A HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST OF WEST AFRICA. A HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST OF WEST AFRICA BY A. B. ELLIS, /i Lieut. -Colonel \st Battalion West India Regiment, AUTHOR OF 'THE TSHI-SPKAKIN-G PEOPLES OF THE GOLD COAST," "THE EWE-SPEAKING PEOPLES OF THE SLAVE-COAST," ETC. ETC. LONDON: CHAPMAN AND HALL, LD. 1893- [All rights reserved.} ODT-5// CHARLES DICKENS AND EVANS, CRYSTAL PALACE PRESS. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. West Africa as known to the ancients Voyages of the Phoenicians The Periplus of Hanno Extent of his voyage Expeditions of Eudoxus of Cyzicus Traces of Phoenicians on the Gold Coast . CHAPTER II. 13931485. The Portuguese discoveries in West Africa Exploration of the coast Formation of a settlement at Elmina French claim of a priority of discovery 12 CHAPTER III. 14861594. The Gold Coast under the Portuguese Early English voyages The voyages of Towrson Adventures of a boat's crew French trade on the Gold Coast Reprisals of the Portuguese Aban- donment of the Gold Coast by the English and French adven- turersNative States on the Gold Coast at the close of the sixteenth century .... 24 CHAPTER IV. 15951642. The Dutch commence to trade to the Gold Coast They form settlements Hostility of the Portuguese Wars between the Dutch and Portuguese Capture of St. George d'Elmina Final expulsion of the Portuguese Traces of their occupation . . 39 M16390 vi CONTEXTS. CHAPTER V. 16431668. PAGE Return of the English to the Gold Coast Growth of the slave trade The English form settlements Disputes between the English and Dutch The Dutch seize Cape Coast Castle Holmes's expedition to the Coast De Ruyter's expedition The treaty of Breda ... 48 CHAPTER VI. 1669 1700. Formation of the Royal African Company The Brandenburghers form settlements Rebellion of the Elminas Native wars The voyage of Thomas Phillips Capture of Christiansborg by the Akwamus War between the Dutch and Kommendas The English trade to Africa made open . . 62 CHAPTER VII. 1701. Native States in 1701 European forts Personnel of the Dutch establishments Interlopers Description of the Settlements The trade in gold Arms of the natives 74 CHAPTER VIII. 1701 1750. Conquest of Denkera by Ashanti The Elmina Note Affairs in Ashanti to 1750 John Conny Condition of the Royal African Company The African Company of Merchants formed The slave trade Piracy on the Coast 85 CHAPTER IX. 17511804. Affairs in Ashanti during the reign of Osai Kwadjo First mention of Ashanti in the Records of Cape Coast Castle War between England and Holland Extraordinary affair at Mori Reigns of Osai Kwamina and Osai Apoko II. Accession of Tutu Kwamina Position of Ashanti at the commencement of the nineteenth century . . . . . . . . -99 CONTENTS. vii CHAPTER X. 1805 1807. PACE Disturbances in Assin Condition of Fanti First invasion of Fanti Defence of Anamabo Fort Torrane's convention His dis- honourable transactions Continuation of the war End of the invasion ... 107 CHAPTER XI. 18081818. The Fantis attack Elmina Message from the Ashanti King Con- dition of the country Rebellion of Akim and Akwapim Second invasion of Fanti Murder of Mr. Meredith at Winne- bah Third invasion of Fanti The Fantis purchase a peace End of the war Embassy to Kumassi Difficulty about the notes Conclusion of a treaty Gradual growth of British juris- diction The traffic in slaves 121 CHAPTER XII. 18191823. New difficulty with Ashanti Mr. Dupuis His treaty Skirmish at Mori The Crown assumes the Government of the Gold Coast Seizure of a sergeant at Anamabo Expedition to Dunkwa The Accras join the Government 137 CHAPTER XIII. 1823 1824. The Ashanti invasion Expedition to Essikuma The Ashantis enter Wassaw Sir C. Macarthy advances to meet them Defeat and death of Sir Charles Macarthy at Assamako Escape of Captain Ricketts Movements of Major Chisholm's force Sekondi burned A camp formed on the Prah Palaver with the Ashantis at Elmina Release of Mr. Williams His narrative . 151 CHAPTER XIV. 1824. Effect of the Elmina palaver on the natives Retreat from the Prah Defeat at Dompim A camp formed at Beulah Action at Effutu The Ashantis advance upon Cape Coast Cape Coast attacked Withdrawal of the Ashantis Condition of the town Outrage by the Elminas ........ 167 CONTENTS. CHAPTER XV. 1825 1829. PAGE Major-General Turner Advance of a second Ashanti army Battle of Dodowah Proceedings of Sir Neil Campbell Peace ne- gotiations Blockade of Elmina Further negotiations The Home Government withdraws from the Gold Coast A com- mittee of merchants formed Condition of the country ... 179 CHAPTER XVI. 1830 1844. Appointment of Mr. Maclean Treaty with Ashanti Expedition to Appollonia L. E. L. Her death Charges made against her husband Administration called in question A commissioner sent out The Crown resumes control Domestic slavery Missionary enterprise 195 CHAPTER XVII. 18441861. Treaty with protected tribes Death of Maclean Expedition to Appollonia Visit to Kumassi Religious disturbances at Mankassim A poll-tax agreed to Formation of a local corps Ashanti intrigues in Assin Attempted invasion Disturbances in the east Siege of Christiansborg The Krobo war . . 208 CHAPTER XVIII. 18621867. Dispute with Ashanti The Protectorate invaded Engagements at Essikuma and Bobikuma Military mismanagement Native feeling Mr. Pine's proposals Expedition to the Prah The Home Government puts an end to the operations Effects of the campaign Delusive proclamation War with the Awunas Ashanti intrigue in Awuna Governor Blackall's treaty . 224 CHAPTER XIX. 18681869. Exchange of territory with the Dutch Native protests Bombard- ment of Kommenda The Fanti Confederation Investment of Elmina Fruitless negotiations Condition of affairs in Ashanti Palaver at Elmina Dutch prisoners at Kommenda Bom- bardment of Dixcove 243 CONTENTS. ix CHAPTER XX. 18681869. PAGE An Ashanti force sent to Elmina Bloody march of Atjiempon Affair at Elmina Treaty with the Awunas Ashanti invasion of Krepi Mr. Simpson's adventure Capture of German mis- sionaries by the Ashantis Hostages sent for their safety Policy of the Government ........ 256 CHAPTER XXI. 18701872. Condition of affairs Negotiations for the transfer of the Dutch possessions Ashanti claim to Elmina Affairs in Krepi Negotiations for the release of the Europeans Alleged renun- ciation of the Ashanti claim to Elmina Further negotiations . 266 CHAPTER XXII. 1872. Transfer of the Dutch forts Tftr. Hennessey's policy Riot at Elmina Question of a ransom for the Europeans Palaver in Kumassi War decided upon Various messages The cap- tives sent to Fomana Despatch of an Ashanti army Causes of the war - 275 CHAPTER XXIII. 1873- Invasion of the Protectorate Helpless condition of the Govern- mentDefeat of the Assins Actions at Dunkwa Break-up of the allied force Adu Boffo and Atjiempon Distress of the Ashantis Defeat at Jukwa Arrival of Colonel Festing Bom- bardment of Elmina Action at Elmina Condition of Cape Coast Arrival of reinforcements Unfortunate affair at Shamah Cape Coast covered 285 CHAPTER XXIV. 1873- Arrival of Sir Garnet Wolseley Captain Glover's command Sir Garnet's instructions Palaver at Cape Coast Expedition to the Elmina villages The Ashantis break up their camps- Reconnaissances from Dunkwa Defence of Arbrakampa Amankwa Tia's retreat Skirmish at Faisowa Return of the army to Kumassi 299. x CONTENTS. CHAPTER XXV. 18731874. PAGE Affairs in the West Arrival of the European troops Difficulties with the commissariat The plan of operations Captain Glover's proceedings His trans-Volta campaign Ultimatum sent to the King Alarm in Kumassi Release of the Europeans Further correspondence with the King Movements of the auxiliary columns 312 CHAPTER XXVI. 1874. Battle of Amoafu Attack of Kwaman and Fomana Battle of Ordahsu Kumassi entered Incendiary fires The King's palace Messages from the King Burning of Kumassi . . 325 CHAPTER XXVII. 1874. Return march to the coast Movements of Captain Glover's column March of Captain Sartorius Envoys from the King The Treaty of Fomana Adansi becomes independent The trade in arms at Assini The climate Embassy from Kumassi The Treaty signed Treaty concluded with the Awunas The Gold Coast made a colony Abolition of slavery . . - 34 1 CHAPTER XXVIII. 18751881. Affairs in Ashanti Secession of Djuabin Conquest of Djuabin by Ashanti Fresh troubles in Awuna Ashanti intrigues in Adansi The Golden Axe An invasion of Assin threatened Protracted negotiations 354 CHAPTER XXIX. 18821886. Gold Mining Companies in Wassaw Human sacrifices in Kumassi Quarrel between Ashanti and Gaman Dethronement of Mensa Rival factions in Ashanti Election and death of Kwaku Dua II. Renewed disturbances in Awuna Dis- organisation of Ashanti War between Bekweh and Adansi The Adansis driven across the Prah Boundary Commissions . 370 CONTENTS. CHAPTER XXX. 18861888. Rival candidates for the stool of Ashanti Raids made on Ashanti from the Protectorate Effect of the unsettled condition of affairs upon British trade War between Bekweh and Kokofu The Colony intervenes to restore peace Prempeh placed on the stool Murder of Mr. Dalrymple in Tavievi Expedition to Tavievi Rebellion and defeat of Kokofu . 386 HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST OF WEST AFRICA. CHAPTER I. West Africa as known to the ancients Voyages of the Phoenicians The Periplus of Hanno Extent of his voyage Expeditions of Eudoxus of Cyzicus Traces of Phoenicians on the Gold Coast. IT is a well-authenticated historical fact that frequent voyages were made from the Mediterranean along the Western Coast of Africa, both by the Phoenicians and the Egyptians, many hundred years before the Christian era ; but considerable difference of opinion as to the extent of these voyages pre- vails, and it is not generally held that they were pushed far south as the Gold Coast. There seems, however, fair ground for supposing that that part of Western Africa was not entirely unknown to the ancients, though it must be confessed the whole subject is involved in great obscurity. S T one of the writings of the Phoenicians, the greatest maritime people of antiquity, have been transmitted to us ; but the numerous colonies which they established on the shores of the Mediterranean, and the Atlantic beyond the Straits of Gibraltar, attest the extent of their early voyages. Some ot these colonies were founded between 1200 and 800 B.C., and .it is morally certain that settlements would not be I 2 A HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST. established at so great a distance from the parent state, until: the seaV fcad^ keen frequently explored and become fairly* ^wsll^kn own * The, accounts of the Phoenician dis- GbvetfeG ^furnished - by "other nations are very meagre, which may be accounted for by the fact that the Phoenicians, being jealous of foreigners participating in the advantages of their enterprises, were careful to keep them concealed. Every- thing relative to their navigation was not only a trade, but also a State secret ; and Strabo records several instances of their anxiety to prevent other nations prying into their affairs. Hence most of these secrets perished with the downfall of the Phoenicians, and the conquest of Tyre by Alexander, and that of Carthage by Rome, was followed by a marked retrograde movement in the science of navi- gation. The few facts that survived the destruction of these conquests have fortunately been preserved to our day. Thus Herodotus relates that the Carthaginians carried on a trade with an African people beyond the Straits of Gibraltar, with whom, however, they had no personal communication. On arriving at the territory of this people, they arranged their goods in a number of small heaps, and retired. The natives then came forward, placed opposite to these heaps the articles they were willing to offer in exchange, and then retired in their turn. If the Carthaginians were satisfied, they took away the offered commodities, and, if not, they carried away their own, and the trade was, for that voyage, at an end. This story has generally been regarded as in- credible, yet Cada Mosto, who made a voyage to the West African coast in 1455 A.D., learned, at Cape Blanco, that just such a system of barter was carried on between the Moors of the kingdom of Melli, and a black people who lived in the neighbourhood of a great river ; and Captain Richard Jobson, who made a voyage to the Gambia two hundred years later, mentions a similar system as existing some distance up that river. This would seem to show that the story of Herodotus was well iounded. Then there is the evidence concerning the circumnavigation VOYAGES OF THE PHCENICIANS. 3 of Africa, which feat, according to Herodotus, the Phoenicians accomplished six hundred years before the Christian era. He says : * " Libya is everywhere encircled by the sea, except on that side where it joins Asia. Pharaoh Neco, king of Egypt, made this manifest. After he had desisted from his project of digging a canal from the Nile to the Arabian Gulf, he furnished a body of Phoenicians with ships, commanding them to enter the northern sea by the Pillars of Hercules and sail back by that route to Egypt. The Phoenicians, therefore, sailing from the Red Sea, navigated the southern ocean. At the end of autumn they anchored, and, going ashore, sowed the ground, as those who make a Libyan voyage always do, and stayed for the harvest. Having cut the corn, they sailed. Thus, two years having elapsed, they returned to Egypt, passing by the Pillars of Hercules; and they reported a circumstance which to me is not credible, though it may gain belief from others, that sailing round Libya they had the sun on the right." The part of the narration considered by Herodotus in- credible now furnishes the strongest presumption that Africa was really circumnavigated. At that time the existence of a southern hemisphere was considered impossible, and consequently the statement that the Phoenicians had, when rounding the southern portion of Africa, seen the sun to their right, that is to the north, was regarded as a mere invention; but it is exceedingly unlikely that the explorers would have invented a tale which was opposed to all the scientific knowledge of the age ; and it is more reasonable to suppose that they did circumnavigate Africa, and reported a fact which they had observed. The voyage of Sataspes, undertaken in the reign 01 Xerxes, though it failed in its object, showed how confident the ancients were of the practicability of circumnavigating Africa. He, having been condemned to death by Xerxes, was reprieved on condition of making a voyage through the Straits of Gibraltar, and following the African coast until * Melpomene, 42. B 2 4 A HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST. he returned by the way of the Red Sea. He sailed a con- siderable distance along the shores of Western Africa, and then returned home, where he suffered death. Indeed, the opinion that Africa was a peninsula, and that the Indian Ocean joined the Atlantic, appears to have been generally held by the Persians and the Egyptians ; until, the science of navigation having declined, and the remembrance of former explorations having died out, Hipparchus, with his theory of seas separated into distinct basins, led the world into error, and caused the fragmentary accounts of the Phoenician discoveries to be regarded as mythical. But of all the early attempts at maritime discovery of which we have any authentic accounts, the voyages of the two Carthaginians, Hanno and Himilco, along the coasts of Africa and Europe, are unquestionably the most important. These expeditions were undertaken when Carthage was at the height of its prosperity, and must therefore have taken place prior to the battle of Himera, which was fought in the year 480 B.C. Hanno was despatched by the Senate of Carthage to establish some colonies on the west coast of Africa. According to the Periplus, he had with him seventy- seven quinqueremes, together with a large number of women and children, and an ample supply of provisions and other necessaries. Passing the Straits of Gibraltar, he sailed two days to the southward, and anchored opposite a large plain, where he built a city called Thymisterium, on the banks of the River Marmora. Proceeding further to the south he built a temple, dedicated to Neptune, on a wooded pro- montory which he calls Soloeis, and which has been iden- tified as Cape Cantin. Having doubled this cape, he built five other towns on the sea shore, at no great distance from each other. Continuing his southerly course, he passed along the shores of the Sahara, and, doubling Cape Blanco, colonised the island of Arguin, which he calls Cerne, and where the cisterns constructed by his colonists still attest to the enterprising spirit of the Carthaginians. Still sailing to the southward, the expedition reached a river called by Hanno the Chretes. This they entered, and THE PERI PLUS OF HAN NO. 5 found that it opened into a wide harbour, containing several large islands. The hills in the neighbourhood were inhabited by black savages clothed in the skins of wild beasts, who drove away the voyagers with stones and other missiles. Not far from this was another great river, filled with crocodiles and hippopotami. Twelve days to the south of Cerne the Carthaginians came to a hilly country, covered with a variety of odoriferous trees and shrubs. The negroes of this coast were a timid race, and fled from the strangers. Seven days' further sail brought the expedition to a large bay, to which they gave the name of the Western Horn. In this bay was an island, on which they landed. During the day all was calm, but at night strange appearances pre- sented themselves : the mountains seemed to be all on fire, and the sound 01 drums and cymbals was mingled with strange cries. Terrified at these sights and sounds the explorers hastily embarked, and as they continued their course to the south, columns of flame still illumined the midnight sky. Sailing seven days along this coast they came to a bay, which they called the Southern Horn, and found within it an island with a lake, and in this lake .another island, filled with savages of a peculiar description. The females were covered with hair and were called Gorillae. The males fled across the precipices, and defended them- >lves with stones ; but the Carthaginians captured three females. These, however, broke their bonds and fought so furiously that it was found necessary to kill them ; but their skins were stuffed and brought to Carthage. The want of provisions prevented the explorers proceeding any further to the south. The Periplus, which gives us the above account, is evi- dently an extract from or summary of some earlier account of the voyage, made by a Greek of apparently a much later age ; and the imperfect manner in which the details of the voyage relating to time and distance have been transmitted to us, renders it extremely difficult to ascertain with precision how far it extended. Some geographers have confined it to the southern confines of Morocco ; M. Gosselin determines 6 A HISTORY Ot THE GOLD COAST. that Hanno never sailed further south than Cape Non, and M. de Bougainville supposes the Western Horn to be Cape Palmas, and the Southern Horn Cape Three Points. M. D'Avezac limits the voyage to the River Ouro ; while, on the other hand, others have fixed the Cameroons Mountains as the Southern Horn, Cameroons Peak as the Currus Deorum, and Corisco, in the Bight of Benin, as the island inhabited by gorillas. Most of these authorities, however, had never visited the African coast, and were unacquainted with the appearance of the various localities supposed to have been reached ; while many erred in applying the word keras exclusively to promontories, whereas the Greeks generally applied it to inlets of the sea. Sir Richard Burton, whose intimate acquaintance with the geography of West Africa entitles his opinion to respect, appears to favour the supposition that the voyage extended further than MM. Gosselin and D'Avezac suppose. Assum- ing the identification of Cerne with Arguin to be complete and the presence of Carthaginian remains in that island supports that assumption the first river met with to the southward, the Chretes, would be the Senegal. There are several islands in this river, which spreads out into a lagoon inside the bar, notably the one on which the town of St. Louis is built. There are hills in the neighbourhood, namely those at Cape Verde. It is the first place at which, ac- cording to the Periplus, black people were met, and negroes are not found north of the Senegal, which separates the Djollof Negroes from the Moorish tribes. This seems to fairly identify the Chretes with the Senegal, and the next great river, filled with crocodiles and hippopotami, would be the Gambia, which until very recently was remarkable for the large numbers of those creatures which infested it. From Cape Verde, north of the Gambia, to the peninsula of Sierra Leone the entire coast is low, with the exception of the Dubrika mountain ; the mention therefore of mountains in the vicinity of the large bay, to which the voyagers gave the name of the Western Horn, seems to identify it with Sierra Leone harbour, in the neighbourhood of which the THE PERIPLUS OP HANNO. 7 mountains of the Sierra Leone range attain in the Sugarloaf Peak a height of some 2,600 feet. % The harbour, or bay, is the largest on the whole coast, and in the eastern branch of it, round Tagrene Point, there are several islands. The nocturnal fires observed by the voyagers were doubtless the bush fires, by means of which the negro inhabitants have been accustomed from time immemorial to clear the ground for cultivation. These bush fires are at times immense, and the country for miles round is seen illumined by advancing lines of flame, which well explains the sentence " fires con- tinually issuing from the ground " in the Periplus. The sounds of drums and cymbals and the strange cries which so terrified the explorers, were no doubt caused by the nocturnal festivities to which the negroes are so addicted on moonlight nights. So far this seems tolerably clear. The Senegal, the Gambia, and Sierra Leone are fairly well identified ; but now the difficulties commence. Seven days from the Western Horn the voyagers arrived at the Southern Horn, where was the island inhabited by gorillse. Now, there is no island on the whole coast between Sierra Leone and the Cameroons Mountains, except Sherbro Island, which, being only some forty miles from Sierra Leone harbour, cannot be supposed to be the one in question ; and the voyage to Fernando Po, the island lying off the Cameroons Mountains, could not possibly have been accomplished in seven days. If then the voyage terminated at the Cameroons Mountains, many important details as to time and distance must have been omitted from the summary of the voyage which has de- scended to us. The only attempt on the part of the Greeks to explore the West Coast of Africa was that made by Eudoxus of Cyzicus, who lived about 117 B.C. He was despatched by the successor of Ptolemy VII. on a voyage to India, and on his return, being driven by contrary winds to the East African coast, he there found on the shore, amongst other fragments of wreckage, the prow of a vessel, with the figure oi a horse carved upon it. This relic, which he took with 8 A HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST. him as a curiosity, was exhibited in the market of Alexandria, and was there recognised by some pilots as belonging to a vessel from Cadiz. The smaller vessels belonging to that city, and which were employed in the fisheries along the West Coast of Africa as far as the River Lixus (Wadi al Klios), invariably had the figure of a horse carved upon the prow, and on this account were termed " horses." The fact of the wreck of a vessel peculiar to Western Europe being found on the eastern coast of Africa, convinced Eudoxus of the possibility of sailing round the southern extremity of the African continent ; and, proceeding to Cadiz, he equipped three vessels, one large and two of smaller size, and endeavoured to put his theory to the test. After sailing for some distance along the West African coast, the sailors, afraid of entering upon unknown seas, in spite of his remonstrances, forced him to beach his vessels. He soon contrived to reassert his authority, but it was found impossible to get the larger vessel afloat, and she became a total wreck. The cargo, however, was saved, and a third vessel, as large as a fifty-oared galley, having been con- structed from the timbers of the wreck, the voyage was continued. Eudoxus at length reached a portion of the coast inhabited by negroes, Senegambia no doubt, and here, owing to the opposition of his crews, the voyage terminated, and he returned to Mauritania. Nothing daunted by this failure he shortly after fitted out another expedition, con- sisting of two vessels, and once more sailed to the south along the African shores. From this voyage he never returned. The foregoing are all the accounts that have survived to , our time of ancient exploration in Western Africa; from them it is fairly evident that Africa had been circumnavi- gated, but we have no direct evidence that any of the peoples of antiquity visited the Gold Coast. A variety of circumstances, however, lead us to suppose that the Phoeni- cians, or some other ancient nation, not only visited the Gold Coast but were accustomed to trade there, probably for the gold the country produced. TRACES OF PHCENICIANS ON THE GOLD COAST. 9 In Wassaw, one of the western districts of the Gold -Coast, gold has been obtained in considerable quantities since the first occupation of the littoral by Europeans. The Portuguese built a fort at Axim to protect this trade, and the Dutch, who ousted the Portuguese, constructed for the same purpose two forts on the Ancobra river, which was the route to the gold-producing districts. The Dutch, towards the end of the last century, for some unknown reason, probably the hostility of the natives, abandoned these river forts and withdrew to the sea coast, with the result that the knowledge of the fact that extensive gold-fields existed in the interior gradually died out, or was only preserved in local traditions, which were regarded as half mythical. Some few years ago, however, the knowledge was accidentally revived, and the mineral wealth of the country having been ascer- tained by competent men, several mining companies were formed, and the country opened up in a way that had never been done before. Then it became apparent to the mining engineers that some other people had been there before them, in regions into which the Portuguese and Dutch had never penetrated. Many traces of ancient workings were found, in two cases at least consisting of tunnels, which had been driven into the bowels of the hills to follow up a gold- bearing vein. These were certainly not the work of the natives, who have never done more than dig pits for alluvial gold, and the discovery in one of these ancient workings- of remains of antique bronze lamps, designed to hold a wick floating in oil, seems to point to some ancient nation as their author. This supposition gains support from the fact that the aggry beads, the manufacture of which is a lost art, are only found in the western half of the Gold Coast, and chiefly in Wassaw. These beads, which were noticed in the possession of the natives by the earliest European explorers, are of two kinds, plain and variegated. "The plain aggry beads," says Bovvdich,* who devoted some attention to the question ot * Mission to Coomassie, p. 218. io A HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST. their origin, " are blue, yellow, green, or a dull red ; the variegated consist of every colour and shade. . . . The variegated strata of the aggry beads are so firmly united and so imperceptibly blended, that the perfection seems superior to art. Some resemble mosaic work ; the surfaces of others are covered with flowers and regular patterns, so very minute, and the shades so delicately softened one into the other and into the ground of the bead, that nothing but the finest touch of the pencil could equal them. The agatised parts disclose flowers and patterns, deep in the body of the bead, and thin shafts of opaque colours running from the centre to the surface. The colouring matter of the blue beads has been proved by experiment to be iron ; that of the yellow, without doubt, is lead and antimony, with a trifling quantity of copper, though not essential to the production of the colour. The generality of these beads appear to be pro- duced from clays coloured in thin layers, afterwards twisted together into a spiral form and then cut across, also from different coloured clays raked together without blending. How the flowers and delicate patterns, in the body and on the surface of the rarer beads, have been produced, cannot be so well explained." As these beads are much valued by the negroes, various attempts have from time to time been made to imitate them, but without success. The natives regard them with a super- stitious reverence, and declare that they dig them up ; they have no tradition of whence they came, and the name " aggry " is an exotic word which no native can explain. Exactly similar beads have been found in ancient tombs in North Africa, in others in Thebes, and in parts of India ; and when it is remembered that Sidon was famous for such work, it is not unreasonable to ascribe a Phoenician origin to them. It might well be that they were bartered by the Phoenicians with the natives for gold-dust, for they are only found in the gold-producing districts of the Gold Coast, and to this day the value of an aggry bead is always reckoned at its weight in gold-dust. What is certain is that the beads were intro- duced into the country from the sea, for, had they been TRACES OF PHCENICIANS ON THE GOLD COAST. IF brought overland, from Egypt for instance, some of them would certainly have been found in the far interior, which is not known to have ever been the case. And as the natives had these beads in their possession when the Portuguese first explored the Gold Coast, they must have been introduced there before the rediscovery of Western Africa by the nations of modern Europe. CHAPTER II. 13931485. The Portuguese discoveries in West Africa Exploration of the coast- Formation of a settlement at Elmina French claim of a priority of discovery. IN the general relapse into barbarism which followed the downfall of the Roman Empire, the nations of modern Europe made but small progress in navigation, and voyages were undertaken merely along known coasts, and within sight of land. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries dis- coveries were made in the far east, but principally by land, and it was not until the rediscovery of the Canary Islands, and the almost contemporary invention of the compass, that a fresh impulse was given to navigation. Spain appears to have first taken the lead in the bolder spirit of enterprise which had now been awakened. In 1393 a Spaniard, named Almonaster, is said to have reached Lancerote in the Canaries; and, as a result of this voyage, about the year 1395, some adventurers of Andalusia, Biscay, and Guipuscoa visited the Canary Islands with a squadron of five ships, plundered all the populous districts, and carried off the King and Queen of Lancerote as captives, with about seventy of the inhabitants. In 1405, the dominion of the Canary Islands, together with the title of King, was granted by the King of Castile to a Norman Baron, Jehan de Betan- court, who in that year proceeded there, but met with little success in the conquest of the islands. It is worthy of note, PORTUGUESE DISCOVERIES IN WEST AFRICA. 13 however, that de Betancourt voyaged along the West African coast from Cape Cantin to the Rio d'Oro, beyond Cape Bojador, made some captives, gathered information re- specting the harbours, and even projected the erection of a fort, to lay the country under contribution. With the rediscovery of the Canary Islands the enter- prises of the Spaniards, from some unknown cause, ceased,, and the Portuguese came to the front. In 1412, John I. assembled a large armament at Lisbon, which was destined for an attack upon Morocco ; and, while it was assembling, a few small vessels were despatched to sail along the West Coast of Africa to discover the unknown countries there. The Portuguese had, hitherto, although so near Africa,, never ventured to sail beyond Cape Non, which promontory the discoveries of Jehan de Betancourt being unknown was considered an impassable boundary, and the limit of the navigable globe. The commanders of the vessels now de- spatched, more enterprising than their predecessors, doubled Cape Non, and coasted along the shore to Cape Bojador, 1 60 miles beyond it; but, fearing to pass that considerable headland, returned to Lisbon. Cape Non having thus been doubled, Cape Bojador became in its turn the fancied boundary of the globe ; and a superstitious belief prevailed amongst mariners that whoever doubled it would never return.* They regarded with awe the rapid currents which swept round the cape, and the heavy surf which beats upon its arid coast. Now, while the interior of northern and central Africa had thus been for many centuries a terra incognita to the nations of modern Europe, the successors of Mohammed had been rapidly extending their dominions over that con- tinent Although their knowledge of the actual western coast line probably did not at first extend beyond Cape Bojador, they had very early penetrated overland to the Niger ; and, before the eleventh century, several states had been formed on the banks of that river, in which Moham- * Mariana, Hist. Esp. lib. ii. cap. 22. 14 A HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST. medans formed a numerous and the ruling part of the population. The principal of these states was that of Ghana, which has been identified with the modern Wangara; and next in importance was Tokrur, which appears to have been situated more to the east. To the south of these states lay the extensive forest country then known as Niam-niam, or Lam-lam on the outskirts of which the savage inhabitants were hunted by the Mohammedans of the Niger, and sold to the slave merchants of Barbary and Egypt. It has been observed that the Arabs have rarely been able to conquer except in countries in which cavalry can be used, and it was perhaps from this cause that the tribes on the seaboard, be- tween the River Gambia and the Cameroons Mountains, secure in their vast and pathless forests, preserved their independence and their barbarism, while those on the plateaux of the interior, and in the territory now known as -Senegambia, adopted the turban. The principal negroid state formed by these converts was Timbuktu, which was visited by the celebrated traveller, commonly called Ibn Batuta, in 1348, but whose foundation probably took place at least a century before that date. In 1415 the town of Ceuta, on the African coast opposite to Gibraltar, was captured by the Portuguese, and Prince Henry of Portugal, the fourth son of John I., by Philippa of Lancaster, sister of Henry IV. of England, learned with astonishment from some Moorish prisoners who were there taken, that beyond the Sahara, to the south beyond that supposed torrid zone or fiery belt, which offered an in- surmountable barrier to communication between the peoples of the northern and southern hemispheres there was a country rich in gold and ivory, fertile and populous. It was called by the Moors, who seem to have made special mention of the Djollofs of Senegambia, the " Land of the Blacks," and could be approached either by sea or land. To reach this country was now his sole waking thought. Imme- diately after his return from Morocco he retired to Sagres, near Cape St. Vincent, and, attended by the most advanced men of his nation., worked for the perfection of his scheme. PORTUGUESE DISCOVERIES IN WEST AFRICA. 15 His first effort, made in 1418, was rewarded by the discovery of the rocky island of Porto Santo, one of the Madeiras ; a ship which he had despatched, with orders to double Cape Bojador and sail on to the south, having been driven off the African coast by a storm and carried to that island. This success encouraged other commanders to venture boldly into the open sea, instead of as heretofore creeping along the coasts ; but it was not until 1433 that Cape Bojador was doubled by a commander named Gilianez. On his return he reported that, contrary to the prevailing opinion, the sea beyond that cape was perfectly suitable foi navigation, and the climate not inimical to man. When, however, the explorers who followed Gilianez commenced to approach the torrid zone, the old fable of the Greeks and Romans that the heat there was so intense as to render life impossible, deterred their further progress for a time. Their own discoveries lent, in that age of ignorance, additional support to the old tradition. As they advanced to the south they observed men with black skins, which they considered to be the effect of the intense heat, and with short, crisp, woolly hair, which, to their minds, could only be due to the same cause. Even the furious surf, which they beheld increase in violence as they approached the equator, they attributed to the excessive heat of the torrid zone ; which, they believed, made the very waves boil and seethe as they beat upon the shore. Returning, therefore, to Portugal, they represented to Prince Henry the impossibility of proceeding further into regions which the wisdom and experience of antiquity had pronounced to be unfit for the habitation of man, and in this opinion they were supported by the most learned men of their country. But Prince Henry was not thus to be dissuaded from his cherished scheme, and in 1441 he sent Antonio Gonzales and Nuno Tristan to continue the exploration of the West African coast. The latter 01' these advanced as far as Cape Blanco, about three hundred and sixty miles beyond Cape Bojador, and kidnapped ten or twelve Moors. Some 16 A HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST. of these were persons of rank in their own country, and they promised liberal ransoms if allowed to return. In the following year, therefore, Gonzales was despatched to land the Moors at the spot whence they had been taken. As soon as the vessels arrived upon the coast, and it. became known that the captives were on board, their friends assembled and paid the ransoms demanded. These were paid in gold - dust and negro slaves, and on this account Gonzales gave the name of Rio d'Oro to the arm of the sea in which the ship was anchored. The negro slaves, about thirty in number, caused the greatest astonishment in Lisbon, and the gold-dust inflamed to a wonderful degree the spirit of adventure. In 1443, Tristan, encouraged by the reports of Gonzales, again sailed for the African coast, and discovered the island of Arguin ;. and, in 1444, the inhabitants of Lagos despatched six caravels, which are believed to have proceeded as far as the River Senegal; but, running short of provisions, were compelled to return, taking with them a number of un- fortunate negroes whom they had kidnapped. In 1447 Prince Henry once more despatched Nuno Tristan, who advanced as far as the Rio Grande. Ascending this river in a boat, he was surrounded by some eighty natives in canoes, who, having probably heard of the kidnapping pro- pensities of the white strangers, discharged several flights of arrows. Most of the Portuguese were killed, not one escaped unwounded, and Tristan died on board his ship from the effects of his wounds. Only four men were left in the ship, and these at last brought her home, after wandering about the sea for two months, for they did not know which way to steer. Alvan Fernandez, who prose- cuted the next voyage, went forty leagues further than Tristan, when he also was attacked by the natives ; but in the conflict the chief was slain, and the rest took to flight. This hostility on the part of the natives, for which the Portuguese had only themselves to thank, rather damped the ardour of the discoverers, and it was not until 1462 that Sierra Leone was reached by Pedro de Cintra, who EXPLORATION OF THE COAST. 17 then pushed on to Cape Mesurado. The death of Prince Henry, in 1463, next checked all further progress for a time, and when, four or five years later, it was recommenced, the discoveries, instead of being a national work, became rather the business of private adventurers. Considerable importations of gold appear to have been made into Portugal by these men, and this raised such expectations from the African trade that, in 1469, the King was able to farm it to Fernando Gomez for a period of five years, in consideration of an annual rent of five hundred ducats, and an undertaking to extend the discoveries of the coast five hundred leagues to the south. No detailed accounts remain of the several voyages that were made, but between the death of Prince Henry (1463) and that of Alphonso V. (1481) the Portuguese explored the whole Guinea Coast, including the Bights of Benin and Biafra. In 1470 Joao de Santarem and Pedro Escobar sailed past Cape Palmas, and proceeded as far south as the island of St. Thomas. On their return voyage they touched at a town on the Gold Coast, where they obtained such a quantity of gold that they named it La Mina (Elrnina). Gold was also found at Shamah ; and Fernando Gomez opened a gold mine at Approbi, near Little Commenda, called by the Portuguese Aldea des Terres. On the accession of John II., in 1481, the exploration of the coast was resumed with fresh vigour. His revenues were largely derived from the importation of gold from Elmina and its vicinity, and one of his first cares was to improve and extend the Guinea trade. To effect this he gave orders for the construction of a fort and church at Elmina. All the necessary materials were shipped from Lisbon in a squadron of eight caravels and two transports, with five hundred soldiers and two hundred artificers and labourers. An experienced officer, Diego d'Azambuja, was placed in command of the expedition, and under him were Gonsalez de Fonseca, Ruy d'Oliveira, Juan Rodriques Gante, Juan Alfonso, Diego Rodriques Inglez, Bartholomew Diaz, Pedro d'Evera, and Gomez Aires, commanders of caravels. c i8 A HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST. All except the last-named were noblemen of the household of John II. Pedro de Cintra and Fernan d' Alfonso com- manded the transports, and a small vessel attended the expedition as a despatch boat. The squadron sailed on December nth, 1481, and reached its destination on January igth, 1482. At Elmina Diego d'Azambuja found a Portuguese named Juan Bernardo, who had come to the coast in search of gold, and as he knew the country and the language of the natives, he was de- spatched to the chief of the district to inform him of the arrival of the expedition and to arrange for a palaver. The name of this chief is given as Camaranga, which, it seems probable, is a corruption of Kwamina Ansa. The Portu- guese landed early in the morning of the day following their arrival, carrying their arms concealed upon their per- sons in case of treachery, and marched in great pomp to a large silk-cotton tree, near a native village, where a site had been selected for the intended fortress. This native village is, in the account left of the expedition, called Aldea ; but that word simply means " village " in Portuguese, and there can be little doubt but that it was Oddena, the native town at Elmina. A flag bearing the Royal arms of Portugal was hoisted on the tree, an altar was built in its shade, Mass was celebrated, and prayers offered up for the success of the enterprise and the conversion of the natives. No sooner was this solemn farce concluded than Camaranga was seen approaching with a numerous retinue, and Azambuja, who was sumptuously attired for the occasion and wore a rich gold collar, prepared to receive the chief in state, by seating himself on an elevated chair like a throne, and arranging his followers before him in two lines, between which the natives would have to pass. The description given by De Faria of the latter is curious. They were naked to the waist, and wore round the middle monkey skins, or coverings made of palm-leaves. They were armed with spears, shields, bows and arrows, and wore a kind of helmet made of skin thickly studded with the teeth of sharks, which gave them a very warlike appearance. The SETTLEMENT AT ELMINA. 