Hi everyone, Dave Musgrove from History Extra here. Before we start the podcast, I want to tell you a bit about our sponsor, Warner Hotels. You may be aware that we've been running history-themed weekends with Warner Hotels for the past couple of years, and I am thrilled to share that we're doing more this year. Join us at one of four historic Warner Hotels in 2026 for a weekend of fascinating talks and Q&As with top UK historians. Plus, each three-night stay includes breakfast, dinner and live entertainment. Head to warnhotels.co.uk forward slash history to book yours now. So you want to start a business? You might think you need a team of people and fancy text kills, but you don't. You just need GoDaddy Arrow. I'm Walton Goggins and as an actor, I'm an expert in looking like I know what I'm doing. GoDaddy Arrow uses AI to create everything you need to grow a business. It'll make you a unique logo, it'll create a custom website, it'll write social posts for you and even set you up with a social media calendar. Get started at godaddy.com slash arrow. That's godaddy.com slash a-i-r-o. In the 1870s, British troops invaded the African kingdom of Ashante, raised its capital, prowled its palace and plundered its exquisite golden treasures. In this episode of the History Extra podcast, Barnaby Phillips, author of a new book on the subject, tells Spencer Misen about the fate of the Ashante gold and explores the decades-long campaign to return the treasures to West Africa. Hello Barnaby, thank you very much for joining us today. You've written a book called The African Kingdom of Gold, which was out at the beginning of March. Now the kingdom to which the title of the book refers is the Kingdom of the Ashante. This is an extraordinary cultural, political and military force that rose to prominence in West Africa in the 17th and 18th century. So just to start and to give our listeners a bit of context, I wonder if you can introduce us to the Kingdom of the Ashante in a bit more detail and kind of give us an overview of what powered its rise. Sure, so the Ashante kingdom is located, it's still there today by the way, in what is today Ghana and it was centered around a city called Kumasi. So it's an inland kingdom, about 200 kilometers north of the Atlantic coast and as you said Spencer, it rose really at the end of the 17th century and it was if you like an amalgamation of smaller chieftaincies, smaller kingdoms which coalesced around a central king in Kumasi and its initial power came very much from the gold trade. There had been Europeans on what was called the Gold Coast since the 15th century but they very much stayed on the coast and did not venture into the interior. Ashante controlled the interior trade and worked through middlemen with the Portuguese, with the Dutch, with the French, with the Brandenburg Germans, with the Danes and of course eventually and very much with the British. But it's important to say as well that over time trade evolved and certainly by the 18th century Ashante was an important player in the slave trade and selling slaves who were captured through conquest through middlemen to the European powers and in particular in the 18th century to the British who are the leading European power in the 18th century involved in the transatlantic slave trade. Can you introduce us to say two or three of the most significant Ashante rulers? I mean how powerful were these men and how much influence did they wield over the kingdom? So I think we should start with the mythical origins of the Ashante kingdom which are often attributed to a man called O'Connor Anochwe who is a great priest if you like and was the mentor and curator to the first Ashante king. The Ashante kings are called the Ashante Hines and that's a dynasty that goes down today and the first great king is a man called Ose Tutu and the myth is that O'Connor Anochwe, this great priest, summoned a golden stool from the sky to Ose Tutu and presented it to him in front of all the chiefs in Kumasi and it was this act, the golden stool, contained the soul of the Ashante people which launched the beginning of I guess what you would call the Ashante empire. Its power gradually spreads out from Kumasi over a series of tributary kingdoms so you might think of it as a bit I suppose of a loose confederation and the degree of control that Kumasi has over those peripheral kingdoms ebbs and flows with Kumasi's power but what is evident quite quickly is that it is a very well organized military kingdom although it operates I suppose you might say rather like a feudal levy if you like it's not so much a standing army chiefs and princes are ordered to raise forces they work with great discipline they only have muskets by the way typically which is a technology which has come from the Europeans what they call dain guns on the west african coast but they use these to great effect they use noise they use their courage their strength and they use their mastery of fighting in the forest because they are inland in the forest to devastating effect raiding the kingdoms around raiding gold mining gold themselves aloofial gold but digging down a deep deep way capturing people selling captives and selling gold to the Europeans on the coast and this is the dynamic that serves Ashanti extremely well throughout the 18th century at the beginning of the 19th century other European powers have I suppose faded away to a certain extent on the gold coast with the exception of the British and that is when the British are starting to become more curious not just satisfied to stay on the coast and that's when they want to