Category Archives: military

by Joel | 27 April 2023 · 4:09 am

An Iroquoian Empire, c. 1680

From Indigenous Continent: The Epic Contest for North America, by Pekka Hämäläinen (Liveright, 2022), Kindle pp. 123-125:

AROUND 1680, ABOUT FIFTY YEARS after the terrible smallpox epidemic that cut their numbers by half, the Five Nations were at the height of their power; they were now the domineering nation in the great interior. The French feared them, the English respected them as allies, and the Dutch no longer had a colony in North America. The Iroquois seemed to be everywhere. Their fleet-footed war parties ranged across the Great Lakes, seeking captives, pelts, and spiritual and emotional healing. Their world had expanded explosively, covering a massive domain. They seized pelts and captives from the Ottawa Valley to the western limits of the pays d’en haut, which the French still claimed—feebly now—as part of their empire.

With most English colonies now in their orbit, the Five Nations moved to draw their Native neighbors within their sphere of influence. Weakened Susquehannocks, Piscataways, and others sought refuge in Iroquoia against Maryland and Virginia, and soon Iroquois-Susquehannock war parties set out to “scour the heads” of the Potomac, James, and Roanoke Rivers to bring their Native tributaries into Iroquoia. The Iroquois also took in “Christian Indians” from Massachusetts and refused to return them—now their “flesh and blood”—to New England when asked. In the West, the Iroquois raided the French-allied Illinis, Miamis, and Odawas, taking hundreds of captives and shattering France’s commercial networks in the interior. When the Miamis offered three thousand beaver pelts in exchange for their relatives, the Iroquois took the furs but refused to release the captives. Iroquois sachems thought it politic to inform the governor of New France—Louis de Buade, comte de Frontenac—that “they would not eat his children.”

As Iroquois ambitions swelled, the confederacy became entangled in complex foreign political arrangements with the surrounding colonial powers. Since the mid-seventeenth century, New France had posed the most serious challenge to the Five Nations’ ambitions and sovereignty. Tracy’s invasion of Iroquoia in 1666 appeared to have locked the Iroquois into the French orbit by opening their towns to Jesuit black robes. The Five Nations had suffered enormous losses in their relentless beaver and mourning wars, leaving them uncertain of their spiritual virtue and political primacy. Many seemed to have become stout Francophiles who embraced the Christian god, accepted Onontio as their father, and opened their settlements to French merchants.

Against this backdrop, the Five Nations’ Covenant Chain with New York in the 1670s might appear to signal a splintering of the Iroquois League into rival factions. The sudden Jesuit ascendancy among the Saint Lawrence Iroquois seemed like a capitulation to a colonial power, and it fueled virulent anti-French sentiments within the league. The pro-English bloc of the Iroquois was emboldened to steer the league into a tighter alliance with the increasingly powerful New York. All this did not mean, however, that the Five Nations were divided or in conflict. On the contrary, the Francophile and Anglophile blocs together enabled the Iroquois League to keep North America’s two most powerful empires in a state of uncertainty, nurture commercial and political relations with both, and draw major concessions from each.

Suddenly, New France was besieged by a newly ascending Five Nations. France’s North American empire did not exist outside of its web of Indian alliances, and the Five Nations were at once usurping that web and tearing it apart. Captives poured into Iroquoia—a single raid yielded eight hundred Illini captives—and the number of Iroquois villages increased from fifteen in 1666 to twenty-four in 1680, while the area covered by their settlements increased from roughly seven thousand square miles to forty-five thousand. Iroquois war parties looted French vessels and demanded tributary goods at Fort Frontenac, while selling the bulk of their pelts to Albany. New France suffered a twenty-five percent drop in its fur revenue. Governor Frontenac kept postponing direct talks with the Iroquois. He had a good reason: they had threatened to boil and eat him.

There had never been anything like the Five Nations League in North America. No other Indigenous nation or confederacy had ever reached so far, conducted such an ambitious foreign policy, or commanded such fear and respect. The Five Nations blended diplomacy, intimidation, and violence as the circumstances dictated, creating a measured instability that only they could navigate. Their guiding principle was to avoid becoming attached to any single colony, which would restrict their options and risk exposure to external manipulation. French officials believed that the Iroquois strove to become “the sole masters of commerce.” Such an idea was not far-fetched. Having observed how the Five Nations “completely ruined” several Native nations, the French knew they were defenseless. An Iroquois empire was consolidating in the interior.

