26. A Badass Queen Fires Up the Resistance
When she saw the assembled Ashanti chiefs dithering, the badass in Nana Yaa Asantewaa came to the surface. She shamed her people for their passivity and perceived cowardice, and fired them up into resistance with a stirring 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“.