Fante, situated on the central section of the ‘Gold Coast’ (nowadays, the Central Region of Ghana), was one of the most important precolonial states of the Akan-speaking group, which also included Asante in the interior.Footnote 1 It was a significant participant in the supply of gold into the Atlantic trade in the seventeenth century, and became even more prominent in the slave trade in the eighteenth century, when its principal coastal port, Anomabo, was the main point of embarkation of slaves on the Gold Coast.Footnote 2 It was also a significant military power, engaging in expansionist wars, which extended its control over several neighbouring states.Footnote 3 But while the history of Fante in the eighteenth century has been the subject of a fair amount of academic study, including most recently by Rebecca Shumway, the seventeenth century has not attracted comparable attention.Footnote 4 This article seeks to redress this neglect, by an exploration of the nature and evolution of the internal political organization of Fante during this period. Beyond its intrinsic interest as a major state within a region that has been central to African historiography, Fante offers an illuminating case study of the functioning and development of a political system in the face of the opportunities and challenges presented by European commerce.
HISTORIOGRAPHY
Fante has commonly been represented as having a distinctive form of political organization, by comparison with many of its neighbours. This perception was already current among European observers in the eighteenth century. The Dutch official Willem Bosman in 1704 drew a distinction between forms of government in the coastal states on the Gold Coast, most of which were ‘kingdoms, governed by their respective Kings’, but four were characterized as ‘commonwealths’ (in Dutch, gemenebesten), as being ‘governed by some of the principal men amongst them’, one of the latter being Fante.Footnote 5
In modern scholarship also, the Fante polity has regularly been perceived as highly decentralized, although the usual contrast has been with Asante in the interior, rather than with other states along the coast. More specifically, it has often been characterized as a ‘confederacy’ or ‘federation’. In contemporary sources, it should be noted that this terminology does not seem to have been used with regard to Fante prior to the establishment of the ‘Fanti Confederation’ of 1868–73.Footnote 6 Earlier, one British observer in the mid-eighteenth century did use the term ‘federal union’ of the Fante, but this referred specifically to the relationship between the western (or ‘Borbor’) Fante and the eastern Fante, of the province of Ekumfi, who had by then become politically distinct. In fact, the term ‘federal union’ seems hardly appropriate to this case, since it was explicitly noted that the two groups had no common political institutions, each having its own ruling ‘Brafo and Curranteers’, the ‘union’ between them being a matter only of ‘manners, customs and religion’, more specifically the deference of both groups to the religious shrine of Nananom Mpow at Mankessim, the Fante capital.Footnote 7
There has been ambiguity about what is meant by this characterization of Fante as a ‘confederacy’ or ‘federation’. On the one hand, these terms have been used of the internal organization of the original Fante polity. Adu Boahen (1965 and 1974) described Fante in the seventeenth century as forming a ‘confederacy’ (or ‘federation’), whose component ‘states’ were practically ‘independent’; and Ray Kea (2000) as ‘a federation of … city-states’, which were ‘semi-autonomous’.Footnote 8 More commonly, however, the term ‘confederacy’ has been applied to the relations between Fante and the neighbouring groups brought under its control in the eighteenth century. Sammy Tenkorang (1964) referred to ‘the emergence of the Fanti Confederacy of States’ as occurring between 1708–11, with the Fante conquest of Asebu and Fetu to the west and Etsi to the north; while Kwame Daaku (1970) dated its establishment to 1715, when its ‘nucleus’ was created by the alliance of Fante with Fetu and Assin, to the north.Footnote 9 Boahen, in contrast, implicitly treated this expansion as the widening of an already existing ‘confederacy’.Footnote 10 There has been a lack of specificity, however, about how this wider ‘confederacy’ was institutionalized – if, indeed, it was. The recent study by Shumway (who herself prefers the term ‘coalition’, rather than ‘confederacy’) finds little evidence for any ‘confederal’ institutions, the association between the original Fante and neighbouring states comprising only ad hoc (and shifting) military alliances for specific purposes, sealed by ritual oaths, and underlain by shared reverence for the shrine of Nananom Mpow.Footnote 11
Attempts at historical explanation of Fante's decentralized structure have generally presented it as a deviation from a supposed norm of Akan political organization. Most influentially, Kwame Arhin (1966) argued that the pattern of ‘diffuse authority’ that characterized the Fante was a product of recent historical change, due to the impact of European trade and colonial rule. This had undermined the central authority of the rulers, whereas it was maintained in the Akan states of the interior, such as Asante.Footnote 12 However, although this is intuitively plausible, it is possible to posit alternative trajectories of change. The strong central authority of Asante was itself the product of a historical process. According to a common reading, its structure had originally been more decentralized, and effective central power established only from the mid-eighteenth century onwards; indeed, the original Asante state, as constituted at the beginning of the eighteenth century, has sometimes been characterized as a ‘confederacy’.Footnote 13
The pioneer historians Boahen and Daaku presented seventeenth-century Fante not merely as a decentralized, but as a dysfunctional polity, stressing its ‘weakness’ and ‘disunity’. They implicitly treated this as a new development, which had emerged (or at least become accentuated) in the latter half of the century. Both also hypothesized the establishment of a more effective political union in the early eighteenth century (which was held to explain Fante's successful wars of expansion in this period), although Boahen suggested that this new union in turn had ‘disintegrate[d]’ by the 1750s.Footnote 14 Later writers did not contest the decentralized nature of the Fante polity, but presented it in a more positive light. James Sanders (1979) rejected the perception of Fante in the seventeenth century as ‘a kingdom [sic] in decline’, arguing that it was undergoing ‘a constructive process of political evolution’ rather than disintegration, and questioned the reality of the greater unity supposedly established in the eighteenth century, implicitly positing an essential continuity in its decentralized structure throughout this period.Footnote 15 John Fynn (1987) insisted that Fante had an effective system of government, which successfully ‘maintained law and order’; and that its lack of a strong central authority, rather than representing an institutional ‘failure’, reflected the ‘political preferences’ of the Fante, who favoured ‘liberty’ and minimal government.Footnote 16
Hitherto, discussion of early Fante government has lacked a solid empirical base. The earlier historians made only limited use of sources prior to 1700. Shumway's recent study focuses on the eighteenth century, and expresses explicit agnosticism about the possibility of understanding the nature of the Fante polity earlier, even though this deprives her analysis of a firm starting-point.Footnote 17 The most substantial study of the seventeenth-century Gold Coast, by Ray Kea (1982), focused on general socioeconomic transformations, rather than the history of individual states or communities; consequently, although it includes a fair amount of material relating to Fante, this is not brought together in a way which would serve to elucidate its particular historical development, and how this differed from that of other states in the region.Footnote 18 This article attempts an analysis based on more systematic use of the available evidence.
