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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:The Akani war of 1693-6
Author:Law, RobinISNI
Year:2008
Periodical:Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana
Issue:11
Pages:89-111
Language:English
Geographic terms:Ghana
Great Britain
Netherlands
Subjects:traditional polities
trading companies
military history
mercantile history
archives
war
1600-1699
External link:https://www.jstor.org/stable/41406745
Abstract:The massively detailed information to be found in the recently published correspondence of the Royal African Company of England relating to its activities in West Africa between 1681-1699, preserved in the Rawlinson collection of the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford, enables substantial elaboration and revision of the current understanding of many developments in the history of the Gold Coast (present-day Ghana) in the late seventeenth century. A case in point is the war fought between the states of Akani and Etsi, in the hinterland of the Gold Coast, in 1693-1696, which also drew in the coastal states of Fetu, Asebu and Fante as allies on either side, and attracted intervention by both of the major European powers established in the region, the Dutch West India Company, with its headquarters at Elmina, as well as the English Royal African Company. The Akani war has hitherto been known mainly through the account of an English ship's captain, Thomas Phillips. By drawing on the correspondence in the Rawlinson corpus, as well as other letters from the Chief Merchants to London, which have hitherto been neglected, the present author offers a fuller and clearer account. For convenience of exposition, he has subdivided the history of the war into five successive 'phases' (of which only the second was covered by Phillips): Akani and Fante versus Etsi, 1693-1694; Akani and Asebu versus Fetu, 1694; Akani versus Etsi, continued, 1694-1695; revival of Akani trade to the coast, 1695-1696; and submission of Etsi to Fante, 1696. Bibliogr., notes, ref. [ASC Leiden abstract]
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