Osei Tutu

Timeline

1. c. 1660–1680Kokofu · AkanBorn around 1660 in Kokofu, his father was the Nyamane noble Owusu Panin and his mother Manu Kotowsi sister of the Kwaman chief. Around adulthood he was sent as a hostage to overlord Denkyira to study military and statecraft, serving as shield-bearer. Later, after a court scandal, he fled to Akwamu, encountering the strongest Akan musket forces of the day and befriending the priest Okomfo Anokye. After his uncle Obiri Yeboah fell in battle, the nobles welcomed him home.
2. c. 1680–1701Kumasi · AsanteReturning home, he succeeded to the Kwaman stool escorted by three hundred Akwamu warriors, uniting surrounding Akan city-states around Kumasi. Anokye presided over the ceremony of the Golden Stool's descent, the stool being interpreted as the seat of the Asante national soul, thereby transcending the stools of each lineage's chiefs and providing the confederacy with a sacred political center. Tribute and control over Denkyira became ever more intolerable, and warfare escalated at the end of the seventeenth century.
3. c. 1701–1717Kumasi · AsanteAround 1701 the Asante coalition routed Denkyira at Feyiase, ending its inland hegemony, and Osei Tutu became the first Asantehene. Thereafter he annexed several Akan states, established military and political offices and Golden Stool rites, laying the foundation for nearly two centuries of state structure. He died around 1717 in battles against Akyem (or on the Pra River), succeeded by his nephew (or grand-nephew) Opoku Ware I.