Throughout his reign, Opoku carried out a series of campaigns that expanded the Ashanti Empire across Ghana and eastern Ivory Coast.
At the latter part of his reign, Opoku Ware initiated a reform to reduce the power of the chiefs who administered the provinces of the empire.
[1] Scholars and historians including Margaret, Wilks and Boahen also argue that Osei Kofi Tutu I died during the campaign against the Akyem.
The Ga-Adangbe of the southeastern plains, represented by Accra ruler Tete Ahene Akwa, accepted Ashanti overrule but the Ga were able to negotiate an exception from paying tribute.
[10] After the conquest of the Akyem states in 1742, the Dutch paid a regular stipend on trade goods to Ashanti as rent to occupy the 17th century fort and land at Accra.
[16][17] Danish agent Nog, visited Opoku Ware's court near the mid 18th century and he noted the Asantehene's support for craft industry.
[18][19] Opoku Ware introduced the thread of imported but unraveled woolen and silken textiles into the local cotton cloths.
One strip might be white, the other one blue or sometimes the was a red among them...[Asantehene] Opoke [Ware] bought silk taffeta and materials of all colours.
He taught Opoku to make gold and silver weights, to claim the estate of a deceased chief or general, also to enact laws fining offenders in order to add to his power and reduce that of his subjects.
[24] In 1819, Bowdich described the provincial districts of Ashanti noting that "every subject state was placed under the immediate care of an Ashantee chief, generally resident in the capital, who seldom visited it, but to receive the tribute from the native ruler, for whose conduct he was in a reasonable degree responsible.
"[25][22] After successful expansionist campaigns, Opoku Ware proposed reforms that curtailed the power of the chiefs in the provincial districts.
[26] In this stage of politics Sai Apoko [Opoku Ware], in the latter part of his reign, enacted new codes of laws, adapted for the government of the various departments of the state; but some of them being considered inimical to the interests of the chiefs, and as they represented it again, to the public welfare, a dangerous conspiracy was raised against the throne, in the very heart of the kingdom.
The rebels were pardoned after their defeat by the King on condition that Opoku's policies to curtail the power of provincial chiefs be respected.
[26] Hagan argues that this attempt by Opoku Ware to reduce the influence of the aristocracy served as an inspiration for the bureaucratic reforms of Asantehene Osei Kwadwo.