The Old Woman Who Fired Up Resistance
Governor Hodgson’s speech did not go down well with the Ashanti, to say the least. It was as if an extraterrestrial had arrived in Mecca, addressed a throng of Muslim religious leaders and other faithful, and requested that they take him to the Kaaba so he could defecate atop it. It was unfortunate that Hodgson was so ignorant about his audience and of what made them tick. For generations, the Ashanti had been West Africa’s fiercest tribe. Pride alone would have demanded that they fight rather than meekly submit. A less oblivious governor would have known that the Ashanti would never willingly produce the Golden Stool – symbol of their state and people, past, present, and future – for a foreigner to sit upon and defile.
When the assembled Ashanti chiefs dithered, old Nana Yaa Asantewaa stepped up. She shamed her people for their passivity and perceived cowardice, and fired them up into resistance with a speech, the gist of which went: “I see that some of you are afraid to step forward and fight for our king. If we were still in the brave days, the days of Osei Tutu, Okomfo Anokye, and Opoku Ware, our chiefs would not simply sit down and see their king being taken away without firing a shot. In those days, no white man could have dared to speak to an Ashanti chief the way the Governor spoke to you chiefs this morning“.