Ashanti-Fante War
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The Ashanti-Fante War (1806 - 1807) was fought between the Ashanti Confederacy and the Fante Confederacy of present-day Ghana.
The Ashanti Confederacy was a major African kingdom on the Gold Coast. Rivalry between the Ashanti and Fante was long held but grew much more serious in the beginning of 19th century. The British were usually allies of the Fante, and the Dutch of the Ashanti.
The war began when the Asantehene of the Ashanti charged some people with robbing graves. The Fante promptly gave refuge to the accused, who were people from Assin, and Osei Bonsu thus sent an army against the Fante. At Abora, four miles from Cape Coast, a battle was fought, in which the Ashanti were victorious. A British agent representing the African Company of Merchants at Cape Coast sheltered the accused grave robbers, whilst the Ashanti went on to attack the fort at Kormantine (Fort Amsterdam) of their old allies the Dutch. The British then tried to make friends with the Ashanti, and Colonel Torrane, who was in charge at Cape Coast, most treacherously handed an old and blind Assin king called Kwadwo Otibu to the Asantehene, although he knew the old man would be killed; which he was.
An oral agreement was then made between the British and the Asante that the latter should be recognized as the rulers of the Fante, except where a British fort existed. Torrane sold or gave away 2,000 of his former Fante allies, and the Asante victoriously marched first east along the coast and then north back to their capital. The Ashanti thus extended their dominions to the coast.
See also