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by Joel | 25 April 2023 · 5:42 am

French Yield to Mohawks, 1622

From Indigenous Continent: The Epic Contest for North America, by Pekka Hämäläinen (Liveright, 2022), Kindle pp. 92-94:

In 1622, desperate to put an end to the violence that disrupted the fur trade, the raison d’être of New France, Champlain yielded to Mohawk demands. The Dutch came to their own conclusions about Mohawk power around the same time, retreating from closer interactions; and Champlain, spotting an opening, extended a peace proposal to the Indian nation. The Mohawks accepted a treaty, which freed them to focus on their Native rivals. They attacked Montagnais towns in the Saint Lawrence Valley, securing the northern and western flanks of Iroquoia, the Iroquois homeland. In the south and east, Mohawks, the “Keepers of the Eastern Door,” moved to discipline the Dutch, who, placing profits before politics, had opened Fort Orange to Mahicans. By 1628, the Mahicans and the Dutch had seen enough. The Mahicans agreed to pay the Mohawks an annual tribute in wampum, and the Dutch resigned to placate the Iroquois League with goods. Mohawk sachems now controlled who was allowed to trade at the fort—whose guns, lead, and powder could make and unmake Indigenous regimes in the Northeast.

France’s support for its Native allies was not altruism; it was secured by a generous trade in beaver pelts and through the social alchemy of sharing. “The Beaver does everything perfectly well,” a Montagnais hunter declared, “making sport” of French traders. “It makes kettles, hatchets, swords, knives, bread; and, in short, it makes everything.” It is only a slight exaggeration to say that the beaver also made New France itself. In 1627 the colony was home to mere eighty-five people, yet its charter granted it all of North America, from Florida to the Arctic Circle. To prop up the colony, Cardinal Richelieu, the chief minister of King Louis XIII, established the Company of One Hundred Associates to facilitate immigration. Expectations were still modest. The company had to bring in fifteen hundred French “of both sexes” during the first ten years, or face heavy sanctions. It was clear that collaboration with the Indians through the beaver pelt trade would remain New France’s lifeline.

However, New France was also a religious and moral project that mobilized French officials, missionaries, and soldiers to make a concerted effort to enforce acceptable behavior. Marriage customs, especially polygyny, became a source of contention between Jesuits and Indians. For Native men, having multiple wives was essential as a mark of status, as well as insurance that they would produce more children who would contribute to the household’s prosperity and reputation. When French missionaries challenged Indigenous marriage arrangements, both Native women and men fought back fiercely. But large numbers of women—especially captured secondary wives—also sought relief from the grueling labor and lack of autonomy under authoritative and abusive husbands. For them and others, missionaries and Christianity could be useful: they could offer a different life.

In the early 1630s, New France, already inseparable from its network of Indian allies, encompassed an expanding domain around the Saint Lawrence Valley. French traders were reaching out to the Indians for their furs, and Jesuit friars were reaching out for their souls, entrenching the French in North America. In 1631, Champlain wrote a booklet on French and English colonization in the New World, stating that the English “do not deny us all New France and cannot question what the whole world has admitted.”

…

By the mid-seventeenth century, the colonies in Maine that had been founded by European powers were confined to the Atlantic coast below the Penobscot River, and most of those colonies were small and vulnerable. European maps were remarkably accurate when depicting coasts and rivers, but the rest of the continent remained terra incognita. The English, French, and Dutch colonies had not become launchpads for territorial expansion, and only the French had a plan for colonization—a plan that emphasized coexistence. All colonial powers simply struggled to survive. Rather than looking to the west for conquests, they looked to the east, toward their mother countries, for goods, weapons, and soldiers to keep them safe. The settlements were more footholds than full-fledged colonies. It is telling that the out-of-the-way Great Fishery was still the most lucrative of the European schemes, and it was a business venture, not a colony.

The Spanish Empire had instigated an early European surge consisting largely of ruthless pillaging, which was lucrative but not sustainable. It had not led to permanent possessions in North America. By 1600, the Spanish were seriously questioning their methods. More than a century of colonialism had merely scratched the surface of the Indigenous continent.

