Artist: Chantal Coetzee
Title: QUEEN MOTHER YAA ASANTEWAA Medium: Acrylic, Bitumen & Gold leaf on board
Size: 127 x 127
QUEEN MOTHER YAA ASANTEWAA
1863 - 1921. Ashanti Empire. Gold Coast. Modern-day Ghana.
By the 1700s, the Ashanti people had developed a wealthy empire with far-reaching influence
and extensive trade routes. Yaa Asantewaa was Queen Mother of the Ejisuhene, part of the
Asante Confederacy, which was an independent federation of Ashanti tribal families that ruled
from 1701 to 1896.
In 1896, the British captured Asantehene (King) Prempeh I and imprisoned him in the
Seychelles Islands, together with many opposers to colonisation. As Queen Mother, Nana Yaa
Asantewaa played a very important and respected role, that of the Gatekeeper of the sacred
“Golden Stool” or Sika ‘dwa. This stool is the royal and divine throne of the Ashanti people and
believed to house the spirit of the Asante nation – living, dead, and those still to die. The
Golden Stool is a revered object and never to be sat on. It is carried on a litter, supported by
several men, and displayed during important ceremonies as the dynastic symbol of ultimate
power in Asante.
In 1900, the arrogant colonial governor, Frederick Mitchell Hodgson, called a meeting of the
local rulers to finally crush all opposition. Firstly, he stated that the king would remain in exile.
Secondly, he demanded the surrender of the Golden Stool to allow him to sit on it as a symbol
of British power.
Following this meeting, the federation gathered to discuss their options. It was documented
that, sensing an inclination to surrender to British demands, Queen Mother Yaa Asantewaa
rose and made the following declaration:
“Now I have seen that some of you fear to go forward to fight for our King. If it were in the
brave days of Osei Tutu, Okomfo Anokye, and Opoku Ware, leaders would not sit down to see
their King taken away without firing a shot. No white man could have dared to speak to a
leader of the Ashanti in the way the Governor spoke to you this morning. Is it true that the
bravery of the Asante is no more? I cannot believe it. It cannot be! I must say this: if you, the
men of Ashanti, will not go forward, then we will. We, the women, will. I shall call upon my
fellow women. We will fight the white men. We will fight till the last of us falls in the battlefields.”
On 28 March 1900, Queen Mother Yaa Asantewaa led an army of 5000 in a series of
rebellions that became known as the Anglo-Asante “War of the Golden Stool”. She was
captured by the British and exiled to the Seychelles, where she died in 1921. Her remains
were returned to Kumasi in 1930.
Her bravery inspired the Ashanti to protest the imprisonment of their leaders and to fight for
independence. Ghana finally gained independence from British colonisation in 1957. In 2000,
in the Ejisu-Juaben District of Ghana, a museum was opened to immortalise Queen Mother
Yaa Asantewaa.
R 80 000
