast trade 
for ever. 
Spears, both for throwing and stabbing,_ shields and 
bows and arrows were still in use, and helmets of 
crocodile's or some other skin adorned with a red shell on 
each side and a bunch of horse-hair behind and secured 
on the head with a heavy iron chain. The arrows were 
feathered, thus differing from those still in use among the 
tribes of the Northern Territories, and, except among the 
Awoins, were never poisoned. The use of arrows, however , 
was already dying out, and they were in general use only 
in Akwamu. Bosman says the people were" so nicely 
dextrous in shooting, that in Hare-hunting they will lodge 
their small fine Arrows in what part of the Hare's Body is 
desired ." I The chief weapon, after their fire-arms, how-
ever, was the sword. These swords were very strong and 
heavy, but so blunt that several strokes were required to 
cut off a man's head. They were shaped exactly like the 
state swords that are still to be seen amongst the regalia 
of any Chief, which is the only form in which these ancient 
weapons have survived . 
Several of the forts were struck by lightning from time 
to time, and considering the quantity of powder that was 
stored in them it is marvellous that none of them were 
blown up. Bosman found it recorded in some old papers 
written by Governor Valkenburg that in 1651 Elmina 
Castle was struck. All the gold and silver was melted in 
the bags, which were themselves untouched, and swords 
were broken in their scabbards without any damage to 
the latter. Fort Batenstein was struck in 1691 and the 
flag-staff shattered, and in about 1693 Fort St. Anthony 
and Fort Nassau were both struck. At Axim Bosman 
says" the Thunder broke all the Drinking-Glasses of the 
Factor's Chamber, and raised up his Child with the Bed 
1 Bosman, p. 186. 
EXPORT OF GOLD 161 
under it; both which it threw some feet distant, without 1700 
the least hurt done." 1 Fort James at Accra was a lso CHAP. IX 
struck, and its walls were so shattered that there were 
holes reaching through to the powder-room and some 
pewter porringers were melted into a lump. 
In spite of the fact that no attempt had yet been made 
to improve upon the crude methods employed by the 
people to obtain gold, a very large quantity of this metal 
was annually exported from the Coast, though only a small 
proportion of it passed through the hands of the legitimate 
Companies . According to Bosman's estimate, the total 
amount was about 7,000 marks annually (equivalent to 
about £220,000 ~ sterling) . Of this he says the Dutch 
West India Company obtained about 1,500 marks, the 
Royal African Company about 1,200, the Dutch interlopers 
ano ther 1,500 and the English interlopers 1,000, while 
the Brandenburgers and Danes between them accounted 
for another 1,000, and the Portuguese and French together 
had about 800 more. According to his reckoning, there-
fore, the largest share fell to the Dutch. 
The gold was obtained by barter, and each nation took 
out chiefly those goods that were cheapest in his own 
country, though there were many articles with which they 
all had to be supplied . The Factors, too, had to be very 
careful in examining the gold, which was often mixed 
with base metal, more so at some places than at others. 
The principal trade goods were cloth of different kinds, 
linen, chintz, calico and other materials; spirits; muskets; 
firelocks; cutlasses and knives; pewter dishes, basins 
and porringers; powder and flints; lead in sheets, pipes 
and balls or shot; copper basins and pots; brass kettles, 
locks, bells, rings, trumpets, pins and cups; hair trunks; 
iron bars and hammers; glass bugles and beads of all 
kinds; fish-hooks, and a variety of other articles. The 
French carried more brandy, wine, iron, paper and fire-
locks than the English and Dutch, who supplied most of 
the linen and cloth, wrought copper and pewter and beads, 
and nearly all the gunpowder. The Danes, Brandenburgers 
1 Bosman, p . II3 . 2 Barbot's estimate was £240,000. 
I-II 
162 THE GOLD COAST IN THE 17TH CENTURY 
1700 and Portuguese bought most of their goods through Jews 
CHAP . IX in Holland, but the Portuguese often added rum and 
tobacco from Brazil. 
Interlopers still frequented the Coast during the summer 
months, and then had nearly all the trade in their hands, 
as they could sell their goods more cheaply than the 
Companies, who relied mainly on the winter trade. James 
Barbot, in 1699, saw three Zealand ships in Elmina road 
which had just been captured by two Dutch frigates. One 
of them was a ship of thirty-six guns, and her commander, 
who had made a desperate resistance, was to be tried for 
his life. 
The following is a description of the Forts and Settle-
ments as they existed at or about this time. Commencing 
from the west, the ruins of a French fort are described 
by the Chevalier de Marchais as being still in existence 
on a hill to the east of the River Manco. He says it had 
been a double square redoubt, but his statements are not 
always to be relied upon and it is possible that what he 
saw were the ruins of Fort Elise Carthago, which had been 
abandoned by the Dutch . At Axim, Fort St. Anthony 
was in the possession of the Dutch, but the defences of 
this place have already been fully described. The Chief 
Factor's house was a high triangular building of brick 
with a small plot of ground planted with a few orange 
trees on its west front, and the Dutch had a kiln in the 
village where they burnt lime from oyster shells for the 
repair of their different forts. 
Farther east was Groot Fredericksburg, the headquarters 
of the Brandenburgers, which mounted forty-six guns on 
four large batteries; the guns, however, were of no great 
size. A handsome outwork on the east side of the fort 
rather weakened its defences; and the breastworks, 
being no higher than a man's knee, afforded but little 
protection to the garrison and constituted another serious 
defect. The quarters and store-houses, however, were 
exceptionally fine and well built, and the gateway was the 
most beautiful on the whole Coast; so large was it that the 
saying used to the burghers of Minde used to be quoted to 
THE FORTS 
the garrison: " Mind to keep your gate close shut, lest the 1700 
fort should run away." 1 The Brandenburg fort guarding CHAP. IX 
the watering-place at Takrama was quite a small place, 
mounting six guns; and Fort Dorothea at Akwida con-
sisted of a flat-roofed house and two small batteries mount-
ing t wenty guns in all. The buildings, however, were none 
too strong and were crowded together in too small a space . 
The English fort at Dixcove lay on the shore of a little 
bay where the landing was very safe. It was built of 
stone and lime with two round flankers and four batteries 
mounting twenty guns; there was also a spur on the 
western side and a moderately high square tower. The 
garrison usually consisted of sixteen or more Europeans 
and about the same number of Africans . Some very good 
gardens were laid out in front of the fort. 
Butri was considered one of the healthiest stations on 
the whole Gold Coast. The Dutch Fort Batenstein was a 
very insignificant irregularly oblong building, and mounted 
eight guns on two small batteries. In 1708 the Dutch laid 
out some ground here, and sent down to Wida for 200 
slaves, intending to establish some sugar and rum works, 
for which materials had been ordered from Holland and 
plantations were being laid out. The English Governor, 
Sir Dalby Thomas, wrote that he feared the cheaper pro-
duction might ruin the West Indian Colonies, but the 
scheme does not seem to have proved successful. 
At Takoradi the ruins of Fort Witsen could still be 
seen on a hill near the village. The Brandenburgers seem 
to have occupied the place for a time, and the English 
regularly sent there to collect oyster shells from which to 
make lime for their buildings; but in 1707 the Dutch 
built a second small fort here, for no other reason than 
to inconvenience the English . It mounted only seven or 
eight guns . 
Sekondi, which had once been a prosperous and com-
paratively wealthy town, had been burned by the Ahantas 
during the war in 1690, and now consisted of a few houses 
unly. The Dutch Fort Orange was a very small place, 
1 Bosman. 
/ 
164 THE GOLD COAST IN THE 17TH CENTURY 
1700 being merely a square white house in a yard, mounting 
CHAP. IX eight or ten guns on a terrace on the roof. The first 
English fort had been a very similar building, but had been 
so grossly neglected that the guns were literally honey-
combed with rust and the carriages rotten and useless . 
It is small wonder, therefore, that it fell such an easy prey 
to the Elminas . The second English fort was built on 
much the same plan as Fort Metal Cross at Dixcove and 
mounted the same number 1 of guns, but was made rather 
larger and stronger. 
Shama at this time consisted of three small villages 
built close together and totalling about two hundred 
houses. The Dutch Fort St. Sebastian stood on a little 
hill and was of about the same size as Fort Batenstein, with 
eight small guns on its four batteries. 
Komenda also consisted of a group of three villages, 
which at ordinary times contained about one hundred 
and fifty houses; but in 1675 nearly the whole town had 
been accidentally destroyed by fire, and many of the 
people had temporarily removed to Ampeni. The lagoon 
at this time opened into the sea, and was used as a harbour 
for fishing canoes. The English fort was a large quad-
rangular building with four bastions and a high tower . 
It mounted twenty-one guns, and was garrisoned by about 
sixty men, half of whom were Europeans. The Dutch 
Fort Vredenburg lay a little farther east, and was a square 
stone building with a stunted tower and four batteries 
mounting twenty guns . The close proximity of these 
forts, which were within gunshot distance of each other, 
often led to disputes. In about 1725 the Dutch Comman-
dant suddenly attacked the English Factor under a tree 
midway between the two forts, but was himself killed 
in the encounter. There was yet another small fort at 
Komenda, which belonged to the notorious John Kabes 
who had been attacked by the Dutch in 1694. At that 
time he had gone over to the English, but he seems to 
have quarrelled with them some years later and to have 
set up a separate trade with the interlopers, and, buying 
1 Twenty. 
ELMINA r65 
eighteen guns from one of them named Gladman, mounted 1700 
them on a small fort that he had built near the English CHAP. IX 
fort at Komenda in 1702. A little later he increased his 
armament by six more guns that were supplied him by 
Captain Ingle of the Shrewsbury. In April 1707 the English 
Factor reported to the Governor, Sir Dalby Thomas, that 
the Dutch were collecting a mixed force of Shamas, J abis 
and Elminas to attack John in his fort, and asked him 
to send him some corn and a better gunner in case they 
should be 1lockaded or attacked. A long-boat and a five-
hand canoe were accordingly sent down well armed, for 
fear of the Dutch at Elmina who had recently attacked 
several canoes passing between Cape Coast and Sekondi. 
These precautions were fully justified, for the Castle fired 
four shots at them and some canoes were sent out to take 
them, but finding them well armed and resolute soon 
drew off. From this it is evident that relations between 
the English and the Dutch were still very strained, but 
it is not so clear whether John Kabes had again made his 
peace with the former or not. 
The defences of Elmina have already been partly de-
scribed. The town I was, as a rule, very populous and 
capable of putting about 6,000 fighting men in the field: 
men, too, who had on more than one occasion given con-
vincing proof of their valour; but at this time it was in 
a very weak condition, having been almost depopulated 
by its losses in the recent wars and by repeated epidemics 
of small-pox . It contained about 1,200 stone houses and 
was built across the neck of the peninsula on the point of 
which the Castle stands-that is, on the present parade 
ground. The Castle of St . George mounted thirty-eight 
good brass cannon, besides several smaller pieces and 
some iron guns on the lower battery which were chiefly 
used for firing salutes. The old Portuguese moat on the 
western side had now been subdivided into two, and was 
used as a reservoir for fresh water, in which fish and turtles 
were often kept. The entrance to the Castle was well 
guarded by a drawbridge, covered by a small redoubt 
'Odina. 
166 THE GOLD COAST IN THE 17TH CENTURY 
1700 mounting eight iron guns, and an iron portcullis which 
CHAP. IX was further defended by four small pieces of brass ordnance 
within the gates. The only other door was high up in the 
wall facing the river, and was used for passing goods in and 
out of the Castle by means of a crane. Besides the water 
in the moat, there were three large tanks or cisterns con-
structed within the Castle in which rain-water was stored, 
'so that with an adequate supply of provisions for its gar-
rison, which numbered about 20'0 men exclusive of officers, 
half of whom were Europeans, the place was well able to 
withstand a siege by natives for an almost unlimited time . 
"The Inside is a large Quadrangle, surrounded with 
handsome Storehouses of white Stone and Bricks, which 
makes a good Place of Arms. The General's Lodgings 
are above in the Castle, the Ascent to which is by a large 
Staircase of black and white Stone, defended at Top by 
two small Brass Guns, and four Padereros 1 of the same 
Metal, commanding the Place of Arms, and a Corps-de-
Guard pretty large. Next to this is a great Hall full of 
Arms, like an Arsenal, through which, and by a by-Passage, 
you enter a fine, long, covered Gallery, all wainscotted, 
at each End of which are large Glass Windows . Through 
this you pass into the General's Apartment, consisting 
of several handsome Rooms and Offices along the Ram-
parts. The Chapel on the other Side of these Rooms is 
very neat, and, besides Sundays, there are public Prayers 
in it every Day .... The Infirmary, or Hospital, lies along 
the Ramparts to the River-Side, and can contain an 
hundred sick Men. By it is a large Tower, which over-
looks the Redoubt, but has no Guns." 2 Fort Conraads-
burg has already been described; it mounted twelve guns. 
Under the northern slopes of St. ]ago's Hill was the 
Government Garden, in which was a peculiar round summer-
house reached by a few steps, open at the sides and sur-
mounted by a cupola roof. 
Cape Coast contained about five hundred houses with 
a market-square in the centre, but the population was less 
1 Patereros were small swivel guns. 
2 Astley, vol. ii, p. 591. 
CAPE COAST CASTLE 
t han usual , owing to the recent wars. The space occupied 1700 
by t he town was roughly triangular in outline, the two CHAP. IX 
angles at its base coming down on to the northern and 
western faces of the Castle, while the apex reached north-
west to t he wall of the Government Garden, which was 
very extensive and well planted, but enclosed only on the 
side facing the town . The Castle, which mounted in all 
abou t forty guns, had a square tower, and had been much 
improved by the Royal African Company. I ts walls were 
high, and for beauty and strength it was surpassed only 
by Elmina. The square was open to the sea on the east, 
where t here was a platform mounting thirteen guns, while 
on the three other sides it was enclosed by buildings con-
taining quarters for the officers and garrison and ware-
houses for goods. On the south side was a " large well-
built Chapel , the back part of which joins to the Castle 
wall, having the great body of the rock Tabora 1 on the 
outside of it ." 2 The Castle has" four flankers .... On 
the battlements are ten guns and twenty-five on the 
flankers, from minions to nine-pounders ; and on a rock 
called Tabora, twenty paces from the Castle, are four, or 
six twelve-pounders, in a round tower/ garrisoned by 
about as many men, which serves to keep the Blacks in 
the town the better in awe." 4 There was also a dungeon 
near the main gate, in which criminals were confined before 
being sent to England to take their trial. The square, 
which was large enough to parade 400 or .500 men in, 
was raised ab out twenty feet above the r ock on which 
the Castle stood , and beneath it, besides a large tank for 
the storage of fresh water, was a spacious arched vault, 
subdivided into several rooms and entered through an 
iron gate, in which the slaves were kept while awaiting 
the arrival of a ship. It could hold about a thousand . 
T he garrison , who all wore r ed coat s, consist ed of some 
1 The rock upon which the Castle stands is the reput ed residence 
of the marine god T abi, whose wife, T abi Yir (Tabora), is said to inhabit 
a gr oup of rocks a little farther westward. 
• Smith. 
• The base of the present Dalzel Tower. 
• Barbot, p . 169. 
r68 THE GOLD COAST IN THE 17TH CENTURY 
1700 two hundred men, half of whom were Africans,1 under the 
CHAP. IX command of a Captain. Bosman, however, says that the 
garrison was very weak in his time and much addicted 
to drinking, and that " the Soldiers are such miserable 
Wretches that they raise your Pity rather than Fear." 
He was however, evidently annoyed by the refusal of the 
English Governor to give up some Dutch deserters who 
had fled to Cape Coast. The Castle gate was shut at eight 
o'clock every night, a strong .guard mounted, and the 
officer provided with a pass-word by the Chief Agent 
(Governor). All ships, whether English or foreign, that 
anchored off the Castle or passed within gun-shot of it 
were required to salute it by lowering their top-sails, and 
if they omitted to do so they were at once fired on. Bar-
bot 2 relates that when he put in to Cape Coast in the 
French warship Le Jolly they saluted the Castle with 
seven guns and were answered with five; but when they 
were coming to an anchor, to their great surprise three 
guns were fired at them with ball which fell just ahead of 
the ship. They therefore went on to the Danish Settle-
ment at Fort Fredericksborg, thinking war might have 
broken out between France and England since they sailed. 
Next morning he sent ashore to ask if this was the case. 
The Governor invited him to land, promising to explain 
the reason for the shots, and gave him a splendid re-
ception. He then told him of this rule, and explained that 
his orders to see that it was observed were very strict. 
The Company's ships were usually supplied with fresh 
water from the Castle tanks, but if this was low, from a 
pond known as Domine's Hole. This appears to have 
been a name given to the lagoon to the west of Cape Coast, 
which was by this time cut off from the sea and contained, 
as now, brackish water; for Barbot says that the Com-
pany's ships were sometimes supplied from a large pond 
1 The African members of the garrisons are usually referred to as 
"Gromettoes," a corruption of the Portuguese "grumete," meaning a 
ship's boy. The majority, if not all, of them were the domestic slaves 
of the Company, and were possibly I<ru-boys. 
2 Page 171. 
FORT ROYAL 
" lying at some distance towards the sea, between cape 1700 
Corso and Mina ... at a place called Domine." 1 CHAP. IX 
Close under the Castle was a small fortified house 
mounting a few guns, which belonged to a mulatto named 
Edward Barter, who flew the English flag and was regularly 
consulted by the Company's officers in all their dealings 
with the people. This man had very great influence, and 
practically all the trade passed through his hands as 
middleman. He seems to have corresponded at Cape 
Coast to the notorious John Kabes at Komenda. But 
according to some letters quoted by Barbot 2 he over-
stepped the mark and fell into disgrace in Sir Dalby 
Thomas' time, and then intrigued with the Dutch to 
damage the English trade. 
Fort Royal on the Danish Mount at Amanfu lay a little 
to the east of the Castle, and was entirely rebuilt at about 
this time. The old fort had been triangular, with a 
round flanker facing the sea and two batteries towards 
Cape Coast and Mori mounting sixteen guns. The new 
fort built by the English was square and could be reached 
only by a narrow winding path up the hill, which might 
have been defended by a single gun. It mounted eighteen 
or twenty guns, eleven of which were on the platform, and 
was garrisoned by six whites and twelve blacks . On 
its completion, all salutes from ships in Cape Coast road 
were acknowledged from this fort instead of from the 
Castle, in order to avoid disturbing any sick men in the 
latter by unnecessary noise. The English also had 
another small fort near Cape Coast. This was on Queen 
Anne's Point, mounted five guns , and had a garrison of 
five whites and six blacks. Near it the ruins of the old 
Dutch lodge could still be seen. 