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by Joel | 23 April 2023 · 3:49 am

The Fox of the Mohegans

From Indigenous Continent: The Epic Contest for North America, by Pekka Hämäläinen (Liveright, 2022), Kindle pp. 86-87:

THE MOHEGAN SACHEM UNCAS SEEMED TO BE everywhere, shaping every major development in the borderlands between the colonists and the Indians. In 1626, at the age of thirty-six, he had forged a Mohegan–Pequot alliance by marrying the daughter of Tatobem, the great sachem of the Pequots. Uncas accepted a subordinate role under the senior sachem, only to immediately challenge Pequot authority when Tatobem died in 1633. Uncas persuaded the Narragansetts to join him but struggled to challenge the supremacy of the Pequots, who had drawn the Dutch into their orbit. The Pequots banished Uncas to live among the Narragansetts. Stripped of followers, Uncas seemed to have exhausted his options. The Mohegan territory was shrinking rapidly, and he had but a handful of followers.

But then Uncas spotted an opening in the form of the new English colony of Connecticut. He approached the newcomers and established ties with the leading Puritans. He warned the colonists of an imminent Mohegan attack and earned their trust. When the English moved against the Pequots, Uncas supported the colonists, having become alienated from the haughty Pequots. When the Pequots were crushed, he adopted several survivors as newly born Mohegans. He was one of the crucial signers of the 1638 Treaty of Hartford, which dispossessed all the Indians who were not party to it. He promised to live in peace with the English; in return, the remaining Pequots would be divided between the Mohegans and the Narragansetts. It was at once revenge and an attempt at ethnic erasure. The treaty’s clause that the Pequots “shall no more be called Pequots but Narragansetts and Mohegans” was as much Uncas’s doing as it was that of the colonists. Acutely aware of their weakness in the midst of powerful Indigenous confederacies, the English expected the Mohegans and Narragansetts to punish the Pequots and “as soon as they can either bring the Chief Sachem of our late Enemies the Pequots that had the chief hand in killing the English to the said English or take off their heads.” When peace came, the English held more than three hundred Pequots captives. They carried many of them to the colony of Providence Island, near the Spanish-controlled Mosquito Island, trading them for African slaves. New Englanders did not want Pequots nearby.

With the Pequots utterly defeated, the Mohegans emerged as a major regional power. While maneuvering to marginalize the leading Narragansett sachem, Miantonomi, Uncas directed the English—apparently through misinformation—to move against the Narragansetts. In the mid-1640s, the English began to encroach on Narragansett lands. Uncas captured Miantonomi and turned him over to the English. The colonists sentenced the sachem to death and asked Uncas to execute the order. With a Puritan delegation witnessing, Uncas’s brother Wawequa sank a tomahawk in the sachem’s skull. The Narragansetts soon signed a peace treaty with the Connecticut Colony.

Uncas’s opportunistic diplomatic maneuvering and his ability to create and break alliances placed the colonists at a significant disadvantage in the contest for position and power. Uncas and his Mohegans endured endless colonial challenges, large and small—not just surviving as a people but controlling the world around them. Huddling in their small colonial enclaves, the English and Dutch were insular and powerless in comparison, managing little more than glimpses of the Indigenous politics that determined events and outcomes. The English thought they could regulate matters of war and peace in the New World, but more often than not, Indians steered them into fighting and financing Indian wars and facilitating truces and treaties with goods and gifts when the fighting stopped. The colonists—whether Spanish, French, English, or Dutch—could be arrogant and brutal, but the Indians had learned how to exploit them for their own purposes. Properly managed and manipulated, they could be useful.

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by Joel | 16 April 2023 · 12:43 pm

J. Chamberlain on Annexing Colonies

From Britain at War with the Asante Nation, 1823–1900: “The White Man’s Grave” by Stephen Manning (Pen & Sword Books, 2021), Kindle pp. 201-202:

A change of government saw the appointment of Joseph Chamberlain as the new Colonial Secretary. Chamberlain was arguably the most expansionist secretary the Colonial Office had ever seen, and he was a devotee of all the political intrigue that surrounded the Scramble for Africa. He saw events in Asante as being part of the process by which Britain would extend its influence and empire. Chamberlain had anticipated a French challenge into Asante and this he was not going to permit. Thus, he latched onto [Gold Coast Governor] Maxwell’s proposal and replied by cable in September 1895 that [Asante King] Prempeh must be told that the government now expected the 1874 treaty to be met and honoured in full. In addition, he informed Maxwell that Prempeh must also be told that Asante must refrain from attacking neighbouring tribes and that he had to accept a British resident at Kumasi. Crucially, Chamberlain was prepared to back his words with military intervention.