know more about this great inland kingdom with whom up to that point they've only dealt with through intermediaries as you kind of alluded to that a very heart of this story is the extraordinary gold and regalia crafted by the ashante much of which would ultimately be plundered by the British which obviously will come to in a bit can you tell us a bit more about these treasures how impressive were they who made them and why were they regarded as so important to the ashante people I think gold has multiple meanings to the ashante people in fact as it does in many parts of the world it's a monetary store of value it brings prestige to the kings the kings are weighed down in gold when they appear in public they still are today by the way I mean there's still an asantahini and many other ashanti minor kings and you'd be amazed at the bracelets at the badges at the golden headdresses at the gold decorated sandals the amount of gold and its capacity to dazzle to impress to signify wealth but also with a spiritual dimension to show the santa hini's connection to the gods and the skill of the craftsmen this is a wider skill shared in parts of west africa by the wider akan ethnic group to whom the ashanti belong but their ability to cast in gold whether that is using the very sophisticated lost wax method of casting or whether it is through hammered gold thin gold and then a method known as repousse pressing patterns on sheet gold is extraordinary and and without wanting to leap forward too far when the ashanti regalia is looted en masse by the british in 1874 and comes back to london of course it's it's valued by the british army as trophies as souvenirs but it also rather like the benign bronzes which is another infamous expedition at the end of the 19th century it also challenges victorian assumptions about africa being a place of barbarity a place without skill craftsmen a place without history and it evidently contradicts all those assumptions so when did the british first arrive on the scene and what were those initial interactions between the british and the ashanti like so really the british in the 18th century are strong on the gold coast itself that they control a place called cape coast castle they have close links with the people around the fante people on the coast but any contact with the ashanti themselves is indirect and it's only at the beginning of the 19th century that they decide they want to know more about the inland kingdom a delegation is sent up some 200 kilometers through the forest to kumasi in 1817 and it's a man called thomas bowditch who happens to be related to the governor rather conveniently on cape coast castle but he's a man of of humble origins he's an apprentice hatter from bristol but he's a very ambitious man and he ends up spending several months in kumasi and he writes this extraordinary account of his time there which when it's published in london in 1819 it's called from cape coast to kumasi it is met with some scorn and some incredulity but also a lot of excitement it fixes the idea in british minds that the ashanti is a kingdom of gold a place of vast wealth and he describes the extraordinary reception you know these hundreds and hundreds of soldiers or everybody glistening with gold the king weighed down in gold he describes a well laid out city with urban hygiene with piazzas and arcades he describes the friendly reception he receives in kumasi over a period of months he's great feasts he's invited to he's not entirely complimentary it's a contradictory message if you like that he paints of the ashanti he says that there is human sacrifice and he says that there are practices which he sees as barbarous but he also says there is much to admire about this kingdom and at the end of his visit he gets the santa hini at the time osse bonsu who's called to sign a treaty of friendship with the british and this is if you like with the benefit of hindsight the tragic honeymoon of anglo ashanti relations because the treaty the friendship treaty doesn't last and indeed from that point onwards starting in fact in the 1820s the history of anglo ashanti relations is one of gradual deterioration and in fact repeated wars so why did that relationship deteriorate and you mentioned their repeated wars what are those wars look like how do they play out well i suppose you would say the relationship deteriorates throughout the 19th century because britain's commercial interests get broader if you like they want to penetrate directly more into the interior themselves even if it's not until the very end of the 19th century that britain actually wants to acquire and rule territory that that's not really until until the 1890s and all right that might explain the final two anglo ashanti wars but until then their ambitions are expanding but they are not yet of that scope if you see what i mean i think perhaps what really throws the relationship off a cliff if you like is at the beginning of the 1870s when the british have pushed out the danes and then they buy out the dutch and they buy this great fortress called el mina through which the ashanti have traditionally traded a fortress on the coast and suddenly the british are the only european power left on the coast and of course that access to the coast that access to the atlantic trade is very very important to the ashanti and now from their point of view it is controlled by a relatively hostile european power and that leads to a sharpened deterioration and and if you like the largest war i would say which is the war of 1873 1874 there are other factors at play as well throughout the 19th