For this topic, local traditions are of limited help, partly because some of the key institutions of the early Fante polity did not survive into recent times, and are no longer clearly recollected.Footnote 19 This article is therefore mainly based on contemporary European records. A critical corpus of relevant source material is correspondence of the English Royal African Company (hereafter, RAC) during 1681–99, which has recently been published.Footnote 20 This provides, in particular, massive documentation from the RAC's factories on the Fante coast, of which the principal was Charles Fort at Anomabo, occupied throughout this period, with lesser factories intermittently maintained at Anashan to the west and Egya to the east, and in the 1690s also at Tantumkweri, at the eastern border of Fante. Such European sources present obvious problems of interpretation and evaluation, being generated by persons whose understanding of local society and politics was clearly limited and distorted by their own preconceptions. However, although their general descriptions and assessments are often superficial, and based on casual analogies with European cases, these can be tested against their narratives of detailed events, which evidently depended, where they extended beyond their own immediate experience and observation, on the testimonies of African informants. Although the dealings of the Fante with European traders represented only one (and likely not the most important) aspect of their experience, the fact that these are well-documented (albeit unevenly) means that they can usefully serve as a window onto the operation of the Fante state.
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
Let us begin with identification of the principal offices and institutions of the Fante polity.
The Brafo
Despite some modern scholarly scepticism, there was in fact a head of state of Fante, resident at the capital Mankessim, who had the title Brafo (more correctly, Obrafo).Footnote 21 This office continued to function into the second half of the eighteenth century. In the 1740s, it was reported to be vacant (owing to a lack of eligible candidates), leaving Fante as ‘a republic … [with] no leader’; but it had again been filled by 1752–3, when the Brafo was among Fante officials who negotiated a treaty with the English.Footnote 22 However, it was clearly defunct by the early nineteenth century, later rulers of Mankessim employing the title of ‘king’ (in Fante, omanhene).
This title of Brafo was sometimes equated by Europeans with that of ‘king’, as in a treaty made with the Dutch in 1624, which calls the Brafo ‘King of Fantyn’; and in the account of the Dutch geographer Olfert Dapper, in the 1660s, who observed that, although power was shared among several ‘chiefs’ in Fante, ‘nevertheless one, the King, appears to have [or perhaps, has the appearance of] supreme authority over the others’.Footnote 23 Subsequent observers, however, understood more clearly that the Brafo was not in fact considered locally to have the rank of king. A Dutch account of 1690 described Fante as ‘a republic’, governed by ‘a Braffo or Stadtholder’; and Bosman agreed that ‘Here is no King’, the title of Brafo being better translated in ‘European style’ as ‘Stadholder’.Footnote 24 The comparison is evidently with the contemporary Dutch Republic, whose head of state had the title Stadhouder, meaning ‘deputy’, referring originally to this ruler's status (prior to Dutch independence in 1581) as viceroy under the Kings of Spain.
The title of Brafo was not unique to Fante, but also occurred in other states of the Gold Coast, though elsewhere always applied to subordinate officials, rather than the ruler. In recent times, the principal meaning of the term obrafo (plural abrafo) has been ‘executioner’.Footnote 25 In the seventeenth century, it was applied to more exalted, but still subordinate, offices. In several cases, it was used of the governors of individual towns (or quarters of towns) within a kingdom.Footnote 26 It was also applied to military officers: Bosman referred generally to ‘Braffoos, or Ensigns’, and to a Brafo as ‘a sort of Marshal’.Footnote 27 In Fetu, the Brafo was the commander-in-chief of the national army, ranking third in status after the King.Footnote 28
In Fante also, the title of Brafo had primarily military connotations. The later (1760) account of the Danish official Ludewig Rømer offered the translation ‘general’.Footnote 29 The literal meaning was given by Bosman as ‘leader or protagonist’, implying the person who led the army in battle, literally from the front.Footnote 30 This presumably means that it was normally (or at least on major campaigns) the Brafo who commanded the army in the field, as was certainly sometimes the case.Footnote 31 By the mid-eighteenth century, however, command of the national army had passed from the Brafo to the ruler of the western Fante town of Abura. In addition to his military role, the Brafo clearly also functioned as the spokesman of the community in its relations with outsiders – which accounts for his prominence in dealings with Europeans, as in the 1624 treaty with the Dutch.Footnote 32
It has been suggested that the Brafo of Fante in the seventeenth century was a ‘temporary … leader’, by implication appointed only in times of military necessity.Footnote 33 The contemporary evidence, however, shows that the office was normally filled continuously, in peace as well as war. It has also been claimed that it was elective, rather than hereditary, or more specifically ‘elected from among the component states’ of Fante.Footnote 34 But Rømer in 1760 stated explicitly that it was hereditary, the Brafo being ‘chosen from a certain family who, for many hundreds of years, has been responsible for filling this high position’.Footnote 35 On two recorded occasions, the office of Brafo was indeed filled by persons from outside Mankessim: in 1688, a leading chief of Anomabo, ‘Captain Eggin’, succeeded to the title, and in 1697 (as will be seen hereafter), the ruler of Abura became Brafo.Footnote 36 But these men, despite their residence elsewhere, might have belonged to the ruling family of Mankessim.