This tougher stance was fully supported by the British Chamber of Commerce as well as many of the British newspapers. For example, The Times of 21 January 1896 claimed that Asante had long formed a block of savagery between the British coast and the interior. This had prevented trade and that the French were taking advantage of the situation by opening their own markets, which may now be lost to Britain.

On receiving Chamberlain’s instructions, the governor despatched Vroom to Kumasi with an ultimatum for Prempeh which required of him either a written reply or a personal interview with the governor before the end of October. Although treated with courtesy, Vroom received no direct answer from Prempeh, and he returned to the coast. It seems Prempeh was putting all his hope in his deputation that had been sent to London and he sent a sword bearer and court crier to the coast to inform the British that he was awaiting a response from his messengers to Queen Victoria. As no written response was received to the ultimatum it was taken by Maxwell, Scott and Chamberlain as a rejection. Maxwell had already informed Scott that he would be in command of the proposed military expedition and preparations were well under way.

Chamberlain had already warned the Cabinet in November 1895 that private enterprise was now inadequate for opening Britain’s vast ‘underdeveloped estates’, and that the government must lead the way with money and troops. Without consulting the prime minister, he announced a punitive expedition to Asante.

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by Joel | 15 April 2023 · 6:03 am

Who Led the Scramble for Africa?

From Britain at War with the Asante Nation, 1823–1900: “The White Man’s Grave” by Stephen Manning (Pen & Sword Books, 2021), Kindle pp. 193-195:

When examining the British government’s actions before 1895, it seems evident that ministers felt no urgent requirement to expand British influence in West Africa. They were not interested in using imperial power and capital to work in West Africa for the purpose of investing in new markets and resources. It is often thought that the empire existed to create more business for Britain, yet, according to Robinson and Gallagher in the seminal work Africa and the Victorians, in the Gold Coast, before 1895, it would be truer to say that the merchants were expected to create empire and that the British government expected them to do so without imperial rule, to make do with the limited protection and to pioneer their own way inland.

The ‘Scramble for Africa’ was to change that thinking. This term refers to a period in the late 1880s and 1890s during which many European powers, including Britain, France, Belgium and Germany, sought to expand their own empires or spheres of influence across the African continent. The motives behind such actions were often economic enhancement or dominance, but the nations were equally driven by the desire for their European rivals to be excluded from a region. Although this was true across Africa, West Africa was to be dominated by a strong rivalry between the British and the French.

At the height of the Scramble it was common that local officials were several steps ahead or even led opinion as to what action should be taken. Often the Colonial Office in London was slow in offering definitive guidance and policy could be made by the officials in situ. This was certainly true of the Gold Coast. The Governor Brandford Griffith had already alerted London that French colonial ambitions were being extended by exploration westwards into the hinterland of the Gold Coast, from their colony of the Ivory Coast. In 1886 a French officer, Captain Louis-Gustave Binger, had been tasked by the French government to lead a reconnaissance mission along the Niger River. To avoid arousing British suspicions he started from the interior and by 1889 he had covered a huge area between Bamako, Kong and Wagadugu and he encroached on British influence in Salaga and Kintampo. In 1888, Binger even managed to secure a treaty of protection with the Bontuku under the noses of a British mission. Brandford Griffith feared that the French might even penetrate into northern Asante and so in 1886 he informed the Colonial Office that Asante territory should be quickly brought under British jurisdiction.

The following year the governor gave a further warning to London of German encroachment into Asante from Togo in the east. These warnings were not, initially, taken very seriously and the secretary of state, Henry Holland, 1st Baron of Knutsford, even wrote, ‘If Ashanti is to be annexed to any European power let it be by the Germans.’ However, over the next few years such complacency disappeared from the Colonial Office in light of further European penetration of the interior of West Africa and diplomatic disagreements in Europe. It was felt that some action, at least to the north of Asante, would have to be considered. Here diplomacy within Europe secured two important agreements. The Anglo-French Agreement of 1889 defined the western boundary of the Gold Coast according to treaties made with the local chiefs. Similarly, the Anglo-German Treaty of 1890 established a neutral zone to the north east of Asante in which European nations bound themselves not to acquire protectorates. The treaty also defined the southern Gold Coast–Togoland boundary in general terms, but detailed interpretation on the ground aroused local resentment and the king of Krepi was outraged that the new boundary split his lands. Furthermore, the creation of the neutral zone merely heightened colonial rivalries in the adjacent territories. When the king of Attabubu approached the British seeking protection from German encroachment, the governor was delighted to recommend that a treaty of friendship and protection should be drawn up and this was executed in 1890, much to the annoyance of the Germans.

