Beheaded Ghanaian King to be buried after 174 years
The final funeral rites of Otumfuo Baidoo Bonsoe ll, King of Ahanta, who was captured and beheaded by the Dutch in 1838, will take place tentatively in the third week of August this year.
Professor Kwesi Jonah, Secretary of the Funeral Planning Committee, announced this during a news briefing organized by the Western Regional House of Chiefs and the Ahanta Traditional Council at Sekondi.
He said Nana Bonsoe was a courageous King who by his confrontation with the Dutch authorities, booked his place in the history of Ghana as one of the great African Chiefs who resisted the domination, exploitation and under-development of Africa by the European powers.
He was assassinated for his fortitude in fighting against the heinous crimes and slave trade by the Dutch.
The King’s head was taken and kept at a medical laboratory at the Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands for 172 years. His remains were returned to Ghana in 2009 with the support of President John Evans Atta Mills, after diplomatic exchanges between Ghana and the Dutch authorities.
Since then, however, the celebration of the annual “Kundum” festival has been shelved because it is against Ahanta custom to celebrate while the funeral of the chief has not been held.
Professor Jonah of the Political Science Department at the University of Ghana, Legon, said activities leading up to the final funeral rites would begin in May, including the building of a befitting mausoleum for the mortal remains of the late king.
Others are a fund raiser, a documentary on the King to be shown on national television channels, and the creation of an event website and billboards.
History has it that King Baidoo Bonsoe in 1837 rebelled against the Dutch colonialists and killed several Dutch officers, including the acting Governor, Tonneboejer.
Using a treaty they had signed with the Ahanta State in 1656 as the basis for military action, the Dutch sent an expeditionary force to Ahanta. In the war, King Bonsoe was decapitated and his head was sent to the Netherlands.
The Dutch reorganized the Ahanta State by appointing the Chief of Butre as regent, and keeping the state under its control until they transferred their possessions in the Gold Coast to the British on April 6, 1872.
Source: Ghanaian Times
How much is going into this? I’m surprise this whole thing is lead and engineered by professors. The dead are gone, it is about time we thing of the living and put in place mechanism to help the living.
@JINJIWA, that is exactly why it needs to be done overly westernized folks like you dont realize that the living and the dead are in balance with each other, that they watch over us and interact at times, if you have never had a ancestral experience then you cant understand!. everyone remembers their pasts!! the americans remember their chief and first president – george washington, etc. and they celebrate him and others like him…. there is not any white idiot saying crap like “the dead are gone… etc.” its this simple foolishness that makes our enemies have no respect and only contempt for us. (and laugh at our pompous folly). Warriors (male and female) before you existed who fought so you can be alive should be forgotten!!!?????? the living is not being sacrificed! by recognition of their ancestor. you know at one time the colonials did not want Africans to study in colleges etc. then they realize that if they let them study in college’s they will have western appetites and thereby feed western industries and they will think like westerners and thereby undermine anything African!! After they realize this Africans could attend their brainwashing schools, soul tricking schools. you have the nerve to put your name in all capital letters ? — the living should be looked after buy not at the expense of forsaking our own honored dead!! one must protect and honor ones personal family and on a larger scale in the family of nations Ghana and all African states must look after both parts of its national family the living and the Dead…cypher complete. time for a AFrican education not a oxford one in Africa but a real AFrican Education- then you wouldst have portraits of white Jesus all over the place and the sale of bleaching cream going through the roof…its all related !!!!
Geat comment by JINJIWA. Give our dead courageous Kings their due respect and betrayers like Buthelezi must be brandmarked. I pray and hope Africa will emerge as peace bearers of the world
Nkrumah, Steve Biko, Sankara, Lumumba all fougth and died for our Africa. We shall rise inshallah May Allah bless Mama Africa May allah bless the whole world.
sorry