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Updated: June 20, 2025
The garrison now consisted of seven hundred rank and file, and about a dozen British officers; two hundred and fifty native levies, and nearly four thousand Fanti and Hausa refugees. "The next force to move forward was the first contingent from Northern Nigeria, consisting of two companies under the command of Captain Hall, with one gun.
The main object was to secure a port on the coast, where the inlanders could deal directly with the white man, and could thus escape the unconscionable pillaging, often fifty per cent. and more, of the Fanti middleman. This feeling is not, indeed, unknown to Europe: witness Montenegro.
Meanwhile Napoleon threatened to occupy Piacenza with 30,000 men on the first forward step of Garibaldi, who, on his side, seemed by no means inclined to yield either to the orders of the Dictator Farini, or to the somewhat violent measures taken to stop him by General Fanti, who instructed the officers under his command to disobey him.
The Fanti country being cleared, a road towards the Prah was now energetically pushed forward. It was 12 feet wide, cleared of stumps or roots, swamps were either drained or avoided, or causeways made over them, and all the streams were bridged. This task was confided to Major Home, of the Royal Engineers.
One of the bravest and most disciplined races in that part of Africa are the Houssas, a body of whom were at once obtained from Lagos, and who, with some companies of the 2nd West India Regiment and a body of Fanti police, were marched to the front, under the command of Lieutenant Hopkins.
The late Prince Owusu, before mentioned, deposed before the authorities of our Protectorate as follows: 'At Kumasi I was ordered to eat the skull of the late King of Gyáman, which was kept there as a trophy from the conquest of Gyáman; but I did not do it. He also asserted that, in 1879, a white man, Nielson, and his interpreter, Huydecooper, had been sent by an intriguer to Gyáman, bearing a pretended message from the British Government and the Fanti chiefs, enjoining the King to conclude peace with the Ashantis, and to restore their 3,700 captives.
The Fanti peoples, whose 'folk-lore' is extensive, and who have some tale about every bird, beast, and fish, thus account for the loud cries which we heard at night in every 'bush. King Leo, having lost his mother, commanded by proclamation all his subjects to attend her funeral, and none failed save Orson.
'Are there no means of opening this country up to trade, no means of infusing into it an element superior to that of the Fanti races, of holding in check the savagery of the inland tribes, and preventing the whole coast again becoming abandoned to fetishism and human sacrifices? To the writer's mind there is but one method, and that one by an appeal to man's most ignoble passion the lust of gold.
Another reason for this attack upon the Elminas was that an Ashanti general, named Atjempon, had marched with several hundred men through the Fanti country, burning, destroying, and slaying as usual, and had taken refuge with his men in Elmina. From this time the desultory war between the Elminas and their Ashanti allies, and the Fantis of the neighborhood had never ceased.
This confidence emboldened him to reply defiantly to the insolent message of General Fanti: “We are only a handful of men. But a Frenchman counts not his enemies, and France will support us.”
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