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by Joel | 14 April 2023 · 4:28 am

Dutch-British Swap in the Gold Coast

From Britain at War with the Asante Nation, 1823–1900: “The White Man’s Grave” by Stephen Manning (Pen & Sword Books, 2021), Kindle pp. 74-76:

The Dutch had first traded on the Gold Coast in 1580 and in 1637 they had attacked the castle at Elmina and seized it from the Portuguese. From Elmina the Dutch continued the slave trade begun by its former owners and developed a strong relationship with both the king of Elmina, who controlled the surrounding lands, as well as the Asantes who supplied the Dutch with slaves in exchange for European goods and weapons. The king of Elmina had secured a supportive relationship with the Asantes over the years, which was based on trade and a mutual distrust of the British. The people of Elmina traded fish and salt to their immediate neighbours, in exchange for food stuffs, such as maize and cassava, as well as cattle. There was also an important trade with much of the Akan hinterland, including the Asante, in which the traders of Elmina exchanged goods, such as cotton cloth, leather goods, powder, ammunition and weapons for palm oil, food stuffs, animal skins and slaves.

Over the following centuries, the Dutch, working alongside Elmina traders, very much concentrated their efforts on economic activity. Although the abolition of slavery severely limited the trade in human cargo, it did not eradicate it and the Dutch continued to play a part in this trade, but not in such an overt manner as before. The Dutch maintained a neutrality in conflicts between the Asante nation and the British and their native allies and this can be partly explained by the fact that the Asantes, through conquest, held the ‘Notes’ to Elmina Castle and the Dutch would pay a yearly rent to the court at Kumasi in return for good relations between the two. Yet, this placid relationship was to alter as the nature of trade changed throughout the nineteenth century. The Dutch found it more and more difficult to make their economic activities along the Gold Coast financially viable and in the 1860s they began to negotiate with the British as to how both countries could benefit by working together.

In March 1867, in the hope of introducing and operating an effective tariff along the whole of the Gold Coast, and to reduce budgetary losses, the Dutch and the British agreed to consolidate their trading interests into two blocks. Elmina was used as the dividing line and the British took the area to the east and the Dutch to the west of the castle. In true imperial style, neither country gave any thought as to how the local population might react to a change in governance and none of the local chiefs were consulted. The treaty came into effect on 1 January 1868 and in its terms the British handed over control of the forts and trading posts of Apollonia, Dixcove, Sekondi and Kommenda and in return gained Dutch Accra, Moree, Apam and Kormantine. Crucially, the British also relinquished to the Dutch the protectorate over the peoples of Eastern and Western Wassa, Apollonia and Denkyira.

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by Joel | 13 April 2023 · 7:01 am

The Asante Capital in 1817

From Britain at War with the Asante Nation, 1823–1900: “The White Man’s Grave” by Stephen Manning (Pen & Sword Books, 2021), Kindle pp. 40-42:

Osei Bonsu was correct in his assessment that the British were focused only on trade. Yet, with the parliamentary victory of the abolitionists this trade, as far as the British viewed it, would no longer be based on slavery. Of course, one of the primary drivers of Asante military expansion was the need to secure supplies of slaves. Indeed, the African Company formally recognised as early as 1809 that the Asante nation could not be expected to ‘acquiesce in the destruction of a trade [slavery] not inconsistent with their prejudices, their laws or their notions of morality and religion and by which alone they have been hitherto accustomed to acquire wealth …’. This contradiction of aims would result in further conflict throughout the century and see the African Company losing its role as the main British presence along the Gold Coast. However, this was in the future and in 1817 the major British concern was the urgent need to come to some sort of arrangement with the Asante nation to secure Britain’s immediate economic and political position.

The African Committee in London decided upon a direct course of action and ordered Governor John Hope Smith, who had replaced Colonel Torrance, to despatch a mission to the Asante capital of Kumasi to negotiate with the king for the establishment of a British Embassy at his court. Hope Smith selected four of the company’s officers for the task. Thomas Bowditch, a clerk, was to write a detailed account of the mission and became the lead negotiator for the company. The officers set out from Cape Coast Castle on 22 April 1817, along with a retinue of carriers. The journey was to take them nearly a month before they arrived in Kumasi on 19 May. En route they passed through Fante towns and villages that had been devasted by the Asante army until they reached the jungle belt and the condition of the path slowed their progress. At the town of Fomena, the first in Asante proper, the group met the local chief, who expressed his delight that he was able to greet a white man before he died for he was awaiting execution having offended Osei Bonsu in some way. The chief was, according to Bowditch, philosophical about his circumstances and, seated on a cloth, displayed dignity rather than shame whilst he calmly awaited his fate. The chief’s head duly arrived in Kumasi the day after the mission.

