The treaty on 27 April 1831 imposed harsh terms on the Ashanti, causing them to hand over 600 ounces of gold and surrender two members of their royal families as hostages, along with having to recognise three kingdoms (Denkyira, Akyem and Assin) and the newly British gained territory south of the Pra River.

[1] News of Sergeant Otetfo's capture had brought McCarthy back from Sierra Leone, and he landed at the Cape Coast in December 1822.

It has dispelled the terror of the Fante and other native tribes, who had, for many years, been held under the most abject state of oppression by the Ashanti and, in hopeless despair, considered them as invincible."

Even after this armed clash, which he had not ordered, King Osei Bonsu sent out another appeal for peace by offering to negotiate all differences between the Asante and the British.

As a result, Colonel Purdon had to depend on the ability of his British officers to train African militia to defend the coastal populations.

Throughout the preceding seven months, while the Asante army was rampaging through the coastal countryside, Purdon and his officers were frantically recruiting, arming, and training men from their African allies.

In addition to the African soldiers' muskets and knives, Colonel Purdon had several cannon and an ample supply of the newly invented Congreve rockets.

[17] British power was only effective on the maritime fringe of Africa, where its naval strength could assist; inland its military dominance was not so clear.

[5] Before marching off to battle, the Ashanti army assembled in Kumasi, "where gunpowder and shot from the king’s apparently huge armory [no European is known actually to have seen it], located three miles outside the city, were distributed to the men," according to the anthropologist Robert B. Edgerton.

They carried gunpowder and shot in gourds and slung a skin bag filled with dried beans, cassava, ground nuts, and other provisions over their shoulders.

Edgerton wrote that when close to the enemy, "they ate only maize meal mixed with water and ground nuts in order not to reveal their positions by lighting fires."

In battle, said Edgerton, Ashanti troops "marched in perfect order, their guns carried at exactly the same angle, before they turned toward the enemy and fired volleys on command, the only African army that was known to do so."

The commanding general usually took up a position in the rear of his army, in a hammock under a great umbrella, and waited for his troops to bring him the heads of his vanquished foes, which he used as footrests.

"With only 20 rounds of ammunition for each man and some loose powder and slugs, most of which was soon spoiled by rain or in fording streams, Sir Charles, falling into the too common error of underrating his enemy and deaf to the remonstrances and advice of the king of Dukowa and other chiefs, now purposed defeating the advance of an Ashanti army of unknown strength, composed of men who were not only inured to bush fighting, but were also confident of success," Dr. Claridge wrote.

They reached a village called Insamankow on the 14th, where they halted for five days to allow local tribesmen to rally around and to permit Mr. Brandon, McCarthy's immensely incompetent storekeeper, to come forward with provisions and more ammunition.

McCarthy barely had time to inspect his positions — Wassaws on the right, Tibo and his Denkyiras on the left, and the regulars and the Fantis in the center — when the Ashanti began their attack.

The buglers were told to add to the din, the whole idea being that McCarthy was convinced, "from some strange source of information," that the Ashanti only wanted an opportunity to come over to him.

A small brass cannon was wheeled into place, still lashed with ropes to the poles on which it had been brought on men's shoulders, and aimed through the dense underbrush at the enemy.

Mr. DeGraft, "a man of colour, linguist at Cape Coast and lieutenant in the militia, went round and obtained some power from the King of Denkyira, [along] with some loose musket balls that had been left in a keg .

Major Ricketts and Mr. DeGraft then seized a Wassaw tribesman, bribing him with a silver whistle and chain on the promise he would guide them to safety.

"He explained that he had left the field of battle with the Governor [McCarthy], a Mr. Buckle, and Ensign Wetherell and retreated along the path towards Insamankow," according to Dr. Claridge.

"[25] Mr. Williams remembered seeing Ensign Wetherell "cutting with his sword at some of the enemy who were trying to tear off Sir Charles’ uniform, when he himself received a wound in the thigh and lost consciousness.

Williams also reported that the principal Ashanti chiefs "ate Sir Charles’ heart in the belief they would thus derive a portion of his indomitable courage, and that pieces of his flesh were smoke-dried and carried on their persons as talismans to protect them in battle."

After two months of sharing his hut with the heads of his three companions, living on a twice-daily serving of as much snail soup as he could hold in one hand, Williams was released, and made his way back to Cape Coast Castle.

McCarthy's real head was taken to Kumasi, where — now a wellpolished skull — it was brought out each year, in early September, as a highlight of the Yam Festival.

[26] In January 1826 a new Ashanti army invaded the Fante territories before making a bid to take Accra, concentrating their forces at Dodowa 20 miles to the north.

In the beginning of August, the Governor met at Cape Coast Castle, then up at Christiansborg with some officers, a troop of soldiers, 4 field guns and a considerable quantity of ammunition and congreve rockets; and c. 6,500 warriors from the English area, including 2,000 Fante.

[4] The Ashanti faced a massive uprising by its conquered provinces,[13] leading to the Battle of Dodowa (Akantamasu/Katamanso) on 7 August 1826 which proved to be the most important engagement in the region's history.

[2] On 27 April, a peace treaty was signed in the Great Hall of the Cape Coast Castle, by which the Ashanti were to hand over 600 ounces of gold and to surrender two members of their royal family as hostages.

[27] Forty years after this war, by which time the British government had declared a protectorate over the land in the proximity of its trading posts on the Gold Coast, another British-led army had advanced against the Ashanti, only to be caught in the rainy season and forced to withdraw when disease put half of its troops out of action.