19 legs and arms of the chief were covered with plates of gold, around his neck was a gold chain, and many small bells and tags of gold hung from his beard. He was preceded by a band playing upon rude instruments. The subordinate chiefs were distinguished by chains of gold hanging from their necks, and by the various gold ornaments worn upon the head and beard. After the usual exchange of compliments and presents, Azambuja, through the medium of the interpreter, explained to Camaranga the purpose of his expedition, using every argument to convince him of the power of the King of Portugal, and how necessary it was for him to seek his friendship, and consent to the meditated establishment at Elmina. He stated that the King's first desire was to in- struct him in the Christian faith, but, says the Portuguese historian, De Faria, " I do not pretend to persuade the world our only design was to preach." In reply, Camaranga said he was fully sensible of the high honour done him by the King, and that he had always endeavoured to deserve his friendship by dealing justly with his people, and assisting them to obtain cargoes for their ships. The white men who had been there before had been poorly dressed and easily satisfied with the articles the natives had to give them, and so far from desiring to stop in the country, they had always been most anxious to get away as soon as possible ; but now there was a wonderful change. A number of richly-attired white men, persons of rank, "under the guidance of a commander who claims his descent from the God who created the day and the night," asked permission to build houses and remain in the country. But how could they live in such a poor place, where they would find none of those things to which they were accus- tomed ? Moreover, disputes were certain to arise, therefore it would be better to remain on the same terms as before, by which their mutual interests would be preserved. Camaranga's diplomatic reply much perplexed the Portu- guese commander, and it was only with great difficulty that -he at last prevailed upon the chief to allow him to carry out c 2 20 A HISTORY OF THE COLD COAST. his instructions without being- obliged to resort to force.. From the chiefs fear of the possibility of disputes arising, it seems probable that some of the Portuguese adventurers who had previously visited Elmina had been guilty of excesses, which would well account for his disinclination to allow the white men to settle in his territory. In addition, the natives seemed to have held the belief that .the Portuguese were a people, who, having no country of their own, were obliged to * wander over the sea in ships, until they could dispossess some other people of their possessions. However, by pro- mises, bribes, and an intimatiqn that if permission were withheld it would be dispensed with, Camaran9a was ulti- mately led to acquiesce in the proposed settlement; the artificers and workmen were at once landed, and preparations made for the immediate commencement of the works. Next morning, when the workmen were making prepara- tions to lay the foundations of the intended fortress, they observed a large rock close at hand which would supply suitable stone for their work, and accordingly commenced to quarry it. It happened, however, that this rock was regarded by the natives as the sacred habitation of a local god, and, excited by the outrage, they attacked the workmen, wound- ing several, and driving them from their work. This com- mencement was not of very good augury, but the natives- were finally appeased by presents and apologies, the work- men obtained building-stone from another source, and at length, after twenty days of constant labour, the fort began to assume a formidable appearance. On completion it was termed Sao Jorge da Mina, and in a chapel, consecrated within its walls, a solemn Mass was appointed to be cele- brated annually in honour of Prince Henry, to whom the Portuguese owed their acquaintance with West Africa. The fortress being completed, Diego d'Azambuja re- mained at Elmina with a garrison of sixty men, and sent back the fleet to Lisbon. He continued on the coast as Governor for two years and seven months, and then returned to Portugal. At this point namely, the first settlement of the Portu- FRENCH CLAIMS. 21 guese on the Gold Coast it will be perhaps convenient to inquire into a claim, advanced by some French writers, of priority of discovery and settlement of the Gold Coast by France. It is said that in 1326 a French vessel, which was driven to the south of the Canary Islands in a storm, sighted the African coast, and that from this accidental discovery a regular trade was established between France and West Africa. Villault, who made a voyage to the Gold Coast in 1666, appears to have been the first to put forward this claim. According to him, in the year 1364 the merchants of Dieppe made several voyages to Cape Verd, and as far south as a place which they named Sestro Paris, on the Grain Coast. In 1382 they, with other merchants of Rouen, sent three ships to make further discoveries along the coast, one of which, La Vierge, went as far as a town on the Gold Coast which, from the quantity of gold there obtained, the com- mander named La Mina. Next year they built a strong factory at this place, in which they left ten or twelve men ; and as the trade increased they enlarged the factory and built a chapel. He says they remained in occupation of Elinina, or La Mina, until 1484, that is, till three years after the building of the fortress of Sao Jorge by the Portuguese ; when, on account of the civil wars in France, their trade gradually declined, and they were ultimately forced to abandon all their settlements. Villault also states that the French occupied Takoradi, Kommenda, Cape Coast, and Cormantine. He quotes no authority for this assertion, but, in support of it, says trn.t the French names which he discovered on the Grain Coast, such as Petit Dieppe, prove that the French were the founders of those towns. This was, doubtless, true, but he was apparently ignorant of the fact that these settlements had been made on the Grain Coast by the Rouen Company about 1616, that is, fifty years before he wrote, and had afterwards been abandoned. The principal were Sestro Paris and Petit Dieppe ; there is abundant evidence that they were founded after the year 1600, and the fact of the names being 22 A HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST. still retained in 1666 proves nothing with regard to the alleged French discoveries three centuries earlier. He also says that a battery in the Castle of St. George at Elmina was in his day called Bastion de France, which he considers as proof that the French built it; and that there was an inscription, illegible with the exception of the figures " 13 ,"' which he declares referred to the date 1383, when the French built a factory at Elmina. These very slender grounds are those upon which the French claim was originally built, but several contemporary writers, for instance, Robbe and Ogilby, adopted Villault's views, and the latter repeated his story about the inscription and bastion at Elmina, almost verbatim. Barbot,* who in 1700 wrote his " Description of the Coasts of North and South Guinea," while noticing Villault's claim, is careful to say he places no credit in it ; observing that it is strange no mention should be made of these facts by other French historians ; and adding that such considerable undertakings, and so rich a trade, seemed to deserve a place in history, especially at a time when long voyages were regarded with dread, and as exceedingly perilous. He observes that Diego d'Azambuja saw no traces of previous occupation at Elmina in 1482, and he finally rejects Villault's testimony, and awards the honours of the first discoveries to the Portuguese.f Notwithstanding this, Labat, in his " Nouvelle Relation de 1'Afrique Occidentale," printed in Paris in 1728, revived the old French claim of priority of discovery, and supported it by what he called additional evidence. This was no other than an alleged Deed of Association, entered into between the merchants of Dieppe and Rouen in 1365, to carry on a trade with West Africa; but as this apocryphal document was said to have been destroyed, with all the archives of Dieppe, in the fire which consumed the Town Hall in 1694, it could not be produced; for, if it ever existed at all, it had ceased to exist thirty-four * Agent General of the French African Company. f Barbot, in vol. v. of Churchill's "Collection of Voyages," p. 10. FRENCH CLAIMS. 23 years before Labat wrote. It is worthy of note that among the archives destroyed in this fire was said to have been an account of a voyage, made by a native of Dieppe named Cousin, to the mouth of the River Amazon in 1488, or four years before Columbus discovered America. The French thus claim the honour of the discovery of the New World as well as that of the West Coast of Africa, and they must be regarded as peculiarly unfortunate in having lost at one blow the proofs of two such distinctions ; for, in the absence of proof and of contemporary evidence, both stories can only be regarded as apocryphal. The Portuguese indignantly deny the French claim, and point out that there were no traces of any former factory or fort at Elmina when Diego d'Azambuja founded the castle of Sao Jorge. On the other hand it has been argued that had he found any such traces, he would have carefully concealed the fact. But in that case, if the Portuguese had an interest in suppressing all proofs of a prior occupation, it seems incredible that, during the one hundred and fifty-six years in which they remained undisturbed in Elmina, they should have suffered to remain an inscription supposed to bear a date anterior to their own establishment there, and should have com- memorated such a prior occupation by the retention of a former name of a portion of the fortifications. The Portuguese objections are sound, but perhaps the strongest proof of the mythical nature of the French claim is the silence of all French contemporary historians, and especially of De Serres and Mezeray, on the subject. CHAPTER III. 1486 1594. The Gold Coast under the Portuguese Early English voyages The voyages of Towrson Adventures of a boat's crew French trade on the Gold Coast Reprisals of the Portuguese Abandonment of the Gold Coast by the English and French adventurers Native States on the Gold Coast at the close of the sixteenth century. IN 1433, m order to secure the quiet possession of his African discoveries, Prince Henry obtained from the Pope, Eugene IV., a Papal bull, granting to Portugal all lands or islands which had been or might be discovered between Cape Bojador and the East Indies, with plenary indulgence to all who might lose their lives in prosecuting the dis- coveries. As these discoveries progressed, John II., im- pressed with the importance of his recent acquisitions of territory, added to his other titles that of u Lord of Guinea," and applied to the then Pope, Sixtus IV., for a confirmation of the grant that had been made to Prince Henry. The Pontiff readily complied, and in addition strictly prohibited all Christian powers from intruding within the limits which he had bestowed upon the Crown of Portugal. In consequence of this prohibition, which gave to the Portuguese a positive monopoly of nearly half of the then discovered globe, but little is known of the proceedings of the Portuguese during the earlier years of their possession of the Gold Coast. The Papal prohibition, was, it seems, scrupulously observed. In 1481, it being rumoured that THE GOLD COAST UNDER THE PORTUGUESE. 25 two English merchant adventurers, John Tintam and William Fabian, were, ,at the instigation of the Duke of Medina Sidonia, preparing to make a voyage to Guinea, John sent Ruy de Sousa as an ambassador to Edward IV., to explain the Papal bull, and to call upon him to restrain his subjects from trading to the Portuguese possessions in Africa. As the authority of the Pope to dispose of king- doms had not yet been called in question, the English King complied with the request, the projected voyage was prohibited, and the English were compelled for a time to abstain from profiting by the recent geographical dis- coveries. In 1486, John II. bestowed upon the fortress of Sao Jorge de Mina all the privileges and immunities of a city, and a few years later he formed a Guinea Company, with the privilege of an exclusive trade to West Africa. This Company at first made a very considerable profit ; it built a fort, named San Antonio, at Axim in 1515, and a small fort at Accra. A small depot was also established at Shamah, at the mouth of the Rio San Juan, or Prah.* On the formation of the Company the King had reserved to himself the right of appointing a governor and other officers every three years, and it was by such appointments that he re- warded those who had served in arms against the Moors of Fez. Two fleets arrived on the Gold Coast from Lisbon each year, the first in April or May, and the second in September or October. They consisted, usually, of four or five vessels, which, after discharging their cargoes, remained a month or six weeks on the coast, refitting and taking in produce. The voyage out and back usually took from eight to nine months. Of the dealings of the Portuguese with the natives in these earlier years we know nothing. It is said that they treated them with great cruelty ; but as such stories were only related by the English, French, and Dutch, who were trying to oust the Portuguese from their possessions, they * Prah, " The Sweeper." 26 A HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST. must be received with great caution, and, as far as can be now ascertained, the natives appear to have been well able to take care of themselves. That the Portuguese had disputes with the natives is certain. Barbot mentions that, in the reign of King Emanuel, they erected a first fort at Axim, on a small headland near the native town, but were so harassed by the frequent attacks of the natives that they abandoned it and built Fort San Antonio, on a narrow, rocky peninsula, which was difficult of access. From this we may infer that the natives of the Gold Coast did not tamely submit to an appropriation of their territory by the Portuguese, and also that the latter were not sufficiently strong to extend their rule far from their fortified posts. The Portuguese enjoyed the monopoly of the whole of West Africa until the Reformation entirely destroyed, in the eyes of those nations who had adopted the reformed religion, the validity of the Papal bull. The English were the first to avail themselves of the liberty thus obtained. In spite of the remonstrances and threats of Portugal, two ships, the Primrose and the Lion, manned with a crew ot one hundred and forty men, and well armed, were de- spatched, under the command of Captain Thomas Windham,. to trade on the Guinea Coast, in 1553. With Windham was associated a renegade Portuguese, named Antonio Anes Pinteado, who had taken service with the English, and this appointment of a colleague seems to have given umbrage to the English captain. He treated Pinteado with contempt, and because he recommended him to trade on the Gold Coast and to avoid the Bight of Benin, at once determined on going to the latter, where he and two-thirds of his crew died, scarcely forty men returning to England. The ships- had, however, traded for a short time on the Gold Coast before proceeding to Benin, and had received gold to the weight of 150 Ibs. in exchange for some of their wares, which so encouraged the English that the merchants of London despatched three vessels to Guinea, under Captain John Lok, in 1554. These vessels were the Trinity and John Evangelist, each of 140 tons, and the Bartholoineiv,. EARLY ENGLISH VOYAGES. 27 of 90 tons. They met with no accident, traded along the coast, and returned with gold to the weight of 400 Ibs., a quantity of "grains of Paradise,"* and two hundred and fifty elephants' tusks. Some negro slaves were also taken to England. The elephant seems most to have excited, the curiosity of the English traders, and they brought home the skull of one, which, exclusive of the tusks and lower jaw, weighed over 200 Ibs. The towns visited on the Gold Coast in this voyage were Shamah, and Cape Korea or Cors (Cape Coast). At the latter was a native chief, who had been named Don John by the Portuguese, and with him the English estab- lished friendly relations. The adventurers found the natives sharp traders and great bargainers, and they advised all comers to treat them civilly, or otherwise they would not trade. Of the natives they say : "Their princes and noble- men pounce and raise their skins in diverse figures, like flowered damask. And though they go in a manner all naked, yet many of them, especially their women, are, as it were, laden with collars, bracelets, hoops, and chains, either of gold, copper, or ivory. ... Some also wear on their legs great shackles of bright copper, which they think to be no less comely. They likewise make use of collars, bracelets, garlands, and girdles of certain blue stones, like beads. Some of their women wear on their bare arms certain fore-sleeves, made of plates of beaten gold ; and on their fingers rings of gold wire, with a knot or wreath, like that which children make in rush rings." The success of this voyage was so encouraging that a regular Guinea trade, carried on by private adventurers, was established, and continued without any remarkable event, although exposed to the continual hostility of the Portuguese. Of the voyages thus undertaken, the narratives of three, made by William Towrson, a merchant of London, in the years I 555 J l $$6, and 1557, give, perhaps, the best idea of the Gold Coast as it was at that time. * Malaghelta. 28 A HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST. The first voyage was made in the ships Hart and Hind, which, after trading on the Grain Coast for ivory and " grains of Paradise/' proceeded to Cape Three Points, on the Gold Coast. They anchored off a native town, which appears to have been known to the English as St. John's Town, and they had at first some difficulty in establishing communica- tion with the inhabitants, the Portuguese having the year before bombarded the town as a punishment for trading with the English; but eventually they succeeded in opening a trade. The English merchandise consisted chiefly of linen cloth and small basins, which they were able to exchange for gold-dust at a very profitable rate, since five basins were considered the equivalent of half an ounce of gold. The natives here wore caps of skin, and a cloth of native manu- facture wrapped round the loins. This cloth, as well as their ropes and fishing-lines, was made, it is said, of the bark of certain trees, probably the palm. Their shields were also made of bark, very closely wrought ; they were rectangular in shape, and sufficiently large to cover the whole body of a kneeling man. Their bows were short, " and pretty strong, it being as much as a man can do to draw them with one of his fingers." The bow-string was made of bark, flat, and about a quarter of an inch broad. The heads of their spears were made of iron, and Captain Towrson mentions that most of them carried great two-edged daggers of the same metal, exceedingly sharp, and bent "after the manner of Turkey blades/' At this place the English learned that the Portuguese were in the habit of kidnapping natives, and keeping them in irons as slaves. There was said to be a garrison of sixty men in the castle of Elmina, and every year a large ship and a small caravel came from Portugal with supplies and reinforcements. From this it would appear that the Portuguese trade had already declined. Hearing that Don John, the chief of Cape Coast, was at war with the Portuguese, Towrson proceeded thither, pass- ing Elmina, where he saw the castle, and a white house, like a chapel, on the hill. Cape Coast then consisted, says Towrson, of about twenty houses only, and was enclosed by EARLY ENGLISH VOYAGES. 29 a wall, not above the height of a man, " made with reeds, or sedge, or some such thing/' While the English were on shore trading here, they were attacked by a body of Portu- guese. The natives had, it seems, warned them of the approach of the common enemy, but the warning had not been understood, and the Portuguese were almost upon them before they could reach their boat. They, however, succeeded in launching it under a fire from the Portuguese calivers, which injured no one; and after exchanging -a few shots with their adversaries, returned in safety to the ships, Next morning, finding that the Portuguese were still in the town, and that the natives dare not trade, they weighed anchor, and sailing about a mile further to the east, anchored off a town named De Viso Town, after its chief, John de Viso, who had been so named by the Portuguese. This town, pro- bably that at Akwon Point, had only six houses standing, the remainder having been burned by the Portuguese. Pro- ceeding again further to the east, they next anchored before a large town, which, from the description, appears to have been Cormantine. Here some of the English landed, but for a long time no natives came to them ; then at last a chief came down, greeted them in a friendly manner, and endea- voured to engage their attention while a body of Portuguese approached in a hollow way. Fortunately the adventurers discovered this treachery before it was too late, and escaped to their boat, the Portuguese discharging, without effect, a piece of ordnance which they had brought up. The natives of this town had formerly been friendly to the English, and had, in the previous year, offered Captain Lok land upon which to build a fort. Their hostility was now due to the fact that Gainsh, the captain of the John Evangelist, one of the vessels ot Lok's adventure, had abused the trust of the natives by kidnapping four of the inhabitants of the town, one a son of the chief, and seizing the gold which they had brought on board his ship to trade with. After this mis- adventure the ships traded further to the eastward, taking large quantities of gold, and then returned to England. During the whole of their stay on the Gold Coast, a Portuguese 30 A HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST. brigantine had followed them from place to place, warning the natives to have no dealings with them. Nevertheless they appear to have obtained some 200 Ibs. of gold, besides other commodities. The second voyage was undertaken with the Tyger, 120 tons, and the Hart, 60 tons, both of London. They were accompanied by a pinnace of 16 tons, and took back with them the natives who had been kidnapped by Captain Gainsh. A little beyond the River de Sestos (Grand Sesters), they fell in with three French ships and two pinnaces. The two squadrons approached each other with sound of trumpet and with ensigns flying, and as the French ships had the weather of the English, the latter " waved to them to come under their lee and fight." But the French refused, and after some parley they decided to sail in company and defy the Portuguese, one of whose vessels, of about 200 tons, the .French had already captured and burned. Running down the coast the two squadrons passed the Portuguese fort of San Antonio, at Axim, and traded at a town named Hanta, beyond Cape Three Points, where they learned that there were five Portuguese ships and a pinnace at Elmina. Departing from this place they came to Shamma (Shamah), two leagues beyond, and went into the River Prah with five armed boats, expecting to find there some Portuguese. They landed here some natives of the place who had been kidnapped by Captain Gainsh, and were them- selves very well received. The chief of Shamah appears to have been in some trepidation, fearing that the Portuguese would call him to account for having received the strangers, but the English promised to protect him, and to encourage him "ordered their boats to shoot off their bases and harque- buses. They likewise caused their men to land with their long-bows, and shoot before the captain (chief) and his people, who were much surprised, especially to see them shoot so far as they did, and assayed to draw their bows but could not. When it grew late they departed to their ships, for they looked every hour for the Portuguese." They remained trading at Shamah for some days in the THE VOYAGES OF TOWRSON. 31 following manner : " The twentieth, the English manned their five boats, and a great boat of the French, with their and the Admiral's men. Twelve of them had on their murrians and corslets, and the rest were all well armed. There were four trumpets, a drum, and a fife, and the boats were adorned with very fair silk streamers and pendants. In this order they went into the river and trafficed, their men- of-war lying off and on in the river to waft them, but they heard no more of the Portuguese." On the seventh day of their stay at Shamah the natives warned the adventurers that the Portuguese ships had sailed from Elmina, and told them to be on their guard. The English said they were glad they were coming, and " to let them see they were serious, they sounded their trumpets, and shot off some guns/' It took the Portuguese two days to beat up against the wind from Elmina, but on the afternoon of the second day five sail of the Portuguese were seen from the ships, which accordingly fired signal guns to call off their boats from the shore. By the time they had weighed anchor it was dark, but they lay close to the wind all night, and prepared for the fight. Next morning the Portuguese were seen riding at anchor off Shamah, and the combined adven- turers bore up for them, the English all being furnished with white scarves so that the French might be able to distinguish them, if it came to boarding. However, the day passed with- out their being able to reach the enemy, and at nightfall they anchored within demi-culverin shot of them. The following morning both parties weighed anchor together, and a running fight commenced. The Portuguese seem to have out - sailed and out - manoeuvred both the English and the French, and their vessels, following in regular succession, riddled the largest French ship with shot ; while the Tyger was unable to render any assistance, " because she was so weak in the side that she lay all her guns under water." The French commander, in trying to board the Portuguese, fell to the leeward ; the other two Frenchmen would not close, the Hart was a long way astern, and the Tyger continued the fight alone. She followed the 32 A HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST. Portuguese out to sea for two hours, when they tacked, and running down past the French commander's vessel, poured in each one its broadside, but dared not board because the Tyger was in close pursuit. As soon as the Portuguese had passed, the Frenchman crowded all sail and ran out to sea, where the other French and English vessels had already gone; but the Tyger continued the chase till nightfall, when she lost sight of the enemy. The next morning the Portuguese were not to be seen ; one of the French vessels had gone clear away, but the other two, with the Hart, remained. The French com- mander's ship had lost nearly half its men, and as they were afraid of remaining in that neighbourhood, the allies sailed further to the east along the coast. They traded at Mowra (Mori) and Lagoua (Leggu), but apparently with little success, and in consequence started to return to the west. But off Elmina they descried two large ships, one of 200 and one of 500 tons, which had just arrived from Portugal, and so put out to sea to escape. The Portuguese followed in chase for some time, but finally drew off, and the English ships then returned to the Grain Coast, and sailed to England, which they reached in safety, beating off a French ship that attacked them off the coast of Portugal. The third voyage was undertaken with the Tyger, the Minion, the Christopher, and a pinnace named the Unicorn. They ran down the Grain Coast as before, and had com- menced a trade on the Gold Coast at Hanta, when they met five sail of the Portuguese. A running fight ensued, and the English ships, standing out to sea, proceeded to Leggu, which is close to Tantamkwerri. There they learned that there were four French ships between Winnebah arid Barraku, and, there being then war between France and England, they sailed to attack them. They surprised three French ships at anchor, two of which put out to sea and escaped ; but the third, the Mulet de Batuille, a vessel of 1 20 tons, was captured, and in her 50 Ibs. of gold was taken. THE VOYAGES OF TOWRSON. 33 The English then traded at the various villages as far as Accra, when six men having died of fever, and a- great many being sick, they returned to Cape Coast. There, however, the natives, formerly so friendly, refused to trade. They ran away into the woods, and the English returned to their ships, carrying off some goats and fowls. At Mori also they met with a hostile reception, and the natives stoned the men who attempted to land. Next day, to revenge this, the English returned in greater force, and, forcing a landing, killed and wounded several natives, burned the town, and destroyed all the canoes. There being nothing to be done on this part of the coast, the adventurers next proceeded to Shamah, where they hoped to revictual their ships, which were now short of provisions. But the chief of Shamah had come to terms with the Portuguese, and refused to trade or supply the ships; and the boats which were sent to Hanta for supplies came back equally empty. In revenge, the adventurers landed and burned Shamah, and then quitted the coast. Contrary winds at first carried them as far south as the Island of St. Thomas ; but they eventually succeeded in reaching England in safety. The high handed proceedings of the merchant adven- turers in this last voyage were hardly calculated to cause the natives to regard the arrival of other English vessels with pleasure, and we find that the Minion and Primrose, which sailed for Guinea from Dartmouth, in February, 1562, were unable to trade at all upon the Gold Coast. Both at Cape Coast and at Mori the English were attacked by two Portuguese galleys from Elmina. At the second place the Portuguese were further assisted by a ship and a caravel, and the Minion was severely handled, her foremast being shot away. During the engagement a barrel of powder exploded, wounding most of the gunners of the Minion, and she was so disabled that she might have been easily captured; but the Portuguese drew off, and she and her consort at once ran out to sea and returned to the Grain Coast. D 34 A HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST. The following year, 1563, three more English ships, the John Baptist, Rondel, and Merlin, sailed for Guinea. This voyage is chiefly remarkable for the adventures of a boat's crew of nine men, who became separated from their vessels in a storm. The three ships were driven out to sea by a tornado, at a time when the boat was lying off a town on the Grain Coast, trading; and next day, when they beat back to the land, as they saw nothing of the boat, they concluded it was lost, and returned to England. The boat, however, had gone to the eastward, in which direction it was imagined the ships would be. For days the castaways followed the shore, exchanging here and there portions of their merchandise for food ; but, generally, they found the coast " nothing but thick woods and deserts, full of wild beasts," especially elephants, which came down to the sea- shore in herds and frolicked in the water. At last, over- come with fatigue, and despairing of ever finding their ships, they decided to surrender themselves to the Por- tuguese, the prospect of being chained to the oars as galley- slaves at Elmina, being less appalling to them than the unknown evils they might experience at the hands of the natives. Neither alternative was pleasant; but necessity demanded a choice. For twenty days they had been cramped in an open boat, they had nearly lost the use of their legs, and "their joints were so swollen with the scurvy that they could scarce stand." By day they had been exposed to the burning rays of a tropical sun, and at night they had been drenched by frequent showers. They were, moreover, half-starved, and had frequently been without food for three days at a time. They were making for Elmina in order to surrender, when they found themselves one morning off a fort, with a watch-house upon a rock, and a large black cross of wood standing near it. This was Fort San Antonio, at Axim, of whose existence they seem to have been ignorant. Some Portuguese showed themselves on shore, waving a white flag in sign of peace and signing to them to land ; ADVENTURES OF A BOATS CREW. 35 and the castaways were pulling to the shore in response to this invitation, when they were suddenly saluted by a furious discharge from all the guns of the fort. The balls fell thickly about the boat, but fortunately none touched it, and the English rowed as fast as they could to the shore, shouting that they surrendered. When under the walls of the fort they were sheltered from the fire of the guns, which could not be depressed sufficiently to cover them ; but showers of heavy stones were rained down into the boat from the battlements, and the natives came running down and discharged several flights of arrows, which wounded some of the English. The latter were naturally full of indignation at this perfidious conduct on the part of the Portuguese ; and, burning to revenge them- selves, they pushed off to a little distance from the shore, where they were still safe from the guns of the fort, and opened fire with their bows and harquebuses upon the natives and the Portuguese. After killing or wounding several, they rowed away, passing through another furious fusillade from the guns of the fort unscathed, and escaped out to sea. The castaways now determined to place themselves in the hands of the natives, and eventually landed near Grand Bassam. There was still a considerable quantity of merchandise in the boat, and as they handed this over to the chief of the place they were well treated for a few days. Then, as the natives found there was no more profit to be made from them, they gradually neglected them, and the castaways were reduced to such extremities by hunger and exposure, that in a few weeks six out of the nine died. The three survivors dragged on a miserable existence for some time, and were at last rescued by a French ship. The French soon followed the example of the English in breaking in upon the Portuguese monopoly of the trade to Guinea. Some writers, indeed, are of opinion that the French took the initiative, but all the evidence tends to D 2 36 A HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST. show that they made no voyages to the Guinea coast till between 1554 and 1555; that is to say till a year or eighteen months after the English had commenced a Guinea trade. Even the voyages made in those and the succeeding years were few and far between, and it was not until the reign of Henry III. of France (15/3-1589) that the French regularly frequented the West African coast. The Portuguese, finding that their profitable trade was sadly crippled by the English and French adventurers, who offered their wares at a cheaper rate to the natives, did everything in their power to drive them from the coast. They forbade the natives to have any dealings with the adventurers, and, as we have seen from Towrson's voyages, they punished a neglect of this prohibition, when- ever possible, by destroying the native towns and villages. As the ships of the adventurers were generally better armed and manned than the small vessels they themselves had on the Gold Coast, two large vessels were sent out from Portugal, for the purpose of capturing and destroying them, and several galleys were stationed at Elmina. With these they captured several ships, both French and English, and condemned the crews to perpetual servitude as galley- slaves. Amongst others thus taken was La Esperance, which was captured and sunk in 1582, a large number of the crew being barbarously put to death, and the survivors sent to Elmina in irons. A reward of one hundred crowns was promised for every English or French head, and many of both nations were treacherously invited to land by the natives, and then murdered. These severe measures soon had the effect desired, and the adventurers gradually ceased to frequent the Gold Coast. At Accra the French met with some little success. The inhabitants of that place, provoked by the tyranny of the Portuguese, surprised their small fort in 1578. massacred the garrison, and invited the French to form ? settlement. This they endeavoured to do, but the per- NATIVE STATES IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 37 sistent hostility of the Portuguese rendered their ventures so profitless that they soon abandoned it, and before long entirely gave up any further trade with the Gold Coast. The English similarly found that the risks of a trade in the vicinity of the Portuguese establishments were too great to be lightly incurred ; and finding it impossible to cope with the Portuguese, they abandoned the Gold Coast and turned their attention to the Sierra Leone coast and to Benin, where they could trade unmolested. To encourage commerce with Africa, Queen Elizabeth, in 1588, granted a patent to a company of merchants in Exeter to carry on a trade to Senegal and Gambia ; and in. 1592 a second patent was obtained granting a trade from the Rio Nunez to the south of the peninsula of Sierra Leone. These concessions had the effect of com- pletely diverting the attention of the English merchant adventurers from the Gold Coast, and as the French had already ceased to frequent that portion of West Africa, for the next few years the Portuguese remained practically undisturbed. At this point it will perhaps be convenient to enumerate the Native States on the littoral of the Gold Coast at the close^oX_lhe--*ixteerrth century, to several of which it will bemTcessary to refer when describing the steps taken by the Dutch to establish themselves in the vicinity of the Portuguese. There were then eleven States on the sea- board, which, commencing from the west, were as follows : Axim, Ante (Ahanta), Adorn, Jabi, Commani (Kommenda), Fetu, Saboe, Fantyn (Fanti), Akron, Aguna, and Accra. Axim extended from the Ancobra River to the village of Akwidah, Ante (Ahanta) from the latter to Zaconde (Sekondi), Jabi from Zaconde to the mouth of the Prah, and Commani (Kommenda) from the Prah to the mouth of the River Beyah, at Elmina. The territory of Fetu lay between the Beyah and Queen Anne's Point, that of Saboe between the latter and the Iron Hills, and that of Fantyn (Fanti) between these and Salt Pond. Akron 38 A HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST. lay between Salt Pond and the Devil's Mount, the Monte de Diablo of the Portuguese, and Aguna between that eminence and the village of Barraku,* while the kingdom of Accra extended to the east from Barraku as far as Ningo. Of the inland States nothing appears at this time to have been known. * Barraku is the name of a bird. CHAPTER IV. 15951642. The Dutch commence to trade to the Gold Coast They form settle- ments Hostility of the Portuguese Wars between the Dutch and Portuguese Capture of St. George d'Elmina Final expulsion of the Portuguese Traces of their occupation. IT was not until the year 1595 that the Dutch began to make trading voyages to West Africa. It appears that their attention was first directed to the Guinea trade by a certain Bernard Ericks, or Erickson, who, having been captured at sea by the Portuguese, had been carried by them as a prisoner to Prince's Island, in the Bight of Biafra, where he learned many particulars concerning the Gold Coast. The reported richness of that part of the African continent in gold seems to have excited his imagination, and on returning to Holland he offered to attempt a voyage. Some merchants, influenced by his representations, furnished a ship and a suitable cargo, and in 1595 Erickson performed the voyage successfully, and returned in safety. This was the commencement of a regular trade to Guinea on the part of the Dutch, and which prospered in spite of the continued hostility of the Portuguese. The Dutch, unlike the English and French, were not satisfied with a mere haphazard trade along the coast, and before long they sought to establish tracing posts on the land. To this end they skilfully fomented quarrels 40 A HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST. between the natives and the Portuguese, and frequently allied themselves with the former. This was, indeed, no new feature in West African politics. The English had also encouraged the natives to rebel, promising them protection and assistance, and had then, after completing their cargoes, returned to England and left their allies to bear the whole brunt of the anger of the Portuguese. . This conduct had naturally made the natives rather chary of entering into alliances with other Europeans against the Portuguese, and the Dutch seem at first to have met with little encouragement in their designs; but after some time they succeeded in inducing the King of Saboe to rebel, and as an earnest of their intention to continue to extend their protection to him, built, shortly before 1599, a small fortified trading " lodge " at Mori, in the kingdom of Saboe. Having thus obtained a footing on the coast, they rapidly extended their influence, and before long they succeeded in establishing other " lodges " at Butri and Cormantine. This, of course, was not effected without opposition on the part of the Portuguese. They represented to the natives that the Dutch were mere slave-hunters, kidnappers of men, a trade in which, as we have seen, they were themselves adepts, and they offered a reward for every Dutch ship or Dutchman's head that might be taken. According to the Dutch, they aided and abetted the natives in every kind of treachery, and several Dutchmen were enticed ashore at various places and murdered. In 1596 they seized a Dutch vessel at Cape Coast, killed most of the crew, and sent the rest to the galleys, where all of them soon died. In 1598, assisted by the natives, they surprised and massacred the crew of a Dutch barque at the same place, and in 1599 they seized five Dutchmen from Mori, who were becalmed in a small boat off Elmina, struck off their heads and placed them on the castle walls as an example to others. In revenge for this last outrage the Dutch instigated the people of Commani (Kommenda) and Fetu to rise against the Portuguese. They assisted DUTCH SETTLEMENTS. 