Kumasi grew from a tree-encircled crossroads of trading routes. Tree is kum in the local Twi language. The city itself was situated on a hill overlooking the Subin River and when Bowditch and his party pushed their way through the 5,000 warriors who had been sent by the king to greet their arrival they discovered a city of 27 major streets, the greatest of which was used for significant receptions and parades and was over 100m wide. There were named quarters, or abrono, and trades, such as goldsmiths or umbrella makers, occupied specific quarters. When the mission finally reached the palace, which was the largest building in the city, covering a total area of 5 acres, they were formally greeted by Osei Bonsu. Apart from being the royal residence, the palace also housed a forum in which the council of the nation would debate important matters. Bowditch wrote of the elaborately carved doors and windows and even the lavatories found in the palace and described the wealth he saw, in terms of gold ornaments and rich clothes. When his work was published in Britain it was met with scepticism for the reviewers could not comprehend that Africa could possess such a large and elaborate native city.

Bowditch and his colleagues remained in Kumasi for several months and although treated with respect, they were not given the freedom to explore the local area and at times they must have thought they were little more than prisoners. However, Osei Bonsu was keen to negotiate a treaty with the British and Bowditch was finally able to return to the coast with a treaty signed by the king. In it the king pledged himself to ‘countenance, promote and encourage’ trade between his subjects and Cape Coast Castle and allowed for a resident to remain in Kumasi. In return the officers in charge of the British forts would give ‘every protection in their power’ to such Asante people who might require it. This feature of the treaty, point seven of ten, was quickly tested and the British were found wanting.

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by Joel | 12 April 2023 · 3:18 am

Asante Army Structure, 1800s

From Britain at War with the Asante Nation, 1823–1900: “The White Man’s Grave” by Stephen Manning (Pen & Sword Books, 2021), Kindle pp. 27-32:

The Asante army was not a regular force, although there did exist a small trained cadre stationed in Kumasi to protect the capital and the Asantehene. This formed the nucleus of any expeditionary force. However, in other respects the army was more akin to a feudal levy of the European Middle Ages in that most of the manpower was assembled at the outbreak of war from troops raised by the twenty-four tribal heads and later from tribes that had been annexed into the Asante Empire. At its maximum, the Asante army was said to have been up to 100,000-strong. However, most armies were not as large as this; for example, around 40,000 warriors opposed the British in 1874. The fact that such a force could maintain its cohesiveness and discipline, especially as its ranks did include men taken from recently vanquished tribes, is miraculous and its success can be attributed to several factors.

The Asante military leaders quickly realised the important advantage that firearms gave them over their foes and the leadership generated a winning mentality and even a sense of superiority amongst their troops that they had a share in a glorious military tradition. This went even further in that the Asante nation, with each victory and conquest, rapidly gained amongst its people and from those of other tribes and nations, even European ones, a reputation as a self-governing, independent state that was wholly indigenous and not one that had evolved as a result of outside influences.

Once war was declared against another tribal state the decision to do so would be made by the Asantehene, his privy council, the chiefs of the twenty-four individual states that comprised the nation, and, as time went on, the chiefs of the newly acquired vassal states that had been brought into the Asante nation by conquest.

…

If war was declared, then the chiefs, who also served as the captains of the various states, would return to their lands and call their people to arms. Every male citizen was a soldier and all able-bodied men were expected to ready themselves for military service. However, a quota system existed so that only a proportion of men were called for action with the remainder left at home to provide security as well as, crucially, manpower to ensure that the farming systems continued, and future famines were avoided.

There was a large element of discipline, even subjugation, which was used to maintain the army’s effectiveness. There were severe punishments, including death, for failure to report for duty, for desertion and cowardice. A military police force armed with whips and swords had to be used to encourage some into battle and those few that refused were despatched on the spot with an axe. Yet, overall the command structure centred on the king, his privy council and the army general staff was incredibly effective not only on the battlefield but also in bringing the army to readiness and for ensuring that logistically it was able to fight and achieve victories. Each army group took its own supplies of food and ordnance on campaign. Uniquely amongst African armies, the Asante boasted a corps of medical orderlies, the Esumankwafo, who accompanied the army into battle. This corps attended to wounded troops as well as removing the dead from the battlefield, for immense trouble was taken to conceal losses from the enemy.

