Spencer Mizzen (3:45)

Can you introduce us to, say, Two or three of the most significant ashanti rulers? I mean, how powerful were these men. And how much influence did they wield over the kingdom?

Barnaby Phillips (3:56)

So I think we should start with the mythical origins of the ashanti kingdom, which are often attributed To a man called okonfor anochwe, who is a sort of a great priest, if you like, and was the mentor and curator to the first ashanti king. The ashanti kings are called the ashanti hinis. And that's a dynasty that goes down today. And the first great king Is a man called ose tutu. And the myth is that okonfo enoche, this great priest, Summoned a golden stool from the sky to osetutu. And presented it to him in front of all the chiefs in kumasi. And it was this act, the golden stool Contained the soul of the ashanti people. Which launched the beginning of, I guess you would call the ashanti empire. Its power gradually spreads out from kumasi. Over a series of tributaries kingdoms. So you might think of it as a bit of, I suppose, Of a loose confederation. And the degree of control that kumasi has over those peripheral kingdoms. Ebbs and flows with kumasi's power. But what is evident quite quickly. Is that it is a very well organized military kingdom. Although it operates, I suppose you might say, Rather like a feudal levy, if you like. It's not so much a standing army. Chiefs and princes are ordered to raise forces. They work with great discipline. They only have muskets, by the way, Typically, which is a technology which has come from the europeans. What they call dane guns. On the west african coast. But they use these to great effect. They use noise. They use their courage, their strength. And they use their mastery of fighting in the forest. Because they are inland in the forest, to devastating effect. Raiding the kingdoms around, Raiding gold, Mining gold themselves. Alluvial, real gold, but digging Down a deep, deep way, capturing people, selling captives and selling gold to the Europeans on the coast. And this is the dynamic that serves Ashanti extremely well throughout the 18th century. At the beginning of the 19th century, other European powers have, I suppose, faded away to a certain extent on the Gold coast, with the exception of, of the British. And that is when the British are starting to become more curious, not just satisfied to stay on the coast. And that's when they want to know more about this great inland kingdom with whom up to that point, they've only dealt with through intermediaries.

Spencer Mizzen (6:42)

As you kind of alluded to there, at the very heart of this story is the extraordinary golden regalia crafted by the Ashanti, much of which would ultimately be plundered by the British, which obviously we'll come to in a bit. Can you tell us a bit more about these treasures? How impressive were they, who made them, and why were they regarded as so important to the Ashanti people?

Barnaby Phillips (7:07)

Well, I think gold has multiple meanings to the Ashanti people. In fact, as it does in, in many parts of the world, it's a monetary store of value. It brings prestige to. To the kings. The kings are weighed down in gold when they appear in public. They still are today, by the way. I mean, there's still the Santorini and many other Ashanti minor kings. And you'd be amazed at the bracelets, at the badges, at the golden headdresses, at the gold decorated sandals. The amount of gold and its capacity to dazzle, to impress, to signify wealth, but also with a spiritual dimension, to show the Santa connection to the gods and the skill of the craftsmen. This is a wider skill shared in parts of West Africa by the wider Akan ethnic group to whom the Ashanti belong. But their ability to cast in gold, whether that is using the very sophisticated lost wax method of casting, or whether it is through hammered gold, thin gold, and then a method known as repousse, pressing patterns on sheet gold is extraordinary. And without wanting to leap forward too far, when the Ashanti regalia is looted en masse by the British in 1874 and comes back to London, of course it's valued by the British army as trophies, as souvenirs. But it also, rather like the Benin bronzes, which is another infamous expedition at the end of the 19th century, it also challenges Victorian assumptions about Africa being a place of barbarity, a place of without skilled craftsmen, a place without history. And it evidently contradicts all those assumptions.

