32. Provocation Thrusts a Badass Queen Into the Spotlight
In March, 1900, Frederick Mitchell Hodgson, the British governor of the Gold Coast – today’s Ghana – traveled to Kumasi, the capital of the Ashanti tribe. There, he delivered a provocative speech, in which he demanded that the Ashanti produce the Golden Stool, the tribe’s most sacred object, so he could sit upon it. Unsurprisingly, that upset his audience.
Into the spotlight stepped Nana Yaa Asantewaa, a badass Ashanti Queen Mother. She rallied her people into resistance, in what came to be known as the War of the Golden Stool. Thousands of Ashanti took up arms, and Asantewaa was appointed war leader. The Ashanti were eventually defeated and annexed to the Gold Coast, but retained their autonomy. They also did not produce the Golden Stool.