The Emancipation Support Committee (ESC) has invited an Ashanti king (Otumfuo Nana Osei Tutu II) as a special guest for the 2023 Emancipation Week celebrations.

This is a rather curious choice, given that the Ashanti Empire was one of the major slave-trading states of West Africa and one-third of its own population were enslaved up to the 19th century.

In fact, when in 1820 the British told the Ashanti ruler Asantehene (King) Osei Bonsu that the slave trade was to be abolished for humanitarian reasons, his response was, ‘The white men who go to council with your master, and pray to the great God for him, do not understand my country, or they would not say the slave trade was bad.’

So, the same logic that the ESC applies in demanding reparations from the British (who abolished slavery in the Ashanti Empire in 1874) should apply to its present rulers. After all, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II claims direct succession to the 17th-century founder of the Ashanti Empire, Otumfuo Osei Tutu I.

I expect that the people who over the past week were lauding the late Professor Brinsley Samaroo will be providing more information on this and related issues, given that all of them highlighted the importance of knowing history.

Kevin Baldeosingh
Freeport