Although the title Brafo was used in Fante primarily for the head of state, it was also sometimes applied to other, lower-level officials. In 1653, for example, reference was made to the Brafo of the Nkusukum quarter of Mankessim, who commanded a military raid into the neighbouring state of Asebu; and a Brafo of Nkusukum was again mentioned in 1687.Footnote 37 In the 1660s, there was a Brafo of the town of Anomabo.Footnote 38 This usage, however, is not reported after the seventeenth century.Footnote 39 The existence of a Brafo of Nkusukum suggests that the title was originally applied to the heads (or perhaps, commanders of the militia) of all the quarters of Mankessim, and has prompted the speculation that the Brafo of Fante was the head of the senior quarter of the town, Kurentsir, who enjoyed only a ‘pre-eminence among equals’ in relation to the other quarter heads.Footnote 40 This is possible, though alternatively the office of ‘Brafo of Fante’ might have been distinct from, and superior to, the Brafos of individual quarters. In either case, the subsequent restriction of the application of the title seems significant, by implication emphasizing the unique status of the Brafo as head of state.
The ‘Curranteers’
The Brafo did not exercise autocratic authority, but as one holder of the office explained to a Dutch official in 1653, was obliged ‘to consult with his Caboseros, without whom he could or might not do anything’. Likewise in 1665 the Dutch, seeking Fante military support against the English, negotiated with ‘the Braffo and his Caboseros or counsellors’.Footnote 41 ‘Cabosero’ (more commonly rendered in English as ‘Caboceer’) is merely a generic term for ‘chief’ (Portuguese cabeceira). Bosman does not use this term, but refers to ‘the Old Men’ (probably translating Fante mpanyinfo, literally ‘elders’, but commonly designating senior title-holders), who served as ‘a sort of National Councillors’.Footnote 42 English sources, however, employ a more specific term, regularly referring to the Fante central authorities as ‘the Brafo and Curranteers’, the latter occurring in many variants, such as ‘Corantiers’, ‘Quarranteers’, and ‘Quantrees’. Like that of Brafo, however, this title went out of use in Fante after the eighteenth century.
The Curranteers clearly served as an advisory (and perhaps also legislative) council: Bosman compared them to the English Parliament, and a later European observer similarly equated them with the ‘senators’ of ancient Rome (or perhaps of contemporary Venice).Footnote 43 Beyond this, however, the basis of their position and mode of their selection are not made very clear in the contemporary sources. The title resembles the name of the Kurentsir quarter of Mankessim, suggesting perhaps that they were chiefs of this quarter rather than of the town as a whole. However, it was not unique to Fante, since what is evidently an equivalent form, ‘Koranti’, was employed in Ahanta, Nzema, and Gwira on the western Gold Coast, for the ‘headman’ of a village, as opposed to a ‘chief’ (ohene) of a larger community.Footnote 44 Perhaps it is derived from Fante kurow, meaning ‘village’ or ‘town’ – more precisely, applied to politically dependent settlements, as opposed to the capital cities of states (which were called oman, pl. aman).Footnote 45 A possible etymology is from kurow + tiri, ‘head’, meaning ‘head of a town’. In Fante, however, the Curranteers were evidently not the local headmen of provincial towns, since they normally resided at the capital Mankessim, from which they were regularly reported as ‘coming down’ (or ‘sending down’) to the coastal towns.
Bosman's parallel with the English Parliament perhaps implies that, like the members of that body, the Curranteers were representatives of the communities which made up the Fante state, and this has been the consensual interpretation of modern historians: Boahen, for example, explained the Curranteers as ‘delegates’ or ‘representatives’ of the Fante ‘states’, who formed a ‘union parliament’, or ‘federal parliament or assembly’.Footnote 46 Contemporary records, however, do not provide much evidence for this interpretation. Five Curranteers who subscribed to the treaty with the English in 1753 were described, not as representatives of particular communities, but as holders of specific offices – ‘speaker’ (okyeame, the ruler's spokesman), ‘treasurer’, ‘deputy treasurer’, ‘herald’, and ‘common crier’.Footnote 47
However, some support for the idea of the Curranteers as linked to particular provincial towns can be found in records of the RAC factory at Anashan in the 1680s, which also imply an evolution over time. In the earliest period of surviving records, in 1681–2, there are frequent references to the activities of ‘the Curranteer’ (in the singular) in local administration and trade, and he was regularly physically present in the town; but in the second, in 1687–8, he is mentioned only on a couple of occasions, and was evidently based elsewhere, presumably at Mankessim, from where he ‘sent’ to Anashan to demand payment of an allowance (and in 1692–5 he is no longer mentioned at all).Footnote 48 A straightforward reading of the records for 1681–2 might suggest that this Curranteer was the local administrative head of Anashan; but if so, he evidently lost this role subsequently. Two reports of the 1680s refer explicitly to ‘the Curranteer of Anashan’.Footnote 49 However, another refers rather to ‘the Curranteer of Anashan and Nkusukum’.Footnote 50 The latter name is ambiguous, since it may refer either to the quarter of Mankessim so called (as in the report of 1653 cited earlier), or to the Nkusukum province of Fante, comprising the western coastal area, which traced its origins to it; in either case, the implication is that this Brafo's authority included, but was not restricted to, Anashan.
