The Ashantees do not smelt ores like some of the African tribes, yet they have blacksmiths and gold-smiths much superior to what we might expect to find among them. There are also dyers, potters, tanners, and carpenters.
The fineness of texture and the variety and brilliancy of coloring in the native cloths would do credit to an English or an American manufacturer. Several specimens of the handiwork of the Ashantees are to be found in the British Museum.
Various insurrections and frequent wars have occurred, in some of which the Ashantees have come into collision with the British nation. Finally, a few years ago, war was formally declared; for the Ashantees paid no regard to treaties formed with neighboring states under the protection of the British flag, and resented bitterly any interference on the part of Great Britain with the slave trade.
They not only insulted and robbed persons trading with the British settlements, but even killed them, in their bitter hatred. At last they took up arms against the British. A war followed, which terminated quite recently, and resulted in the defeat and disbandment of the Ashantees, and in the overthrow of the kingdom.
The capital, as well as the palace, was burned, and the king, in spite of his cunning and duplicity, was finally forced to sue for peace.
A treaty was formed, the conditions of which were most important; human sacrifices were to be abolished, the slave trade discontinued, and honorable commerce protected. Well will it be for Ashantee land if these conditions can be enforced; for the defeat of a native king in Africa means, usually, political chaos and ruin.
Even at the present time many of the Ashantees have thrown off their allegiance to the king; and the kingdom will, no doubt, resolve itself into a number of petty chieftainships similar to those from which it was formed.
The kingdom of Dahomey is the most celebrated of all the West African countries.
The limits of the kingdom are somewhat uncertain; but the whole country over which the king of Dahomey originally ruled cannot have been less than four thousand square miles.
Formerly, the kingdom was engaged in the slave trade. Whydah, its seaward outlet, was one of the ports where the slavers were loaded with their human cargoes. Now it is an insignificant little town of ruined factories.