Mori contained over two hundred houses and was very 
densely populated. The Dutch Fort Nassau had been 
much enlarged, and was now a very fine building. It was 
nearly square, with very high walls and a handsome square 
tower at each corner. It mounted eighteen guns on four 
batteries and the gate was furnished with a drawbridge 
1 Barbot, p. 171. 2 Ibid., p . 445. 
170 THE GOLD COAST IN THE 17TH CENTURY 
1700 and defended by a loop-holed gallery. So long as this 
CHAP. IX was the Dutch headquarters a very large garrison had 
been maintained, but on their removal to Elmina it was 
considerably reduced. As was the case at all the other 
posts, Mori had very fine gardens attached to the fort : 
these indeed were generally acknowledged to be the best 
on the whole Coast. 
The English factory at Anashan was a very insignificant 
place, mounting only two guns, .and was never occupied by 
more than two or three men. Branco, the Portuguese, had 
his turf redoubt and factory here as late as 1683, but how 
much longer he retained his position is unknown . 
Anamabo was large and populous, but the people bore 
a very bad character and were particularly turbulent . 
"The English Factors dare not in the least contradict 
them; but are rather obliged to bear with them . . . . The 
great wealth of the Fantineans makes them so proud and 
haughty, that an European trading there must stand bare 
to them ." l They often extorted money from the Factor 
by shutting the garrison up in the fort, closing all the paths 
so that no traders could come down, and compelling him 
in a very short time to purchase peace and a renewal of 
trade at their own price. The town was divided into two 
parts, one of which was inhabited by Elmina and the 
other by Fanti fishermen, who paid tribute to the King. 
The English fort had not long been built, and the remains 
of the mud walls of the old lodge could still be seen in front 
of it. It stood on a rock close to the sea and, though not 
very large, was strongly constructed of a mixture of stone 
and brick. It was defended by two turrets on one side 
and two flankers on the other next the sea, and mounted 
twelve good guns and two smaller pieces .2 This was one 
of the posts that was held by a Chief Factor, who had 
twelve other Europeans and eighteen gromettos with him . 
The English Factory at Egya was a mere thatched house 
with a large yard and a duck pond. Its sole means of 
defence were the muskets of the two or three men who 
formed its garrison. The town was divided into two 
1 Barbot, p. 177. 2 Patereros. 
ACCRA 
separate parts, each of which contained about twenty-five 1700 
houses . CHAP. IX 
Fort Amsterdam at Kormantin belonged to the Dutch, 
and was a square stone building having one large and three 
smaller batteries mounting twenty guns and a square 
tower in the centre surmounted by a cupola roof: It was 
garrisoned by twenty -five Europeans and a number of 
Africans. 
The E nglish ha d another fort near here at Tantumkweri. 
It ,vas built some time prior to 1726, but in which year 
is uncertain . It stood close to the sea, and was a regular 
fort, wit h four flankers and mounted twelve guns. At 
Apam was the Dutch Fort Leydsaamheid, which was a 
very small building and had only two batteries with eight 
guns, but there was a fine turret in front of it. 
T he new English fort at Winneba 1 was a square building 
with four flankers very similar to that at Tantumkweri, 
but with the addition of a large spur . It mounted eighteen 
small guns, and was usually garrisoned by twelve whites 
and eighteen blacks . Its slave-room could hold one 
hundred . At Beraku there was a small triangular fort 
belonging to the Dutch and mounting twelve guns, and 
a deser ted English factory at Shido, of which nothing more 
IS known . 
Accra was divided into three separate villages . Soko, 
of about a hundred houses, lay under James Fort ; Little 
Accra, which before the war with Akwamu had been large 
and important and had had a big market, but had been 
burnt and now contained only sixty houses , lay under 
the Dutch Fort Cr~ve Creur, and Orsoko/ which had also 
been burnt during the war, under the Danish Christians-
horg Castle . James Fort was a square building with four 
bastions and high thick stone walls, and was furnished with 
a good t ower and a spur ; it mounted twenty-five rather 
small guns and was garrisoned by a dozen white men and 
a few natives . Fort Creve Creur was another square 
st one building with four batteries mounting fourteen guns 
and a few smaller pieces; its walls, however, were neither 
1 Simpa. • Or Orsaki. or Osu. 
172 THE GOLD COAST IN THE 17TH CENTURY 
1700 so high nor so thick as those of the English fort, but its 
CHAP. IX garrison was rather stronger, consisting of fifteen whites 
and twenty-five blacks. Christiansborg Castle was far 
larger and stronger than either of the other forts, and had 
four batteries; but its flat roof made the whole fort prac-
tically one continuous battery, and enabled its twenty 
guns to be moved to any part of it. 
The Slave Trade was now at its height and quite over-
shadowed that for gold. This detestable traffic was 
carried on along the whole West African coast, and enor-
mous numbers of people were annually exported and sold 
in the West Indies and other parts.1 The Guinea Coast 
as a whole supplied as many as from 70,000 to 100,000 
slaves yearly, and the Liverpool Memorandum, which con-
tains an exact list of all the vessels belonging to that port 
that were engaged in this trade, together with a return of 
the number of slaves taken by each, shows that in 1753 
the number imported into America by 101 Liverpool ships 
alone was upwards of 30,000, and there were of course 
many other vessels sailing from London and Bristol that 
are not included in this return . This estimate is also 
confirmed by Anderson, who says that" England supplies 
her American Colonies with Negro slaves amounting in 
number to about an hundred thousand every year," 2 and 
it must be remembered that England was only one of 
many nations, all of whom were actively engaged in this 
traffic. The Gold Coast alone is said to have furnished 
not fewer than 10,000 slaves every year; and these were 
considered the most valuable, for they made the best 
labourers, though they were of a more impatient and 
mutinous disposition than those obtained from other 
parts of Guinea. In the language of the slave traders, all 
Gold Coast slaves were classed as" Koromantyns," because 
they had been largely obtained from Kormantin. Even 
ships bound for the Slave Coast, which took no slaves 
1 In 1713 the Company, by the Assiento Contract, undertook to 
supply the Spanish Government with 144,000 slaves during the ensuing 
thirty years. 
2 History ot Trade and Commerce. 
THE SLAVE TRADE 173 
from the Gold Coast itself, used to obtain their canoes 1700 
and canoemen there, notably from Komenda and Shama, CHAP. IX 
but often from Axim or Takoradi also i for the people of 
the Slave Coast had but few canoes except on their rivers. 
Some of the Gold Coast natives thus profited indirectly 
by the leeward slave trade, for these canoemen were 
invariably well paid and were given the canoes to return 
home in so soon as the ship was fu ll. 
The Europeans themselves never engaged in actual 
slave raiding except when the trade was quite in its infancy, 
but used to buy their slaves from native brokers living 
in the coast towns. The slaves were obtained in various 
ways, but were for the most part either prisoners of war, 
criminals who had been condemned to be sold, or debtors 
who were sold to satisfy their creditors. The trade, there-
fore , apart from the cruelties inflicted on the slaves them-
selves, naturally tended to foster inter-tribal wars i 1 to 
encourage the infliction of the severest possible punish-
ments by the Chiefs for comparatively trifling offences i 
and to tempt those who were sufficiently powerful and 
unscrupulous to seize persons who, as often as not, were 
innocent of any crime, and, after indulging them with 
some pretence of a trial, to sell them to the traders and 
divide the proceeds . The successes of the Ashantis in 
their wars brought great numbers of slaves into the 
market. They were sent to Mansu, where the great slave 
mart was held, and there p~ssed into the hands of the 
middlemen brokers of the Coast towns, who sold them to 
the European traders . There was also a second regular 
slave market at Eguafo, but people who were sold there 
were more often bought for use as sacrificial victims at 
funeral or other customs than for export. 
As the trade increased and the demand for slaves was 
stilI maintained, as much deception and cheating were 
practised in it as is commonly supposed to enter into horse 
1 Often mere slave raids. It has been computed that 20,000 were 
slanghtered in five such expeditions undertaken by the Bornus before 
three-fourths of that number had been obtained as slaves, and that five-
twelfths of the captives often perished on the journey to the coast. 
174 THE GOLD COAST IN THE 17TH CENTURY 
1700 dealing at the present day_ All slaves when they reached 
C~AP. IX the coast were closely--shaved and well anointed with palm-
oil to give their sKins a smooth and glossy appearance, so 
that it was often no easy matter to tell an old man from 
a young o~e. They were then carefully examined by the 
surgeons, who looked at their teeth, made them jump, and 
thoroughly over-hauled them from head to foot in order 
to exclude the aged and infirm or any who were diseased , 
who were invariably rejected, while those who were passed 
as fit were immediately branded on the right breast with 
the purchaser's mark to prevent the risk of substitution . 
In the case of the Royal African Company, the letters 
D.Y.l were used . This was done with a heated silver or 
iron brand after first anointing the skin with a little oil. 
When the slaves had all been marked, if no vessel was 
already waiting, they were confined in the slave-rooms of 
the forts until an opportunity occurred to ship them to 
their final destination. 
On board the slave ships the men and women were 
separated, and the former placed two and two in irons as a 
safeguard against mutiny or escape. Large quantities of 
Indian corn were bought on the Coast, principally at 
Anamabo, on which they were fed twice daily, one chest 
of four bushels being allowed for each slave for the voyage . 
The women and children were always allowed to take 
exercise on deck from seven o'clock in the morning until 
sunset, and, after the African coast had been finally left 
and there was no longer any chance of escape, the men 
also had their irons struck off, provided they were not 
mutinous. The slaves required very careful watching 
while they were being shipped; for they would often 
throw themselves into the sea and be drowned or would 
starve themselves and so die, while mutinies on the slave 
ships were of frequent occurrence. There was a prevalent 
idea among the people that they were being taken abroad 
to be eaten, and they also believed that after death they 
would pass to a spirit world 2 in all respects like their own 
land. Death therefore had few terrors for them, and even 
1 Duke of York. J Sramanedzi. 
THE SLAVE TRADE 175 
at the present day a Gold Coast African will commit suicide 1700 
for what seem the most trivial reasons. On the whole CHAP. IX 
the slaves were fairly well treated so long as the trade 
was lawful, for their value gave their owners a pecuniary 
interest in their health and well-being, and it was only 
after the traffic had been declared illegal that some of 
the greatest sufferings were endured by these people, even 
though their individual value was then greater . Even 
now, however, many terrible atrocities were perpetrated 
from time to time, principally with a view to preventing 
mutmles . The slaves are said to have believed that 
mutilation would prove a bar to their entry into the spirit 
world,! and some inhuman captains of ships did not 
hesitate to amputate the limbs of a few m order to terrorize 
the remainder . 
As an example of the diabolical cruelties that were 
sometimes practised, the following story may be quoted . 
Some slaves who had been bought at Sierra Leone by 
Captain Harding of the Robert of Bristol mutinied under 
the leadership of a petty Chief named Tomba. They were 
aided by a female slave, who brought them a hammer by 
night and told them that there were only five sailors on 
deck, all of whom were asleep . Tomba, therefore, with 
one other man and the woman, who were the only persons 
who had the courage to follow him , went on deck and killed 
two of the sailors with blows on the temples with the 
hammer, but was then overpowered and secured . Captain 
Harding apparently considered the two chief actors in 
this scene to be of greater value on account of their courage 
and strength and sentenced them to be flogged and scarified, 
but, with the utmost barbarity, caused the woman to be 
hoisted up by her thumbs and flogged and slashed with 
knives until she died . Three of the other conspirators, 
who however had taken no active part in the proceedings, 
were condemned to death ; two of them being compelled 
1 Spirits are believed to recover from the diseases that k iiled their 
nosts within a few months, but actual mutilations might be considered 
permanent. The spirits of those who die a violent death before their 
time, moreover, unless sacrificed for a specific purpose, are believed to 
experience some difficulty in finding their way to Sramanedzi . 
176 THE GOLD COAST IN THE 17TH CENTURY 
1700 to eat the heart and liver of the first before they themselves 
CHAP. IX were killed . This was probably an exceptional case of 
wanton cruelty; but mutinies were of frequent occurrence, 
and as they could only be suppressed by the severest 
measures, this monstrous traffic entailed endless suffering 
and misery to the slaves, and must necessarily have had a 
most degrading effect on all those who were engaged in it. 
The only points that can possibly be urged in its favour 
are that a certain number of real criminals were effectively 
and profitably transported, and that most of the prisoners 
of war would, if not sold, have been sacrificed in Africa. 
Slavery in itself is an institution and condition to 
which the African is accustomed; and so long as he is 
living in his own country, amongst his own people, and in 
accordance with the immemorial usages of his race, it 
entails very little hardship, and he does not greatly object 
to it. But this wholesale exportation of unwilling persons 
into a strange land, to face a future of which they knew 
nothing, but concerning which they were filled with the 
gloomiest possible forebodings, was a very different matter . 
At the same time it must be remembered that these fore-
bodings were for the most part groundless; for the slaves 
on the plantations were generally well treated and quite 
content, and most of the hysterical nonsense that was 
written at the time of the agitation for the abolition of the 
trade consisted of gross exaggerations of isolated cases of 
abuse that were put forward as representing the common 
state of affairs . 
In addition to the other dangers and inconveniences 
inseparable from a voyage to the Gold Coast, the seas at 
this time were infested by pirates, who, after the dispersal 
of the buccaneers from their West Indian haunts, came in 
great numbers to seek fresh fields for their nefarious trade 
on the West Coast of Africa, where there were always 
plenty of ships laden with gold-dust, ivory, slaves or other 
valuable cargoes to be met with. They often played great 
havoc with the trade, and it was mainly on this account 
that H.M.Ss. Swallow and W eymouth were sent out to cruise 
in these waters. Two or three of these marauders usually 
PIRACY 
sailed in company, and were strong enough not only to 1700 
capture well-armed ships, but even to take some of the CHAP. IX 
forts as well. Thus, in 1719, Howell Davis the pirate 
t ook J ames Fort in the River Gambia, but was soon after-
wards treacherously murdered by the Portuguese at 
Prince's Island . His successor, Roberts, captured Bunce 
Island Fort a t Sierra Leone in 1720; and, as has already 
been m entioned, Avery took the two Danish men-of-war 
of twenty -six guns each that had been sent out to resettle 
Christiansborg Castle in 1693. Their usual practice was 
to transfer the slav es or other cargo from the prizes to 
their own ships, subsequently selling them in the West 
Indies, and to burn or scuttle the empty vessels . As 
showing the enormous extent to which piracy was carried 
on, It is recorded that Roberts destroyed over a hundred 
ships along the West Coast in one year alone. Captain 
Snelgrave was taken by Cocklyn at Sierra Leone in 1719, 
when there was quite a fleet of pirate ships lying in the 
harbour .l 
Roberts met his end early in February 1722 when 
H .M.S. Swallow, Captain Ogle,2 after a long search, found 
him with three ships at anchor off Cape Lopez . The 
pirates slipped their cables and fled out to sea, but were 
closely pursued by the man-of-war. Roberts himself was 
killed and all the ships were captured. The prisoners 
numbered about 300 Englishmen and 60 or 70 Negro slaves; 
and from 8,000 to !O,OOO pounds3 of gold-dust, besides 
enormous quantities of trade goods, were taken. The 
pirates were brought to Cape Coast Castle on the 18th of 
Febru ary, where, after a trial lasting twenty-six days, 
fifty-two of them were hanged in chains, seventy-four 
acquitted , twenty condemned to servitude, and seventeen 
to the Marchalsea. What became of the others is un-
known; but several probably died of their wounds after 
being captured or were killed during two mutinies that 
broke out before they reached Cape Coast. The climate 
>1 hne is probably sufficient to account for the rest. 
1 Part of the harbour is still known as Pirates' Bay . 
2 Aft erwards Sir Chaloner Ogle. 3 Weigbt or sterling? 
1- 12 
PART III 
THE RISE OF ASHANTI 
1700 TO 1803 
179 
CHAPTER X 
THE AS H ANTIS 
1700 
THE beginning of the eighteenth century witnessed the 1700 
first encroachments towards the coast of the Ashantis, CHAP. x 
who, though hitherto unheard of, were destined in the near 
future to play a greater part in the history of the Gold 
Coast than all the other tribes combined. From this time 
forward, in fact, the history of the country is largely a 
history of its relations with this people. 
Although tradition asserts and other evidence favours 
the belief that this people and the Fantis and other Twi-
speaking races are the offsprings of a common stock, yet 
the Ashantis stand out in marked contrast to all the 
others, distinguished as much by their skill and bravery 
in war as by the p a triotism and power of combination that 
ultimately led to the formation of the most powerful and 
m fact the only really important kingdom and empire that 
the Gold Coast has ever seen . From small beginnings these 
people gradually extended their power and authority , both 
by diplomacy and by force of arms, until in the end all 
the surrounding tribes owed allegiance to them and their 
countries became tributary provinces of Ashanti . Nor 
can there be the least doubt that that kingdom would, 
before the close of the nineteenth century, have included 
the whole Gold Coast, had not the seaboard tribes been 
assisted and protected by the Europeans, who feared their 
Settlements and trade might be endangered. 
The rise and fall of the power of Ashanti furnish some 
of the most interesting chapters of Gold Coast history; 
and no one who studies the subject with an unbiassed mind 
can avoid feeling admiration and some sympathy for this 
lSI 
r82 THE ASHA..'\TIS 
1700 remarkable people, though it is clifficult for those who have 
CHAP. x suffered many privations and losses on their account and 
have lived fo r years in almost constant dread of them to 
regard them mthout prejudice. Lord \\ olseley, who as 
Sir Garnet \\ olseley "as Go\'ernor of the Gold Coast and 
led the expedition against them in r 874, wrote: " From the 
Ashantees I learnt one important lesson, namely, that any 
virile race can become paramount in its o"n region of th~ 
world if it possesses the courage, the constancy of purpose 
and the self-sacrifice to resoh'e that it "ill li\'e under a 
stern system of Spartan military discipline, ruthles Iy 
enforced by one lord and master, the King. In other 
words, if it be clearly recognized by any people that the 
interests and comfort of the indindual, "hether he be 
king or subject, hould not be the first object of nationai 
solicitude, but rather that it hould be the greatness and 
power of the state a- a "hole, a greatness "hich brings 
with it national pride, indi\idual security and also content' 
ment, that nation "ill rule m-er its neighbours .. . . The 
Ashantee and the Fantee "ere absolutely of the same race. 
The former ,,,ere a proud nation of braye and daring 
soldiers, li\-ing happily and contentedly under the most 
ab-olute of king-. The latter, who li,'ed and idled under 
the Licence of our ea-y-going laws, were cowardly, lazy. 
good-for-nothing ,'agabonds, mth all the ,ices or" the 
Ashantee but with none of his manly courage .. . ..1 iilitar:-
de potism . . . in some cases supplies the nation braye 
enough to adopt it with a renO\\ll that makes Life "orrh 
li\-ing and wor th fighting for ." 1 
The cowardice of the Fanti has at times been exaggerated. 
and he ha- been blamed for it more than he really de-
eryes. His inefficiency as a warrior is due to faults in 
the system rather than in the individual . Taken man for 
man the Fanti is probably nearly as good as the Ashanti . 
The A -hantis, howeyer, haye built up a splendid miLitar:' 
organization, to the perfection of " 'hich eYeIJLhing else has 
been sacrificed, and they haye learned to rely on themselYes 
and to put the national interest before their own. The 
I ""01 e1ey, Y01. ii, p. 368. 