It should be noted that others of the Fante provinces also traced their origins to particular quarters of Mankessim – Abura to the Anaafu quarter, Ayan to Bentsir, Ekumfi to Edumadsi. It seems likely that representation of the provinces in Mankessim operated through these quarters. Tradition recalls that the chief of each quarter was regarded as the ‘mother [obatan]’ of the province derived from it.Footnote 51 Rather than delegates appointed from the provinces, therefore, it seems likely that the Curranteers were chiefs of quarters of Mankessim, who acted as patrons of and spokesmen for the related provinces.
The shrine of Nananom Mpow
By the mid-eighteenth century, an important role in Fante affairs was played by a religious institution. In 1753, an English observer defined ‘the Fantee Legislature’ as comprising ‘the Braffo and Curranteers, by & with the advice of their God, whose oracles they receive from the priests’.Footnote 52 This alludes to the shrine of Nananom Mpow (meaning ‘Grove of the Ancestors’) at Mankessim, whose priests offered advice on both public and private matters.Footnote 53 They also played a judicial role, administering oaths to test the veracity of deponents in disputes referred to them, operating in effect as a supreme court.Footnote 54
The actual name ‘Nananom Mpow’ was not recorded before the nineteenth century. Earlier sources, in the 1750s, give the name of the ‘god’ of the shrine as ‘Bura Bura Weigan’ (and variants), which was explained as meaning ‘the Father of Fantee’, presumably representing ‘father [agya] of the Borebore’, that is, of the Borbor section of the Fante.Footnote 55 The earliest report of this shrine seems to be by Rømer, writing in 1760 but relating to the 1740s, which refers to ‘the Fante fetish’ (unnamed). He made clear that the shrine had political, as well as purely religious functions, in ordering the execution of officials whose conduct was disapproved.Footnote 56 The shrine was also involved in the negotiations between the English and the Fante, concerning a French attempt to establish a trading post at Anomabo in 1752–3. The local authorities of Anomabo were initially favourable to the French, but the English appealed against them to the central Fante authorities, including the shrine. The priests sent a ‘fetish’ (comprising a piece of paper bearing a written curse) against the French to be thrown into the sea at the English headquarters at Cape Coast Castle.Footnote 57
It has been argued that the absence of reference to the shrine in contemporary sources before the mid-eighteenth century indicates that it was of only minor significance earlier: its rise in importance has been explained as due to its promotion as a means of creating a wider identity, to include the neighbouring communities now brought under Fante rule, or to its role in offering protection from the insecurities engendered by the growth of the export slave trade.Footnote 58 However, although the geographical reach of the shrine's influence doubtless grew with the extension of Fante control over its neighbours, this argument from silence seems doubtful. Although there is no clear reference to Nananom Mpow specifically before the 1740s, Bosman in 1704, in speaking of the Gold Coast in general, did allude to the political influence of the ‘priests’, who were consulted on issues of going to war, to obtain predictions of success or failure. He also referred more specifically to sacred ‘groves’, which existed in ‘almost every village’, where offerings were made by ‘the Governors and chief people’, on the public behalf.Footnote 59 Although he does not make specific reference to the case of Fante, it would be gratuitous to infer that these practices did not operate there also.
Likewise, records relating to Fante in the seventeenth century, although not referring explicitly to Nananom Mpow, regularly allude to ‘fetish’ practices, including in relation to political matters. In particular, there are frequent references to ritual oaths, generally called ‘taking fetish’. Such oaths were employed in judicial processes, and also to seal agreements, including political alliances. In most recorded cases, the oaths were administered outside Mankessim, so perhaps by locally-based priests; but when the Brafo in 1697 proposed to bring a dissident chief of the coastal town of Kormantin ‘up in the country with him, and there give him a severe fetish’, it seems likely that this involved the shrine of Nananom Mpow.Footnote 60 ‘Fetishes’ were also used to enforce embargos on trade. In 1687, instructions were sent ‘from Fanteen [Mankessim]’ to hang up a ‘fetish’ at the gate of the RAC's fort at Anomabo, to interdict contact. On this occasion also it is probable that the ‘fetishers’ involved (as in 1753) were emissaries of Nananom Mpow.Footnote 61
The political power of the shrine in Fante has sometimes been exaggerated. An English observer in 1751 thought that it ‘govern[ed]’ the Fante ‘with a more than despotic sway’; and Boahen, echoing this, described the system of government as ‘theocratic’.Footnote 62 It is clear, however, that the advice of Nananom Mpow was not always followed: most notoriously, the oracle urged the Fante leaders not to go to war against Asante in 1806, and their defeat was attributed to their disregard of this advice.Footnote 63 The relationship of the shrine to the Brafo has also sometimes been misunderstood. The Fante scholar John Mensah Sarbah, in 1906, stated that the Brafo was the ‘high priest’ of Nananom Mpow, rather than a secular ruler.Footnote 64 Perhaps under Sarbah's influence, another local writer, while not referring to the title of Brafo, suggested that the ‘king’ of Mankessim was originally a ‘priest’, who only later claimed political authority; while Kea has hypothesized a reverse evolution, suggesting that in the mid-eighteenth century, having lost his military function to the ruler of Abura, the Brafo instead ‘assumed the role of chief officiating priest