century i would say if you like to the british credit the determination to do away with the slave trade with which britain had enthusiastically participated in the 18th century grows stronger and an ashanti had and wanted to carry on engaging with the slave trade the british conviction that ashanti was a place of human sacrifice grows stronger a place of barbara's custom and i suppose ally to this throughout the late 19th century is a heightened i would suggest victorian sense of racial superiority so it's that's it's a combination perhaps of a moral zeal a sense of racial superiority and a growing commercial drive if you like that draws the pre-eminent european power into conflict with this great west african kingdom project hill mary is the first masterpiece of 2026 the world is counting on you critics are in agreement it's utterly spellbinding so i'm an alien mesmerizing and profoundly moving you are bravest human i have ever met project hill mary his joke i only meet one human and is you in cinemas now so as you say 1873 1874 is a really significant moment in this story can you tell us in a bit more detail what happened during this really important war and how controversial did britain's relationship and britain's growing belligerence towards ashanti i mean was that at all controversial back in britain itself so in 1873 the ashanti invade what the gold coast protector this rather ill-defined british territory on the coast after the british purchase of elmina this this fort and they sweep right down to the coast and this is a huge shock to the british it's a huge setback it's an embarrassment and there's a man called so garnet woolsley not so well known today who was put in charge of the british military response and he is a very very ambitious very very capable soldier and he shapes events to his own end and he convinces the british government who are rather half-hearted william gladston the prime minister doesn't really have his eye on the ball that three british battalions should be sent out to the gold coast to tackle the ashanti and he gets his way that's an extraordinary moment more than 2000 british soldiers white british soldiers west africa seen as the white man's graveyard being sent out to march into the interior into the tropics the british have advantages they have the snider which is a breach loading rifle and they have the gatling gun which is not quite the maxim gun but it is an early machine gun and these advantages negate the ashanti courage the ashanti ability to fight in the forest it means that any actual battle and there are two significant battles on their march up to kamasi the british are able to kill extraordinary numbers of ashanti soldiers and suffer relatively few casualties themselves but when they get to kamasi woolsley and remember communications with london are very bad this is important to emphasize there isn't there isn't yet a telegraph he can shape events on the ground he must decide and the ashanti heaney the king is not there the king has run away perhaps rather wisely and woolsley is left in kamasi and he is like napoleon in mosco because there's nobody to surrender and the weather is closing in only this time of course it isn't the snow it is the west african rain and he's very worried his soldiers are starting to fall sick he's all these rivers he has to march back there's nobody to surrender to so what can he do he blows up the palace but first he loots it systematically and he sets kamasi on fire as a statement of british control the british are not yet in the mindset that they will be by the way in the 1890s that they are going to annex the ashanti territory and incorporate it into the gold coast protectorate what becomes the gold coast colony they're not yet there but they do want to show this truculent troublesome kingdom as they would see it on their periphery that you do not mess with the british empire so that is woolsley's message that is what he tries to achieve is it controversial in britain yes to the extent that if you go through handsards there are dissenting voices not as many dissenting voices as there will be in the 1890s but by the way when the british go back to kamasi and loot the palace a second time but there are dissenting voices who start to say you know what is the purpose of this what are we trying to achieve are we really showing that we are christian and civilized but overall the consensus is that so garnet woolsley comes back a complete hero this is the making of him he's not as i say not a well-known figure today but he rises to become commander in chief of the british army and this is the making of him in fact there is a well-known phrase in late victorian times all so garnet which means everything very well organized he's shown he's a master of logistics he's shown that he is the epitome of a more professional more meritocratic army in the wake say of the embarrassments of the crimian war and he represents that and so the consensus is that the british have done the right thing and they've done it well against a barbarous army that that is the overwhelming view of opinion in britain in 1874 a time of hubris i suppose and the height of british power so to stay on woolsley just for a second he could have been argued the appropriating ish anti-treasure is always at the back of his mind was that a source of motivation for for launching his attack on them i'm not sure about motivation i think destroying the palace is at the back of his mind or a statement of british supremacy is very much important yes woolsley's interesting on on this issue of you know whether you plunder an opponent's