Spencer Mizzen (9:00)

So when did the British first arrive on the scene? And what were those Initial interactions between the British and the Ashanti, like so

Barnaby Phillips (9:09)

really, the British in the 18th century are strong on the Gold coast itself. They control a place called Cape Coast Castle. They have close links with the people around the Fante people on the coast. But any contact with the Ashanti themselves is indirect. And it's only at the beginning of the 19th century that they decide they want to know more about the inland kingdom. A delegation is sent up some 200 kilometres through the forest to Kumasi in 1817. And it's a man called Thomas Bowditch, who happens to be related to the governor rather conveniently on Cape Coast Castle. But he's a man of humble origins, he's an apprentice hatter from Bristol, but he's a very ambitious man and he ends up spending several months in Kumasi and he writes this extraordinary account of his time there, which, when it's published in London in 1819, it's called from Cape coast to Kumasi. It is met with some scorn and some incredulity, but also a lot of excitement. It fixes the idea in British minds that the Ashanti is a kingdom of gold, a place of vast wealth. And he describes the extraordinary reception, you know, these hundreds and hundreds of soldiers or everybody glistening with gold, the king weighed down in gold. He describes a well laid out city with urban hygiene, with piazzas and arcades. He describes the friendly reception he receives in Kumasi over a period of months, these great feasts he's invited to. He's not entirely complimentary. It's a contradictory message, if you like, that he paints of the Ashanti. He says that there is human sacrif sacrifice and he says that there are practices which he sees as barbarous. But he also says there is much to admire about this kingdom. And at the end of his visit he gets the Asantehini at the time Ose Bonsu, who's called to sign a treaty of friendship with the British. And this is, if you like, with the benefit of hindsight, the tragic honeymoon of Anglo Ashanti relations. Because the treaty, the Friendship Treaty, doesn't last. And indeed, from that point onwards, starting in fact, in the 1820s, the history of Anglo Ashanti relations is one of gradual deterioration and in fact, repeated wars.

Spencer Mizzen (11:32)

So why did that relationship deteriorate? And you mentioned their repeated wars, what do those wars look like? How do they play out?

Barnaby Phillips (11:39)

Well, I suppose you would say the relationship deteriorates throughout the 19th century because Britain's commercial interests get broader, if you like, they want to penetrate Directly more into the interior themselves, Even if it's not until the very end of the 19th century that Britain actually wants to acquire and rule territory. That. That's not really until. Until the 1890s and all right, that might explain the final two Anglo Ashanti wars, But until then, their ambitions are expanding, but they are not yet of that scope, if you see what I mean. I think perhaps what really throws the relationship off a cliff, if you like, is at the beginning of the 1870s when the British have pushed out the Danes and then they buy out the Dutch and they buy this great fortress called elmina, through which the Ashanti have traditionally traded, A fortress on the coast, and suddenly the British are the only European power left on the coast. And of course, that access to the coast, that access to the Atlantic trade, is very, very important to the Ashanti. And now from their point of view, it is controlled by a relatively hostile European power. And that leads to a sharpened deterioration. And if you like, the largest war, I would say, which is the War of 1873, 1874, there are other factors at play as well. Throughout the 19th century, I would say, if you like, to the British credit, the determination to do away with the slave trade with which Britain had enthusiastically participated in the 18th century, grows stronger. And Ashanti had and wanted to carry on engaging with the slave trade. The British conviction that Ashanti was a place of human sacrifice grows stronger, a place of barbarous custom. And I suppose allied to this throughout the late 19th century is a heightened, I would suggest, Victorian sense of racial superiority. So it's that it's a combination, perhaps, of a moral zeal, a sense of racial superiority, and a growing commercial drive, if you like, that draws the preeminent European power into conflict with this great west African kingdom.

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Spencer Mizzen (15:25)

So, as you say, 1873, 1874 is a really significant moment in this story. Can you tell us in a bit more detail what happened during this really important war? And how controversial did Britain's relationship and Britain's growing belligerence towards the Ashanti? I mean, was that at all controversial back in Britain itself?

Barnaby Phillips (15:48)

