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So by the early 1820s the Ashanti Confederation had conquered an area larger than modern Ghana, but in 1822 they stumbled into war with the British who despite losing several battles, managed to win the independence of a large chuck of the coastal Fante people who'd only recently been conquered. In 1831, the Ashanti recognised their independence in return for trade concessions and an end to hostilities and in 1844 the Fante leaders swore an oath of friendship and alliance to the British known as the Gold Coast bond.
This Bond included the vague idea that the customs of the Fante countries should be modelled on the general principles of British Law. The Bond therefore gave the Fante leaders the option to allow British law to be enacted there, but not any obligation as such. But keeping the British on side was of such importance that there was little resistance to British officials claiming jurisdiction in their lands. In 1852 for instance Britain passed a poll tax through out the lands of the Bond. The Fante leaders objected and were quieted by being given a stipend of cash. As far as the Fante were concerned the British had bought the rights to collect taxes and if the money was no longer coming, those rights would also be stopped.
In 1863, there was another war between the UK and the Ashanti during which Ashanti forces crossed into Fante territory and burned more than 30 towns and villages, taking their inhabitants as slaves. Two British forces that attempted to intersect them were defeated and an attempted counter attack was a disaster with the British/Fante troops defeated by diseases before they even managed to bring the Ashanti to battle. Moreover, because the British were losing money, they stopped paying the stipends.
In the aftermath of that war, in 1865, a Parliamentary Committee set up to investigate the situation advised that Britain pull out of the Gold Coast entirely and indeed that they should retreat from all of West Africa except perhaps Freetown. And in this they had the agreement of the Fante people themselves who had increasingly soured of their British partners after the stipends had stopped, the war had been a disaster and the Gold Coast volunteer rifles corps had been disbanded and now wanted nothing more than for the British to go home.
In 1866 the Fante signed a petition against British claims of jurisdiction in their lands, which the bond made clear the Fante had no obligation to accept and in 1868 the Fante signed a constitution which formed the Fante Confederacy into a self sufficient state, allied to the British but with clear independence. This would be run by a King-President with a national assembly, a standing army, a poll tax and, crucially, it's own justice system, which was not that of the British. Accra itself, the centre of European trade in the Gold Coast, also had a movement to become run by a native confederation. The general agreement between both the Fante and London was now that the UK should pull out, and stop spending money there, and the Fante should run their own affairs.
But, like whenever the UK tried to pull back from Empire, it ran up against its own invested interests. The British traders were not willing to just go gently into the good night, because while they theoretically could remain as trading exclaves within a Fante state, they knew they would be there as foreign guests rather than rulers. Faced with this major threat to their power, they pushed back.
In 1867 the British agreed a trade of forts with the Netherlands, at the behest of the Dutch, who were losing money in the region, and which the British traders agreed to largely in the hopes of distracting the Fante protest movement. Forts in Ashanti territory would become British and forts in Fante Territory became Dutch. Like the British had anticipated, this was received incredibly poorly by the local powers, with the Fante immediately going to war with the Dutch rather than letting them take a foothold in their land. The Dutch, faced with an expensive and brutal war that lasted several years, withdrew entirely from the area, selling their remaining forts to the British in 1872.
However the Fante Confederacy found themselves having to fight both the Dutch and the Ashanti (who were also pretty angry at the swap and lashing out at the Fante to stop themselves being cut off from European trade) and were struggling to fund both wars. They also found themselves increasingly opposed by the British traders who had all the executive officers of the Confederacy arrested on trumped up charges in 1871 when they visited a British fort. The Colonial Office ordered the release of the officers and an apology but the damage had been done to the executives credibility. From 1871, Fante enthusiasm for the cause declined, with much less tax being paid and while the wealthy Ghartey Brothers kept the government going for several more years by single handily funding the administration, the Confederacy slowly collapsed. In 1874, faced with a full Ashanti invasion, the Fante peoples were ultimately relatively peacefully annexed into the British Gold Coast as subjects.
But Francis Agbodeka, the first person to obtain a doctorate degree from the University of Ghana, has argued the Fante were a lot closer to success than has been realised. In 1868, the Fante had the chance to wipe out the Dutch forces at Komeda but their Colonel withdrew to their fortress at Elmina and from then on held out under siege. Had Colonel Boers held his ground, Agbodeka argued, then the Fante would have defeated the Dutch a lot quicker and thus managed to hold their country together to the extent that the British would follow the advice of the 1865 Parliamentary Committee and withdraw.
This would almost certainly then result in a Fante-Ashanti War as the Ashanti sought to reconquer the coastal regions but a newly independent Fante would at least have enthusiasm for that fight. Whereas in OTL, when the Ashanti invaded in 1873, the British had trouble getting volunteers from the rather sullen newly annexed Fante, and while Fante independence might change things, in OTL the Ashanti were there to punish more than conquer. In 1873, much like they had ten years earlier, the invading army burned down Fante villages, looted them for both goods and slaves and then pulled back entirely into Ashanti territory due to losses to disease and attrition, without attempting to hold any of the land they'd despoiled. That might happen again or we might instead see a repeat of 1816 and another Ashanti conquest of the Fante.
The other problem of course is this is 1869, the Scramble of Africa and the change from indirect Empire to direct control would happen within ten years. Even if the Fante do maintain their independence from the Ashanti, they might end up invaded by Europeans in the 1880s anyway.