palace because he has seen himself first hand what we might now see is the two previous this the two most notorious instance of british imperial plunder i'm talking about luck no in india in 1858 in the in in the midst of what was called the indian mutiny the indian uprising indian war of independence whatever we're going to call it and he was there in peaking in 1860 when the summer palace is looted by british and french soldiers and he writes in his autobiography that he's against looting not not for moral reasons that we might see today but because it undermines military discipline it might bring privates and officers into conflict in each other but there is in his point of view a correct a legitimate way to seize plunder and that is to appoint prize agents which is what happens in in the palace he appoints a group of senior officers and they go through the palace in kumasi by candle light while the royal engineers are waiting to blow it up and they take off everything of value that they can grab and then when the british army gets down to cape coast they get out of kumasi as quickly as they can and they blow up the palace those treasures are auctioned off in a accountable way you might say amongst the british officers but in fact also amongst the the the cape coast elite the local africans themselves and officers have to pay for what they can afford and the proceeds are divided amongst widows and bereaved and injured and so there is a process i mean it may seem hypocritical and self-serving but there is there is a process nonetheless and also as part of that process and an added degree of complexity is that while the british are leaving kumasi heading back to the coast the shanty heeneys envoys catch up with them and do actually surrender and sign a surrender document and hand over large amounts of golden regalia in fact more precious regalia than that which the british had looted from the palace because the king had hidden this this stuff and this material is not divided up amongst the soldiers an auctioned in cape coast it is taken back to london and some of it is presented to queen victoria given to queen victoria but most of it is auctioned in london in a place called garard the crown jewelers in haymarket piccadilly in the spring of 1874 and all of london society aristocrats wealthy businessmen turn up royalty and and buy up what they can and this helps explain how a shanty goal today is in the british museum in what was the south kensington museum today the vna why it's in the wallis collection for those who know the wallis collection of course at the time it was richard wallis an enormously wealthy victorian aristocrat he buys up what he can and objects get dispersed amongst other members of the british aristocracy and and those who can afford to buy and that explains why there's a shanty gold for example in the royal collection today in in windsor castlin other places do we know how much was taken in total and how long did this sort of process a plunder go on for well the plunder of the palace itself is really overnight when when the prize agents do their work when that is sold at cape coast castle that's sold off for about three and a half thousand pounds at the time so the gold which is taken back to britain which is sold at garrad garrad the jeweler pays 11 000 pounds at the time for it which is translated into today's money of course it is difficult to translate getting exact value but it that's like one and a half million pounds today it's it's not it's not an enormous amount of money and what is sold off in cape coast castle is sold off for three thousand pounds so the quantities are not astronomical where there's a fascinating discrepancy i find is between what the big museums buy up at garrads and that which we're able to trace today and the total quantity mentioned in all the different officers accounts and i think quite often what happened is that well gold just has an intrinsic value and often people were actually looting gold dust gold nuggets gold that was not formed into specific pieces and that gold of course would be melted down or would just be used in all sorts of other ways and if you like is lost forever nonetheless to the ashanti themselves there are certain key symbolic pieces of regalia certain famous golden face masks there's an amazing mask in the wallis collection which is the the single most expensive item from the 1874 loot which richard wallis bought and some people say that that gold face mask is perhaps the largest single item of worked gold to come out of africa with the exception of ancient egypt itself there's an incredible incredible absolutely beautiful golden rams head cast head which is taken by officers of the royal artillery from the palace and woosley gives them special permission in fact to keep that head that they have to buy it as it were but they don't have to participate in the auction and that head is kept very privately today by the royal artillery in their officers mess in a place called lark hill in wiltshire in fact i asked permission of them to go and see it there and they refuse me permission to see it but but we know it's there and what impact did these interactions with the british losing you know these wars of the british what long-term impact did that have on the ashanti kingdom well that's a really interesting question so 1874 is a stunning defeat but it is not the end of the ashanti kingdom the british come back in the mid 1890s and by that time they want to annex the kingdom incorporate it into the british empire and this time they march into kamasi again and they are not resisted