Ashanti Diaspora

Scope of Project

This project is a sub-project of ... project. It represents the diaspora of the Ashanti people of Ghana, around the world.

Akan People

The Akan people are an ethnic group of West Africa predominantly in Ghana and the Ivory Coast. Ethnic Akans are the largest group in both countries and have a population of roughly 20 million people.

The Akan language (also known as Twi-Fante) is a group of dialects within the Kwa group of languages and is in the Atlantic–Congo group within the Niger-Congo phylum. Also included under the term "Akan" are the Bia languages (in which case it is common to speak of "Akan languages", as a group of languages).

Subgroups of the Akan proper include: Asante, Akuapem and Akyem (the Asante, Akuapem and Akyem dialects are together known as Twi), Agona, Kwahu, Wassa, Fante (Fanti or Mfantse: Anomabo, Abura, Gomua) and Brong. Subgroups of the Bia-speaking groups include: the Anyin, Baoulé, Chakosi (Anufo), Sefwi (Sehwi), Nzema, Ahanta and Jwira-Pepesa.

History

From the 15th century to the 19th century the Akan people dominated gold mining and trading in the region and, from the 17th century on, they were among the most powerful groups in west Africa.

The Third Anglo-Empire of Ashanti War.

This wealth in gold attracted European traders.Initially the Europeans were Portuguese but, eventually the Dutch and British joined in the quest for Akan gold. Groups such as the Benin Empire in modern day Nigeria and states in Central Africa would serve as intermediaries who waged wars on neighboring states in their geographic area to capture people and sell them as slaves to Europeans (Portuguese) who subsequently sold the enslaved people along with guns to Akans states in exchange for Akan gold. Akan gold was also used to purchase slaves from further up north via the Trans-Saharan route. The Akan purchased slaves in order to help clear the dense forests within Akanland. About a third of the population of many Akan states were enslaved people. The Akans went from buyers of slaves to selling slaves as the dynamics in Akanland and the New World changed. Thus, the Akan people played a considerable role in supplying Europeans with slaves for the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Ghana later apologized to the descendents of slaves for the role some of its people may have played in the slave trade.

Akan people, especially the Ashanti, fought against European colonists to maintain autonomy including many Anglo-Ashanti wars. the war of the Golden Stool, and other similar battles.

The Americas

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0195390644/?tag=newbooinhis-20

In his groundbreaking study of the Akan diaspora, Konadu demonstrates how this cultural group originating in West Africa both engaged in and went beyond the familiar diasporic themes of maroonage, resistance, and freedom. Between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, the Akan never formed a majority among other Africans in the Americas. But their leadership skills in war and political organization, efficacy in medicinal plant use and spiritual practice, and culture archived in the musical traditions, language, and patterns of African diasporic life far outweighed their sheer numbers. Konadu argues that a composite Akan culture calibrated between the Gold Coast and forest fringe made the contributions of the Akan diaspora possible. The book examines the Akan experience in Guyana, Jamaica, Antigua, Barbados, former Danish and Dutch colonies, and North America, and how those early experiences foreground the modern engagement and movement of diasporic Africans and Akan people between Ghana and North America. Locating the Akan variable in the African diasporic equation allows scholars and students of the Americas to better understand how the diasporic quilt came to be and is still evolving.

http://www.amazon.com/Freedoms-Given-Won-Afro-Brazilians-Post-Aboli...

Winner of the American Historical Association's Wesley-Logan Prize and the Association of Black Women Historian's Letitia Woods Brown Prize "An important, original, much-needed comparative study of post-emancipation Brazil." --Joao Jose Reis, Universidade Federal da Bahia "A deftly written analysis that goes well beyond most existing studies of slavery's legacy in the hemisphere. The author's candor is refreshing, and her use of interviews provides a major new source of evidence." --Robert M. Levine, author of Brazilian Legacies and Father of the Poor?: Vargas and His Times Freedoms Given, Freedoms Won is the first book-length study devoted to understanding the political life of urban Afro-Brazilians in the aftermath of abolition. It explores the ways Afro-Brazilians in two major cities adapted to the new conditions of life after slavery and how they confronted limitations placed on their new freedom. The book sets forth new ways of understanding why the abolition of slavery did not yield equitable fruits of citizenship, not only in Brazil, but throughout the Americas and the Caribbean. In Sao Paulo, Afro-Brazilians united against racial discrimination, giving rise to a vocal black press and numerous political groups. One of these became the first national civil rights organization and Brazil's only black political party. In Salvador, African identity prevailed over black identity, and social protest was oriented toward protecting the right to practice African-based cultural expressions such as candomble and capoeira. Of all the eras and issues studied in Afro-Brazilian history, post-abolition social and political action has been the most neglected. Freedoms Given, Freedoms Won sets the Afro-Brazilian experience in a national context as well situating it within the Afro-Atlantic diaspora through a series of explicit parallels, particularly with Cuba and Jamaica. Kim D. Butler is an associate professor of history in the Africana Studies department at Rutgers University.

1712, Apr. 7 - Caromantees [Ashanti/Fantee] Revolt in New York; seized guns, swords and hatchets and began setting fires and killing slavemasters. Kwako, one of the leaders, and twenty others were broken on the whell and burnt at a slow fire.

The Jamaican Maroons are descended from runaway slaves who established free communities in the mountainous interior of Jamaica during the long era of slavery in the island. African slaves imported during the Spanish period may have provided the first runaways, apparently mixing with the Native American Taino or Arawak people that remained in the country. Some may have gained liberty when the English attacked Jamaica and took it in 1655, and subsequently. For about 52 years, until the 1737 peace treaty with the British rulers of the island - which is still in force [1] - the Maroons stubbornly resisted conquest. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamaican_Maroons ).

Around 1728, Queen Nanny emerged as the primary general, leader, and obeah woman of the Windward Maroons, her reign extending until around 1740, shortly after the Maroons signed a peace treaty with the British. This period, particularly from 1728-1734, was representative of the Maroons in their greatest glory. (Cary 1970, p. 20) In order to understand the context of Queen Nanny's emergence as a central figure in Jamaican history, it is important to have rudimentary knowledge of Maroon history in Jamaica and an understanding of the specific African ethnic groups that influenced the Maroon identity. (Source: http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/43/282.html ).

Links

• Jamaican Family Search Genealogy Resource Library
• My Carib Roots
• The Modern-Day Maroons: A Genealogy site of the Welsh-Melville clan, including the six-plus related families
• Michael Craton (Craton, Michael) on Bookfinder.com
• FAMILY HISTORY OF JAMAICA, WEST INDIES
• WRITING IN NDYUKATONGO - A CREOLE LANGUAGE IN SOUTH AMERICA
• Maroon Societies and Creole Languages
• The Mother of Us All: A History of Queen Nanny, Chapter 1: Introduction, by Karla Gottlieb
• Nanny of the Maroons
• Jamaican Maroons
• Out Of Many Cultures: The People Who Came: The Arrival Of The Africans
• Ashanti Maroon(ed) in jamaica
• ASHANTI CULTURAL INFLUENCE IN JAMAICA
• Maroon Archaeology
• Review of Slavery, Atlantic Trade and the British Economy, 1660-1800, by Kenneth Morgan
• Slave Rebellion
• Leonard Parkinson, a Captain of Maroons During a Negro Insurrection in Jamaica, 1700s Posters
• The Akan Diaspora in the Americas, by Kwasi Konadu, Oxford University Press, 2010.
• Ashanti Group from Ghana installs NY Chief
• Nanny's Asafo Warriors: The Jamaican Maroons' African Experience