F ANTIS AND ASHANTIS 
Fantis, on the other hand, have suffered from their long 1700 
contact with Europeans. Their surroundings and their CHAP. X 
mode of life have to some extent become artificial, and 
t hey have been taught to rely upon the protection of a 
stronger race rather than upon their own efforts. Though 
they have a military system similar to that of Ashanti, it 
has never been brought to such perfection nor made to 
take precedence to other things, but has rather been allowed 
to atrophy from disuse . They have seldom or never really 
combined , but, in the face of the most overwhelming 
common danger, have proved quite unable to put aside 
their own petty inter-tribal quarrels and disputes; and 
though they have again and again turned out in vast 
numbers to oppose the inroads of the Ashantis, and have 
on more than one occasion shown considerable bravery 
and fought really well for a time, yet, in the end, this lack 
of coh esion and common purpose has invariably shown 
itself, with the inevitable result that defeat, panic and 
flight have followed; for no matter how brave the in-
dividual units of a badly organized force may be, it can 
never hope to withstand the resolute advance of a dis-
ciplined foe. 
For t his neglect of their military system and the pro-
duction of artificial conditions, however, the English 
are as much to blame as the people themselves . They 
had no ,¥ish to see them too strong and warlike, lest their 
own position among them should be endangered ; but 
when the mischief had been done, they forgot or ignored 
the part they had played in its production and merely 
reviled the F antis. 
These conditions, however, were not brought about by 
the English solely for the selfish purpose of securing their 
own safety and power. There was another motive also; 
that of t he missionary and philanthropist who wished to 
abolish a t once all those customs and beliefs w hich, though 
natural t o the people, were repugnant to them . Those 
who were actuated by this motive, however, forgot that 
the evolution of civilization is as definite and gradual, 
t hough not so slow a process as the evolution of species. 
THE ASHANTIS 
1700 It is impossible to hurry a race forward in the course of 
CHAP. X a few years to a stage which it would not otherwise have 
reached for several centuries, except by paying the in-
evitable penalty for interference with any such natural 
law. The civilization acquired or imposed by such 
artificial means is for the most part no more than a veneer, 
which is easily peeled off and has the terrible disadvantage 
of adding the vices and defects incidental to the new 
condition without having first eradicated those that 
previously existed, while it also tends to destroy those 
better qualities that were inbred in the subject in his 
natural state. There are, of course, occasional but very 
exceptional instances of men who survive this process 
and appear at first sight to justify it; but they are ex-
amples of the survival of the fittest, the giants of their 
race, who would inevitably have come to the front by the 
very force of their own stronger characters. 
These rapid transitions from a barbarous or semi-
barbarous state to a far higher plane of civilization are 
harmful , and the only sure means of attaining the object 
aimed at is to allow Nature to fo llow her own methods. 
The process must be a gradual one and cannot be hurried , 
though it may be assisted and accelerated by tactful 
encouragement, sympathy and example. The race must 
advance as a whole, and no matter how rapid its advance 
may be, it must tread every rung of the ladder. The 
unnatural elevation of a small number places them at a 
disadvantage. It is equivalent to forcing a handful of plants 
into premature bloom in the artificial surroundings of a hot-
house, and then relegating them to their original positions 
among their naturally growing companions in the open . 
They must nearly all perish in the struggle that follows . 
But the people themselves cannot be blamed for the 
effects these unnatural conditions produce in them. The 
fault lies rather with those whose ill-advised attempts at 
improvement were responsible for their production. They 
may be studied among the people of those towns that 
have been longest occupied by Europeans, and better still 
in Sierra Leone, where the process has been carried farther 
FORCED EVOLUTION 
and its effects are therefore more pronounced . The moral 1700 
undoub tedly is to give the -people more time, and to aim CHAP. x 
at improving them in ways that are suited to their own 
surro.undings, preserving all that is good and only elimi-
nating that which is bad in their own institutions and 
customs, instead of destroying everything of their own 
and then forcing upon them the manners and customs and 
religious beliefs of a civilization that is the outcome of 
centuries of life in a different climate and under different 
conditions, which are quite unsuited to the African . Even 
a few of the p eople themselves ar.e alive to these t ruths. 
One of them wrote: " The missionary and merchant have 
only succeeded in making whited sepulchres of Africans .. . . 
Under the existing state of affairs the African becomes 
more and more useless-in fact, dangerous to himself 
and his country." 1 
Many charges have been made against the Ashantis. 
Some are baseless, others are easily explained and ex-
tenuated, and of none can it be said that they are more 
than could be ievelled at any race in their condition . 
The mere fact that some of them were made at all shows 
ignorance or t houghtlessness , and is in itself sufficient 
proof of the existence of a very real spirit of hostility 
towards them. In fact, the Ashanti is perhaps the most 
abused and least understood man in Africa . 
They have constantly been accused of procrastination 
and a policy of covering up their diplomatic failures with 
excuses and apologies . This charge is to some extent 
true, though in many instances it has been made without 
justification; but there is no possible reason why these 
traits in their character should be set down as a special 
and distinctive Ashanti attribute. They are common to 
Africans generally; and if they have been specially notice-
able in the Ashantis, it is only because the frequ ent im-
portance of the Government's relations with them and 
their own independence of character and national pride 
have combined to bring them into greater prominence . 
No ordinary African appreciates the value of time; his 
1 Gold Coast Leader, 7th of December 1907. 
r86 THE ASHANTIS 
1700 diplomacy, as that of other people, often takes the form of 
CHAP. x deceit; and he is ever ready with an abundance of excuses 
and apologies. This has probably led to the Ashantis 
being suspected of making ingenious excuses on some 
occasions when they were in reality perfectly serious; 
but if this is not so, then the greater plausibility of their 
statements merely proves their superiority in skill and 
brain power over the other tribes. 
Other and more serious charges against thetn are that 
they are treacherous, bloodthirsty, and guilty of the most 
wanton and inhuman cruelty. The charge of treachery 
is absolutely unjustifiable. The Ashanti is naturally brave 
and, for a savage, chivalrous; and no really brave man 
is ever treacherous. An occasional blackguard may of 
course be found; but to quote his misdeeds as characteristic 
of the race is ridiculous and unjust. They have always 
shown themselves brave and honourable in war beyond 
anything that might have been expected of a barbarous 
race little more advanced than the ancient Britons of 
two thousand years or more ago, and they will easily bear 
comparison in this respect with some other races of modern 
times boasting of a far higher civilization. 
Never have they been known to fire upon a flag of truce 
nor to murder an ambassador, and their boast that they 
never take up arms until they have first tried diplomacy 
has been repeatedly justified. The worst that could 
truthfully be said of them in this connection is that their 
unbounded ambition may sometimes have led them to 
seek a pretext for a dispute that might have been avoided . 
There are few powerful nations, however, against whom 
this charge could not be substantiated. Meredith, in his 
description of the sending of a flag of truce into the Ashanti 
camp after the attack on Anamabo Fort in r 807, writes : 
" Here we cannot forbear remarking, that although the 
Ashantees are so remote from polished or civilized nations, 
they seem not to be unacquainted with the customs of a 
civilized people, as they are connected with the rules of 
war: for they paid every respect to the flag of truce." 1 
1 Meredith, p. 148. 
TESTIMONY OF EUROPEANS 187 
On the other hand, he says that the Commandant and 1700 
a nother gentleman" not in the service" had, only a day CHAP. x 
or two before, had to escort the Ashanti bearers of a 
similar flag nearly to their camp, because" private in-
formation was received that the flag of truce would be 
v iola t ed in its return, and the men murdered ." 1 In 
speaking of their trade and intercourse with the Accras 
and the improving effect that it had upon that people, he 
say s : "The Ashantees are evidently better acquainted 
with the rules of decency and morality than any people 
we know of in this country." 2 
Mr . J ames Swanzy, too, in his evidence before the 
Committee of the House of Commons in 1816, said, " It is 
a singular thing that these people, the Ashantees, who had 
n ever seen a white man, nor the sea, were the most civil 
and well-bred people that I have seen in Africa. It is 
astonishing to see men , with such few opportunities , so 
well behaved ." 3 
Dupuis, again , who visited the Ashanti capital as 
B ritish Consul in 1820, says of them: "The Ashantees, of 
a ll ranks, are thus loyal and zealous .. . and the king 
t akes p leasure in recounting his forbearance, and describing 
t he aggravation that roused the vengeance of his ancestors 
and h imself, against those federal powers which, in an 
earlier age , were independent little kingdoms, and now 
submit to the yoke of government as provinces of the 
empire. The king . . . took particular pains to ingraft an 
impression upon my mind that it was a maxim associated 
with the religion he professed never to appeal to the sword 
while a p ath lay open for negotiation . He maintained 
that he would defy even his enemies to prove that his 
"ssertion deviated from the truth, either as regarded 
himself or his ancestors . Be this as it m ay, the Moslems 
themselves corroborate the assertion, although they accuse 
th e government of unbounded ambition . . . . It is worthy of 
remark, that many of the whites upon the Gold Coast so 
far acquiesced in these sentiments as to admit that 
1 Meredit h, p . 138. 2 Ibid ., p. 190. 
3 Parliamentary Paper, No. 506, 20th of J une 1816, p . 32 . 
188 THE ASHANTIS 
1700 Ashantee has never been engaged in war with the maritime 
CHAP. X States from sheer caprice and rapacity . I may also be 
permitted to quote Mr. Mollan's words to me, I that he 
n ever knew the king to make a palaver without cause, 
or v iolate his word .' " 1 
T he charge of cruelty stands on a different footing. 
Many of their customs are undeniably cruel; but this 
cruelty is dependent not so much upon any innate 
bloodthirstiness, as upon the stage of civ ilization in which 
they are . Their principal atrocities have always been 
carried out in pursuance of their religious beliefs and 
practised on criminals or prisoners of war. 
The religion of the African 2 has b een evolved in his 
environment by a natura l process, and is an attempt to 
account for those phenomena of his daily life tha t he is 
unable t o understand or explain . Beliefs of this kind , 
b eing n aturally adjusted to the surroundings and in-
tellectual powers of those who hold them, and providing, 
to their minds at any rate, the most plausible explanations 
of otherwise unaccountable fact s, form a v ery real part of 
the daily lives of the p eople, influence their habits and 
customs, and are clung to and gone back to with a tenacity 
and persist ence that it is difficult for people whose daily 
lives and religion are often things apart to understand. 
The religion of the African is , in fact, the religion natural 
to a man in his stage of evolution, and he is probably 
incapable of grasping any more abstract and, to him, less 
reasonable theory. 
A very large proportion of the so-called human sacrifices 
that are always adduced as evidence in support of this 
charge were really nothing more than public executions 
of criminals who, after condemnation, had been reserved 
until victims were required for some religious ceremony in 
1 Dupuis, p . 225. 
2 " The Fetishism, Ancestor-worship . .. of primitive savages are 
all, I believe, different manners of expression of their belief in ghosts and 
of the anthropomorphic interpretation of out-of-the-way events .... 
Witchcraft and sorcery . . . stand in the same relation to religious 
worship as the simple anthropomorphism of ... savages does to 
theology." (Huxley, The Scientific Aspects of Positivism.) 
THE CHARGE OF CRUELTY J 89 
which the sacrifice of human life was considered essential. 1700 
It is true that they were not all murderers; but it must not CHAP. x 
be forgotten that it is only within comparatively recent 
times that the death penalty has been reserved for cases 
of wilful homicide even in England . Formerly, and at a 
time too when the English were infinitely more civilized 
than the Ashantis , men and women were hanged or burned 
almost daily for offences that would now be considered 
triviaU 
The judgment of a primitive race from a civilized 
standpoint is absurd; yet it is common enough . The 
sufferings of those unhappy wretches who were stretched 
upon the rack , broken on the wheel, or otherwise tortured, 
must hav e been fully as great, if not indeed greater, than 
those of any victim in Ashanti : and these were commonly 
inflicted punishments . The higher race, indeed, would 
seem to have used its greater knowledge only to devise 
more ingeniously cruel tortures . 
I t has been estimated that between the years 1170 
and 1783 at least 50,000 persons suffered death at Tyburn 
alone, and were, moreover , tortured beforehand by being 
drawn or flogged at the cart's tail from Newgate. W hen 
the place of execution was moved there, ten men were 
hanged together on the first occasion and twenty on the 
second, of whom five had been condemned for robbing a 
man of something valued at threepence , some nails, a 
knife valued at a penny, two shillings and a counterfeit 
halfpenny. Men were branded on the cheek for clipping 
coin, and on a single morning in 1695 seven men were 
hanged and a woman burned for this offence. Another 
woman was burnt alive at N ewgate in 1751 , and the punish-
ment appears to have been quite a common one for several 
years later. In 1767 Anne Sowerby was burnt at York 
for poisoning her husband, and it was not until the 18th of 
March 1789 that the last woman was burned in England 
for coining, several men being hanged on the same morning 
:"Jr coining, robbery and burglary ." 
1 Vide also p. 437. 
2 Gentleman's Magazine, vol. !ix, part i, p. 272. 
THE ASHANTIS 
1700 Nor do the tastes of the English people at this time 
CHAP. x appear to have been any better than those so freely con-
demned in the Ashantis; for it is notorious that so long 
as executions were carried out in public, they never failed 
to draw enormous crowds, who conducted themselves in 
the most disorderly manner and thoroughly enjoyed the 
spectacle. Macaulay, writing of the condition of England 
in the seventeenth century, says: "The implacability of 
hostile factions was such as we can scarcely conceive. 
Whigs were disposed to murmur because Stafford was 
suffered to die without seeing his bowels burned before 
his face. Tories reviled and insulted RusseH as his coach 
passed from the Tower to the scaffold in Lincoln's Inn 
Fields. As little mercy was shown by the populace to 
sufferers of a humbler rank. If an offender was put into 
the pillory, it was well if he escaped with life from the 
shower of brickbats and paving-stones. If he was tied 
to the cart's tail, th e crowd pressed round him, imploring 
the hangman to give it the fellow well, and make him howl. 
Gentlemen arranged parties of pleasure to Bridewell on 
court days, for the purpose of seeing the wretched women 
who beat hemp there whipped. A man pressed to death 
for refusing to plead, a woman burned for coining, excited 
less sympathy than is now felt for a galled horse or an 
overdriven ox .... Multitudes assembled to see gladiators 
hack each other to pieces with deadly weapons, and shouted 
with delight when one of the combatants lost a finger or 
an eye .... But on all this misery society looked with 
profound indifference." 1 With such a record in England 
itself, it is needless to particularize regarding the habits of 
the Fantis and other Coast tribes, which, however, were 
fully as bad as those of the Ashantis for very many years 
after the settlement of Europeans amongst them. 
The hostility that has been shown towards the Ashantis 
by the English was not of the former's seeking . They 
were always favourably disposed towards the Europeans 
and anxious to remain on friendly terms with them. 
Indeed it is ridiculous to suppose that they could have felt 
1 Macaulay, History ot England (r849), vol. i, p. 424. 
CAUSE OF HOSTILITY 19 1 
otherwise; for they knew that it was their presence on 1700 
the Coast that provided them with a profitable outlet for CHAP. x 
their gold and slaves and furnished them with the means 
of procuring such manufactured articles as they had 
learned to appreciate. The real cause of the subsequent 
troubles is to be sought , not in the hostility of the Ashantis, 
but in the jealousy and insolence of the Fantis, who, 
relying on the assistance and protection of the English, 
tried to keep all these good things to themselves and 
monopolize the whole trade . By so doing, as well as by 
doing it in the most objectionable manner possible, they 
left the Ashantis no alternative but to attack them. The 
English then threw in their lot with the Coast tribes instead 
of forming an independent alliance for t rade with their 
enemies, and in trying to defend them from the conse-
quences of their conduct, themselves became involved in 
the quarrel. 
CHAPTER XI 
THE EARLY HISTORY OF ASHANTI . 
1700 TO 1731 
1700-1731 IT is not known exactly when the Ashanti kingdom was 
CHAP . XI first founded, and the law which makes any mention of 
the death of a King a capital offence has conduced to t he 
loss of much of its earliest history. From the traditions 
that are now current it appears, however, that after the 
flight of the Akans from the districts that they had formerly 
occupied and the migration of the Fantis to the coast, 
the Ashantis remained and settled in the northern portions 
of the forest country, where they established several minor 
kingdoms or principalities, which, though united by a 
common interest, were nevertheless independent of each 
other. By 1640 this confederacy had acquired considerable 
influence and was esteemed a powerful kingdom. With 
its allies, it was able to put an army of about 60,000 men 
in the field. They were armed principally with bows and 
arrows, and their valour and determination in battle soon 
gave their neighbours good reason to fear them. The 
seat of government is said to have been established some-
times at Chichiweri, at others at Bekwai or Dompoasi ; 
but of their earliest rulers or wars nothing definite is now 
known, although several vague traditions exist. 
These traditions point to the Ashanti's first home having 
been somewhere in the neighbourhood of the Adansi 
country-the" Ananse " of Bosman. The first King whose 
name has been handed down is Chu Mientwi, who was 
succeeded by Kobina Amamfi. He is said to have reigned 
from about 1600 to 1630. Gold was unknown during his 
192 
EARLY KINGS 193 
reign, iron being used as currency. It IS probable that 1700-1781 
there were at least two other Kings before him; 1 for when CHAP. XI 
the missionaries Ramseyer and Kuhne were prisoners in 
Kumasi they say that there were the" chairs" of fourteen 
former Kings in the Royal Mausoleum at Bantama. This 
was during the reign of Kofi Karikari, and if Kobina 
Amamfi was the first King there would only have been 
twelve deceased Kings at this time instead of fourteen . 
Although other members of the royal family were buried 
at Bantama, they were not placed in the Kings' building . 
Kobina Amamfi was succeeded by Oti Akentin, who in 
turn was followed in about 1663 by Obiri Yeboa Manu . 
During °his reign the Ashantis are said to have moved 
farther north and built Kumasi. Ja bin was founded soon 
afterwards, and other Chiefs built Insuta and Mampon; 
but the Bekwais remained where they were in the south 
in order to protect the kingdom from the encroachments 
of the Denkeras. 
Denkera was presumably founded at about the same 
time as Ashanti, but though there are traditions of wars 
with Sefwi and other States during the reign of its third 
King Awusu Bori, nothing is really known of its early 
history beyond the fact that it was undoubtedly a powerful 
state. Obiri Yeboa 's nephew and heir, Tutu, was sent to 
the Denkera court, where he acted as a shield-bearer; b ut 
while there he intrigued with the King's sister, who bore 
him a son, Intim, and was therefore compelled to fly first 
to Ashanti and afterwards to Akwamu . On the death of 
Obiri Yeboa in about 1697 , he was recalled to succeed him 
as King, and it was during his reign that the Ashanti stool 
or throne was made. 
Soon after his accession, Osai Tutu removed the seat 
of government to Kumasi. His cousin Buatin at the same 
time succeeded to t he kingdom of J abin, and the two then 
entered into an alliance by which everything was sacrificed 
to the main objects of securing their independence and 
increasing their power . They made war in common and 
shared the spoi ls equally . 