A typical Asante battle column was said to have originated by observing ants on a march and comprised a body of scouts, an advance guard, the main body, in which the army commander was found and secured, left and right wings and a rear or home guard. Certainly, in wars with tribal states the battle could be effectively won if the opposing king or general was either killed or captured so the Asante army ensured that their battlefield commanders were well protected in the centre of the formation. The home guard was tasked either with staying in the capital Kumasi or returning immediately to the capital after a battlefield victory, or a rare defeat, to ensure that the security of the capital was maintained. The scouts would first engage with the enemy who would then be drawn in towards the main body. As this was happening the left and right wings would endeavour to surround the enemy for, although the principal aim was to defeat their foe, the secondary one was to capture as many as possible so as to sell them to the slavers on the coast. In addition, in a society in which fetishism and the worship of ancestors was important a number of the recently captured enemy were diverted to human sacrifice, a practice that continued right up to the late nineteenth century.

…

The Asante army was composed entirely of infantry for the inhospitable forest zone, and the presence of the tsetse fly there meant that horses and ponies would soon succumb. Most Asante troops were equipped with standard European trade muskets, which were poorly made with a limited range. On the West African coast such weapons had the common name of ‘Long Danes’, supposedly named as it was the Danes who first introduced them to the Gold Coast. This weapon was over 6ft in length and weighed nearly 20lb and a more unsuitable musket for forest warfare could not have been designed. In theory such guns had a range of 200yd but were rarely accurate beyond 30yd and although the enemy might be frightened by the explosive fire, it was unlikely to hurt them unless hit at very close range. Yet, the nature of the jungle fighting meant that if the enemy had not already fled at the sound of the approaching Asante army, then fire would often be at close proximity as the two protagonists were unable to see each other through the near-impenetrable forest.

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by Joel | 11 April 2023 · 6:25 am

Foundation of the Asante Nation

From Britain at War with the Asante Nation, 1823–1900: “The White Man’s Grave” by Stephen Manning (Pen & Sword Books, 2021), Kindle pp. 25-27:

The Asante nation we know today, and that came into conflict with the British in the nineteenth century, is also known as Asanteman; a homogeneous society comprising twenty-four individual states, each with its own chief, serving one king, known as the Asantehene who resides in Kumasi, the capital of the Asante nation. The name Asante seems to have derived from a special red clay the people sent to the dominant tribe, the Denkyira, as a form of payment or tribute of allegiance. The Akans call clay ‘Asan’, therefore the Asantes were differentiated from others with the name ‘Asan-tefo’, or those who dig clay.

The foundation of the Asante nation can be dated to the late seventeenth century with its rise as a military power under the leadership of its first king, Osei Tutu, and the inspiration of a priest, Okomfo Anokye. With the ambition of freeing the Asante people from the dominance and servitude of the paramount Denkyira tribe, and thereby forging a nation rather than simply a tribe, these two men realised the vital importance of both a religious and military system with which to bind a new nation together. As the historian R.S. Rattray has rather cynically written of Okomfo Anokye, ‘with a true insight into the psychology of the people with whom he had to deal, he realised that the only way to unite independent and mutually jealous factions [within the Asante tribe] was by playing upon their superstitious beliefs’. According to Asante tradition a wooden stool covered in gold was summoned from the sky by Anokye and this descended upon the lap of Osei Tutu, who was anointed as king. Anokye declared that the Golden Stool contained the spirits of the Asante ancestors and the strength and wellbeing of the new nation depended on its preservation. Every Asante, and heads of each of the twenty-four tribal states, had to show allegiance to the Golden Stool and its guardian the king, or Asantehene, the head of the Asante nation. The British lack of understanding regarding the paramount importance to the Asante nation of the Golden Stool was to be the central reason for the Anglo-Asante War of 1900.

