Ghana-Net.com · History & Empires · Central Region · Cape Coast
On 21 January 1824, in the forest inland from Cape Coast, an Asante army destroyed the small force of Sir Charles MacCarthy, Governor of Britain's West African settlements. The governor died on the field. His skull went to Kumasi, rimmed with gold. It was the worst defeat Britain suffered in West Africa, and the opening battle of seventy-seven years of Anglo-Asante war. On the other side of the forest, on the same day, tradition says Asantehene Osei Bonsu died in Kumasi.
Since 1806 Asante had fought the Fante coast again and again, from the attack on Anomabo to the campaigns of 1811 and 1814–1816. In 1817 a young British envoy, Thomas Edward Bowdich, signed a treaty in Kumasi with Asantehene Osei Bonsu; a second mission followed in 1820. Neither ended the tension over who ruled the Fante towns, and who could trade with whom.
In 1821 the British Crown took over the forts from the merchants and placed them under Sir Charles MacCarthy, Governor in Freetown, Sierra Leone. MacCarthy saw Asante as a slave-trading tyranny to be broken, and he badly underestimated it. In 1823, when a sergeant in British service who had insulted the Asantehene was seized and executed by Asante, war came.
History story: the years of embassies and broken peace are told in Ashes & Embassies and Ashes on the Shore on CapeCoastCastle.com.
MacCarthy divided his forces and marched ahead with a small column: about 80 men of the Royal African Colonial Corps, around 170 Cape Coast militia and some 240 Fante allies, with a handful of officers, among them men of the 2nd West India Regiment, a surgeon, and the colonial secretary J. T. Williams. He expected the other columns and the Wassa and Denkyira allies to join him.
Against him came an Asante army of more than 10,000, under the general Amankwatia. It was not a raiding party but a disciplined national army, with firearms, drums and a command structure that had beaten every coastal state for a century.
At Nsamankow, near a stream deep in the forest, MacCarthy's small force met the Asante army. His men held for hours, firing across the water. Then the ammunition ran low.
According to the accounts of the survivors, the carriers bringing up reserve ammunition had fled at the sound of the firing. Of the few cases that did arrive, one held shot. The others held macaroni. When the firing from the British side faltered, the Asante crossed the stream and overran the column.
MacCarthy was wounded and, according to the accounts, killed himself rather than be captured. His force was destroyed: British casualties are recorded as 187 killed and 92 wounded, not counting the Fante allies. Captain Ricketts was one of the few officers to escape, and his account is one of the main sources for the battle. J. T. Williams was taken prisoner, and lived to be released.
The Asante side: Nsamankow is remembered in Asante as a great victory, and tradition holds that Osei Bonsu died in Kumasi on the day of the battle. His successor, Osei Yaw Akoto, inherited the war.
MacCarthy's head was taken to Kumasi. His skull, rimmed with gold, was kept among the trophies of the Asante state and reportedly used as a drinking cup at great ceremonies. In British eyes it was the ultimate humiliation. In Asante eyes it was what happened to an invader who marched into the forest with too few men and the wrong boxes.
Two monuments, one defeat: in Cape Coast, the British raised the MacCarthy Monument, "Cape Coast's forgotten pyramid of defeat", and gave his name to Fort McCarthy. See also Sir Charles MacCarthy, 1764–1824.
The whole war: The Anglo-Asante Wars, 1824–1901.
The facts above come from the records. Our history stories on CapeCoastCastle.com tell the same events as they might have been lived: by warriors, wives and soldiers on both sides.
How the Asante defied every British expectation at Nsamankow.
1824 from the side of the women who waited in Cape Coast.
The prequel: Bowdich in Kumasi, and the peace that was only a breath between wars.
The war left its dead in Cape Coast. The old European cemetery that grew up in these years is known today as the 1824 War Cemetery, and our dedicated site documents it stone by stone, including graves that had been lost for decades.
Cape Coast's forgotten pyramid of defeat.
A Fante queen mother who witnessed the Anglo-Asante wars.
From Cape Coast to the Gambia: the regiment whose officers marched with MacCarthy.
From the quiet killing years, with the regiment's stone.
Rediscovering the lost graves of Cape Coast. See also a reflection of colonial separation.
The GMMB's neglect of Cape Coast's colonial war cemetery. Latest: discoveries and news.
All our history stories from the Cape Coast wars.
Every grave we have found, documented.
The castle the Asante army came to threaten in 1824.
Attacked by Asante in 1807, where this war really began.
British histories long told Nsamankow as a tragedy of bad luck: the wrong boxes, the runaway carriers. It was more than that. A governor who despised the Asante marched a few hundred men into their forest to fight a state that could raise tens of thousands, and the Asante army did exactly what it was built to do. Most of the dead were Africans, Fante militia and allies whose names were never recorded. The victory did not save Asante: the wars went on for seventy-seven years, and ended with Kumasi burned and the Golden Stool hidden. But on 21 January 1824 the Asante won, completely, and that deserves to be told as plainly as any British victory.
Verified: 28 September 2026. The date, the composition of MacCarthy's force, the Asante numbers under Amankwatia, the ammunition cases, MacCarthy's death, the casualty figures, and the survivors Ricketts and Williams follow standard accounts of the battle, which derive from the survivors' reports. Osei Bonsu's death on the same day is Asante tradition. The history stories linked above are narrative retellings on CapeCoastCastle.com. Corrections welcome and will be published in full.