1 Chu Mientwi and his predecessor. 
1-13 
194 THE EARLY HISTORY OF ASHANTI 
1700-1731 According to another account, it was Tutu who led the 
CHAP. XI Ashantis in their migration to their new country and 
was then given ·the stool and founded Kumasi; but the 
version already given is probably the correct one; for 
apart from the uncertain traditions of former Kings and 
the alleged existence of the Royal Mausoleum at Bantama 
during his reign, it is known that avery large army was 
soon afterwards led against Denkera, which was itself a 
powerful kingdom, and it is hardly conceivable that the 
Ashantis could have been in a position to make war on 
such a scale if the kingdom had only just been founded 
and they had had but a few years in which to establish 
themselves. 
Be this as it may, there can be little doubt that it was 
under Osai Tutu that the real power of Ashanti was 
founded. The truth probably is that there had hitherto 
been numerous small kingdoms or family settlements which 
were now amalgamated into the two new monarchies, and 
that Kumasi, instead of being founded at this time, was 
already in existence as an important provincial town, and 
was now merely enlarged and constituted the capital. 
Whether or not Kumasi was ever tributary to Denkera or 
Jabin is doubtful; accounts differ, but the majority 
maintain that it has always been independent. 
The power of Ashanti was first heard of by Europeans 
on the outbreak of war with Denkera in 1699 or 1700. 
Dupuis gives the date as 1719, partly from information 
received from the Mahomedans in Kumasi and partly from 
the date of Bosman's work . This, however, was the second 
English edition of Bosman, published in 1721. The original 
Dutch edition was published in Utrecht in 1704, and the 
first English and French translations appeared in 1705. 
The book consists of a series of letters, the first of which 
begins, " Sir, Your agreeable of September 1s t 1700 was 
seasonably handed to me by Capt. N. N.," 1 while the last 
or twenty-second letter is dated " Jan. 2nd 1702." 2 It 
is in the sixth letter that Bosman gives his account of this 
war, which he says took place" about the beginning of 
1 Bosman, p. I. 2 Ibid., p. 493. 
ASHANTI-DENKERA WAR 195 
this year ," from which it is evident that the correct date 1700-1781 
must be between 1699 and 1701 . Dupuis probably took CHAP. XI 
this date as his fixed point in determining those of the 
other events in Ashanti history with which he deals, so 
that the error is perpetuated in them also. 
Accounts differ as to the cause of this war. Some 
say that Kumasi was at this time tributary to Denkera, an 
allegation that is indignantly denied by the Ashantis, but 
which receives some support from the fact that Osai Tutu 
had been a shield-bearer at the Denkera court. But the 
tact that the King of Denkera offered to pay a heavy fine 
in order to avoid war seems to negative this view, or at 
least to indicate that he was well aware that Ashanti, if 
really tributary to him, could at any moment assert its 
independence. Others say that Intim Dakari, the King of 
Denkera, sent messengers to Kumasi with an insolent 
demand, requesting, amongst other things, that a large 
brass pan that they had brought with them should be filled 
with gold and that several of Tutu's favourite wives should 
be sent to him. Those who allege that Ashanti was 
tributary to Denkera at this time say that this was the 
annual demand for tribute, which was now for the first 
time withheld . The pan at any rate was kept as a trophy 
in the market-place of Kumasi, and a pebble was afterwards 
placed in it every time the Ashantis went to war. 
Bosman, who was on the Coast and wrote of these 
events at the time, gives the following account of the 
events that led up to this war. Bosianti, the King of 
Denkera, had sent some of his wives to Kumasi to con-
gratulate his former shield-bearer Tutu on his accession. 
Tutu received and entertained them well, and then sent 
them back to Bosianti with his thanks and a number of 
valuable presents . Soon afterwards, Tutu returned the 
compliment by sending several of his wives to Bosianti 
with a friendly message . On reaching Denkera, they were 
received and treated as persons of importance and given 
.aany presents; "but the King cast a wanton Eye upon 
one of them, and hurried on by exorbitant Lust, gratified 
his brutal Desire; After satiating of which, he suffer'd 
196 THE EARLY HISTORY OF ASHANTI 
1700-1731 her together with the rest to return to their Country and 
CHAP. XI their injured Husband, who was informed of this Affront ." 1 
Tutu promptly sent to tell Bosianti that he was deter-
mined to wash out the scandal in his blood and made 
immediate preparations for war, collecting his army and 
importing large quantities of powder from the coast, 
which the Denkeras very foolishly allowed to be carried 
through their country. Bosianti, now thoroughly alarmed, 
offered a large sum in gold as compensation, but Tutu 
turned a deaf ear to these overtures for a peaceful settle-
ment and went steadily on with his preparations. 
The question has been raised whether the pretext for 
this war was a genuine one . Accusations of this kind 
are by no means uncommon on the Gold Coast and in 
Ashanti, and have frequently been used as excuses for a 
quarrel, or, more commonly, for levying blackmail. Some 
unscrupulous persons have even been known to keep good-
looking wives with the sole object of inducing men to 
commit themselves or of inveigling perfectly innocent 
people into compromising positions with them, in order 
to bring these remunerative accusations against them 
later. Mockler-Ferryman even goes so far as to suggest 
that Bosianti sent his first embassy with this object, but 
that Tutu saw through his design and returned the com-
pliment, when Bosianti fell into his own trap. Whether 
the charge was genuine or not it is now impossible to 
determine, but the offer of a large sum in compensation 
and its refusal by Tutu seems opposed to the theory that 
it was entirely without foundation . 
Such are the accounts given of the actual exciting 
causes of this war. But another important element in its 
production was the arrival of Europeans on the Coast. 
Hitherto the right of way to the sea had been of no special 
value; but on the arrival of traders in ships loaded with 
powder, guns and other merchandize dear to the heart of 
the African, it at once became a source of wealth and free 
access to it' a matter of paramount importance. 
Before Tutu's preparations were. completed Bosianti 
1 Bosman, p. 75. 
DEFEAT OF DENKERA 197 
died and was succeeded by Intim Dakari, who, as has 1700-1781 
already been mentioned, "is said to have been Tutu's son. CHAP. XI 
The change of rule'rs, however, in no way altered his 
purpose to exterminate the Denkeras. So soon as he was 
ready, therefore, he invaded their country with a great 
army, and, defeating them in the first engagement, turned 
this defeat into an absolute rout by a second battle soon 
afterwards .1 The Akims, who had fought on the side of 
the Denkeras, are said to have lost 30,000 men and one 
of their principal chiefs, while the total death-roll for the 
two actions is given as over 100,000.2 These figures, like 
others derived from native reports, are quite unreliable, 
but the slaughter was undoubtedly very great. Other 
allies of the Denkeras were Wassaw, Sefwi-Bekwai and 
Sefwi-Awiasu. Fifteen days were occupied by the Ashanti 
army in collecting and removing the plunder, which was 
of enormous value. The body of the deceased Bosianti 
was exhumed, the flesh removed from the bones and thrown 
to serpents, and the skull and thigh-bones carried off as 
trophies. Intim Dakari, whose prosperity was of im-
portance to the Dutch at Elmina, who obtained large 
quantities of gold and numbers of slaves from his country, 
had been assisted in this struggle by the loan of three 
small cannon . Whether or not this artillery played any 
part in either of the battles is unknown; but the guns 
now fell into the hands of the Ashantis, who carried them 
to Kumasi, where they were set up as trophies, and stood, 
until quite recently,' in an open space near the King's palace, 
which was known as " The Place of Cannon." 
In this war the Ashantis made yet another capture, 
and one that was destined to play an important part in 
later history. This was a " Note" or agreement fo"r the 
payment of a monthly sum by the Dutch at Elmina as 
ground-rent for the land on which their forts stood. It 
held originally been made payable to the Chief of Elmina, 
1 Bo~nlan. 
2 According to the Ashantis, Intim Dakari was t aken prisoner and 
. eheaded. He was succeeded by Boadu Akufu, who was also put to 
death later. 
3 Two are now outside the Officers' Mess in Kumasi . 
198 THE EARLY HISTORY OF ASHANTI 
1700-1781 but had subsequently fallen into the hands of tl;le Komendas, 
CHAP. XI from whom it passed to the King of Denkera, who had since 
received regular payment. The King of Ashanti now 
claimed it QY right of conquest, and, as the Dutch were 
quite indifferent who received the money, it was thence-
forth paid to him. This arrangement naturally implied 
an admission on the part of the Dutch that the Ashantis 
had a right to the ground on which their castle stood, and, 
although it could not be foreseen at the time, this admission 
became of great importance in later years and gave rise 
to a great deal of trouble. This payment of ground-rent 
to the chiefs or headmen of the towns in which forts were 
built was a general practice all along the Coast. 
Before this disaster overtook them, the Denkeras had 
been the richest and most powerful of all the tribes near 
the coast and a constant menace to the safety and in-
dependence of their neighbours, who had, therefore , been 
only too pleased to see the Ashantis attack them and 
rejoiced at their overthrow. The Akims alone seem to 
have realized that it might be to the interest of the coast 
tribes to keep so powerful and ambitious a nation as the 
Ashantis from extending their kingdom farther south. 
They had, therefore , gone to the support of the Denkeras, 
and not only shared their losses, but now brought down 
upon themselves the wrath of the conquerors also. The 
Ashantis at once invaded Akim, and gained such a decisive 
victory soon after crossing the border that the Akims sued 
for peace. This was granted on condition that Akim 
became feudatory to Ashanti and paid 2,000 bendas of 
gold (equivalent t o £16,000 currency or £14.400 sterling) 
as a war indemnity. Two Akim chiefs, Kakramsi and 
Ajumako, "took fetish" and were handed over to the 
Ashantis as security for this sum before the army withdrew 
to Kumasi. 
The conditions of this peace, however, were never 
observed. Some say that the King of Akim tried to evade 
payment of the indemnity ; others that his principal chiefs 
refused to agree to the terms or to pay their share, threaten-
ing to destool him if he did not again lead them against 
DEATH OF OSAI TUTU 199 
their conquerors. However this may be, no payment was 1700-1731 
ever made, and after a reasonable delay, Osai Tutu raised CHAP. Xl 
another army and sent it against the Akims, while he 
himself went to the mausoleum at Bantama to perform 
the necessary ceremonies and invoke the aid of the gods for 
the success of his arms. These rites completed, he followed 
in t he wake of his army, accompanied by all his principal 
chiefs and a bodyguard. The party amounted in all to 
two or three hundred persons, amongst whom were about 
sixty women and children . 
T he Akims found themselves quite unable to resist 
the advance of the main Ashanti army; but having gained 
news of the King's movements, sent a strong detachment 
through the forest, and after allowing the army to pass 
them, lay in ambush on the banks of the River Pra to await 
the arrival of the King and his staff, whom they greatly 
outnumbered. When the royal party began to c'ross the 
ford, t hey opened fire on it and wounded the King in the 
side at the very first volley. Springing from his litter, 
Tutu was in the act of rallying his men when he received a 
second wound and fell forward dead. His body fell into 
the riv er, from which it was never recovered. The death 
of t heir King produced such consternation among the small 
party of Ashantis that they broke and fled, and the enemy, 
falling upon them, slaughtered them to a man . 
The Ashantis thus lost at one blow, not only their King, 
but almost the whole of their nobility. The attacking 
force had slept the previous night in Akromanti, a small 
village near the ford, and the disaster, which occurred on 
a Saturday , is commemorated by the Ashanti oath" Akro-
manti Miminda " (Akromanti Saturday) . That day of the 
week has ever since been regarded as an unlucky day, 
upon which no Ashanti would commence any journey or 
enterprise, however trivial. The oath itself is considered 
the most solemn and weighty that it is possible to use. 
It is comparatively seldom referred to directly, but rather 
implied by the use of some oblique phrase such as " that 
great oath," " the dreadful day" or" the day of the gods' 
pumshment ." Even then it is usually mentioned in a 
200 THE EARLY HISTORY OF ASHANTI 
1700-1731 whisper. According to Reindorf, the disaster at the Pra 
CHAP . XI occurred on a Monday, and is commemorated by the first 
half of this oath only. The complete oath, according to 
him, unites two oaths; for he says the second half refers 
to the death of Osai Bonsu (Tutu Kwamina). There 
are valid reasons, however, for asserting that this ex-
planation is incorrect and that that already given is the 
true one. 
After the King's death, the main army returned to 
Kumasi, bringing many prisoners to be sacrificed at his 
funeral custom. A terrible vengeance was wreaked on 
Akromanti, which was burned to the ground and every 
living thing in it, even to the sheep and fowls, killed. 
Tutu, besides conquering Denkera and Tufel, had also 
subdued Kwahu and Assin and a large tract of country 
beyond the River Tano. He was succeeded in 1731 by 
his younger brother Opoku Wari. 
While these events had been happening in Ashanti, 
several others had occurred on the coast. On Sunday 
the 4th of September 170 I the Anamabos rose against the 
English. Great numbers of them came down to the fort 
and succeeded in breaking open the outer spur-gate, and, 
having set fire to the outbuildings and corn-room, directed 
a heavy fusillade against the fort itself. They were unable 
to withstand the fire of the guns, however, and were at 
length driven off. During the night the English retaliated 
by setting fire to the town, which was almost entirely 
destroyed. This little war lasted for twenty-two days , and 
the Factor and some of his men were so roughly handled 
that they fled to Cape Coast in nothing but their shirts. 
Finally the King of Saboe, at the request of the Anamabos, 
undertook to act as mediator, and a truce was agreed to by 
which the Anamabos guaranteed to make good the damage 
they had done to the fort, and gave hostages for its due 
performance. The Dutch were freely accused of having 
assisted the people in this affair by supplying them with 
powder, but whether they had really done so or not is not 
very clear. Peace had not long been restored when the 
Anamabos began to be as troublesome and turbulent as 
FORT JOINVILLE 201 
ever, being encouraged in their outbreaks by the captains 1700-1731 
of some of the ten-per-cent ships. CHAP. Xl 
In June 1701 Father Godfrey Loyer, a Jacobine of 
Rennes in Brittany, arrived at Assini, where a mission had 
been established as early as December 1687 by Father 
Gonsalvez ; but the Father left in charge by him had died 
a few years later and the place had since been neglected . 
Loyer, on his arrival, chose a site on a narrow peninsula 
on the east bank of the River Tano, and, having entered 
into an alliance with the local Chief, built a small fort 1 
there. It was a very insignificant place, composed of a 
curtain and two half-bastions terraced with earth on the 
inside. It was built of palisades about ten or twelve 
feet high and had no ditch. Each bastion mounted four 
three-pounder guns and a few patereros. Behind these 
frail defences there were a few huts used as quarters and 
some very small storehouses for the goods and provisions. 
The ships, after landing a few men to garrison the place 
and a very scanty supply of ammunition and provisions, 
returned to France, promising to bring out further supplies 
within eight or t en months. This promise, however, was 
never fulfilled, and the Settlement was forgotten for Jour 
years, so that the garrison was soon reduced to great 
straits, and the news of its weakness, combined with the 
fear that the French might gain too much ascendancy over 
the people, then brought the Dutch down from Elmina to 
attack them . 
William de la Palma, the Dutch Director-General, having 
first made an unsuccessful attempt to induce the Assinis 
to desert the French, or at any rate to remain neutral, 
sailed for the place with four ships. The fleet anchored 
three leagues away on the 4th of November 1702, and, 
on the following day, one ship flying French colours stood 
m and anchored close to the fort, which she saluted with 
three guns. This salute was repeated at intervals through-
out the day, but without eliciting any response from the 
rrarrison. On the fourth salute, however, the fort fired 
one gun and hoisted the French flag to oblige the vessel, if 
1 This fort-in later years at any rate-was known as Fort J oinville . 
202 THE EARLY HISTORY OF ASHANTI 
1700-1731 she were really French, to send a boat ashore; and the 
CH AP. XI Dutchman, finding further concealment impossible, at 
once rejoined the squadron . In the meantime, the Governor 
had been renewing his efforts to corrupt the Assinis, who, 
however, had been told by the French that they expected 
eight or nine ships very shortly and therefore stood firm . 
Their obstinacy so exasperated the Dutch that they poured 
a few broadsides into them, and the whole fleet then sailed 
down and anchored off the fort on the afternoon of the 
11th . 
The Assinis now went to the French, advising them to 
defend themselves vigorously With their guns and leave 
the rest to them, as they would undertake to prevent the 
landing of any Dutch troops. At eight o'clock on the 
morning of the 13th, the Dutch moved still closer in and 
the fort opened fire on them. The French did enormous 
damage to the Dutch ships, and the flagship soon had to 
draw out of the line to effect repairs; but they were so 
short of ammunition and supplies of all kinds that they 
had very little hope of ultimate success: in fact, they were 
already reduced to their last two barrels of powder, which 
they decided to reserve for use with their small arms. 
In the meantime, the ships had kept up an incessant fire 
on the fort with crossbar-shot, firing over a thousand 
rounds, but had done very little damage. At two o'clock, 
however, one of these shots knocked over a hive of bees 
in the fort, and the infuriated insects at once brought about 
more than all the Dutch bombardment had been able to 
effect and compelled the garrison to quit the place . The 
Dutch, seeing them run out, concluded that they were 
abandoning it and sent -six canoes ashore to land fifty 
men. But the French, in the meantime, had re-entered 
the fort through one of the embrasures towards the river 
where they could not be seen by the enemy, and no sooner 
had the Dutch landed than they were furiously attacked 
by the Assinis, who had been lying concealed behind some 
bushes . Nine of the Dutch fled to the fort crying for 
quarter, two more were taken prisoners, and the whole 
of the remainder, including the officer in command, were 
FRENCH BOMBARD CAPE COAST 203 
killed. After this disaster the Governor gave up all hope 1700-1731 
of taking the place and returned to Elmina. On reaching CHAP. Xl 
Axim on the 14th he sent back a letter to treat for the 
release of the prisoners, and, after some negotiation, a 
peace was arranged; but the final settlement of its terms 
had to be left in the hands of the Assinis, who were much 
afraid the French might make some independent agree-
ment. ' In June 1704 a French man-of-war arrived to take 
off the garrison , and the fort was then abandoned. 
