ABSTRACT
Of all the states of West Africa involved in resistance against European occupation, Asante had by far the longest-experience. Asante was fundamentally a military union which aimed at economic expansion. This policy of military expansion was so successful that by the end of the eighteenth century Asante was in control of a territory much larger than modern Ghana. During the second half of the eighteenth century, then, partly as a result of European commercial rivalry and partly because of British involvement in Fante trade and politics, the British traders on the coast were gradually committed to a policy of having to defend the Fante should they be attacked by the Asante. It is clear, then, that the Asante were defeated by the British and their allies not because they lacked courage and discipline but mainly because the enemy used modern weapons unknown to the Asante.