of Nananom Mpow’.Footnote 65 In Fante, the term obrafo does have a secondary religious application, though referring not to a ‘priest’ (okomfo) but to an assistant who served as his ‘translator’.Footnote 66 Such abrafo or ‘priest-assistants’ are indeed said to have served the Nananom Mpow shrine.Footnote 67 But there is nothing in the contemporary evidence to support the view that the Brafo who acted as head of state had any priestly function. In the Anglo-Fante treaty of 1753, the Brafo and the ‘priest’ of Nananom Mpow were listed as separate persons.Footnote 68 More likely, the Brafo's role in the cult was as a worshipper and client, offering sacrifices and consulting the oracle on behalf of the community. Moreover, the shrine was at least sometimes in opposition to the Brafo's authority: in particular, the temporary interregnum in the title in the 1740s, noted earlier, was said to have been caused by the ‘fetish’ ordering the execution of no less than five Brafos within the space of only three years, leaving no adult candidates for the office.Footnote 69
The provincial rulers
The formulation of 1753, defining the ‘Fante Legislature’ as comprising the Brafo, Curranteers and priests of Nananom Mpow, is restricted to the capital. But there was also a fourth element in the political structure: the governing officials of the other towns and districts within Fante. These were called generically ‘Caboceers’, with the senior among them in each town called either ‘the Caboceer’ or ‘Chief Caboceer’, or alternatively ‘Captain’. In the nineteenth century, the component districts of Fante were considered to be ‘states’ (aman), and their rulers claimed the title of ‘king’, but they clearly did not have this status in the seventeenth century; the ruler of Anomabo, for example, seems to have been raised to royal rank only in 1774.Footnote 70
These local Caboceers not only governed their own towns, but also played some role in the determination of national policy. Recent traditions recall that the ‘kings’ of the Fante towns were summoned, annually or as necessary, to attend ‘national conferences’ at Mankessim.Footnote 71 Contemporary sources in the eighteenth century refer to deliberative meetings of ‘the Fantee nation’, ‘the whole people of Fantee’, etc., which are presumably instances of such assemblies.Footnote 72 Seventeenth-century sources attest that the Caboceers of Anomabo travelled annually to Mankessim, to attend ‘their Christmas day’ or ‘dancing time’, held in June; from the date, this is evidently the festival of Ahoba Kuma, in honour of the ancestors, which marked the end of the local year.Footnote 73 Although there is no explicit indication that this was combined with political deliberations, on other occasions when the Caboceers were reported to have gone to Mankessim (or more vaguely, ‘up in the country’) to discuss ‘palavers’, this might refer either to judicial disputes or to policy debates.Footnote 74 Such meetings, rather than the council of Curranteers, formed the effective federal ‘Parliament’ of Fante.
CONTEMPORARY ASSESSMENTS
European observers in the seventeenth century stressed the limitations of the power of the Brafo. Dapper in the 1660s noted that, despite the existence of the Brafo as titular head of state, Fante was in practice governed ‘like the States [staetsgewijze] … by several chiefs’.Footnote 75 The comparison is presumably again with the Netherlands, which comprised a number of autonomous ‘States’, whose representatives formed the ‘States-General’, which shared (or contested) power with the head of state, the Stadhouder: in fact, at the time when Dapper wrote, the office of Stadhouder was currently vacant (since 1650), leaving the States-General in sole control.
Likewise, Bosman later noted that although the Brafo was ‘the first man in the country’ and had ‘the greatest authority’, in practice he enjoyed ‘the ineffectual name only of supreme power’, because he was ‘somewhat closely constrained by the Old Men [that is, the Curranteers]’, who ‘act[ed] perfectly according to their inclinations, without consulting the Braffo’, and further that ‘every part of Fante hath also its particular Chief, who will sometimes scarce own himself subject to the Braffo’.Footnote 76 This, it may be noted, distinguishes two dimensions of the issue: the balance between the Brafo and the Curranteers within the capital; and that between the authorities in the capital and the rulers of the other component towns of Fante – although the two were potentially linked, since divisions within the capital might serve to weaken its hold over the provinces. Although Bosman's assessment has generally been followed by modern scholars, the detailed contemporary documentation suggests that his picture of the weakness of the Brafo is overdrawn. While the Brafo was constrained by the Curranteers, the reverse was also the case. In 1699, for example, the Brafo indicated that he had intended to visit Anomabo, ‘but the Curranteers will not let him’; but conversely, the year before, when the Brafo was absent from Mankessim, the Curranteers declared that they could not discuss action (to open trade) until he returned.Footnote 77 In any case, even to the extent that Bosman's account is thought accurate, it is not clear that it is generalizable beyond the specific period of the 1690s, to which he referred.Footnote 78
THE CAPITAL AND THE PROVINCIAL TOWNS
Modern scholars have generally supposed that the authority of the Brafo and Curranteers over the provincial towns was minimal. Boahen, for example, maintained that ‘though all the states still recognised Mankessim as their sacred city, and in theory its Braffo as their king [sic], in practice they all behaved not only as separate and independent but also as rival states’.Footnote 79 The contemporary evidence, however, especially that of the RAC correspondence in the 1680s and 1690s, suggests that this underestimates the degree of control that Mankessim maintained.