In 1703 three fifty-gun ships belonging to the French 
Assiento Company, one of which, the Medenblick, was a 
Dutch man-of-war they had captured, came to trade 
in the neighbourhood of Cape Coast; but finding the people 
would not come off to them for fear of the English, they 
anchored their ships in line within close range of the castle 
and began to bombard it. The English replied with a 
spirited fire from the sea battery and towers, but within 
an hour they had been driven from their guns and forced to 
show a flag of truce. They then had to agree to allow the 
townspeople and all others in the neighbourhood to trade 
freely with the French, who obtained large quantities of 
gold and slaves before they left.l 
The Brandenburg trade had now dwindled to nothing, 
and their officers were on such bad terms with the people, 
who had recently murdered one of their Governors, that 
there seemed little prospect of its recovery. They there-
fore determined to abandon their Possessions, and on the 
28th of March 1708 the English Governor, Sir Dalby 
Thomas, wrote to inform the African Company that he 
had heard the Portuguese had made an offer of £40,000 
for their forts . This he thought was far too much to pay 
for any place on the Coast, and gave it as his opinion that 
even if the sale were completed, the Portuguese would 
lose the whole of their money, as the Dutch would certainly 
take the place from them. The negotiations, however, 
appear to have fallen through, for the Brandenburgers 
soon afterwards abandoned their forts and left the Gold 
Coast for ever. Groot Fredericksburg then came into the 
1 Barbot, p. 445. 
204 THE EARLY HISTORY OF ASHANTI 
1700-1731 possession of John Conny, the local Chief, whose village lay 
CHA P. Xl about three miles to westward of the fort, and he then 
carried on such little trade as the place still afforded and 
used to charge all ships that called to water there an 
ounce of gold for the privilege. It is uncertain whether, as 
some allege, the Brandenburgers merely vacated the fort 
and John Conny then appropriated it, or whether they 
actually handed it over to him, as he himself averred. 
Probably the true facts of the case were that the Branden-
burgers , having failed to effect a sale before they left, 
installed the Chief as caretaker . pending further negotia-
tions; for it is hardly likely that, if they had already had 
offers for the place, they would have been ready to abandon 
all claim to it, and when they themselves vacated it there 
would have b een no one else in whose charge they could 
so conveniently have left it. 
As Sir Dalby Thomas had foreseen, it was not long 
before the Dutch began scheming to gain possession of this 
fort. In 1720 Governor Bullier of Elmina collected what 
men he could spare from his garrison and, sailing down in 
three ships, anchored off Groot Fredericksburg, which he 
claimed on the ground that the Dutch had purchased it 
from its former owners. There is little doubt that this 
assertion had no foundation in fact : John Conny, at any 
rate, did not believe it, and refused to surrender the place. 
He challenged the Dutch to produce the deed of sale, and 
added that the Brandenburgers could at most only have 
sold the guns and the materials of which the fort was built, 
for the ground on which it stood was not theirs to dispose 
of, but belonged to him; that during the time of their 
occupation they had always paid him rent for it, and that 
he was not prepared to renew the lease to any other nation . 
This answer so disappointed and enraged the Dutch that 
they landed a party of forty men under a lieutenant to 
take the place by force. They fired one volley without 
doing any damage, and were then furiously attacked by 
the Chief and his men, who charged down upon them from 
behind the houses and cut the whole party to pieces. The 
heads of the Dutchmen were afterwards cut off, and John 
JOHN CONNY 205 
paved a little pathway leading to the door of his house 1700- 1731 
with their skulls, but kept the largest to be mounted in CHAP. Xl 
silver and used as a punch-bowl. According to the 
Chevalier de Marchais, the Dutch had a total of 156 men 
killed and their Governor wounded in this encounter. 
He further says that after they had returned to Elmina, 
Conny offered the place to Captain Morel of the French 
ship Rochefort which happened to be there at the time. 
A treaty was signed and preparations were made to leave 
six men with a French fl ag as a temporary garrison until 
the Settlement could be placed on a proper footing ; but 
as Morel was returning to the ship, his nose began to 
bleed, which he regarded as such a bad omen that the 
project was at once abandoned. 
A year later, on the 7th of June 1721, two English 
men-of-war, the Swallow, Captain Chaloner Ogle, and the 
Weymouth, both fifty-gun ships that had been sent out to 
look for pirates, anchored off the for t and landed a party 
to get fresh water. A man soon arrived with John Conny's 
stick to demand the customary payment of an ounce of 
gold, but this was refused and the messenger himself 
treated with scant courtesy. Next morning John himself 
came down with some of his men and took ten or a dozen 
of the seamen prisoners, while the officer in charge of the 
party got his head broken as he was trying to explain the 
difference between a King's ship and others. John 's 
reply was, " By God, me King here, not only for my water, 
but the trouble has been given me in collecting it .") He 
quite understood, however, that the seamen had to obey 
their orders, and did not blame them, but treated them 
Tf'markably well. In the end the dispute was settled by 
th" payment of six ounces of gold and an anker of brandy 
to the Chief as compensation. John Atkins, a naval sur-
geon who wrote an account of this voyage,z describes how 
he and orne other officers subsequently paid John a visit. 
HI" received his guests on the beach with a guard of honour 
,f twenty or thirty men, and then led the way to his house, 
wlnch had been built from some of the materials of the 
1 Astley, vol. ii, p. 449 . • In Astley's Collection. 
206 THE EARLY HISTORY OF ASHANTI 
1700-1731 fort and contained three good rooms, one of which was 
CHAP . XI used as an armoury, besides courtyards and out-buildings. 
The officers asked John what had become of the Dutch-
men's skulLs, and were told that about a month before 
their ships arrived he had put all malice aside and, packing 
the skulls in a chest with some brandy, tobacco and 
other articles for the use of the spirits, had buried them. 
The jaw-bones, however, were still kept strung on a cord 
hanging from a tree in the courtyard, where they saw them. 
It was not until 1725 that John Conny was finally driven 
out by the Dutch, who then came down with a large force 
and, laying siege to the place, ultimately compelled him to 
fly to Fantin. They renamed it Hollandia Fort . 
About 172 I the English Governor, Mr. Phipps, built a 
circular tower on a hill overlooking Cape Coast and mounted 
it with seven guns. It was surrounded by a dry ditch and 
a palisade. Here a small garrison was kept for the double 
purpose of overawing the inhabitants and defending the 
town in case of need from an inland enemy. Ellis 1 says 
this tower, which for many years was known as Phipps' 
Tower, is identical with that now known as Fort William. 
This, however, is an obvious error, for all the descriptions 
of the place indicate the building now called Fort Victoria. 
Smith/ the surveyor sent out by the African Company of 
Merchants in 1726, says this tower and Fort Royal were 
equidistant (three-quarters of a mile) from the Castle, 
and the plan of Cape Coast 3 that he made, as well as the 
plate 4 in Major Ricketts' account of the Ashanti war of 
1823-24, plainly show Phipps' Tower where Fort Victoria 
stands, on a hill to the north-west of the Castle near the 
lagoon . In a letter dated Sun Court, March 23 1838, 
moreover, the African Committee wrote-" We have to' 
support Cape Coast Castle (Phipps' Tower and King 
William's Tower, keeps of the Castle), with a lighthouse 
on the latter,"5 and Webster's view of Cape Coast published 
1 Ellis , History 0/ the Gold Coast, p. 93. 
2 Astley, vol. ii, p. 602; Smith, p. 127. 
3 Astley, vol. ii, plate 65; Smith, Dra/ts of Guinea, No. 20. 
• Ricketts, p. 96. 
• Parliamentary Paper, West Coast 0/ A/rica (1842). part ii, p. 155· 
AFFAIRS OF THE AFRICAN COMPANY 207 
in October 1806 shows Fort Victoria, but the hill on which 1700-1731 
Fort William now stands has no building on it. This CHAP. XI 
Governor Phipps had endless disputes with the Dutch 
Governor Bullier of Elmina, and is said never to have gone 
beyond the precincts of the Castle. 
The miserable condition of the English garrison at 
this time has already been described. While Atkins was 
at Cape Coast the officer commanding the garrison at-
tempted to escape to England and succeeded in boarding 
a homeward-bound brigantine by night . He was soon 
missed , however, and the ship chased and brought back 
by the Weymouth. Her captain was fined seventy ounces 
of gold and sentenced to a flogging for his share in the 
transaction . 
Ever since the passing of the Act of 1698, by which 
the trade had been made open and a ten per cent ad 
valorem duty imposed on imports, the Company's trade 
had steadily decreased. This Act expired on the 24th of 
June 171 2, but was at once renewed. The duty, however, 
was generally evaded, so that the Company, instead of 
having this money to expend on their forts, had to main-
tain them out of their own profits and found themselves 
quite unable to compete with the private traders, who had 
no local expenses and could therefore easily undersell 
them . The cost of maintaining the forts averaged about 
£20,000 per annum, amounting in fourteen years to 
£280,000. During this period the duties actually paid 
by the private traders only brought in £73,785 105. 6!d., 
and ten per cent on the Company's own imports produced 
£36,387 135. lid. In 1721 the Company was compelled 
tu " raise by subscription £392,400, and in the following 
year made a call of five per cent, allowing the proprietors, 
ns had been accustomed, a dividend of three per cent. In 
December 1723 they exposed to sale two hundred thousand 
pound stock at thirty per cent ." At length, in 1730, 
they petitioned Parliament, and the House of Commons 
passed the following resolutions on the 26th of March of 
that year: first, that the trade to Africa should be free; 
secondly, that the trade should be charged with no duties 
208 THE EARLY HISTORY OF ASHANTI 
1700-1731 for the upkeep of the Company's forts; thirdly, that it 
CHAP. XI was necessary that these forts should be maintained; and 
fourthly, that Parliament should grant an allowance for 
this purpose. This allowance was fixed at £IO,OOO a year, 
and the Company was thus enabled to continue in exis-
tence. 
CHAPTER XII 
THE SECOND ANGLO-DUTCH WAR 
I73I TO I803 
DURING the period of gloom and inaction that Immediately 1731-1803 
followed the death of Osai Tutu, Assin and Denkera, CHAP . xu 
encouraged by the successful resistance that had been 
offered by the Akims, had revolted and joined them, and 
it was Osai Opoku's first care to resubdue these tribes and 
restore the power of Ashanti to its former position . To 
this end Akim was once more invaded and, together with 
Assin, utterly reduced; after which Denkera was also 
reoccupied . With the conquest of Akim some additional 
" Notes " came into the hands of the Ashantis . These 
were the" Notes" for the Accra forts and Christiansborg 
Castle, which had originally been issued to the local Chiefs 
by the English, Dutch and Danes, but had subsequently 
been captured by the Akims. 
Dagomba, Gonja and Brong were next invaded. They 
were defeated in the first engagement, and soon found that , 
in spite of their superior numbers and some slight successes 
ohtained by their cavalry, they were handicapped by want 
of firearms and had no hope of ultimate victory. Their 
tr ade, moreover, was being ruined by the war, and peace was 
therefore made upon these tribes giving an undertaking 
to pay a yearly tribute to Kumasi . In this campaign the 
.\3hanti army first crossed the Volta at Krachi, and, 
having subdued Dagomba and Gonja, recrossed it at 
y oji which at once submitted. Though Prang offered 
some feeble resistance, it was quickly subdued; but when 
DaWla, the King of Attabubu, was sutnmonerl to acknow-
1-14 209 
210 THE SECOND ANGLO-DUTCH WAR 
1781-1808 ledge the suzerainty of Kumasi, he refused, and was killed 
CHAP. XII in the engagement that followed. Jaman, Buromi, Inta 
and Tekiman were soon afterwards reduced. For the 
purpose of the war against Amio the King of Tekiman, 
Opoku entered into an alliance with Bafu Pim the King 
of Inkoranza, which was really a Brong kingdom. This 
alliance was afterwards continued, and the Ashantis thereby 
gained b'y diplomacy what they could otherwise only have 
obtained by force, for, from being an ally, Inkoranza 
gradually became an Ashanti province. 
Opoku now enacted a new code of laws; but as these 
had a tendency to diminish the individual power of the 
Chiefs and to convert the government from an aristocracy 
into a personal despotism, the latter began to intrigue 
against him, and a dangerous conspiracy was quickly 
formed. News of this reached Opoku, who fled by night 
to J abin, where he tried to convene a meeting for the 
discussion and settlement of the dispute . Some of his 
enemies, however, had already taken action and were in 
open armed rebellion, so that he, too, was compelled to 
collect his adherents and oppose force with force. The 
rebels were utterly defeated near Dinkenni, and the King 
then returned to Kumasi, where the friends of those 
conspirators who had escaped the slaughter interceded on 
their behalf and ultimately obtained their pardon . Opoku 
did not long survive these events, but, in 1742, was taken 
suddenly ill while sitting in the Council and expired as his 
attendants were removing him. 
Opoku was succeeded by another brother, Osai Kwesi, 
also known at Kwesi Bodom, whose enstoolment was made 
conditional on the revocation of the obnoxious laws and 
the restoration of the old constitution. Early in his reign 
Akim, Buromi and Kwahu rebelled at the instigation of the 
King of Dahomi, who promised to send an army to their 
support . They mobilized their forces in Kwahu, near the 
Volta, expecting that the Dahomis would soon cross the 
river and join them. Kwesi, however, fell upon and utterly 
defeated them before their preparations were completed 
or their allies had arrived. The Kings of Buromi and 
ASHANTI ROYAL SUCCESSION 2I I 
Kwahu were taken prisoners, and the King of Akim, though 1781-1808 
he escaped at the time, soon found himself hard pressed CHAP. XII 
and blew himself and all his principal Chiefs up with a 
b arrel of gunpowder, together with most of his wives and 
children . 
Kwesi next crossed the Volta to take his revenge on 
the Dahomis for the injury they had done him . Two days 
later, news of the enemy's approach was received in the 
Ashanti camp and a terrible battle ensued, which lasted 
until nightfall without either side being able to claim any 
material advantage; but the next morning, when the 
King wished to renew the conflict, the fetish priests de-
clared the omens were not propitious and the attack was 
therefore postponed. The Dahomis naturally attributed 
the inactivity of the Ashantis to want of resolution, and 
themselves advanced, whereupon Kwesi ordered a precipi-
tate retreat to the Volta, which he recrossed; but, owing 
to the small number of canoes available, a great many 
of his men were still on the opposite bank when the enemy 
came up with them. They were thus compelled to make 
a stand against an immensely superior force and suffered 
very heavy losses. On the arrival of the defeated army 
in Kumasi, enormous numbers of prisoners were sacrificed 
dunng the funeral customs of the fallen Chiefs, and every 
tributary province was called upon to furnish supplies 
of victims . It took the Ashantis some time to recover 
from this disastrous campaign; but an expedition was 
then undertaken against Banda, in which Osai Kwesi 
received a wound which, though he lingered for some 
months, proved fatal in I752. 
The Ashantis, and in fact all the Akan tribes, trace 
t heir descent through the female line . They thus ensure 
the preservation of the blood royal; for it is but seldom 
i hat the King's wives are themselves of the royal family, 
and consequently, should they prove faithless, the strain 
would be entirely lost in their sons, whereas it is of necessity 
~ reserved in the sons of the princesses . Another reason 
that is given by the Ashantis for the existence of this 
rule is that it was essential for so warlike a race to make 
212 THE SECOND ANGLO-DUTCH WAR 
1731-1803 some arrangement whereby the heir to the stool should 
CHAP. XU usually have reached years of discretion. Had the reignin!1 
monarch been killed in battle and the stool descended 
to his son, a long regency might often have been involved ' 
whereas, by adopting a law of succession through th~ 
brothers and nephews, this risk was reduced to a minimum. 
In the absence of a brother therefore, the heir-apparent 
is the King's sister's son or next relative traceable through 
the female line, and on the death of Osai Kwesi his nephew 
Kujo succeeded to the stool. 
Several of the dependent provinces had t:;lken advantage 
of the war with Banda and the subsequent illness and 
death of the King to avoid payment of the customary 
tribute, and Osai Kujo now sent to demand it. They first 
tried to excuse themselves on the ground that the late 
King's death had prevented their receiving a share of any 
plunder that might have been obtained in the war in which 
they had fought under him; but, finding that payment 
would be enforced, the King of Ja man openly revolted and 
was quickly joined by those of Denkera, Wassaw and 
Tufel and by some auxiliary cavalry from Kong and Gofan. 
The struggle that followed taxed the resources of the 
Ashantis to the utmost. Twice the King invaded Ja man, 
only to be driven back with heavy loss. He then returned 
to Kumasi to consult the Fetish; but finding the omens 
still favourable, at once led a third expedition against the 
enemy and gained a complete victory. Great numbers of 
prisoners were brought back to Kumasi, where all the 
principal rebels were sacrificed, but their children and the 
women were spared to make good the heavy losses that 
had been incurred by the army. Those adults who 
escaped sacrifice, and many of the women, were sent to the 
great slave mart at Mansu, where they were sold to the 
coast brokers to be afterwards transported to the West 
Indies. E'xpeditions were then sent to confirm the sub-
jection of Banda, Wassaw, Akim and Akwapim. The 
subjugation of Ja man had laid open all the country beyond 
to the attack of the Ashantis, who might now have pushed 
their frontier forward in this direction for an immense 
REIGN OF OSAI KUjO 21 3 
distance, had the King cared to follow up his victory; but 1781--1803 
he contented himself with merely accepting the oaths of CHAP. XII 
submission of the Chiefs in the immediate neighbourhood, 
and then returned to Kumasi. During this reign a civil 
war broke out between Mampon and jabin, in which the 
latter was defeated. The two Kings were then sent for 
by Osai Kujo, who inquired into the dispute and gave 
judgment in favour of Mampon. Sefwi was also subju-
gat ed at about this time and its King, Buman Kuma (or 
Abirimoro), killed . 
A new king now came to the throne of DallOmi, and, 
seeing the rapid extension of the Ashanti Empire and the 
steady growth of its power, seems to have been afraid 
another attempt might soon be made to avenge the defeat 
of Osai Kwesi. He therefore sent a friendly embassy to 
Kumasi to announce his accession and bear presents and 
a complimentary message to the Ashanti king . These 
ambassadors were well entertained and the compliment 
was soon afterwards returned by the despatch of a similar 
mission to the court at Abomi. According to Cruikshank, 
it was during Kuj o's r eign that the first mention of Ashanti 
occurred in the records at Cape Coast Castle. On the loth 
of july 1765, and again in 1767 and 1772, the Council took 
into consideration the probability of hostilities arising 
between the Ashantis and Fantis, and in 1767 asked for 
men-of-war to be stationed on the Coast until affairs 
became more settled. They feared that if the Ashantis 
proved victorious their Settlements might be endangered, 
while, should the Fantis conquer, it was expected that the 
Company's trade would be ruined . 
Osai Kujo was now getting very old and infirm and 
seldnm left the palace . This gave rise to false reports of 
his death, which encouraged the Assins , Akims and Akwa-
pIms once more to r evolt, and they now sent insulting and 
defiant messages to Kumasi . Kujo sent ordering them 
to keep the peace , but they murdered his messengers and 
'c:risively threatened to march to the capital and place 
one of their women slaves on the stool. She, they said, 
would soon reduce the haughty Ashanti Chiefs to a more 
214 THE SECOND ANGLO-DUTCH WAR 
1781-1803 becoming state of humility and subjection. Great prepara-
CHAP. XII tions were at once made for war; but before they could 
be completed Osai Kujo died in 178 I, and was succeeded 
by his great-nephew Kwamina, who was a mere boy still 
in his teens. 
