Photo: Cover of 'The African Kingdom of Gold'.
The African Kingdom of Gold
By Barnaby Phillips
It sounds like a dark fairy tale written by Oscar Wilde.
Once there was a king who lived in a palace full of gold. Strangers were dazzled when they came to visit. But they grew jealous, came in force, scared the king away, took all the gold, and burned the palace. The king and his people were very sad: the palace and the gold that had been taken was very precious to them. But the strangers, really nothing more than thieves, came again and again, and took whatever they could find.
Not content with what they already had, the thieves insisted that the king and his people owed them even more. Time passed, and the nation of the thieves and the nation of the golden king became friends. But when the successors of the old king asked for their gold back, the nation of thieves showed that they were hypocrites, and found excuses to keep the gold for themselves.
Unfortunately for the people of the Asante kingdom in West Africa, this is not a fairy tale. They are the people with the golden king (currently Otumfuo Nana Osei Tutu II, born in 1950) and we are the nation of thieves and hypocrites. This book reveals how, on several expeditions in the nineteenth century, ‘victorious’ British forces either looted the kingdom of Asante (now part of Ghana) or extorted its treasures.
Many of the stolen Asante treasures are solid gold items comparable in quality to those found in the tomb of Tutankhamen, another African king. They include masks, helmets, jewellery and the unique akrafokonmu, ‘soul-washer badges’ worn by attendants of the monarch. One treasure we Brits didn’t bring back as booty was the well-hidden Sika Dwa Kofi, the Golden Stool, central to Asante identity, which is said to have descended miraculously from the heavens. Even the Asante king is not permitted to sit on this; if the British had brought it home as a trophy the Asante might have received the news as we would the theft the crown jewels, together with the Tower of London, and London itself.
Barnaby Phillips is able to end his book on a note of cautious optimism: some of the looted treasures were returned on loan in 2024, and more were welcomed back last year. Important items have resumed their role as ritual objects: the author himself witnessed one surrounded by offerings, being ceremonially doused with schnapps. In Britain, Asante treasures are often locked up unseen in the storage facilities of museums, or are gathering dust in the attics of private collectors. Many of the current owners have no clear idea of what they are, or where they came from. In this case, the road to a happy fairy-tale ending may be unusually smooth and obvious.
At Yearly Meeting, Friends will continue our consideration of reparation to communities affected by the aftermath of chattel slavery. Discussions are bound to be more complex than those around returning stolen property.