king prempay the ashanti of the time tells the people of kamasi not to fight prempay is sent off into exile for 28 years the vast majority of that time in the seychelles in the middle of the indian ocean but the ashanti never stopped thinking about their king over the water and perhaps crucially they retain the golden stool which had been hidden from the british which is this object which to them contains the soul of their people in fact the final war with the british is in 1900 and it's sometimes called the war of the golden stool and another british governor marches to kamasi and says give me the golden stool i want to sit on it and this is complete sacrilege to the ashanti because nobody can sit on the golden stool even the ashanti heeney even their own king does not sit on the golden stool and this sets off the the last and final in fact the longest of the anglo ashanti wars in garner and and ashanti today today it's often called the yah asanto war who was a great queen who who took up the cause in the absence of the the exile king prempay but to cut a long story short when prempay is allowed to return in the mid 1920s although in theory the british are only allowing him to return as a private citizen who by the way now calls himself edward and who's converted to christianity in his long period in the indian ocean the ashanti themselves are in no doubt that their king has returned and in the 1930s the british allow the ashanti heeney confederacy to reform if you like under prempay the second and today there is a man called osse tutu the second who is in the palace in kumasi and ultimately of course the british are very adept perhaps particularly in in west africa at indirect rule and at working through the authority of kings and by that by the 1920s they realized that actually having this extraordinary reverence with which the ashanti heeney is treated by his own people as it were co-opted into the british cause is is more productive and more helpful for the british than trying to fight it and that of course that leaves the independent country of garner which emerges in 1957 with a rather complicated legacy if you like because you have the ashanti heeney this very very powerful figure within the country and in the initial years of ghanai and independence or maybe even the initial decades there is quite a tension between the ashanti heeney and the government which is in the capital of garner which is akra down on the coast but in more recent decades i think it's fair to say that garner as a country has navigated those tensions pretty successfully actually and in more recent decades held very well contested keenly contested competitive elections in which power transfers back and forth and in which obviously the ashanti people participate very eagerly and recognize the legitimacy of even as they still revere their king as you've kind of alluded to now this is a story with some a long and ongoing afterlife isn't it and you've written a feature for the april issue of history extra magazine in which you describe a ceremony held in kamal z and garner in 2024 to mark the return on a long-term loan of 32 pieces of the golden regalia that we've been talking about but before we get to that i wonder if you could sort of explain to us when did the people of garner begin to campaign for the return of these treasures and and what kind of reaction did those initial calls enlist it from britain so i think it's fair to say from the ashanti point of view that when prempay returns from his exile in the 1920s there's correspondence with british officials in the late 1920s and early 30s asking for the return of key bits of sacred regalia you know such and such a sacred sword such and such a sacred head and so on and it's not really addressed by the british there is a concerted appeal in the 1970s which is the centenary of segan at woosley's sacking of the palace there are years of correspondence in fact in in the foreign office and in the british museum correspondence and they actually do come close to a deal it falls apart it doesn't happen if you like the ashanti get a sort of you might call a consolation prize which is an extraordinary exhibition of ashanti gold regalia in london and in new york which had a big cultural impact at the beginning of the 1980s and sort of raised ashanti's profile across the world if you like but but ultimately they were thwarted in their ambition for their treasures to be returned the whole argument around restitution and museums and colonial looted objects then became turbocharged if i could leap forward to 2017 and that was when the when the french president ummanuel macron made this extraordinary speech in wagadougou in bikina fasso neighboring garner in fact and he said i'm paraphrasing but he basically said it's unacceptable that so much african heritage is in european museums this has to change and he commissioned this report it's called the sa savvah report which ended up i think being much more radical probably than president macro had anticipated and that report had a kind of ripple effect through museums across europe and it impacted obviously objects like the benin bronzes very very much and people suddenly thought oh my god it's embarrassing we've got these benin bronzes we ought to give them back or no we shouldn't but you know we feel we feel very awkward about it all the asante heaney osse two to the second watched this resurgence of this issue and his own approach was very diplomatic and not very confrontational he is an anglophile a rather conservative king he's a friend of the king king child he used to go and have