Africans must take their history seriously: the Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, has called on Africans to never forget their history, reports Kingsley Antwi Bosiako from Kumasi, Ghana.

Africans forget their history at their peril, says the Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, the king of the Asante people of Ghana. In an indirect rebuke to the new French president, Nicholas Sarkozy, who told a huge crowd of Africans in the Senegalese capital, Dakar, in July that Africa should not dwell on its colonial past but commit itself to good governance, the Asantehene says Africans cannot, and should not, forget their history as history is part and parcel of the African reality.

"We must take the learning of our history seriously, and we must safeguard our culture and values. We lose them at our own peril," said the King.

Paraphrasing the famous quotation of the equally famous English author George Orwell (whose real name was Eric Arthur Blair): "He who controls the past, controls the future; he who controls the future, controls the present", the Asantehene said it would be dangerous for Africans to pretend that they have no past, and even more dangerous when knowing one's history is a vital prerequisite for development.

He made the remarks when receiving the editor of New African magazine, Baffour Ankomah, to the Manhyia Palace in Kumasi on 23 August. The King is a big fan of New African's and never misses a copy.

Baffour and a delegation of his family and friends had gone to the palace to present to the King historical photographs of the Asante monarchy which he had taken in the Seychelles four years ago. The photographs, showing where the exiled Asantehene Otumfuo Agyeman Prempeh I and 52 other members of the Asante royalty (including the famous warrior-queen of Edweso, Yaa Asantewaa) lived in the Seychelles, were donated to the Manhyia Palace Museum by the New African editor.

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In 1896, the British colonial government in the Gold Coast (now Ghana), using trickery, arrested Otumfuo Agyeman Prempeh I, his mother, father, brother, and eight Asante paramount chiefs and kept them as prisoners in the Cape Coast Castle down the coast. Later, they were taken to Sierra Leone to stop the Asante people from visiting their King at Cape Coast.

But the visits continued even in Sierra Leone, forcing the British to ship the Asante political prisoners to faraway Seychelles. They arrived in the Seychellois capital, Victoria, on 11 September 1900. In all, 52 members of the Asante monarchy (made up of 14 chiefs, 13 women, 13 children and 12 servants) made the trip.

Later, in 1901, when the Warrior-Queen Yaa Asantewaa was betrayed by two Asante citizens, the British arrested her and shipped her to Seychelles. For nine months between March and November 1900, Yaa Asantewaa had led the Asantes to war against the British who, after exiling King Prempeh I and the others to the Seychelles, now arrived in Kumasi to demand the Golden Stool, the embodiment of the soul of the Asante people and empire. The British knew what the Golden Stool meant to the Asantes. Yet they wanted to take it away and desecrate it as an exhibit at the British Museum or some such place in London.

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Rich in history, the Golden Stool (its proper name is Sika Dwa), had been commanded from the heavens, according to Asante legend, by the famous traditional priest, Okomfo Anokye, when Asante was about to become an empire. Up till then, the Asantes had been part of the Denkyira Empire whose rule covered, for several centuries, a huge chunk of what became modern Ghana. But, by 1701, according to the Asante historian, Ivor Agyeman Duah, in his book, The Asante Monarchy in Exile, "the power of Denkyira as the imperial empire in the hinterland or the forest country had been destroyed.

"A rebellion waged by the subordinate states--Kumasi, Dwaben, Nsuta, Bekwai, Mampon, Kumawu and others within the Denkyira administration saw the defeat of the Denkyirahene, Ntim Gyakari. Afterwards, these subordinate states decided that the military coalition that gave them victory should be turned into a political union. 'Osa nti fo', which means in Akan, 'those who had become one because of war', adopted 'Asante' [a corruption of Osantio] as the name of the union.

"Asante then", as [the British historian] Ivor Wilks has rightly argued, "was not a creation of any Asante tribe. It was a creation of the Kumasis, Dwabens, Nsutas and so forth, all of whom became Asantes under the new dispensation."

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The Golden Stool, therefore, was, and still is, the highest embodiment and the most scared object of the Asante nation. So, when on 28 March 1900, the British governor Arnold Hodgson arrived in Kumasi and arrogantly demanded to sit on the Golden Stool after exiling King Prempeh I, Yaa Asantewaa who was then queenmother and acting chief of Edweso, after the deportation to the Seychelles of her brother and chief of Edweso, Nana Kofi Afrane II, took great umbrage.

"Tomorrow, ghost widows would get husbands," she thundered, effectively a declaration of war against the British. The only woman at the meeting with Governor Hodgson, Yaa Asantewaa challenged the frightened Asante chiefs cowering before the British governor in her famous words:

"How can a proud and brave people like the Asante sit back and look while the white man took away their King and chiefs, and humiliated them with a demand for the Golden Stool. The Golden Stool only means money to the white man; they have searched and dug everywhere for it.

"I shall not pay one predwan ([pounds sterling]8 2s) to the governor. If you, the chiefs of Asante, are going to behave like cowards and not fight, you should exchange your loin cloths for my undergarments (montu mo danta mma me, na monnye me tam)."

Yaa Asantewaa duly mobilised the Asantes for war. Under her leadership, the Asantes gave the British a run for their money for long periods of the war which became known as the Yaa Asantewaa War of 1900. When the British, with the aid of their big guns, finally defeated the Asantes in November 1900, Yaa Asantewaa went into hiding in a village, Sreso Timpomu.

Then, as at now, there were, and still are, traitors to the African cause. Yaw Patia and Kwame Tuah, two citizens of Sreso Timpomu, took the proverbial "30 pieces of silver" from the British and betrayed Yaa Asantewaa. She was duly arrested and shipped to the Seychelles where she died on 11 September 1921. Her remains where later exhumed and taken to Kumasi when King Prempeh I was allowed to return home in 1924, after 28 years in exile.

Most of the dwellings that housed the exiled Asantes in Victoria are no more, but the house in which King Prempeh lived, is still standing and in good condition. The house, and the grave in which Yaa Asantewaa was buried before her exhumation, were photographed by Baffour Ankomah in 2004. He also photographed some of the descendants of the exiled Asantes still living in the Seychelles. Six of the photographs were presented to Otumfuo Osei Tutu II on 23 August as a donation to the Manhyia Palace Museum.

The King expressed gratitude to Baffour, his family and friends for the kind gesture, and encouraged him to continue (as the Otumfuo put it) "with the good work you are doing at New African. By your work, you've brought honour and joy to us all. I read the magazine avidly. Keep it up," the King exhorted Baffour.