Antiwitchcraft Movements in Colonial Asante

Abstract Silences exist in the British colonial archives and the secondary literature on Asante's resistance to colonial rule. The Yaa Asantewaa War (1900–1) is cited as the main instance of resistance. This study challenges these assumptions by arguing that Asante resistance was apparent in the arena of Asante religious belief and practice, and particularly rooted in antiwitchcraft movements. These movements materialized not in periods of extreme violence and sociopolitical decay, but in the environments between socioeconomic chaos and stability. Such periods were usually characterized by pronounced social, political, and economic changes and transitions. The study concludes by situating the history of these antiwitchcraft movements in Ghana's broad historical trends in religiosity and belief using a qualitative research methodology based on archival records, interviews, secondary literature, and multimedia from YouTube.