The central authorities at Mankessim were, first, involved in authorizing the original establishment of the European factories on the coast, and continued to oversee their subsequent operation. The treaty that granted the Dutch a monopoly of trade in 1624, although signed at Kormantin, was made in the name of the Brafo; and it was again with the Brafo that the English negotiated for their settlement at Kormantin in 1632.Footnote 80 Later also, when the RAC established a factory at Egya in the mid-1670s, an agreement was made with the Brafo and Curranteers, as well as the Caboceers of Egya itself, that no trade should be done with English traders not belonging to the Company, and that any goods sold by such ‘interlopers’ should be confiscated for the Brafo and Curranteers; in 1681, the agreement was reaffirmed, and the Brafo undertook ‘to employ someone to look after the factory’ and to pay for goods stolen and slaves run away from it.Footnote 81
The Mankessim authorities were also recurrently involved in the mediation of ‘palavers’ that arose between the RAC's factors and the local people. In 1682, following a dispute at Anomabo, the RAC sent one its senior African agents, ‘Doctor Griffin’, to Mankessim, and the Curranteers, or some of them, accompanied Griffin back to Anomabo, where they imposed a fine on the people, and placed two officers ‘to look after the white men here’.Footnote 82 In the same year, in a dispute at Anashan, the RAC received a son of the Brafo, as well as one from the Curranteer, as hostages for satisfaction.Footnote 83 In 1686 in a dispute between the RAC's factor at Anomabo and the local Caboceers, the Brafo and Curranteers threatened to embargo contact with the fort, and payments were made to them as well as to the Caboceers to settle the matter.Footnote 84 In 1691, after another dispute at Anomabo, the RAC sent another of its African agents, ‘Captain Quo’, to Mankessim, and the Curranteers sent two representatives with him back to Anomabo to settle the palaver.Footnote 85
On other occasions, the Mankessim authorities sent instructions to the coastal towns. In 1687, after the RAC factor at Anomabo had refused to supply munitions to the Brafo and Curranteers for a projected campaign, they placed an embargo on trade with the factory, which was obliged to pay them to remove it.Footnote 86 In 1695, it was reported that the Curranteers had persuaded the Brafo to forbid the supply of corn at Anomabo to canoes from the Dutch headquarters at Elmina; and in the following year, similar instructions were transmitted to Egya, in the name of the Brafo and Curranteers.Footnote 87
The Mankessim authorities also received taxes from the European factories.Footnote 88 These paid a monthly ‘ground-rent’, and a ‘yearly custom’, due at Christmas. ‘Customs’ were also levied at other times during the year: the planting season, in April, ‘dancing time’ (the festival of Ahoba Kuma), in June, and the harvest, in July. An occasional ‘custom’ was also demanded on the appointment of a new chief factor. Of these, ground-rent was received only by the Brafo and Curranteers, except that in the 1690s at Anashan and Tantumkweri, it was paid to the local ‘Captain’ – perhaps an index of a weakening of metropolitan control. The custom for a new chief went to the local authorities. The annual payments were shared among the Brafo and Curranteers and the local Caboceers, with the Mankessim authorities receiving an equal or somewhat greater share.Footnote 89 This contrasts with the eighteenth century, when the Brafo, Curranteers and priests of Mankessim received only a very small portion of payments made from the RAC fort at Anomabo.Footnote 90
This is not to deny that the authority of the capital over the coastal towns was sometimes ignored or defied. The RAC's factors occasionally referred explicitly to local disdain for the metropolitan authorities: in 1683, for example, it was observed that ‘these people may very well say their Braffoe is a fool, for they all do what they please’; and again in 1687 that it was pointless to complain about local misbehaviour to the Brafo and Curranteers, because ‘the Anamaboe people do as they please, and no contradiction given’.Footnote 91 But, while such defiance was expressed from time to time, over the longer term, as is shown by the detailed evidence presented above, the capital's recurrent interference in local affairs also remained a reality.
DIVISION AND CONFLICT
Both Dapper and Bosman also noted that Fante was prone to internal divisions. Dapper indeed claimed that it was ‘seldom’ free of ‘civil war’.Footnote 92 His informant probably had in mind an episode in 1653, when there was fighting between factions in the capital Mankessim, one headed by the Brafo and the other by a man called ‘Adonie’, described as son of the late Brafo, and ‘Captain of the Mancebos’, that is the ‘youngmen’, or town militia (asafo). The Brafo and ‘the greatest part’ of the Caboceers withdrew to Kwaman, to the north-west, while Adonie took refuge in Ayan, to the north; and when Adonie subsequently went to Kwaman to seek a reconciliation, the Brafo's supporters attacked his party, killing 117 of them.Footnote 93 Whether this was really the norm, as is implied, or Dapper was generalizing from this one specific event, is uncertain. In 1664, when the Brafo refused to allow the English to attack the local Dutch factories, he was deposed and replaced by someone more accommodating, but it is not clear whether this involved any fighting.Footnote 94 There were other instances of civil wars in Fante during the seventeenth century, though these exhibited different patterns from that in 1653. In 1645, there was fighting within Kormantin, between the Bentsir and Nkum quarters of the town, leaving nine dead – this being probably an early instance of the conflicts between rival asafo ’companies’ which were endemic in coastal towns in later times.Footnote 95 In 1682, there was fighting among different towns within Fante, when forces from Abura and Kwaman attacked Kormantin, and burned down half the town, killing six and taking captive 33 people.Footnote 96
Bosman later noted that Fante were sometimes ‘divided among themselves’, which inhibited the assertion of its military power against its neighbours.Footnote 97 Detailed evidence from the 1690s confirms endemic internal division, and its recurrent compromising of Fante military action. In 1695, the Brafo went in person to Akron, the eastern neighbour of Fante, to hire military assistance for a projected civil war (‘to fight the Fantenes’), although it is not specified whom he intended to fight, and no such war in fact eventuated.Footnote 98 In 1697, divisions arose over policy towards a civil war in Eguafo to the west, between King Takyi Panyin and his brother Takyi Kuma, supported respectively by the English and the Dutch. The Brafo proposed to ally with Takyi Kuma and the Dutch, but faced internal opposition and was eventually deposed and killed, in September 1697. Bosman asserts that the Brafo was ‘alone’ in his stance, but the detailed contemporary evidence shows that he was supported by the Captains of Kwaman and Kormantin, while the opposition to him was led by the Captain of Abura.Footnote 99 Whether this involved fighting is again unclear.Footnote 100 Subsequently, the new Brafo faced continuing opposition from elements that had supported his predecessor. He threatened to fight the Captain of Kwaman, to force him to hand over money, which he had taken from the Dutch and slaves of the late Brafo who had taken refuge with him. However, the Caboceers of Anomabo, together with the King of Asebu, mediated between them, and it does not seem that any fighting took place.Footnote 101 At the same time, the Brafo was involved in a clash with a man from Kormantin called ‘Quaman’, who was arrested and held in Charles Fort at Anomabo and then, despite the intercession of the Caboceers of both Kormantin and Anomabo, deported to imprisonment at Cape Coast Castle, although subsequently released.Footnote 102