To consolidate and reaffirm his position the king, Osei Tutu, quickly realised that the energy and resources of his new nation should be directed towards military conquest and this would begin, in 1701, with war waged against the Denkyira tribe. Although the Denkyira, under their king, Ntim Gyakari, initially achieved success against the Asante forces, Osei Tutu was able to draw the Denkyira into a trap and at the Battle of Feyiase the full military might of the Asante nation routed the Denkyira army. Ntim Gyakari was captured and beheaded on the battlefield. Having secured independence from Denkyira servitude, Osei Tutu now turned his focus on expanding his new nation. By the end of the seventeenth century and into the eighteenth century slavery was at its height and it is no coincidence that the rise of the Asante nation occurred at the same time. Osei Tutu and then successive Asantehene, such as Opoku Ware (1720–50) and Osei Kwadwo (1764–77) directed forces against neighbouring tribal states. There was a seemingly never-ending series of wars. For example, the Sefwi, Bono and Gyaman states were added to the Asante nation during Opoku Ware’s reign, whilst Osei Kwadwo defeated the Wassa and Banda peoples, annexing their lands. He also expanded the Asante nation northwards into Dagombaland to slow the southward spread of Islam into the region.

However, the thrust of Asante expansion was primarily southwards and was motivated largely by the desire to sell those captured in battle as slaves directly to European buyers on the coast. Even the passing of the Slave Trade Act in 1807 and then the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 did not slow Asante expansion for there were always notorious traders and nations who would buy slaves. Furthermore, the Asante army was now dependent on firearms and gunpowder to maintain its supremacy and the various Asantehene and military leaders considered it imperative to have direct access to European suppliers of weapons, powder and ammunition who were based on the coast.

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by Joel | 10 April 2023 · 6:16 am

British Military Expansion, 1800s

From Britain at War with the Asante Nation, 1823–1900: “The White Man’s Grave” by Stephen Manning (Pen & Sword Books, 2021), Kindle pp. 16-18:

The truly massive expansion in the British Empire throughout Victoria’s long reign (1837–1901) saw British troops (‘The Soldiers of the Queen’) and naval personnel deployed across the world in such diverse countries as Russia, New Zealand, India, Canada, Egypt and South Africa, to name just a few. Such deployments were made to right a perceived wrong, to defeat a European foe, to stop a competing country securing spoils or simply to expand British prestige and power. On many such occasions British troops were placed in direct conflict with indigenous ethnic tribes or nations and the resulting military actions have become an important part of British colonial history, which some view with immense pride and others with shame or even disgust. Whatever personal views are held there is no doubting the immense bravery and fortitude of the British troops and equally these terms can be applied to their foes.

In most of the colonial wars of the Victorian age the British had a significant technology advantage in terms of weaponry over their enemies and this allowed them to achieve some crushing victories such as at the battles of Magdala (9 April 1868) and Omdurman (2 September 1898). Yet, there were occasions when despite this advantage the British were defeated, most famously at the Battle of Isandlwana (22 January 1879). When the British met defeat at the hands of an indigenous enemy such foes became respected and even achieved mythical status. This is certainly true of the British relationship with the Zulu nation, but it also applies to the Maoris of New Zealand, the Dervishes of Sudan and the Sikhs of Northern India. Less well known are the numerous conflicts that the British fought against the Asante nation in what is now modern-day Ghana in West Africa.

Whilst the Zulus did indeed inflict a crushing defeat upon the British at Isandlwana, a minor one at Intombi Drift (12 March 1879) and a more serious reversal as at the Battle of Hlobane (28 March 1879), the Asante nation was a thorn in the side of both British politicians and the military throughout the nineteenth century. Indeed, the casualties endured by the British in the various campaigns against the Asantes were comparable to those suffered during conflicts with the Zulus and the Dervishes. The Anglo-Zulu War lasted a mere seven months, although the unsatisfactory political settlement that was imposed by the British resulted in lesser conflicts which extended into the beginning of the twentieth century. By contrast, the Asante nation and the British were in both political and military conflict for over seventy years during the nineteenth century and three major wars resulted in which there were significant military reversals for the British. This volume is split into three separate parts to reflect and illustrate these wars, each of which possessed fascinating moments and challenges which are captured in this work. Whether this is the death of the British Governor, Sir Charles McCarthy, at the Battle of Nsamankow (22 January 1824), Sir Garnet Wolseley’s brilliant planned and orchestrated expedition of 1873–4, or the siege of the British fort at Kumasi in 1900, all offer a rich and engrossing history. Indeed, the 1900 siege tells a tale of bravery, fortitude and ineptitude that can stand alongside other more famous sieges of Victoria’s reign, such as Ladysmith and Peking. One particularly fascinating aspect of these three major wars is how the unsatisfactory settlements reached at the conclusion of each were the lifeblood for further conflicts.