Ashantee was a former British territory in West Africa belonging to the Gold Coast Colony, of which it formed a large inland portion, under a chief commissioner. The area is now called Ghana. It had an area about 20,000 sq. miles.
The Ashantees were renowned for making excellent cotton cloths, articles in gold, and good earthenware, tanleather, and sword-blades of superior workmanship. Ashantee used to form a kingdom, ruled despotically, human sacrifices and executions being common. The government was then taken under British rule, though native chiefs or kings still had some powers. The British first came in contact with the Ashantees in 1807, and hostilities continued on and off until 1826, when they were driven from the sea-coast. Immediately after the transfer of the Dutch settlements on the Gold Coast to Britain in 1872 - when the entire coast remained in British hands - the Ashantees reclaimed the sovereignty of the tribes round the settlement of Elmina. This brought on a sanguinary war, leading to a British expedition in 1874, in which Coomassie (Kumasi) was captured. In 1896 the country became a British protectorate. In 1900 a somewhat serious rebellion was put down by the British. Research Ashantee
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Gazetteer
Research Ashantee