In the meantime, the annual allowance that had been 
voted by Parliament to the Royal African Company in 
1730 had been regularly paid down to the year 1747, when 
nothing was granted; in 1744 however, it had been 
doubled on account of the wars with France and Spain, 
and the payments had since been regularly made. Al-
though these grants were very insufficient, they and some 
improvement in the trade that followed the French war 
enabled the Company to hold out until 175°, when an Act 
was passed by which the Charter, lands, fo'rts and other 
property of the Royal African Company were surrendered, 
after due compensation,I and vested in a new company 
called the African Company of Merchants. The new 
company continued to receive an allowance of from 
£10,000 to £I 5,000 a year from Parliament for the main-
tenance of its forts, and its membership was open to all 
British merchants on payment of a fee of £z. 
During the Seven Years War, in 1757, the French made 
an unsuccessful attempt to capture Cape Coast Castle. 
The enemy's fleet, which consisted of two ships of the line 
and a large frigate, was commanded by De Kersaint, and 
immediately on its arrival the Governor, Mr. Charles Bell, 
collected about fifty Europeans from the vessels then on 
the Coast to reinforce his garrison, and mounted a few 
extra guns on a temporary battery. The townspeople also 
raised a force of I ,zoo men. When the French fleet opened 
fire, the Castle guns immediately replied, and poured so 
well-directed and steady a fire into the enemy's ships 
that, after an action that only lasted two hours, they were 
driven off and sailed away to the West Indies without 
having been able to do any material damage to the fortress . 
The long continuance of the war, however, prevented the 
usual supplies reaching the Coast, and the garrison would 
1 The payment of its debts, amounting to £r07,262, 
AMONIHIA 21 5 
have been reduced to great straits for provisions had not 1781-1808 
the local Chief, Brempon Kujo, sent them food . In CHAP. XI! 
recognition of this service two silver goblets, suitably 
inscribed, were presented to him after the war and still 
form part of the stool property of Cape Coast. 
About this time the Dutch, who for some years past 
had been trying to establish their authority in Apollonia 
to the exclusion of the English , raised a mixed force of 
Europeans and Africans, and, taking a few guns with them, 
crossed the River Ankobra and invaded the district. They 
were soon met and defeated by the inhabitants under their 
Chief Amoni~1ia, who took their artillery and drove them 
back across the river. Soon afterwards Amonihia, hearing 
that they were preparing to attack him again, invited the 
English to build a fort in his country. They accordingly 
built a small fort at Beyin, thereby securing the whole of 
the Apollonian trade and extending their influence as far 
as the R iver Tano. 
This Amonihia was a man of great courage and deter-
mination , though inclined to be boastful and tyrannical. 
I t is recorded of him that, being annoyed by the depreda-
tions of a leopard which had evaded every attempt to 
destroy it, he called his Chiefs together and gave orders for 
the bush in which it lay concealed to be surrounded and 
the animal captured and brought to him alive, addmg 
that he was quite prepared to risk the loss of half his 
subjects in order to accomplish his purpose. Strange to 
say, this extraordinary order was promptly carried out; 
and though several persons lost their lives and others 
were badly mauled, the animal was eventually secured 
and dragged before the Chief, who kept it tied to a stake 
in the courtyard of his house, where he was in the habit of 
pointing to it as evidence of his power and supremacy over 
,>verything in his kingdom, even to the wild beasts. 
Amonihia was succeeded by a man named Kwashi, who 
made himself an object of dread and aversion t o all his 
subjects by his despotic rule and many cruelties, though 
when he died in June 1801 he was as much beloved as he 
had at one time been hated. This change was brought 
216 THE SECOND ANGLO-DUTCH WAR 
1781-1808 about in the following manner: three children were born 
CH A P . XJI to him, all of whom were deaf-mutes, which so puzzled him 
that he inquired of everyone what could be the explanation 
of such a misfortune. Finally he was told, after giving 
assurances that he would not be displeased if the real reason 
were made known to him, that the affliction had been 
caused b'y the Fetish as a punishment for his cruel govern-
ment, and that even worse calamities would follow if he 
persisted in his present line of conduct. This alarming 
statement had such an effect on Kwashi that he thereafter 
governed his people in the mildest manner and never 
failed to consult his Chiefs and be guided by them in 
ev ery matter of importance. 
On the death of Kwashi, there was no heir in the direct 
line of succession (brother or nephew), and his eldest son 
Suki was therefore chosen King, but was at once opposed 
by his younger brother Anahoma, who compelled him to 
fly to the forest. Anahoma's adherents, however, deserted 
him soon afterwards and joined the forces under Suki, who 
then advanced against the usurper. Anahoma, finding 
himself without men and unable to make any further 
resistance, threw all his gold and valuables into the lagoon, 
and collecting his wives and family, took them into the 
forest, where he killed all but one son, whom he spared to 
help him in burying the bodies . This done, he committed 
suicide, or, as some say, compelled this son to shoot him. 
Suki afterwards discovered where the bodies were buried 
and caused them to be exhumed and brought down to the 
beach, where they were set up in a long row supported by 
stakes. This ghastly spectacle was left as a warning to 
all rebels until the bodies were finally disintegrated . A 
little later the people, disgusted by the acts of Suki, 
killed him and all Kwashi's children, with the exception of 
two of the deaf-mutes, who still survived but were deemed 
incapable of intriguing to disturb the peace of the kingdom. 
The stool was then given to an old man, who acted as regent. 
On the 20th of December 1780 England declared war 
on Holland, and a few months later, early in 178 I, an un-
successful attempt was made to capture Elmina. The plan 
ENGLISH ATTACK ELMINA 217 
of operations comprised a simultaneous attack by sea and 1781-1808 
land . The ships were to bombard the Castle while the CH AP. XII 
troops stormed Fort Conraadsburg. The naval force 
consisted of H.M.S. Leander, a fifty-gun ship under Captain 
Shirley, and a sloop of war, while the troops were com-
manded by Captain Mackenzie and numbered between 400 
and 500 men, of whom 3 00 were natives and the remainder 
soldiers in the service of the Company of Merchants and 
seamen who had been landed from the warships to assist 
them. The plan failed miserably for want of co-operation 
between the two commanders , which must be attributed 
either to gross lack of judgment or more probably to 
jealousy. Captain Mackenzie received no support whatever 
from the men-of-war while he was making his attack 
on Fort Conraadsburg, and this naturally destroyed his 
chances of success and he was driven back . It was only 
after his defeat that Captain Shirley began to bombard 
the Castle, and was in turn repulsed. The Dutch had a 
decided advantage in being able to devote their whole 
attention to each party singly, though it is doubtful if the 
English force was really strong enough to have captured 
such a fortress as Elmina, even had the original plan been 
carried out. 
But though they were worsted at Elmina, the English 
got the best of the D utch in several other places . In the 
following year, 1782, H .M.S. A rgo arrived on the Coast, and 
thus reinforced, Captain Shirley captured the Dutch forts 
at Mori, Apam, Kormantin and Beraku, all of which were 
very poorly garrisoned and offered but a feeble resis t ance, 
while Governor Mills, assisted by fifty men from the Argo, 
took Fort Vredenburg at Komenda . The ships then sailed 
down to Accra to attack Fort Creve Creur . A determined 
and prolonged resistance was offered by the Dutch Accras, 
while the fort was bombarded by the ships and James Fort . 
In the end the Accras were driven into the bush, but it is 
uncertain whether the fort itself was ever taken. Pre-
sumably it must have fallen after the flight of the Accras , 
and Meredith distinctly states that it was captured. 
Reindorf, on the other hand, says that the garrison had 
218 THE SECOND ANGLO-DUTCH WAR 
1781-1808 b een greatly reduced on account of the war in Europe, 
CHAP. xu and that only the Commandant and a few native soldiers 
remained . Reinforcements from Winneba and other 
places were drafted into British Accra and strongly 
advised the people of the Dutch town to leave the place 
instead of a ttempting to oppose the English. They, how-
ever, were determined to defend the fort, and collected as 
large a force as possible from T eshi, Ningo and other towns, 
while the people of Christiansborg, being Danish subjects, 
had of course to remain neutral. He says that while the 
ships and Fort James bombarded Fort Creve Cceur, a 
battle was fought on the ground between the two forts 
between the m arines and English allies and the people of 
the Dutch town and their allies. The fighting lasted from 
dawn till dusk for twenty-four days, until the Dutch 
Accras a t length became so exhausted and so short of 
ammunition that they were compelled to relinquish the 
struggle and retired to the bush. According to this writer, 
the fort was never taken, though it suffered considerable 
damage from the bombardment. The only success scored 
by the Dutch during this war was the capture of the English 
fort at Sekondi, which they completely destroyed. 
Captain Kenith Mackenzie, an officer commanding an 
Independent Company in the service of the Company of 
Merchants, was Commandant of Fort Nassau at Mori 
while it was in the possession of the English; this was the 
same Captain Mackenzie who had led the attack against 
Fort Conraadsburg in 178 I. The garrison at Mori, as 
at the other English posts, consisted largely of convicts 
who had been sent out to serve in the Company's forces 
on the Gold Coast, and the proportion of these to volunteers 
was as sixteen to five . Among these convicts was a man 
named Kenith Murray Mackenzie, a nephew of the 
Commandant, who had formerly been a drummer in the 
3rd Regiment of Foot Guards, but having on at least three 
occasions been sentenced to death for robbery and re-
prieved, and indicted for several other burglaries and 
thefts and acquitted through non-appearance of the 
prosecution, he had eventually been transported to Africa 
CAPTAIN MACKENZIE 21 9 
and drafted into the service of the Company. Ever since 1731- 1803 
his arrival on the Coast his conduct had been notoriously CHAP. xu 
bad, and he had twice deserted and more than once been 
guilty of insubordination . He was, moreover, strongly 
suspected of being in the pay of the Dutch and of con-
spiring to murder Captain Mackenzie and surrender the 
fort to them. At one time he had acted as Adjutant, but 
having committed some fresh breach of discipline, was 
placed under open arrest and confined to barracks . On 
the 3rd of August 1782 1 he came down to the gate and 
persuaded the sentry, Brooks, to let him pass, saying he 
only wished to speak to one of the Moris and arrange with 
him to get him some brandy and promising to return 
within a few minutes . This, however, he failed to do; 
and when it was found that he had already sent a bundle 
of clothes away by a native, little doubt was entertained 
that he had deserted to the Dutch . The unfortunate 
Brooks was tied up from seven o'clock until one, and was 
computed to have received about 1,500 lashes, while 
Captain Mackenzie sent Sergeant Andrews and two men 
to find and bring back the deserter . They went as far as 
Cape Coast without seeing or hearing anything of him, and 
then turned back to Mori, as they were afraid to go any 
farther lest they themselves should be captured by the 
Dutch from Elmina. On their return it was decided that 
the man must still be hiding in Mori, where the people were 
well known to be friendly with the Dutch, and Captain 
Mackenzie, without warning the Chief or making any 
inquiries, caused two six-pounders to be fired into the 
town. The Moris at once fled into the bush, but returned 
the next morning and surrendered the runaway . He denied 
any intention of deserting, but said he had gone to the 
village and, having got drunk and fallen asleep in the 
garden, had been seen and seized by the Moris as he was 
making his way back to the fort later in the day . Captain 
Mackenzie, however, refused to listen to any explanations, 
1 The dates a re those given in the report of the trial , but they are 
not correct. An old Cape Coast letter-book of this period still exists, 
in which is Captain Mackenzie's letter reporting the desertion, dated 
20th of July, and another reporting the execution, dated 24th of July. 
220 THE SECOND ANGLO-DUTCH WAR 
173h1808 and within an hour of his surrender, caused him to be 
CHAP. XII executed without any form of trial whatever. He was 
seated in one of the embrasures in front of a loaded gun, 
and his hands and legs were then made fast to it above and 
below. One of the men read part of the burial service to 
him, and Captain Mackenzie, after producing his own 
nightcap to be pulled over his head, gave the signal for the 
gun to be fired. The man was killed inst antly, and his 
body, which had been blown clear over the battlements, 
was picked up later and buried by some of the garrison.! 
For this act Captain Mackenzie was brought to England 
to take his trial at the Old Bailey before Mr. Justice Willes 
on the roth of December 1784. The rather curious in-
dictment was as follows: " Kenith Mackenzie was indicted 
by the name of Kenith Mackenzie, late of London, Esq ., for 
that he, not having the fear of God before his eyes, but 
being moved and seduced by the instigation of the devil, 
on the 4th day of August in the 22nd year of his present 
Majesty 's reign, with force of arms, at Fort Morea, on the 
Coast of Africa, in parts beyond the seas, in and upon 
Kenith Murray Mackenzie, feloniously, wilfully, and of his 
malice aforethought, did make an assault, and that he a 
certain great gun, called a cannon, value 205., then and 
there charged with gunpowder and one iron ball, did dis-
charge and shoot off, to, against, and upon, the said 
Kenith Murray Mackenzie, and by the said iron ball so 
shot off and discharged from the said cannon as aforesaid, 
wilfully, and of his malice aforethought, did strike, penetrate 
and wound, the said Kenith Murray Mackenzie, giving to 
him, on the left side of the belly, one mortal wound, of the 
length of six inches, and of the breadth of three inches, of 
which he then and there instantly died; and so the jurors 
say, that he, in manner and form aforesaid, then and there did 
kill and murder him the said Kenith Murray Mackenzie." ~ 
For the defence it was urged that the deceased was 
a desperate character and was conspiring against the 
'1 Mackenzie reported this act in a postscript to one of his letters to 
the Governor, as follows: .. I have sent Murray to the other world by 
mea.ns of a nine-pounder to answer for his conduct in this world." 
• L i fe and Trial of Kenith Mackenzie, p . 3. 
CONCLUSION OF PEACE 221 
accused, whose life was threatened, and that it was ab- 1731-1808 
solutely necessary, in view of the number of convicts in the CHAP. XI! 
garrison, to make an example of him . The Judge, in 
summing up , pointed out that such an execution without 
trial was not in accordance with martial or any other law, 
but, though he touched on the fact that there was a safe 
prison at Cape Coast, left the question of justification on 
the ground of self-defence to the jury. They found the 
prisoner guilty, but recommended him to mercy, and he 
was sentenced to death. He was afterwards reprieved, 
partly on account of the great gallantry that he had shown 
in Guernsey when the French attacked the Channel Islands 
ill 1778; but although he received His Majesty's pardon 
for the murder, he was still detained in N ewgate prison 
to answer a charge of piracy which the Portuguese am-
bassador had lodged against him for having cut out from 
under the guns of a Dutch fort a Portuguese ship sailing 
under Dutch colours. The Government in the meantime 
kept £11,000 worth of gold-dust belonging to him until he 
gave an account of the stores, etc., that he had had in his 
charge; but what eventually became of this enterprising 
but reckless man is not known. 
On t he conclusion of peace in 1785 all the forts that 
had changed hands during the Anglo-Dutch war were 
restored to those who had held them at its commencement. 
Since the sale of Fort Fredericksborg to the English 
111 1685 the Danes had made no attempt to form any fresh 
Settlements, with the exception of a small fort that they 
had built in 1734 at Ningo, about thirty-five miles to the 
east of Christiansborg, which they called Friedensborg; 
hut wishing now to extend their influence and trade, which 
IJarl been greatly interfered with by continual inter-tribal 
\ars, and not caring to risk disputes with the other Euro-
peans, they decided to exploit the still unoccupied eastward 
coast. In 1784 they built a square fort with four bastions 
anrl mounting twenty-four guns at Adda, which they 
'_med Konigstein; 1 but before they could form any 
1 The foundations were laid on the 15th of October 1783, and~all the 
~toDe was taken by sea from Christiansborg. 
222 THE SECOND ANGLO-DUTCH WAR 
1731-1803 further Settlements on this part of the coast it was neces-
CHAP. XII sary to subdue the Awunas. This unruly tribe had for a 
long time been at almost constant war with the Addas. 
These wars arose from a variety of causes, but were 
principally due to disputes about the fishing rights of the 
two tribes in the River Volta or to panyarring. Quarrels 
had also arisen over the collection of salt in the lagoons, 
and the alliance of the Addas with the Accras provided 
yet another cause of enmity. A great war had broken out 
between the two tribes in 1750 and lasted for many years. 
The Addas had then been assisted by the Akims and 
Akwapims, and had eventually overcome the Awunas. The 
latter, however, had taken the two Kings prisoners, and 
it was not until 1767 that peace had been made and the 
royal captives ransomed . The Awunas had again as-
sumed the offensive in 1776, and the slaughter during this 
war had been appalling, more than half the population 
being killed. The Danes therefore determined to make a 
great effort to crush these people once and for all, and in 
1783 an army raised by Major Kioge in Christiansborg and 
Accra, and, reinforced by Addas, Akwapims and others, 
was sent across the Volta for this purpose. The Awunas 
were defeated, and a treaty was concluded on the 18th of 
June 1784 by which they agreed to the erection of a fort 
at Kitta and factories elsewhere in their country, and 
guaranteed the safety of traders. By virtue of this 
treaty a fort which had already been begun at Kitta was 
completed and occupied the same year and named Prinzen-
stein. It mounted eight brass three-pounders. The Danes 
also built a redoubt called Augustaborg at Teshi in 1787 
and mounted it with sixteen guns. 
Fort Vernon at Pram pram was built by the English 
at about the same time. It soon fell into ruins however, 
and a second building that was raised on the same site in 
1806, being built with more haste than care, was soon in 
a similar condition. 
The Danes devoted a great deal of a~tention to agricul-
ture and had several excellent plantations. One at the 
foot of the Akwapim Mountains was known as Fredericks-
CONQU EST OF AKIM 223 
gaor, another near Akropong as Fredericksnople, and a 1731- 1803 
third at Dodowa as Frederickstadt. In 1798 a botanical CHAP. XII 
expert, P . Thonning, was sent out by the Danish Govern-
ment to examine and report upon t he agricultural possi-
bilities of their Possessions. T hey were part icularly 
successful in the cultivation of coffee, but this part of the 
country was unfortunately overrun during the wars that 
broke out a few years later and the plantations were ruined. 
Osai Kwamina, on his accession in 1781, swore that he 
would neither enter his palace nor see his wives until 
he had avenged the insult that had been offered to his 
predecessor by the Assins, Akims and other rebels by 
bringing the heads of the leaders of the revolt to Kumasi. 
He quickly joined the army, and Akim was invaded by 
forced marches. The rebellious tribes were taken by 
surprise and defeated, and Ofusu the King of Akim, and 
Akombra, a Buromi Chief, were killed and their heads 
brought to the capital. Embassies then arrived from 
Dahomi, from Salaga, and from Vendi congratulating the 
King on his accession to the stool and his triumph over 
his enemies . According to Bowdich , there was another 
war with Banda during this reign, and its King, Odrasi, 
finding he must inevitably fall into the hands of the 
Ashantis, preferred to commit suicide. He left orders 
that a pregnant woman should be sacrificed, her belly 
ripped up and his head sewn inside it to save it from being 
taken as a trophy by the enemy. In spite of these pre-
cautions, however, the head was found, and the skull 
afterwards became one of the principal ornaments of the 
King's drums. Dupuis, however, denies that there was 
any war with Banda during Kwamina 's reign, and declares 
this story to be without foundation. Insuta and Inkoranza, 
however, who had tried to assert their independence, were 
Loth subjugated. 
