Dutch-Ahanta War

Dutch–Ahanta War
Date 1837–1839 Location Dutch Gold Coast Result Dutch victory, Ahanta becomes a Dutch protectorate
Belligerents
Netherlands	Ahanta kingdom
Commanders and leaders
Hendrik Tonneboeijer Jan Verveer	Badu Bonsu II
Strength
200 men (first expedition)	Unknown
Casualties and losses
47 dead	Unknown

The Dutch–Ahanta War was a conflict between the Netherlands and the Ahanta between 1837 and 1839. Beginning with a mere economic dispute between the Ahanta and the Dutch, who were based at the Dutch Gold Coast, the conflict ended with the hanging of Ahanta king Badu Bonsu II and the reorganization of the Ahanta state, establishing a Dutch protectorate over the Ahanta.

From the time the European powers settled trading posts on the Gold Coast until the second half of the nineteenth century, they displayed little interest in establishing territorial control beyond the forts they built in agreement with the local population. The Dutch were no exception in this regard. After they dislodged the Swedish Africa Company from the Ahanta area in what is now Western Ghana, they signed the Treaty of Butre with the Ahanta in 1656, which nominally subjected the Ahanta to Dutch rule and allowed the Dutch to trade with the Ahanta from their basis at Fort Batenstein.

While initially the European powers came to the Gold Coast primarily to trade in gold, as is suggested by the name of the area, the trade in slaves began to gain prominence by the second half of the seventeenth century. This trade came to a rather sudden halt through the passing of the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act 1807 by the United Kingdom, which was subsequently taken over by the Dutch by a royal decree of June 1814 and an Anglo-Dutch Slave Trade Treaty signed in May 1818. These changing economic conditions caused tensions between the coastal peoples on the Gold Coast and the European powers with whom they were trading. Seeking a way to return their colony to a profit, the Dutch sent out a great mission to the Ashanti Empire in the Gold Coast interior in early 1837, under the leadership of General Jan Verveer. The primary purpose of this mission was to tempt the Ashanti, with whom the Dutch had been allied since the mission of David van Nyendael of 1702, into signing a treaty allowing the Dutch to recruit soldiers for the Dutch colonial army. The eventual success of the mission was met with suspicion by the other peoples of the Gold Coast.

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Wikipedia