How British Misconstrued Asantehene’s Gift to their Queen as War Declaration

Featuring in the eye-opening and thought-provoking lecture of the 16th Monarch of the Asante Kingdom, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II at the British Museum on July 19, 2024, was a symbolic present from the 10th King of the Asante Kingdom, Nana Mensah Bonsu, to the late Queen Victoria whose message was not effectively decoded.

The present- a golden axe- was sent to the Queen only eight years after the destructive Sagrenti War which left Kumasi in flames with some treasures stolen by the British troops.

The present was misconstrued as a declaration of war; however, in actual sense, it reflected a critical trait of the Kingdom- Reconciliation and Peace.

“There was the ancient golden axe which was part of the royal collection at Lisle that was given as a gift to Queen Victoria in 1882 by my great-great-granduncle Nana Mensah Bonsu. British diplomats at the time were aghast. They thought of the gift of an axe almost as a declaration of war because the axe is deemed a weapon of violence or destruction.

“But what was the motivation behind the gift? It was a diplomatic symbol of negotiation intended to convey to the empress that in Asante an axe was used to cut through difficult things including misunderstandings or disputes and to reassure her of Asante’s readiness to sit down together to cut through any misunderstanding to achieve peace.”

This trait, His Majesty said, is ingrained as part of Asantes, citing Agyemang Prempeh I who returned from exile to hold out a hand of friendship to the British in spite of their unforgivable harm.

“The fact that we have overcome the pains of the past speaks to the profound value system is compressed into the challis of our heritage and makes of steadfastness in defence of our independence and realism and wisdom in the pursuit of peace.”