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Updated: June 26, 2025
This and other successes over our native allies induced the reigning king of Ashantee, Coffee Calcalli, to hold the British power in contempt. The barbarous customs of the Ashantees almost surpass conception. Their religion is the grossest fetishism.
Though only one was killed, 63 were wounded in action, while several others were killed and wounded during the operations which took place along the coast, to punish several of the petty chiefs who had sided with the Ashantees.
A large body of the enemy had already advanced upon his rear, and intercepted his retreat. All hope, even of escape, was now cut off. The victory of the Ashantees was complete: and nothing but conjecture is left as to the cruel sufferings which were inflicted upon our gallant countrymen and allies before they surrendered their spirits to their Creator on that fatal day.
The Ashantees at customs' time run across the royal threshold to escape being seized and sacrificed; possibly the trace of the pagan rite is still preserved by Moslem Harar, where it is now held a mark of respect and always exacted from the citizens.
A fatal expedition for their defence was undertaken in 1824 by Sir Charles Macarthy, who, crossing the Prah with a small force without waiting for the main body of his troops, being deserted by the Fantis and surrounded by the Ashantees, was with all his forces cut to pieces, three white men only escaping.
On this occasion, agreeably to the superstitious usage of the natives, the head of the late king was carried into the files of the Ashantees, as a charm to protect them in the battle, and an incentive to the performance of valorous deeds.
Their savage cries, their heedless desperation, and tumultuous onset, were well calculated to unnerve the bravery of troops accustomed to discipline and a more honourable species of warfare, but our soldiers met the Ashantees with an unmoved front: the resistance was as courageous as the attack was fierce; and the first approach of the enemy was repulsed with steadiness.
The Fantis, however, though far more numerous than their invaders, took to flight, and the force which had been sent to their assistance had to return. The Ashantees now took possession of Dunquah, from whence they moved to the east towards Denkera.
But when the dawn returned, the Ashantees were seen in the distance, encamped in stillness, and without exhibiting any disposition to encounter our soldiers again, and as evening began to fall, preparations were visible of an intention to retire from the field, and in a few hours afterwards, the King of Ashantee, despairing of success, retreated with his army under cover of the night.
In this space now appeared the lithe figure, and the watchful, large-eyed, amber countenance of Luiz Sebastian. "Ohè!" he cried, "slaves, all of you! Ashantees, Popoes, Angolans, Fidas, Malimbe, Ambrice! you who are all black! think of the jungle and the village; think of the wives and the children! think of the slaver and the slave ship!
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