YAA ASANTEWA

Near the end of the 19th century, the British
exiled King Prempeh from the hinterlands of the
Gold Coast (present day Ghana), in an attempt to
take over. By 1900, still not gaining control, the
British sent a governor to the city of Kumasi, the
capital of the Ashanti, to demand the Golden
Stool, the Ark of the Covenant for the Ashanti
people.
The Golden Stool was the supreme symbol of the
sovereignty and the independence of the Ashanti,
a people who inhabited dense rain forests of
what is now the central portion of Ghana. The
governor in no way understood the sacred
significance of the Golden Stool, which according
to tradition, contained the soul of the Ashanti.
Nana Yaa Asantewa was present at the meeting
with the governor and chiefs. When the meeting
ended, and she was alone with the Ashanti chiefs,
she said: “Now I have seen that some of you fear
to fight for our king. If it were in the brave days
of old, the days of Osei Tutu, Okomfo Anoyke and
Opulu Ware, Ashanti chiefs would not sit down to
see their king taken away without firing a shot.
No white man could have dared speak to Ashanti
chiefs in the way the governor spoke to you
chiefs this morning.”
Nana Yaa Asantewa’s speech stirred the men.
She said, “If you men will not go forward, then we
the women will. I will call upon my fellow women.
We will fight the white men until the last of us
falls in the battlefields.”
The Ashantis, led by Nana Yaa Asantewa, fought
very bravely.