Title:
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Trade, state formation and warfare on the Gold Coast, 1600 - 1826
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This work is a study of three interrelated themes: international
trade, state formation and warfare. These themes are examined within
the framework of select littoral states on the Gold Coast and the
inland Akany polities of Akany, Akwamu and Asante. The production and
export of gold were the bases'for international trade with the trading
centres ot the Central and Western Sudan and with the various European
trading stations that were established on the Gold Coast littoral I
between the late 15th and late 17th centuries. The development of
trade centres and trade routes, urbanization, demographic expansion
and growing socio-economic differentiation within the coastal and
inland states contributed in the late 16th and 17th centuries to
the emergence ot new forms of political administration (e.g. bureaucracy)
as well as new forms of military organization (e.g. urban-based
militia units) and warfare le.g. the employment of ployed and, later,
deployed battle tactics). It is suggested that the coastal polities
Le.g. the Accra and Fetu Kingdoms) and the Akany confederation
represent an early phase of this developmental process,while Akwamu
and Asante, building on these earlier achievements, represent a later
one; specifically, Akwamu and Asante were imperial state systems,
which distinguished them sharply from Akany. The various coastal
and inland states are examined in the light of the aforementioned
economic, political, military changes. With respect to Asante an
attempt has been made to examine in detail the means by which the
south-east Gold Coast and the Western Slave Coast were incorporated
into Greater Asante.
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