u/adinkramushroom

Today I am starting to read Arthur Japin's novel "The Two Hearts of Kwasi Boachi".

The true story of Kwesi Boakye is interesting, also because it is one of those hidden histories . Boakye was a prince, the son of the Asantehene (King of Asante), Kwaku Dua himself.

You see, as early as the mid-1740s, the Asantehene (King of Asante) Opoku Ware had expressed his interest in the Asante receiving a European education and had sent twelve boys and two girls to the Dutch in Elmina to be educated in Holland, for which he gave ten ivory tusks.However, this did not come to pass, as the Dutch explained that the payment could only cover the tuition fees if they studied in Elmina, but not the costs of studying in Holland.

In the early part of the reign of Kwaku Dua I, which is in or about 1836 four princes, Owusu Ansa, Owusu Nkwantabisa, Kwame Poku and Kwasi Boakye were permitted to leave for Europe for purpose of schooling.

Kwasi Boakye, was sent for education in Holland, a child of nine years. After schooling in Amsterdam he studied mining engineering and went to Surabaja in Java, Indonesia as mountain engineer, became director of mines at Java and according to Ivor Wilks, by the 1870s had turned to coffee planting. ‘It seems Kwasi Boakye never returned to his homeland’.

This obscure story could be the first example of “brain drain” and its effects on Asante in present-day southern Ghana. As in in the case of Kwasi Boakye, a man of many talents and energy who chose to follow a career as a mining engineer and planter in the West Indies showed the problems with the programme itself , which is according to Ivor Wilks, ‘that of the loss to the nation of those who through the very fact of their education found themselves with new and attractive options outside Asante”.

Another morning, listening to the birds singing, I sit in my chair as usual, observing everything on my desk: books, a water bottle, my pens, my phone charger, and many other things. In the distance, I hear the soft footsteps of women walking down the street, as well as the roar of a truck engine accelerating.

I have a sharp pain in my calf that has been affecting my walking these past few days, and I think it's caused by the excessive pressure I've put on my leg in the last few months and weeks. I suspect this is a consequence of walking longer distances—about 7,000 steps to work, and another 7000 steps to home after work.

The pain has intensified more and more, so much so that I haven't been able to walk these past few days. I take the minibus (tro-tro) to work, which further reduces my already meager salary. It's a vicious cycle: low-paying job, stress causes injuries, and then I have to use part of my small salary for treatment at the hospital. Sometimes I wish I'd never been born, because what's the point of all this suffering? What am I living for? I sometimes ask myself.

So the answer that comes to mind is books; If not for anything I love books. Is it possible that, through these anguished thoughts, dedicating my entire existence to reading might bring me some kind of joy? I've been an avid reader for the past few years, and has it brought me any form of joy, fulfillment or comfort? I can't answer that either, but thinking about it, no hobby has brought me true fulfillment.

I'll end here, I'll just keep wallowing in my loneliness, sadness, constant lack of money while I drown myself in books, live music, food I enjoy and the sweet and tender love of my mother, Afia Julie.

To ask again, what is the point of reading books if they don't contribute anything to my life, don't make me any happier than others, or if it's because they might help me improve my vocabulary compared to my compatriots who don't have the habit of reading?

The birds begin to chirp, while in the distance, roosters crow. I sit at my security guard post, thinking about how monotonous this job can be, but I'm still grateful. I always say that no matter how bad the job is or how poorly paid it is, it's still better than no job at all.

At least I can maintain my home; on Friday I was able to pay the electricity bill, which is Ghs200 (17.46 dollars) for the whole family.

Why do birds sing so loudly at dawn? I ask myself this again as I look at the book in front of me, thinking about finishing this article I have in mind to complete.

I'm discussing the role of the Asante in the transatlantic slave trade online. Some claim the Ashanti profited from the slave trade and used it to build a kingdom. The author Ekow Eshun writes, "The Ashanti king sold Black people to White people for a profit." However, according to Ivor Wilks' analysis, the Ashanti imported slaves instead of exporting them. One commentator asked, "Why would they export slaves when they were sitting on one of the world's largest goldfields?"