41 the natives with arms and ammunition, and it is said that the Portuguese lost some . three hundred men in the war that ensued, but probably most of these were natives. The Portuguese succeeded in bringing the natives of Fetu to terms, but those of Commani achieved their independence, and as a result the Dutch formed a new "lodge" at Kommenda. No doubt one reason why the Dutch succeeded where the English and French had failed was that the formation of trading posts satisfied the natives that they had no desertion to fear on the part of their allies ; but the principal cause was that the Portuguese establishment on the Gold Coast had been much reduced, but for which it is doubtful if the Dutch would have succeeded in obtaining a footing. The decline of the Portuguese settlements dated from 1580, when, Portugal having become a province of Spain under Philip II., the African colonies were gradually neglected in favour of those of the New World ; and they were still further reduced under the weak Philip IV., who came to the throne in 1621. By that time the Dutch trade had utterly ruined that of the Portuguese on the Gold Coast, for the former were able to sell goods on the coast cheaper than the latter could buy them in Lisbon ; and the King, at whose expense the garrison and establishment at Elmina was kept up, finding that the trade now hardly covered his expenditure, reduced the garrison and limited the supplies. Not more than one or two ships a year sailed to Elmina from Portugal, the force on the coast was too small for the Portuguese to do more than maintain their authority in the towns under the guns of their forts, the Native States threw off their allegiance, and the whole trade was soon engrossed 1 by the Dutch, who became virtually masters of the whole of the Gold Coast, except Elmina and Axim. To strengthen their position, the Dutch, about 1620, commenced transforming their " lodge" at Mori into a fort. It was completed in the year 1624, and Adrian Jacobs was 42 A HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST. placed in command of it. The year following, the garrison of Elmina being reported to be much reduced by sickness, they made a bold attempt upon it with twelve hundred of their own men, and one hundred and fifty Saboe natives. The force, which was under the command of Jan Dirks Lamb, landed at Terra Pequena, or Ampeni, to the west of Elmina, in the kingdom of Commani; but before the troops had time to form up, they were furiously attacked, at sunset, by the natives of Elmina, and utterly defeated. The Dutch lost 373 soldiers, 66 seamen, most of their officers, and all the Saboe contingent. Lamb himself was wounded, and was only rescued with difficulty by the people of Little Kommenda. This repulse seems to have rather cooled the ardour of the Dutch, and no further attempt to oust the Portuguese was made for some years. About 1631 the States General of Holland made over Fort Nassau at Mori, and their trading " lodges " at Butri and Kommenda, to the Dutch West India Company, and the latter appointed as their Director-General in Africa Nicholas Van Ypren, a man who proved most indefatigable in his endeavours to drive the Portuguese from the Gold Coast. By presents and promises he induced the Kings of the contiguous native kingdoms to enter into an agreement to assist the Dutch to capture Elmina, whenever a favourable opportunity presented itself; and, having thus paved the way for a fresh attempt upon the Portuguese stronghold, he suggested to the directors of the Company the advisability of sending a force to the coast. This suggestion was favourably received, and instructions were sent to Count Maurice, of Nassau, who, with a fleet of thirty-two sail, twelve of them men-of-war, carrying 2,700 soldiers, was then engaged in attacking the Portuguese in Brazil, to detach such ships as he could spare to the Gold Coast. Count Maurice sent a fleet of nine sail under Colonel Hans Coine, which arrived at Cape Lahou, on the Ivory Coast, on June 25th, 1637. From this place Coine sent notice of his arrival to Van Ypren, and then proceeded to Assini. Van Ypren requested Coine to sail to Kommenda, WARS BETWEEN THE DUTCH AND PORTUGUESE. 43 the natives of which kingdom were the chief supporters of the Dutch, and on his arrival there met him with two hundred canoes full of native auxiliaries. Thence the flotilla proceeded towards Cape Coast, and on July 24th the force landed in a little creek about half a mile to the west of the Cape, which must have been the present salt-pond, or lagoon, at Cape Coast, though it is now separated from the sea by a ridge of sand. The army, which moved in three bodies, consisted of 800 soldiers and 500 seamen, carrying pro- visions for three days, and the native auxiliaries, who pro- bably amounted to five or six thousand. Advancing towards Elmina, they halted at the River Dana, or Dolce (Sweet River), to refresh ; and Coine, who brought up the rear, being informed that a body of a thousand Elminas was posted at the foot of the hill of St. Jago, to prevent its capture for it commanded the Castle detached four companies of fusileers to beat them off. These four companies were cut to pieces by the Elminas, who struck off the heads of the slain and carried them in triumph into the town ; but a second Dutch detachment, sent under Major Bon Garzon, fared better. Fording the River Dana while the majority of the enemy were still celebrating their victory in the town of Elmina, he dispersed the few natives who remained and carried the position with the loss of only four whites and ten native allies. The Elminas and Portuguese made two attempts to recover the position, but were on each occasion repulsed with loss, and on the remainder of the Dutch force coming up, the Por- tuguese retired into a small redoubt which they had built on the summit of the hill. The only path to this redoubt lay on the side of the hill opposite to the Castle, and was swept by its guns ; but the Dutch rapidly cut paths through the thick bush on the northern slope, and the redoubt was soon carried. A mortar and two pieces of cannon were then brought up, and from that commanding position a fire was opened upon the Castle, while a detachment of Kom- menda natives was sent to attack the western end of the town of Oddena. This latter body met with little success, 44 A HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST. and would indeed have been defeated, but for the skilful manner in which the Dutch officers kept the force covered by the River Beyah. Next day the Dutch advanced to the assault of the town, from which the heavy fire of the guns of the Castle com- pelled them to retire ; but the day following, at daybreak, Coine summoned the Castle to surrender, threatening to put the garrison to the sword if any further resistance were offered. The Portuguese Governor demanded three days' truce, ostensibly to consider the terms, but really to gain Jtime ; but Coine, who could not afford to wait, as he had only provisions for that day, refused this, and, drawing up his forces on St. Jago, continued the bombardment, though with but little effect. Next morning, being obliged to en- deavour to take the place by assault or abandon the attempt, he ordered the grenadiers to advance, and the Portuguese at once beat the chamade, and sent out two persons to arrange the terms of capitulation. These were finally settled as follows : 1. The Governor, garrison, and all other Portuguese to march out that day, with their wives and children, but with- out swords, colours, or any weapons, each person being allowed but one suit of wearing apparel. 2. All the goods, gold, merchandise, and slaves to be handed over to the Dutch, with the exception of twelve slaves allowed to Portuguese officials. 3. The church furniture, which was not of gold or silver, to be allowed to be carried away. 4. The Portuguese and mulattos to be put on board the squadron, with their wives and children, and conveyed to the Island of St. Thomas. Barbot says the Castle surrendered on August 29th, 1637; but this is probably a mistake for July 29th, as the Dutch force landed on July 24th. The Dutch found little gold or merchandise, but a large quantity of gunpowder, and thirty brass guns. At the time of the capture, the Portu- guese establishment was very much reduced, which accounts for the easy surrender of a place considered so strong. It CAPTURE OF ELMINA BY THE DUTCH. 45 appears to have consisted of a Governor, a chaplain, a inedor t or chief factor, a King 1 's procurador, or judge, the captain of the soldiers, and a chief clerk. The soldiers were criminals, who had been banished to Africa for life ; their number did not exceed thirty, and a large proportion of them were sick. The defence of Elmina had chiefly been undertaken by the natives, some seven hundred of whom had been drilled and disciplined by the Portuguese, and it has been insinuated that the latter exhibited great want of spirit in surrendering so tamely. But what could the white garrison of thirty men, even supposing they were all fit for duty, have effected against Coine's force of thirteen hundred Europeans ? After the reduction of Elmina Van Ypren returned to Mori with his forces, leaving Captain Walraeven with a garrison of one hundred and forty men in the Castle of St. George. He sent a cartel to the commandant of Fort St. Anthony, at Axim, informing him of the fall of Elmina, and summoning him to surrender; but the latter replied that he would defend the place to the last extremity. It is not clear why the Dutch commanders did not take advantage of the presence of their large force on the coast to reduce this last stronghold of the Portuguese, which was in strength far inferior to St. George d'Elmina; but Coine returned to Brazil with his fleet, without making any attempt upon it, and it was not until January Qth, 1642, that Fort St. Anthony was captured by the Dutch. After Coine's departure Van Ypren took up his residence at Elmina, which, -henceforward, became the chief post of the Dutch upon the Gold Coast. They considerably en- larged and improved the Castle, and for its protection built Fort Conraadsburgh on the hill of St. Jago, on the site formerly occupied by the small redoubt of the Portuguese. The garrison of this new work consisted of an ensign and twenty-five men, who were relieved from St. George daily. It has often been asserted that the Dutch attack on Elmina was unjustifiable, on the grounds that, in 1637, there was no war between -the Netherlands and Portugal. This .is, however, a mistaken view. There was no kingdom of 46 A HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST. Portugal in existence in 1637, for, since 1580, when Philip II. laid violent hands upon it, Portugal had been a province of Spain, and Holland and Spain were the deadliest foes. The acknowledgment of the independence of the United Provinces, which the House of Nassau had succeeded in wringing from Philip III., was repudiated by Philip IV. when he renewed the war with Holland in 1621. On land the Spaniards, under Spinola, gained some advantages, for the Dutch soldiery could not stand against the veteran Spanish infantry, then the best in Europe ; but at sea the Dutch were uniformly successful, and they wisely made use of their naval superiority to harass the Spaniards in every part of the world. In 1624 they defeated the Spanish fleet off Lima, and their expeditions to Brazil and to the Gold Coast can only be regarded as part of this policy, Portugal being then an integral portion of Spain. When the Portuguese, in 1640, taking advantage of the distracted condition of Spain, achieved their independence under the House of Braganza, war broke out between Portugal and Holland on the question of the possession of Brazil; and it was during the progress of these hostilities that the Dutch attacked and captured Fort St. Anthony, at Axim, and finally expelled the Portuguese from the Gold Coast. At the ensuing peace Portugal ceded all its possessions on the Gold Coast to the Dutch, the latter, in turn, renouncing all pretensions to sovereignty in Brazil. The Portuguese occupation of the Gold Coast thus lasted from 1482 to 1642, a period of one hundred and sixty years, and traces of it may still be found in the languages of the negro tribes. From this we may infer that on the Gold Coast, as in Congo, Angola, and Cachao, the Portuguese mingled more with the natives than did their successors, whether Dutch or English. Among the words of Portuguese origin still used on the Gold Coast may be mentioned " palaver/' from palabra ; " caboceer," from cabeceiro ; " piccaninny," from picania ; " custom," from costume ; and " fetish," from feitico ; while the familiar "dash me/' i.e., "give me," comes from the TRACES OF PORTUGUESE RULE. 47 Portuguese das me, from which, naturally, the word "dash," meaning a "gift," is also derived. The existence of these words, nearly two centuries and a half after the Portuguese were driven from the coast, shows that they must have mixed with and influenced the natives to some considerable degree. Although the Dutch remained on the Gold Coast for two hundred and thirty-two years there are no similar traces of their occupation, nor are there even now many words derived from the English language in general use. Many of the names given by the Portuguese to places on the Gold Coast still remain, translated into English, but in the majority of cases their designations have been supplanted by the native ones. Amongst the former we have Cape Three Points (Cabo de Tres Puntas], Gold Coast (Costa del Oro\ and Devil's Mount (Monte de Diablo] \ but the River Prah is now never spoken of as the Rio de San Juan, and no one would know Ampeni under the title of Terra Pequena. A few Portuguese names exist in a corrupt form. The principal are Ancobra River (Rio Cobrc), Elmina (La Mina], and Cape Coast (Cabo Corso]. CHAPTER V. 1643 1668. -Return of the English to the Gold Coast Growth of the slave trade The English form settlements Disputes between the English and Dutch The Dutch seize Cape Coast Castle Holmes's expedition to the Coast De Ruyter's expedition The treaty of Breda. THE success which attended the efforts of the Dutch to obtain a footing on the Gold Coast encouraged the English, some years before the capture of Elmina, to recommence a coasting trade, and several voyages were undertaken without any remarkable occurrence. The first record of any attempt made by England to establish a regular trade with the Gold Coast is in the charter granted by James I. in 1618, to Sir Robert Rich and some merchants of London, for raising a joint stock for a trade to Guinea. Under this charter vessels were despatched, but the profits of the undertaking .not being found to answer expectation, the proprietors withdrew from the Company, and the charter was suffered to expire. In 1631 Charles I. created a second Company for trade to Africa, granting by charter to Sir Richard Young, Sir Kenelm Digby, and other merchants, the exclusive trade to the Guinea Coast, between Cape Blanco and the Cape of Good Hope, together with the adjacent islands, for a period of thirty-one years. At this time the legitimate trade to West Africa had sunk into comparatively insignificant proportions beside a new trade that had arisen, namely the GROWTH OF THE SLAVE TRADE. 49 trade in slaves, in which all the western nations of Europe were now engaged. As early as 1452 slaves had been purchased at Elmina by the Portuguese and carried to Europe, and the traffic in slaves, such as it was, remained in the hands of that people until 1470, when the Spaniards established a mart and introduced negro slaves to Spain, the Canaries, and, subsequently, to the West Indies. As long as the wretched aborigines of the West Indies were sufficiently numerous to perform the labours demanded of them by the Spaniards, the negroes were considered very inferior workmen; and, in 1503, Ovando complained of their importation to Hispaniola, where they continually escaped to the woods and formed into predatory bands; but as the Indians succumbed to the cruelties of their hard task-masters, negro labourers became necessary to supply their place. In 1517 the traffic became firmly established .-under Papal authority, and it increased so rapidly that by 1539 the annual sales amounted to between ten and twelve thousand. Of all the nations of Europe, England was the last to embark in the slave trade, and the earliest attempt was made by Sir John Hawkins, as a private adventurer, in 1563. On his return to England, Elizabeth expressed her dissatisfaction that negroes should have been forcibly taken from their native land, but his subsequent successes against the Spaniards induced her to adopt other views, and in 1565 the British slave trade may be said to have been established. At first the British trade in slaves was but small, but when England commenced the colonisation of the West Indies, and the Dutch West India Company, in 1627, introduced slavery to their colony of Manhattan, in North America, there became such a demand for negro slaves that the African Company of 1631 was induced to build forts and trading posts on the African coast for the protection of this commerce. Their charter granted them an exclusive trade to Guinea, but the trade practically remained open, for -adventurers of other nations entirely disregarded their pre- tensions, and even English private adventurers continued So A HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST. to make voyages to the coast. Whenever the Company had reason to suppose that such a voyage was contemplated, they applied for the detention of the vessel. Thus we find that in 1637, upon an information laid by the directors, the ship Talbot, which had been equipped to trade upon the coasts of Guinea, Benin, and Angola, "to take nigers and carry them to foreign parts/' was ordered to be stopped ; but such detentions appear to have been of rare occurrence,, for the English private adventurers kept their purpose care- fully concealed until they were clear of English ports. The Dutch could not have regarded the appearance of the English upon the Gold Coast with any great favour, but they do not appear to have offered any open opposition to the formation of establishments by the English Company. Their position on the Gold Coast was somewhat peculiar. The Portuguese, though they were established only at Elmina and Axim, had claimed, and for a time had cer- tainly exercised, a sovereignty over the whole littoral of the Gold Coast ; but the Dutch, though they had acquired all the privileges of the Portuguese by right of conquest, and, subsequent to the capture of Elmina, had built forts at Butri, Shamah, and Anamabo,* in order to control the natives, and engross the whole trade, exercised no such sovereignty. They claimed and exercised a jurisdiction over the native towns in the immediate vicinity of their forts and " lodges/' but nowhere else ; and the various petty kingdoms of the Gold Coast were regarded as entirely inde- pendent. No doubt the latter had contrived to regain some- thing of their independence during the fifty years' struggle between the Dutch and the Portuguese, and at its conclusion were not inclined to resubmit to another yoke. The Dutch, then, could hardly resist the establishment of trading posts by the African Company so long as they were not formed at those places which were already in Dutch occupation. All that was necessary for the English to do was to obtain permission to build from the king of the state in which they * Anama, " bird " ; bo, " rock." THE ENGLISH FORM SETTLEMENTS. 51 proposed to establish themselves, and the Dutch could dniy oppose them by diplomacy and intrigue. The African Company proved a success until the out- break of the Civil War in England, when the nation was so fully occupied at home that it had no time to spare in foreign adventures. The Dutch seized this opportunity of improving their position at the expense of the English ; the Swedes also appeared and established themselves at Christiansborg, where they built a fort; and though in 1651 the 'grant to the African Company was renewed and confirmed by the Commonwealth, it is said to have suffered losses to the extent of three hundred thousand pounds. It is not known with certainty what forts or "lodges" the Company had built on the Gold Coast, but at all events it had a fort at Cormantine before 1651, for in that year the Council of State approved of a report upon the Guinea trade which had been drawn up by the Council of Trade, in which it was recommended that the African Company should have the exclusive trade for twenty leagues on each side of their two chief factories, namely, Fort Cormantine, on the Gold Coast, and the River Cerberro (Sherbro), near Sierra Leone. This exclusive trade was to last for fourteen years, and all the rest of the coast of Africa was to be free to all comers. The Danes were the next nation to endeavour to obtain a share in the profitable business of exporting negroes to the New World. In 1657 they drove the Swedes out of Chris- tiansborg, and shortly after built a small fortified factory on the summit of a hill about a quarter of a mile to the east of Cape Coast Castle, at a village called Mamfro, or Omanfo ; * but they do not appear to have engrossed much of the trade, and the great rivalry was between the Dutch and the English. The African Company had not succeeded in establishing itself on the Gold Coast without some molestation. In 1652 a frigate had to be sent out from England to protect its trade from the interference of the Dutch, and in 1653, the Swedes, * Man, or Oman, "town"; fo, "people." E 2 52 A HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST. having encroached upon the Company and expelled some of its factors from places bought by it at Accra, Lord Am- bassador Whitelock was instructed to represent the case to the Swedish Court and insist upon reparation being made; but it was not until 1660 that serious disputes arose be- tween the English and Dutch. In that year the Dutch so encroached upon the trade of the African Company that the English Ambassador at the Hague formally remonstrated with the Dutch Government on the subject, but to no pur- pose. Indeed, instead of obtaining redress for the grievances complained of, his interference seems only to have produced fresh aggressions, and the Colonial State Papers for the years 1660, 1661, and 1662, are full of complaints, made by the agents of the English Company, of Dutch interference with their trade. In August, 1661, the English ship Merchant's Delight was seized by the Dutch and carried to " Castle de Myne/' as Elmina was then called by the English, where the crew were imprisoned by the Dutch Director-General, Jasper Van Hewson. In November, 1662, further complaints were made of Dutch aggressions at " Comendo " (Kommenda) and " Cape Corso " (Cape Coast). At neither of these places, say the complainants, had the Dutch any factories, but they endeavoured to prevent the English trading, and the Dutch war vessel Golden Lyon fired at the boats of an English ship which attempted to land at Cape Coast. Relations between the Dutch and English on the Gold Coast were in this strained condition when, towards the close of 1662, Charles II. granted to a new Company a charter of incorporation by the title of " Company of Royal Adven- turers of England Trading to Africa." This Company engaged to supply the British West Indies with three thou- sand negro slaves annually, and it consisted of many persons of rank, amongst others the King's brother, James, Duke of York. According to the proposals for the settlement of this Company,* dated January, 1663, the posts on the Gold Coast were to be "Cape Corso, Anashan, Kommenda, Aga, and * Dom. Chas. II., vol. Ixvii., No. 162, Cal. p. 36. THE ENGLISH FORM SETTLEMENTS. 53 Acra." Aga is evidently Egyah, a small village near Cor- mantine, and Anashan, or Anchiang, is another small village about two miles to the west of Anamabo, in the then State of Fanti. The Castle of Cape Corso (Cape Coast) was to be the head factory, and the residence of the agent for the whole Gold Coast. Two merchants, a gold taker, a warehouse keeper, two accountants, and three younger factors were to reside there, and the garrison was to consist of fifty English soldiers and thirty negro slaves, with a captain, and four sergeants or corporals. Anashan was to have a sergeant, ten English soldiers, and eight negroes, and the other factories two soldiers and two negroes each. From the fact of no garrison being specified for Cor- mantine fort, we may infer that that post was to remain in static quo, and that the posts now mentioned were either newly projected ones, or ones which were to be placed on a new footing. Anashan, Egyah, and Kommenda seem to have been new posts, but it is doubtful if Cape Coast was, for the " Castle of Cape Corso " is referred to as if it were a building already in existence. The question as to when Cape Coast Castle was built is involved in great obscurity. Smith, Surveyor of the Royal African Company, who visited the Gold Coast in 1727, says the Portuguese founded it in 1610; while Barbot (1687), says it was built by the Dutch shortly after the capture of Elmina. Neither of these gives any authority for his statement, and Barbot contradicts himself in two other places, saying in one that the Dutch "had a pretty good fort at Cape Coast, which they bought of the factor of one Carolof, who had built it for the Danish Company," and in the other that "Cape Coast is famous for the castle the English built there." In any case Smith is in error, for there is abundant evidence to show that the Portuguese had no fort at Cape Coast, and Barbot's statement that it was built by the Dutch is directly traversed by the complaint made by the African Company in November, 1662, in which it is said the Dutch had no factory at Cape Coast. There seems, therefore, but little doubt that Cape Coast Castle was built by the English, but 54 A HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST. at what date is uncertain. The probability is that it was built shortly before the formation of the Company of 1662, perhaps in 1662, for there is no mention made of it before January, 1663. It has been stated that one reason of Cape Coast being selected as the chief post of the new Company, was that it formed part of the marriage portion of Catherine of Braganza, whom Charles II. married in 1662 ; but this, if true, is certainly very peculiar, considering that the Portuguese had been expelled from the Gold Coast by force of arms twenty years before, and had since renounced all claim to their possessions in that part of the world in favour of the Dutch. The formation of the new Company led to remonstrances from the Dutch Company, and on June , 1st, 1663, John Valckenburgh, " Director General of the North Coast of Africa and the Island of St. Thome," on behalf of the States General, protested against the action of the English agents. He maintained that, by right of conquest from Portugal, the whole coast of Guinea now belonged to the Dutch, and complained that the English had set up a factory at Tacorary (Takoradi), "under the protection of Shamah, under which Tacorary, Saconde, and Abrary have always been tributary." He further complained that, in 1647, the English had encouraged the Dutch "vassals" at Cabo Corso to rebel, and had now, with their shipping, raised the blockade of the place.* From this it will be seen that the Dutch were now taking up a new position, and were disposed to claim a sovereignty over the whole Gold Coast, though such a claim ill accorded with the fact that the right of the English to Cormantine, where they had been established since before 1651, had never been called in question. However, in this protest they only made specific complaints of the action of the English in two places, and, as far as Takoradi was concerned, they were in the right, as they had had a fort there for some years. Their claim to Cape Coast does not seem to have rested upon any solid foundation. * Col. Papers, vol. xvii., No. 34. Indorsed "The First Protest of ye Dutch." DISPUTES BETWEEN THE ENGLISH AND DUTCH. 55 But the Dutch did not limit themselves to mere pro- tests. A few days after, they suddenly surprised and seized the English castle at Cape Coast, and gave large presents to the King of Fetu, "and his capeshiers" (caboceers), to induce him to exclude the English altogether from that place. They likewise bribed the "King of Fantyn and his capeshiers" to attack the English fort at Cormantine, and persuaded the King of Aguna to seize John Cabessa, " who was a great defence to Cormantine." " Had not Captain Stokes arrived, it is to be feared that the Flemish flag would be on Cormantine, as it is now on the Castle of Cape Corso."* Some of the aggressions of the Dutch seem to have preceded their protest, for the English agents complain that on May 28th the. King of Aguna, instigated by the Dutch, had plundered their factory at Winnebah. However, the Dutch do not appear to have been uniformly successful in their en- deavours to prejudice the natives against the English, for, from a letter from Captain Stokes, it seems that the latter succeeded in making a treaty with the King of Fanti, and had arranged to build a fort at the new post of Anashan. In consequence of the complaints from the agents of the Company, and no doubt because the King himself had a pecuniary interest in its welfare, Sir George Downing, the Envoy to the States General, was instructed to demand full and speedy reparation for the Dutch aggressions. In the meantime the Dutch made a second protest, to the effect that Captain Stokes, "Commander in Chief of the English Forces upon the Coast of Africa," had erected a factory at Anashan, "upon the Stranel, under the jurisdiction of the country of Fantyn." They alleged that no person with a knowledge of the coast of Africa could be ignorant that the Portuguese, as the first discoverers, had maintained the Gold Coast against all comers, and that the Dutch Company, which had * Col. Papers, vol. xvii., No. 60. 56 A HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST. obtained it at the expense of much treasure and blood from the Portuguese, ought to be left undisturbed,, especially in the neighbourhood of Anashan, as the "whole strand of Fantyn," with the traffic therein, had been made over, in March, 1629, to the States General and the Dutch West India Company.* This protest was handed to Captain Stokes on board the Marmaduke, by Huybert Van Gazeldoncq, Chief Factor, at the Fort Nassau Tot Moree. Sir George Downing failed to obtain any satisfaction from the States General, and, influenced by the Duke of York, who, as Governor of the Company, took a strong interest m its progress, Charles II. despatched Captain Robert Holmes-f- to the West Coast of Africa, in ft\& Jersey* with secret instructions to seize the Dutch fort at Goree, which was then considered to be the key of West Africa. This was done without any previous declaration of war against Holland being made, and Charles II. has on this account been blamed ; but it must be remembered that the seizure of the Castle of Cape Coast by the Dutch could only be regarded as an act of war, and that consequently the Dutch must be considered to have been the first to com- mence hostilities. Neither must it be forgotten that not- withstanding this high-handed proceeding on the part of the Dutch, Charles II. did not take any measures of reprisal until after application to the States General for reparation, had failed. Holmes captured Goree, left a small garrison in the fort, and ran down to the Gold Coast. On April Qth, 1664, he arrived off Takoradi ; the Dutch fort there, Fort Witsen, was taken by storm, and an English garrison left in it. On May /th he retook the Castle of Cape Coast, placed in it a garrison of fifty men, with supplies and ammunition for six months, and left a number of workmen and a quantity * Col. Papers, vol. xvii., No. 77. f Afterwards Sir Robert Holmes, the barbarous destroyer of the open town of Brandaris on the Schelling, and who has been termed " the cursed beginner of the Dutch wars." DE RUYTER S EXPEDITION. 57 of materials for its repair. From Cape Coast he proceeded to Mori, where he reduced Fort Nassau, and then sailing to Anamabo, captured the fort and drove the Dutch out of Egyah.* Having thus taken all the Dutch posts on the Gold Coast, except Elmina and Axim, he returned to England. With the exception of Cape Coast Castle and Mori Fort, the places thus captured were rather fortified houses than regular fortifications ; the garrisons of the two former barely numbered twenty men, while those of the smaller posts consisted of two or three men only ; and as the Dutch were completely taken by surprise, Holmes 7 expe- dition was not such a glorious affair as has commonly been supposed. The natural result of the action of Charles II. in de- spatching Holmes to the West Coast of Africa was the outbreak of war between England and Holland, during which, it may incidentally be remarked, a Dutch fleet ascended the Medway and destroyed our shipping ; while to recover the lost possessions in West Africa, and to reduce the English forts and factories on the Gold Coast, Admiral de Ruyter was despatched with thirteen sail. De Ruyter arrived at Goree on October nth, 1664, and as the breaches in the fortifications, made at the time of the capture by Holmes, had not yet been repaired, the place surrendered. He then ran down the coast, destroying the English factories at Sierra Leone, Cape Mount, Mountserrat (Mesurado), and Ccestus (Sesters), and anchored at Elmina. On December 25th the Dutch attacked Takoradi with a small force, but being repulsed, returned with a body of a thousand natives and captured the place. The English were stripped naked, the town burnt, and the fort blown up, for it was only a small place, mounting seven or eight patereroes, and of great expense to maintain. The ruins of this fort, it may be remarked, were visible until quite recently. The main object of De Ruyter's mission was the capture of the Castle of Cape Coast, and he next proceeded there, * Dom. Chas. II., vol. cxiv., No. 19, Cal. 235. 58 A HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST. but finding that the landing-place was swept by the guns of the Castle, and that the natives, whom the Dutch had tried to corrupt, were determined to assist the English, he abandoned the attempt, merely expressing his astonishment that the Dutch should have been so short-sighted as to allow the English to get a footing there. From Cape Coast he went on to Mori, and after retaking Fort Nassau, with the assistance of nine hundred natives from Elmina, returned to Elmina. Much disappointed at finding De Ruyter would not attempt the reduction of Cape Coast Castle, Valckenburgh, the Director-General, urged him to make an attempt upon Anamabo and Cormantine, which he represented as being very injurious to Dutch trade. De Ruyter complied, and sailing from Elmina on January 25th, 1665, passed on to Mori, where he took in the Dutch garrison, and early next morning attempted a landing at Anamabo, with 700 soldiers, black and white, and 1,000 Elminas. This attempt was repulsed with loss by the natives of Cormantine, under their chief, John Cabessa, aided by the fire of the small guns of the " lodge " ; but the English had regarded its success as so certain that they had mined their " lodge" at Egyah, and had ignited the fuse so that the place might blow up when the Dutch occupied it, as they would have done during their advance from Anamabo to Cormantine. Owing to. the failure of the attack this little plot fell through, and the mine exploded without injuring any one. Finding things were not going on well, Valckenburgh himself came from Elmina to direct the operations. He entered into an agreement with the Fantis, and purchased their assistance for a combined attack by land and sea upon Cormantine ; paying them, according to the English, fifty- thousand pieces of eight an evident exaggeration and according to Barbot, fifty-two marks of gold. On January 29th Valckenburgh landed his men without opposition at Egyah, and being joined by the Fanti auxiliaries, every man of whom wore a white handkerchief round his neck to distinguish him from the natives of Cormantine, marched DE RUYTEKS EXPEDITION. 59 with a total force of ten thousand men to attack Cormantine Fort by land, while three ships bombarded it from the sea. The natives, some three hundred in number, under John Cabessa, made a most obstinate resistance ; the paths to the fort were choked with bodies, and the advance was checked for a long time ; but by a flank movement of the Dutch main body, most of the English allies were cut off, and the remainder then retreated to the fort, which soon hung out a flag of truce. The English surrendered without terms, but the Dutch gave quarter, and only revenged themselves by blowing up John Cabessa's house. That chief, who had committed suicide to avoid capture, was, said the agents of the Company, truer to the English interest than any of the' Englishmen who were there; the Dutch offered a large reward for his head, but the natives buried him at old Cormantine.* In this attack the Dutch lost forty-nine Europeans, and the Fanti contingent suffered heavily. They took in the fort a "tried lump of gold," of 105 Ibs. weight, which was taken on board De Ruyter's ship. After the capture of Cormantine the three or four men in Anamabo "lodge" capitulated, and on January 3Oth De Ruyter and Valckenburgh returned to Elmina, leaving a garrison of eighty men in Cormantine Fort, which they now named Fort Amsterdam. At the termination of De Ruyter's expedition the Company of Royal Adventurers had nothing left of their former forts and factories on the Gold Coast except the Castle of Cape Coast ; and when the news of their losses reached England, they presented a petition to the King, in which they adopted a strange line of argument. They asserted that what De Ruyter had done had been done to revenge the losses inflicted by Holmes (Major Holmes they styled him) ; and they endeavoured to make it appear that they had not sanctioned Holmes's action, or taken any part in his engagements, or profited by them. Yet, as a matter of fact, all the Dutch forts and factories on the Gold Coast * Col. Papers, vol. xix., No. 55. Indorsed "An Account of De Ruyter's barbarityes in Guinea in 1664.'' 60 A HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST. that had been captured by Holmes, had been handed over to and occupied by the Company's servants, who, had matters afterwards turned out differently, would have hailed Holmes as their benefactor instead of denouncing- him as their destroyer. They gave a brief narrative of their trade and late condition, showing 1 that since their incorporation on January 2Oth, 1663, they had sent to the Coast goods to the value of ^"158,000; and, besides forts in the Gambia, at Sierra Leone, and on the Grain Coast, had, on the Gold Coast, built forts or factories at Anashan, Ahanta, Tantam- kwerri, Cormantine, Cape Coast, Winnebah, Accra, Whydah, and Benin, from which they had exported ,200,000 annually in gold, and ^"100,000 in slaves for the plantations. They had, besides, a trade at Old and New Calabar, and had engaged to supply the Spaniards with 3,500 negroes annually from those places. In consequence, then, of the loss of all this trade through the unjustifiable aggressions of Holmes, they begged that all the Dutch prizes which that commander had taken might be made over to them, to compensate them in some measure for their losses.* This strange request, owing probably to the influence of the Duke of York, appears in some respects to have been complied with, as the Dutch vessel, Golden Lyon, was, in April, 1666, handed over to the Company. Very soon after De Ruyter's expedition the English must have taken steps to re-establish themselves at some of the places they had lost, for Villault, in the narrative of the voyage he made to the Gold Coast in 1666, says that they had at Anashan a small fort on an eminence, about six hundred paces from the sea. When he was at Cape Coast the King of Fanti had seized the Dutch commandant of Cormantine, who had gone on a visit to Anamabo, and had killed two men who were with him. The reason of this seizure, Villault was told, was that the Fanti King had promised the English to put them in possession of Cor- mantine again, and had given his son to them as a hostage * Col. Papers, vol. xix., No. 5. THE TREATY OF BREDA. 6r for the fulfilment of his promise. Afterwards, finding that he was unable to keep his word, he demanded his son, whom the English declined to give up till the conditions were complied with; and he thereupon seized, the Dutch commandant and four others, intending to exchange them for his hostage. How this affair terminated we are not told. When Villault's vessel anchored off Cape Coast the Castle fired a shotted gun at it, upon which the governor of Fredericsburgh, the Danish fort at Omanfo, replied with a shotted gun at the Castle, which it commanded, to show that he took the ship under his protection. By the treaty of Breda, in 1667, the Dutch retained possession of Cormantine and all the other posts they had captured from the English, and the right of the latter to Cape Coast Castle was acknowledged. The treaty does tfiot, however, appear to have put an end to- the differences between the two nations, for, in 1668, the Dutch demanded that the English should give up Egyah, which they had reoccupied, on the grounds that, being under the guns of Cormantine, it had been ceded to them with that fort. In July of the same year, too, the people of Kommenda plundered the Dutch factory at that place, and murdered the native servants of the Dutch Company ; and as they were supposed to have been instigated by the people of Fetu, the Dutch declared a blockade of Kommenda and all the coast of Fetu, including Cape Coast, and called upon the English to cease trading at those places until they, the Dutch, had received satisfaction. Naturally, however, the English did not acknowledge a blockade of their own head- quarters, and the consequence was that there was a good deal of bickering between them and the Dutch. CHAPTER VI. 1669 1700. Formation of the Royal African Company The Brandenburghers form settlements Rebellion of the Elminas Native wars The voyage of Thomas Phillips Capture of Christiansborg by the Akwamus War between the Dutch and Kommendas The English trade to- Africa made open. IN 1672 the "Company of Royal Adventurers trading to Africa" surrendered its charter to the Crown, and on September 27th a fourth exclusive company, entitled the " Royal African Company," was' established. The King, the Duke of York, and many other persons of rank were among the promoters, and in nine months the whole capital of ;in,ooo was raised. Out of this sum the out-going Company was paid ,34,000 for its three forts, viz., Cape Coast Castle, James Fort, in the River Gambia, and a fort on Bunce Island, in the Sierra Leone River. The new Company very shortly commenced to build new forts at Sekondi, Kommenda, Anamabo, Winnebah, and Accra, and much increased the trade. They exported annually English goods to the value of ,70,000, and in 1673, 50,000 guineas, so called from the Guinea Coast, were coined from gold which they brought to England. In 1679 the Danish commandant of Christiansborg John Ollricks, of Gluckstad, was treacherously murdered by the natives at the instigation of a Greek who wa. c second in command ; and who, after making himsel PRUSSIAN SETTLEMENTS. 65 master of the Castle, sold it to Julian de Campo Baretto,. a Portuguese who had formally been Governor of St. Thomas, for about ^224. Baretto was supported by the Portuguese Government, which furnished him with a garrison, and, in spite of the remonstrances of the Danes, Christiansborg remained in Portuguese hands till 1683 ; when, the garrison having mutinied, and their affairs generally being in a wretched condition, the Portuguese permitted the Danes to redeem it by purchase. In 1682* the Brandenburghers, or, to give them their present title, the Prussians, anxious if possible to obtain a share in the profitable slave trade, also commenced to form settlements on the Gold Coast. In that year the Elector of Brandenburgh sent out two frigates under Matthew de Vos and Peter Blanco, who, on arriving at Cape Three Points, landed their men at " Pokquefo," and set up the Brandenburgh flag on Manfro Hill. The chief of the dis- trict at first objected to this summary proceeding ; but, eventually, he was induced to give them permission .to build a fort. They landed some guns, built a few houses, sur- rounded the whole with a palisade, and leaving a small garrison in the place, returned to Hamburg. In the fol- lowing year Blanco returned to assume command, with the title of Director-General for the Elector of Brandenburgh; and having built a fort, which mounted thirty-two guns, named it Great Fredericsburgh, in honour of his sovereign. The Brandenburghers subsequently built Fort Dorothea at Akwidah, and formed a "lodge" at Takrama. The Dutch drove them out of the former in 1690, and enlarged the fort, but restored it in 1698. In 1687 the Dutch determined to build a fort at Kom- menda, to endeavour to compete with the English, who had succeeded in engrossing the whole trade of that place. The natives, perhaps instigated by the latter, offered resistance to the Dutch occupation ; but troops were collected from the other Dutch forts, and in the war which ensued the King of * Bosman says 1674, but Barbot, who is more circumstantial, 1682. 