Yaa Asantewaa (queen mother, 1894 – 1902)
When Asantehene (King) Prempeh I was exiled to the Seychelles in 1896, his mother, Nana Yaa Asantewaa of the Ashanti Empire led her people in standing up to British colonial power. In 1900, the British Governor Sir Frederick Hodgson, in a move to assert power over Ashanti territory (in modern Ghana) declared the Ashanti must surrender the Golden Stool, a royal dynastic seat passed from one ruler to the next.
Yaa Asantewaa led the fight against the British to retain this symbol of the Ashanti people. Her forces, 5,000-strong, won the battle. Yaa Asantewaa was exiled to the Seychelles, where she died in 1921. Her son Prempeh I was restored to the throne in 1924, securing Yaa Asantewaa’s legacy in Ghanian history.
