Adanse
Adanse or Adansi was one of the earliest Akan states in the southern part of present-day Ashanti Region, Ghana. It is regarded as the ancestral homeland from which many of the southern Akan trace their origins. Adanse became an early centre of gold production, regional trade, and clan-based governance, and is remembered as senior among principal Akan states. It influenced the formation of later polities including Denkyira, Akyem, Assin, and the Asante Empire.
Etymology
The name Adanse derives from the Akan word adanseɛ, meaning “builders”. Traditions and historians explain that Adanse earned this name because they were the first Akan people to construct permanent homes and shrines, remembered as “those who build houses”.History
Origins
Adanse is described as a spiritual and cultural origin of Akan civilization, associated with the place where the art of building began and as the first organized Akan state, from which other polities learned the art of government from. Its first capital, Adansemanso was an ancestral settlement and one of the oldest Akan towns in the forest interior. According to oral and archaeological evidence, the site was settled by 393 CE, and continuously developed from the 9th century CE onward. In traditions it was known as the first among the “five original great towns of the Akan”.Adansemanso and early urbanism
In the 9th century Adansemanso was very populous, and by the 13th century, it was a large and complex settlement. It was described by archaeologists as “probably the largest ancient town in the central forest area of Ghana”, with its ruins being one square kilometer. More excavations revealed evidence of collapsed houses in rows over 100 meters long with multiple superimposed clay floors, which indicate long-term rebuilding. Research revealed its peak was between the 13th and 15th centuries. Kea situates Adansemanso within a wider regional city-state culture that took shape from the 9th to the 15th centuries that was anchored in craft production and long-distance trade.The kingdoms of Arcania and the Accanists
Early 16th-century sources such as Duarte Pacheco Pereira refer to interior gold traders identified as Haccanys, Cacres, Andese, and Souzos, linked to the forested gold zones later associated with Adanse. Europeans called these traders “Accanists” and the region “Accany” or “Arcania”, praised for pure gold known on the coast as “Akan sica”. In 1517 envoys from a “King of the Akani” visited Elmina regarding conflict with neighbors, and by 1548 officials recorded “civil wars among the Akani”. A 1629 Dutch map labelled “Acanni” and called its people principal merchants. Later Dutch accounts use forms like “Accanien” and identify “Alance”, read as Adanse, within a “Kingdom of Arcania”. Several scholars place “Accany” in the Pra-Ofin basin. Although absent from early European accounts, Daaku identifies Adanse as one of the principal states of the Akani confederacy.Decline of Adansemanso and growing political fragmentation of Adanse
Prior to archaeological investigations, historians such as F. K. Buah and K. Y. Daaku placed the centralization and decline of Adanse under Awurade Basa at Adansemanso in the 16th or 17th century. Findings later revealed that Adansemanso slowly declined until it was abandoned in the late 16th to early 17th century before the height of Atlantic trade. Ray Kea links the decline to the migration of wealthy abirempon families who established new centers of power elsewhere. A variant of Adanse traditions collected by Ivor Wilks claim that after the death of Awurade Basa, centralized authority fragmented into smaller autonomous states like Ayaase, Dompoase, Edubiase, Fomena, and Ahinsan.Adanse city-states and conflicts with Denkyira
Denkyira traditions describe the Adanse states of the Ofin–Pra basin as the dominant power in the first half of the 17th century. Abankeseso was founded by refugees fleeing Akrokerri's control and later became Denkyira's capital. From the 1630s onward, the influx of firearms through European trade “sharpened competition” among the Akani states, including Adanse, and hastened the disintegration of the wider Akani confederacy. Adanse was traditionally said to rely on “the wisdom of its great God Bona and not on force,” which left it ill-equipped for this new militarised era. Akyem Abuakwa oral accounts reccount commercial rivalries and succession disputes weakened Adanse internally, while mounting pressure from Denkyira deepened the crisis. In the 1640s, Denkyira incursions combined with the rise of the early Asante power destabilised the region and spurred migrations of Asona and other Adanse groups eastward.Defeat and subjugation to Denkyira
In 1659 a Dutch report described wars in the “distant districts of Adansee” that nearly annihilated the state, noting that “Adanse had quietly disappeared”. Oral traditions credit the decisive victory to Denkyira under Wirempe Ampem, though some accounts attribute it to Boa Amponsem I. The defeat marked a major reversal, as Denkyira had earlier been subject to Adanse. Adanse persisted as a polity, overshadowed by Denkyira until the rise of Asante in the late 17th century.Integration into the Asante state
After Asante defeated Denkyira at Feyiase in 1701, Adansi declared for Asante and became part of the state. Adanse lay within metropolitan Asante and hosted nkwansrafo highway police at the Kwisa post under central authority. In 1839 Thomas Birch Freeman was detained at Kwisa until permission arrived from Kumase, with the Adansehene coordinating with officers there. After the Katamanso war in 1826, Adansi opened peace contacts with the British due to safer passage to the coast. In 1831 the Asantehene rewarded negotiators, including the Fomenahene Kwante and Gyamera Kwabena, with regalia to constitute their own akyeame. In February 1872 Fritz Ramseyer recorded a Kumase council in which the Adansehene supported release of captives or, failing that, war against the British.Colonial encounters and the Treaty of Fomena
In 1873 the Adansi chief Kobina Obeng sought independence from Asante, encouraged by proximity to British protection north of the Pra. British forces invaded Kumasi in 1873, deposed Kofi Karikari, and compelled negotiations. Mensa Bonsu restored control over most dependencies, with the exception of Kwahu. The Treaty of Fomena in February 1874 imposed a 50,000-ounce gold indemnity on Asante and renounced claims over several southern territories. Although Adansi had seceded, it fought with Kumasi in the 1900 War of the Golden Stool due to the stool's religious significance. In 1933 the Adansehene of whom him and his people were described as "true Ashanti" wrote a letter to the British government swearing an "oath that he was certainly prepared to call and serve Nana Prempeh as Asantehene; indeed, he felt sorry that ignorant people should refer to such a great man as 'Kumasihene and not as Asantehene." and in the 31st of January 1935 they re-joined the re-established Asante Kingdom.Divisions
Adanse occupied the central forest belt and was located north of the Pra–Ofin river confluence.According to Ray Kea's analysis, Adanse contained thirty-two towns, with seven of them were paramount. Major towns included Fomena, Akrokerri, Dompoase, and Edubiase, with ancestral sites being Ayaase, Abadwam, and Kokobiante. They were confederation of autonomous city-states but were subordinate to the Adansehene. An Akan proverb was used to describe the loose structure: “Adanse nkotokwa, obiara ne ben o am,” meaning “the towns were like little crabs, each ruling its own hole.”