64 A HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST. Kommenda and several of the principal chiefs were killed, and the people entirely subjected. The Dutch fort was then commenced, about gun - shot distance from that of the English; it was completed in 1688, and named Fort Vren- denburgh. The same year was remarkable for a rebellion of the natives of Elmina. The Portuguese had made the district of Elmina independent of the Kings of Commani (Kom- menda) and Fetu, whose kingdoms were separated by the River Beyah at Elmina, and the natives had been governed, .according to their own laws and customs, by three chiefs. This arrangement the Dutch now tried to upset, in order to bring the inhabitants Under their direct control ; but the Elminas resisted, and took up arms in defence of their ancient liberties. Twice they assaulted the Castle, being repulsed each time with great slaughter, although the Dutch lost only four men ; and then finding they could not stand against the fire of the guns, they established, by land, a strict blockade of the Castle, and of Fort Conraadsburgfy permitting no one to enter or leave them. Affairs were ir this condition when Barbot visited Elmina in 1688, and h( saw three Elminas who had been taken prisoners in iron: on the battery on the land side of the Castle. These mer had been kept there for nine months, exposed to the hea of the sun and the inclemency of the weather, without an} covering. The dispute was finally terminated by mutua concessions. In 1688 the Royal African Company, and all othe exclusive companies not authorised by Parliament, wen , by the " Petition and Declaration of Right," on the acces sion of William and Mary, abolished. Notwithstandin this, however, the Company's officers on the coast still cor tinued to seize the ships of private traders, and this gav i rise to many disputes. The year 1688 is also noticeable as having witnessed a i attempt on the part of the French to obtain a footing c i the Gold Coast. In that year, M. du Casse arrived on tl 2 Coast with four men-of-war from Rochefort, and establishe 1 NATIVE WARS. 65 a small factory at Kommenda; but the Dutch contrived to foment quarrels between the natives, and during the dis- turbances that ensued the French factory was pillaged, and its inmates compelled to fly to Cape Coast for safety. From that time forward the French abandoned all hope of gaining any footing on the Gold Coast, and their ships ceased to frequent it. Between the years 1669 and 1692 two native wars of note took place. In the former year the Akwamus com- menced hostilities against the Accras, and the struggle continued until 1680, when the latter were completely crushed, and large numbers of them migrated to Great and Little Popo, on the Slave Coast, the old kingdom of Accra thus ceasing to exist. The Akwamus completely depopu- lated the country, and the devastation was such that when Barbot visited Accra in 1682 the English and Dutch forts at Accra, and the Danish castle of Christiansbcrg had still to be supplied with food from the windward forts. Every plantation had been ravaged and destroyed, and maize sold for five pieces of eight per bushel. The other native war was between the kingdoms of Adorn and Ahanta, that of Jabi subsequently joining the former against the latter. It broke out in 1690, lasted three or four years, and virtually destroyed for a time the kingdom of Ahanta. In 1693 a Captain Thomas Phillips made a voyage to the Gold Coast, the narrative of which, published in the second volume of Astley's Collection, furnishes some curious particulars of the affairs of the coast and the manner of life of Europeans there at that time. After losing a number of men from fever on the Grain and Ivory Coasts, Phillips at length arrived at Axim, on the Gold Coast. He says there were more than a dozen " Interlopers " i.e. private traders trading on the coast, notwithstanding the exclusive grant of the trade possessed by the Dutch Company, and the power of the latter to 'seize and confiscate thet ships and cargoes of interlopers. When such vessels were captured, the crews were confined in the dungeons at Elmina, and the commanders condemned to death. Yet Phillips saw 66 A HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST. four or five interlopers together, lying off Elmina Castle for a week at a time, and trading in defiance of it. But these vessels were generally well armed and manned, and resisted capture to the last extremity. At Axim the Dutch factor, Mr. Rawlison, came on board Phillips's ship, and was making merry, when the appearance in the distance of a twelve-hand canoe with a flag caused him to throw himself into a fishing canoe and hasten to the shore. Phillips was unable to account for the sudden flight of his guest ; but he learned afterwards that he was afraid the canoe was bringing the Fiscal from Elmina, an officer whose duty it was to supervise all the Dutch establishments on the coast, and to see that the factors engaged in no private trade on their own account. " In discharging this trust," says Phillips, " he uses as much subtilty and rigour as the severest old searcher in the Port of London, and in case of a discovery, not only takes all the contraband goods away, but possibly seizing upon all the gold the factor has for the Company's use, carries his person to the Mina, where he is imprisoned ; and the gentlest usage he meets with is to be well fined, and forced to carry a musket in the Castle as a common sentinel, another being put into his Government. It is the same likewise in case of any neglect or remissness in his duty as Governor, such as lying out, or letting black women in at night. The last of which, though it be a common practice in the English castles, yet the Dutch seldom or never do it, although they have black or mulatto wives as well as the English, which they change at pleasure. It is for these reasons that the Fiscal is so dreadful to them." Leaving Axim, Phillips passed the Brandenburgh factory (Great Fredericsburgh), and anchored off Dikjes-chaft, or Dicky's Cove (Dixcove), where the English were building a fort then half-finished. It had been commenced in 1691. From Dixcove he went to Tacoradi, and thence to Sekondi. Here he found Mr. Johnson the English factor in bed, raving mad, and his assistant a young lad " who had been a Bluecoat Hospital boy" in charge. THE VOYAGE OF THOMAS PHILLIPS. 67 At Shamah the natives were afraid to trade, lest the 'Dutch should seize their goods ; for, says Phillips, " the Dutch were very insolent upon this coast, especially since the Revolution, endeavouring by all manners to undermine and ruin the English commerce there ; treating the Negroes with great severity, when they catched them trading with the English." Passing Elmina Castle which was saluted with seven .guns Phillips anchored off Cape Coast, where he remained twenty-nine days. He landed here thirty soldiers for the Company in as good health as when they left England ; but in two months' time nearly half of them were dead. There was a curious fashion at that time of celebrating every social event with discharges of cannon or musketry. Phillips and his companions gave a dinner on shore in what he calls the " Castle garden," which appears to have been on Prospect Hill, to the officers of the Company ; and he tells us that each of the captains brought six of his quarter-deck guns on shore, and that eleven were discharged at each toast. While he was at Cape Coast the King of Saboe returned from a war he had been waging against the King of Fetu, in which the latter had been defeated, and compelled to seek protection at Elmina. A brother of the King had been placed on the "stool," and he came in to Cape Coast to "eat fetish" and swear to be true to the English interest. This war was caused by the Fetu people having molested the inhabitants of a small state called Akanna, which from M. D'Anville's map of the Gold Coast, published in 1729 appears to have been situated where the present Assin is.* The Akanna people, called by the English Arkanis, had the purest gold, and traded exclusively with the English ; and the Dutch, desirous of having a share in this profitable trade, instigated the King of Fetu to refuse the Akannas permission to pass through his territory, which intervened between Akanna and Cape Coast. The King of * The dialect of the Tshi language spoken by the northern tribes of . the Gold Coast is called Akan ; and the name Akanna was probably applied to all who spoke it. F 2 68 A HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST. Fetu complied, and plundered some Akanna traders ; where- upon the Akannas made war, and were assisted by the Company at Cape Coast with arms and ammunition, the King of Saboe and his people being also hired as allies. The Fetus were utterly defeated, a new King chosen, and a treaty drawn up in the name of the Royal African Com- pany, and of the Kings of Fetu, Akanna, and Saboe, in which the new King swore to be friendly with the Akannas, and permit them a free passage through his territory. On leaving Cape Coast, Phillips passed Mori and Ana- shan at the latter of which the Company's establishment consisted of a thatched house and anchored at Anamabo. Here the factors of Anamabo and Egyah came on board to dine with him, accompanied by two mulatto girls, their country wives. "This," says Phillips, " is a pleasant way of marrying ; for they can turn their wives off, and take others at pleasure, which makes them very careful to humour their husbands, in washing their linen, cleaning their chambers, etc., and the charge of keeping them is little or nothing.'' At Winnebah, where a Mr. Nicholas Buckerige was factor. Phillips had an interview with the Queen, a corpulent woman of fifty. " She was free of her kisses to Mr. Buckerige, whorr she seemed much to esteem, and truly he deserved respecl from all who knew him, being an extraordinary good- humoured and ingenious gentleman, and understood thij country and language very well." The factor lived here ir a thatched house, without any defences, and was in constan fear of being attacked and plundered by the Akwamus. Phillips found Christiansborg Castle in the hands of th< Akwamus. It had been surprised by a number of natives secretly armed, who gained admission by pretending the> had come to trade. While the assistant factor was showing them some goods, one of their number stabbed him, am his companions secured the other servants of the Compan 1 that were in the Castle, and ran to admit a body of armei natives who were lying in ambush outside. The Danish Director- General, hearing the tumult, came out of his roor sword in hand, and was immediately attacked by two natives . CAPTURE OF CHRISTIANSBORG. 69 He held his own against them for some time, but more natives coming up, he threw himself out of a window, and escaped to the Dutch fort at Accra. He had received several wounds, and by one of them his left arm was dis- abled. The Danish garrison, consisting of some twenty-five men only for it had recently been much reduced by deaths taken unawares, was soon overpowered, and the Akwamus became masters of the place. The leader of this attack was, Bosman tells us, a man named Assammeni. He dressed himself in the clothes of the Danish Governor, caused himself to be addressed by that title, and saluted all the " Interlopers" with volleys of cannon. Assammeni invited Phillips and two of his companions to dine ; an invitation which they accepted. He treated his guests well, and the food was very well dressed, for, says Phillips, he had formerly been a cook in one of the English factories, and now went very often to the kitchen to give the necessary orders. At dinner he sat in great state, having a negro boy, with a pistol, on each side of him, as a guard. He drank the King of England's, and the African Company's, and his guests' healths frequently, with volleys of cannon, of which he fired about two hundred during their visit. He had flying on the Castle a white flag, having on it a negro brandishing a scimetar. Next day, two Danish vessels, each of twenty-six guns, arrived. They had been despatched from Denmark as soon as the capture of the Castle was known, and were em- powered to treat. Assammeni at first made the most ex- travagant demands ; but the Danes won over the King of Akwamu to their interest by a considerable present, and Assammeni eventually surrendered the Castle for fifty marks in gold, and an indemnity in writing for himself and followers. After accomplishing this service, the Danish vessels went on to St. Thomas, where they fell in with Avery, alias " Long Ben," a notorious pirate who had long infested the Coast, and were plundered and burnt by him. In 1694 the people of Kommenda, who had only sub- mitted by force to the Dutch occupation in 1687, once more 70 A HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST. took up arms; the immediate cause being as follows. In 1694 the Dutch sent out some miners from Holland to open up those hills in the neighbourhood of their forts which were thought to contain gold. It was known that the Portuguese had had a gold mine at Kommenda, which, according to tradition, had fallen in in the year 1622, and had since lain idle ; a hill about half a mile from Fort Vrendenburgh was supposed to be identified with this, and the miners were there set to work. Now it so happened that this hill was believed by the natives to be the habitat of one of their local gods, and consequently sacred, and the Kommendas, resenting what they conceived to be a sacrilege, assaulted and beat the workmen, and carried them off as prisoners. After some negotiations the prisoners were released; but, as the Kommendas refused to make any reparation for the attack on them, the Dutch brought a force of mercenaries from Cape Coast and Elmina, at a cost of ,5,000, and commenced hostilities. In the first general engagement which took place the Kommendas were completely vic- torious, and the greater number of the Dutch auxiliaries were killed or taken prisoners ; but the Dutch succeeded by bribes in gaining over the brother of the King of Kommenda to their interest, and with a fresh force of auxiliaries essayed a second attempt. This, however, fared no better than the first, and the Dutch were driven back to their fort, which mounted twenty guns. In 1695 the Kommendas attempted to dislodge their foes altogether, and made a determined onslaught upon the fort. Says the Dutch commander : " Our enemies attacked us by night. I had but a very sorry garrison not full twenty men, half of which were not capable of service and yet I forced them to retire with loss, after a fight oi five hours. It was wonderful, and no small sign of divine protection, that we lost but two men in this action ; for we had no doors to most of our gun-holes, and the Negroes poured small shot on us as thick as hail, insomuch that those few doors that were left to some gun-holes were become like a target which had been shot at for a mark ; and the THE KOMMENDA WAR. 71 very staff which our flag was fastened on, though it took up so little room, did not escape shot-free. You may imagine what case we were in when one of them began to hack our very doors with an axe; but this undertaker being killed, the rest sheered off. The General, to whom I had represented my weak condition, advised two ships to anchor before our fort, in order to supply me with men and ammu- nition. Peter Heriken, the captain of one of these vessels, endeavouring to execute the General's order the day before I was attacked, sent his boat full of men with orders to come to me ; but they were no sooner on land than the Negroes fell upon them so furiously, even under our cannon, that they killed several of them, which, though I saw, I could not prevent; for, attempting to fire upon the enemy with our cannon, I found them all nailed ; of which piece of treacherous villany, according to all appearance, my own gunner was the actor, whom I therefore sent in chains to the General (at our chief place of residence), who swore that he would punish him exemplarily ; but, instead of that, he soon after not only set him at liberty, but preferred him to a gunner's place of greater importance. " For this reason I was forced to be an idle spectator of the miserable slaughter of our men, not being able to lend them the least assistance ; and if the Negroes had at that instant stormed us, we were in no posture of resistance. But they going to eat, gave me time to prepare for the entertainment I gave them, as I have before told you. Here I cannot help relating a comical accident which happened : Going to visit the posts of our fort, to see whether everybody was at their duty, one of the soldiers, quitting his post, told me that the Negroes, well knowing he had but one hat in the world, had maliciously shot away the crown, which he would revenge if I would give him a few grenadoes. I had no sooner ordered him two than he called out to the Negroes from the breastwork in their own language, telling them he would present them with something to eat, and, kindling his grenadoes, immediately threw them down amongst them. They, observing them to burn, crowded about them, and 72 A HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST. were at first very agreeably diverted ; but when they burst they so galled them that they had no great stomach to such another meal." * The Dutch, after the failure of the attack on their fort, reopened negotiations, and peace would probably have been made had not the English, whose fort stood close to that of the Dutch, and who hoped to profit by the quarrel, instigated the King to demand satisfaction on the strength of his two victories. The Dutch soon, however, succeeded in fomenting discord amongst the Kommendas, and hiring more native allies, a desultory war, characterised by great barbarities, continued for some months, and at last died a natural death. In 1698 the English trade to Africa, which had virtually been open since 1688, was expressly made so by Statutes IX. and X. of William and Mary, c. 26, which enacted " That for the preservation of the trade, and for the advantage of England and its colonies, it should be lawful for any of the subjects of His Majesty's realm of England, as well as for the Company, to trade from England and the plantations in America, to Africa, between Cape Mount and the Cape of Good Hope, upon paying for the aforesaid uses a duty of ten per cent., ad valorem, for the goods exported from England or the plantations, to be paid to the collector at the time of entry outwards, for the use of the Company." The duties so paid were to be applied to the maintenance of the forts, the purchase of munitions of war, and the pay of the soldiers. Persons paying these duties were to have the same protection from the forts, and the same freedom for trade, as the' Company. This law was to continue in force for thirteen years, and both the Company and many private traders remonstrated against it without effect. In a few years the Company's trade declined to such an extent, that they were unable either to support their factories, or to pay the debts which they had already incurred. It may here be mentioned that this Act, which expired in 1712, was again renewed by Parliament. * Bosnian. CAPTURE OF SEKONDI FORT. 73 In 1698 the English fort at Sekondi was taken and burned by the Ahantas, and several of its occupants killed, amongst them the factor, Johnson, whom Phillips had found in bed mad. The whole place was plundered and gutted, only the outer Avails being left standing. The English agents at Cape Coast charged the Dutch with having assisted the Ahantas, and sent a protest to the Director-General, John Van Seven- huysen, who, however, denied complicity, and declared that the Dutch vessels that had been sent to Sekondi at the time of the occurrence had merely been in search of interlopers. It is not probable that there was any foundation for the charge, for, from the Paris Gazette, of November, 1694, it seems that Fort Orange, the Dutch fort at Sekondi, was also taken and plundered by the Ahantas in September of that year; and a small Dutch vessel that was at anchor was captured at the same time, and all the crew massacred. The Dutch, therefore, were not likely to be on friendly terms with the Ahantas. CHAPTER VII. 1701. Native States in 1701 European forts Personnel of the Dutch establish- ments Interlopers Description of the Settlements The trade in gold Arms of the natives. IN 1701 was written the " Description of Guinea," by William Bosman, Chief Factor of the Dutch West India Com- pany at Elmina, a work which gives us a clear and succinct account of the Gold Coast at that time. The eleven Native States on the sea-board, already mentioned in Chapter III., still existed, with the exception of Accra, which was now replaced by Akwamu ; but a few other changes are noticeable. Fetu had so declined as only to exist under the protection of Commani or Kommenda, and Accra was similarly under the protection of Fanti ; while Ahanta, from being a power- ful kingdom, had sunk to insignificance, owing to the pro- tracted war between it and Adorn and Jabi. We now for the first time hear of some of the inland States, and Bosman mentions Awuin and Eguira, to the north of Axim ; Wassaw, north of Ahanta; Inkassa, north of Adorn, and Jusser, north of Kommenda. North of these lay the kingdom of Denkera, then the most powerful State to the west of the Prah, and to which Awuin, Wassaw, Inkassa, and Jusser were subject. The last-named seems to have been the present Tshiforo, or Tufel. To the east of the Prah were Akanna (north of Fetu) Akim, and Akwamu. The last named extended from Aguna to the River Volta, and comprised the present Akwapim and EUROPEAN FORTS. 75 Eastern Akim. Of the more remote inland tribes, Bosman expressly states, nothing was known except by report. He mentions Asiante (Ashanti) and Akim as the two principal,, but neither of these peoples had as yet penetrated to the sea-coast. The forts then occupied were as follows, commencing from the west : Axim Prince's River Akwidah . Dixcove . Butri Sekondi . Shamah . Kommenda Elmina .. Cape Coast Mori . . Anamabo. Cormantine Appam . Winnebah Accra Christiansborg Fort St. Anthony GreatFredericsburgh Fort Dorothea . Dixcove Fort . Fort Batenstein Fort Orange Fort St. Sebastian . Fort Vrendenburgh . Kommenda Fort Castle of St. George \ Fort Conraadsburgh J Cape Coast Castle Fort Royal Fort Nassau . . Anamabo Fort. Fort Amsterdam Fort Leydfamheyd . Winnebah Fort James Fort Fort Crevecceur ChristiansborgCastle When built. Dutch . . 1515. Brandenburgh . 1682. Brandenburgh . 1685. English . . 1691. Dutch . circa 1640.. Dutch . circa 1640. Dutch . circa 1640. Dutch . 1687. English . circa 1673. Dutch . 1482. . 1638. English . circa 1662. . circa 1659. Dutch . 1624. English . circa 1673. Dutch . circa 1650. Dutch . . 1697. English . 1694. English . circa 1673. Dutch . circa 1650.. Danish . circa 1645. The Fort Royal above mentioned as being at Cape Coast was no other than the Danish fort of Fredericsburgh,. at the suburb of Omanfo, which the English had purchased in 1685, and renamed. Notwithstanding all these fortified places, neither the English nor the Dutch were, according to Bosman, possessed of any real power, and trade was con- tinually stopped by the natives, and the forts blockaded. As we have seen, the Ahantas had captured both the Dutch and English forts at Sekondi, and utterly destroyed the latter. He complained of the inefficient garrisons, maintained, especially by the English. Bosnian's description of the personnel of the Dutch 76 A HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST. establishments is curious. He commences with the soldiers and their commanders, as being the lowest, for in those days trade looked down upon arms as much as arms now affects to do upon trade. He tells us that formerly those of the soldiers who showed any aptitude for trade were pro- moted to be assistants, but that this had been now prohibited for some years, so many of the men thus promoted proving to be drunkards and utterly incapable. The assistant was the lowest officer of the trading department, with pay and allowances amounting to thirty-six guilders a month ($ 3^.), and the Under-Commissary, or sub-factor, came next with eight guilders a month more. From the oldest or best qualified sub-factors were selected the factors for the forts, who received sixty-six guilders a month ($ i$s.}; an d the most experienced amongst them were appointed to Mori and Cormantine, where they received fourteen guilders a month more. These two places were considered so important that the Company in Holland had retained in their 'own hands the right of appointment to them, as well as to that of chief factor of Elmina, who was the second person oa the Coast, with a salary of one hundred guilders a month. The Governor, or Director - General, received three hundred guilders a month (26 5^.), and had beside a percentage on the profits of the trade. The factors were held responsible for the doings of the sub-factors, whose business it was to receive the gold, and Bosman tells us that it was necessary to watch them very closely. He mentions that one factor had to make good between ^"800 and ^"900 lost or squandered by his sub-factor, and says, that although a factor under such circumstances had his remedy against the defaulter, yet as the sub-factors rarely had either money or effects, this was not of much avail, and the only satisfaction he could take was to have the defaulter flogged. Any assistant might in course of time, if he lived long enough, rise to become Director-General, the only stipulation being that he should have previously served as chief factor of Elmina for three years. Besides these officers engaged in the trade, there was a chief-fiscal, a bookkeeper-general, an accountant of the gar- DUTCH ESTABLISHMENTS. 77 rison, and an under-fiscal. The chief-fiscal had a third of all gold or merchandise seized from interlopers, and of alt fines or forfeitures of pay inflicted. The under-fiscal, whom Bosman stigmatises as an informer, received a tenth of all forfeitures or fines. In the spiritual department there was a minister with a salary of one hundred and ten guilders a month, and a clerk, with twenty guilders. All the officials of the Company were compelled to go to church every day, or forfeit twenty-five stivers, except on Sundays and Thursdays, when the fine was doubled. The salaries paid by the Dutch Company seem ridicu- lously small, even when the great difference between the value of money in that day and this is taken into con- sideration, and it is a matter for wonder that Europeans should have been willing to exile themselves for years in such a pestilential climate for such miserable pittances ; but, as Bosman says, no one ever came there who could live in Holland. The Director-General's annual salary was only ^"315, and that of a wretched assistant 37 i6s., and out of this they had to feed and clothe themselves. The English officials seem to have been much better paid, for, according to Atkins (1721), the English Director - General received ^"2,000 a year, two factors, or merchants, ^300 each, and a secretary .200. These four composed the Council for all the affairs of the Company on the Coast. The Dutch and Brandenburgh Companies, though cor- dially disliking one another, were mutually agreed as to the seizing of those interlopers who trespassed upon their exclusive trade. These vessels, as already said, were com- monly well armed, and did not surrender without a struggle, and Bosman mentions a case in which a Dutch interloper, the Great Apollo, was only taken after a determined resistance by the cruiser Besc/temer, off Axim. However, the interlopers seem to have found the trade sufficiently profitable to run some risks, for Bosman says : " The negro inhabitants are very rich, driving a great trade with the Europeans for gold, which they chiefly vend to the English and Zealand interlopers, notwithstanding the severe penalty 78 A HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST. they incur thereby ; for if we catch them, their so-bought goods are not only forfeited, but a heavy fine is laid upon them : not deterred, I say, by this, they all hope to escape ; to effect which, they bribe our slaves (who are set as watches and spies over them) to let them pass by night ; by which means we are hindered from having much above an hundredth part of the gold of this land." The trade of the three Companies was carried on inside their forts or lodges, to which the natives brought their gold and slaves ; and Bosman expressly says that no goods were sent outside the walls for sale, and that no credit was ever given. His description of the towns or villages in the neighbour- hood of the forts, shows that they were in a condition almost identical with their present one. He describes the now entirely ruined and almost forgotten Brandenburgh fort, Great Fredericsburg, at Prince's River, as having four batteries, mounting in all forty-six pieces of ordnance. The gate of the fort was the most beautiful on the whole Coast. Sekondi, he says, was formerly one of the finest and richest villages on the Coast, but had recently been burned in the war between the Ahantas and Adorns. The former had resisted all attempts made by the English to rebuild the fort that had been destroyed in 1698. The town of Oddena, under the guns of St. George d'Elmina, he mentions as being built of stone, instead, as is usual, of swish. This was the disloyal quarter of Elmina, which we destroyed in 1873. Fifteen or twenty years before he wrote it had been very populous, and its inhabitants were dreaded by all the sur- rounding tribes; but it had been depopulated by smallpox and the wars with the Kommendas. Of Cape Coast Castle he says : " The fort is strengthened with four very large batteries, besides a fifth, on which are planted thirteen pieces of heavy cannon, and these being pointed at the water passage can easily prevent any ships of their enemies' anchoring in that road ; besides which a great rock lies just before the fort, so that it is impossible to shoot at it from the sea. The worst of all is that here is generally but a very weak garrison, one part of which (I ENGLISH ESTABLISHMENTS. 79 mean the soldiers) consists of such miserable poor wretches that the very sight of them excites pity. They look as awkward and as wrisled as an old company of Spaniards; the reason of which is, partly, that they greedily entertain those who quit or desert our service, which they will never deliver over to us out of a mistaken mercy, thereby freeing them from their deserved punishment. And though by firm promises and mutual agreement we have frequently and interchangeably obliged ourselves not to countenance or entertain any deserters from each other, but, on the contrary, to send them home in irons, yet they have once more broken the articles; and notwithstanding that those who have run away from us are chiefly sottish wretches, yet they are very welcome to them, the English never being better pleased than when the soldier spends his money in drink, especially in punch, a liquor made of brandy, water, lime-juice, and sugar, which make together an unwholesome mixture. . . . It is incredible how many are consumed by this damnable liquor (pardon the expression), which is not only confined to the soldiery, but some of the principal people are so bigotted to it that I really believe for all the time I was on the coast that at least one of their agents, and factors innumerable, died yearly." We might, perhaps, be disposed to regard this charge of intemperance brought against the English as unconsciously exaggerated by trade rivalry, but unfortunately it is only too well confirmed by the evidence both of Barbot and Atkins. The former of these two, however, disagrees with Bosman as to the inefficiency of the garrison maintained at Cape Coast Castle, for he says it consisted of one hundred white soldiers, and as many black, with officers, " all clothed in red." The English Governor at Cape Coast was styled " Captain General of the English Settlements on the Gold Coast of Guinea." He required every ship that anchored in Cape Coast roads, no matter of what nationality, to salute the Castle by lowering the topsails to the tops; and fired shotted guns at all that omitted to pay this compliment. Barbot tells us that on his voyage there in a French vessel he 8o A HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST. saluted the Castle with seven guns, to which five were returned ; and he was about to anchor when three shotted guns were fired at him. Thinking that war must have been declared between England and France, he hastened to quit the roads, and it was only afterwards that he learned the reason of this high-handed proceeding. According to Bosman, the English agents were but little acquainted with the affairs of the Coast, on account of the short stay they made ; and they were guided in all matters concerning trade and the natives by a mulatto named Bartu, who lived opposite the Castle. Atkins, in his account of Cape Coast Castle, mentions " the spacious vault under the square or place of arms, cut out of the rock, and divided into severa rooms, so as to contain a thousand slaves." The slave.' were chained and confined in these dungeons now usec as stores often for weeks at a time, till a ship came tc carry them to the West Indies. They were all brandec on the right breast with the letters " D. Y." (Duke of York) Bosman also mentions the late Danish fort at the suburl of Omanfo, which the English had purchased. It used t< mount six guns, but the English proposed enlarging am strengthening it. The summit of the hill was to be scarpec and when finished it was to be the strongest position o: the Coast. At the present day traces of the foundation of two or three buildings are visible on this hill, and ther are a few small pieces of ordnance lying about. After lapse of one hundred and eighty years, the hill-top is sti.' so steeply scarped that it can only be surmounted at on .- point, which is defended by a deep ditch. At Mori, the chief station of the Dutch, while th - Portuguese held Elmina, the majority of the inhabitant > were in Bosnian's time, as now, fishermen, and the toll of th ; fifth fish was exacted by the factor. " This sort of toll," say > Bosman, " we yet . reserve at three places besides, viz. < : Axim, Shamah, and Elmina, by reason we have conquere I those places, though I dare not affirm that of Mori. N > other Europeans have this peculiar prerogative, nor do an - of them exercise such a sovereign authority over their Negi > GOVERNMENT OF AGUNA. 81 subjects as we ; which is indeed chiefly their own fault, and, by their means we have also lost some of our former power." Of Anamabo, he says : " The English here are so horribly plagued by the Fantynean Negroes (Fantis), that they are sometimes even confined to their fort, not being permitted to stir out. And if the Negroes dislike the Governor of the fort, they usually send him in a canoa to Cabocors (Cape Coast) ; nor are the English able to oppose or prevent it, but are obliged to make their peace by a present. The town of Anamabo may very well pass for the strongest on the whole coast, affording as many armed men as the whole kingdom of Saboe or Commany ; and yet in proportion but a fifth part of Fantyn." The State of Aguna was ruled by a Queen, an unusual custom on the Gold Coast, but which had 'apparently been in force in Aguna from time immemorial. According to Barbot, the Queen was not allowed to marry, but could purchase male slaves as paramours. These were liable to be discarded and sold at any moment, and if they intrigued with any other women they lost their heads. The successor to the " stool " was the eldest daughter of the Queen, who, as soon as she arrived at puberty, was similarly entitled to purchase male slaves. Any male children of the Queen, or heiress apparent, were sold as slaves. It is pro- bable that Aguna was the last surviving kingdom of a people who inhabited the Gold Coast before the tribes from the interior descended to the coast. These latter all spoke dialects of one language, the Tshi, but in the south of Aguna, even at the present day, a dialect of a totally ^distinct language still exists, although Tshi is the language of ordinary use ; and there can be little doubt but that this distinct language is that of an older people. In none of the Tshi States on the littoral of the Gold Coast were women ever advanced to positions of power, and the existence of a Queen in Aguna seems to show that the pre-Tshi inhabitants had different customs. The sanitary, or rather insanitary, condition of the native G 82 A HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST. towns appears to have undergone no change since Bosnian wrote, and to it he attributes, no doubt correctly, much of the unhealthiness of the climate. In his day, however, the death-rate was probably increased by the " ignorant barbers," who were, he tells us, the only physicians. Added to this, medicines rapidly spoiled from the dampness of the atmo- sphere, and nothing was to be obtained to eat " besides fish and a dry lean hen." In the latter respect Europeans are not much better off at the present day. The value of the gold annually exported Bosman cal- culates at 7,000 marks, reckoning three marks to one thousand guilders. This would be equivalent to rather more than ,203,000. Of this he reckons that the Dutch West India Company obtained 1,500 marks, the English African Company 1,200 marks, and the Danes and Branden- burghers 1,000 marks ; the remainder, 3,300 marks, being carried off by the interlopers. Even at that time the falsifi- cation of gold was largely practised by the natives, especially by those of Dixcove and Butri ; and he mentions one instance in which the owner of two small English vessels received at the latter place dust which he imagined to be gold to the value of 1,700, but which afterwards proved to be quite valueless. In this case the goods were not recovered from the natives, nor did the unfortunate owner obtain any redress. The ordinary methods of fraud were to mix filings of a mixture of silver and copper with gold- dust, or to cast nuggets of copper or lead covered with a shell of gold; but where the traders were novices, the natives boldly palmed off brass filings upon them. A large trade was done in fire-arms and gunpowder, which, says Bosman, the Dutch were compelled to adopt, because the English, Danes, and Brandenburghers would insist upon supplying them. The Portuguese had, it seems, wisely prohibited any trade in fire-arms, and probably the importation of such weapons had not long been carried on when Bosman wrote; or, at all events, not to any great extent, for he mentions, amongst the weapons used by the natives, swords, bows and arrows, spears, and shields. WEAPONS OF THE NATIVES. 83 All these have now disappeared from the Coast, except in the far interior, to the north of Ashanti. The swords, " shaped like hooks," were about " two or three hands broad at the extremity, and about one at the handle, and about three or four spans long at most." This shape, as well as that of the handle described by him, is still preserved in the state swords used by chiefs upon ceremonial occasions. Bows and arrows were, he tells us, not much in vogue amongst the natives of the seaboard, those of Akwamu excepted. The Awuins used poisoned arrows, but elsewhere this practice was not known. There were two kinds of spears one for throwing, " about a Flemish ell in length," and the other for stabbing, about twice the size and weight of the former. The shields, about four or five feet long and three broad, were made of osiers covered with gilded leather, leopard and other skins. Some of them had plates of copper at the extremities and in the middle, to ward off arrows and javelins. Elephants, which have now entirely disappeared from the forests of the Gold Coast, were then very commonly met with, even in the vicinity of the forts. In December, i/oo, one walked along the shore of the River Beyah, under St. Jago Hill, and went into the Government Garden at Elmina, where he broke down the cocoa-nut palms. He was followed by a number of people, and above a hundred shots were fired at him, "which made him bleed to that degree, as if an ox had been killed. During all which he did not stir, but only set up his ears, and made the men apprehend that he would follow them. But this sport was accompanied with a tragical event ; for a Negro, fancying himself able to deal with him, went softly behind him, and catched his tail in his hand, designing to cut a piece of it off; but the elephant, being used to wear a tail, would not permit it to be shortened in his lifetime : wherefore, after giving the Negro a stroke with his snout, he drew him to him, and trod upon him two or three times; and, as if that was not sufficient, he bored in his body two holes with his teeth, large enough for a man's double fist to enter. Then 84 A HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST. he let him lie, without making any further attempt on him ; and stood still also whilst two Negroes fetched away the dead body, not offering to meddle with them in the least/' After thus asserting himself, the elephant returned to the river, the crowd flying before him in every direction, but at last fell down through loss of blood, and was then hacked to pieces. CHAPTER VIII. 1701 1/50. Conquest of Denkera by Ashanti The Elmina Note Affairs in Ashanti LI.IJ to 1750 John Conny Condition of the Royal African Company The African Company of Merchants formed The slave trade Piracy on the Coast. AT the close of the seventeenth century the most powerful native state on the Gold Coast known to Europeans was that of Denkera, which, embarking upon a career of con- quest, had reduced most of the neighbouring tribes to the condition of feudatories, and was now, in the words of Bosman, accustomed "to lord it over all the neighbouring nations." Its latest conquest had been that of Awuin, which state, after some first reverses, when several thousand Denkeras fell victims to the poisoned arrows of the Awuins, it succeeded in overrunning and subjecting. It is in con- nection with Denkera that at this time we first hear of that nation which afterwards made such a mark in the history of the Gold Coast the nation of Ashanti. The Ashanti King, as far as can be ascertained, then ruled over only a small extent of territory around Kumassi,* and a limited portion of Kwao, and the kingdom was considered of but little importance. Tradition, indeed, asserts that it was at this time tributary to Denkera, which seems probable enough, though the Ashantis now indignantly deny it, and assert that they have always maintained their independence. * Kumassi, " under the Kum tree." 86 A HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST. Early in the year 1701, Bosiante, King of Denkera, whc had made his name celebrated all over the Coast for hi< valour, sent some of his wives, in accordance with native custom, on a complimentary visit to Osai Tutu, King ol Ashanti, in token of esteem and friendship. The lattei received his distinguished guests with all honour, treated them with due ceremony, and a month or so later returned the compliment by sending some of his wives to visit Bosiante. Now, it is a common artifice of native diplomacy for a chief to send some of his wives on a complimentary visit to another chief, after having instructed one or more of them to entangle their host in an intrigue, so that a reasonable pretext for a quarrel, by which conquest may be attempted or gold extorted, may be established. If this was Bosiante's intention in sending his wives to Osai Tutu, his scheme failed ; but he himself fell a victim to the wiles ol one of the wives of the Ashanti King, who, on her return tc Kumassi, duly informed her husband of the fact. Osai Tutu professed to be outraged (perhaps he really was. though all the evidence now obtainable goes to show that Bosiante was entrapped) and declared his intention oi washing out the insult in blood. In vain Bosiante offered gold and endeavoured in every way to pacify the injured husband; the latter rejected all offers of a peaceful settle- ment of the quarrel, and collected large supplies of muskets and gunpowder, which the Denkeras, most short-sightedly. allowed to pass through their territory. In the midst of these warlike preparations Bosiante died, and his successor, Intim Dakari, sent to inform the Ashanti King of this event, and to renew proposals for peace. These proposals Osai Tutu contemptuously rejected, thus making it clear that he was meditating the conquest of Denkera. and that the insult offered by Bosiante was a mere pretext : for the quarrel between himself and the latter was entirely a personal one, and it could not be alleged that he had any grievance against the Denkeras as a nation. The Denkeras do not appear to have made any great preparations for war : Ashanti was then a small tribe, they had subjected several CONQUEST OF DENKERA BY ASHANTL 87 which were considered of equal or greater importance, and no doubt they imagined they would easily repulse and revenge the meditated aggression. They were entirely ignorant of the warlike spirit of the tribe they were about to meet, and of the system of military discipline which even then was characteristic of Ashanti. Having completed his preparations, Osai Tutu suddenly swept into Denkera with a large army. The Denkeras were completely defeated in two great battles, and the Akims, who, alarmed at the unprecedented successes of Ashanti, came to the assistance of Denkera, were driven back to their own country with an alleged loss of thirty thousand men. The Ashantis overran and pillaged the whole of Denkera, and finally annexed the greater portion of it to Ashanti. Seventy thousand Denkeras are said to have fallen. These events are commonly believed to have taken place in 1719, but this is evidently an error. The mistake may be traced to Dupuis, who in 1824 gave a short summary of Ashanti history, based on statements made to him by the Mohammedans, during his visit to Kumassi in 1822. His informants were unable to supply him with dates, but, believing that Bosman wrote in 1721, and knowing that he had referred to the conquest of Denkera as having taken place shortly before he wrote, Dupuis fixed that event in 1719, and later writers, following him, have perpetuated the error. It is probable that Dupuis saw a second edition of Bosnian's " Description of Guinea," for the first edition was translated, and published in London, in 1705. However, the last letter fn his series is dated January 2nd, 1702, and in an earlier letter he mentions the conquest of Denkera as having taken place " a few months back ; " so that there can be little doubt but that it occurred in 1701. This is to a certain extent supported by Barbot, who says that Denkera was conquered in 1700 or 1701. The King of Denkera had been so considerable a trader in slaves prisoners of war taken in the subjection of Wassaw, Inkassa, and Awuin that, on the eve of the Ashanti invasion, the Dutch Director-General at Elmina 88 A HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST. sent to his assistance two or three small pieces of ordnance and a few native gunners. History is silent as to what part, if any, these played in the two decisive engagements between the Ashantis and the Denkeras, but the cannon fell into the hands of the former, and were taken to Kumassi as trophies, where they might a few years ago still be seen in the open space known as Appriim m' (Cannon Place). But the Ashantis made a second capture, which was destined to bring about much more important results than the possession of a few cannon. This was a promissory note on the part of the Dutch, undertaking to pay a monthly sum to the King of Denkera. The view adopted by the Dutch authorities at Elmina in 1871 was that this monthly sum was paid to the King of Denkera as a sort of com- mission, to encourage him to supply slaves to the Dutch Company ; but it really seems to have been a rent for the ground on which the Castle of St. George, or Fort Conraadsburgh, or both, stood. The " note " was first made payable to the chief of Elmina, but during the wars between the Elminas and Kommendas it passed into the hands of the latter, and thence came into the possession, of the King of Denkera, who claimed, and regularly received, payment. The King of Ashanti now claimed that by virtue of his right of conquest the ground-rent should be paid to him, and the Dutch, caring little who received the money, readily complied. This compliance, of course, practically amounted to a recognition of the ownership by the King of Ashanti of the ground on which one or both of the Dutch forts at Elmina stood a point which in aftr years became of some importance. The subjection of Denkera was the first of that long series of conquests which subsequently raised Ashanti to the position of paramount power upon the Gold Coast, and it will now be convenient to give some account of its early wars and successes. The dates here given, it may be observed, are those of Dupuis ; but as they all seem to be based upon the original error that Denkera was conquered in 1719, it is probable that all are eighteen years too late. ASHANTI CONQUESTS. 