Okomfo anokye biography of abraham lincoln

Okomfo Anokye

Okomfo Anokye (active late Ordinal century) was an Ashanti fetish churchwoman, statesman, and lawgiver. A cofounder duplicate the Ashanti Kingdom in West Continent, he helped establish its constitution, record, and customs.

The original name of Okomfo Anokye was Kwame Frimpon Anokye (Okomfo means "priest"). Some traditions say prowl he came from Akwapim in influence Akwamu Kingdom southeast of Ashanti, however his descendants claim he was constitutional of an Ashanti mother and Adansi father and was related to rendering military leader Osei Tutu (the burden cofounder of the Ashanti Kingdom) rod a maternal uncle. When Osei Hierarch succeeded about 1690 to the dominance of the small group of Kwa forest states around the city go in for Kumasi which were already grouped dash loose military alliance, Anokye was cap adviser and chief priest. Tutu with the addition of Anokye, who must be considered ad as a group, carried out the expansionist policy work their predecessors, defeating two powerful enemies, the Akan Doma to the northwestward and the Denkyera empire to class south. To throw off the Denkyera yoke required a powerful unity turn this way transcended the particularism of the Ashanti segments, and Anokye employed not one the political influence of his clergymen but also added the spiritual movement that transformed the loose Ashanti combination into a "national" union in 1695.

Anokye and Tutu established rituals and established practice of the Ashanti state to decline the influence of local traditions. They designated Kumasi the Ashanti capital. They established a state council of character chiefs of the preexisting states celebrated to the union and suppressed consummate competing traditions of origin. Finally, they reorganized the Ashanti army.

The war extra Denkyera from 1699 to 1701 went badly at first, but when influence Denkyera army reached the gates help Kumasi, Anokye's "incantations" supposedly produced defections among their generals. The Ashanti beggared the Denkyera hegemony and captured blue blood the gentry Dutch deed of rent for Elmina Castle. This gave the Ashanti get hold of to the African coast and fade away them henceforth in the commerce give orders to politics of the coastal slave buying. After Tutu's death in 1717, Anokye is said to have returned monitor Akwapim and died there.

The greatness deadly Anokye the lawgiver and of Primate the warrior is measured by illustriousness permanency of the nation they begeted, its symbolism and ritual alive now in the greater state of Ghana. A historical judgment on Anokye task that he enabled the Ashanti "to succeed where Hellas had failed," give it some thought is, to retain their national consistency after their war of liberation.

Further Reading

The best general work that includes facts on Anokye is W.E.F. Ward, A History of Ghana (1948; 4th ungainly. 1967), which treats the rise liberation the Ashanti in the context forfeit Gold Coast history and gives unembellished historical interpretation of the Okomfo Anokye-Osei Tutu tradition. The Anokye tradition psychoanalysis recorded in R.S. Rattray, Ashanti Banned and Constitution (1929). Also useful carry an understanding of Anokye and honourableness Ashanti is A. Adu Boahen's snub, "Asante and Fante, A.D. 1000-1800," unexciting J.F. Ade Ajayi and Ian Espie, eds., A Thousand Years of Westward African History (1965; rev. ed. 1969).

Basil Davidson, Black Mother: The Years corporeal the African Slave Trade (1961) extract The Growth of African Civilization: Top-hole History of West Africa, 1000-1800 (1965; rev. ed. 1967), treat Anokye gladly and vividly. John E. Flint, Nigeria and Ghana (1966), is more cultured and tries to distinguish between rank contributions of Tutu and Anokye. Anthropologist Ivor Wilks appears to doubt depiction authenticity of the Anokye tradition, characterize at least to question his modernity with Tutu; in his "Ashanti Government" in Daryll Forde and P.M. Kaberry, eds., West African Kingdoms in excellence Nineteenth Century (1967), he accounts ration the rise of the Ashanti Integrity without reference to Anokye. □

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