tea with queen elizabeth and he opted for a compromise because rather controversially the major british national institutions that the the british museum above all but also the vna are prevented from permanently returning objects in their collection deaccessioning as museum people call it they can only return objects on loan now we could discuss these laws for another hour and their legitimacy but nonetheless those are the laws and his his approach was essentially okay i'm not going to allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good i don't like these loan laws but if i can get my stuff back for three years initially then it might be six or not might be nine it can be renewed i'll do that i'll show my people the wonderful objects we made in the 19th century or indeed the objects some might be older than that i have my own museum in my palace in kumasi and there it's true the mancha palace museum and we'll get the material back and we can rotate it through with the british museum if they if the laws haven't changed so that was his approach rather pragmatic approach so i i went to this extraordinary event the homecoming event in kumasi in 2024 it was incredible actually i mean even the british museum curators who worked on it there was a woman there who said it was the most meaningful thing she'd ever been involved in professionally i mean there were there were a lot of tears basically that when these treasures were returned and and i had the immense privilege of returning to the palace a few months later and watching because i was curious to see okay the ceremony was very moving but what happened six months later and to be in in the palace museum six months later and seeing groups of sure ghanai and school children but ghanaians from all over the country but actually also visitors from all sorts of places the united states the north of england south korea coming through and asking all these questions and seeing all the regalia on display really fascinating not not without controversy i should say is there any pushback among the santi people yes there well the king is very revered and so the king has made his decision that these objects coming back on loan so that wisdom is unlikely to be challenged overly in public but i think when it was first broken that the objects were coming back on loan there was a huge uproar on ghanai and social media and ghanai and radio and ghanai and television as you would expect and some people saying well you know let's just keep them the british aren't going to send an army to again to come and get them let's just not accept the terms of the agreement but actually the king's envoy the man called ivor achamandu who i've got to know quite well who's a very interesting character very very pragmatic very unideological he's like no no of course we're going to accept the terms you know we want to show that we're serious people who can be trusted internationally we will do what we've signed up to do what's really interesting as well is that they've accepted the the british terms that these objects have become museum pieces they've returned to glass boxes they're in vitrines air conditioned with alarm systems around them if you like and that's controversial because they've in that sense they've accepted perhaps that their spiritual meaning has if not gone has been greatly reduced it was at the same time that the british returned these objects a much smaller museum in america it's called the fowler museum it's in los angeles it's returned seven objects which it had been able to determine they'd come via britain of course had also been looted by segan at wilson in 1874 and their approach was different to the british approach one might argue more progressive they said we're giving back these objects you do with them what you want how can we possibly give them back in any way except unconditionally if you want to put them in the palace museum in glass boxes that's fine but if you want to wave them around in festivals and re-engage in all their spiritual meaning that too is fine so i suppose in the whole the way to look at it i think is that this is not a zero sum game and it doesn't have to be one way or the other there are different solutions that that that can work i've also for example i've seen individual stools i mean a stool is a very sacred object in a shanty culture and in wider acan culture that have been returned to places in a shanty and they might have been saying british stately home for for a hundred years and they've returned to a minor and the one i'm thinking of has returned to a minor queens palace it has a british plaque on it saying you know seized in 1900 by reginald blah blah kernel blah blah blah and she just engages with it as if it never went away she speaks to her ancestors through it she puts food and spirit drinks all over it and its original meaning has completely reverted if you like so there are different solutions that can work in different ways thanks a lot barnaby if you'd like to learn more about the subject then why not check out barnaby's article on the british plunder of the shanty gold which appears in the april issue of history extra magazine you'd also find plenty more on the history of africa including zayna badawi discussing the challenges of writing the entire continent's history on the history extra website you'll find the link to that article on the podcast description that was barnaby philips speaking to spencer mism barnaby is a historian and conservationist and tv and radio correspondent and his latest book is the african kingdom of gold britain and the ashanti treasure