So in 1873, the Ashanti invade, what, the Gold Coast Protectorate, this rather ill defined British territory on the coast. After the British purchase of Elmina. This, this for. And they sweep right down to the coast and this is a huge shock to the British. It's a huge setback, it's an embarrassment. And there's a man called Sir Garnet Wolseley, not so well known today, who was put in charge of the British military response. And he is a very, very ambitious, very, very capable soldier. And he shapes events to his own end. And he convinces the British government who a rather half hearted William Gladstone, the Prime Minister doesn't really have his eye on the ball, that three British battalions should be sent out to the Gold coast to tackle the Ashanti. And he gets his way. That's an extraordinary moment. More than 2,000 British soldiers, white British soldiers, West Africa, seen as the white man's graveyard, being sent out to march into the interior, into the tropics. The British have advantages. They have the Snider, which is a breech loading rifle. And they have the Gatling gun, which is not quite the Maxim gun, but it is an early machine gun. And these advantages negate the Ashanti courage, the Ashanti ability to fight in the forest. It means that any actual battle, and there are two significant battles on their march up to Kumasi, the British are able to kill extraordinary numbers of Ashanti soldiers and suffer relatively few casualties themselves. But when they get to Kumasi, Wolseley and remember, communications with London are very bad. This is important to emphasise. There isn't yet a telegraph. He can shape events on the ground. He must decide. And the Ashantogene. The King is not there. The King has run away, perhaps rather wisely, And Wolseley has left in Kumasi and he is like Napoleon in Moscow because there's nobody to surrender and the weather is closing in. Only this time, of course, it isn't the snow, it is the West African rain. And he's very worried. His soldiers are starting to fall sick, he's got all these rivers, he has to march back. There's nobody to surrender to, so what can he do? He blows up the palace. But first he loots it systematically and he sets Kumasi on fire as a statement of British control. The British are not yet in the mindset that they will be, by the way, in the 1890s, that they are going to annex the Ashanti territory and incorporate it into the Gold Coast Protectorate, what becomes the Gold coast colony. They're not yet there, but they do want to show this truculent, troublesome kingdom, as they would see it on their periphery, that you do not mess with the British Empire. And so that is Wolsey's message, that is what he tries to achieve. Is it controversial in Britain? Yes, to the extent that if you go through Hansards, there are dissenting voices, not as many dissenting voices as there will be in the 1890s, but, by the way, when the British go back to Kumasi and loot the palace a second time. But there are dissenting, resenting voices who start to say, you know, what is the purpose of this? What are we trying to achieve? Are we really showing that we are Christian and civilized? But overall, the consensus is that Sir Garnet Wolseley comes back a complete hero. This is the making of him. He's not, as I say, not a well known figure today, but he rises to become commander in chief of the British army and this is the making of him. In fact, there is a well known phrase in late Victorian times, all cigarnet, which means everything very well organised. He's shown he's a master of logistics, he's shown that he is the epitome of a more professional, more meritocratic army in the wake, say, of the embarrassments of the Crimean War, and he represents that. And so the consensus is that the British have done the right thing and they've done it well against a barbarous army. That is the overwhelming view of opinion in Britain. In 1874, a time of hubris, I suppose, and the height of British power.

Spencer Mizzen (19:53)

So to stay on Woolsey, just for a second, I mean, could it be argued that appropriating the Ashanti treasure is always at the back of his mind? Was that a source of motivation for launching this attack on them?

Barnaby Phillips (20:02)

I'm not sure about motivation. I think destroying the palace is at the back of his mind or a statement of British supremacy is very much important. Yes. Woolsey's interesting on this issue of, you know, whether you plunder an opponent's palace, because he has seen himself firsthand what we might now see as the two previous to this, the two most notorious instances of British imperial plunder. I'm talking about Lucknow in India in 1858, in the, in, in the midst of what was called the Indian Mutiny, the Indian uprising, Indian War of Independence, whatever we're going to call it. And he was there in Peking in 1860 when the summer palace is looted by British and French soldiers. And he writes in his autobiography that he's against looting, not for moral reasons that we might see today, but because it undermines military discipline. It might bring privates and officers into conflict in each other. But there is, in his point of view a correct, a legitimate way to seize plunder and that is to appoint prize agents, which is what happens in the palace. He appoints a group of senior officers and they go through the palace in Kumasi by candlelight while the Royal Engineers are waiting to blow it up. And they take off everything of value that they can grab. And then when the British army gets down to Cape coast, they get out of Kumasi as quickly as they can and they've blown up the palace. Those treasures are auctioned off in a accountable way, you might say, amongst the British officers, but in fact also amongst the Cape coast elite. The local Africans themselves and officers have to pay for what they can afford and the proceeds are divided amongst widows and bereaved and injured. And so there is a process. I mean, it may seem hypocritical and self serving, but there is a process nonetheless. And also as part of that process, an added degree of complexity is that while the British are leaving Kumasi, heading back to the coast, the Ashanti envoys catch up with them and do actually surrender and sign a surrender document and hand over large amounts of golden regalia, in fact more precious regalia than that which the British had looted from the palace because the king had hidden this, this stuff. And this material is not divided up amongst the soldiers. And auctioned in Cape Coast. It is taken back to London and some of it is presented to Queen Victoria, given to Queen Victoria, but most of it is auctioned in London in a place called Garrard, the Crown Jewellers in Haymarket, Piccadilly in the spring of 1874. And all of London society aristocrats, wealthy businessmen, turn up royalty and buy up what they can. And this helps explain how Ashanti gold today is in the British Museum, in what was the South Kensington Museum today, the va. Why it's in the Wallace Collection. For those who know the Wallace Collection, of course, at the time it was Richard Wallace, an enormously wealthy Victorian aristocrat. He buys up what he can and objects get disperse amongst other members of the British aristocracy and those who can afford to buy it. And that explains why there's Ashanti gold, for example, in the Royal Collection today in Windsor Castle and other places.