In 1792 the Danish Governor of Christiansborg, Andreas 
Biorn, found himself in difficulties with the Popos, and so 
(Treat had the fame of the Ashantis as a race of warriors 
now become, that he applied to the Kin,; for 5,000 aux-
iliarIes. The English, alarmed at the prospect of an Ashanti 
:224 THE SECOND ANGLO-DUTCH WAR 
1781-1808 army being marched down to the coast, sent messengers 
CHAP. XII to Osai Kwamina begging him to refuse; but they met 
with no success and found the Ashantis making great 
preparations for war. Governor Biorn, however, was 
succeeded by Andreas Hammer, who was rather diffident 
about entangling himself in any such alliance and sent 
250 ounces of gold to purchase the ' return of the army, 
which was already on its way to the Coast. The despatch 
of these messengers to Osai Kwamina constitutes the first 
record of any intercourse between the English and the 
Ashanti Court. 
Osai Kwamina, who was the most merciful of all the 
Ashanti Kings, now became the victim of a conspiracy 
amongst his own Chiefs, which soon afterwards led to his 
destoolment. He is believed to have been secretly con-
verted to the Mahomedan faith and to have meditated the 
introduction of the Koranic law into his kingdom. Bow-
dich further asserts that he neglected all the affairs of 
state for not less than twelve months while he stayed at 
J abin paying his attentions to the King's daughter Gyawa, 
with whom he was infatuated. Towards the end of his 
reign he prohibited a great many of the customary human 
sacrifices, reserving this rite almost exclusively for use 
at funeral customs; and these innovations, combined with 
the fear of what else he might do in the future, led the 
Chiefs to depose him in 1797. He was given a few of his 
wives and slaves and sent into retirement in the bush, 
where he was put to death a few years later at his own 
request and by the following peculiar method. His feet 
were made fast to the ground, and he was then bent 
backwards over a prop on which his body rested, while 
some heavy elephant's tusks were hung by a cord from his 
neck and strangled him. These strange means were 
adopted in order to avoid the unlawful shedding 'of royal 
blood. 
Kwamina was succeeded by his brother Osai Opoku II. 
He was almost immediately involved in another war with 
the Ja mans, who, at the instigation of Kong, had seized the 
opportunity of the late King's deposition to rebel, pre-
ACCESSION OF TUTU KWAMINA 225 
tending that they wished to restore him to the stool and 1781-1808 
threatening to march to Kumasi for this purpose. The CHAP. XI! 
J amans were joined by a large army from Kong, and, 
crossing the River Tano, invaded Ashanti territory. 
Opoku a t first acted on the defensive, but on being joined 
by the tributary forces from J abin, Inkoranza and Banda, 
gave battle on the banks of the river near" Barbanou ." 
The engagement last ed for several days, but the J amans 
were eventually defeated, although their army is said to 
have outnumbered the Ashanti force by four to one. 
This war with J am an lasted altogether for fifteen months, 
and great numbers of prisoners and large quantities of 
plunder were brought back to Kumasi, the Mahomedan 
prisoners alone numbering over 5,000. Opok'u did not 
long survive this victory, but died in 1799 after a lingering 
illness which was commonly attributed to the practice of 
witchcraft by the deposed King . He was succeeded in 
1800 by a third brother, Osai Tutu Kwamina, also known 
as Asibi or Bonsu : the greatest ruler who ever sat upon 
the Ashanti stool. 
From some correspondence in one of the old, but un-
fortunately very incomplete, letter-books at Christiansborg 
Castle, it appears that the French had formed a small 
Settlement by about 1788 at a place not far from Anamabo, 
the name of which is given as Amoku . The French Com-
mandant's name was Mougin, and he had a surgeon with 
him named Mallat; but the vessel that had brought them 
to the Coast had evidently left them with stores for only a 
short time, and no more were sent out, probably owing to 
tlw wars that followed the French Revolution . Governor 
Dalzel was, of course, most anxious to turn out these 
llltruders; but, though prisoners were occasionally taken 
tnd deserters sometimes gave t hemselves up at Anamabo, 
he did not feel strong enough, with the small force at his 
cvillmand, to attack them. 
hl June 1794, however , negotiations were opened with 
A"1.onu Kuma, the King of Anamabo, for the neutrality 
of the Fantis, and he was told that the whole Fanti nation 
vould be held responsible for any hostile act committed 
1-15 
226 THE SECOND ANGLO-DUTCH WAR 
1781-1808 against the English or Dutch troops that were to be sent 
CHAP. xu against Amoku, while the payment of a monthly subsidy 
to the Amoku Chiefs was suggested if they too would side 
against the French. These negotiations secured the 
neutrality of the Fantis; but those with the Amokus were 
evidently abortive, for on the 15th of June Mr. Gordon, 
the Commandant of Anamabo, reported to the Governor 
that" the Commandant of the French Settlement answered 
the Summons last night, wherein he says, ' that he is of 
the old Constitution in France, and that not having received 
any Supplies from Europe for four years and a half, he 
would surrender, but the Natives will not permit him,''' 
adding that, as a Royalist, he had hoisted the" White Flag 
of France." The Governor replied that the question 
whether the French were Royalists or Democrats did not 
affect his demand for the surrender and destruction of the 
Settlement, since it had been built on British soil and in 
defiance of the Company's treaties with the Fantis, but 
that if they could prove themselves Royalists their persons 
and property would be protected. 
The French at this time were in great straits, and the 
opposition of the Amokus to their departure was due to 
their being heavily in debt to them. At one time, indeed, 
they were so reduced that they sent to Anamabo begging 
to be allowed to buy four ackies worth of biscuit. A little 
biscuit-all that there was in store-was sent them and the 
gold returned. After the negotiations had dragged on 
for several months, it was eventually agreed that the 
French should surrender themselves at Anamabo with 
any property they could save, and be subsisted by the 
Governor at Cape Coast until he could procure them a 
passage to the W est Indies; that they should be treated 
as loyal subjects of Louis XVII, and that the question of 
possession of the Settlement should be decided by the 
respective Powers on the conclusion of peace. This plan 
was to have been carried out on the night of the 19th of 
October and Mougin was advised to send his slaves 0:1 
ahead on pretence of selling them to get money to pay his 
liabilities to the Amoku Chiefs. At the last moment, 
• 
ATTACK BY THE FRENCH 227 
however, he wrote saying that the plan was too dangerous, 1731-1803 
and begged to be allowed to leave his property and slaves CHAP. XII 
at Amoku , evidently thinking that he and his men would 
be fortunate if they escaped with their lives. There is 
no further record; but it is probable that the men either 
did escape or were killed in the attempt, or, if they could 
hold o ut long enough , they may have been rescued by 
some French ships that came down a little later. 
On the 3rd of December Governor Van der Gryp re-
ported that five French ships had been sighted to the west 
of Elmina. These were the Experiment, 50 guns, V£'gilant, 
26 guns, FUicite, 20 guns, and two brigs, one of which 
carried t welve 24 -pounders and the other twelve 12-
pounders . They had an English 20-gun ship with them-
the Harpie of London-which they had captured and were 
using as a hospital ship. An urgent warning was at 
once sent out to every fort to prepare for defence, and on 
the following day two of the ships and a brig, La Mutine, 
attacked Anamabo, but after " a deal of noise and vast 
fatigue" were repulsed, though Mr. Gordon complained 
bitterly to t he Governor of the quantity of liquor he had 
been compelled to give the Fantis "to keep up their 
courage." The brig also fired two shots into Kormantin 
as she passed . The English officers declared that the 
enemy were strong enough to take every fort they pos-
sessed if only they chose to exert themselves, for there was 
hardly any ammunition in the magazines and the natives 
were utterly unreliable. Two days later, however, the 
French burned a Portuguese prize off Accra and then 
~ailed away to leeward without firing another shot. 
Ever since the Dutch drove the Portuguese off the 
Coast they had claimed a duty from all Portuguese ships 
arriving there, no matter for what port they might be 
bound, and compelled them to anchor at Elmina to pay 
:t If one ship refused to stop and thus evaded payment, 
the next to arrive was made to pay for both . In 1796 a 
Portuguese vessel anchored off Cape Coast without having 
complied with this regulation, and the Dutch Governor 
sent over an armed party, who compelled her captain and 
228 THE SECOND ANGLO-DUTCH WAR 
1731-1803 crew to come ashore and made them prisoners . This 
CHAP. XII insult, however, was not allowed to pass unnoticed by the 
English, and Governor Dalzel remonstrated so strongly 
that he not only secured the release of the prisoners and 
an apology, but compelled the Dutch to waive this claim 
in future in the case of ships that did not wish to call at 
a Dutch port. 
Now that another century had elapsed, great changes 
had taken place in the native States. Ashanti, which at 
the commencement of Osai Tutu's reign had consisted 
merely of the country in the immediate neighbourhood 
of Kumasi, now ruled over a vast extent of country. 
Inkoranza, Banda, J aman, Wassaw, Sefwi, Denkera, 
Tufel, Aowin, Tekiman, Assin, Akim, Akwapim, Kwahu 
and Akwamu all owed allegiance to its King. It is true 
that this great empire was but loosely bound together 
and that there were frequent rebellions, calling for consant 
activity on the part of the Ashantis in order to maintain 
their position . This was due to the one great fault of 
their administration: though they could conquer, they 
could not govern: in fact, they never made any serious 
attempt to do so. On the reduction of a new State and 
its inclusion as a province of the Empire, no army of 
occupation was left, but the district was handed over to 
one of the Ashanti Chiefs as Governor or Resident, and 
beyond the payment of an annual tribute and the rendering 
of military service when called upon, nothing was required. 
The amount of tribute payable by these provinces was in 
some cases fixed and in others left indefinite, the amount 
actually levied depending upon the exigencies of the State 
and its varying needs for war or other purposes. Those 
provinces whose soil was auriferous paid in gold; others, 
in which gold was not found, were taxed by towns accord-
ing to their size and importance, paying tribute in cattle, 
slaves, etc. Thus Sefwi paid 200 peredwins (£2,000) 
annually, Monsi (Adansi) 50 bendas (£450), and Jaman 
100 peredwins (£1 ,000). Salaga and the other large 
Dagomba towns were assessed at 500 slaves, 200 cows, 
400 sheep, 400 cotton cloths and 200 silk and cotton cloths. 
NATIVE STATES 229 
The so-called Residents seldom lived in their districts, but 1781-1808 
stayed in Kumasi and only went to the provinces nominally CHAP. XII 
under their control when the tribute was to be collected, 
or on other special occasions . The Ashanti Empire, 
therefore, though e'xtensive, lacked cohesion; and each 
province, being left practically under the rule of its own 
Chiefs, seized up'm the first opportunity to rebel as soon 
as it felt strong enough . Had the Ashantis possessed 
half as m uch talent for government and organization as 
they had for making conquests, it is difficult to imagine 
to what extent their power might have grown. 
On the Gold Coast itself, too, there were further changes . 
Fanti , once a small State, had now', by mingled diplomacy 
and force, subjected it s neighbours until its country ex-
tended from the Sweet River to Beraku. The whole of 
this territory, however, was not ruled over by one man . 
The King of Abra was its nominal head; but in practice 
the government was administered by a federation of 
several more or less independent Kings and Chiefs, each of 
whom ruled over his own district, but made his local 
policy subservient to the general interest . 
The forts, as has been seen , were held primarily for 
the purpose of carrying on the Slave Trade, and a ground-
rent secured by monthly pay-notes was paid to the Chiefs. 
The English, up to this time, had made no attempt to 
exercise any jurisdiction over the people nor to improve 
their condition by education or other means . Strictly 
speaking, of course, they had absolutely no right to interfere 
with them. They were merely tenants, and had no concern 
in their landlords' business. It was only when their own 
convenience or property was threat ened by' the outbreak 
of inter-tribal wars and the consequent interruption to 
trade that they took any action and made occasional 
attempts at mediation; and it was not until many years 
later that the inevitable consequences of the long associa-
tIOn of two races so far apart in the scale of civilization 
:'-cg3n to make themselves felt. 
Cruikshank gives an excellent idea of the relations that 
existed between the European settlers and Coast peoples 
2 3 0 THE SECOND ANGLO-DUTCH WAR 
1731- 1803 at this time. "The native, keenly alive to his interests 
CHAP. XlI supple a nd fawning, r eadily acknowledged the superiorit; 
of t he white m an in words, and hailed him, without any 
scruples of pride, as his m ast er. But he had, and ever 
has had, a r eservat ion in his own mind which limits the 
signification of t he t erm t o his own construction of it, and 
has n o m ore int ention of giv ing implicit obedience, if he 
can help himself, when his pleasure and profit appear to 
him to be compromised, than if he had never entered into 
any undertaking upon the subj ect. Neither would he 
wish t o shake himself free from the necessity of obedience. 
His obj ect is t o endeavour, on a ll occasions, t o magnify 
t he sacrifice which he is m aking t o gratify y our wishes, not 
so much from a det ermination not to obey them, as to 
obtain som e bribe or concession for his obedience . A 
service of this description appears t o h ave been the nature 
of the dependence of the African upon the European on the 
Gold Coast from their earli est intercourse . It has certainly 
given rise t o an incessant struggle, productive of every 
species of artifice on both sides , in the attempts of the 
one party t o ext end their power and influence, and of the 
other to obtain new priv ileges . The relation in which they 
stood to each other never, in fact, appears to have been 
clearly defined or understood . Indeed, it is possible 
neither party wished it to be so, as any certainty upon the 
point would lessen the probability of advantages which 
might possibly turn up in the chapter of accidents." 1 
Thus, though nominally masters, the English really 
had no authority whatever; and the supply of slaves 
b eing entirely in t he hands of the people, who well under-
stood the advantage they held, led them to raise frequent 
disputes and obstructions to the trade, with the object of 
obtaining some advantage as the price of peace; and 
although the English had from time to time made attempts 
to resist these extortions, yet the natives had invariably 
triumphed . So outrageous did the conduct of the people 
of Cape Coast eventually become that they not only 
insulted but actually assaulted in the streets officers of 
1 Cr uiksh ank, vol. i, p . 28. 
RIOT AT CAPE COAST 
ships, merchants , and even officers of the Company. In 1781-1808 
1 802 they handled the captain of an English ship so CHAP. X II 
r oughly that he died soon afterwards; but this seems at 
last to hav e convinced the Governor that there must be 
no more tr ifling, and the English then began to show a 
more det ermined spirit . The Chiefs and Headmen were 
summoned to the Castle, and an agreement was then drawn 
up by which it was arranged that any outrage against 
Europeans should render the people liable to a fine of forty 
ounces of gold, and that all complaints against Europeans 
should be laid before the Governor under a similar penalty . 
But although these terms were agreed to at the time and 
publicly proclaimed, it was not long before they were 
violated and a great riot took place. 
In 180 3 Mr . John Swanzy, a trader living in the town, 
complained t o the Governor that one of his gold-takers 
had accepted false gold. These gold-takers were employed 
by traders to weigh and test the gold brought by their 
customers in payment for goods, and were required to 
replace anx base metal taken by them . Mr. Swanzy 
employed two of these men, and the gold , therefore, had 
to be p assed by them both. A man had come to buy 
cloth , and p aid eight ackies (£2) while one of t he gold-takers 
was out , and Mr. Swanzy had ordered the man who was 
on duty not to mix this gold with that already taken until 
the other had returned and passed it also. On the arrival 
of the second gold-taker, two-thirds of this (( gold " was 
found to be base metal, and the man who had taken it 
had then run away and could not now be found . It would 
clearly have been useless to take this case before the Chief's 
court, for it involved the question of cheating the white 
man, and African and European alike had been ac-
customed to regard the cheating of each other as their 
rightful pr erogative . As the delinquent gold-taker could 
!,ot now be found , the man who had bought the cloth and 
who was suspected of being an accomplice , was brought to 
tl-)e Castle as security for his appearance. This man 
happened to be a person of some importance in t he town, 
and no sooner had he been secured, than a great crowd 
232 THE SECOND ANGLO-DUTCH WAR 
1781-1808 armed with guns and swords assembled in front of Mr. 
CHAP. XII Swanzy's house, which was just in front of the Castle gate 
and within fifty yards of it, demanding the instant release 
of the prisoner. The Governor, Mr. Jacob Mould, sent 
out a message ordering the people to disperse, but they 
only replied with insults and defiance and openly challenged 
the garrison to come out and fight them. . 
The mob now threatened to attack Mr . Swanzy, who was 
preparing to defend the property in his house. At their 
first attempt they broke in the front gate, but finding the 
occupants ready to oppose them, quickly retreated. Soon 
afterwards, a party was seen trying to force an entrance at 
the back of the premises in order to take the defenders 
by surprise, and Mr . Mould then released the prisoner, 
who was carried off in triumph by his friends. This tame 
submission on the part of the Governor by no means 
pleased his officers, who at once drew up and delivered 
to him a very strongly worded protest. This had the 
desired effect. Mr. Mould immediately gave orders for 
the guns commanding the town to be loaded, and made 
every preparation to punish the people for their violent 
and unreasonable conduct, while a message was sent to 
the Chiefs demanding payment of forty ounces of gold 
under their agreement. This, however, was defiantly 
refused, and time then had to be given to allow the 
Europeans living in the town to remove their property 
to the Castle. While this was being done, the people 
busied themselves with their own preparations, collecting 
all their removable property and sending it, together with 
the old men, women and children, to the bush villages. 
As soon as everything was ready, two guns were fired 
over the town, but failed to produce the submission of the 
people, and the bombardment was then commenced in 
earnest. Fires soon broke out in several quarters and 
destroyed the greater part of the town before they could 
be extinguished, and the people then began firing into the 
Castle from some houses standing close in front of it which 
had escaped the conflagration. The balls from the Castle 
guns had very little effect on the mud walls of these houses, 
WEAKNESS OF THE ENGLISH 233 
but either remained embedded in them or dropped harm- 1731-1808 
lessly on the other side. The people, on the other hand, CHAP. XII 
being under cover, were comparatively safe from small-arm 
fire, though their muskets could tell against the men who 
were working the guns . The struggle continued in this 
way for nearly a month; but the people then asked for 
a truce, and after some tedious negotiations , security was 
given for the payment of a penalty, and the opportune 
arrival of H.M.S . Romney finally brought this little war 
to a close. 
About this time, too, another dispute arose between the 
English and the Anamabos on account of an attempt by 
the Commandant to put a stop to the commission of 
nuisances under the walls of the fort, and a fight ensued, 
which lasted for three days, during which the greater part 
of the town was destroyed and several lives were lost . 
From these incidents it will be seen how little authority 
the English really had and how strictly that was confined 
to the forts themselves. 
