The Case study of Asante (today’s Ghana)

The impediments placed on villages 2 and 3 to form an alliance is deleted such that it will only be necessary to form an alliance if the benefit to allying is greater than remaining independent: ⁴⁷⁴

log (bL ) — ε — R + paL ≥ log (bL )

1−δ 1−δ

It is also possible that they do not wish to conquer the 1^st village because the utility provided by raiding village 1 is greater than conquering the village and doing nothing for all future periods: ⁴⁷⁵

log (bL ) — ε — R + paL ≥ log (1.5bL ) — ε − X

1−δ 1−δ

All three scenarios suggest several stylised facts. Effective demand (or an increase in slave prices) should produce smaller states with more slave raiding, greater ethnic diversity and more alliances for the purpose of raiding. Effective demand (or price increases) should also result in fewer defensive alliances and decreased production. Increases in the productivity of labour should increase state building (and as such, decrease raiding and ethnic diversity).⁴⁷⁶

The Asante were powerful enough to defend themselves against British invasion for over half a century. They were the largest and most powerful state in West Africa.⁴⁷⁷This model predicts that the slave trade disrupted state building and if this is in the affirmative, how come that Asante did grow and developed into such an impressive state during the height of the slave trade? In the words of Ivor Wilks: “The importance of Asante is most apparent from its sheer geographic extent. At the height of its power in the early 19^th century, Asante’s empire ... extended not only over all of present day Ghana with the exception of the far northwest, but also over large parts of what is now Ivory Coast and smaller parts of what is now Togo.” ⁴⁷⁸

What would have been the motivating factor here to conquer large territory during the slave trade? Part of the answer lies with the common Akan ancestry of the Asante.

According to the model, this would reduce the punishment for alliance, making its formation more likely. Asante did emerge out of an alliance of chieftaincies brought together to defeat Denkyira, the dominant power of the region in the late 17^th and early 18^th centuries.

According to Wilks, “Asante was not, then, a creation of an Asante tribe,... There was no Asante tribe. Asante was a creation of the Kumasis, Dwabens, Nsutas, and so forth, all of whom became Asantes under the new dispensation.”⁴⁷⁹ In this model, the alliance penalty was low enough to allow the formation of the Asante alliance for the purpose of conquest and slaving. This predicts that such an alliance was more likely to be successful if it was attempted before the rise in slave prices than began in the mid — 18^th century. Normally, the Akans could subdue the centrifugal political forces before the slave trade, but after the profitability of slave raiding, accelerated small differences could serve as a pretext for attack. The geographic largeness of Asante prompted the high value of labour on Asante land. Asante was interested in territorial expansion because of gold found in the land (a high value of b). All previous military campaigns followed this pattern.⁴⁸⁰ It would be recalled that the northern expansions beyond the gold fields, resulted not in annexation of territory but in tributaries, where local elites retained semi-autonomy if they made annual tribute payment to Asante, most often in captives.⁴⁸¹ But the model here predicts that Asante, though large enough, would have been larger in the absence of slave trade.

477 Ivor Wilks is the leading authority on Asante history.

478 Wilks, Ivor, One nation, many histories: Ghana past and present, Accra: Ghana Universities Press,1996, p. 27.

479 ibid. p. 28.

480 Wilks, Ivor, Asante in the nineteenth century: the structure and evolution of a political order, African studies series 13.

London, 1975, p. 39; Dumett, Raymond E., El Dorado in West Africa: the gold-mining frontier, African labour, and colonial capitalism in the Gold Coast, 1875-1900, Athens: Ohio University Press, 1998, p. 30.

481 ibid. Wilks, 1975, pp. 20-23.

The increases in the price of slaves influenced political expansion negatively and encouraged slave raiding. According to Wilks, “the campaign which destroyed the independent power of Asante`s neighbours to the north, south, east and west occurred for the most part in the half-century 1700-1750.”⁴⁸² It is believed that Asante’s expansion was halted after 1750 because the price of slaves started a sharp upward trend such that by the end of the 18^th century the price had increased by 50%.⁴⁸³ Based on this model Asante will expand towards the coast to raid for slaves in the villages along the coast, but that the coastal nations would not expand inland, but will instead focus on defending their territories because of low cost of transportation. This situation is called the “southern problem,’’ which encouraged war situations, and rebellion, and re-conquest were the order of the day. ⁴⁸⁴

The Dutch and English merchants interested in attaining peace trade to the coast in 1750s attempted to initiate a peace treaty between Asante and the coastal nations of Wassa, Twifo, Denkyira and Akyem for the purpose of acquiring slaves. But the peace plan failed. There were various attempts by the Asantes to conquer the coastal city of Accra from the Akyem, however the southern coastal nations were able to resist Asante’s aggression because the gold they had, gave them the resources they required to resist the attacks.⁴⁸⁵ The coastal nations also had a better position in the slave trade with the Europeans by virtue of their coastal proximity. This pattern of expansion to the coast, as adopted by the Asantes were the modus operandi of the entire Guinea Coast from the Gold Coast (i.e. Ghana) to the Bight of Biafra (southeast Nigeria).⁴⁸⁶

482 Wilks, Ivor, Asante in the nineteenth century: the structure and evolution of a political order, African studies series 13.

London, 1975, p. 18.

483 See Richardson, David, Prices of Slaves in West and West Central Africa: Towards an Annual Series, 1698-1807, Bulletin of Economic Research 43 (1), 1991, pp. 21- 56 for the annual British prices paid on the coast of Africa in the 18^th century; Miller, Joseph C., Slave Prices in the Portuguese Southern Atlantic, 1600-1830, In Africans in Bondage:

Studies in Slavery and the Slave Trade, 1986 for the prices paid by Brazilian slavers operating in Angola in the 18^th century. Both price series show a striking increase of some 400-500 percent in the second half of the 18^th century.

484 ibid. n. 482, pp. 26-28.

485 ibid. p. 28.

486 Many of the zones were sources of captives between Asante and the coastal states along the Gold Coast, between Dahomey and the coastal states along the Slave Coast and between the Aro network and the coastal trading towns in the Bight of Biafra. See Lovejoy, Paul, Transformations in Slavery: a history of slavery in Africa, Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 1983; Law, Robin, The Slave Coast of West Africa, 1550-1750: the impact of the Atlantic slave trade on an African society, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991; Oriji (2003).