A note on the Asante akonkofo: a non-literate Sub-elite, 1900–1930

Abstract

Opening ParagraphFollowing the growing interest in recent years in social stratification in Asante in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (Arhin, 1983a: 2–22; 1983b: 475; McCaskie, 1983: 23–44; Wilks, 1975: 166–719), this note offers a preliminary study of a body of men who became known in Kumasi and the capital towns of the other Asante chiefdoms – in particular Bekwai, Juaben and Mampon – as the akonkofo in the first phase of colonial rule, 1896–1930. The argument of the paper, written in the light of the views of Daaku (1970, 1971) is that the akonkofo, an intermediary group between office holders and non-holders of office (Arhin, 1983a) could emerge as a distinctive sociopolitical category only in the colonial period. The first section of this article, on the origin of the akonkofo, describes the factors that inhibited the rise of ‘merchant princes’ in Asante before colonial rule; the second, on the akonkofo in Kumasi, offers a kind of social portrait of the akonkofo; and the third section, on the position of the akonkofo in Asante society, examines the relationship of the akonkofo to traditional authority. My sources are archival and written. I have also recorded interviews with Barima Owusu-Ansah, over seventy-five years old, and a leading authority on Asante law and constitution, and with Baffour Osei Akoto, senior spokesman (okyeame) of the Asantehene and just turned seventy, as well as conversations with sundry officials at the Asantehene's court.