89 After the conquest of Denkera, Osai Tutu turned his arms against Akim, to punish that people for the assistance lent to the Denkeras. The Akims were soon defeated, and, besides being compelled to pay a heavy fine, the King of Akim was reduced to the condition of a tributary. The chiefs of Akim, however, repudiated the terms forced upon their King, and the war being renewed, an Ashanti army again invaded the country. As Osai Tutu was on his way to join this army with a small escort, he and his followers were suddenly attacked by a strong body of the enemy,, which, lying in ambush, fell upon them as they were crossing the Prah. The King was wounded in the side at the first fire ; but he threw himself out of his hammock, and was rallying his men, when a second volley was discharged, and he fell dead upon his face in the river. This was in the year 1731. Encouraged by this success, the Denkeras again took up arms and joined the Akims, as did the Assins, a nation, then occupying the territory to the north of the Prah,. between that river and Ashanti. The war was now prose- cuted with greater fury than ever ; the brother and successor of Osai Tutu, Osai Apoko, was successful on all sides, the Assins and Denkeras were thoroughly subdued, and the Akims crushed. A terrible example was made of Acromanti, the town in which the party of Akims who had slain Osai Tutu had halted on the night previous to their attack, every living creature found in it being put to death, and every house razed to the ground. To commemorate the death of their King, the oath Akromanti Memereda (Akromanti Saturday) was established by law as one of the most sacred oaths of Ashanti. From the Akims, Osai Apoko captured certain notes which undertook on the part of the issuers English, Dutch, and Danish officials to pay to certain chiefs of Accra and Christiansborg an annual sum as rent for the ground on which the English and Dutch forts at Accra, and the Danish castle of Christiansborg stood. These notes had, it is said, come into the possession of the Akims by the conquest of the chiefs of these sea- coast towns; and 90 A HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST. the Ashanti King now claimed payment by right of capture, just as he claimed payment of the Dutch note that he had captured from the Denkeras. Osai Apoko, a few years after the conquest of Akim, invaded Gaman a state to the north-west of Ashanti defeated its King in a great battle, and reduced him to the condition of a feudatory. In the latter part of his reign he was obliged to fly from his capital before a dangerous conspiracy, caused by his attempting to curtail the power oi the chiefs, and change the government by an aristocracy.- which had hitherto prevailed, into a personal despotism. In his retirement, however, he collected together his adherents, and after endeavouring, unsuccessfully, to arrange a con- vention at Djuabin for the settlement of the quarrel, he attacked the rebellious chiefs, and finally defeated them. He died suddenly in 1742, and the chiefs, before raising his successor, Osai Akwasi, to the stool, were careful to stipulate that the old constitution should be restored. The new King had not long been in power when the chiefs of Kwao and Western Akim, encouraged by promises of assistance from Dahomi, rebelled. Osai Akwasi unex- pectedly fell upon them with a considerable army, com- pletely crushed them, and then crossed the River Volta tc call the King of Dahomi to account. Two days' journey beyond that river he met the Dahoman army, and a mosl sanguinary engagement ensued, which was only terminated by nightfall. Next morning the Ashantis were preparing tc renew the contest, but were stopped by their priests, whc declared that the omens were unfavourable. The Dahomans mistaking this inactivity for want of resolution, advanced tc the attack, and Osai Akwasi, without attempting any defence ordered a retreat to the Volta, which he hastily recrossed losing the greater part of his army. The Moors of Kumass who informed M. Dupuis of this event, ascribed the disaster solely to the superstitious fears of the Ashantis, they being persuaded that the resources of Ashanti were quite sufficien to have crushed Dahomi. This invasion of Dahomi is gene- rally supposed to have taken place about 1750. JOHN CONNY. 91 To return to the affairs on the littoral of the Gold Coast. The first event worthy of note is that the Governor of Elmina, in 1702, sent an expedition to endeavour to dis- lodge the French from Assini, just beyond the confines of the Gold Coast, where they had built a palisaded fort in the previous year ; but the expedition failed in its object, and returned, after having lost some fifty men, who landed and fell into an ambush. About 1720 the Brandenburghers abandoned their fort of Great Fredericsburgh, at Prince's River, for their trade there had gradually been declining for years, and they were on bad terms with the natives, who had murdered one of their directors by breaking all his limbs, and then throwing him into the sea. On their withdrawal, the fort was taken pos- session of by a local chief, who was known to Europeans as John Conny. In 1720 the Dutch determined to occupy this fort, and accordingly sent a bomb-vessel and two or three small craft to demand its surrender, on the grounds that they had purchased the building from the Brandenburghers. Suspecting that this was a mere pretext, John Conny as- tutely asked to see the deed of sale, which the Dutch were unable to produce, for the alleged purchase was a mere fiction ; and, finding they could not obtain possession by fraud, they resorted to force. After bombarding the village and fort for some time, without producing much effect, they landed a body of men, who were, however, so warmly re- ceived that not one of them survived to return to the ships, which, thereupon, retired to Elmina. To celebrate his success, John Conny had a narrow path, leading from the outer gate of the fort to his apartment, paved with the skulls of the slain Dutch, reserving one of an unusual size to be lined with silver and used as a punch-bowl ; and the tradition of these doings, considerably exaggerated, still lingers in the neighbourhood of Prince's River. Marchais says that 156 men were killed, and that the Dutch Director- General was wounded. He says that a French ship, The Princess of Rochfort, was at Prince's River at the time, and that, after the Dutch had sailed away, John Conny offered 92 A HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST. to give the fort to Morel, the French captain, for the purpose of forming a French settlement ; but that Morel declined the offer. According to the Dutch accounts, a lieutenant and forty men were landed, and all killed. After this success John Conny exercised sovereign rights in the district, and exacted one ounce of gold from each vessel that put into the place for the privilege of watering. In 1721 the British men-of-war, Swallow and Weymouth. neglected to pay this impost, and Conny seized the water- casks and carried off ten or twelve of the watering-party as prisoners. He, however, treated them well, saying that he knew it was not their fault, and the difficulty was finally settled by the payment of six ounces of gold and an anker ol brandy by the British commander, Captain Chaloner Ogle. The native chief remained in possession of the fort until 1725, when the Dutch attacked the place with a large force, and forced him to fly for refuge to the Fantis. The trade of the Royal African Company, which had com- menced to decline with the passing of the Act of 1698, that declared the trade open, was now in a very wretched condition ; the private traders, who had no establishments or the Coast to keep up, being able to sell their merchandise at a far cheaper rate than the Company could, while the pay- ment of the ten per cent, ad valorem for the maintenance ol the forts was generally evaded. In 1721 the Company found it necessary to raise a large sum by subscription ; the salaries of the officials were cut down, and Surgeon Atkins, of the SiualloWy who visited Cape Coast in that year, tells us that the Company's officers, with the exception of those of the first rank, were both wretchedly paid and badly used. They were liable to heavy fines for drunkenness, swearing, sleeping out of the Castle, neglect, and also for not going to church, and according to Atkins, these fines were so frequently inflicted that many of the subordinates found their whok pay swallowed up and themselves in debt to the Company which in this way obtained a hold upon them, and preventec them from resigning their appointments. While he wa.' there the captain of the Company's garrison at Cape Coasi THE AFRICAN COMPANY OF MERCHANTS. 93 Castle escaped by night to a brigantine which was leaving the Coast ; but the escape was discovered, the brigantine was chased and overtaken by the Weymouth, her master fined seventy ounces and flogged, and the captain restored to the tender mercies of the Company. A Mr. Phipps was Director-General of the English Company at this time. He built a circular tower on a hill about half a mile to the north of the Castle, which it commanded ; it was named, after him, Phipps's Tower, but in after years became known as Fort William. In the decay of their prosperity the Company was now compelled to give credit to the natives, in order to com- pete with the private traders, who were unable to do this, as they only remained a short time on the Coast. Atkins says that, to secure the payment, the Company's officials used to make persons asking for credit pawn themselves to the Com- pany, with the liability of being eventually sold in default. It was in consequence of the wretched condition of the affairs of the Company that on March 26th, 1730, the House of Commons resolved that the trade to Africa should be absolutely free, but that as it was necessary to keep up the forts on the Coast, Parliament should grant an allowance to the Company for that purpose. The trade had really been practically free since 1700, and all that this resolution effected was to transfer the cost of the maintenance of the forts to the English tax-payer, instead of making the private traders, who enjoyed their protection, contribute to their support ; but it had been found impossible to collect the sums due from the latter under the old Act. In accordance with this resolu- tion, ; 1 0,000 was voted annually till 1744, when, on account of the war with France and Spain, the amount was doubled. In 1745 the grant again fell to ; 10,000, but in the year 1747 nothing was granted. Relieved of the cost of keeping up the forts, the Royal African Company contrived to prolong its existence till 1750, when an Act, entitled "An Act for extending and improving the trade to Africa," was passed, and a fifth company, called the African Company of Mer- chants, was formed. The slave trade had now increased to such an extent that 94- A HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST. the Gold Coast alone was said to furnish annually ten thousand slaves for the West Indies. This impulse was chiefly due to the success which had attended the arms of Ashanti, and thousands of prisoners of war were sent by that people to the great slave mart of Mansu,* for sale to the native brokers. The Gold Coast negroes were termed Koromantees, or Koromantyns, in the jargon of the slave- traders, this name being a corruption of Cormantine, whence the English had first exported slaves. They were dis- tinguished from all other slaves by their courage, firmness, and impatience of control ; characteristics which caused numerous mutinies on board the slavers, and several rebellions in the West Indies. In fact every rebellion of slaves in Jamaica originated with, and was generally confined to, the Koromantees; and their independence of character became so generally recognised that at one time the Legislature of Jamaica proposed that a bill should be brought in for laying an additional duty upon the " Fantin, Akin, and Ashanti negroes, and all others, commonly called Koromantees/' that should be imported. The superior physique of the Gold Coast negroes, however, rendered them very valuable as labourers, and this bill met with so much opposition that it was withdrawn; and, notwithstanding their dangerous character, large numbers continued to be introduced to the island. Bryan Edwards says : f " Even the children brought from the Gold Coast manifest an evident superiority, both in hardiness of frame and vigour of mind, over all the young people of the same age that are imported from other parts of Africa. The like firmness and intrepidity which are dis- tinguishable in adults of this nation, are visible in their boys at an age which might be thought too tender to receive any lasting impression, either from precept or example. I havt been myself an eye-witness to the truth of this remark, in the circumstance I am about to relate. A gentleman of my acquaintance, who had purchased at the same time ter * Mansu (Water Town) is about thirty miles to the north of Cape Coast. t " History of the West Indies." THE SLAVE TRADE. 95 Koromantyn and the like numbers of Ibos (the eldest of the whole apparently not more than thirteen years of age) caused them all to be collected and brought before him in my presence, to be marked on the breast. This operation is performed by heating a small silver brand, composed of one or two letters, in the flame of spirits of wine, and applying it to the skin, which is previously anointed with sweet oil. The application is instantaneous, and the pain momentary. Nevertheless, it may easily be supposed that the apparatus must have a frightful appearance to a child. Accordingly, when the first boy, who happened to be one of the Ibos, and the stoutest of the whole, was led forward to receive the mark, he screamed dreadfully, while his companions of the same nation manifested strong symptoms of sympathetic terror. The gentleman stopped his hand ; but the Koroman- tyn boys, laughing aloud, and immediately coming forward of their own accord, offered their bosoms undauntedly to the brand, and receiving its impression without flinching in the least, snapped their fingers in exultation over the poor Ibos." From the testimony of Phillips (1693) we find that Gold Coast slaves would always yield in the West Indies ^3 or 4. a head more than those of Whydah, who were generally called Popo, or Pawpaw, negroes. These latter again were preferred to the Ibos, and the Awuna slaves were con- sidered the worst of all. Snelgrave,* who made voyages to the Gold Coast in 1721 and 1722, confirms this, and says that the Koromantees were the most dangerous slaves to deal with. He gives particulars of two mutinies of slaves on board slave-ships, one at Anamabo, which were planned and carried out by Koromantees ; and remarks that such slaves were " desperate fellows, who despised punishment, and even death itself." Some mutineers, when asked why they had mutinied, boldly told him that he was a great scoundrel to have bought them for the purpose of taking them away from their native country, and that they were resolved to obtain their liberty if they could. * Astley's '' Collection of Voyages." 96 A HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST. The large majority of the slaves exported from the Gold Coast were prisoners of war, of both sexes, and of all ages ; the residue being persons who were slaves in their own country, and those who under the customs of the country had become liable to enslavement for debt or crime. Many young men, it is said, were entrapped by the wives of men of rank, who, instructed by their husbands, formed intrigues with them, and then denounced them. By native law such an offence could only be expiated by the payment of a sum proportionate to the rank of the injured husband, with the alternative of slavery ; and as the youths entrapped were commonly such as could not pay, numbers thus became enslaved and were sold out of the country. The slaves, before being brought to market by theii native owners, were close-shaven and anointed with palm- oil, so as to give the skin a glossy appearance, and it was no easy matter to distinguish a young from a middle-agec slave, except by the decay of the teeth. Various artifice.' were resorted to by native slave-dealers to give an appear- ance of youth and health to slaves of an inferior quality and there was as much chicanery brought into play ovei the sale and purchase of slaves as there is at the present day in horse-dealing. Hence, all slaves bought for exportatior were carefully examined by a surgeon, to see if they wen sound in wind and limb", and were put through variou: performances. Such as passed the surgeon's examinatior were then branded on the breast or shoulder ; the men wen coupled together with irons, and all were consigned to th( dungeons or slave-rooms of the various forts, till such tim< as a ship arrived to convey them to the West Indies. The slaves so dreaded leaving their native country fo an unknown fate in a strange land, that they often, unles most carefully watched and secured, leaped overboard fron the canoe or ship, and kept under water till they wen drowned ; while others starved themselves to death. Deatl had for them no terrors; there was no uncertain future t be faced. There was simply a more or less prolonge< struggle and then a change of residence to a spirit world THE SLAVE TRADE. 97 similar in all respects to this, where they would continue the old life amongst their own people ; and it is not sur- prising that they should prefer this to a life of unknown, and consequently dreaded, terrors in another sphere. The natives of the Gold Coast were so confident that after .death they would rejoin their own people in their own spirit world, that during the suppression of every rebellion of slaves in Jamaica, numbers of Koromantees committed suicide ; and dozens were sometimes found hanging to the branches of the silk-cotton trees. By some tribes it was held that dis- memberment prevented this return, and it appears that the masters of some slave vessels, who had reason to an- ticipate wholesale suicides, did not hesitate to cut off the arms or legs of one or two slaves to terrify the rest. On board the slave-ships, slaves were fed twice a day, and allowed in fair weather to be on deck from seven in the morning till sunset. The women and children were allowed to go about free ; but the men were usually kept in irons, at all events till some days after the African coast had been left, and were invariably separated from the women. Every Monday they were allowed the luxury of pipes and tobacco. Although there were, no doubt, indi- vidual cases of cruelty here and there, yet, on the whole, it seems that this monstrous traffic was carried on with as much humanity as the circumstances and the system allowed. The traders had a pecuniary interest in the well-being of each human chattel, and therefore they did not ill-treat them, or so act as to cause their value to be lessened. The slave- ships were usually roomy and well found, and at this time, while the trade was lawful, not half the hardships were experienced that afterwards fell to the lot of slaves exported when the trade was declared to be illicit. Any account of the Gold Coast at this time would be incomplete without some reference to the pirates who infested the whole West Coast of Africa. The breaking up of the haunts of the buccaneers in the West Indies had led those gentry to adopt a change of scene, and their vessels, two or three of which usually sailed in company, roamed 98 A HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST. up and down the whole African coast, and committed the greatest depredations. Some of the pirates made a business of waylaying slave-ships, transferring the human cargoes to their own vessels, and selling them in the West Indies ; while others plundered and burned every peaceable mer- chantman they met. They were sufficiently formidable to capture some of the Royal African Company's forts. For instance, James Fort,, in the River Gambia, was taken by Davis, the pirate, in 1719, and Bunce Island Fort, Sierra Leone, by Roberts, in 1720; and, as already mentioned, the two Danish men-of-war, each of 26 guns, sent out tc recover Christiansborg from the natives, were taken by Avery in 1693. In one year Roberts destroyed over hundred sail of ships along the coast, and at last commerce became so crippled that the English Government, in 1721 sent out the Swallow and Weymoutk, men-of-war, to pu an end t6 these depredations. The Swallow fell in wit! Roberts, with three pirate vessels, at Cape Lopez. In th< action which ensued Roberts was killed, and the pirates some tjjree hundred in number, nearly all Englishmen surrendered after a very feeble resistance. The prisoner were conveyed for trial to 'Cape Coast Castle, where fifty two of them were executed ; and when Smith, surveyor o the Royal African Company, visited Cape Coast in 172; the remains of several of these were still hanging in chains. CHAPTER IX. 1751 1804. Affairs in Ashanti during the reign of Osai Kwadjo First mention of Ashanti in the Records of Cape Coast Castle War between England and Holland Extraordinary affair at Mori Reigns of Osai Kwamina and Osai Apoko II. Accession of Tutu Kwamina Position of Ashanti at the commencement of the nineteenth century. OSAI AKWASI, King of Ashanti, died in 1752, of a wound which he had received in an attack upon Banna. The natives of the Gold Coast, like the large majority of the uncivilised peoples of the earth, trace descent through the mother instead of through the father, and the crown now descended to a sister's son, Osai Kwadjo, the three pre- ceding Kings having been brothers. The new King no sooner succeeded to the stool than he demanded payment of tribute from the tributaries, who were some years in arrear. The Gamans, Denkeras, and Tshiforos, or Tufels, used this as a pretext for taking up arms, and, upon war breaking out, were joined by the Wassaws. Two invasions of Gaman by the Ashantis proved disastrous, principally because the people of that state were assisted by a large contingent from the Mo- hammedan state of Kong, armed with muskets; but a third invasion proved successful, and Osai Kwadjo returned to Kumassi with thousands of captives. Of these, the children were spared to recruit the army, which had H 2 ioo A HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST. suffered heavily, and the adults of both sexes were either sacrificed as thank-offerings to the gods, or sent to the great slave mart at Mansu to be sold into West Indian slavery. Gaman, Denkera, and Tshiforo having been reduced, Wassaw soon fell before the Ashanti army, and several large districts were entirely depopulated. The defeat of Gaman and its allies laid open the Sarem country to the conqueror, and he might, had he chosen, have carried his victorious arms as far as Cape Palmas, but he satisfied himself with receiving the submission of the neighbouring Kings. Dahomi, alarmed at the rapid successes of Ashanti, and fearing that the King might be tempted to revenge the defeat which his predecessor had sustained, sent a friendly embassy to Kumassi, which was received in the most flattering manner, and an embassy sent to Dahomi in return, to cement the friendliness between the two monarchs. Towards the end of his reign Osai Kwadjo was com- pelled by ill-health and the infirmities of age to confine himself to his palace, and his enemies circulated a report that he was dead. Assin, Akim, and Akwapim at once seized the opportunity to throw off the Ashanti yoke, and broke out in a fresh rebellion. Ambassadors sent by the King to recall them to obedience were murdered, and, as the rebels threatened to march upon Kumassi, the Ashanti at once prepared for war ; but before the army could take the field Osai Kwadjo died. This was in 1781. Cruickshank, the author of " Eighteen Years on the Gold Coast," who wrote in 1853, tells us that it was during the reign of this King that the first notice made of Ashanti was found in the Records of Cape Coast Castle which, it may be remarked, have long since disappeared On July loth, 1765, the Council took into consideratior the state of the country. It was represented that th( Ashantis and Fantis having in conjunction destroyed Akim were on the point of commencing hostilities with eacl other ; and the Council fearing that if the Fantis pre- vailed trade would be injured, and if the Ashantis wen WAR BETWEEN ENGLAND J A^ND\HOLLAND. 101 victorious the settlements would ; be ^endangered, J deter- mined to observe a strict neutrality in concert with the Dutch Governor. In 1767 the attitude of the Fantis and Ashantis was still hostile, and the Council stated that the Dutch were instigating the latter to conquer the country. They resolved to improve the fortifications, and applied to the Committee in London for ships of. war to remain on the coast while this state of affairs lasted. In 17/2 the Council were again anxious about an Ashanti invasion, and resolved to give all the assistance they could to the Fantis, but without leaving their forts or taking any active part in the struggle. The trade appears to have been greatly interrupted during the whole reign of Osai Kwadjo, who kept the Fantis in a state of continual alarm by threats of invasion. On December 2Oth, 1780, England declared war against Holland, and in the following year an attack was made upon Elmina by a combined land and sea force. The former consisted of a few of the Company's soldiers and a body of some three hundred natives of Cape Coast, commanded by Robert Joseph McKenzie, captain of an independent company in the African service; and the latter of the fifty-gun ship Leander, Captain Shirley, and a sloop of war. There appears to have been a great want of cordial co-operation between the two commanders, and Captain Shirley cannot be acquitted of an exhibition of that jealousy of military commanders which unfortu- nately seems to have been then common, and which led Admiral Vernon, under somewhat similar circumstances, to passively regard the slaughter of General Wentworth's troops at Carthagena in 1741. Instead of attacking Elmina from the sea, in co-operation with the land forces, he waited until they were repulsed before commencing the bombard- ment ; with the result that the Dutch, able to bestow their undivided attention upon him, beat him off also. Early in the following year (1782) Captain Shirley, reinforced by H.M.S. Argo, succeeded in taking the small Dutch forts of Mori, Cormantine, Appam, and Barraku, which 102, t , L ^ ^fSTOXY OF THE GOLD COAST. were "not 1 in' a position to 'offer any s,erious resistance ; while Governor Mills, assisted by fifty men from the Argo, took Kommenda Fort. As a set-off to this, the Dutch captured the English fortified trading lodge at Sekondi. These conquests were mutually restored at the peace of 1784, but while Mori was still in British hands, an affair took place there which will give some idea of the extraordinary events that sometimes occurred on the Gold Coast. From the "Annual Register" of 1784 we learn that, on December loth of that year, Captain Robert Joseph McKenzie was tried in London for the murder of Kenneth Murray McKenzie, a soldier under his command, at Mori Fort, on August I4th, 1782. The murdered man, who had previously acted as adjutant, had, it seems, been placed in open arrest by his captain for some breach of discipline, and was not allowed to quit the fort ; but one day he disobeyed this order and went out. On this coming to the knowledge of the captain, he sent out a sergeant and three men to bring him back; and it being supposed that the deserter had gone to join the Dutch at Elmina, the party went in that direction as far as they dared, and returned without having seen or heard anything of the fugitive. Captain McKenzie then concluded thai the man must be in the native town of Mori, the inhabitants of which were all in the Dutch interest and covertly hostih to the English. It was probably on this account that instead of sending to demand his man, he opened fin upon the town, the inhabitants of which at once fled, bu returned next morning and surrendered the deserter ; who within an hour of his surrender was, by his captain's order blown from the muzzle of one of the guns. This act wa committed without any trial having been held, and withou the captain having either seen or spoken to his victim. Th< latter had declared to his comrades that he had no intention of deserting, and said that the reason of his not returnin; the same night was that he had been drunk, and ha been detained by the natives. He had pleaded to b allowed to see his commander, and to defend himself, bu AFFAIR AT MORI. 103 Captain McKenzie had refused to hold any communica- tion with him. For the defence of Captain McKenzie it was shown that the murdered man was of bad character, he having, when a private in the 3rd Regiment of Foot Guards, been on three different occasions sentenced to death for robbery, but had each time been reprieved, and had finally been drafted as a convict into the African service. Since that time he had deserted twice, and evidence was called to show that he had on several occasions used mutinous language, and was plotting to murder his captain and surrender the fort to the Dutch. It was shown that the proportion of convicts to volunteers in the garrison was as sixteen to five, and it was urged that it was absolutely necessary to make some example in order to overawe the insubordinate soldiers. Judge Willes, in summing up, said that Captain McKenzie was not justified by martial law, and should have tried the soldier by court- martial, or at least have called upon him to make some defence. He left the question of justification to the jury, and the latter found the prisoner guilty, but recommended him to mercy. Captain McKenzie had previously dis- tinguished himself at the defence of Jersey, and great efforts were made to obtain a reprieve. These were suc- cessful, for in the "Annual Register" for 1785 we find that he received His Majesty's pardon for the murder, but was detained in Newgate to be tried at the next Admiralty Sessions for piracy, in cutting out from under the guns of a Dutch fort on the Gold Coast a Portuguese ship with Dutch colours, of which complaint had been made by the Portuguese Ambassador. From the same source we learn that Government detained ^"11,000 worth of his gold-dust till he gave an account of the stores, etc., that had been in his charge. After this we hear no more of him. To return to affairs in Ashanti. We left an Ashanti army about to take the field against the rebellious Assins, Akims, and Akwapims, when the death of Osai Kwadjo in 1781 delayed active operations for a time. Osai Kwamina, who succeeded to the stool, as soon as the ceremonies of his 104 A HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST. installation were completed, took an oath never to enter the walls of the palace, or visit his wives, till he had obtained the heads of the two principal rebels. He overran the revolted provinces with a large army, took the Akims by surprise by a forced march, and the rebellion was soon entirely crushed, while the skulls of the two rebel leaders found a place amongst similar trophies preserved in Kumassi. Osai Kwamina also extended his conquests inland, and invaded Banna. Odrarsi, the King, opposed him for a while ; but at last, perceiving that resistance was hopeless, he committed suicide, after having given orders that his head should be cut off and sewn up in the stomach of a dead woman, in order that it might not fall into the hands of the enemy. This order was obeyed, but the Ashantis discovered the head and carried it to Kumassi. Nsuta was also subjected in this reign, and Koransa became tributary after a struggle that lasted ten years and was carried on principally by Gaman auxiliaries. The reputation of Ashanti was now so well established that, in 1792, the Danish Governor of Christiansborg applied to Osai Kwamina for a force to punish . the people of Popo, on the Slave Coast, who had committed some outrages on Danish subjects. The request was granted, and a force was actually on its way to the coast, when the Governor, becoming alarmed at the approach of such dangerous allies, bought their return to their own country with two hundred and fifty ounces of gold-dust. On hearing of this proposed expedition, the Governor and Council at Cape Coast Castle had sent messengers to Kumassi to prevail upon the King not to send the force asked for, being naturally alarmed at the prospect of Ashanti interference in the affairs of the seaboard ; but the mission was not attended with any success. This, it may be remarked, is the first time any direct com- munication took place between the English and the King of Ashanti. In 1797 Osai Kwamina was deposed, he having given offence to the chiefs by prohibiting many festivals at which it was customary to offer human sacrifices. It was, more- ACCESSION OF TUTU KWAMINA. 105 over, suspected that he was at heart a Mohammedan, and was endeavouring to establish the law of the Koran in his kingdom. He was succeeded by his brother, Osai Apoko II. The chiefs of Gaman, instigated by the Mohammedans of Kong, used the dethronement of Osai Kwamina as a pretext for rebellion, and the King of Gaman transferred his tribute to the King of Kong. The war that ensued lasted fifteen months, during which the entire force of Kong, joined with that of Gaman, crossed the Tando River and advanced into Ashanti territory. The Ashanti King, whose force was only a fourth of that of the enemy, acted for some months on the defensive, till the arrival of the tributary forces from Koransa, Banna, and Djuabin enabled him to act. He then gave battle to the foe on the Tando, and after several days' fighting routed them with great slaughter, returning to Kumassi laden with spoil and captives, amongst whom were upwards of five thousand Mohammedans. A few months after his victory on the Tando, Apoko II. died, after a lingering illness, which was attributed by the natives to the magical practices of his deposed brother. His brother, Tutu Kwamina, succeeded him in 1799, and shortly after his elevation to the throne, commenced a war against the Mohammedan kingdom of Ghofan, to the north-east of Ashanti. The fortunes of war at first favoured the Moham- medans ; but before long they were driven back, and finally defeated in a sanguinary engagement near the Volta. Two Kings fell alive into the hands of the Ashantis, and the King of Ghofan was killed. By this victory the Ashantis acquired a considerable increase of territory; but the war was scarcely successfully terminated when a fresh rebellion in Gaman occurred. This was rapidly suppressed, and for five years peace ensued, till those disturbances commenced in Assin which ultimately led to the first invasion of Fanti. At this point it will be convenient to note the position of Ashanti at the commencement of the nineteenth century. Since, the reign of Osai Tutu, Nsuta, Gaman, Koransa, and Banna to the north; Denkera, Sefwhi, Tshiforo, Wassaw, and Awuin to the west and south-west ; Assin to the south ; io6 A HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST. and Akim, Akwapim, Kwao, and Akwamu to the east had all been subjected ; and the whole of the Gold Coast was now under Ashanti rule, with the exception of the states on the seaboard. But though the Ashantis could conquer they could not govern, and their authority over the tributary states was more nominal than real. It was their custom after subduing a kingdom to leave to the King a species of semi-independence, merely exacting a fixed annual sum as tribute, and military service in time of war. They estab- lished no garrisons in the conquered territories, appointed no governors or residents, and did not attempt in the least to blend with the people. Hence, whenever a tributary King conceived himself strong enough to throw off his allegiance to Ashanti he did so ; and the Ashanti kingdom resembled a loosely united bundle of sticks, which any severe shock might cause to fall to pieces. Since their conquest, the Denkeras had rebelled twice; the Akims and the Gamans three times ; and the Assins and the Akwapims once; and all this within about fifty years. The authority of the Ashanti King was in fact only maintained by re- peated invasions of the tributary states, the people of which were not bound to their conquerors either by sentiment or interest. I CHAPTER X. 18051807. Disturbances in Assin Condition of Fanti First invasion of Fanti Defence of Anamabo Fort Torrane's convention His dis- honourable transactions Continuation of the war End of the invasion. IN 1805 Assin was divided into three chieftainships, under Tchibbu, Kwaku Aputeh, and Amu, the two former ruling over the western, and the latter over the eastern half. This division had been effected by Osai Kwamina, after the rebellion of Assin, in 1781. Towards the close of 1805 a dispute arose between Amu and Kwaku Aputeh, the origin of which was as follows. One of Amu's captains had died, and as he was a rich man, a considerable quantity of gold was, according to custom, deposited in the grave with the body. A follower of Kwaku Aputeh, who was present at the interment, rifled the grave and stole the treasure ; but the theft was discovered, and Amu at once demanded redress, and the return of the gold, from Kwaku Aputeh and Tchibbu. Failing to obtain satisfaction from these, he laid his complaint before the Ashanti King, who summoned Aputeh and Tchibbu to Kumassi. The former obeyed the summons, the latter excusing himself on the ground of infirmity; but the case was heard, judgment was given in favour of Amu, and Aputeh was ordered to "be detained in Kumassi till restitution was made. Shortly after this decision Aputeh contrived to escape from the capital, and as he set the King's decree at defiance, Amu io8 A HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST. took up arms to enforce k. He gained one battle, but Tchibbu having in the meantime joined Aputeh, he was severely de- feated in a second engagement, and compelled to fall back upon the frontiers of Ashanti. The war was then continued for some months with varying success, until the Ashanti King called upon the combatants to refer their dispute to him. Amu obeyed this summons, and fell back upon the Adansi Hills, where he was directed to disband his force, and to repair to Kumassi, while Aputeh was ordered to refrain from molesting him ; but that chief, so far from obeying, attacked and defeated Amu's force, put to death some Ashanti messengers who were in his camp, and seized their state swords, and the golden axe of Ashanti, as trophies. Upon this Tutu Kwamina at once raised a powerful army, and entered the Assin territory. Tchibbu and Aputeh attempted to make a stand at Ansa, but were defeated ; a second attempt at Miassa, the capital of the old Assin kingdom, fared no better ; and a retreat to the Prah was turned into a complete rout by the vigorous pursuit of the Ashantis. According to the popular Ashanti songs, thirty thousand Assins perished in these engagements, and a river of blood flowed from Miassa to the Prah. Fanti was at this time no longer the insignificant state it had been a century earlier, when it extended in breadth merely from the Iron Hills to Saltpond, and had a depth of some twelve miles onl>\ Since that time the Fantis had, by threats, promises, and force of arms, brought into subjection the two states of Acron and Aguna to the east, and those of Fetu and Sabi to the west, so that their territory now extended from the Sweet River to Barraku. The town of Cape Coast even fell under the influence of Fanti, and the people, as Meredith tells us, were obliged to submit to its laws and customs. In fact, Fanti had begun, in some respects, to emulate in the southern districts of the Gold Coast the career of Ashanti in the northern ; and Meredith * complains of their ungovernable conduct, * An Account of the Gold Coast. FIRST INVASION OF FANT1. 