Spencer Mizzen (23:28)

Do we know how much was taken in total and how long did this sort of process of plunder go on for?

Barnaby Phillips (23:35)

Well, the plunder of the palace itself is really overnight when the prize agents do their work. When that is sold at Cape Coast Castle, that's sold off for about three and a half thousand pounds at the time. So the gold which is taken back to Britain, which is sold at Garrard Garrod the jeweler, pays £11,000 at the time for it, which is translated in today's money. Of course, it is difficult to translate getting exact value, but that's like one and a half million pounds today. It's not an enormous amount of money. And what is sold off in Cape Coast Castle is sold off for £3,000. So the quantities are not astronomical. Where there's a fascinating discrepancy I find is between what the big museums buy up at Garrards and that which we're able to trace today and the total quantity mentioned in all the different officers accounts. And I think quite often what happened is that gold just has an intrinsic value and often people were actually looting gold dust, gold nuggets, gold that was not formed into specific pieces. And that gold, of course would be melted down or would just be used in all sorts of other ways and if you like, is lost forever. Nonetheless, to the Ashanti themselves, there are certain key symbolic pieces of regalia, certain famous golden face masks. There's an amazing mask in the Wallace collection which is the. The single most expensive item from the 1874 loot which Richard Wallace bought. And some people say that that gold face mask is perhaps the largest single item of worked gold. Have come out of Africa, with the exception of ancient Egypt itself. There's an incredible, absolutely beautiful golden ram's head cast head which is taken by officers of the Royal Artillery from the palace. And Wolseley gives them special permission, in fact, to keep that head, that they have to buy it, as it were, but they don't have to participate in the auction. And that head is kept very privately today by the Royal Artillery in their officers mess in a place called Lark Hill in Wiltshire. In fact, I asked permission of them to go and see it there and they refused me permission to see it, but we know it's there.

Spencer Mizzen (26:01)

And what impact did these interactions with the British, losing, you know, these wars of the British, what long term impact did that have on the Ashanti kingdom?

Barnaby Phillips (26:11)

