War of the Golden Stool or Yaa Asantewaa War | |||||||
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Part of the Anglo-Ashanti Wars | |||||||
![]() Typical fight in the forest, Anglo-Ashanti War of 1900 (Battles of the nineteenth century, 1901) | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
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Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Frederick Mitchell Hodgson James Willcocks |
Yaa Asantewaa Prempeh I | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
1,007 casualties | 2,000 casualties |
The War of the Golden Stool, also known as the Yaa Asantewaa War, the Third Ashanti Expedition, the Ashanti Uprising, or variations thereof, was a campaign in 1900 during the series of conflicts between the United Kingdom and the Ashanti Empire (later Ashanti Region), an autonomous state in West Africa that fractiously co-existed with the British and its vassal coastal tribes.
After several prior wars with British troops, Ashanti was once again occupied by British troops in January 1896.[1] In 1900 the Ashanti staged an uprising. The British suppressed the revolt and captured the city of Kumasi. Ashanti's traditional king, the Asantehene, and his counselors were deported.[1] The outcome was the annexation of Ashanti by the British so that it became part of His Majesty's dominions and a British Crown Colony with its administration undertaken by a Chief Commissioner under the authority of the Governor of the Gold Coast.[2] Ashanti was classed as a colony by conquest.[3][4][5][2] The Ashanti lost their sovereignty but not the essential integrity of their socio-political system. In 1935, limited self-determination for the Ashanti was officially regularized in the formal establishment of the Ashanti Confederacy.[6] The Crown Colony of Ashanti continued to be administered in a scheme with the greater Gold Coast but remained, nonetheless, a separate Crown Colony until it became united as part of the new dominion named Ghana under the Ghana Independence Act 1957.[7]