ASHANTI: British occupation of the country. Rising of the tribes. Siege and relief of Kumassi. In 1895, King Prempeh, of Ashanti, provoked a second expedition of British troops against his capital, Kumassi, or Coomassie, by persistence in slave-catching raids and in human sacrifices, and by other violations of his treaty engagements. For some account of the former expedition See, in volume 2, ENGLAND: A. D. 1873-1880) Late in the year a strong force was organized in Gold Coast Colony, mostly made up of native troops. It marched without resistance to Kumassi, which it entered on the 17th of January, 1896. Prempeh made complete submission, placing his crown at the feet of the Governor of the Gold Coast; but he was taken prisoner to Sierra Leone. A fort was built, and garrisoned in the center of the town, and the country was then definitely placed under British protection, politically attached to the Gold Coast Colony. It submitted quietly to the practical conquest until the spring of 1900, when a fierce and general rising of the tribes occurred. It was said at the time that the outbreak was caused by efforts of the British to secure possession of a "golden stool" which King Prempeh had used for his throne, and which had been effectually concealed when Kumassi was taken in 1896; but this has been denied by Sir Frederic Hodgson, the Governor of the Gold Coast. "The 'golden stool,'" he declared, "was only an incident in the affair and had nothing to do with the cause of the rising, which had been brewing for a long time. {27} In his opinion the Ashantis had been preparing ever since the British occupation in 1896 to reassert their independence." The Governor was, himself, in Kumassi when the Ashantis first attacked it, on the 25th of March, and he has given an account of the desperate position in which the few British officials, with their small native garrison and the refugees whom they tried to protect, were placed. "Our force," said Sir Frederic Hodgson, "consisted of only some 200 Hausas, while there is reason to believe that we had not less than 15,000 Ashantis surrounding us. In addition to our own force we had to protect some 3,500 refugees, chiefly Mahomedan traders, Fantis, and loyal Kumassis, none of whom we were able to take into the fort, where every available bit of space was required for military purposes. It was heartrending to see the efforts of these poor people to scale the walls or break through the gate of the fort, and we had to withdraw the Hausas from the cantonments and draw a cordon round the refugees. It is impossible to describe the horror of the situation with these 3,500 wretched people huddled together without shelter under the walls of the fort. That same night a tornado broke over Kumassi, and the scene next morning with over 200 children was too terrible for