“In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, a strong demand for labor arose in forest Akan society as local entrepreneurs, the abrempon, sought to increase the extend of the cleared land available for tillage. Slaves, in other words, could readily be traded against gold” this is quoted from Ivor Wilks, Forests of Gold.

“both during the life of Dom João and of Dom Manuel, this sale of slaves continued from (Benin) Beny to Mina, for ordinarily the ships that left this Kingdom went to Beny to buy the slaves, and then carried them to the Mina, until this trade was altered on account of the great inconveniences which arose. A large caravel was wont to sail from the island of S. Thomé, where the slaves of the coast of (Benin)Beny joined those from the kingdom of Congo, because all the vessels that sailed to those parts called there, and this caravel carried them from the island to Mina”

Excerpt From The Voyages of Cadamosto and Other Documents on Western Africa in the Second Half of the Fifteenth Century G.R. Crone.

If we take the above quote as a starting point, wasn't it the Asante or the Akan who bought slaves from the Portuguese in Elmina, brought them inland, and even integrated these slaves into their own families?

My main question is whether the Asante were actually slave traders who exported slaves, especially during the time of the transatlantic slave trade?

Yesterday I shared on this sub about a non-fiction history book about the Asante in the 19th century, one of the powerful pre-colonial kingdoms of West Africa. I bought the hefty tome for £50 and almost gave up on it because it was so dense and dry, but thanks to the encouragement of some wonderful people here, I decided to persevere and focus on reading it.

So I took the 800-page book to work, and since the security post I am assigned to is an office that's empty on weekends, I have free time to read. So today, around 10 a.m., I began reading and went straight to chapter 14, "Modernization, reform, and the role of the Owusu Ansas in politics." Pp. 592-3 deal with the topic of capital punishment, the quote below intrigued me.

“And even we consider that not only murder but offences like stealing from a farm, rape, swearing an oath upon the King’s life, selling a real-born Asante, kidnapping, immorality of a certain kind, were all punished with death , it is conceivable the large amounts of criminals that would be in a convict settlement at any given time. Let the enlightened reader, before moralising on the depravity of the Asante, recall to mind the fact that persons were hanged in England for sheep stealing, and witches burnt at Smithfield, not so very long ago.”

Reflecting on this quote, I began to think that while the current penal system of today may not be the best, it is still relatively progressive and a significant improvement over the penal system of the 19th century; crimes such as those mentioned above still occur today in Asante, which is in southern Ghana, but such crimes will be tried in a court under constitutional law and, if a criminal is found guilty, sent to Ghana's medium security prisons.

I also reflected on the quote above and thought about what might have gone through the minds of African monarchs like the powerful kings of Asante, who were involved in the transatlantic slave trade, and what might have prompted them to send their unfree people, prisoners of war, and criminals from the interior to the coast, to be bought by European slave traders who had come to the coast of Africa with their ships for cargoes of slaves.

My intelligence is not particularly sharp, so please excuse my unrefined way of expressing myself, but I was thinking that if an Asante king had a large number of criminals condemned to death and he learned that the English had arrived on the coast with their ships, perhaps for the king, sending the condemned to the coast, where the English had arrived with their ships, would be a better fate for these people than being executed in Kumasi, the Asante capital.

Another interesting case reported in the same chapter of Wilks' magnum opus is that of the Akuropon woman, a typical case of people who were sacrificed during the funerals of prominent citizens. You see, at the death of a public figure, ‘a number of his close servants and wives would not only expect to be killed, but might insist upon it in order to maintain the relationship which they had enjoyed with him during his lifetime.”

That interesting case is also reported in Winwood Reade’s The Story of the Ashantee Campaign,(1874) a book Wilks’ quotes at the end of the footnotes on pp. 593.

‘A woman at Akuropon selected as sacrifice was stripped according to custom but only stunned not killed. She recovered her senses and found herself lying on the ground surrounded by dead bodies. She rose, went into the town where the elders were seated in council, and told them she had been to the Land of the Dead and had been sent back because she was naked. The elders must dress her finely and kill her over again. This accordingly was done.’

I don't know what to make of these unfortunate aspects of Ghana's history, but all I'll say is that the more you read history, the more you realize it's not a pleasant subject, and it’s no surprise that, the government of Ghana unfortunately took it out of subjects taught in Ghanaian classrooms.