Editing History of Ghana (section)

== Ashanti Empire ==
{{Main|Ashanti Empire}}

[[File:Asante map.jpg|thumb|A map of the [[Ashanti Empire]].]]
Under Chief <!-- There is no Wikipedia article for [[Oti Akenten]], Please create a article if you can. Thanks-->Oti Akenten (r. ca. 1630–60), a series of successful military operations against neighboring Akan states brought a larger surrounding territory into alliance with Ashanti. At the end of the 17th century, [[Osei Tutu]] became Asantehene (king of Ashanti).<ref name="auto5">{{Citation|title=Prempeh, Ii, Otumfuo Sir Osei Agyeman, (1892–1970), nephew to late Nana Agyeman Prempeh I; Kumasihene and direct descendant of late King Osei Tutu, the Founder of Ashanti Empire; Hon. Zone Organiser (with rank of Hon. Lt-Col) in Home Guard, 1942|date=2007-12-01|work=Who Was Who|publisher=Oxford University Press|doi=10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.u54595}}</ref> Under Osei Tutu's rule, the confederacy of Ashanti states was transformed into an [[Ashanti Empire|empire]] with its capital at Kumasi. Political and military consolidation ensued, resulting in firmly established centralized authority.<ref>Robin Hallett, ''Africa to 1875'' (University of Michigan Press: Ann Arbor, 1970) p. 69.</ref><ref name="auto5"/>

Osei Tutu was strongly influenced by the high priest, [[Anokye]], who, tradition asserts, caused a stool of gold to descend from the sky to seal the union of Ashanti states. Stools already functioned as traditional symbols of chieftainship, but the [[Asante royal thrones|Golden Stool]] represented the united spirit of all the allied states and established a dual allegiance that superimposed the confederacy over the individual component states.<ref>{{Cite book|title='Golden' chinquapin.|date=1984|volume=PA-1358 |publisher=U.S. Dept. of Agriculture|location=[Washington, D.C.]|doi=10.5962/bhl.title.101411|url=https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/180958}}</ref> The Golden Stool remains a respected national symbol of the traditional past and figures extensively in Ashanti ritual.<ref name=pc /><ref name="Cambridge University Press">{{Citation|title=War mobilization and state formation in the northern Union and southern Confederacy|date=25 January 1991|work=Yankee Leviathan|pages=94–237|publisher=Cambridge University Press|doi=10.1017/cbo9780511527999.004|isbn=978-0-521-39136-8}}</ref>

Osei Tutu permitted newly conquered territories that joined the confederation to retain their own customs and chiefs, who were given seats on the Ashanti state council. Tutu's gesture made the process relatively easy and nondisruptive, because most of the earlier conquests had subjugated other Akan peoples.<ref>{{Citation|last=Osei|first=Akwasi|title=Osei Tutu|date=27 April 2010|work=African American Studies Center|publisher=Oxford University Press|doi=10.1093/acref/9780195301731.013.47990|isbn=978-0-19-530173-1}}</ref> Within the Ashanti portions of the confederacy, each minor state continued to exercise internal self-rule, and its chief jealously guarded the state's prerogatives against encroachment by the central authority. A strong unity developed, however, as the various communities subordinated their individual interests to central authority in matters of national concern.<ref name=pc /><ref name="Cambridge University Press"/>

By the mid-18th century, Ashanti was a highly organized state. The wars of expansion that brought the northern states of Dagomba,<ref>Hallett, ''Africa to 1875'', p. 153.</ref> Mamprusi, and Gonja<ref>Hallett, ''Africa to 1875'', pp. 153–154.</ref> under Ashanti influence were won during the reign of [[Opoku Ware I]] (died 1750), successor to [[Osei Kofi Tutu I]]. By the 1820s, successive rulers had extended Ashanti boundaries southward. Although the northern expansions linked Ashanti with trade networks across the desert and in [[Hausaland]] to the east, movements into the south brought the Ashanti into contact, sometimes antagonistic, with the coastal [[Fante people|Fante]], as well as with the various European merchants whose fortresses dotted the Gold Coast.<ref name=pc /><ref name="Chipp 1922">{{Cite book|last=Chipp|first=Thomas Ford|title=Forest officers' handbook of the Gold Coast, Ashanti and the Northern Territories.|date=1922|publisher=Waterlow & sons limited|location=London [etc.]|doi=10.5962/bhl.title.45233|url=https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/98125}}</ref>