Much is made to make history relatable to audiences, readers and listenerships in the 2020s, whether that is parallels with bygone eras, the immutable notion that we can plot what will come from what once happened. Barnaby Phillips’ The African Kingdom of Gold can lay claim to being a history that remains very much unfinished, his 200-year account of the treasures of the Asante kingdom, a pre-colonial realm centred around Ghana’s second city, Kumasi, and spanning much of the modern-day country’s interior eligible to be considered a living-and-breathing story, the conclusion of which is still to be determined.
Disputes concerning the colonial seizure and loan agreements (and possible restitution too) of artefacts from the various museums and collections across the West are issues that prove as thorny as they are current. Phillips has previously written a book about the Benin Bronzes from further down the Atlantic littoral. As a former West Africa correspondent for the BBC and having reported across the continent, the journalist-historian adheres to those standards and acquits himself well throughout the book, combining thoughtfulness and balance in recalling the events and viewpoints he encounters, keeping his powder for the most part bone-dry as the topic matter demands.
Phillips begins in media res with the transport of several artefacts back belonging to the Victoria & Albert and British Museums in 2024 back to Kumasi, their installation the result of a long-term loan agreed between the Asantehene (the king of the Asante) and the institutions after nearly a century of discussions. After harking back to the earliest encounters of Europeans and the Asante, the drama begins in earnest in 1873-4, as the British send in the archvillain of the piece, Sir Garnet Wolseley, to deal with the invading Asante forces, one in a series of campaigns detailed within that included the sackings and razings of settlements, several skirmishes and a siege and would continue into the dawn of the 20th century. Most moving of the several arresting set-pieces is the description of Prempeh I’s 24-year exile (alongside other African chiefs and rulers) on the Seychelles, his return to the Gold Coast in 1924, exactly a century earlier than the gold, providing a stirring parallel of dislocation and complex repatriation that runs through Phillips’ account.
It goes without saying then that The African Kingdom of Gold is a worthwhile read for anybody interested in the post-colonial debate that will simmer, perhaps not rage, on in countries like the UK as we probe those legacies and their impacts. Not only does it succeed in laying out the possibilities, what might happen next, giving voice to the lengthy cast of characters who continue to involve themselves in the fate, and work to ensure the safekeeping, of the artefacts, the gold and the treasures, but it skilfully draws out the psychology and the emotion behind the opposing parties and those caught in between, both now and then, and presents why exactly such conversations still matter.
Zeb Baker-Smith is a Classics teacher based in Malawi, a freelance journalist and Editor at Aspects of History.