But a Westernised state emerging in the 1860s in the Gold Coast is an appealing concept despite all the perils it would face. Even if Ghana is conquered that precedent could change the Ghanaian colonial resistance and how it's perceived abroad as a result.
This Bond included the vague idea that the customs of the Fante countries should be modelled on the general principles of British Law. The Bond therefore gave the Fante leaders the option to allow British law to be enacted there, but not any obligation as such. But keeping the British on side was of such importance that there was little resistance to British officials claiming jurisdiction in their lands. In 1852 for instance Britain passed a poll tax through out the lands of the Bond. The Fante leaders objected and were quieted by being given a stipend of cash. As far as the Fante were concerned the British had bought the rights to collect taxes and if the money was no longer coming, those rights would also be stopped.
In 1863, there was another war between the UK and the Ashanti during which Ashanti forces crossed into Fante territory and burned more than 30 towns and villages, taking their inhabitants as slaves. Two British forces that attempted to intersect them were defeated and an attempted counter attack was a disaster with the British/Fante troops defeated by diseases before they even managed to bring the Ashanti to battle. Moreover, because the British were losing money, they stopped paying the stipends.
In the aftermath of that war, in 1865, a Parliamentary Committee set up to investigate the situation advised that Britain pull out of the Gold Coast entirely and indeed that they should retreat from all of West Africa except perhaps Freetown. And in this they had the agreement of the Fante people themselves who had increasingly soured of their British partners after the stipends had stopped, the war had been a disaster and the Gold Coast volunteer rifles corps had been disbanded and now wanted nothing more than for the British to go home.
In 1866 the Fante signed a petition against British claims of jurisdiction in their lands, which the bond made clear the Fante had no obligation to accept and in 1868 the Fante signed a constitution which formed the Fante Confederacy into a self sufficient state, allied to the British but with clear independence. This would be run by a King-President with a national assembly, a standing army, a poll tax and, crucially, it's own justice system, which was not that of the British. Accra itself, the centre of European trade in the Gold Coast, also had a movement to become run by a native confederation. The general agreement between both the Fante and London was now that the UK should pull out, and stop spending money there, and the Fante should run their own affairs.
But, like whenever the UK tried to pull back from Empire, it ran up against its own invested interests. The British traders were not willing to just go gently into the good night, because while they theoretically could remain as trading exclaves within a Fante state, they knew they would be there as foreign guests rather than rulers. Faced with this major threat to their power, they pushed back.
In 1867 the British agreed a trade of forts with the Netherlands, at the behest of the Dutch, who were losing money in the region, and which the British traders agreed to largely in the hopes of distracting the Fante protest movement. Forts in Ashanti territory would become British and forts in Fante Territory became Dutch. Like the British had anticipated, this was received incredibly poorly by the local powers, with the Fante immediately going to war with the Dutch rather than letting them take a foothold in their land. The Dutch, faced with an expensive and brutal war that lasted several years, withdrew entirely from the area, selling their remaining forts to the British in 1872.
However the Fante Confederacy found themselves having to fight both the Dutch and the Ashanti (who were also pretty angry at the swap and lashing out at the Fante to stop themselves being cut off from European trade) and were struggling to fund both wars. They also found themselves increasingly opposed by the British traders who had all the executive officers of the Confederacy arrested on trumped up charges in 1871 when they visited a British fort. The Colonial Office ordered the release of the officers and an apology but the damage had been done to the executives credibility. From 1871, Fante enthusiasm for the cause declined, with much less tax being paid and while the wealthy Ghartey Brothers kept the government going for several more years by single handily funding the administration, the Confederacy slowly collapsed. In 1874, faced with a full Ashanti invasion, the Fante peoples were ultimately relatively peacefully annexed into the British Gold Coast as subjects.
But Francis Agbodeka, the first person to obtain a doctorate degree from the University of Ghana, has argued the Fante were a lot closer to success than has been realised. In 1868, the Fante had the chance to wipe out the Dutch forces at Komeda but their Colonel withdrew to their fortress at Elmina and from then on held out under siege. Had Colonel Boers held his ground, Agbodeka argued, then the Fante would have defeated the Dutch a lot quicker and thus managed to hold their country together to the extent that the British would follow the advice of the 1865 Parliamentary Committee and withdraw.
This would almost certainly then result in a Fante-Ashanti War as the Ashanti sought to reconquer the coastal regions but a newly independent Fante would at least have enthusiasm for that fight. Whereas in OTL, when the Ashanti invaded in 1873, the British had trouble getting volunteers from the rather sullen newly annexed Fante, and while Fante independence might change things, in OTL the Ashanti were there to punish more than conquer. In 1873, much like they had ten years earlier, the invading army burned down Fante villages, looted them for both goods and slaves and then pulled back entirely into Ashanti territory due to losses to disease and attrition, without attempting to hold any of the land they'd despoiled. That might happen again or we might instead see a repeat of 1816 and another Ashanti conquest of the Fante.
The other problem of course is this is 1869, the Scramble of Africa and the change from indirect Empire to direct control would happen within ten years. Even if the Fante do maintain their independence from the Ashanti, they might end up invaded by Europeans in the 1880s anyway.
But a Westernised state emerging in the 1860s in the Gold Coast is an appealing concept despite all the perils it would face. Even if Ghana is conquered that precedent could change the Ghanaian colonial resistance and how it's perceived abroad as a result.
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