Pre-Colonial Period

By the end of the 16^th Century, most ethnic groups constituting the modern Ghanaian population had settled in their present locations. Archaeological remains found in the coastal zone indicate that the area has been inhabited since the early Bronze Age (ca. 4000 B.C.), but these societies, based on fishing in the extensive lagoons and rivers, left few traces. Archaeological work also suggests that central Ghana north of the forest zone was inhabited as early as 3,000 to 4,000 years ago. Oral history and other sources suggest that the ancestors of some of Ghana's residents entered this area at least as early as the tenth century A.D. and that migration from the north and east continued thereafter.

These migrations resulted in part from the formation and disintegration of a series of large states in the western Sudan (the region north of modern Ghana drained by the Niger River). Prominent among these Sudanic states was the Soninke Kingdom of Ancient Ghana. Strictly speaking, Ghana was the title of the King, but the Arabs, who left records of the Kingdom, applied the term to the King, the capital, and the state. The 9^th Century Arab writer, Al Yaqubi, described ancient Ghana as one of the three most organised states in the region (the others being Gao and Kanem in the central Sudan). Its rulers were renowned for their wealth in gold, the opulence of their courts, and their warrior-hunting skills. They were also masters of the trade in gold, which drew North African merchants to the western Sudan. The military achievements of these and later western Sudanic rulers and their control over the region's gold mines constituted the nexus of their historical relations with merchants and rulers of North Africa and the Mediterranean.

Ghana succumbed to attacks by its neighbours in the eleventh century, but its name and reputation endured. In 1957 when the leaders of the former British colony of the Gold Coast sought an appropriate name for their newly independent state, the first black African nation to gain its independence from colonial rule they named their new country after ancient Ghana. The choice was more than merely symbolic because modern Ghana, like its namesake, was equally famed for its wealth and trade in gold.

Although none of the states of the western Sudan controlled territories in the area that is modern Ghana, several small Kingdoms that later developed in the north of the country were ruled by nobles believed to have emigrated from that region. The trans-Saharan trade that contributed to the expansion of Kingdoms in the western Sudan also led to the development of contacts with regions in northern modern Ghana and in the forest to the south. By 13^th Century, for example, the town of Jenné in the empire of Mali had established commercial connections with the ethnic groups in the savannah woodland areas of the northern two-thirds of the Volta Basin in modern Ghana. Jenné was also the headquarters of the Dyula, Muslim traders who dealt with the ancestors of the Akan-speaking peoples who occupy most of the southern half of the country.

The growth of trade stimulated the development of early Akan states located on the trade route to the goldfields in the forest zone of the south. The forest itself was thinly populated, but Akan speaking peoples began to move into it toward the end of the 15^th Century with the arrival of crops from Southeast Asia and the New World that could be adapted to forest conditions. These new crops included sorghum, bananas, and cassava. By the beginning of the 16^th Century, European sources noted the existence of the gold rich states of Akan and Twifu in the Ofin River Valley.
Also in the same period, some of the Mande who had stimulated the development of states in what is now northern Nigeria (the Hausa states and those of the Lake Chad area), moved south-westward and imposed themselves on many of the indigenous peoples of the northern half of modern Ghana and of Burkina Faso (Burkina, formerly Upper Volta), founding the states of Dagomba and Mamprusi. The Mande also influenced the rise of the Gonja state.


It seems clear from oral traditions as well as from archaeological evidence that the Mole-Dagbane states of Mamprusi, Dagomba, and Gonja, as well as the Mossi states of Yatenga and Wagadugu, were among the earliest Kingdoms to emerge in modern Ghana, being well established by the close of the 16^th Century. The Mossi and Gonja rulers came to speak the languages of the people they dominated. In general, however, members of the ruling class retained their traditions, and even today some of them can recite accounts of their northern origins.


Although the rulers themselves were not usually Muslims, they either brought with them or welcomed Muslims as scribes and medicine men, and Muslims also played a significant role in the trade that linked southern with northern Ghana. As a result of their presence, Islam substantially influenced the north. Muslim influence, spread by the activities of merchants and clerics, has been recorded even among the Asante to the south. Although most Ghanaians retained their traditional beliefs, the Muslims brought with them certain skills, including writing, and introduced certain beliefs and practices that became part of the culture of the peoples among whom they settled

In the broad belt of rugged country between the northern boundaries of the Muslim-influenced states of Gonja, Mamprusi, and Dagomba and the southernmost outposts of the Mossi Kingdoms, lived a number of peoples who were not incorporated into these entities. Among these peoples were the Sisala, Kasena, Kusase, and Talensi, agriculturalists closely related to the Mossi. Rather than establishing centralised states themselves, they lived in so-called segmented societies, bound together by kinship ties and ruled by the heads of their clans. Trade between the Akan states to the south and the Mossi Kingdoms to the north flowed through their homelands, subjecting them to Islamic influence and to the depredations of these more powerful neighbours.

