ABSTRACT
BY 1900 the establishment of British overrule had been completed in the Gold Coast. In the Colony itself there had been encroachment upon the powers of traditional rulers, a process that was completed by the outright annexation of the Colony in 1874. In Ashanti the last remnants of revolt against European hegemony had been crushed by military force and the exile of the Asantehene. In the Northern Territories, occupation was peacefully effected by the signing of treaties with the chiefs. To the East, penetration had been completed, though not without some military conflict. Henceforth, the Colony, Ashanti, and the Northern Territories were to diverge with respect to the nature and intensity of British control; attempts were made to develop policies of indirect rule in Ashanti and the North far more systematically than had been attempted in the Colony itself. Despite efforts made to preserve indigenous institutions in the political sphere, in the last resort the source of legitimacy of traditional rulers and the ultimate sanctions underlying the system lay with the British colonial administration and not with traditional authorities.
