The people who ran Begho on 1 January 1200 were, as far as the evidence goes, the Bono (Brong) lineages of the Nyarko quarter.
The Mande trading families who later made Begho famous (the Wangara or Dyula Muslims of the Kramo quarter, with the Ligbi and the Numu smiths of tradition) are not shown to have arrived; if northern caravans already came, as Crossland believed (from about 1100), the traders would have been visitors or a small colony. This record stands for whichever of them held the town; it names no one because no name survives.
Who he is
- Title
- Headmen of the Bono (Brong) quarter of Nyarko; heads of any trading families
- Since
- Not known
- Confidence
- low
No name, office or date survives for Begho's leaders before the seventeenth century. The excavations show the Bono quarter (Nyarko) as the oldest. The Muslim Mande quarter (Kramo) is known from the excavations and the traditions of the Ligbi, Numu and Dyula, but not dated to 1200; Wilks put the Wangara arrival in the late fourteenth century, Massing the Jula town in the fifteenth.
What it holds
- The town of Begho and its farmland and smelting grounds
How it was acquired
By first settlement (Bono lineages); the Mande trading families by later settlement, date not known.
How things stand that morning
Self-governing town under its own heads.
Wealth
The forest-edge exchange, farming, iron.
Threats
- None known
Where the sources disagree
- The assignment asks for the Mande trading lineages of Begho: they cannot be shown to be present on 1 January 1200.
Evidence: Archaeology and late traditions; no names.
On the map: A town's ruling lineages, drawn on the town.
Primary sources for Akan (Bono country and Begho)
Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.
- Ife, Benin, Nri, the Yoruba towns and the Akan: archaeology and recorded tradition (no contemporary text; traditions written down from the 1890s). No text of any kind exists for the forest belt in 1200.
Sources and studies
- Begho (Wikipedia)
- M. Posnansky, Begho: Life and Times, Journal of West African History 1.2 (2015), as cited on Wikipedia; and M. Posnansky, Prelude to Akan civilization, in E. Schildkrout (ed.), The Golden Stool (1987), from the researcher's knowledge
- I. Wilks, Wangara, Akan and Portuguese in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Journal of African History 23 (1982); T. F. Garrard, Akan Weights and the Gold Trade (1980); from the researcher's knowledge
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.