In 1698, there was again a division over foreign policy, when Assin was attacked by Denkyira, and appealed to Fante for assistance. The Brafo opposed intervention, but most of the common people, together with ‘some of the great men’, were inclined to support Assin, leading once again to an agitation to depose the Brafo: ‘the Blacks will have the Braffoe's head off if they can’. In fact, some of the Fante, in defiance of the Brafo, went to fight on the side of Assin; although these were initially said to comprise ‘no men of repute … save a few scoundrel dogs, not any Cabbosheers’, in the end at least one senior chief, the Captain of Kwaman, did go to assist Assin, and was taken prisoner by the Denkyira.Footnote 103 At the beginning of 1699, when Takyi Kuma made a further attempt to seize power in Eguafo, this time with English support, the Fante were again divided, with the Curranteers and the Caboceers of Anomabo assuring the English of their willingness to assist, but the Brafo reluctant; although the Curranteers declared that they would ‘oblige’ the Brafo to supply soldiers, in the event no action was taken.Footnote 104 Later in the same year, in disputed circumstances, there was fighting between the Brafo and the people of Kwaman, in which the Brafo was wounded; Abura this time supported the Brafo, but the Caboceers of Anomabo rejected his appeal for assistance, declaring that ‘they would not be concerned in this palaver on either side’.Footnote 105
These accounts of internal divisions, it may be suggested, do not straightforwardly support the idea of the powerlessness of the Brafo. On some occasions – for example, in opposing intervention in Eguafo in 1699 – it was the Brafo's view which prevailed; and the fact that it was found necessary to depose the Brafo in 1664 and 1697 does not suggest that he was a nonentity who could simply be ignored. It is also noteworthy that contemporary reports refer explicitly to divisions within the capital Mankessim only on two occasions, in 1653 and 1699; and that the first of these involved opposition to the Brafo not from the Curranteers, but from a military officer. Tensions between the capital and provincial towns are much more frequently reported, involving especially Anomabo and Kormantin on the coast and Abura and Kwaman in the interior.
This was not only a matter of the rulers of provincial towns defying the authority of the capital, but also of their exercising influence over it. The growing influence of Anomabo may be reflected in the fact that a leading man of the town, Captain Eggin, in the absence of the Brafo (who was close to death), took command of the Fante army for a campaign against Fetu in 1688; though this may also have been due to his being a close relative of the Brafo, to whose position in fact he succeeded on the latter's death shortly afterwards.Footnote 106 More explicitly, in 1695, when the RAC was negotiating to keep the Fante from allying with the Dutch against Eguafo, its Chief Agent expressed confidence in the outcome, ‘having now the Captain[s] of Abra [and] Quomona [ = Abura and Kwaman] & old Bonnyshee [a leading Caboceer of Anomabo], on whom depends the whole management of the country’.Footnote 107 The rising power of Abura, in particular, was a leading feature of this period.
THE RISE OF ABURA
By the early nineteenth century, Abura, rather than Mankessim, was regarded as the ‘capital’ of Fante.Footnote 108 The process of Abura's rise to primacy is difficult to reconstruct in all its detail, but more light can be shed upon it than earlier published accounts have suggested.
Abura appears in contemporary sources from the 1670s onwards, and was clearly then already a powerful element within the Fante political system. For example, when the RAC established a factory at Egya in the 1670s, guarantees for its security were sought not only from the Brafo and Curranteers at Mankessim and the local chiefs of Egya, but also from the Caboceers of Abura; and in 1682, when the chiefs of Anomabo failed to respond to a summons to Mankessim, concerning disputes with the RAC factory there, it was suggested that this might provoke action from Abura, as well as from the Curranteers – ‘all the Quantrees and Abbraers will be on these people’.Footnote 109 Abura's power was by implication essentially military: a report of 1681 suggested that runaway slaves of the RAC were likely to have gone to Abura, ‘which entertains all vagabonds and runaways for soldiers’.Footnote 110
Following the report of 1695 cited above, there are frequent references to the influence of the ruler of Abura, which was often exercised independently of or even against the authorities in Mankessim. Later in the same year, when the Brafo and Curranteers sent a message of protest to the English fort at Anomabo, about the seizure of a Dutch canoe, the English factor sent to request the Captains of Abura and Kwaman to ‘come down’, perhaps hoping to play them off against Mankessim. In 1696, however, when the Captain of Abura came in person to Egya, to proclaim an interdiction of trade with the Elminas, he claimed that ‘what he did was by consent & order of Braffoe and country [ = Curranteers]’.Footnote 111
In 1697, when the Fante divided over whether to ally with Takyi Kuma and the Dutch against the King of Eguafo, as has been seen, it was the Captain of Abura who led the opposition to the Brafo. The original plot was reportedly ‘to depose the Braffo … and make the Captain of Abra Braffo in his stead’, and this is evidently what was done – as evidenced by subsequent reference to the ‘Capt. of Abra, als. new Braffoe of Fanteen’.Footnote 112 However, this did not involve the transfer of the title of Brafo from Mankessim to Abura, as has been inferred.Footnote 113 The new Brafo did remain based at Abura over the next few months, until at least August 1698. But this was due to the military situation, with the threat from Denkyira, which had lately defeated Assin and it was thought might go on to attack Fante. It was explicitly reported that the Brafo's residence at Abura was only temporary, and he would return to ‘his regal seat’, that is, Mankessim.Footnote 114 Moreover, when the Captain of Abura became Brafo, a successor took over the position of Captain of Abura; subsequently, the Brafo complained that ‘this new Captain of Abra is turned rogue’, and was opposing his authority.Footnote 115
Boahen and Daaku suggested that Abura took over the headship of the Fante state in the early eighteenth century, providing the stronger leadership that made possible its successful expansionist wars at that time.Footnote 116 But although Abura's influence was certainly growing, it does not appear that its ruler assumed or claimed the title of Brafo. In 1715, when Assin applied to the Fante for military assistance, ‘the Caboceers of Abrah summoned the Braffo to them, saying that they constituted the most powerful Fantyn and therefore the meeting must be held there’.Footnote 117 However, this need not imply that Abura was now the official capital, since the meeting there may have been exceptional. Assemblies in 1725 and 1729 were held at ‘Grande Terre’ (Portuguese grande terra, ‘big country’), which is probably a translation of the name Mankessim (from Fante oman kese, ‘large town’).Footnote 118
In the negotiations with the English in 1752–3, the Brafo and the ruler of Abura were clearly still two distinct persons. At one point, a message was sent to Cape Coast from Abura that ‘all the Caboceers there’ had resolved to oppose the French establishment at Anomabo: this probably means that the Fante chiefs on this occasion were again meeting at Abura (unless ‘all the Caboceers’ means only those of Abura itself), but the report continued that the Caboceers then ‘sent to the Braffoe’ to know his position, which evidently implies that he was resident elsewhere. The formal ‘law’ against the French that was eventually agreed was enacted at ‘the Braffoe's Town’, that is, Mankessim.Footnote 119 The office held by the ruler of Abura in 1753 was apparently that of military commander, ‘Lieutenant General of all Fantee’.Footnote 120 The account of the negotiations makes clear that in political reality, the views of Abura carried the decisive weight. On receiving notice of Abura's position, the Brafo replied that ‘since Abrah had declared against [the French] … he would do so too’; and the English attributed their success in foiling the French to ‘the steadiness of Abrah and the priests’.Footnote 121 Rather than a formal transfer of authority from Mankessim to Abura, however, it seems clear that the two continued to share leadership.
