Yaa Asantewaa (1800s-October 17,1921)

The Queen Mother of  Ejisu in the Ashanti Enpire - now part of modern day Ghana,appointed by her brother Nana Akwasi  Afrane Opese,the Edesuhene,or ruler,of Edwesu.In 1900 she led the Ashanti war known as the War of The Golden Stool,also known as the Yaa Asantewaa war,against British colonialism.

Born in Besease,in southern Ghana,Yaa was the older of two children.Her brother,Afrane Panin, became the chief of Edweso,a nearby community.After a childhood without incident,she cultivated crops on the land around Boankra.She entered a polygamous marriage with a man from Kumasi,with whom she had a daughter.

During her brother's reign she saw the Ashanti confederacy go through go through a series of events that threatened its future,including civil war from 1883-1888.When Yaa brother died in 1894,Yaa used her right as Queen Mother to nominate her own grandson as Ejisuhene.When the British exiled him to the Seychelles in 1896,along with the King Ashante Prempeh I and other members od the Ashante government,Yaa became regent of the Ejisu-juaben district.After the deporation of Prempehi I,British governor-general of the Gold Coast,Frederick Hodgson,demanded the Golden Stool,the symbol of the Ashante nation.This request led to a secret meeting of the remaining members of the Ashanti government at Kumasi,to discuss how secure the return of their king.There was a disagreement among those present on how to go about this.Yaa,who was present at this meeting,stood and addressed the members of the council with thse now-famous words.

Yaa was chosen by a number of regional AshantiKings to be the war-leader of the Ashanti fighting force.This is the first and only example for a woman to be given that role in the Ashanti history.The Ashanti history.The Ashanti-British "War of the Golden Stool" was led by Queen Mother Nana Asantewaa with an army 5,000.

Beginning in March 1900,the rebellion laid siege to the fort at Kumasi where the British had sought refuge.The fort stands today as the Kumasi Fort-and Military Museum.After several months,the Gold Coast governor eventually sent a force of 1,400 to quell the rebellion.During the fighting,Queen Yaa Asantewaa and fifteen of her closets advisers were captured,and they,too, were sent into exile to the Seychelles.The rebellion represented the final war in the Anglo-Asante series of wars that lasted throughout the 19th century.On January 1,1902 the British fully seized the land that the Asante army had been defending from them for almost a century,and the Asante empire was made a protectorate of the British crown.

Yaa died in exile in the Seychelles.Three years after her death,on December 27,1924,Prempeh I and the other remaining members of the exiled Asante court were allowed to return to Asante.Prempeh I mAde sure the remains of Yaa and the other exiled Asantes were returned for a proper royal burial.Yaa dream for an Asante free of British rule was realized on March 6,1957,when the Asante protectorate gained independence as part of Ghana.Ghana was the first African nation in Sub-Saharan to achieve this feat.