Aspects of Bureaucratization in Ashanti in the Nineteenth Century

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Abstract
The Ashanti bureaucracy as we know it from the nineteenth century owed its structure and character to reforms in government initiated by Osei Kwadwo (1762–77) and pushed forward by his successors Osei Kwame (1777–ca.1801) and Osei Bonsu (ca.1801–1824). Many previously hereditary offices became appointive: biographical studies of leading officials in the early nineteenth century show that they were appointed, and promoted, by the king on merit, without regard to their origins. Freemen and slaves, Ashanti and non-Ashanti, were recruited into the bureaucracy. Administrative skills tended to be transmitted through patri-kin, and in the course of the nineteenth century powerful groups grew up which, generation after generation, provided the king with trained officials. An administrative class emerged, distinguished from other elements in society by its dependence upon the king for its very existence. Elaborate checks were instituted to prevent the bureaucracy transforming itself from a controlled to a ruling one.Bureaucratization in Ashanti produced little quantitative change in the pattern of office growth. Its effects were upon the quality of government. A distinction began to take shape between the king acting in his private capacity through his palace functionaries, and in his public capacity through his bureaucratic officials. Government became increasingly efficient, and was extended over fields of activity previously untouched. The growth of the bureaucratic process was reflected in the increasingly absolutist nature of the Ashanti state.

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