Capture of Kumasi (1874)

The Capture of Kumasi or the Burning of Kumasi occurred between 4 and 6 February 1874 as the final action of the Third Anglo-Ashanti War in Kumasi, the capital of the Asante Empire. British forces commanded by Sir Garnet Wolseley took the city without resistance and started a massive punitive action including the demolition of the Aban royal palace and burning down of a huge part of the city.

As a reaction on the Asante military invasion of 1873 on the ground of British Gold Coast, in April 1873 British military command appointed General Garnet Wolseley to lead an expedition force of 2,500 British soldiers^[1] and several thousand West Indian and African troops (including some Fante) to stop the hostile actions. Deployment reached the Cape Coast port in January 1874 and started their move to the north, with the Asante capital of Kumasi, seat of the king Kofi Karikari, as a main target. After Asante refusal of the British ultimatum,^[2] on 29 January skirmishes started culminating in a decisive battle of Amoaful on 31 January,^[3] ending up as a decisive triumph of technologically more advanced British troops.

On 4 February 1874 British troops, mainly composed of the 42nd Regiment of Foot and the marines, reached the city of Kumasi. Although of concentration of armed Asante men there, it has been claimed that the city was taken without any resistance. Invading troops entered the royal palace to realize the king and his court left the city to hide in the bush. During the search in the palace British found extraordinary number of antiqities, Moorish and Asante artwork pieces,^[4] valuable weapons and also a large library including the books in various languages. Instead of continuing the campaign and pursuing the king Kofi and his remaining troops, Wolseley and his staff decided to proceed an act of sophisticated destruction of Kumasi.

While moving out the valuables from the royal palace to seize them or just let them be thrown away on the ground, on 6 February British soldiers forced all the inhabitants of the city (number is roughly estimated of about 40,000 people) out to the wilderness. Military engineers planted the explosives around the royal palace and carried out its demolition.^[5] Rest of the city buildings, mainly constisting from wood and other flamable natural materials, were then set on fire by the British infantry troops.

Action was described by multiple press correspondents of newspaper like The Times, Daily Telegraph, Daily News or Manchester Guardian,^[6] present during the event.

Capture of Kumasi was seen as a resolute British military and political success which marked the resolute moment of so-called the Third Anglo-Ashanti War. Vast of the items from the royal palace and other places of Kumasi brought by the Wolseley expedition were then sold on a auction in Cape Coast. King Kofi, forced by the circumstances, signed the peace treaty of Fomena in July 1874, in October of the same year he was dethroned.^[7] British position in present-day Ghana then kept to grow stronger against the state of Asante, one of the biggest states remaining sovereign on the continent infumed by colonialism.

• Ivor Wilks (1989). Asante in the Nineteenth Century: The Structure and Evolution of a Political Order. CUP Archive. ISBN 9780521379946. Retrieved 2020-12-29 – via Books.google.com.