Heads of Asanteman

Asantehenes

1777-1803: Osei Kwame Panyin
1803-1804: Opoku Fofie
1804-1824: Osei Bonsu
1824-1869: Osei Yaw Akoto

-with Batavian Republic needing manpower enters into agreement

-in return for allowing it to maintain road from Elmina to Kumasi and recruiting soldiers requires huge imports of guns

-initiates massive campaign of road-building to invade territories

1869-1881: Kwaku Dua
1881-1893: Prempeh [destooled]

-faced with British skirmish in 1888 which turns into British declaration of war

-with Dutch allied with British after French Wars > Fourth French War (1880-4) attempts to play powers against one another fail

-initial astounding Asante victories which receive attention from around the world

-in 1891 British government sends more troops and technological advantages mean it does better

-removed from office after military defeats despite hard fighting

-with further military actions only defrayed after French Wars > Fifth French War (1892-5) forces British to fuck off because they have to use them elsewhere

-ending treaty is face-saving, Asante and British sign a very vague friendship and amity treaty viewed as a victory

-but this is enough to cause an impeachment

1893-1904: Kwasi Boachi I

-trained in Europe

-and for this considered the man to deal with issues that led to British doing so well

-engages in period of modernization

-including investment in Railways

-as well as creation of new, modern gun factories

-additionally establishes a number of educational institutions in a web

-most famously initiates a drive for smallpox vaccines

-with Sopona cult extant he organizes new religious order devoted to Sopona which doctors and smallpox vaccinators are associated with

-and part of a general effort to fortify Akom against Christianity and, to a lesser extent, Islam

-fosters growth of nkwankwaa as secondary power base

-seeks to use them against traditional aristocrats

-enacts first regulations to phase out slavery gradually

-viewing Russia's defeat in Russo-Chinese War (1893-9) as proof of supremacy of free labor

-seeks to create plantations farmed by free labor

-enacts preparatory law for constitutional reform

-also there's a campaign to expand country to make it harder for European powers to colonize

-helped along by modernization greatly

-builds overland trade links to prevent European-dominated coastal trade from overwhelming country

-through Dahomey to French Lagos

-and also through Sokoto

-and when Empire of the German Nation postwar develops Komoh as a port builds trade links with them

-additionally includes princes of conquered lands as kingmakers and other national institutions

-which is a pretty big constitutional shakeup

-which gives the asantehene more power because many of them dependent on him

1904-1931: Opoku Ware

-continues modernization effort

-engages in skirmishes with United States of Fredonia along its frontier which show the two are pretty evenly matched

-when faced with noble rebellion in the north he enacts new centralizing reforms

-also he has powerful army loyal to himself everywhere

-issuance of new constitution of Seventy-Seven Laws despite controversy of it contravening sacred laws

-includes a new assemblage of deputies elected by the odikros (village headmen)

-here nkwankwaa are able to rise to power and office

-this is so he can pass new special laws

-results in repeated attempts to remove him but beaten by presence of appointed members in north under martial law

-additionally new lower house outvotes upper house

-also existence of lower house allows for odikros to dispute power of their overlords and thus weakening the states