Of the components that would later make up Ghana, the state of Asante was to have the most cohesive history and would exercise the greatest influence. The Asante are members of the Twi-speaking branch of the Akan people. The groups that came to constitute the core of the Asante confederacy moved north to settle in the vicinity of Lake Bosumtwe. Before the mid-17^th Century, the Asante began an expansion under a series of militant leaders that led to the domination of surrounding peoples and to the formation of the most powerful of the states of the central forest zone.


Under Chief Oti Akenten a series of successful military operations against neighbouring Akan states brought a larger surrounding territory into alliance with Asante. At the end of the 17^th Century, Osei Tutu became Asantehene (King of Asante). Under Osei Tutu's rule, the confederacy of Asante states was transformed into an empire with its capital at Kumasi. Political and military consolidation ensued, resulting in firmly established centralised authority. Osei Tutu was strongly influenced by the high priest, Anokye, who, tradition asserts, caused a stool of gold to descend from the sky to seal the union of Asante states. Stools already functioned as traditional symbols of chieftainship, but the Golden Stool of Asante represented the united spirit of all the allied states and established a dual allegiance that superimposed the confederacy over the individual component states. The Golden Stool remains a respected national symbol of the traditional past and figures extensively in Asante ritual.


Osei Tutu permitted newly conquered territories that joined the confederation to retain their own customs and Chiefs, who were given seats on the Asante state council. Osei Tutu's gesture made the process relatively easy and non-disruptive, because most of the earlier conquests had subjugated other Akan peoples. Within the Asante portions of the confederacy, each minor state continued to exercise internal self-rule, and its Chief jealously guarded the state's prerogatives against encroachment by the central authority. A strong unity developed, however, as the various communities subordinated their individual interests to central authority in matters of national concern.


By the mid-18^t Century,Asante was a highly organised state. The wars of expansion that brought the northern states of Mamprusi, Dagomba, and Gonja under Asante influence were won during the reign of Asantehene Opoku Ware I successor to Osei Tutu. By the 1820s, successive rulers had extended Asante boundaries southward. Although the northern expansions linked Asante with trade networks across the desert and in Hausaland to the east, movements into the south brought the Asante into contact, sometimes antagonistic, with the coastal Fante, Ga-Adangbe, and Ewe people, as well as with the various European merchants whose fortresses dotted the Gold Coast .

Bawku In Perspective

It is rather unfortunate that the Mr John Akparibo Ndebugri, (PNC-Zebilla), who described himself as official spokesman for the Kusasis, said it appeared armed robbers were taking advantage of the situation in Bawku to harass the people. The kusasis are arm robbers and have planned to destabilize the peace Bawku was going to enjoy after the long ranging conflict. The MP Mahama Ayariga knows well he will not secure the seat to parliament come election 2008,by so doing edges his kusasi unemployed youth to intensify attacks on the mamprusi.

John Akparibo Ndebugri is not a kusasi man, he is lost and confuse about his tribe and the kusasi naba Abugrago in history is not a kusasi decent.
The kusasis are ignorant of the real issues connected to the Bawku affair and deliberately wants to throw dust in the eyes of the concern public.

Firstly, it is complete nonsense to imagine that Mamprusis are in the minority in the Bawku area. Bawku is part of Great Mamprugu Kingdom, and so how can any kusasi person in his/her rightful mind imagine that Mamprusis are in the minority. Even if we take the Bawku area in isolation, Mamprusis are not in the minority. If we really want to go by the majority argument, then Bisas are supposed to rule Bawku and not Kusasis. And so the Kusasis should stop this nonsense about being in the majority. I know for sure that Bawku, Binduri, Kuka Zulli, Worikambo, Gumbo all in the Bawku area are predominantly Mamprusis. And so the kusasis should stop throwing dust to the public that Mamprusis are only in Bawku town. Secondly, Mamprusis NEVER robbed Kusasis of the Bawku skin. How can anyone in their right senses make such a claim? It is the same Kusasis which claim that they (Kusasis) requested the Nayiri to provide them with protection against slave raiders during the slave trade years. According to Kusasis, this was how Mamprusis came to be in Bawku. One unanswered question: How could Kusasis have made such a request if the Bawku area was not part of the Nayiri’s territory? Can any Kusasi site any historical example of one tribe requesting protection from another tribe that did not have jurisdiction over the land on which both tribes lived? If the Kusasis were so weak and did not even have what it took to ward off slave raiders, how could they have been landowners in the first place during those turbulent years or wars and take overs? It seems the Kusasis don’t even know their own history well. A euphoria arising from the little political power they have tasted in recent years. A euphoria defined by an erroneous interpretation of freedom and justice. Mamprusis NEVER robbed Kusasis of the Bawku skin. Before Mamprusis started ruling Bawku around the 17th Century, NO Kusasis had ever ruled Bawku.

