Bright Continent

Adum Royal Palace: From Empire's Core to a Shopping District

2017-09-30T04:35:14+00:00

Throughout the 19th century, the five-acre Adum Royal Palace Complex was the center of an Empire that held its own against British onslaughts. Its death knell occurred in the 1890s, and the 20th century saw a move to the Manhiya district, as Adum became a thriving commercial area.

The Asantehene ruled the Asante Empire from his residence in Kumase, but lack of archaeological work at the capital means our knowledge of palace structure and location are limited before the 19th century. In 1817, when Bowdich became the first European to travel to Kumase, the palace covered a large expanse in what is now Adum, with the market nearby. During Bowdich's diplomatic mission to Asantehene Osei Tutu Kwame Asiba Bonsu (r. 1804-1824), he noted that the palace was about a half-mile from the town's southern entry point, approached through a long street. It was walled off from the town, though each end of the wall ended at the nearby marshlands.

Bowdich described the palace as vast, consisting "of a variety of oblong courts and regular squares, the former with arcades along the one side, some of round arches symmetrically turned, having a skeleton of bamboo, the entablatures exuberantly adorned with bold fan and trellis work." He noted that some of the lattice-filled windows were framed in gold, observing that progress through the palace involved opening locks, presumably the "Hausa"-type latches he had commented on elsewhere in Kumase. Some palace courtyards could hold 300 people. The 1817 palace grounds included what Bowdich called the "King's garden, an area equal to one of the large squares in London," the site marked by four large scarlet parasols and a dining table for the occasion of a diplomatic banquet.

The Asantehene discussed ambitious building plans with Bowdich, mentioning a proposed new residence with a brass roof, ivory pillars, and gold window and door trim. Bowdich gave him prints and drawings of European buildings, and the monarch evinced particular interest in the concept of the British Museum. While his ivory and brass structure was never built, he did later create the Aban, a European-style stone structure that acted as museum and storehouse, rather than living quarters.

The main palace remained multiplied series of four structures (pato) set around an open courtyard (gyase). Although these courtyard arrangements were of a standard Asante design, they were far more extensive than those of any other regional ruler, with exceedingly rich relief and openwork decoration, their tall high-pitched roofs creating an impressive visual statement within an approximately five acre area. Although centrally located, palace access excluded most citizens and visitors, and even those who entered often did not proceed past the outer, less private sections of the complex.

When the British invaded Kumase in 1874, they leveled the Aban with dynamite, also destroying many older parts of the Adum Palace. The rebuilding of the clay structures took place immediately, but struggles over the monarchy had returned both the palace and Kumase to a state of disarray within a decade. When Asantehene Prempeh I took the throne in 1888, he had to rebuild, though on a somewhat smaller scale. Continued conflicts with the British led to his deposition in 1896, and damage to the structure occurred during that time.

Nonetheless, some parts of the old palace were still standing by the time of the final Anglo-Asante war of 1900, albeit with a lack of maintenance due to the Asantehene's exile. The governor's wife, Lady Hodgson, commented then that the site was overgrown, consisting of "a few mud huts" repurposed as a police station, although there were "still a few rude carvings [actually molded clay reliefs] to be seen on the walls, but the glory of the place had departed." However, at the close of this war, British relief forces entered Kumase, and Captain Harold Biss noted that the Asante "had carefully left undamaged Prempeh's old palace; so we burned this structure for them." This action put paid to Adum as the site of the royal palace.

With the British occupation and restructuring of the town, palace land became public land. Many of the streets that once led to the palace soon hosted commercial and administrative buildings. When Asantehene Prempeh I returned to Kumase, his new British-built residence was sited in Manhyia, once a village but already incorporated into the growing city.

For more (including 16 images) view the original article

Manhyia Royal Palace: Seat of the Post-19th Century Asante Monarchs

2017-09-28T17:54:59+00:00

Current Asante narrative stresses that the Asante insisted on paying the British for the new royal palace in 1925, so their ruler need not be beholden to the colonialists. British records show their plan was to have Asante noblemen foot the bill.

