The Asante (Ashanti) Empire (c. 1700–1902) was the powerful Akan state of the West African forest, ruled from Kumasi in present-day Ghana. Unified under the sacred Golden Stool and the office of the Asantehene, it grew rich on gold and on supplying captives to the Atlantic slave trade, built a sophisticated bureaucracy and road network, and fought a long series of wars against Britain before its final annexation. The entry holds together Asante's genuine statecraft and wealth, its central role as a slave supplier, and its long, effective resistance to conquest.
When the British governor Frederick Hodgson stood in Kumasi in 1900 and demanded to sit on the Golden Stool, he made a mistake that revealed how little he understood the kingdom he meant to rule. The Stool was not a throne. It was the soul of the Asante nation, said to have descended from the sky, and no person — not even the Asantehene — had ever sat on it. His demand helped ignite a revolt rallied by Yaa Asantewaa, the queen mother of Ejisu. The British won the war and annexed Asante, but they never got the Stool.