In fact, the first ever Kusasi to ‘rule’ Bawku was Abugarago Azoka I he was driven away from Pusiga were he first seek shelter, for the offense of going to bed with his best friends wife,this alone makes you know that the kusasis are not poeple to be trusted.
In what way did Mamprusis rob Kusasis of the Bawku skin? The kusasis base their facts on the 1958 Supreme Court declaration which I think they should go back and access them selves well before coming out clearly. Which people were chiefs before 1958? or did the history of Bawku start in 1958? If any government is at the root of the Bawku problem, it is the Nkrumah's government. It is in the common knowledge what President Nkrumah did to people and tribes that were opposing his regime. Nkrumah started the Bawku conflict by disskinning Mamprusis because they were opposed to him and enskinning Kusasis who voted for him. And this is the genesis of the politicization of the Bawku problem.

Source: A.R.K Bawku

The Ghana Empire Collapsed Under The Onslaught Of Invaders From The North And West And Because Of Economic Pulls To The East And South.

In the eleventh century, shortly after Ghana reached its zenith, the city of Kumbi Saleh fell to the Berber Almoravids (1076), who swept across the desert from present-day Mauritania in an effort to control the gold trade and to purify Islam, as it was practiced in Ghana. The invaders subsequently withdrew, but the kingdom of Ghana was weakened. Later invasions by the Takrur people from the west (the Senegal valley) and others, together with secessionist movements from many rebellious sub-kingdoms which had previously paid regular tribute to the Ghanaian king, gradually made the trade routes through Ghana too dangerous. As a result, the Muslim merchants moved eastward, and with the loss of trade, the kingdom of Ghana began to crumble. In addition, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the Bure goldfields were opened up to the south, also drawing traders further east. A terrible drought further compounded the suffering and accelerated the deterioration of the environment--degradation that was probably accentuated also by overgrazing. By the mid-thirteenth century, the once great empire of Ghana had disintegrated.

Source: A.R.K Bawku

The Ghana Empire Survived And Prospered Because It Was Located On Major Trade Routes.

Ghana was well placed to take advantage of trade. It was located midway between the desert, the main source of salt, and the goldfields of the upper Senegal River in the savannah woodlands in the south. Camel caravans crossing the Sahara brought goods such as copper and dried fruit, as well as salt that was mined at Taghaza in present-day northern Mali. The caravans also brought clothing and other manufactured goods, which they exchanged for kola nuts, hides, leather goods, ivory, gold, and slaves. Taxes collected on every trade item entering the kingdom were used to pay for government, a huge army which protected the kingdom's borders and trade routes, and the upkeep of the capital city and major markets. However, it was control of the gold fields in the southwest that was essential to Ghana's political control and economic prosperity. The location of these goldfields was kept strictly secret by the Soninke. By the tenth century, Ghana was an immensely rich and prosperous empire, probably controlling an area the size of Texas or Nigeria in what is now eastern Senegal, southwest Mali, and southern Mauritania. The ruler was acclaimed as the "richest king in the world because of his gold" by Arab traveler Ibn Haukal, who visited the region in about 950 A.D. Demand for gold increased in the ninth and tenth centuries for minting into coins by the Islamic states of North Africa. As the trans-Saharan trade in gold expanded, so did the state of Ghana. The trans-Sahara trade also brought Islam to the empire, initially to the rulers and townspeople.

Locally obtained iron ore was used to make tools, which made agriculture easier and more efficient, and permitted the growth of larger settled communities. Iron-tipped spearheads, lances, knives, and swords gave ancient Soninke soldiers technological superiority over their neighbors who used bone and wood. The Soninke were thus able to capture more farming and grazing land from their weaker, less-organized neighbors. The Soninke were also able to obtain horses from the Saharan nomads with whom they were in contact, which enabled them to move farther and faster.

Source: A.R.K Bawku

The Ghana Empire Began When The Soninke People Joined Forces To Resist The Raids Of Pastoral Nomads.

Nomads herding animals in the fringes of the desert, the Sahel, posed a threat to the early Soninke who lived south of the Sahara as agriculturalists. During times of drought, the nomads would raid the villages to the south in search of water and pastures for their herds. To protect themselves from these raids, the communities of African farmers joined forces, possibly to form a loose federation of states that eventually became the kingdom of Ghana.

During the third century A.D., it is probable that a Soninke chief succeeded in uniting the Soninke people (the northernmost Mande peoples) and possibly founded the city of Kumbi Saleh (in present-day western Mali). Kumbi Saleh was an oasis along an important north-south trade route. This chief belonged to the royal clan of Ouagadou, and the Soninke first named their kingdom after this royal family. He was known as the Kaya maghan, "king of the gold," and as Ghana, or "war chief." Over time, the land of the Ouagadou (Wagadu) became known (by the Arabs) as Ghana; they also associated it with gold. Rulers of the state kept extending their borders in order to gain control of the trade routes by conquering neighboring territories. By the fifth century, the Soninke kingdom of Ghana had been established. This kingdom lasted about six centuries before being conquered by new forces from the east.

Source:A.R.K Bawku