"Asante's Quarterly Report for the First Quarter 1876"

Includes his excuses for not having written an 1875 Year's Report - he was too busy with the installation of the new missionaries in Begoro and Abetifi. Also during the quarter the subordinate personnel on the station changed - Obeng went to Begoro, Adaw and Tenkorang to Akwapim. He had recently baptised 4 out of a group of 25 catechumens, all young adults. Many catechumens were not baptised because they had travelled into Kwahu with the new missionaries and had thus missed their baptismal instruction. Street preaching Kibi is now attended by numbers of Juabens - but no longer by the Okyenhene who has allowed himself to be persuaded against this step by his elders, (There is a note by Buhl who had been in Kibi a couple of months previously that this never was a sincere step, simply a manoeuvre made with his eyes on the English colonial government). At the end of the quarter there were 10 catechumens. The Christian village there is increasing more quickly than the one in Kukurantumi because most of the baptised Christians are ex-slaves who feel freer on a mission land than they would living near their former masters. Reports the Juabens are showing little desire to settle on the land given them by the English government. They say that if the English government will not help them to their revenge, then they will set out again and join up with the tribes to the north of Kumasi who are opposed to the authority of Kumasi. He gives the names of these as Nkoranza, Korakye, Brong, Worawora, Sai and Boa. Almost daily Juabens arrive who have fled from Kumasi, who report that the Kumasi people are afraid of the return of the Juabens strengthened from the protectorate. They say Kumasi is partly in ruins, and that grass grows on the streets, there is a great shortage of foodstuffs in Kumasi and the whole of Asante proper. The disorder is so great that an official of the new king’s has taken one of the king’s wives and fled with her to Cape Coast. There is further war between Kumasi and Mampong; Mampong had wanted to move away and go to Krakye. Gyaman has also declared war against Kumasi. Thus the peace in which they have been able to set up the Kwahu station. He adds tout court that the Kwahu people come originally from the other side of the Afram, out of the land of the Sai people.

17.04.1876

17.04.1876

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