The Yaa Asantewaa Project
Yaa Asantewaa: A major screenplay in development.
.Born between
1830 and 1840, YAA ASANTEWAA was the queen mother of the Edweso tribe of the
Asante (aka Ashanti) in what is modern Ghana.
The British found few people as
difficult to subdue as the Asante of Ghana in their quest to build a West
African colonial empire. The Asante Wars
against the British began in 1805 and lasted about a hundred years. However, the main or important battles occurred
in the 1820s, the 1850s, the 1870s and the 1890s. The final battle began in September 1900 but
ended in the bloody defeat and rout of the Asante in 1901. To the British this final battle was known as
the Asante Rebellion or the Asante Uprising of 1900 but to the Asante this
rebellion was referred to as the ASANTEWAA WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.
The Asante War of 1900-1 was the only war in which the leader and commander-in-chief of the Asante army was a woman. Eyewitness accounts confirm that Yaa Asantewaa herself did not physically take up arms to fight but that her role was mainly inspirational. She was one of the last to be captured. While most of the captured chiefs became prisoners-of-war, Asantewaa was exiled along with her close companions to the Seychelles where she died in 1921.
The Asante War of 1900-1 was the only war in which the leader and commander-in-chief of the Asante army was a woman. Eyewitness accounts confirm that Yaa Asantewaa herself did not physically take up arms to fight but that her role was mainly inspirational. She was one of the last to be captured. While most of the captured chiefs became prisoners-of-war, Asantewaa was exiled along with her close companions to the Seychelles where she died in 1921.
