Today In History: Exactly 86 Years Ago, The Golden Stool Was Returned To The Asante People And The Kingdom Restored

Exactly 86 Years ago today, on January 31st 1935, the Asante Kingdom was restored to it’s glory with the symbolic return of the Golden Stool, making King Osei Agyemang Prempeh II, the first Asantehene to use the title, ‘Otumfuor’.

After several prior wars with British troops, Ashanti was once again occupied by British troops in January 1896.

 In 1900 the Ashanti staged an uprising. The British suppressed the violence and captured the city of Kumasi. Ashanti’s traditional king, the Asantehene, and his counselors were deported.

The final 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. Ashanti was classed as a colony by conquest.

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.

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 the new dominion named Ghana under the Ghana Independence Act 1957.

In 1935, the Golden Stool, which had been lost to the British, after Asante lost the war, was finally returned to the Kingdom, signifying the return to glory of Asante.

The stool was used in the ceremony to crown Otumfuor Sir Osei Agyemang Prempeh II.

Source: GhanaFeed.Com