CONCLUSION
The evidence marshalled above is ambivalent in its implications. On the one hand, it has been shown that the central authority of the capital Mankessim in the seventeenth century had greater substance than earlier historians have assumed. The conventional portrayal of a practical absence of such authority represents an anachronism, extrapolated backwards from conditions in the second half of the eighteenth century. As now understood, apart from the peculiarity of its non-royal head of state, the early Fante polity appears less aberrant than previously supposed. Even ‘kings’ often had to rule through consensus with subordinate chiefs, including in other states of the Gold Coast.Footnote 122 Likewise the ‘confederal’ character of Fante, insofar as this meant considerable autonomy for its component units, was not unique, but common to other states, including early Asante, as was noted earlier. Nevertheless, both the relative weakness of the titular head of state, the Brafo, and the recurrence of political divisions which sometimes led to civil war were characteristic of Fante throughout the second half of the seventeenth century – and there is no evidence of greater stability in earlier times, only a dearth of information. It is not clear, however, that political instability in this period was greater in Fante than in some other coastal states – for example, Eguafo, which suffered civil wars in 1643–6, 1687–8, 1696, and 1699–1700.Footnote 123
The evidence does suggest an exacerbation of these problems, amounting to a real crisis of government, in the 1690s – although it is conceivable that this impression is to some degree a function of the greater abundance of detailed documentation for this period. However, there is no reason to think that this crisis was more than temporary. The hypothesis of the establishment of a more effective authority in the early eighteenth century thus seems redundant – more probably, there was continuity from the seventeenth century. The real discontinuity in Fante's political organization was the subsequent collapse of the Brafo's authority, which was probably connected with the interregnum in the 1740s, following the execution of successive Brafos by order of the shrine of Nananom Mpow, as noted earlier.Footnote 124
Beyond the clash of personalities and policies, it is likely that these tensions reflected competition for control of the fruits of two related processes: the growth of European trade, and warfare among local African states. It is not overly cynical to suppose that political power was sought not only for the psychic satisfaction which it conferred (or the desire to serve the community), but also for the opportunities for material profit which it afforded, through taxes, fees, and bribes. Moreover, the acquisition and maintenance of authority depended ultimately on the control of resources: primarily the allegiance of followers,Footnote 125 but also wealth, in money (gold) and goods. The two were indeed connected, since wealth could be distributed to attract and reward supporters, or used to purchase slaves, and indeed to hire mercenary military assistance. War as well as trade generated wealth, in the form of booty (including slaves) and payment for military service. Both trade and Fante's military expansion potentially yielded ‘unallocated resources’, that is, ones not already appropriated within the political system, for which rival claimants might compete, and which might alter the balance of power among them.Footnote 126 The outcome of such struggles was not predetermined, but was influenced by the nature of the pre-existing political structure, as well as the contingencies of personalities and events. In the Fante case, despite recurrent challenges, the Brafos appear generally to have held their own, through the seventeenth and into the early eighteenth century. This was perhaps because the Brafo's position as military commander and diplomatic spokesman (including in dealings with European traders) facilitated their securing of a major share of the profits of warfare and commerce.
It does seem possible, however, to discern the beginnings of a shift of effective power from the capital Mankessim towards other Fante towns in the later seventeenth century, seen especially in the growing autonomy of Anomabo at the coast and the growing influence of Abura in the interior. The explanation for this shift probably lies in part in the impact of European trade. Most obviously, Anomabo's growing power reflected its commercial role, which brought it not only wealth but also increased population, which in turn enhanced its military power.Footnote 127 The rise of Abura, on the other hand, was more narrowly due to its military role. The Gold Coast was characterized by endemic warfare, increasing in both scale and intensity, from the 1680s onwards, if not earlier, in which Fante played a major role.Footnote 128 This warfare was evidently linked to the growth of the export slave trade, capture in warfare being the principal source of slaves, though whether (in this initial phase) as cause or consequence is debatable. It was also associated, as Kea has argued, with the emergence of ‘militarized, expansionist states’ such as Akwamu, Denkyira, and Asante; Fante, despite its less centralized political structure, may be seen as another such state.Footnote 129 In the case of Fante, the transfer of leadership from Mankessim to Abura was a reflection of this process of militarization.
