Yaa Asantewaa
Ashanti Queen Mother and military leader
Yaa Asantewaa I (c. 1840 – 17 October 1921) was the Queen Mother of Ejisu within the Ashanti Empire, now part of modern-day Ghana. She was appointed by her brother Nana Akwasi Afrane Okese, the Ejisuhene, or Paramount Chief of Ejisu. In 1900, she led the War of the Golden Stool or the Yaa Asantewaa War against the British Empire.
Biography
Yaa Asantewaa was born around 1840 in Besease, the daughter of Kwaku Ampoma and Ata Po. 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.
Asantewaa died in exile in the Seychelles in 1921. She was a successful farmer and mother.
“Yaa Asantewaa” enters the record as ashanti Queen Mother and military leader. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Asantewaa, Ashanti and Queen can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Yaa Asantewaa” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Asantewaa, Ashanti and Queen provides the most credible route into that argument.
The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q467803. VIAF identifies the subject as 1080040. The Library of Congress control number is no00086686. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1840, 1921 and 1900.
Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.
- Establishing names and roles
- Building a first chronology
- Locating cited institutions
Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Yaa Asantewaa”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Yaa Asantewaa primary sources, Yaa Asantewaa archive and Asantewaa research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Yaa Asantewaa”?
- Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
- How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Yaa Asantewaa” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.