African Kingdoms

Akan (Africa)

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The pre-history of Africa contains a far longer period of human habitation than any other area on Earth, thanks to it being the cradle of humankind's evolution. Much of this pre-history involves a great deal of uncertainty in which small windows of opportunity to view events can be gained through archaeology. Even more recent prehistory is shrouded in uncertainty, requiring analysis and archaeology to help define it.

The general view is that the Akan people migrated into the southern edges of the forests of what is now Ghana from a broad band of territory on the southern edge of the Sahara Desert which is known as the Sahel. That migration took place around the eleventh century AD, during a period in which the kingdom of Old Ghana was dramatically weakened by a devastating conflict with the Almorivids.

There is a body of opinion which suggests that the Akan arrival was not a mass migration however. The view here is that this migration was a more gentle process, a general trickle of smaller groups - families - arriving into the area and already speaking a language which was generally similar to that of the locals.

When Old Ghana fell in AD 1237, the trading state of Bonoman (Bono Manso) was established by the Abron people. Created as early as the twelfth century this was located to the north of the River Beresu (Sene). Its territory lay immediately to the north of the later Asante kingdom. Bonoman fed off the subsequent gold boom in the region, pretty rapidly expanding the area under its control.

In various waves, Akan groups migrated away from Bonoman to found their own settlement areas which also based their prosperity on gold mining. They began clearing areas of the forest so that they could cultivate food crops, allowing their numbers to increase. Ga settlers to their immediate south were doing much the same.

Farming prospered, producing wealth in food, and some of the Akan communities in time coalesced into small states and minor kingdoms. At least two of these new kingdoms became prominent - those of Akwamu in the south and Denkyira in the central western area of Akan territory. A third state - Kwaaman - was the product of continued conflict between the other two. Today the Akan predominantly populate Ghana and Ivory Coast in West Africa, making up the largest grouping within each nation.

(Information by Peter Kessler, with additional information from Akwamu 1640-1750 - A Study of the Rise and Fall of a West African Empire, Ivor Willks, 2001, from the acclaimed documentary film series, Africa: A Voyage of Discovery with Basil Davidson, released in 1984, from A Historical Geography of Ghana, Kwamina B Dickson, from Encyclopaedia Britannica (Eleventh Edition, Cambridge (England), 1910), and from External Links: Ghana Web, and Encyclopaedia Britannica, and Akuapem, and World Statesmen.)

c.1400

Often claimed as a ruler of Old Ghana is Reidja Akba. Given the fact that the empire had been terminated almost two hundred years earlier, this is impossible. Instead he rules a swathe of small settlements in the Akwar region, but virtually nothing else about him is known.

c.1400 - 1415

Ruler of the small Akwar-area settlements.

c.1480 - 1500

The Akan state of Twifo-Heman is formed around 1480, one of the first to be created by the newly-arrived Akan people. However it soon fragments.

Akan people - photographed here around the beginning of the twentieth century - migrated into regions of modern Ghana from around the eleventh century AD, but probably in smaller family groups rather than as a single mass movement of people

Various subsequent clan states are subsequently formed by increasing numbers of immigrant Akan communities, with Denkyira becoming prominent in what is now central Ghana, and Akwamu in central southern Ghana. Another state which starts off small and insignificant is that of Kwaaman.