ASANTE QUEEN MOTHERS
Authors: STOELTJE BEVERLY J. 
Published: December 2006

The Asante (also Ashanti) people of Ghana belong to the ethnic group known as the Akan who constituted 50% of the Ghanaian population in 1988, which then totaled approximately 14.4 million. The Akan inhabit the forest and coastal belts bounded by the Bandama River (Ivory Coast) and the Volta River (Ghana). The Asante continue to occupy the forest area as they have for many centuries. In the modern nation state this area has been designated the Ashanti Region. Twi is the language of the Asante; Twi and Fante are now considered to constitute the Akan language group which is a member of the Tano subdivision of the Volta‐Comoe language family. (The boundaries of the Akan language group are not exactly coterminous with the boundaries of the ethnic group.)

Matrilineal descent remains the basis for Asante social organization. Every individual belongs to the mother's clan, one of seven or eight clans, and marriage is exogamous. All successions are matrilineal, including those who are qualified to occupy the stool of the queen mother or chief in every town and division. Those individuals, who are the members of the royal family in every town and division, are descended through the lineage of their mother like all other Asante (and Akan), and trace their identity to an early ancestress.

Farming has been and remains the basic subsistence activity. Farmers, who are primarily women, raise yams, cocoyam, oil palm, and plantain for local consumption. In modern times cocoa has become a large export product./Equally importantly, however, Asante have long been traders, and Kumasi, the precolonial capital of the Asante, is one of the oldest markets in West Africa.

Towards the end of the 17th century the first Asantehene, Osei Tutu, in cooperation with his priest, Okomfo Anokye, created a confederacy of Asante states which established the independence of those states from the older Akan states of Denkyira and Akwamu. Although British colonialism and later, national independence, superseded the confederacy, Asante social and political organization remains a vital and active force in everyday life at both local and national levels. Certainly relevant to its strength is the fact that kinship forms the basis of the political organization. Each lineage is a political unit, represented by a head who acts as a representative on larger councils. This form of representation and hierarchy is expanded into larger political units through the village leader, the division chief, the paramount chief and finally to the Asantehene, the chief of all Asante. Parallel to teach chief is a female leader known as the queen mother. This system is known as chieftaincy, or traditional rule.

Ghana achieved its independence from the British in 1957, the first African nation to attain that goal. The internationally known Kwame Nkrumah served as the first President of the Republic of Ghana from 1957–1966. In the present decade, on November 3, 1992, Ghanaian voters elected Fit. Lt. J. J. Rawlings, the military leader who had governed the country for the past eleven years, as the President of the Republic of Ghana. Rawlings was elected President again in 1996.