Ashanti Dawn

Paul Brinkley tells us the history of the Asante Empire, the Zulus of the West African rainforest

- Paul Brinkley

The Ashanti loved war. Their name even meant ‘made by war’. They had started a Federation to control the goldmines of the forest. They bought guns, cleared land, took slaves and prospered. Guns, gold and slaves! The cornerstones of the Asante Empire – The Zulus of the West African Rainforest. They conquered; they killed, then they expanded like a huge, interlocking system of towns guarded by legionary soldier ants. They came to learn obedience and to live for what they had become. As their marshall marching song declared “if I go on, I shall die; if I stay behind I shall be dishonoured; it is better to go on.”

In a land where the trees were often four times higher than the average European Trees, on the forest floor there was a profound twilight world; a vast green expanse with months of torrential rain that would turn large areas of its floor into flooded forest for hundreds of yards either side of rivers or streams that had burst their banks.

Narrow forest paths would become impassable quag-mires as the red earth liquified. For all these reasons, and because the Asante were relentless warriors, no one challenged them seriously for 170 years. That and the fact that if they caught you, they would either kill or enslave you and drag you to their capital, Kumasi which in Akan meant ‘under the killing tree’.