Kumawu

Kumawu is an Akan town in the forest country northeast of Kumasi. Its rulers headed a kingdom that retained its own chiefly office after joining the Asante union, a gathering of states that grew into a powerful force in the inland forests of West Africa.

Kumawu was among the states brought together under Osei Tutu in the late seventeenth century. Their victory over Denkyira at Feyiase in 1701 secured the independence of the emerging Asante power. Kumawu tradition remembers its chief, Tweneboa Kodua, as having sacrificed himself to ensure victory in that struggle. The story preserves the place of the town and its ruler in the making of the union, whose constituent chiefs continued to exercise authority in their own lands.