#AfricanAwarenessMonth – Yaa Asantewaa I – Queen Mother of Ejisu in the Ashanti Empire

Led the war against the British Empire

Yaa Asantewaa I (born October 17, 1840 – October 17, 1921) was the Queen Mother of Ejisu in the Ashanti Empire, now part of modern-day Ghana. She was appointed by her brother Nana Akwasi Afrane Opese, the Edwesuhene, or ruler of Edwesu. In 1900, she led the Ashanti war, also known as the War of the Golden Stool, or the Yaa Asantewaa War of Independence, against the British Empire.

Biography

Yaa Asantewaa was born in 1840 in Besease, the daughter of Kwaku Ampoma and Ata Po. Her brother, Afrane Panin, became the chief of Edweso, a nearby community. After a childhood without incident, she cultivated crops on the land around Boankra. She entered a polygamous marriage with a man from Kumasi with whom she had a daughter.

She died in exile in the Seychelles in 1921. She was a successful farmer and mother. She was an intellectual, a politician, a human rights activist, a queen, and a war leader. Yaa Asantewaa became famous for commanding the Ashanti Kings in the War of the Golden Stool against British colonial rule to defend and protect the sovereign independence of the Golden Stool.

Prelude to rebellion

During her brother’s reign, Yaa Asantewaa saw the Ashanti Confederacy go through a series of events that threatened its future, including a civil war from 1883 to 1888. When her brother died in 1894, Yaa Asantewaa used her right as Queen Mother to nominate her own grandson as Ejisuhene. When the British exiled him to the Seychelles in 1896, along with the King of Asante Prempeh I and other members of the Asante government, Yaa Asantewaa became regent of the Ejisu–Juaben district. After the exile of Prempeh I, the British governor-general of the Gold Coast, Frederick Hodgson, demanded the Golden Stool, the symbol of the Asante nation.

This request led to a secret meeting of the remaining members of the Asante government at Kumasi, to discuss how to secure the return of their king. There was a disagreement among those present on how to go about this. Yaa Asantewaa, who was present at this meeting, stood and addressed the members of the council with these words:

“How can a proud and brave people like the Asante sit back and look while white men took away their king and chiefs, and humiliated them with a demand for the Golden Stool? The Golden Stool only means money to the whitemen; they have searched and dug everywhere for it. I shall not pay one predwan to the governor. If you, the chiefs of Asante, are going to behave like cowards and not fight, you should exchange your loincloths for my undergarments (Montu mo danta mma me na monnye me tam).”

To dramatise her determination to go to war, she seized a gun and fired a shot in front of the men.

Yaa Asantewaa was chosen by a number of regional Asante kings to be the war-leader of the Asante fighting force. This is the first and only example for a woman to be given that role in Asante history. The Ashanti-British War of the Golden Stool – also known as the “Yaa Asantewaa War” – was led by Queen Mother Nana Yaa Asantewaa with an army of 5,000.

The rebellion and its aftermath

Beginning in March 1900, the rebellion laid siege to the fort at Kumasi, where the British had sought refuge. The fort still stands today as the Kumasi Fort and Military Museum. After several months, the Gold Coast governor eventually sent a force of 1, 400 to quell the rebellion. During the fighting, Queen Yaa Asantewaa and fifteen of her closest advisers were captured, and they, too, were sent into exile to the Seychelles. The rebellion represented the final war in the Anglo-Asante series of wars that lasted throughout the 19th century. On 1 January 1902, the British finally annexed the territory that the Asante Empire had been controlling for almost a century, and the Asante was transformed into a protectorate of the British crown.

Nana Yaa Asantewaa died in exile in the Seychelles on 17 October 1921. Three years after her death, on 17 December 1924, King Prempeh I and the other remaining members of the exiled Asante court were allowed to return to Asante. King Prempeh I made sure that the remains of Nana Asantewaa and the other exiled Asantes were returned for a proper royal burial.

Queen Asantewaa’s dream for an Asante independent from colonial rule was realized on 6 March 1957, when the Asante protectorate gained independence as part of Ghana. Ghana was the first African nation in West Africa to achieve this feat.

Story Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaa_Asantewaa