Skip to main content
EditionEnglish edition·Édition française
What was the Ashanti Empire?
Seal of Magna Bureau Magna Bureau No Single Capital Owns the Whole Truth
Universal Encyclopedia

What was the Ashanti Empire?

A golden stool fell from the sky, and a nation was born. The Ashanti Empire — forged by Osei Tutu around 1701 — defied the British for a century, defeated a governor’s army outright, and gave Africa one of its greatest heroines.

The short answer

Kumasi ★EjisuNsamankowGold Coast Greatest extent — stylized map 1670Asante union begins1701The Golden Stool descends1824Nsamankow — MacCarthy falls1874Kumasi sacked1900Yaa Asantewaa’s war1957Ghana inherits Ashanti Rise · zenith · fall The rise The founding story is the constitution. Around 1701, Osei Tutu of Kumasi — advised by the priest Okomfo Anokye — united the Akan states, and tradition holds that Anokye caused the Golden Stool (Sika Dwa Kofi) to descend from the sky: the embodiment of the nation’s soul, in which the Asantehene’s authority resides. The stool, not the king, was sovereign. It was nation-building as theater — and it worked.

The full file

Encyclopedia

Read the full file

A golden stool fell from the sky, and a nation was born. The Ashanti Empire — forged by Osei Tutu around 1701 — defied the British for a century, defeated a gov…

Related questions

What was the Abbasid Caliphate?What was the Aksumite Empire?What was the Austro-Hungarian Empire?What was the Benin Empire?What was the British Empire?What was the Bulgarian Empire?What was Cahokia?What was the Carolingian Empire?What was Carthage?What was the Chola Empire?What was the Caliphate of Córdoba?What was the Dutch Empire?

More from the Bureau

All questionsFactbookRankings

Across the Bureau

The first storytellers: Aboriginal Australia — HistoryAda Lovelace: the first programmerSeeds of power: the Neolithic Revolution — HistoryAE — Country ProfileAfghanistan — Country ProfileAlbania — Country ProfileHistory of AE — TimelineHistory of Afghanistan — Timeline