Kumasi remains the seat of the Asantehene (Asante king) and the site of the Golden Stool, symbol of royal authority and unity of the people.
After his death Asante power declined, and in 1831 the British administrator of Cape Coast, George Maclean, negotiated a treaty providing for Fante independence and Asante use of trade routes to the coast.
This inspired the Asante people to take a sacred oath that empowered them to rise up and put down the Koromanti uprising.
Remains of traditional Asante buildings (designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1980) are located northeast of the city.
Amma Asante, who directed Belle, the period drama which starred a mixed-race lead in Gugu Mbatha-Raw, believes the explanation for the Oscars whitewash could be down to industry trends.
If you've got a wound in that leg and someone kicks it: a) the wound isn't going to heal and b) you're going to feel it a lot more," said Asante.
Jan Asante, whose boutique was looted, said she had given work experience to a young woman who had been present when her store was ransacked.
This meant that they could take slaves but not, for instance, kill animals for amusement; when one officer, James Swanzy, shot a crocodile there was a huge fuss and compensation was paid.Most of the slaves sold to Europeans in later centuries were men and women captured in battles between tribes like the Asante and the Acan.
One of the few Ghanaian historians to touch these issues, Akosua Adoma Perbi, writes that "slavery became an important part of the Asante state [the Gold Coast's most powerful] right from its inception.
The Asante then mounted slave-trading expeditions to get labour for gold mines.The forts themselves were not owned by the Europeans; the land on which Cape Coast Castle was built was rented to the British by the local chief for a monthly sum.
In 1872, long after abolition, Zey, the king of Asante, wrote to the British monarch asking for the slave trade to be renewed.Yaw Bedwa of the University of Ghana says there has been a "general amnesia in Ghana about slavery".
