3-053-409 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Ashantee war-dance, 1873. 'The native population of Elmina, the Fantees, and others dwelling on this part of the Gold Coast, are of kindred race with the Ashantee nation, whose formidable kingdom is situated forty or fifty miles inland...Some types of this n*gro race are represented in the two groups of figures drawn from photographs by Mr. J. P. Decker, with which we have been furnished by Mr. J. A. Sketchly, of Whydah. But whether the Fantees and neighbouring tribes should be reckoned as belonging to Ashantee is precisely the question at issue in the present war. The Dutch, till very recently possessing the Castle of Elmina, compromised this question by paying a yearly tribute of £50 to the Ashantee King, as suzerain of that territory, which the British Government has refused to continue; hence the Ashantee invasion of the seaward country, supposed to be more or less under British protection. It is not the first or the second time that a similar conflict has broken out, as it did in 1807, at Annamaboe; again, repeatedly, from 1819 to 1826, including a severe defeat of the British forces...in 1824; and latterly, in 1863, when our troops, sent into the interior by Governor Richard Pine, were forced by the climate and disease to retreat'. From "Illustrated London News", 1873.