On 28 March 1900, Queen Yaa Asantewaa addressed the remnants of the Ashanti government in Kumasi, in modern-day Ghana.
I must say this: if you, the men of Asante will not go forward, then we will. We, the women, will. I shall call upon my fellow women. We will fight! We will fight till the last of us falls in the battlefields.
Her words galvanised the Ashanti Confederacy, starting their final war against British colonialism on the Gold Coast. The Ashanti leaders chose Yaa Asantewaa to be the war-leader, the first woman to hold the post, and an army of several thousand was placed at her command.
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