Well, that's a really interesting question. So 1874 is, is a stunning defeat, but it is not the end of the Ashanti kingdom. The British come back in the mid-1890s and by that time they want to annex the kingdom, incorporate it into the British Empire. And this time they march into Kumasi again and they are not resisted. King Prempe, the Ashanti of the time, tells the people of Kumasi not to fight. Prempe is sent off into exile for 28 years, the vast majority of that time in the Seychelles in the middle of the Indian Ocean. But the Ashanti never stop thinking about their king over the water. And perhaps crucially, they retain the Golden Stool, which had been hidden from the British, which is this object which to them contains the soul of their people. In fact, the final war with the British is in 1900, and it's sometimes called the war of the Golden Stool, when another British governor marches to Kumasi and says, give me the Golden Stool, I want to sit on it. And this is complete sacrilege to the Ashanti because nobody can sit on the Golden Stool. Even the Ashanti Hini, even their own king does not sit on the Golden Stool. And this sets off the last and final, in fact the longest of the Anglo Ashanti wars in Ghana and Ashanti today, it's often called the Yaa Asant War. Who was a great queen who took up the cause in the absence of the exiled King Prempe. But to cut a long story short, when Prempe is allowed to return in the mid-1920s, although in theory the British are only allowing him to return as a private citizen who by the way, now calls himself Edward and who's converted to Christianity in his long period in the Indian Ocean, the Ashanti themselves are in no doubt that their king has returned. And in the 1930s, the British allow the Asantehini confederacy to reform, if you like, under Prempe ii. And today there is a man called Osetutu II who is in the palace in Kumasi. And ultimately, of course, the British are very adept, perhaps particularly in West Africa, at indirect rule and at working through the authority of kings. And by the 1920s, they realize that actually having this extraordinary reverence with which the Asante is treated by his own people, as it were, co opted into the British cause, is more productive and more helpful for the British than trying to fight it. And that, of course, that leaves the independent country of Ghana, which emerges in 1957, with a rather complicated legacy, if you like, because you have the Asante, this very, very powerful figure within the country. And in the initial years of Ghanaian independence, or maybe even the initial decades, there is quite a tension between the Isantahini and the government which is in the capital of Ghana, which is Accra down on the coast. But in more recent decades, I think it's fair to say that Ghana as a country has navigated those tensions pretty successfully, actually, and in more recent decades held very well contested, keenly contested competitive elections in which power transfers back and forth, and in which obviously the Ashanti people participate very eagerly and recognize the legitimacy of even as they still revere their king.

Spencer Mizzen (29:38)

As you've kind of alluded to there. This is a story with sort of a long and ongoing afterlife, isn't it? And you've written a feature for the April issue of History Extra magazine in which you describe a ceremony held in Kumasi in Ghana in 2024 to mark the return on a long term loan of 32 pieces of the golden regalia that we've been talking about. But before we get to that, I wonder if you could sort of explain to us when did the people of Ghana begin to campaign for the return of these treasures? And what kind of reaction did those initial calls elicit from Britain?

Barnaby Phillips (30:17)

So I think it's fair to say from the Ashanti point of view that when Prempe returns from his exile in the 1920s, there's correspondence with British officials in the late 1920s and early 30s asking for the return of key bits of sacred regalia, you know, such and such a sacred sword, such and such a sacred head and so on. And it's not really addressed by the British. There is a concerted appeal in the 1970s, which is the centenary of Sir Garnet Wolseley's sacking of the palace There are years of correspondence, in fact, in the Foreign Office and in the British Museum correspondence. And. And they actually do come close to a deal. It falls apart. It doesn't happen. If you like, the Ashanti get a sort of, you might call a consolation prize, which is an extraordinary exhibition of Ashanti gold regalia in London and in New York, which had a big cultural impact at the beginning of the 1980s and sort of raised Ashanti's profile across the world, if you like, but. But ultimately they were thwarted in their ambition for their treasures to be returned. The whole argument around restitution and museums and colonial looted objects then became turbocharged. If I could leap forward to 2017, and that was when the French president, Emmanuel Macron made this extraordinary speech in Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso, neighbouring Ghana, in fact. And he said, I'm paraphrasing, but he basically said, it's unacceptable that so much African heritage is in European museums. This has to change. And he commissioned this report, it's called the Sar Savoie Report, which ended up, I think, being much more radical probably, than President Macron had anticipated. And that report had a kind of ripple effect through museums across Europe, and it impacted, obviously, objects like the Benin bronzes very much. And people suddenly felt, oh, my God, it's embarrassing. We've got these Benin bronzes, we ought to give them back, or no, we shouldn't. But, you know, we feel very awkward about it all. The Asantehini Osetutu II watched this resurgence of this issue, and his own approach was very diplomatic and not very confrontational. He is an Anglophile, a rather conservative king. He's a friend of the king, King Charles. He used to go and have tea with Queen Elizabeth. And he opted for a compromise because, rather controversially, the major British national institutions that the British Museum above all, but also the va, are prevented from permanently returning objects in their collection. Deaccessioning, as museum people call it. They can only return objects on loan. Now, we could discuss these laws for another hour and their legitimacy, but nonetheless, those are the laws. And his. His approach was essentially okay. I'm not going to allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good. I don't like these loan laws, but if I can get my stuff back for three years initially, then it might be six or not, might be nine, it can be renewed. I'll do that. I'll show my people the wonderful objects we made in the 19th century, or indeed the objects. Some might be older than that. I have my own museum in my palace in Kumasi and there, it's true, the Mancha Palace Museum. And we'll get the material back and we can rotate it through with the British Museum if the laws haven't changed. So that was his approach, rather pragmatic approach. So I went to this extraordinary event, the homecoming event in Kumasi in 2024. It was incredible, actually. I mean, even the British Museum curators who worked on it, there was a woman there who said it was the most meaningful thing she'd ever been involved in professionally. I mean, there were a lot of tears basically, that when these treasures were returned and, and I had the immense privilege of returning to the palace a few months later and watching because I was curious to see, okay, the ceremony was very moving, but what happened six months later and to be in, in the Palace Museum six months later and seeing groups of, sure, Ghanaian school children, but Ghanaians from all over the country, but actually also visitors from all sorts of places, the United States, the North of England, South Korea, coming through and asking all these questions and seeing all the regalia on display. Really fascinating. Not without controversy, I should say.

