Ewe Unification Movement

A loose conception of an Ewe identity has existed through a shared origin myth surrounding the Togolese town of Notsé and a subsequent exodus from it due to the tyranny of its king Agokoli,[4] but historical evidence for this specific tradition's basis in reality is lacking.

[5] The more accepted version of their history follows the group's 1600s westward migration from the town of Ketu around the Benin-Nigeria border after pressures began to mount from the neighboring Yoruba.

[2][4][6] After settling in their current territories around the Volta Region, the Ewe were fragmented into a menagerie of chiefdoms and villages called dukowo, though they sometimes consolidated into military alliances against external threats such as the Akwamu in 1833, or Ashanti in 1868.

[5] Ewe interaction with Europeans prior to colonization was primarily confined to trade along the Gold & Slave coasts and mouth of the Volta River.

This ultimately only served as a partial unification of some Ewe — for while many in the west now found themselves essentially unified under two British colonial administrations, the rest in the east were placed under a French mandate.

[20] Sylvanus Olympio's eventual usurper, Gnassingbé Eyadéma, did not focus on his predecessor's greater Togoland claims in the initial period of his leadership.

[22][21] However, this reorientation towards irredentism was seemingly only rhetorical, as Gnassingbé Eyadéma's government was in practice cooperative with Ghana's efforts at suppressing the separatists due to Togo's heavy reliance on Ghanaian hydroelectric capacities.

[28] This tension briefly subsided with the rise of Gnassingbé Eyadéma to power in Togo, because his regime was more cooperative with Ghana — at least until the 1970s, when he began agitating for Ewe separatism and suggesting border readjustments.