Adanse

Adanse or Adansi is one of the earliest Akan states, located in the southern part of present-day Ashanti Region, Ghana. Widely regarded in oral tradition as a spiritual and ancestral homeland of many Akan polities, Adansi was an early center of gold production, regional trade, and clan-based governance. Traditionally considered the eldest among the five principal Akan states (''Akan Piesie Anum''), it played a foundational role in the formation of later polities such as Denkyira, Akyem, Assin, and the Asante Empire.

Etymology

The name Adanse derives from the Akan word ''adanseɛ'', meaning “builders”. According to F. K. Buah, the Adansi earned this name because they were the first Akan people to construct permanent homes and shrines, distinguishing them as cultural pioneers in statecraft and architecture. This interpretation is supported by Asante traditions, which remember the Adansi as “those who build houses,” emphasizing their legacy in establishing the architectural styles later adopted by successor states.

History

Origins and settlement traditions

Oral traditions describe Adanse as the spiritual and cultural origin of Akan civilization, often calling it the place where “God created the world” and where the art of building (adanseɛ) first began. The town of Adansemanso is remembered as a sacred ancestral settlement by lineages such as Asona and Bretuo. Evidence suggests that Adansemanso was continuously occupied, with initial settlement beginning as early as the 5th century CE according to oral and environmental traditions, and from the 9th century CE based on radiocarbon dating and archaeological material including early ironworking and building remnants.

Akan gold production and trade networks

From the 12th century onward, gold from the forest belt was extracted by Akan communities and traded regionally to Wangara merchants, who transported it north to Sahelian centers such as Bonduku, Wagadugu, and Bouna for further redistribution along trans-Saharan trade routes to Timbuktu, Djenné, and the Maghreb. While the Akan were not directly involved in trans-Saharan trade, their gold production sustained the system through regional exchanges at market towns like Begho, where it was traded for salt, cloth, copper alloys, and enslaved persons.

Adansemanso and early urbanism

By the 13th century, Adansemanso had become a large and complex settlement, its ruined mounds extending over one square kilometre—"probably the largest ancient town in the central forest area of Ghana". Excavations uncovered "linear mounds of collapsed house rows" over 100 metres long and multiple superimposed clay house floors, indicating continuous rebuilding and long-term habitation on the same sites.

In oral tradition, it is remembered as one of the “five original great towns of the Akan” and “the center of the universe”. Archaeological surveys confirm that it was already populous in the 9th century and reached its main period of occupation between the 13th and 15th centuries. Iron and gold production played a major role in the town’s economy, with large slag deposits and brass gold weights found on-site, and there is also possible—though inconclusive—evidence of glass production.

Outside the town was a large asensie—a cemetery where funerary pots and terracotta figurines were used to commemorate the elite dead. The town appears to have been abandoned in the late 16th or early 17th century, with very few foreign goods such as tobacco pipes present in the archaeological layers. Oral and historical accounts link this decline to the migration of wealthy abirempon families, who moved north and established new centers of power, spreading Adansemanso’s cultural legacy across the central forest zone.

Accany in early European accounts

By the early 16th century, European sources such as Duarte Pacheco Pereira (1505–1508) referenced interior gold traders identified as the Haccanys ( Akani), Cacres (Akrokerri), Andese, and Souzos—groups linked to the forested gold-rich zones of what would later be known as Adansi. These groups were collectively called “Accanists,” and the region they operated from was termed “ Accany” or “ Arcania” by Europeans. It was praised for supplying exceptionally pure gold, known on the coast as “Akan sica.”

Further records also note a significant level of political organization in the inland territories. In 1517, a report described envoys from the “King of the Akani” arriving at Elmina to report on a conflict with a neighboring group referred to as the Atis, likely a Portuguese rendering of the Etsii. By 1548, officials recorded “civil wars among the Akani,” indicating internal rivalries and a dynamic political landscape. These accounts depict the interior not as a tribal backwater but as a structured world of rulers, messengers, and coordinated military and commercial systems. Terms such as “King of the Akani” and “Kingdom of Arcany” reflect early European acknowledgment of centralized governance among inland Akan polities.

Later sources reinforce these impressions. A 1629 Dutch map labeled the region as “Acanni,” describing its people as “the most principal merchants who trade gold with us”. Dutch envoy Heerman Abramsz, writing in 1679, referred to the “great country of Accanien” inland from Elmina, while Dutch cartographer Muller identified a town called Alance—believed to refer to Adansi—as a significant settlement in the “Kingdom of Arcania”. Scholars such as Boahen, Daaku, and Fage concur that “Accany” referred specifically to the Adansi region, particularly the gold-rich Ofin River basin, which they regard as one of the earliest centers of organized Akan governance.

Political power and economic dominance

At its height, Adansi emerged as the dominant political and economic force in the Ofin–Pra basin. Its domain included gold-rich towns such as Akrokerri, Dompoase, and Fomena