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Aspects of Bureaucratization in Ashanti in the Nineteenth Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

Ivor Wilks
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Extract

The Ashanti bureaucracy as we know it from the nineteenth century owed its structure and character to reforms in government initiated by Osei Kwadwo (1762–77) and pushed forward by his successors Osei Kwame (1777–ca. 1801) and Osei Bonsu (ca. 1801–1824). Many previously hereditary offices became appointive: biographical studies of leading officials in the early nineteenth century show that they were appointed, and promoted, by the king on merit, without regard to their origins. Freemen and slaves, Ashanti and non-Ashanti, were recruited into the bureaucracy. Administrative skills tended to be transmitted through patri-kin, and in the course of the nineteenth century powerful groups grew up which, generation after generation, provided the king with trained officials. An administrative class emerged, distinguished from other elements in society by its dependence upon the king for its very existence. Elaborate checks were instituted to prevent the bureaucracy transforming itself from a controlled to a ruling one.

Bureaucratization in Ashanti produced little quantitative change in the pattern of office growth. Its effects were upon the quality of government. A distinction began to take shape between the king acting in his private capacity through his palace functionaries, and in his public capacity through his bureaucratic officials. Government became increasingly efficient, and was extended over fields of activity previously untouched. The growth of the bureaucratic process was reflected in the increasingly absolutist nature of the Ashanti state.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 7 , Issue 2 , July 1966 , pp. 215 - 232
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1966

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References

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6 The Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana, has two series of relevant records: IAS/AS—Ashanti stool histories recorded by Mr J. Agyeman-Duah of Kumasi, and IAS/AS/CR—transcripts of proceedings of the Kumasi Divisional Council. Among actor-reports I would also include the records of the Dutch, Danish, and English establishments on the Gold Coast, preserved in the metropolitan archives of the three countries.Google Scholar

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35 The term was suggested to me by Mr P. C. Gibbons.Google Scholar

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