"Ramseyer to Basel"

The letter is a footnote to Mohr's report on the visit, No 237 below). The under-chief who had visited David Asante with news of the Asantehene’s requests for a missionary was a Kumasi sub-chief, end he had attended services regularly while staying in Nsakye. Much of the letter is couched in terms of Ramseyer’s own satisfaction at being back in Kumasi (indeed Ramseyer’s own feelings, and the interpretation he of course gives them as an indication of God's Will to play a major part in this series of letters about the possibility of an Asante mission). 'It was a tremendous satisfaction for me that they heard from my own mouth how much I love Asante and its people’. His reception seems to have been in the highest degree friendly. 'With a friendly smile on his lips the king said "Yes, it is true that you love the Kumasi people”.’ He did hear one young man say on the market that it was on account of that man that their town was destroyed, but on the whole from high and low he was greeted with great friendship. He explains the refusal to accept the gift of a twi bible as no serious hint of unwelcome. If the bible had been presented with the first customary gifts, it would have been accepted - indeed the Asantehene accepted a twi New Testament from them during their captivity. Instead it was offered at the end of their speech about the preparedness of the Basel Mission to Work in Kumasi, and the Kumasi people (one of the chiefs spoke against receiving it) probably thought that accepting it would indicate that they had accepted the Basel Mission offer. On Asante-Akim - it belongs unmistakably to Kwahu (in mission-organisation terms), Bompata is the central point, around which are about a dozen large and small communities. He said to the Bompata people that if they wanted a teacher they must prove it by building him a house, and this is now his message to any town in Asante-Akim or Kwahu who wants a teacher. The early Bompata mission to the coast in search of a teacher went to the 'King of Accra' with their money before approaching Buhl and the Basel Mission for an intrduction to the Governor. He feels Asuom is no suitable advanced base for a mission in Kumasi - it is no further forward than Abetifi, and as low lying as Kibi. On the Abetifi-Kumasi route lie many important towns - Bompata, Petrenam, Nyaba, Konomgo, Odumase (he has sent in a sketch map with the letter). The latest news is that an English officer had returned to Kumasi with Foakyo Tengteng, and that two of the conditions of peace are the abolition of human-sacrifice and that Asante will not fall upon any other tribe in war without having informed the English regime first.

25.10.1881

25.10.1881

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