Spencer Mizzen (34:30)

Is there any pushback among the Asante people?

Barnaby Phillips (34:33)

Yes, well, the king is very revered and so the king has made his decision that these objects are coming back on loan. So that wisdom is unlikely to be challenged overtly in public. But I think when it was first broken that the objects were coming back on loan, there was a huge uproar on Ghanaian social media, Ghanaian radio and Ghanaian television, as you would expect. And some people saying, well, you know, let's just keep them. The British aren't going to send an army to Ghen to come and get them. Let's just not accept the terms of the agreement. But actually the King's envoy, the man called Ivor Acemandua, who I've got to know quite well, who's a very interesting character, very, very pragmatic, very ideological. He's like, no, no, of course we're going to accept the terms. You know, we want to show that we're serious people who can be trusted internationally. We will do what we've signed up to do. What's really interesting as well is that they've accepted the, the British terms, that these objects have become museum pieces. They've returned to glass boxes, they're invitrines air conditioned with alarm systems around them if you like. And that's controversial because they've, in that sense they've accepted perhaps that their spiritual meaning has, if not gone, has been greatly reduced. It was at the same time that the British returned these objects, a much smaller museum in America, it's called the Fowler Museum, it's in Los Angeles, it returned seven objects which it had been able to determine they'd come via Britain, of course, had also been looted by Sir Garnet Wolseley in 1874. And their approach was different to the British approach, one might argue, more progressive. They said, we're giving back these objects. You do with them what you want. How can we possibly give them back in any way except unconditionally? If you want to put them in the Palace Museum in glass boxes, that's fine. But if you want to wave them around in festivals and re engage in all their spiritual meaning, that too is fine. So I suppose in the whole, the way to look at it I think is that this is not a zero sum game and it doesn't have to be one way or the other. There are different solutions that, that can work. I've also, for example, I've seen individual stools. I mean, a stool is a very sacred object in Ashanti culture and in wider Akan culture that have been returned to places in Ashanti and they might have been, say in British stately home for, for 100 years. And they've returned to a minor. And the one I'm thinking of has returned to a minor Queen's Palace. It has a British plaque on it saying, you know, seized in 1900 by Reginald blah blah, Colonel, blah blah blah. And she just engages with it as if it never went away. She speaks to her ancestors through it. She puts food and spirit drinks all over it and its original meaning has completely reverted, if you like. So there are different solutions that can work in different ways.

Spencer Mizzen (37:28)

Thanks for that, Barnaby. If you'd like to learn more about this subject, then why not check out Barnaby's article on the British plunder of the Ashanti gold, which appears in the April issue of History Extra magazine. You'll also find plenty more on the history of Africa, including Zainab Badawi discussing the challenges of writing the entire continent's history. On the History Excerpt website. You'll find the link to that article on the podcast Description.

Barnaby Phillips (38:00)

That was Barnaby Phillips speaking to Spencer Mizzen. Barnaby is a historian and conservationist and TV and radio correspondent. And his latest book is the African Kingdom of Britain and the Ashanti Treasure.