Considering the class of men who were employed by 
the Company and the truly extraordinary ideas of justice 
that these officials seem to have held, it is not surprising 
that the people showed themselves thus restless and 
turbulent. Cruikshank, who had access to the records 
in Cape Coast Castle that have since been destroyed, gives 
several mstances illustrating the spirit in which these men 
regarded the people and the manner in which they were 
accustomed to treat them . One officer at Winneba wrote 
complaining of an affront he had received from a man 
there, saying, " I seized a musket, and made a rush at him ; 
but the villain had the audacity to elude the bayonet! " 1 
while a Commandant of Wida, where the Company then 
h:old a fort, seized a quantity of goods from a schooner 
in the roads and justified his action by saying that" the 
\T"sel was from the Island of St . Thomas, and a man at 
Pnnce's Island owed him a debt." 2 As an example of 
illiteracy, a Commandant of Komenda wrote in explanation 
of the inefficiency of his garrison, that" T hey are all sick, 
1 Cruikshan k, v ol i, p. 34. 2 Ibid., p. 34 . 
234 THE SECOND ANGLO-DUTCH WAR 
1731- 1803 not from any acute distemperary disorder?, but from old 
CH AP . XI! chronicle ones." 1 Even the highest officials seem to have 
had most distorted ideas of justice and protection, for the 
following minute appeared in the Council Book of May 
1802, signed by a Governor and other members of the 
Council: "A free family from Great Cormantine, con-
sisting of two males and nine females, having claimed 
the Company's protection, saying they were free people 
without any man to defend them, in consequence of which 
they had been exposed to many vexatious palavers, and 
that several of their relatives had already been panyarred 
and sold, the Council having taken the case into considera-
tion, ordered them to be incorporated with the Company 's 
slaves. 
(Signed) ARCHIBALD DALZEL, 
JACOB MOULD, 
HENRY HAMILTON .'" 
The climate, always bad, at times played frightful 
havoc amongst the Europeans, and in some specially bad ' 
years the death-rate among them was simply appalling. 
Thus in 1756 Governor Melvil and nearly the whole of the 
officers and garrison of Cape Coast succumbed to it . So 
bad was it, in fact, that Dr. Lind wrote that" the living 
were scarce sufficient to remove and bury the dead." 
Other exceptionally bad years were 1763 , 1769 and 1775 ·' 
1 Cruikshank. vol. i, p . 34. 2 Ibid., p. 35. 
3 Possibly yellow-fever epidemics. 
PART IV 
THE WA RS BETWEEN THE ENGLISH AND 
ASHANTIS 
CHAPTER XIII 
THE FIRST ASHANTI WAR 
1803 TO 1807 
OSAI TUTU KWAMINA is the first of the Ashanti Kings 1808-1807 
of whose r eign anything like a complete account is given CHAP. XIII 
by cont emporary writers . W hat is known of the history 
of the preceding reigns is principally derived from accounts 
that were given to these writers by him and his Linguists. 
Soon after his accession, Tutu Kwamina was involved 
in a war with Gofan, whose King was joined by Gobago to 
attack the Bandas, whom he utterly defeated. The victors 
then advanced upon Inkoranza; but by this time the news 
had reached Kumasi, the army had been mobilized, and 
Tutu Kwamina met the invaders near Kuka and drove 
them b ack. The Ashantis followed the retreating enemy 
northwards into the open country and inflicted a second 
and decisive defeat . The turning-point in this engagement 
was a brilliant charge by the Ashanti General Amankwa 
Tia and an army corps of 50,000 1 men. The enemy 
broke and fled precipitately across the River Volta with 
terrible loss . Great numbers fell and many more were 
taken prisoners , amongst whom were the King of Gofan 
and one of his principal allied Chiefs .2 
Ja man , ever ready to seize an opportunity to revolt, 
now rebelled once more; but the rising was quickly put 
Juwn and a peace lasting five years then ensued. The 
prestige of the Ashanti arms was now high , and embassies 
hraring fr iendly messages and presents arrived from 
1 According to the Ashantis. 
2 The Ashantis claim to have killed or capt urecl. 100, 000 . 
237 
THE FIRST ASHANTI WAR 
1808-1807 Dahomi, Vendi and Salaga; but this period of tranquillity 
CHAP. XIII was soon broken by a series of events which led to the first 
invasion of the Gold Coast by the Ashantis and brought 
the English, into conflict with them . 
Assin at this time was governed by three Chiefs. Chibu 
and Kwaku Aputai jointly ruled over the western half, 
while the eastern districts were under Amu. All three 
were, of course, vassals of the King of Ashanti. The 
trouble began with the death of one of Amu's Chiefs, with 
whose body a quantity of gold and other valuables were 
buried in accordance with the usual custom. A subject 
and relative of Aputai, who happened to be present at the 
funeral, afterwards returned and rifled the grave, and it 
is to this insignificant occurrence, of no great importance 
outside the village in which it happened, that all the 
subsequent trouble between England and Ashanti, ending 
in the downfall of that kingdom, can be directly traced. 
The crime was discovered; and Amu, having failed to 
capture the thief, sent messengers to demand satisfaction 
from Chibu and Aputai. They, however, refused to listen 
to his complaint, declaring that the whole story was a 
pure invention on his part, and Amu then laid the matter 
before the King of Ashanti . Tutu Kwamina seems to 
have been genuinely anxious to preserve peace, and 
deferred judgment for some time in the hope of bringing 
about a reconciliation between the parties. It was only 
after he found this was impossible that he announced his 
decision and ordered Aputai to repay the amount that 
had been stolen to the relatives of the deceased. Aputal 
was detained in Kumasi pending compliance with this 
order; but he contrived to escape and collected his fol-
lowers to oppose Amu, who then advanced to meet him. 
The fortunes of war at first favoured either side alternately; 
but before long Amu was driven back and forced to await 
the arrival of reinforcements. He then moved into the 
enemy's country, and after burning several large towns, 
defeated Aputai in a pitched battle, in which the thief who 
had been the cause of all the trouble was among the killed . 
Considering that both combatants were his subjects, 
OUTBREAK OF WAR 239 
that the war was being waged within the limits of his 1803-1807 
dominions, and that every man slain was a loss to his own CHAP. XIlI 
army, Tutu Kwamina would have been fully justified in 
adopting the strongest measures to quell the disturbance. 
He was still anxious , however, t o bring about a peaceful 
settlement , and sent presents of gold to both Chiefs, order-
ing them at the same time to cease hostilities. Amu at 
once obeyed and fell back on the Monsi Hills, where, how-
ever, Aputai continued to molest him and several skirmishes 
took place . Further messengers now arrived from the 
King, bringing additional presents for the Chiefs and 
instructions to Amu to break up his camp and let the 
dispute stand over until the next Adai Custom, and to 
Aputai to keep the peace and allow Amu to retire un-
molest ed. Aputai then withdrew his forces in apparent 
compliance with the King's commands; but Amu had no 
sooner set out for his own district than Aputai again 
attacked him, and taking him completely by surprise, put 
his army t o flight with great slaughter. Not content with 
this, Aput ai, intoxicated with the success of the moment, 
and wit h that utter disregard for consequences and in-
ability to look into the future which is so characteristic 
of the African , then murdered the King's messengers and 
suspended their mutilated bodies from trees on the frontier . 
Further forbearance on the part of the King was now 
out of t he question, and Tutu Kwamina at once raised a 
great army and marched into Assin to punish the offenders . 
Chibu and Aputai tried to oppose his advance near Chichi-
weri, but were quickly put to flight and driven across the 
River Pra. Many prisoners fell into the hands of the 
Ashantis , who say that 30,000 Assins were killed; but the 
two Chiefs made good their escape and fled to the Fantis , 
who promised them protection . 
Tutu Kwamina now sent messengers to Akum, the Chief 
vf Essikuma, who owed him some allegiance , demanding 
the surrender of the fugitives and giving assurances of his 
friendly disposition towards the Fantis . This request was 
accompanied by a present of t wenty ounces of gold, a state 
umbrella and fifteen slaves . Akum would probably have 
THE FIRST ASHANTI WAR 
1803-1807 complied with the King's demand, but the fugitives 
CHAP. XIII suspected his intentions and promptly fled to Abra, where 
the Council of Chiefs declined either to surrender them or 
to send delegates to discuss the matter in the Ashanti 
camp. The King, therefore, sent an ultimatum demanding 
permission to follow the remnant of the Assin forces 
through Fanti; but his messengers were tortured and 
killed, and he then gave orders for a general advance, 
leaving his mother Kun Ajua in charge of his kingdom. 
The army, under Ado Mata and Appia Dunkwa, invaded 
Fanti, where they twice defeated the Assins and their 
allies. The second engagement took place near" Buinka" 
and ended in the total rout of the allies, who fled in disorder 
to Abra and the coast towns. Amongst the numerous 
prisoners who were taken was Atta, the King of Abra; 
but the request of his subjects to be allowed to ransom 
him was declined, and he was placed in the custody of 
Akum, who, however, let him escape. 
Kwaku Aputai now made overtures for peace, promising 
to deliver hostages for his future loyalty provided the 
King would pay some debts which he had incurred by the 
war and ·swear not to depose him; but he was not sincere, 
and was only trying to gain time. Tutu Kwamina, how-
ever, agreed to this proposition; and in proof of his desire 
for an amicable settlement again sent presents of gold to 
both Chiefs. The bearers of these gifts shared the fate of 
his previous messengers and were decapitated. Their 
headless trunks were suspended from trees, and their 
heads, with the mouths crammed with excrement, placed 
In regular succession along the path in the line of the 
Ashanti advance, while the principal Fanti and Assin 
Chiefs are said to have eaten their still quivering hearts. 
It is probable that the Fantis were relying to some extent 
on the belief that the Ashantis would not dare to advance 
to the coast and come under the guns of the forts, and it 
is indeed unlikely that they originally had any intention 
of doing so; but this last insult was so outrageous and so 
exasperated the King, that he swore his great oath (Akro-
manti Miminda) that he would never sheath his sword 
DEFEAT OF THE FANTIS 241 
nor return to Kumasi until he had gained the heads of 1803-1807 
both Chibu and Aputai. CHAP. XIII 
Akum, who had in the meantime been pardoned for 
a llowing Atta to escape, and had since been employed in 
supplying provisions to the Ashanti army, now committed 
one of those rash and apparently motiveless acts which 
seem so inexplicable to those unacquainted with the 
character of the African. After faithfully supplying 
convoys with provisions on six separate occasions, he, in 
April 1806, betrayed a party of about a hundred Ashantis 
who had com e to fetch another supply and sold them as 
slaves. Thus he also became involved in the war and was 
quickly defeated. The utter extermination of the Fantis 
was now decided upon, and neither woman nor child was 
spared. The Ashantis met ,'lith lit tle or no opposition 
to their advance until they reached Abra; and all prisoners, 
with the exception of a few important Chiefs who were 
reserved for sacrifice in the capital, were killed . A terrible 
battle was fought a t Abra in May, and after a prolonged 
struggle resulted in the practical annihila tion of the 
Fantis engaged there. Barely a hundred of them are said 
to have escaped from the field, but one Chief, Kwesi Beni, 
rallied a few men and tried to make a second stand at 
Emperu. He was quickly put to flight, and Abra and 
Ewperu were burned. Mankesim was next destroyed , 
but the Ashantis respected its famous fe tish grove, which 
they left untouched, and then continued their march 
towards the coast, from which they were now only fifteen 
ot twenty miles dist ant. 
Chibu and Aputai had in the meantime escaped to 
An~mabo; but not feeling altogether safe there, went to 
the- Governor at Cape Coast, Colonel Torrane, who pro-
nut>d them his protection" either by mediation or force of 
arms." The Governor now became alarmed at the near 
dpproach of the Ashantis to t he Settlements and was 
anxious to send a flag of truce to the King, offering himself 
'.lC :{ mediator in any dispute between him and the Fantis. 
But the King and Chiefs of Anamabo 1 and Cape Coast 
1 Amonu Kuma (Amonu II) was the King of Anamabo. 
l-I6 
THE FIRST ASHANTI WAR 
1808-1807 would have none of it, and assured him of their ability to 
CHAP. XIII beat the Ashantis. !hey were indeed confident that they 
could make good theIr words and were loath to be deprived 
of the plunder and numerous slaves that they expected to 
obtain. It must be allowed, as some excuse for these 
vainglorious boasts , that the Fantis were at this time the 
most powerful nation on the Coast and had had no ex-
perience of the enemy they were now to meet, but who 
soon afterwards so rudely undeceived them. It is ridiculous 
to suppose, however, that the King would have accepted 
any mediation at this stage of the war, even had the Fantis 
permitted its offer; for the repeated murders of his 
messengers and the other injuries that had been done him, 
apart from his oath, had already made it impossible for 
him to consent to any amicable settlement. 
It seems almost inconceivable, however, that the 
Governor should only now have awakened to the fact that 
the safety of the Settlements might be endangered, and 
should have failed to realize long before this that , if the 
English were to throw in their lot with the Fantis, it was 
to their interest to give them some practical assistance 
and support. The King's conduct throughout renders it 
almost certain that, had mediation been offered in the 
earlier stages of the trouble, he would have been only ton 
ready to accept it. The war had certainly not been of his 
seeking. The affairs of the English on the Gold Coast 
had indeed reached a crisis; and the time had come when 
they must choose definitely between the Fantis and 
Ashantis. It is true that they were dependent on the 
former for their information; yet they cannot have been 
altogether ignorant of the causes of the war and the turn 
affairs were now taking. The Fantis had already given 
them more than one sample of their character, but theIr 
knowledge of the Ashantis was only derived from hearsay. 
They were, moreover, afraid of the latter, and believed that 
they might attack their Settlements and ruin their trade; 1 
but they do not seem to have realized that the bulk of that 
trade was already with Ashanti, the Fantis only acting as 
1 Vide p . 213. 
SURRENDER OF FORT AMSTERDAM 243 
middlemen , and that the Ashantis would never destroy the 1808-1807 
fountain from which they obtained all that they valued CHAP. XIII 
most. It is probable, however , that the English then had 
a very imperfect idea of the real power and resources of 
this people, and so long as the war was being waged at a 
little distance inland, were quite unable to appreciate its 
importance to themselves and the necessity of deciding 
upon a definite policy regarding their relations with the 
combatants. 
In the meantime the Ashantis steadily advanced towards 
the sea, burning the towns and killing those of the in-
habitants who had not already fled, until the advance 
guard, under the King of Denkera, reached Kormantin. 
The inhabitants were quickly put t o flight, the t own was 
burned, and Fort Amsterdam surrendered by the Dutch 
Commandant without firing a shot. The King of Denkera 
then took up his quarters in the fort and sent several 
calabashes full of sea-water t o the King in token of his 
success. The A5hantis were thus in possession of an 
European fort within three miles of the English fort at 
Anamabo. 
Mr. Edward William White, the Governor or Chief 
Factor of Anamabo, now sent a message to the King of 
Denkera enquiring what had induced the Ashantis to 
ill' ade t he coast and what their intentions might be, at 
the same time offering himself as mediator in any dispute 
ptndmg between their King and the Fantis . The King 
of Denkera, however , found it hard to believe that the 
English could really be ignorant of the causes that had led 
to the invasion, and thought this message was a mere 
pretext to gain time and that Mr. W hite was making game 
of lJim. The next day, therefore, he sent an answer by 
three messengers under a flag of truce that if he would 
Sf. lld hIm twenty barrels of powder and a hundred muskets 
PI" would he pleased to furnish him with all the information 
be desired. This request, of course, was not complied with ; 
but thf' bearers of it were entertained and told that if the 
Ashantis could advance any just grounds of complaint 
against the Anamabos, Mr. White would see that satis-
244 THE FIRST ASHANTI WAR 
l803-1807 faction was given; but that in the absence of any such 
CHAP. XIII justification, he should give the people the protection of 
the fort, and, in the event of any hostile movement on the 
part of the Ashantis, should not hesitate to fire upon them 
with his guns. Two or three of these were then fired to 
give the messengers some idea of their power, and Mr. 
White and a Mr. Wilson escorted the three Ashantis to 
within a short distance of their headquarters, as private 
information had been received that the Anamabos were 
preparing to murder them on their way back. 
The Anamabos, now that they found the Ashantis so 
near them, were far less confident of v ictory than they had 
formerly professed to be and showed the greatest anxiety 
to be assured of the protection of the English. Mr . White 
ordered them to put the town in the best possible state of 
defence and to post strong guards on all the roads leading 
into it, promising, if they were attacked, to admit as many 
of the old men, women and children as there was room 
for into the fort, and advising the others to collect under 
its walls , where they would be under the protection of the 
guns. 
Thus the English, though merely the tenants of the 
people from whom they rented the ground on which their 
forts stood, now for the first time definitely undertook 
to give them protection. 
The Ashantis made no move until a week later, when 
a detachment of the force at Kormantin took possession 
of Egya , whence, being only a mile distant , they could 
watch every movement of the Anamabos. On the 14th of 
June it was decided to dislodge this party, and a large force 
of Anamabos, outnumbering the Ashantis at Egya by three 
to one, advanced against it. The fire of the Anamabos was 
so wild and ill-directed that in spite of their superior 
numbers the issue was for some time in doubt; but the 
enemy then retreated into the lower part of the town and 
seemed to give them the victory. The Anamabos would 
not follow them into the valley however, and this apparent 
success soon cost them dear ; for they had withdrawn all 
the guards around the town to take part in the attack on 
BATTLE OF ANAMABO 245 
Egya, and while t heir attention had been occupied by the 1803-1807 
party there, the King, with the main body of the Ashanti CHAP. XIII 
army, had taken possession of every road . 
On the following day, Monday the 15th of J une, the 
town and fort were attacked , and the gallant defence of 
the latter by its small garrison against the hosts of Ashanti 
furnishes one of the fi nest chapters in the history of the 
English on the Gold Coast. 
The garrison at t his time consist ed of Messrs. White 
(Commandant) , H enry Meredit h (Second in Command) , 
F L. Swanzy, T. A. Smith and Barnes, with only twenty 
men, including soldiers, artificers and servants' and four 
mulattos. The Ashantis made a m ove early in the 
morning, the alarm was given, and the Anamabos able to 
bear arms went out to oppose the enemy's advance, while 
crowds of old men, women and children flocked t o the 
fort. About 2 ,000 of these were admitted; b ut t he place 
could hold no more, and after the gat e had been shut 
and strongly barricaded, t he remainder of t he r efugees 
crouched down under t he walls, where it was confident ly 
expected t hat the fire of the guns would afford t hem full 
protection. 
The battle could not be seen from t he for t, though 
the heavy volleys of musketry could be p lainly heard. T he 
rapid approach of this sound soon made it clear that t he 
Fantis were retreating; and Mr . White, whose previous 
expenence of the people had been limited to the more 
timid coast tribes, fired two of t he guns over the t own in 
the vain hope that t he report might frighten the Ashantis 
and cause them to fall back. Needless to say, no such 
result was obtained . By eleven o'clock the Anam abos 
I.:ld been defeated and came pouring into the town like a 
flock of sheep, hotly pursued by the victorious Ashant is ; 
hut they were far too panic-stricken to think of rally ing 
rnd making another stand under the fort. Their one idea 
was to escape. Some ran to their canoes and put off to 
seC!, and others plunged headlong into the surf and swam 
out to a rock 1 at a li t tle distance from the shore, to which 
1 The Anamabos st ill swear by t his rock.