When the British allowed Asantehene Prempeh I to return from exile in the Seychelles Islands and resume his position as "Kumasihene" (a term that attempted to limit his sovereignty to Kumase), their former actions left him no palace to return to. Upon his return in 1924, he took up temporary quarters in the new neighborhood known as Asafo. The British decided a "bungalow" in their own style would be most suitable, and planned to build it in Manhyia, rather than in the old palace site of Adum, which has since been commercialized.

Before Kumase's colonial growth, the Manhyia area had been a village just outside the city where the Asantehene had an additional residence. According to Fuller, the monarch kept his gunpowder at Manhyia, and it also hosted a critical meeting of the Asante chiefs before Wolsely's 1874 entrance into Kumase. After the destruction of his palace by Wolsely's men, Asante Kofi Karikari left Kumase for Manhyia, as did his principal chiefs. The British selected this same region for Prempeh I's residence. Although they initially referred to him a private citizen, they still constructed a new mansion for the monarch, budgeting 3000 pounds (the equivalent of just over 250,000 of today's dollars). The selected builders were the same construction company that had just built the new colonial residency.

As Dumouchelle points out, Manhyia Palace is similar in style to the Residency, although the latter was larger and grander. Both were two-story stone structures with louvered windows and tiled roofs, although the Palace's Doric porch columns are less imposing (if airier) than the arches of the Residency's porch. Particular prominence was given to the Palace's ground floor porch and second-story balcony, which were as large or larger than the interior rooms. This became a Westernized equivalent of the pre-colonial Kumase-style adampan, the open-walled ground floor room of old aristocratic structures, where royals and noblemen's activities had a public face.

Manhyia Palace is a symmetrical structure, the entrance porch leading to a wide hall. Its wooden-floored ground floor included five rooms, including a smoking room and an office for Prempeh I. The upper floor held three bedrooms, a dressing room, sitting room, and linen room. A separate garage and electric light (introduced 1929) were additions, and Prempeh II sought other expansions that included a guest house, a palace for the Queen Mother, a tennis court, and additional outbuildings. Dumouchelle observed that the arrangement of some of the structures--though made of permanent materials--was pre-colonial, with four open structures centered around an open courtyard (gyase).

Asantehenes Prempeh I (d. 1931) and two of his successors, Prempeh II (r. 1931-1970) and Opoku Ware II (1970-1999) also lived in the colonial building, and its current status as museum preserves original furnishings, dining services, telephones, and the first Kumase black and white television from 1965. It also houses precolonial swords, dress, and other royal regalia, as well as realistic fiberglass effigies of many former monarchs and queen mothers. Its public opening was planned as one of the culminating activities of a grand Jubilee celebration of Asantehene Opoku Ware II's 25th year on the throne, and took place in 1995.

Malcolm McLeod, director of Glasgow's Hunterian Museum and former Keeper of the British Museum's Museum of Mankind, was invited to advise those Asante who were planning the museum. As Schildkrout notes, his plans involved certain needed repairs and upgrades, the cleaning and conservation of the house's domestic contents, and considerations of the diverse audiences the museum would serve, but did not include object curation for the second floor, which would include some royal regalia. Objects from the royal treasury have different caretakers, not all of whom agreed with the concept of museum display. The exhibit cases were not filled until the day of the opening, and many were emptied that same night. Because objects can be in active use for ceremonies, the inventory remains fluid; some regalia items on view are now replicas, while others are temporarily exhibited.

Asantehene Opoku Ware II chose to dedicate the colonial structure as a museum for he had created a new palace next to it not long after his 1970 accession. This remains the residence of the reigning Asantehene, Osei Tutu II, which is shielded by wrought iron fencing. Outside both the old and new mansions are large public expanses that not only add to the grandeur of the palace compound, but are put to periodic practical use. Royal ceremonies take place on these lawns, with parade ground structures shielding musicians and select distinguished guests. The palace, museum, outbuildings, and grounds today occupy an area of about five acres, equivalent to the space the 19th-century Adum palace stood on, and used for both old and new purposes, albeit in Western styles.

For more (including 23 images) view the original article