109 which constantly kept the country in a turmoil. To the north-west of Fanti proper was the kingdom of Arbra, which was considered the leading state of Fanti ; and to the north was the kingdom of Essikuma, which, though to some extent influenced by Fanti, still preserved a species of independence. The Government of Fanti appears to have been that of a federation. Besides the King of Arbra, there was a King at Mankassim,* and another at Anamabo, while several chiefs claimed to rule their own districts independently of all three. Tchibbu, an old, infirm, and blind man, fled, with Kwaku Aputeh, to Essikuma, to the chief of which state the Ashanti King sent a present of twenty ounces of gold, asking for the surrender of the fugitives, and professing his friendship. It appears that the chief intended to comply, and the Assin fugitive?, discovering his intentions, fled to Arbra, from whose King Osai Tutu Kwamina next demanded them. A council of Fanti chiefs assembled at Arbra to consider this demand, and as they refused to surrender the fugitives, the Ashanti King then sent to ask permission for his army to march through Fanti, to pursue the remnant of the Assin force ; but this application was also rejected, and the Ashanti messengers were, it is said, barbarously murdered. The Ashanti army, under its general, Appia Dunkwa, then advanced, and the Fantis, with the relics of Tchibbu's and Aputeh's army, were defeated in two engagements. Many prisoners were taken, and amongst them Attah, Kirg of Arbra. The Arbras wished to ransom their King, and the Ashanti general expressed his willingness, provided that the state swords and the golden axe, which were now in the hands of the Arbras, were surrendered ; but while the nego- tiations were going on, Akum, chief of Essikuma, in whose hands Attah had been placed for safe keeping, allowed him to escape. Aputeh then made offers of submission, which the King accepted, sending messengers with presents both * Mankassim (Great Town), about fifteen miles north of Saltpond. no A HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST. to him and Tchibbu ; but the proposals had, it seems, only been made to gain time, for these Ashanti messengers were, like the former, inhumanly put to death. Enraged at this outrage, the King took his sacred oath never to sheath the sword or return to his capital till the heads of Tchibbu and Aputeh lay at his feet, and at once hastened to join his army. The utter extermination of the Fantis was determined upon, and orders were issued to spare none of either sex, or of any age. An engagement took place at Arbra which was most sanguinary. The Ashantis were at first repulsed with great slaughter ; but a sudden attack in the flank and rear of the Fantis, made by the King in person, changed the fate of the day. Their retreat cut off, nearly the entire Fanti force was slaughtered, and only about one hundred men are said to have escaped from the fatal field. Arbrakampa was burned, and the inhabitants butchered or cast into the burning houses. The few survivors made their way to Anamabo, then perhaps the most important town on the sea-coast ; but Tchibbu and Aputeh soon quitted that place for Cape Coast, where they received assurances of protection from Colonel Torrane, the Governor. Akum, the chief of Essikuma, had, so far, taken no part in the hostilities, and had indeed supplied the Ashantis with provisions, on which account the King had overlooked his treachery in conniving at Attah's escape ; but now, for some unknown reason, he suddenly committed an act of hostility, by seizing seven hundred carriers, who had been sent to him to procure food, and selling them as slaves. This action at such a time, when the Fantis had just suffered a crushing defeat, would appear incomprehensible, did we not know that the inhabitants of the Gold Coast, like most savages, are simply guided by the passion of the moment, and rarely consider the consequences of their acts. Appia Dunkwa at once moved against Akum, defeated his force, and scattered it in every direction. During this expedition the bulk of the Ashanti army, under the King, remained encamped at Arbra- kampa, and Colonel Torrane, fearing for the safety of Cape Coast, on which the Ashantis might advance at any moment, FIRST INVASION OF FANTI. in purposed sending a flag of truce to them, but abandoned the design in consequence of the opposition of the Cape Coast chiefs. The fact was that the people of Cape Coast believed themselves fully able to cope with the Ashantis, of whom, it is but just to say, they had then had no experience. The Ashanti force under Appia Dunkwa, after defeating Akum, moved leisurely down to the coast, destroying Mankassim and several other towns, and first gained sight of the sea in the neighbourhood of Cormantine. They destroyed the town, and Appia Dunkwa, after sending several calabashes full of salt water to the King, in proof of his victories, took up his quarters in Cormantine Fort, which the Dutch commandant surrendered without firing a shot. The near approach of this force to Anamabo,* from which Cormantine is distant only some three miles, led Mr. White, the Commandant of Anamabo Fort, to send a flag of truce to the Ashanti general, asking what the King's motives in marching to the coast might be, and offering himself as mediator in any dispute the Ashantis might have with the Fantis. This appears to have been the first serious attempt made by the officials of the African Company of Merchants to open negotiations with the invading force, and their previous apathy is incomprehensible. Had offers of mediation been made earlier, no doubt much misery and bloodshed might have been avoided ; but the time for such action was now past, and to expect the Ashantis to be moderate in their hour of triumph, when they had gained access to the much-coveted seaboard and were actually in possession of a European fort, was to show a lamentable ignorance of savage character. But the fact was, that the Company cared nothing for the natives. They exercised no control of any kind over any part of the country except those towns that lay under the guns of their forts, and as long as these were not 'directly threatened, they made no move. They were so short-sighted as to be unable to see * Anamabo, "Bird Rock." 112 A HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST. that if they quietly allowed the Northern Fantis to be crushed, a further advance of the Ashantis to the seaboard would be inevitable. Consequently they did nothing until the Ashanti army was at Cormantine ; when, suddenly awakening to the fact that trfeir * forts were in peril, they commenced negotiations. Appia Dunkwa sent messengers to Anamabo in reply to Mr. White's flag of truce, with a message that if the latter sent twenty barrels of gunpowder and one hundred muskets he would tell him what' the King's designs were. The Commandant, in return, expressed to the messengers his regret that the general did not seem inclined for con- ciliation, and said . that had he been told what offence the p'eople of. Anamabo had committed he would have obtained reparation for it, but that till he knew how they had offended, he would most certainly give them the protection of the fort, which would consequently fire upon the Ashantis should they attempt to advance upon the town. He ordered two or three guns to be fired, to give the messengers some idea of the destructive effects of artillery, and sent them back under escort to Cormantine. This last precaution was most necessary, to save them from being murdered by the Anamabos. The town of Anamabo was then placed in a state of defence. Strong outposts were formed, and every approach to the town carefully guarded ; while arrangements were made that on the first alarm the old men, women, and children should 'take refuge inside the fort, such as the fort could not contain keeping close to the walls under the shelter of the guns. As this was the first time the Ashantis had descended to the sea, Mr. White knew nothing of them, although he had been twenty-seven years on the coast. He thought they were like the tribes with which he was acquainted, and he was confident that a few discharges of cannon would suffice to put them to flight. Nothing took place for a week, at the end of which time the Ashanti general unexpectedly made a forward move- DEFENCE OF ANAMABO FORT. 113 ment and captured Egyah, a village on a cape about a mile to the east of Anamabo, from which the town could be conveniently watched. On the I4th of June, 1806, the Anamabos marched out to recover the village, and an action took place. The Ashantis, who appeared to be in small force, were driven out of the western end of Egyah ; but retreating across a gully which intersects the village, and which the Anamabos did not seem inclined to cross, held the eastern end. The Anamabos were much elated by this partial success, which Appia Dunkwa had merely allowed them to gain for his own ends. In order to increase their force for the attack on Egyah, the Anamabos had withdrawn- the posts covering the approaches to the town a fact which was soon discovered by the Ashanti scouts and communicated to Appia Dunkwa ; who, leaving a small body of men at Egyah to occupy the attention of the Anamabos, moved his force round to the north side of Anamabo and occupied the approaches without the least resistance. There he was joined in the evening by the main Ashanti army, which had moved down from Arbrakampa with the King. Early on June I5th the Ashantis advanced to the attack of Anamabo, and every Fanti who could carry a musket took the field, while the old men, women, and children crowded into the fort, the gates of which, as soon as it was full, were closed and barricaded. For a time a continuous roar of musketry was heard all round the town, but the Anamabos were outnumbered, and the circle of fire gradually contracted as they were driven back. To intimidate the enemy, Mr. White ordered one or two guns to be fired over the town, but this did not produce the slightest effect, and by eleven o'clock the Ashanti bullets were whistling all about the fort. From all directions the Ashantis poured into the town, and the wretched Anamabos fled to the beach, hoping to be able to escape to sea in their canoes, but the enemy pursued too closely, and a terrible slaughter took place on the sands. The garrison of the fort did their best to check the pursuit. A 24-pounder that pointed to the west, along the sea-shore, swept down dozens of Ashantis with each discharge of grape, i 114 A HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST. while a 3 -pounder that flanked the eastern gate did great execution. But on this side the Ashantis pushed on over the heaps of dead, and actually seized and carried off the terrified and shrieking women who were standing close to the fort walls for protection. In the meantime others had been keeping up a very hot fire, by which White was shot in the mouth and left arm, and obliged to resign the command to Mr. Meredith, while one man was killed, and an officer and two men wounded. The whole force of the Ashantis was now directed against the fort, which they imagined to contain a rich booty, and thousands of black warriors swarmed round it. The garrison consisted of twenty-nine men, including Mr. White, four officers of the Company (Messrs. H. Meredith, F. L. Swanzy, T. A. Smith, and Barnes), and four free mulattos. Of the remaining twenty, several were servants and workmen ; but all fought with desperation, for they knew that if the place were stormed they could hope for no mercy. The Ashantis pressed on, but the walls were too high to be scaled, and the two gates one on the east and one on the west too strong and too well barricaded to be forced. Possessing neither ladders for scaling nor cannon for breaching, it is possible that the Ashantis might have been beaten off, but for one fatal defect in the construction of the fort. This was that the embrasures yawned to such an extent that the gunners were absolutely without cover ; and, exposed to thousands of musket shots, so many were wounded that at last the guns had to be aban- doned, and the defence carried on by musketry alone. Shortly after noon the garrison was reduced by casualties to eight, of whom four were officers, and as the fire o the defenders slackened the Ashantis strove to force th( eastern gate. Twice they advanced to it, and twice hac to retire, having lost heavily. The third time they brough fire, but the man who carried the firebrands was shot dead and extinguished them by falling upon them. Thus th< afternoon passed in an incessant struggle, until, at 6 p.m when darkness commenced to fall, the Ashantis drew ofi DEFENCE OF AN AM ABO FORT. 115 The last glimpse of daylight was used by the garrison in repairing damages and making preparations for a night attack. Day dawned upon a horrible scene of bloodshed and devastation. Eight thousand Fantis had perished, most of them in the vicinity of the fort ; heaps of dead en- cumbered the beach in every direction, or were washed hither and thither in the surf, and the sands were red with blood. For a mile along the shore to the east nothing was to be seen but flaming houses, or the black and charred ruins of those that had already been devoured by fire. Some two thousand refugees were in the fort, and to a rock a few yards from shore, and surrounded by the sea, two hundred panic-stricken wretches were clinging. These were all the survivors of the populous town of Anamabo. Soon after daybreak the Ashantis recommenced the attack of the fort. They came coolly up in masses to the very muzzles of the guns, N and a perfect hail-storm of lead flew about the defenders. On the eastern side the garrison had been able to contrive some protection for the men working the guns, and two well-served 3-pounders that flanked the eastern gate swept away several of the foe at each discharge. The guns that flanked the western gate, however, were so exposed that it was found im- possible to work them, and two of the officers, Messrs. Meredith and Swanzy, defended it with muskets alone. In keeping this gate clear they expended nearly three hundred rounds of ball-cartridge, and they fired till their shoulders were so bruised that they could no longer bear the recoil of their muskets. Not a round was wasted, and the enemy were so near and so crowded together that a ball frequently disabled t\vo men. So far the garrison had gallantly held their own, but surrender was inevitable unless they were speedily rein- forced. Human endurance could not last much longer, and there were no provisions for the fugitives who crowded the courtyard, so that in another day famine would compel them to capitulate. Added to this, the bodies of the I 2 ii6 A HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST. thousands slain on the previous day were already beginning* to putrefy under the burning rays of the tropical sun, and a sickening stench arose on all sides. Fortunately the Ashantis had also had nearly enough. They had lost over two thousand men round the fort, and began to despair of ever taking it ; but neither side wished to be the first to make overtures. About 4 p.m. (June i6th) two vessels from Cape Coast Castle anchored in the roadstead opposite the fort, and a small force of three officers and twelve men was landed without any interruption from the Ashantis. On receiving this accession to their strength the garrison wished to continue the struggle ; but the reinforcement brought orders from Colonel Torrane to show a flag of truce, and a white flag and a Union Jack were accordingly lowered over the fort walls with two men. These were received by the Ashantis with exultation, and they crowded so closely round the bearers of the flags that the King's officers had some difficulty in penetrating the mass to conduct the twc soldiers to his presence. The Ashantis observed the truce except that some of them made an attempt to reach tht rock upon which the fugitives were still clinging, but c musket shot or two from the fort brought them back About 7 p.m. the flag of truce returned from the King who had given the two soldiers a present of a sheep Several Ashanti captains accompanied the flag back tc the fort, and waited upon Mr. White. They entered int< a long account of the invasion, so that Colonel Torran< might be able to understand the merits of the case. The; disclaimed on the part of the King any intention of making war upon the white men, and attributed the attack o; the fort to the English themselves, who had first fire upon the Ashantis. It was agreed that a report of th King's views should be made to Colonel Torrane, and th Ashanti captains returned to their camp. Colonel Torrane, delighted to find the King disposed t > be friendly, sent him a considerable present, and invited hir to Cape Coast Castle to settle their differences, an invitatio . TORRANE'S CONVENTION. 117 which was declined. Eventually, Torrane, finding that the King would not come to him and that nothing could be definitely settled by his messengers, decided to go to Anamabo, and, in order to ensure a favourable reception, determined to surrender to the King the two Assin chiefs Tchibbu and Kwaku Aputeh. The chiefs of Cape Coast were indignant at this breach of faith, and resolutely de- clared that they would never surrender those whom they had promised to protect ; but Torrane sent an armed force un- expectedly to the houses occupied by the Assin chiefs, where Tchibbu was seized, not without resistance, while Aputeh beat off his assailants and escaped. The unfor- tunate Tchibbu was at once sent to the Ashanti camp, where he was put to death with the most exquisite tortures, and his jawbone was affixed as a trophy to the King's death horn. Some difficulty arose as to the place of meeting at Anamabo, for the King would not consent to go to the fort, and the Governor refused to go to the Ashanti camp ; but at last a neutral spot was fixed upon behind the ruins of the town. The meeting took place on June 23rd, and was devoted to ceremony and courtly speeches. The King spoke of the losses he had sustained from the fire of the fort, which he estimated at nearly three thousand men, complimented the garrison on their gallantry, and expressed his regrets at Mr. White's wounds. In subsequent interviews Colonel Torrane concluded some kind of convention with the King, but as it was never reduced to writing it is diffi- cult to say positively what took place. The general opinion was that Torrane acknowledged that, by right of conquest, Fanti, including Cape Coast and every other town in Fanti, belonged to Ashanti. He reserved a judicial authority for the Company over the towns under the forts ; but paid arrears on the " notes " for ground-rent for Anamabo Fort and Cape Coast Castle, which the King now claimed. Osai Tutu Kwamina was much pleased with Colonel Torrane. He said to M. Dupuis in 1821: "From the hour Governor Torrane delivered up Tchibbu, I took the English for my ii8 A HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST. friends, because I saw their object was trade only, and they did not care for the people. Torrane was a man of sense, and he pleased me much." Among the chiefs of the Ashanti army present in Ana- mabo was a Moor who had been to Tunis and Mecca. He was said to be a native of a place called Kassina, supposed to be to the south-east of Timbuktu, and commanded a body of men a part of whom were armed with bows and arrows. His presence with the army attracted some attention, for this was the first time any Mohammedan had been seen on the littoral of the Gold Coast. The disposal of the Fanti refugees in the fort was founc to be one of the most difficult matters to settle. The King claimed them as prisoners, which claim was resisted b> Torrane ; but the King remained obdurate, declaring tha no peace with the English would be concluded unless hi: right to these people was acknowledged. In the meantim< the poor wretches were dying of starvation at the rate o five or six a day, and at last a middle course was adopted The King, in consideration of Torrane's services in seizin; Tchibbu, agreed to be satisfied with one half of the fugitives leaving the other half at Torrane's disposal. This par tition was immediately made, and the fort relieved of thei presence. The number of these unfortunates is variously stated Mr. Meredith estimates it at two thousand, but Colom '. Torrane in his letter to the Committee states it to hav .- been thirteen hundred. Of those who fell to the share c f the Ashantis many were sacrificed, and the remainder sol I to the traders ; for during this invasion the Ashantis mair - tained a friendly intercourse with Elmina and Accra, an 1 carried on with them a steady traffic in slaves. Those wh > fell into Torrane's hands fared no better. After the Kir i had received his share of the refugees, the remainder we - carried to Cape Coast Castle, divided into lots for tl t Governor and members of Council, and sold to the slai ^ vessels. To his eternal honour, Mr. John Swanzy, one f the members of Council, refused to be a party to th s TORRANE'S TRANSACTIONS. 119 monstrous transaction. He was Commandant of Accra Fort at the time, but as soon as he heard of the proceedings of the Governor and his colleagues, he rose from a sick bed and went to Cape Coast Castle by canoe to lodge an indignant protest. His threats of exposure probably had more weight with the members of Council than his appeals to their honour and humanity ; they began to be alarmed, and promised to undo what could yet be undone. A large number of the refugees had already been sold and carried off the coast, but some still remained in the dun- geons of the Castle, and these were now released. Having accomplished this, Mr. Swanzy returned to Accra, where he fell a victim to the fatigue and exposure he had undergone. Colonel Torrane died in 1808, and a letter written by Mr. White shortly after that event, and which was preserved amongst the archives of Cape Coast Castle as late as 1850, discloses another iniquity committed by him. On February loth, 1808, Mr. White informed the Committee that Torrane died in debt to the people of Cape Coast to the value of forty slaves, " Assins whom they seized at the time the Governor captured Tchibbu, and whom he sold off the coast." It appears that, in order to purchase the co-operation of some of the people of Cape Coast in seizing Tchibbu and Aputeh, he promised that they should be allowed to enslave as many of their followers as they could capture ; and then, to save them the trouble of finding buyers, kindly took them off their hands himself, and sold them with the other captives who fell to his own share. Thus, after having promised an asylum at Cape Coast to the Assin chiefs and their followers, he surrendered one chief to a cruel death, sold forty of their followers for the supposed benefit of his native accomplices, and kept the money himself. The convention with Colonel Torrane did not put an end to the war, for the peace that had been concluded was only with the English, and the natives, except those of the town of Cape Coast, were not included in it. Kwaku Aputeh was still at large, and Akum, of Essikuma, who 120 A HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST. had succeeded in getting together a considerable force, was advancing to meet the Ashantis. The King hastened to leave Anamabo, where his army was beginning to suffer severely from the bad supply of water and the pestilential effluvia arising from the putrid bodies of the still unburied slain; and on July 3rd, 1807, ne broke up his camp and went to meet Akum. Two days later he came upon the Fanti army a little to the east of Cormantine. A great battle took place, which was witnessed by Torrane; the Fantis soon gave way on all sides, leaving the beach covered with heaps of dead, and Akum and the remnant of his army would have been entirely destroyed had they not escaped across the Oki River, which lay in their rear, and with the fords of which the Ashantis were unacquainted. After this defeat the Fantis were never able to take the field in force, but a guerilla warfare was kept up, during which the stragglers of the Ashanti army were cut off, and several insignificant skirmishes took place, while the Ashantis moved leisurely through Fanti towards Accra, leaving famine and desolation in their train. They were encamped for some time in the neighbourhood of Winnebah, which town they destroyed in October, 1807. Then small- pox broke out amongst them, and committed such frightful ravages that towards the end of the year the King returned to Kumassi without having returned to Anamabo, as he had promised Torrane to do, for the purpose of entering into a definite treaty. Ashanti detachments were left at Accra to collect prisoners, and dispose of such as they did not wish to carry back to Ashanti. CHAPTER XI. 18081818. The Fantis attack Elmina Message from the Ashanti King Condition of the country Rebellion of Akim and Akwapim Second invasion of Fanti Murder of Mr. Meredith at Winnebah Third invasion of Fanti The Fantis purchase a peace End of the war Embassy to Kumassi Difficulty about the notes Conclusion of a treaty Gradual growth of British jurisdiction The traffic in slaves. BY the return of the Ashanti army to Kumassi the Fantis were for a time relieved from actual warfare ; but as no treaty of peace had been made, they still preserved a defensive attitude and formed a camp at Arbrakampa. They even pretended that they had driven the Ashantis from the country, although it was well known that the departure of the Ashanti army was solely due to sickness and the scarcity of provisions. In the early part of the year 1809 the Ashanti chief who had been left at Accra, instructed by the King, communicated with Mr. White, who was now Governor, with a view to concluding a peace with the Fantis; but the latter, now that their foe was at a distance, rejected all advances. The real object of their encampment at Arbra- kampa was to concert measures to revenge themselves upon those who had not assisted them to resist the invasion, and they even threatened to attack Cape Coast, simply because it had not suffered during the war. Their anger however was chiefly directed against Elmina, whose inhabitants had barbarously ill-treated and sold numbers of Fantis who 122 A HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST. had sought refuge in the town ; and a Mr. Neizer, a coloured gentleman of Elmina, was accused of having suggested the invasion to the Ashanti King. The Fantis and Wassaws now formed an alliance against Elmina, which the people of Cape Coast soon joined, in spite of the advice and remonstrances of Mr. White ; and towards the close of 1809 tne confederated tribes formed a camp behind Elmina and made several attacks upon the town, al of which failed through the assistance lent to the inhabitant' by the guns of Fort Conraadsburgh. Finding it impossible to capture and plunder the town, the allies closely in vested it, and the inhabitants were reduced to great straits but, as there was a free communication on the sea-front there was no absolute want of supplies. The Elmina applied to Kumassi for assistance, and the King, anxious t< relieve his friends, renewed his overtures of peace with th< Fantis, through the Governor, in July, 1810, with the resul that, after several communications, messengers arrived a Accra from Kumassi, and were conveyed to Cape Coas Castle by sea, it being unsafe for them to journey b land. These messengers declared on the part of the Kin ; that he wished to remain on friendly terms with the whit : men, whom he considered his masters ; that his invasion c * Fanti had been undertaken solely to punish the fugitiv : Assins ; that he was about to send another army for th :- same purpose; and that he would wage war with all, whit .- or black, who gave them protection. The Governor cause I this message to be conveyed to the camp of the allies behin i Elmina ; but they treated it with contempt, and maintaine I the blockade until 1811, when, weary of non-success, the r broke up their camps. In 1808, it should be observed, another body of Fant > had attacked the Accras, in revenge for the assistance give \ by that people to the Ashantis ; but they were repulsed wit i such loss that they did not venture to make a second attemp . From the close of the Ashanti invasion till 1811, the who ^ country was in the most distracted state, and the authorr / of the Dutch and English was entirely disregarded. Tl ^ REBELLION OF AKIM AND AKWAPIM. 123 Elminas murdered Hogenboom, the Dutch Governor, in 1808, and the entreaties, remonstrances, and threats of Governor De Veer and Governor White during the blockade of Elmina, were alike treated with contempt. The greatest lawlessness prevailed in every district, and murder, kidnapping, and pillage were daily occurrences. No language can convey an adequate idea of the misery and suffering endured in these three years upon the Gold Coast. On the return of the messengers to Kumassi with the intelligence that the Fantis rejected all overtures of peace, the King at once made preparations for a second invasion, and, in i8n, Appia Dunkxva was sent with a force of four thousand men to protect Elmina, while another general, Apoko, was despatched with twenty-five thousand men to destroy the Fantis of Winnebah and Barraku, as a punish- ment for their attack on Accra. To swell the latter force he sent to his tributary, Attah, King of Akim, a present of gold and gunpowder, and directed him to join Apoko with the Akim contingent. This chief had accompanied the King in his former invasion, and had indeed done good service at Anamabo, but he now proved refractory. He recapitulated the wrongs Akim had suffered at the hands of Ashanti, de- clared that he would not be always at the King's call when he wanted to go to war, and informed the messenger who had brought the gold and ammunition that he would employ them against the King. The latter, upon this being reported to him, sent another messenger to know if he had been rightly informed, not wishing, perhaps, to proceed hastily against a poweriul tributary ; but before there was time to learn the result of this second embassy, Attah committed an overt act of hostility which precluded all possibility of ;i peaceful arrangement. Learning that one of the King's captains, who had been collecting tribute at Christiansborg, was on his way to Kumassi with a large amount of gold, he intercepted him and killed the whole party except one man, whom he spared to convey his defiance to the King and inform him of what had been done. The army under Apoko had not yet crossed the Prah 124 A HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST. when the news of this outrage reached Kumassi, and the general received immediate orders to march into Akim and subdue the rebellion there. Attah had induced Kwow Saf- fatchi, King of Akwapim, to throw off the Ashanti yoke and join him, and the combined forces attacked Apoko as soon as he entered Akim. The battle was long and obstinate, and was only put a stop to by nightfall. Neither party could claim the victory, but the Ashantis had suffered so severely that Apoko could not venture to renew the contest without additional aid ; and he therefore sent an order to the Accras to join him, which they did in such force as to make resis- tance vain, and the Akims and Akvvapims retreated, the former to the west towards Fanti, and the latter to the east towards Addah, on the Volta. Apoko went in pursuit of the Akwapims, but being unable to bring them to an action or capture Kwow Saffatchi, he made a prisoner of Mr. Lindt, the Danish Commandant of Addah Fort, whom he charged with conniving at Kwow Saffatchi's escape. Mr. Lindt was detained five months in the Ashanti camp, but was not ill- treated, and was finally ransomed by his government for one hundred ounces of gold. Towards the close of 1811 Apoko was recalled to Kumassi without having effected the capture of Kwow Saffatchi, who, as soon as the Ashantis quitted Akwapim, returned to it and resumed his independent position. In the meantime the force under Appia Dunkwa entered Fanti early in 1811, fought several small skirmishes with the Fantis, in which the Ashantis were always victorious, and marched through Insabang and Aguna to the coast, which they reached near Winnebah. The Fantis of Anamabo, Adjumako,* Appam, f Mumford, J Winnebah, and Gomoa had formed a camp near Mumford, and the opposing forces met near Appam, where a severely contested engagement took place, resulting in a victory for the Ashantis. Mr Smith, the Commandant of Tantamkwerri Fort, opened * Adjuma, or Adyuma work, labour. t Appam alliance. Mumford is a corruption of the native Man-fo, "Town's people." SECOND INVASION OF FANTL 125 communications with the Ashanti general, but could learn nothing of his intentions, beyond that he intended to proceed to Elmina to protect it from the Fantis, a design, however, which Attah, King of Akim, frustrated. Attah, after parting company with the Akwapims, had, as already stated, retreated towards Fanti ; and now, with a force of some three thousand men, he advanced with the greatest rapidity to attack the Ashantis, who, since their victory over the Fantis, had been encamped near Tantamkwerri Fort. The original force of four thousand men with which Appia Dunkwa had entered the country was now much reduced, heavy losses having been sustained in the last battle; and fully appreciating the difference between the warlike Akims and the Fantis, the Ashanti general thought it prudent to retreat ; but Attah followed him up, engaged and routed him, and finally drove the Ashantis from Fanti. Attah then formed an alliance with the Fantis, and was projecting a combined attack upon Apoko, in Akwapim, by which he might have cut off his retreat from Kumassi, when he died, in October, 1811, of small-pox. Some of Attah's proceedings had caused considerable alarm both to the Dutch and the English. Before his attack upon the Ashantis at Tantamkwerri he entered the Dutch Fort at Appam, threw all the guns over the walls, and released a number of Cape Coast prisoners whom he found there, and who had been panyarred, or forcibly seized, by the Dutch, to be sold as slaves. He likewise visited the English fort at Tantamkwerri, where, though he showed less violence, he helped himself to everything that took his fancy, and treated the Commandant roughly. Attah was succeeded by his brother, but as the new King seemed inclined to submit to Ashanti, the Akim chiefs in secret council decided to depose him and put him to death. Not being willing, however, to have his blood upon their hands, they communicated their decision to him, and commanded him to commit suicide, which, after a week passed in performing his own funeral obsequies, he did. Kwadjo Kuma, who was next placed on the stool of Akim, 126 A HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST. seems to have inherited some of Attah's spirit, for he kept the Ashantis shut up in their own country during 1 the whole of the years 1812 and 1813. It should be observed, however, that the Ashantis did not make any very serious attempt to break out. During these two years of freedom from invasion the eastern Fantis again attempted to revenge themselves upon the Accras, and, in 1812, in conjunction with Kwow Safifatchi, of Akwapim, they attacked Accra, but after a severe contest were signally repulsed. In the month of February, 1812, Mr. Meredith, the gallant defender of Anamabo Fort, now Commandant of Winnebah. was done to death by the natives of that place, who had foi some time enjoyed an unenviable notoriety for violence anc rapacity. One day, while walking in the garden of the fort, h( was suddenly seized by a number of natives, who dragged hirr away into the bush, and there charged him with detaining ; quantity of gold, the property of a native. This gold, the\ asserted, a sergeant of the Company's soldiers had deliverec to him for safe keeping at the time when the Ashantis wen in the neighbourhood, and they declared they would not se him at liberty until he gave it up. It appeared that the ser geant, to whom the gold really had been committed, upon bein< asked for it by the owner, had evaded payment by declaring that he had forgotten to whose care he had entrusted i The owner then consulted the great god of the Fanti countr at Mankassim, and was told by the oracle that Mr. Meredit] had it, hence his seizure. It was in vain that the unfortunat Commandant declared that he knew nothing of the gold, fc the dictum of the oracle was conclusive and final to the mind ; of the natives, it being impossible that the god could be mi. 1 - taken. They treated their captive with the greatest barbarih . Not satisfied with making him walk several miles bareheade I in the heat of the sun, they set fire to the dry grass, an I taking off his boots, forced him to walk over it barefoote< . He was frequently beaten, and his arms were stretched 01 t horizontally at full length, and fastened to a long pole whic i pressed upon his throat, and caused him much pain. The news of this outrage soon reached Mr. Smith ; t DEATH OF MR. MEREDITH. 127 Tantamkvverri Fort, and he at once proceeded to Winnebah, where he had no sooner landed than he also was seized by a number of natives and hurried into the bush. Being brought before a meeting of chiefs and headmen, he remonstrated with them upon their conduct, and urged them to produce Mr. Meredith, which after some discussion they did ; but refused to give him up, and Mr. Smith was obliged to leave him in their hands, where he died from exhaustion and exposure before any effectual means could be taken for his release. It may here be added that Mr. James, his successor at Winnebah, was blockaded in the fort for three months by the natives, in consequence of which H.M.S. Amelia, Captain Irby, brought him away after blowing up the fort, and the place was abandoned by the Company. For many years afterwards English vessels passing Winnebah were in the habit of pouring a broadside into the town, to give the natives some idea of the severe vengeance that would always be exacted for the murder of a European. In 1814 the King of Ashanti determined to make a supreme effort for the subjection of Akim and Akwapim, which had now been in rebellion for three years. With this object he despatched an army of twenty thousand men, under a new general, Amankwa, to attack Akim in front ; while in order to prevent Kwadjo Kuma from escaping to the west into Fanti, as his predecessor had done, he sent Appia Dunkwa with a smaller force in the direction of Winnebah. The Akims retired before the advancing Ashantis, and Amankwa was within a day's march of Akwapim before any engagement took place. Then one of his foraging parties was cut off by Kwadjo Kuma, and the next day the Akims and Akwapims gave battle to the Ashanti army at Egwah-arru. The struggle lasted for six hours, and ended in the total defeat of the allies. Amankwa announced his victory by sending a jawbone and a slave to each of the Accra towns, and then proceeded with his army to Accra. He remained in that neighbourhood for nearly a year, levying contributions throughout the country, to the great discontent of the Accras, who had hitherto been staunch allies of Ashanti, but who now found 128 A HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST. that even the most valuable services rendered did not pro- tect them from extortion and tyranny. He afterwards re- turned to Akwapim, where he received a message from the King, forbidding his return to Kumassi without the heads o^ Kwadjo Kuma and Kwow Safifatchi. In the meantime the force under Appia Dunkwa hac encountered the eastern Fantis on several occasions. The Adjumakos and Agunas were defeated with great loss, the towns of Winnebah and Barraku plundered and burnt, anc the natives generally subjected to the most cruel impositions Appia Dunkwa then retired to New Assin, south of the Prah where he died, and was succeeded in the command by Appk Nanu. This general incurred the King's displeasure by remaining inactive, and Amankwa was ordered to move fron Akwapim and unite the two forces. They met at Essikuma and advanced through Adjumako, the Fantis flying befor* them without daring to offer any resistance. They thei moved into Arbra, where a large body of Fantis, who ha< tJeen assembled to give them battle, fled at the first onsei and the Ashantis encamped on the ground. Crowds of fugitives now flocked to the forts for protectior and four thousand men, women, and children are said to hav sought refuge in the Castle of Cape Coast alone. Th Governor, Mr. J. Hope Smith, who had been appointed i 1814, sent a flag of truce to the Ashanti general, to learn hi intentions ; but in the meanwhile the Ashantis approache nearer and nearer. On March 1 3th, 1816, a large body c f them appeared near Mori, while another party, principall r Assins, under the command of Kwasi Amankwa, showe t themselves at the salt pond, quite close to Cape Coast towi , and had a slight skirmish with the inhabitants. On March i6th messengers arrived from the Ashan i camp at Arbrakampa to bring a reply to the flag of true . They stated that the army had come to Fanti in pursuit < f Kwadjo Kuma and Kwow Saffatchi, and to punish all wh > harboured them. Three Fanti chiefs, Kwow Aggri, Paint] , and Amissa, who had, they said, stood in arms against tr i Ashantis for the defence of these men, were now require' , END OF THE WAR. 129 and it was thought they might be in Cape Coast. The Governor offered his mediation to settle the palaver, and Director-General Daendels, the Governor of Elmina, offered to co-operate. A meeting was therefore held in the palaver hall of the Castle on the 2 1st, a deputation of Dutch officers from Elmina being present. Upon the headmen of Cape Coast taking a sacred oath that Kvvadjo Kuma and Kwow Saffatchi were not in the town, the Ashanti messengers declared that they were satisfied upon that point; but they demanded that the three Fanti chiefs should be delivered to them, to go to the camp, as they had been in arms against the King. The chiefs consented to go, provided that the messen- gers guaranteed their safety; but it was finally agreed that the demand for their surrender should be waived upon pay- ment of one hundred ounces of gold by the people of Cape Coast and the Fantis, to purchase peace. The money was advanced by Governor Hope Smith, and the messengers and Fanti chiefs then took a sacred oath to abstain from all further hostilities. Shortly after this the Ashantis broke up their camp at Arbrakampa and moved to the east in search of the two proscribed Kings. The Fantis offered no resistance to their march, and the Ashantis, considering the country conquered, exacted heavy contributions. Their men were spread over the whole country in small detachments, making active search for the two rebels, and inflicting incalculable misery on the inhabitants, whom they deprived of everything. Kwadjo Kuma was at last surrounded by a party of Appia Nanu's force at Inkum, and, being unable to escape, committed suicide. Soon afterwards Kwow Saffatchi was betrayed by his brother, Adu Dunkwa, on condition that he should be raised to the stool of Akwapim in his stead; and a party of Ashantis was conducted to his hiding-place, where he was killed. The object of the Ashanti invasion was now accomplished. The heads of the two rebel Kings had been taken, Akim and Akwapim had again been reduced to the position of tributary states, and the King's authority had, moreover, been established throughout Fanti; Amankwa K 130 A HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST. therefore returned to Kumassi with the bulk of the army, leaving Ashanti Residents in charge of the principal districts of Fanti to keep the Fantis in subjection and collect the King's tribute. The repeated invasions of Fanti had produced such a feeling of alarm and insecurity that Mr. Hope Smith re- quested the committee of the Company in London to authorise and equip an embassy to Kumassi, with a view to the conciliation of the Ashanti King and the negotiation of a treaty of commerce. An additional reason given was that there were good grounds for believing that the Dutch Governor, Daendels, was intriguing with the King, and doing his utmost to bring the English into disrepute and involve them in difficulties. The committee regarded Mr. Hope Smith's proposal with favour; presents for the King were sent out from England, and on April 22nd, 1817, Mr. James, Commandant of Accra Fort, Mr. T. E. Bowdich, writer in the Company's service and nephew of the Governor, Mr. Hutchinson, and Surgeon Beresford Tedlie set out from Cape Coast Castle on a mission to Kumassi. Part of its object was to establish a British residency or consulate at Kumassi, and it was intended, if all went well, to leave Mr. Hutchinson as Resident at the King's court. In passing through Fanti and Assin the members of the embassy were much struck with the desolation the Ashantis had every- where left behind them. Scarcely a vestige of cultivation was to be seen, ruined and deserted villages met the eye on every side, and long tracts of country were traversec without a single human being being met with. Of th( populous slave mart of Mansu only a few sheds remained and the few natives seen were gaunt with famine. On the 1 5th of May the embassy entered Kumassi This was the first time that Europeans had visited th< capital, and they were honoured with a public receptior attended by a display of barbaric pomp and wealth t impress them with the greatness of the King. They wer met at the entrance of the town by upwards of five thousan- warriors, who, keeping up an incessant discharge of musketr) EMBASSY TO KUMASSL 131 led them slowly through the crowded streets to the market- place, where the King was waiting in state, surrounded by his chiefs and the officers of his court. The ambassadors, accustomed only to the petty kings of the coast, were astonished at the wealth and magnificence exhibited. Bands of barbarous music played, hundreds of immense umbrella canopies made of gorgeous silks were flaunted, flags and banners were waved, and gold was displayed in profusion ; but Mr. Bowdich's description* must be read to form any adequate conception of the scene. The Europeans esti- mated the number of soldiers present at 30,000. The embassy was very favourably received by Osai Tutu Kwamina, but at an early stage of the negotiations a difficulty arose concerning the payment of the notes for Cape Coast Castle and Anamabo Fort. As we have already seen, the King had long been in the habit of receiving rents for the Dutch fort at Elmina, and for the English, Dutch, and Danish forts at Accra. The actual notes for these were in his hands, but it seems that when Colonel Torrane paid the King the arrears due on the notes for Cape Coast Castle and Anamabo Fort, the King had not obtained possession of the documents for these two. Some time after 1814, the Kings of Anamabo and Mankassim, who still retained these notes, had persuaded Mr. Hope Smith to write others, engaging to pay the Ashanti King four ackisf per month for the two forts, and reserving to themselves the remainder of the rent of four ounces per fort, specified in the original notes, which they kept. This was certainly a very curious transaction, and the King charged the Governor with having combined with the Fantis to defraud him, and demanded an explanation from the embassy. Mr. James by his answers confirmed the suspicions of the King, who broke into an uncontrollable fit of rage. His captains were equally furious, and swore that they would set out that night to take the heads of the Fanti chiefs. There was such a tumult that the lives of the Europeans were in some danger. Mr. James, * Mission from Cape Coast Castle to Ashanti. t An acki is, roughly speaking, gold to the value of one dollar. K 2 132 A HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST. who seems to have entirely lost his presence of mind, volun- teered no explanation, and the assembly was breaking up in the greatest confusion, when Mr. Bowdich asked to be heard. He assured the King that the Governor would do what was right, and proposed that messengers should be sent down to Cape Coast to receive his explanation of the affair. His evident earnestness much impressed the King, who suffered himself to be appeased, and adopted Mr. Bowdich's proposal. The result of this appeal to the Governor was that Mr. James was recalled, Mr. Bowdich placed at the head of the embassy in his stead, and the demands of the King, with regard to the notes, complied with. Mr. Hope Smith de- clared that he had been deceived by the two Fanti Kings, and sent the King two new notes, promising to pay four ounces of gold per month for each of the two forts. Accord- ing to his version of the affair, the arrangement of the two notes had been made between the King's messengers and the Fanti Kings in the Ashanti camp at Arbrakampa, after peace had been concluded at Cape Coast Castle ; and he declared that he had only issued the notes for four ackis on the understanding that he had nothing to do with the arrangement, and that it was made with the mutual consent of the Ashanti King and the Fanti chiefs. Another diffi- culty which now arose was the conduct of the Kommendas in a quarrel between themselves and the Elminas. This was finally disposed of by the Kommendas acknowledging their fealty to the King, and paying one hundred and twenty ounces of gold dust, an arrangement which was only effected after a great deal of negotiation, the first demand made on the Kommendas being for two thousand ounces. All differences being thus settled, a treaty of peace wa< concluded on September ?th, 1817. It consisted of the following articles : 1. There shall be perpetual peace and harmony betweei the British subjects in this country and the subjects of th< Kings of Ashanti and.Djuabin. 2. The same shall exist between the subjects of th Kings of Ashanti and Djuabin and all nations of Afric; CONCLUSION OF A TREATY. 133 residing under the protection of the Company's forts and settlements on the Gold Coast, and it is hereby agreed that there are no palavers now existing, and that neither party has any claim upon the other. 3. The King of Ashanti guarantees the security of the people of Cape Coast from the hostilities threatened by the people of Elmina. 4. In order to avert the horrors of war, it is agreed, that in any case of aggression on the part of the natives under British protection, the King shall complain thereof to the Governor-in-Chief, to obtain redress, and that he will in no instance resort to hostilities, even against the other towns of the Fanti territory, without endeavouring as much as possible to effect an amicable arrangement, affording the Governor the opportunity of propitiating it as far as he may with discretion. 5. The King of Ashanti agrees to permit a British officer to reside constantly at his capital for the purpose of instituting and preserving a regular communication with the Governor-in-Chief at Cape Coast Castle. 6. The Kings of Ashanti and Djuabin pledge them- selves to countenance, promote, and encourage the trade of their subjects with Cape Coast Castle and its dependencies to the extent of their power. 7. The Governors of the respective forts shall, at all times, afford every protection in their power to the persons and property of the people of Ashanti who may resort to the water-side. 8. The Governor-in-Chief reserves to himself the right of punishing any subject of Ashanti or Djuabin guilty of secondary offences ; but, in case of any crime of magnitude, he will send the offender to the King to be dealt with ac- cording to the laws of his country. 9. The Kings agree to commit their children to the care of the Governor-in-Chief, for education at Cape Coast Castle, in the full confidence of the good intentions of the British Government and of the benefits to be derived there- from. 134 A HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST. By virtue of this treaty Mr. Hutchinson was left as British Resident at the court of Ashanti, and Mr. Bowdich returned to Cape Coast Castle. At this point the first recognition by treaty of the right of the British to exercise protection and control over the natives residing in the towns under the guns of the forts it will be convenient to trace the gradual growth of British jurisdiction on the Gold Coast prior to this date. The officials of the former trading .companies had not attempted to assert any territorial jurisdiction, or any interference in native affairs, beyond the exercise of a kind of mediatory influence, to prevent the interruption of trade by native quarrels. The jurisdiction of the director-generals of the companies extended only over the officers and slaves of the companies, and the right of the natives to the soil on which the forts were built was acknowledged by the payment of notes for ground rent. The first record of any treaty with native Kings is found in the treaty of 1693, between the Royal African Company and the Kings of Akanna, Saboe, and Fetu; and in 1754 we find the governor of the African Company of Merchants placing a King of Fetu on the stool. But at the same time we have evidence of how little authority the Company possessed, from the fact that the people of Cape Coast, about the same period, prevented the Company's slaves from cutting firewood in the bush, upon the grounds that no rent had been paid to them for the use of the wood. Under Governor Archibald Dalzel (1802) some attempts to control the natives were made, and the first material point gained was in 1803. Prior to that date complaints against natives, other than the Company's servants, had to be made before the corrupt native tribunals, where redress could never be obtained without a bribe to the chiefs who tried the case, and not even then if it involved the curtailment of any custom by which the chiefs profited ; but in that year the Governor, at the instigation of Mr. John Swanzy, imprisoned one of the headmen of Cape Coast for passing false gold. The natives took up arms ; it became necessary to defend the Castle, and a fire was opened on the town by which a GRADUAL GROWTH OF BRITISH JURISDICTION. 135 number of houses were destroyed and the natives forced to submit to the innovation. In 1805 tn ^ s jurisdiction was further extended, when some canoemen of Accra, who had stolen gunpowder to the value of ^100 from the Com- mandant, were brought to trial and punished at Cape Coast Castle. Thus, before the first invasion of Fanti, it had come to be recognised that the native inhabitants of the towns under the guns of the forts were amenable to British laws for offences committed against the Company or its servants. The invasion and destruction of Fanti by the Ashantis materially assisted the British in bringing the natives of these towns more under control, and the years immediately preceding Mr. Bowdich's treaty show a gradually increasing influence. It was British mediation that caused Cape Coast to be spared in 1807; and there can be little doubt but that it was through fear or respect for the British that that town was allowed to be redeemed on such moderate terms in 1816. They were now (1817) the means of preserving the Kommendas from destruction, and the advantage of their protection, inadequate as it was to secure great results, was felt and acknowledged. But it must be carefully borne in mind that this protection and control was limited to the towns under the guns of the fort. The rest of Fanti was entirely independent; and even the mediatory influence, which, under the treaty of 1817, the British could now exercise in its behalf, was a new departure. The abolition of the slave trade had not by any means put a stop to the traffic in slaves on the Gold Coast, which, through being declared illegal, was now attended with greater violence and injustice than before. Spaniards were chiefly engaged in the trade, and its abolition by Spain had no effect in checking it, as the fast-sailing Spanish vessels could easily elude the men-of-uar. In February, 1818, no less than seven large slave ships were seen taking in cargoes near Cape Coast Castle. Great encouragement was given to the slave trade by Governor Daendels and the Elminas ; and panyarring, or the forcible seizing of peaceable traders a crime which had been little heard of when the trade was legal was now very 136 A HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST. common. Mr. Hope Smith did his utmost to suppress the traffic, and on several occasions acted with energy. He sent an expedition against the people of Leggu, who had seized some Cape Coast canoemen, and compelled them to give them up and pay a heavy fine. He also banished from Cape Coast a coloured man named Brew, who had been detected in intrigues with Ashanti for the purpose of up- holding the slave trade. About this time, too, a first attempt was made to put a stop to human sacrifices and torture. On the death of a chief of Cape Coast one of the headmen was accused of having procured it by witchcraft, and was sentenced to death by torture ; but Mr. Hope Smith was able to rescue him from this fate, though he was obliged to send him to Sierra Leone for safety. CHAPTER XII. 1819 1823. New difficulty with Ashanti Mr. Dupuis His treaty Skirmish at Mori The Crown assumes the Government of the Gold Coast Seizure of a sergeant at Anamabo Expedition to Dunkwa The Accras join the Government. A FEW months after the departure of Mr. Bowdich's embassy from Kumassi a rebellion broke out in Gaman which engaged the whole attention of the Ashantis, and as the King did not appear to wish Mr. Hutchinson to remain in the capital, fearing probably that he might witness some reverse, it was thought advisable to recall him. The King then invaded Gaman territory with a large army, all Ashantis being withdrawn from Fanti country and the paths closed in order that he might prosecute the war unobserved ; and during its progress the British authorities remained in a state of complete ignorance as to its probable result. At the close of 1818 a few Ashanti stragglers reached the coast in a miserable plight ; but they would not, or could not, give any information about the state of affairs in the interior; and this, coupled with the King's long silence, gave rise to rumours that the Ashantis had been defeated. The people of Cape Coast gladly believed these reports, and openly exulted over the Ashanti resident in that town ; while Mr. Hope Smith, not sorry perhaps to see the people of Cape Coast inclined to free themselves from Ashanti domination 138 A HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST. at a favourable opportunity, did not restrain or discourage them. But while the Fantis were thus indulging their fancies with reports of the King's disasters, messengers suddenly arrived from Kumassi to demand satisfaction, under Article 4 of Mr. Bowdich's treaty, for an alleged insult offered to the King by the people of Kommenda. The rumoured defeats of the Ashantis had been altogether without founda- tion. The Gamans had been totally defeated, their King slain, and their capital, Buntuku, burned ; while, as a punish- ment for the rebellion, Gaman itself had been reduced from the rank of a tributary state to that of a province of Ashanti The offence of the Kommendas was as follows : The King had sent messengers to Kommenda to announce the subjection of Gaman, and to demand from them a contribu- tion of gunpowder and rum to the value of one hundrec ounces of gold, to enable him to make a great (: custom 7 at Kumassi. The extreme poverty of the inhabitants o Kommenda a small place rendered any compliance witl this demand almost impossible ; and with that sturdy inde pendence which has generally characterised them, they me the Ashanti envoys outside their town ; which they declinec to allow them to enter, at the same time positively refusim to submit to any extortion. The Ashanti messengers thei proceeded to Cape Coast, whence one of them returne< to Kumassi to report the failure of their mission, the othe remaining at Cape Coast, on the plea that he could no convey to his master the insult which had been offered hinr but really to watch the course of events and keep the Kin: informed of all that transpired. In a few days a message arrived from the King to th : effect that if the people of Cape Coast did not give hir L immediate satisfaction for the insult offered him by th : Kommendas, whom he termed their dependents, he woul I send down an army to destroy their town. At the palav( : which was held in the hall of the Castle, the envoy, in tf j name of the King, demanded redress from the Governc : by virtue of the treaty, which he produced. He hande I NEW DIFFICULTY WITH ASHANTL 139 it to Mr. Hope Smith, desiring that it might be publicly read, and he added that he had the King's instructions to leave it with the Governor, if the latter should refuse to abide by its provisions, as the King could not retain it and go to war. The treaty was then read, and when the fourth article was reached the envoy rose and demanded satis- faction under its provisions. Mr. Hope Smith had not endeavoured to persuade the Kommendas to comply with the King's extortionate demand, and for this he has been considered to blame ; but on a more careful consideration of the question it will be seen that he acted wisely. The fourth article of Mr. Bowdich's treaty was framed with the object of settling, if possible, in a peaceable manner, through the mediation of the Governor, any differences that might arise between the Ashantis and the inhabitants of the towns under the guns of the forts ; the presumption, of course, being that the Ashantis should have a bond fide cause of complaint. But this case was quite different. The Kommendas had com- mitted no offence beyond refusing compliance with an unwarrantable demand that had suddenly been made upon them ; and for the Governor to have used his authority and influence to induce them to submit to it would, besides being a gross injustice, have been highly impolitic, and would only have led to the local Government being regarded as responsible for the acceptance and fulfilment by the protected natives of all future demands, however unreason- able, that Ashanti might choose to make upon them. No doubt the King wished to construe Article 4 as meaning that the Governor was to act as his collector of fines, and that he was in all cases, whether just or unjust, to do his best to make the people submit to all exactions. But it could never be so interpreted by the British ; the local Government could never acknowledge that they were bound by treaty to back up and enforce the exactions of an irresponsible King. Mr. Hope Smith therefore declined to bring any pressure to bear upon the Kommendas or to act in any way in support of the King's unjustifiable demand. 140 A HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST. There was present at the palaver a Mr. Dupuis, whom the Home Government, anxious to cultivate a friendly intercourse with Ashanti, had sent out as Consul for Kumassi. He had arrived on the coast in the beginning of 1819, but the constant misunderstandings between himself and the local Government, and the unsettled state of the country, had delayed his journey to the capital. Mr. Dupuis had denied the right of the Governor to give him any instruc- tions, and the latter naturally regarded with some jealousy his independent position. The appointment of Mr. Dupuis was very unwise, for it greatly impaired the Governor'* authority in the eyes of the Ashantis, and also caused c conflict of authority which destroyed the unity of action thai was so necessary. Mr. Dupuis's views of the politics of th( country were diametrically opposed to those of Mr. Hop< Smith. He appears to have regarded the Ashantis as th< personification of barbarous honour and honesty, and hi: policy was to maintain and uphold the authority of th< King over the coast tribes. His bias in favour of Ashant is so marked that it seriously impairs the value of the accoun he has left of these transactions, which is written in a strong spirit of partisanship, and is contradicted in the most im portant particulars by Major Ricketts and others. While the Ashanti envoy was urging his demands upoi the Governor, Mr. Dupuis desired that he might be informe< of the nature of his appointment. When this was done th envoy seemed to think that so unexpected a ciicumstanc :. as the arrival of an agent direct from England might alte the King's views, and he therefore, after a little consideratior , resolved to retain possession of the treaty for the presen , and to apply to the King for fresh instructions. Mr. Hop j Smith, on his part, declared that the people of Cape Coa^ :. could not in anyway be held responsible for the refusal of th : Kommendas to pay the sum demanded from them, an { that if the King endeavoured to put in force his threat t > destroy the town, every assistance and protection shoul I be afforded the inhabitants. On January 5th, 1820, a nephew of the King, with i MR. DUPUIS. 141 retinue of 1,200 armed attendants, arrived at Cape Coast, making his entry with the greatest pomp and state. He brought a fresh demand namely, that the people of Cape Coast should pay a fine of sixteen hundred ounces for having, as he asserted, abetted the Kommendas in their refusal ; and that the Governor should pay a similar fine for having, as he alleged, broken the fourth article of the treaty by not obtaining satisfaction for the King from the Kommendas. The King thus arrogated to himself the privileges both of plaintiff and judge, and Mr. Hope Smith naturally declined to submit to any such extortion. It is probable that the whole of this difficulty had been got up by the King d^- signedly. He knew very well that the Kommendas could not pay the sum asked for, and the whole affair was possibly contrived in order to obtain pretexts for making demands upon the Government. Every attempt at negotiation having failed, it was at length resolved to send Mr. Dupuis to Kumassi. He left Cape Coast Castle on February Qth, 1820, leaving behind, with a protest, the instructions which the Governor had given him, and arrived at Kumassi on the 28th. The Fanti and Assin villages along the route were still found uninhabited and in ruins. In fact, Mr, Dupuis estimated that the Fanti and Assin population had, from between three and four millions, been reduced to as many hundred thousands ; but this was the merest conjecture. At the audiences which ensued, Osai Tutu Kwamina com- plained of the conduct of the Cape Coast people, whom he accused of wishing to set him at defiance. An offer from the Governor to compromise the demand made up'on Cape Coast, by paying one hundred ounces of gold dust, caused a violent display of anger; and the King finally dismissed Mr. Dupuis from the capital, saying that the palaver must be settled at Cape Coast. It is a pity that this offer was made, for it undoubtedly weakened the Governor's just contention that the King had no reasonable grounds for making any demand upon Cape Coast ; but it was doubtless made in the interests of peace. 142 A HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST. Mr. Dupuis reached Cape Coast Castle on April 5th, and laid before Mr. Hope Smith what purported to be a treaty which he had concluded with the Ashanti King. The stipu- lations were to the following effect : That the King should acknowledge Mr. Dupuis as Consul ; that he should, when called upon, march his armies to any part of the country to support the interests of Great Britain ; that he abandoned the claim of sixteen hundred ounces from Cape Coast ; that he should encourage trade; that the British Government acknowledged the Fanti territories to be a part of the king- dom of Ashanti, but that those natives residing under the forts should have the benefit of English law, and any com- plaint brought against the inhabitants of the towns under the forts was to be submitted to the consul for settlement. Al former treaties between the British and Ashanti, particular!) the treaty of 1817, were declared null and void. To thes< were added four supplementary articles, of which three wen of little importance ; but by the remaining article, the secom in order, it was stipulated that the natives of Cape Coas were excluded from participating in the advantages of th treaty, "as the King is resolved to eradicate from his do minions the seeds of disobedience and insubordination " and the King reserved to himself the right to adopt an measures he thought fit to bring those people under subjectior , but promised not to destroy the town of Cape Coast. Th j claim of sixteen hundred ounces from that town was als > declared not to be abandoned. This was the extraordinary document which Mr. Dupu s produced, and he seems strangely to have misunderstood h & position. He had been sent to Kumassi to settle, if possibl ,. the dispute with the people of Cape Coast, and to explain ' > the King the Governor's views of what might reasonably 1 e asked- of him under Article 4 of Mr. Bowdich's treaty, ar d for no other purpose. With other matters he had nothing o do, and the treaty of 1817 was beyond his sphere of actioi ; yet he took upon himself to declare that treaty null and voi I, and to draw up and sign another, under which the princip il matter it had been his business to settle was left unsettle L HIS TREATY. 143 In the treaty of 1817 the sovereignty of the King of Ashanti over Fanti was not specially acknowledged ; but Mr. Dupuis went out of his way to have it recognised ; and, further, exempted the people of Cape Coast from the pro- tection they had hitherto enjoyed. It was a complete surrender. He seems to have regarded himself as a pleni- potentiary entirely independent of the Governor and the local officials, whom he speaks of as " the servants of a mercantile board. " One of the stipulations of his treaty was that his successor should be appointed by himself. He ap- pears to have been morbidly jealous of Mr. Bowdich, and the numerous attacks upon that gentleman which his book contains do him little credit. Naturally, Mr. Hope Smith declined to ratify a treaty by which the inhabitants of Cape Coast, who had committed no offence, were to be left to the tender mercies of the King. In this he was supported by the Home Government, and Mr. Dupuis, after a succession of altercations, finally embarked for England on April I5th, having considerably aggravated matters by his visit. The Ashanti King received the news of the repudiation of Mr. Dupuis's treaty with an outburst of passion, and one can imagine that he was annoyed to find that an engagement which granted everything he asked was to be abandoned. The Ashanti envoy, however, still remained at Cape Coast, and the Governor endeavoured to bring matters to a settle- ment. His position was, that Mr. Dupuis's treaty not having been ratified, the treaty of 1817 was still valid. The position of the Ashanti King appeared to be that he had made a treaty with Mr. Dupuis, and that the Government had broken it. In order to remove all grounds of complaint, Mr. Hope Smith used his best endeavours to induce the inhabitants of Cape Coast to pay the sixteen hundred ounces demanded. The demand was unwarrantable and unjust, but a refusal, to comply might only bring greater ills in its train. These endeavours were successful, and by June, 1820, the people of Cape Coast, assisted by a considerable contribution from the Castle, paid to the Ashanti envoy the sum demanded. It was now expected that the envoy would leave Cape 144 A HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST. Coast and return to Kumassi, he having no further business to transact ; but he did not do so. The insidious policy of the Ashanti King was to keep in existence small matters of -dispute with the people of Cape Coast, and by keeping up a continual friction goad them into committing actions which would serve as pretexts for further extortion. Such a pretext was already made to hand. A Fanti chief named Paintri, who had been placed by the Ashantis upon the stool of Arbra, had, some twelve months before this date, sent an armed party against an outlying village of Cape Coast which had been destroyed, and the inhabitants carried off anc ^old. * Nine months after this outrage the sub-chief, who hac headed the attack against the village, came to Cape Coast where he and several of his followers were seized by th owner of the village, conveyed to a house in the town, an< blown up with gunpowder. This matter had been almos : forgotten under the pressure of weightier affairs ; but now th : Ashanti envoy declared that he had the King's order to inquir : into it. He summoned Paintri to appear at Cape Coas : during the investigation, and announced that he woul I require one hundred peredwins of gold (;i,ooo) from th j person who was adjudged to be in the wrong. Paintr , asserting that his life would be in danger if he came to Cap 5 Coast, declined to comply with the summons, but in order 1 ) show that he submitted to the authority of the envoy, wei t to the village of Mori. This was early in April, 1821. On the Qth of the same month intelligence was receive d at Cape Coast that a native of that place had been ba - barously murdered at Mori. The greatest excitement pr ;- vailed, the town companies turned out, and accompanied 1 y eighty-five men of the garrison of the Castle, under IV r. Colliver, marched to the scene of the crime. On arrivi: g there, some two thousand men, consisting of the inhabitar ts of Mori, Paintri's followers, and a party of Ashantis, w( -e found assembled in arms, and the headless body of t le murdered man was discovered outside the village. As so >n as the Company's soldiers entered the place fire was open :d on them from the houses, but as they advanced the natn *s SKIRMISH AT MORI. H5 retired. In the meantime, another body of Ashantis, who had been encamped in the neighbourhood of Cape Coast, took up a position to cut off the retreat of the party, but being threatened by another force from Cape Coast, retired. In this affair the Ashantis and Fantis lost some fifty men killed, and amongst them Paintri himself. The loss on the part of the Cape Coast force was two killed and a few slightly wounded. Trade with Ashanti, and with the rest of Fanti, which had now thrown in its lot with the former, at once altogether ceased. Cape Coast was completely isolated, and it was not safe to venture beyond the outskirts of the town, except in large parties. To ensure the place against a sudden attack, the people built a loop-holed wall of mud from the sea-beach on the east of the town, across the hills in a semicircle to the sea-beach on the west, and the Government hastily erected a tower* on a hill to the west of Phipps's Tower, which was armed with guns landed from H.M.S. Tartar. Several messages were exchanged between the King of Ashanti and " the Governor, and in August a final message was received from Kumassi, to the effect that the King acknowledged that the affair at Mori had been misrepresented to him, and had given orders for the roads to Cape Coast to be opened. Trade, however, was not renewed, and matters were in this state, when the Home Government decided to assume the control of the settlements on the Gold Coast. The reason assigned for this step was that the local authorities connived at the maintenance of the slave trade, and that the annual grant which they had received from Parliament had always been expended with the intention of keeping others from participating in legitimate trade, which was, in fact, monopolised by the local agents. A Bill was ac- cordingly passed in the Parliament of 1821 for abolishing the African Company of Merchants, and for transferring.. to the Crown all the Company's forts and possessions orj the Gold Coast, which were to be placed under the government of Sierra Leone. The forts were eight in number, namely, those of Cape Coast, Anamabo, Accra, Kommenda, Dixcove, * Afterwards called Fort Victoria. L 146 A HISTORY OF THE COLD COAST. Sekondi, Prampram, and Tantamkwerri. At the time of the transfer the white establishment consisted of forty-five persons, and the number of black and coloured people in the Company's pay was four hundred and fifty. On March 28th, 1822, Sir Charles Macarthy, Governor of Sierra Leone, arrived at Cape Coast Castle in H.M.S. Iphigenia, and assumed the government of the Gold Coast. The new Governor, a stranger to the Gold Coast and its politics, had no ordinary difficulties to contend with, for the servants of the late Company, almost to a man, refused to take office under him. They also withdrew themselves from all participation in native affairs, and Sir Charles Macarthy was left to grope in the dark, without a single responsible or reliable adviser. In order to reopen friendly relations with Kumassi, he despatched messengers to the King, announcing his assumption of office, and bearing the customary presents : while to provide for the defence of the forts he formed the native troops in the service of the late Company into a. colonial corps, composed of three companies, and entitled the Royal African Colonial Corps of Light Infantry. Having thus set matters in train, he departed for Sierra Leone early in May, leaving Captain Chisholm and Lieutenant Laing, of the 2nd West India Regiment the latter destined to afterwards become celebrated as an African traveller to organise the new force. Sir Charles Macarthy seems tc have had no idea of the critical condition of afifairs, and apparently thought that everything would go on smoothly. Affairs continued quiet until the month of November when a mulatto sergeant of the new corps was kidnappec by Ashantis at Anamabo, where he was stationed on duty and taken as a prisoner to Dunkwa, where he was put " ii log," i.e., secured to a heavy log of wood by an iron staple which is the native mode of securing prisoners. This outrag< was attributed to a quarrel that had taken place between the sergeant and an Ashanti trader at Anamabo in th preceding May, but which had been investigated an definitely settled at the time by the commandant of th fort. Demands for the restoration of the sergeant and th : SEIZURE OF A SERGEANT AT AN AM ABO. 147 punishment of those concerned in his seizure met with no reply; and early in January, 1823, a nephew of the Ashanti King was sent to Dunkwa with one of the state executioners, to put the sergeant to death, and to convey the skull, jaw- bone, and one of the arms of the victim to Kumassi. This murder was committed on February 1st, 1823. In the early part of December, 1822, Sir C. Macarthy had returned to Cape Coast from Sierra Leone, bringing with him a company of the 2nd West India Regiment, and he now determined to punish the perpetrators of this crime. He proceeded to Anamabo to inquire personally into the circumstances under which the sergeant had been carried off, and on his return to Cape Coast was received with a perfect ovation. The streets and hills were crowded with spectators, volleys of musketry were discharged, and the natives exhibited the greatest enthusiasm at the return of him who, they were now informed, was prepared to deliver them from Ashanti oppression. The reputation which Sir Charles Macarthy had gained, both at the Gambia and at Sierra Leone, for extreme benevolence and justice tempered with mercy, had doubtless preceded him ; but it was as the person who was to protect them from the exactions and tyranny of Ashanti, that the people of Cape Coast and Anamabo looked up to him. Their enthusiasm was, no doubt, increased by the knowledge that they were now cut adrift from the rest of the Fantis, who seemed to have thoroughly accepted the position of subjects of Ashanti ; and that, unless their cause was strenuously adopted by the Government, they could look for nothing but destruction. In the middle of February it was ascertained that Aduku, King of Mankassim, had, with the principal Fanti chiefs, left Dunkwa and returned to their homes, leaving at that place the Ashanti prince and a few of his followers who had been present at the murder of the sergeant. These did not amount to more than three hundred men, and an expedition against them was at once formed with the greatest secrecy. At six p.m. on the 2ist, the Cape Coast volunteers, a new corps formed by the Governor, and a body L 2 148 A HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST. of natives, were called into the Castle, ammunition was served out to them and to the garrison, and before seven o'clock the force marched. Through the treachery or imbecility of the guides, the expedition, which ought to have reached Dunkwa before daybreak next morning, took the wrong road, and long after sunrise was suddenly fired upon by a numerous force of Ashantis and Fantis, who were ambushed in dense bush on both sides of a narrow and rugged path. The advanced guard, consisting of a company of the 2nd West India Regiment, drove the enemy from their position, but the object of the expedition, the surprise of the Ashantis at Dunkwa, having failed, it was deemed advisable to fall back upon Anamabo. In this affair six men were killed, and Lieutenant Swanzy, of the Royal African Colonial Corps, and thirty-eight men wounded. This expedition to the bush, though it proved unsuccessful, created the greatest sensation. It was an entirely new departure, for never before had a British force quitted the forts to engage in any operations ; and the natives began to see that the Govern- ment was in earnest. In April Sir C. Macarthy proceeded to Accra to endeavour if possible to detach the Accras from the Ashanti alliance That people had suffered so much injustice at the hands o Amankwa when the Ashanti army was quartered at Accn in 1814, that the Governor found no difficulty in entering into an agreement with them, made with the concurrence o Mr. Richter, the Commandant of Christiansborg, to stoj supplying the Ashantis with munitions of war. Havim effected this, and formed the nucleus of a volunteer militia o ' the most intelligent natives, as he had already done at Cap Coast and Anamabo, he returned to the former place. He had scarcely left Accra when the good faith of th : Accras was put to the test. A party of Ashantis arrived : Christiansborg to purchase gunpowder, and were at one : attacked and dispersed by the garrison of James Fort an I the newly-formed militia. A day or two later a second bod ' of Ashantis arrived for the same purpose, arid being refuse 1 gunpowder by the inhabitants of Christiansborg, deliberate' r THE ACCRAS JOIN THE GOVERNMENT. 149 murdered a mulatto and four other natives. The whole town rose in arms to revenge this outrage ; fourteen Ashantis were killed and the remainder driven into the bush, where a few days later they were again attacked and forty killed. Henceforward the whole of that part of the sea-coast was closed to the Ashantis, who lost in the Accras one of tiie most active and serviceable of their allies. While these occurrences had been taking place a message had arrived from Kumassi to the Dutch Governor of Elmina, in which the King thanked him for his past friendship, informed him that Sir Charles Macarthy was " wrong in his palaver/' and advised that Cape Coast Castle should be enlarged, as he intended to .drive the English into the sea. He also recommended that the latter should arm all the fish in the sea, for all would be of no avail against the army he intended sending against them. Nothing, however, im- mediately took place, and in the middle of May Sir Charles Macarthy sailed for the Gambia, where 'he had, six years before, founded the colony of Bathurst on the Island of St. Mary. When the Government assumed the control of the forts on the Gold Coast, the only regular troops in West Africa were five companies of the 2nd West India Regiment, which were divided between Sierra Leone, the Isles de Los, and the Gambia. There had formerly been serving in West Africa a regiment denominated the Royal African Corps, consisting of six companies of white troops and three of black, and which was a disciplinary corps as far as the whites were concerned ; that is to say, the men were all of bad character, and had been sent to serve in its ranks as a punishment. The habits of these men were not such as to enable them to resist the attacks of the climate ; in one year half the European troops in Sierra Leone died, and this dreadful mortality induced the Government in 1819, when Goree and Senegal were restored to France, and a reduction of the West African garrison could be effected, to withdraw all the European soldiers from the coast. The white com- panies of the Royal African Corps were sent to the Cape 150 A HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST. of Good Hope, the black companies were disbanded, and the left wing of the 2nd West India Regiment was brought from Jamaica to garrison the West Coast settlements. So long as these consisted only of Sierra Leone and the Gambia this force was sufficient; but when the control of the Gold Coast was assumed, a larger force became necessary. Sir C. Macarthy had, as we have seen, formed the soldiers of the late African Company of Merchants into a black corps of three companies, but these men were chiefly natives of the Gold Coast, and in view of the threatened hostilities with Ashanti, he asked that the Europeans of the late Royal African Corps might be sent back from the Cape of Good Hope to join the Royal African Colonial Corps of Light Infantry, and that recruiting might be carried on in England to raise that corps to a strength of one thousand men. The Government seem to have acquiesced in this complete reversal of their declared intention not to employ white troops in the pestilential West African climate, without hesitation ; and, in April, 1823, two companies of white soldiers arrived from South Africa. Thus on the eve of the outbreak of hostilities, the force on the Gold Coast consisted of one company of the 2nd West India Regiment, which Sir C. Macarthy had brought down with him from Sierra Leone, and five companies (two white and three black) of the Royal African Colonial Corps, the whole amounting, to not more than five hundred men. CHAPTER XIII. 1823 1824. The Ashanti invasion Expedition to Essikuma The Ashantis enter Wassaw Sir C. Macarthy advances to meet them Defeat and death of Sir Charles Macarthy at Assamako Escape of Captain Ricketts Movements of Major Chisholm's force Sekondi burned A camp formed on the Prah Palaver with the Ashantis at Elmina Release of Mr. Williams His narrative. IN June, 1823, the long- threatened invasion took place, a force of three thousand Ashantis crossing the Prah at Prahsu* on the 4th of that month. Major Chisholm, who was administering the Government, at once sent Captain Laing with the whole of the troops, and a large native contingent from Cape Coast and Anamabo, to meet them, and at the approach of this force the Ashantis retired. The movement of this large body of men seems to have convinced the chiefs of Fanti that the Government seriously intended to resist the Ashanti advance ; and Appia, chief of Adjumako, first, and subsequently most of the other Fanti chiefs, renounced their allegiance to Ashanti, and sent offers of assistance to Major Chisholm. Kwasi Amankwa, chief of Essikuma, refused, however, to join the English, and Captain Laing destroyed his town, after which he returned to Cape Coast. On July 28th a second Ashanti force crossed the Prah, and it being reported that it had orders to make its way to Elmina, Captain Laing marched to Yankumassi Fanti,t * Prahsu Prah water. f Yankumassi "Joined to Kumassi." 152 A HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST. twenty- four miles from Cape Coast, to dispute its progress. Here he remained encamped for some time, and, no enemy appearing, then withdrew to Dunkwa. In the middle of August, Kwasi Amankwa, who, with the assistance of the Ashantis, had reoccupied Essikuma, was attacked by the Fanti allies, and again driven away. A few days later, however, he again advanced, strongly reinforced by a body of Ashantis, and attacked the allies. As soon as the news of this reached him, Captain Laing marched from Dunkwa to the assistance of the Fantis, and, after a long and fatiguing march, reached Adjumako on the 2Oth. Next morning he marched to Essikuma and arrived there just as the Ashantis had succeeded in taking it after a sharp engagement. The appearance of the troops on the scene caused the Ashantis to abandon the place in great disorder and without any resistance, but not without massacring all the prisoners who had fallen into their hands, whose bodies were found still warm. The approach of evening prevented the troops from following in pursuit, but early next morning they moved against the Ashanti camp, which was taken by surprise, and abandoned by the enemy in such haste, that they left their dinners cooking on their fires, and the ground covered with arms and baggage. Instead of following up the retreating enemy, as they were directed to do, the Fantis stayed to plunder the camp, so that the Ashantis retired unmolested. Touch of them was completely lost, and after a few days, during which several unsuccessful efforts to discover their whereabouts had been made, Captain Laing returned to Cape Coast with the regular troops, leaving a force of Anamabo volunteer militia and Fanti levies at Mansu, and another, composed of Cape Coast volunteer militia and levies, at Jukwa. This latter post, situated about eighteen miles to the north-west of Cape Coast, was designed tc prevent the Ashantis from obtaining arms and ammunition from Elmina. On November 28th, 1823, Sir Charles Macarthy returnee to the Gold Coast, bringing with him a third white company of the Royal African Colonial Corps, that had been raisec THE ASHANTJS ENTER WASSAW. 153 an England. A few days after his arrival he inspected the -camp at Jukwa, and in the following month visited Anamabo, where Appia, chief of Adjumako, and other chiefs came down to meet him. From Anamabo he proceeded to the 'Camp at Mansu, where he entered into an offensive and defensive alliance with the King of Mankassim, and engaged that no peace should be made with Ashanti without the concurrence of the Fanti chiefs ; a stipulation which the latter, having in mind Colonel Torrane's cowardly surrender of Tchibbu in order to obtain favourable terms for the Company, now exacted for self-protection. Towards the end of December, it having been ascertained that a third, and much larger, Ashanti army had crossed the Prah, and was rapidly advancing to the coast in twelve divisions, Captain Laing was ordered to march to Assin with the Fanti levies, and the Governor with the regular troops proceeded to Jukwa, where a body of some two -thousand men was concentrated by January 4th, 1824. On the 6th, Sir Charles Macarthy sent Major Chisholm with the regulars, and a proportion of the native levies, to form a camp at Ampensasu, a village on the Prah some eighteen miles north of Jukwa; and when, on the 8th, news was received at Jukwa that the Ashantis had entered western Wassaw, Sir C. Macarthy decided to go to Wassaw with the force that still remained with him, and to leave Major Chisholm at Ampensasu to await further orders. This decision was strongly but vainly combated by the King of Jukwa and the Cape Coast chiefs, and on the morning of the Qth, the Governor, with less than half his available force, made a first march to Bansu,* a village seventeen miles from Jukwa, where, owing to the difficulty experienced in obtaining carriers for the supplies, they did not arrive till evening. Sir Charles Macarthy committed the too common mistake of underrating his enemy. He had with him a Fanti company of the Royal African Colonial Corps, vOnly eighty strong, under Ensign Erskine ; one hundred and * Ban fence, or boundary ; Su water. 154 A HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST. seventy Cape Coast Volunteer Militia, a corps but recently embodied, and officered by merchants of Cape Coast; and two hundred and forty undisciplined natives under their own chiefs ; yet with this force of less than five hundred men he intended to oppose the advance of an unknown number of Ashantis, inured to fighting and flushed with victory. He was accompanied by Captain Ricketts, 2nd West India Regiment, who acted as his brigade major; Ensign Wetherell of the same corps, who was his private secretary ; Mr. Williams, Colonial Secretary ; Surgeon Beresford Tedlie, and two West India soldiers, his orderlies. The force remained halted at Bansu during January loth, and on the nth marched to Himan,* a village on the Prah. The carriers who had been brought from Jukwa having deserted, the greatest difficulty was found in transporting the munitions and supplies. The women of the villages passed through on the march were impressed for this service but numbers of them, when they had the opportunity, thre\\ down their loads in the bush and ran off. On the morning of the 1 2th the troops started for Deraboassi, a village seventeen miles lower down the Prah. The road wa: extremely bad, being in some places rendered almos impassable by swamps three or four feet deep, while ii others there were steep ascents to be climbed. Deraboassi wa: reached late in the day, and early next morning the foro commenced crossing the Prah in eight small canoes, onb sufficiently large to contain two persons beside the canoe man. The Fanti company of the Royal African Colonia Corps having first crossed, the Governor advanced with 11 over an exceedingly bad road, to the village of Guah, leavin; the remainder of his men to follow; and next day th advance was continued to Assamako, where by three in th afternoon the whole body was assembled. It remaine . halted here to enable the natives of the neighbourhood t > come in, and on the i/th an order was sent to Majc * Chisholm to join with the force from Ampensasu. Th ; * Himan Chiefs Town. SIR C. MACARTHY ADVANCES TO MEET THEM. 155 letter conveying this order was unfortunately entrusted to- a native who was unacquainted with the country, and it was so delayed as not to arrive at its destination till the 22nd. The Denkeras, who, after having remained quiet since 1752, had now joined the allies, were, with the Wassaws, in full retreat before the advancing Ashantis, and Mr. Williams was sent to rally them, and announce that the Governor was at hand with reinforcements. They were found completely disorganised, and it was only with the greatest difficulty that they could be persuaded to halt and form a camp on the banks of the Adamansu, a small stream some twenty miles from Assamako. Captain Ricketts reached this spot on the morning of the 2Oth, with the company of the Royal African Colonial Corps and the militia, after a night spent in the bush under heavy rain. During the afternoon of the same day an alarm was given that the Ashantis were advancing, and the troops remained under arms for five hours exposed to torrents of rain ; but at nightfall, no enemy having appeared, and it being well known that the Ashantis did not make night attacks, they returned to their quarters. Early next morning Sir C. Macarthy arrived with a body-guard of two hundred men, who had been sent by Appia, chief of Adjumako. Kwasi Yako, chief of Assamako, an infirm old man who had to be carried on the heads of his slaves in a basket litter, also accom- panied him with his followers ; while two hundred Kommendas, and the carriers with the ammunition, were reported to be close behind. The Governor seems to have been of opinion that there was but a small force of Ashantis at hand, and that the main body was at the distance of two or three days' march ; and although the native allies and scouts asserted that the entire army was in front of him, he did not credit them, believing that they had invented the report in order to induce him to retire beyond the Prah, as the chiefs had already asked him to do. However, as some hostile body, large or small, was close at hand, the natives were told off for the positions they were to occupy in case of attack, but with such a force it was almost impossible to ensure orders being carried out. In fact the 156 A HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST body-guard which had been furnished by Appia, and whose sole duty was to protect the person of the Governor, at once left the spot where they had been posted, and took up a position on the extreme left, which they refused to quit, saying that they understood bush fighting and had now got a place that they liked. About two p.m. on February 2ist, the Ashantis, who are said to have exceeded ten thousand in number, and who were all concentrated instead of being dispersed, as Sir C Macarthy believed, advanced to within half a mile of the position on the Adamansu, blowing their horns and beating their drums. The Governor then ordered the band of the Roya African Colonial Corps, which had accompanied him, to pla} " God save the King/' and the bugles to sound, for he hac been so misinformed as to entertain the extraordinary belie that the greater part of the Ashantis only wanted an oppor tunity to desert their own people and come over to him. Th( Ashantis played in return, and this musical defiance was kep up for some time, after which a dead silence ensued. Thi was before long interrupted by the fire of the allied native upon the enemy, who had advanced and lined the oppo site bank of the river, here about sixty feet wide. Thi movement was executed with the greatest regularity, th Ashantis advancing in a number of different divisions unde their respective leaders, whose horns sounded their calls ; an . upon hearing them, a native who had been in Kumassi wa ; able to name nearly every Ashanti chief with the army. The action now commenced on both sides with grec : vigour, and for about an hour neither side could claim an r advantage. But about four o'clock it began to be rumoure I that the allied natives had expended all their ammunitio: . The ordnance storekeeper, Mr. Brandon, who arrived aboi t this time, was at once applied to for more, but the reserv i ammunition had not yet come up. He had left Assamak ) with forty natives carrying ammunition, but on hearing tr i firing had unwisely hurried on, leaving them to follow ; ar 1 the carriers, who had been obtained almost by force, seeir j the Wassaws making off from the field, hastened to folio / THE BATTLE OF AS SAM A KO. 157 their example. A barrel of powder and one of ball, which were all that remained, were at once issued, but the Ashantis, perceiving that the fire slackened, commenced to cross the river, which though swollen from the recent rains was still fordable. At the same time, in pursuance of their usual tactics, they despatched a considerable body of men to out- flank the allied force and threaten its line of retreat ; and soon they closed in from all directions. The Wassaws had aban- doned the field already, and Sir C. Macarthy, who had him- self been wounded, seeing that all was lost, retired to where Kwadjo Tchibbu, King of Denkera, was still fighting bravely, surrounded by his people. On joining the King of Denkera Sir Charles wished to sound a retreat, but not a bugler could be found, every man of the Royal African Corps having joined his company in the action. It was impossible to see far in the dense bush r and only a few wounded men were got together. A small brass field-piece, which had arrived during the battle, and had been flung down still lashed to the poles on which it had been carried, was untied, some powder was obtained from the King of Denkera, and the piece, loaded with musket- balls, fired towards the enemy, to check, if possible, their advance ; but it only served to draw them in that direction, and they immediately rushed forward and killed the two- West India soldiers. The Governor now left the King of Denkera, and Captain Ricketts, suddenly missing him, was about to follow, when a general discharge of musketry was poured in from the bush close at hand, and he was swept away in the rush of fugitives. Despairing of joining the Governor, Captain Ricketts, followed by Mr. De Graft, lieutenant in the militia, and some wounded men, endeavoured to force a way through the bush to where the King of Denkera, though retreating, was still keeping up a fire and presenting a front to the victorious Ashantis. At this moment a Wassaw man who was running by was seized by a militia sergeant, and offered a reward if he would guide the party through the bush. A silver whistle and chain were given him by Mr. 158 A HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST. De Graft, and he led the way, one of the party holding him fast. He led them up a small stream, and then some distance along its banks, the enemy all the time scouring the bush so closely that they were several times obliged to halt and hide themselves. At last, it having become so dark that they could scarcely see each other, the guide ordered a halt, saying that it was impossible to proceed till the moon rose. The exulting shouts and cries of the Ashantis, and their attempts to sound the musical instruments they had captured, were distinctly heard at a distance of a few hundred yards ; and the fugitives cowered in the darkness of the bush, momentarily expecting discovery and death. At about midnight the moon rose, and the small party directed by their guide, commenced cutting a path through the bush. With the exception of a short interval between the setting of the moon and the rising of the sun, the> continued this work until three o'clock in the next afternoon when they hit upon a path leading to Assamako. The) had proceeded some little distance along this when the) perceived a party of Ashantis in front. They at once hastened back, and, the guide having fled, turned up ; narrow path to their right. A short distance along this the} fell in with a party of some fifty Wassaws, who reportec that there were some Ashantis further on, and that the} themselves had turned back in the hope, now that th< Ashantis were plundering in every direction, of being abl to recover some of their women and children, who had beei carried off" from their villages. Captain Ricketts's part; joined these men, and about nightfall the whole penetrate< some way into the bush, and halted on a small island in th midst of a swamp, in crossing which Captain Ricketts los one of his shoes. In the middle of the night two Ashanti; thinking it was a party of their own people, came into thei midst ; and the Wassaws, after extracting from them a the information they could give, immediately cut thei throats. At dawn they struck into a path that led toward . the Prah, and after a slight skirmish with a small party c ' Ashantis, reached at nightfall a deserted village on th : ESCAPE OF CAPTAIN R1CKETTS. 159 banks of that river. At this place they were obliged to halt for the night, there being only one small broken canoe, that would scarcely float, with which to cross the river. During the day's march the Wassaws had found several of their women and children in hiding in the bush. Several children were also found with their brains dashed out, and others in a dying condition where they had been cast away ; for the Ashantis had compelled the women to throw away their infants, in order that they might the more easily carry their plunder. Next morning at daybreak, the whole party crossed the Prah, on the bank of which two European soldiers of the Royal African Colonial Corps met Captain Ricketts, and informed him that they belonged to the advanced guard of Major Chisholm's force, which was marching to join the Governor. Fainting from hunger " and exhaustion, and with his feet torn and bleeding, Captain Ricketts was unable to proceed further ; but the two men constructed a litter of the branches of trees and carried him to a small village, where before long Major Chisholm arrived. Thus terminated the disastrous expedition into the Wassaw country, which was one of the rashest and most ill-conceived schemes imaginable. Sir C. Macarthy was crushed by overwhelming numbers, and the failure of ammunition at a critical moment turned defeat into disaster. The engagement is generally known as the battle of Assamako, though, as a matter of fact, the struggle took place on the banks of the Adumansu,* some twenty miles from that town. As has already been stated, the letter sent by Sir C. Macarthy to Major Chisholm on January r/th did not reach him until the 22nd; a second letter, written on the 2 1st, and containing the most pressing orders for him to join with his whole force immediately, actually arriving two hours earlier. The whole of the 23rd, however, was occupied in crossing the Prah, five miles from Ampensasu, only one canoe being available, and at nightfall the force was still at a village on * Adu-man-su the water, or river, of Ada's town. 160 A HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST. the river. Here Major Chisholm heard that an engagement had taken place, but could not learn the result, and next day was pushing on with all haste, when he met Captain Ricketts- and learned the full extent of the disaster. Sir Charles Macarthy's force being entirely dispersed or destroyed, and his own being inadequate to cope with the victorious enemy, who, he imagined, would advance upon Cape Coast by rapid marches, Major Chisholm, on the 25th, commenced to retreat thither. An hour after the march had begun, Captain \J Estrange, of the Royal African Colonial Corps, dropped dead from fatigue and exposure. The troops halted for the night at a deserted village, marched through Effutu shortly after noon next day, and arrived at Cape Coast in the evening. In Cape Coast was found Captain Laing, who, agreeably with his instructions, had advanced some thirty miles into Assin ; but hearing of the defeat of Assamako, prudently retired, bringing back in safety the whole of his force. Contrary to expectation, the Ashantis had made nc attempt to follow up their success, and had not even crossed the Prah. In fact, such is not the Ashanti mode of waging war. After a victory they usually remain halted for some weeks, overrunning and plundering the surrounding country and destroying the villages and plantations ; and when the} do finally advance, it is in a very leisurely manner. Ever} exertion was now made to assemble a force sufficient tc oppose the enemy ; but the effect of the defeat of Assamak( was soon visible in the excuses made by the different chief: to avoid taking the field, most of them bitterly regretting that they had been induced to take up arms at all. How ever, on' February ,5th, Captain Laing marched from Cap' Coast to Jukwa with a detachment of the Royal Africai Colonial Corps, and a small party of Fantis in all som foyr hundred men ; and being joined in the course of the wee! by some six hundred more natives, he was ordered to mov to Kommenda, where Major Chisholm himself proceeded o the 1 5th. The object of this movement was to punish the inhabitant SEKONDI BURNED. 161 of Dutch Sekondi for an attack made, on January 25th, on Captain Woolcomb and some officers of H.M.S. Owen Glendower, who had landed to gain intelligence concerning the battle. Two marines and a Kruman had been killed and several wounded on that occasion, and the Dutch Sekondis had also murdered several wounded men who had escaped from the field of Assamako. On February i6th the force was embarked on board H.M. ships Bann and Owen Glendower, but owing to contrary winds and a strong current, did not reach Dutch Sekondi till the following afternoon. It was at once disembarked, the town, which was immediately aban- doned by the inhabitants and a party of some four hundred Ashantis, was set on fire and destroyed, and the force re- turned to Kommenda the same night. The Ashantis, who were now ascertained to be some fifteen thousand in number, were still at Assamako, but it was reported that they intended advancing on March 1st. The Accra Militia, under Captains Hansen and Bannerman, having joined Captain Laing at Kommenda, and thereby brought his force up to a total strength of six thousand men, he was ordered to take up a position on the Prah, in order to dispute the expected passage of the enemy; but before this movement could be effected, Captain Laing was invalided to England, and the command of the native force devolved upon Captain Ricketts. That officer posted the detachment of the 2nd West India Regiment, under Lieu- tenant Macarthy, at Deraboassi, on the direct route from Assamako to Kommenda, distributed some of the native levies in other villages along the Prah, and proceeded with the bulk of his force to the mouth of that river, where he encamped. The 1st of March passed without the enemy making any appearance, and the continued inaction was beginning to affect the morale of the native levies, whose chiefs were urgent in their entreaties to be allowed to cross the river and attack the enemy, saying that their men would lose their courage if they waited much longer. A forward movement, however, formed no part of the present plan of operations, and the chiefs were informed that they must M 1 62 A HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST. wait. On March loth, Major Chisholm being seriously ill, Captain Ricketts, the second in command, was recalled to Cape Coast, and Captain Blencarne, of the Royal African Colonial Corps, took command of the force distributed along the Prah. While affairs were in this condition, the Ashantis plunder- ing Wassaw, and the allied natives losing heart in en- forced idleness awaiting the expected attack, Governor Last, the Dutch Director-General, who had recently arrived at Elmina from Holland, wrote to inform Major Chis- holm that some Ashanti messengers had arrived at El- mina, and that they wished to hold a palaver with the English. Captain Ricketts was accordingly sent from Cape Coast, and had a meeting with the Ashanti messengers, and with Atjiempon, their resident ambassador at Elmina. In the course of the conference which took place, the messengers declared that they were authorised to say that the King had not sent his army to fight against the white men, but to capture Kwadjo Tchibbu, King of Denkera, Awusucu, chief of Tshiforo, or Tufel, and Annimelli, King of Western Wassaw, who had made war against him, their sovereign. They added that if these three men were delivered up, the Ashanti army would immediately return home, but that they had special orders from the King to take Kwadjo Tchibbu, even should he be locked up in Cape Coast Castle. The reason the capture of the King of Denkera was sc insisted upon was as follows : The Ashanti King, suspecting that he was meditating a rebellion, had inveigled him to Ku massi, where he was kept a prisoner for some time, until, bein< informed privately that it was intended to put him to death he contrived to bribe some Ashanti captains and escape On returning to Denkera, he at once proclaimed war agains . Ashanti, in which he was joined by his neighbours the King ; of Tufel and Western Wassaw ; and having taken prisoner ; some Ashantis who were working in the Denkera gold mine , he sent them to Kumassiwith a message to the King that h > captains were not very trustworthy persons, since for gol I PALAVER AT ELM IN A. 163 they had allowed him to escape. This charge created great excitement in the capital, and the whole of the assembled Ashanti captains, after denying the accusation, swore by the King's head, a most sacred oath, that they would follow and bring back to the capital their accuser, even should he seek protection within the walls of Cape Coast. It was the army despatched with this object that had entered Wassaw and defeated Sir C. Macarthy. The reply of Captain Ricketts to the Ashanti messengers was unfortunately ambiguous. Instead of at once declaring that the British Government would never treacherously sur- render chiefs who had stood by it in the hour of need, he contented himself with affirming that it was not the wish of the King of England to make war upon any of the natives of Africa, and that if the Ashantis wished for .peace it could be at once effected, provided that properly accredited ambas- sadors were sent for that purpose. The Ashanti messengers interpreted this speech as meaning that no difficulty would be made about surrendering the three chiefs, so on their part they promised that their army should remain stationary until ambassadors could arrive at Elmina to arrange a peace, and asked that orders might be given to the troops and allied natives not to attack the Ashantis. To this Captain Ricketts agreed, and the meeting broke up. As a proof of their friendly intentions, the Ashantis now surrendered Mr. Williams, the Colonial Secretary, who had been captured by them at Assamako ; but unable to deny themselves the satisfaction of a triumphant procession before the inhabitants of Elmina, they led him naked through the streets, with his hands tied behind him, before giving him up to Governor Last. From Mr. Williams's account it appeared that he had left the battlefield with Sir Charles Macarthy, Mr. Buckle, and Ensign Wetherell, and after proceeding a short distance along the path to Assamako, had been suddenly attacked by a party of the enemy. At the first fire one of Sir C. Macarthy 's arms was broken, and almost immediately afterwards he M 2 164 A HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST. received a wound in the breast and fell. At the same time Mr. Williams received a ball in the thigh and fell fainting, the last thing he remembered seeing being Ensign Wetherell, who was lying wounded close to the Governor, cutting with his sword at the enemy as they were tearing off Sir Charles's clothes. When he recovered his senses he found that some Ashantis were trying to cut off his head, and had already inflicted one gash on the back of his neck. Fortunately, at this moment an Ashanti trader, to whom Mr. Williams had been able to show some kindness at Cape Coast, came up, and, recognising the prisoner, ordered his life to be spared. Close at hand were the headless trunks of Sir C. Macarthy, Mr. Buckle, and Ensign Wetherell. Mr. Williams was marched as a prisoner to Assamako, where the Ashanti army was encamped. During the day he was kept under a thatched shed, and every night he was locked up in a small room with the heads of the Governor, Mr. Buckle, and Ensign Wetherell, which, owing to some peculiar process, were in a perfect state of preservation. The Governor's head in particular presented nearly the same ap- pearance as when he was alive. The only sustenance allowed the prisoner during his captivity was as much snail soup every morning and evening as he could hold in the palm of his hand ; and, with a refinement of cruelty, the Ashantis ; whenever they beheaded any of their prisoners, compelled him to sit on one side of their large war drum while the heads were struck off on the other. The Ashantis had intended sending Mr. Williams to Kumassi, and as he was not abk to walk, on account of the musket-ball in his thigh, the} endeavoured to force it out by tying strings tightly rounc the leg, above and below the wound. This treatment, whil< it caused the prisoner the most excruciating pain, entire!} failed in its object, and Mr. Williams was in daily expectatioi of being put to death, when he received the welcome new that they were going to send him to Elmina. During hi captivity he learned that Mr. Jones, a merchant and captai of militia, who had fallen into their hands, had been sacrifice LOSSES AT ASSAMAKO. 165 to one of their gods, because he had received five wounds. Mr. Raydon, captain in the militia, had also been brutally murdered because, when stripped naked and deprived of his boots, he had been unable to keep up with his captors. The losses sustained by the regulars and militia engaged in the battle of Assamako, were now ascertained to have been as under : KILLED. Officers. Brigadier-General Sir Charles Macarthy. Ensign Wetherell ) e r> r j m JT t 2no - West India Regiment. Surgeon Beresford Tedlie 3 J. S. Buckle, Esq., Colonial Engineer. Captain Heddle ^ ~ . T Merchants holding Commissions in the Captain Jones V ^A/T-I-- ^ V . V. j Cape Coast Militia. Captain Raydon J Captain Robertson, Cape Coast Volunteer Company. Mr. Brandon, Ordnance Store-keeper. Men. 2nd West India Regiment 2 Royal African Colonial Corps 41 Royal Cape Coast Militia 8r Royal Volunteer Company ... ... ... ... 54 178 WOUNDED. Officers. Captain Ricketts, 2nd West India Regiment. Ensign Erskine, Royal African Colonial Corps. Mr. Williams, Colonial Secretary. Men. Royal African Colonial Corps 17 Royal Cape Coast Militia 58 Royal Volunteer Company 14 89 The brunt of the day had been borne by the regulars and militia, who in consequence had suffered severely. The 166 A HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST. Royal African Corps had 58 killed and wounded out of a total of 80, the Cape Coast Militia 139 out of I/O, and the Volunteer Company 68 out of 76. The loss sustained by the native levies was never ascertained, but it was probably not very heavy, as the whole of them, except the Denkeras under Kwadjo Tchibbu, quitted the field early in the day. The Denkeras fought bravely and suffered a considerable loss. CHAPTER XIV. 1824. Effect of the Elmina palaver on the natives Retreat from the Prah Defeat at Dompim A camp formed at Beulah Action at Effutu The Ashantis advance upon Cape Coast Cape Coast attacked Withdrawal of the Ashantis Condition of the town Outrage by the Elminas. THE ambiguous language used by Captain Ricketts to the Ashanti messengers at Elmina soon produced its natural results, for the palaver had been conducted openly, and the matter discussed was of such vital importance to the native allies, that everything that had been said was soon known and commented upon. It soon became commonly believed that the Government intended purchasing a shameful peace by delivering to their barbarous foes Kwadjo Tchibbu and the two other chiefs who had been demanded, and unfortu- nately the recollection of a former disgraceful surrender only tended to confirm the natives in their belief. This belief was further strengthened by the fact that Captain Blencarne, who had at last yielded to the importunities of the chiefs, and had fixed a day for crossing the Prah and attacking the enemy, was now obliged to cancel this order, in consequence of the engagement to abstain from hostilities made by Captain Ricketts with the Ashanti messengers. The native chiefs, conceiving themselves about to be abandoned by the English, now decided to attack the Ashantis by themselves, and it was in vain that Captain i68 A HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST. Blencarne strove to dissuade them. On the morning of March 24th, they crossed the river about seven thousand strong, leaving Captain Blencarne with only the regulars, militia, and a party of Accras, and commenced cutting paths towards the enemy's camp. The Ashantis, of course, re- garded this advance as a breach of the engagement to suspend hostilities, and moving from Assamako, appeared in force on the banks of the Prah opposite Deraboassi. As they appeared to be preparing to cross at this point, the regulars and militia were moved there, and an exchange of shots across the river took place daily. By a chance shot fired in this way, Ensign Erskine was one morning wounded in the thigh and completely disabled, while sitting in a hut near the river bank. For eight days the native levies who had crossed the river continued cutting paths through the bush towards the Ashanti camp, and though Captain Hutchinson, of the Anamabo militia, was specially sent by Major Chisholm to assure them that the English would never consent to make peace by surrendering the three chiefs, they persevered in their design. On the night of the ninth day, however, their courage failed them. The Wassaws, who were on the ex- treme left, deserted their post in the darkness, and swam across the river ; and this being discovered at daybreak, the whole native force, seized with a disgraceful panic, fled across the Prah with such precipitation that two thousand muskets and nearly all the ammunition were lost, and several men drowned. As they landed on the left bank they dispersed in every direction, making their way to their homes, and the native force ceased to exist. The Ashantis, who had been alarmed by the noise made by the panic-stricken natives in their flight, no sooner ascer- tained what had taken place than they prepared to follow in pursuit ; and Captain Blencarne, being left with a mere hand- ful of men, retired on April 2nd through Effutu to Cape Coast. On the way he met Kwadjo Tchibbu, at the village of Bansu, and it was only with the utmost difficulty, and after giving the most solemn pledges that neither he nor DEFEAT AT DOMPIM. 169 any of his family would be surrendered to the Ashantis, that he could persuade the chief to accompany him to Cape Coast. On April loth, Major Chisholm ordered Captain Blen- carne to move out and form a camp at Effutu. He was followed by the King of Denkera and Appia, chief of Adjumako, with their people, and these chiefs, at the request of Captain Blencarne, took up a position near the village of Dompim,* some twelve miles beyond Effutu, and close to -a stream from which the enemy, who had now moved from the Prah, obtained their water. The two loyal chiefs fired -on several Ashantis who came down to the stream, upon which some of the enemy shouted from the dense bush that " they would soon see who was master," and on the morning of the 25th the Denkeras and Adjumakos were attacked in force. The -allies fought well, and, when the centre of the Ashanti line fell back, they conceived that they had won the day. But it was only a stratagem of savage warfare, for as the allies pushed after the retreating centre, the Ashanti flanks wheeled in upon them, and, attacking them on both sides, threw them into confusion. The slaughter was immense, and only a small proportion of the allies escaped from the field. Appia, who had become separated from his men, was missing for several days, but at last, when all hope had been nearly abandoned, he was found in a starving condition in the bush. He was carried to Cape Coast, where small-pox was raging, and there this brave and loyal chief unfortu- nately fell a victim to that disease. Captain Blencarne at Effutu, having heard the firing, had marched to the assist- ance of the allies, but finding them defeated and dispersed, and the Ashantis busily engaged in cutting paths towards Effutu, ordered a retreat to Cape Coast. The Ashantis followed with unusual alacrity, and actually entered Effutu at one end as the troops were leaving it at the other, making prisoners of two European soldiers, and nearly capturing Ensign Mackenzie, who had just time to leap out of the window of a house and escape. * Dompim Place of bones. i;o A HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST. A few days later, the Ashantis having made no furthe:' advance, the troops were again ordered out and directed to encamp in the Government garden at the village of Beulah, about six miles from Cape Coast and three from Effutu, where the enemy had now fixed their quarters. After much difficulty in getting natives to the camp, a force of abou: six thousand men, including regulars and militia, wa> collected; and it being reported that the King of Ashanli was advancing in person with ten thousand men to reinforc j his army at Effutu, Major Chisholm ordered the allies t ) cross the Kakum, or Sweet River, which runs close to th* garden, and attack the enemy before the junction was effectec . Several days were wasted in a dispute between the allies a 3 to who was to take the right during the projected attacl . The Fantis insisted upon occupying that position, and th 2 Denkeras and others, knowing their cowardice, strongl r opposed such an arrangement, for the route to Fanti countr / lay to the right, and there was every probability that tt 2 Fantis would retreat there during the action ; while, if the / were placed on the left, they would be unable to run awa -, as the Elminas, the allies of Ashanti, would be behind ther i. The Fantis, however, would not yield, and succeeded i carrying their point by saying that if they were not allows i to take the right they would return home without fightin r t . This being settled, the force was told off to its various po< - tions, and each body commenced cutting its way throu^ h the thick bush to the enemy, now about two miles off. On May iSth, Lieutenant-Colonel Sutherland, of tl e 2nd West India Regiment, arrived from Sierra Leon ;, bringing with him forty men of his corps, which was all th it could be spared from the garrison of Sierra Leone. I e assumed the government of the Gold Coast, and on the 19 h proceeded to the camp at Beulah ; but finding the paths o the enemy's position were almost completed, and not wishi g to deprive Major Chisholm of the honour of the comma d in the action he had planned and which was about to ta :e place, he returned to Cape Coast to forward some necesss y supplies. On the morning of the 2ist every available m .n ACTION AT EFFUTU. 171* from the garrison of Cape Coast was despatched to Beulah, the marines from the men-of-war in the roadstead being landed to garrison the Castle and towers, and at one in the afternoon the battle commenced. The Ashanti position was on a hill covered with dense wood, the front of which had been cleared of bush for some considerable distance, so that, they had a full view of the troops and native allies as they advanced to the attack. The enemy fought bravely, keeping up a heavy fire from the thick bush, and making several attempts to turn the flanks of the allies ; but finding them- selves baffled at all points, after five hours' fighting, they retired from the position with great loss in killed and. wounded. The Denkeras behaved with their usual gallantry, and pursued the enemy into EfFutu.* The fruits of this engagement, the first since the be- ginning of the war in which the Ashantis had suffered any material reverse, were lost through the cowardice of the Fantis. As had been expected, at the very commencement of the battle, the whole Fanti contingent, three thousand strong, had fled without firing a shot. Nor was this the worst, for meeting in their flight the carriers from Cape Coast bringing up supplies and ammunition, they swept them back with them, reporting that the English were defeated ; and in consequence the troops and native allies found themselves at nightfall short of ammunition and without supplies. They were also much distressed for want of water, which was to have been sent to them, and there being no stream nearer than the Sweet River, they were * The British force engaged consisted of 2 officers and 99 men of the 2nd West India Regiment, 3 officers and 136 men of the Royal African Corps, and 470 militia of all ranks. The native auxiliary force consisted of 77 chiefs and some 5,000 men. The losses were as follows : Killed. Wounded. Regulars ... ... 9 ... ... 20 Militia 83 54 Native Levies 84 603 176 677 i?2 A HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST. constrained to fall back to Beulah. Although Major Chis- Iholm announced that he intended to advance next day anc renew the engagement, this retrograde movement so dis- heartened the natives, that during the night the whole ol them, with the exception of the Denkeras and a few mer from Cape Coast, dispersed; and Lieutenant-Colonel Suther land then ordered the troops to return to the Castle, a part} of observation, under Lieutenant Rogers, of the Royal Africar Colonial Corps, being left at Beulah. Two days after the action the Ashantis, who had beer joined by a strong body of Elminas, returned to their camj at Effutu, where on the 28th they were reinforced by th< army from Kumassi under Osai Okoto, for Osai Tuti Kwamina had died on January 2ist, the very day on whicl Sir Charles Macarthy had lost his life. Osai Okoto sen to Colonel Sutherland to say that the walls of the Castl were not high enough and should be made higher, and tha he ought to land all the guns from the men-of-war, as h< intended throwing every stone of the Castle into the sea but notwithstanding this bombast he did nothing for thre< weeks, during which time many of his foraging parties wer cut off by the native allies, who were readier at lying i ambush and firing volleys upon small bodies of unsuspectin stragglers than at fighting pitched battles. At last, on June 2 1 st, the Ashanti army advanced from Effut to within five miles of Cape Coast, driving in before it Lieu tenant Rogers's party of observation. Next day the enem moved considerably nearer, taking up a position which th *. smoke of their camp fires showed to be about three miles i extent; and on the day following they advanced so near tha ; they were distinctly seen in great force on the hills behin . Forts William and Victoria. An attack was considered irr - minent, and the whole of the male population of the town WE ; ordered out to repel it, while the women and children of Cap . k Coast, together with those who had fled into the town from th .- surrounding villages, rushed to the Castle for protection. Th. i crush at the gate, the wicket only of which had, through sorn ? mismanagement, been left open, was terrible ; several wome i ADVANCE UPON CAPE COAST. 173. were squeezed to death in the crowd, and the cries of the terrified people struggling for an entrance were pitiful be- yond expression. To add to the terrors of the moment a vast conflagration now broke out, and soon involved the whole town in destruction. In past years the natives had been suffered to encroach upon the open space in front of the Castle, and had built thereon several houses which actually overlooked and commanded the Castle ramparts. Colonel Sutherland had given orders for these to be pulled down, but the owners had neglected to comply, and when the near approach of the enemy was signalled from Fort William, there being no time for anything else to be done, he ordered four of them to be set on fire. The strong sea breeze caused the conflagration to spread, and the flames, springing from one thatched roof to another, soon destroyed the roofs and all the woodwork of nearly every house in the town. The mud walls, of course, could not be seriously damaged, and fortunately nearly all goods of value had already been moved into the Castle for safety ; but still the destruction of property, especially that of the poorer people who could not easily replace it, was very great. After all, the enemy made no attack on that day, but after advancing to within less than a mile of the Castle, halted, and without any apparent cause retired early next morning, the 24th, to Beulah. Many years afterwards the Ashantis ex- plained this movement by saying that the conflagration of the town dismayed them. They seem to have thought that the people had destroyed it in a frenzy of despair and were pre- paring to perish in its ruins, and that therefore it would be wiser to postpone the attack for another time. They remained stationary at Beulah until the end of the month, detaching strong parties to lay waste the country and destroy the neighbouring villages, which work they effected without molestation, for the garrison of Cape Coast consisted of less than four hundred men, one-third of whom were in hospital, and no dependence could be placed upon the native levies. On July 4th a welcome reinforcement of one hundred and one officers and men of the Royal African Colonial Corps 174 ^ HISTORY OF THE GOLD COAST. arrived in H.M.S. Thetis from England ; and two days later the garrison of Cape Coast was further increased by a re- inforcement of some five thousand natives, who had beer raised from Accra and the sea-coast towns to the eastward a. 1 far as the Volta. This contingent had been got together b} Major de Richelieu, the Danish Governor at Christiansborg who had recently arrived on the Gold Coast, and who through out exhibited the greatest friendliness to the British. He sent ' . Danish officer/Captain Peloson, in command of the force, am announced that he was assembling another strong force t< advance through Akim, commanded by himself, and create ; . diversion by threatening an invasion of Ashanti territory Unfortunately the reinforcement brought no munitions of wa with them, and the troops were already so badly supplie< with lead that all the waterpipes from the Castle, the lea< from the roofs of the merchants' houses, and every pevvte vessel that could be procured, had been taken for the castin; of bullets and slugs. On July /th the enemy again approached the town, an . -were seen defiling ever a hill by several paths in great fore : and moving towards a line of heights, where they took up . position. Near to the left of this position, at a spot wher > the bush had been cleared, the King pitched his tent, and th : Ashantis were so near that their movements could be easil - observed from the town. Some of them were wearing th j uniforms of the officers and men who had been killed t Assamako, and they displayed English, Dutch, and Danis i flags, together with others designed by themselves. Tr : allied natives were now ordered out to take up a position c i a line of hills opposite to those occupied by the Ashanti , and several skirmishes took place with small bodies of tl latter, who were busily engaged in cutting paths towards tl 2 town. On Sunday, the nth, the enemy were seen descendir * the hills in large masses soon after daylight, and formir r long lines in the valley that lay between the two opposin j positions. Shortly after noon they made a further advanc , and, being fired upon by some skirmishers, a general engag - ment ensued, and continued till dark, when the eneir .' CAPE COAST ATTACKED. 175 retired. During the action two of their camps were plundered