Some of the Mande, who had stimulated the development of states in what is now northern Nigeria (the Hausa states and those of the Lake Chad area), move southwestward also in this same period, and impose themselves on many of the indigenous peoples of the northern half of modern Ghana and of Burkina Faso (Burkina—formerly Upper Volta), founding the states of Dagomba and Mamprusi.

The Mande also influence the rise of the Gonja state.

It seems clear from oral traditions as well as from archaeological evidence that the Mole-Dagbane states of Mamprusi, Dagomba, and Gonja, as well as the Mossi states of Yatenga and Wagadugu, are among the earliest kingdoms to emerge in modern Ghana, being well established by the close of the sixteenth century.

The Mossi and Gonja rulers come to speak the languages of the peoples they dominate.

In general, however, members of the ruling class retain their traditions, and even today some of them can recite accounts of their northern origins.

Although most rulers are not Muslims, they either bring with them or welcome Muslims as scribes and medicine men, and Muslims also play a significant role in the trade that links southern with northern Ghana.

As a result of their presence, Islam substantially influences the north.

Muslim influence, spread by the activities of merchants and clerics, has been recorded even among the Asante to the south.

Although most Ghanaians retain their traditional beliefs, the Muslims bring with them certain skills, including writing, and introduce certain beliefs and practices that become part of the culture of the peoples among whom they settle.

A broad belt of rugged country between the northern boundaries of the Muslim-influenced states of Gonja, Mamprusi, and Dagomba and the southernmost outposts of the Mossi kingdoms is home to a number of peoples who are not incorporated into these entities.

Among these peoples are the Sisala, Kasena, Kusase, and Talensi, agriculturalists closely related to the Mossi.

Rather than establishing centralized states themselves, they live in so-called segmented societies, bound together by kinship ties and ruled by the heads of their clans.

Trade between the Akan states to the south and the Mossi kingdoms to the north flows through their homelands, subjecting them to Islamic influence and to the depredations of these more powerful neighbors.

The state of Ashanti, of the components that will later make up present-day Ghana, is to have the most cohesive history and will exercise the greatest influence.

The Ashanti are members of the Twi-speaking branch of the Akan people.

The groups that come to constitute the core of the Ashanti confederacy move north to settle in the vicinity of Lake Bosumtwi.

Before the mid-seventeenth century, the Ashanti begin an expansion under a series of militant leaders that lead to the domination of surrounding peoples and to the formation of the most powerful of the states of the central forest zone.

Under Chief Oti Akenten (r. ca. 1630-60), a series of successful military operations against neighboring Akan states brings a larger surrounding territory into alliance with Ashanti.

Osei Tutu (d. 1712 or 1717) becomes asantehene (king of Asante) at the end of the seventeenth century.

Under Osei Tutu's rule, the confederacy of Asante states is transformed into an empire with its capital at Kumasi.

Political and military consolidation ensue, resulting in firmly established centralized authority.

Osei Tutu is strongly influenced by the high priest, Anokye, who, tradition asserts, caused a stool of gold to descend from the sky to seal the union of Asante states.

Stools already functioned as traditional symbols of chieftainship, but the Golden Stool of Asante represents the united spirit of all the allied states and establishes dual allegiance that superimposes the confederacy over the individual component states.

The Golden Stool remains a respected national symbol of the traditional past and figures extensively in Asante ritual.

Osei Tutu permits newly conquered territories that join the confederation to retain their own customs and chiefs, who are given seats on the Asante state council.

Osei Tutu's gesture makes the process relatively easy and nondisruptive because most of the earlier conquests had subjugated other Akan peoples.

Within the Asante portions of the confederacy, each minor state continues to exercise internal self-rule, and its chief jealously guards the state's prerogatives against encroachment by the central authority.

A strong unity develops, however, as the various communities subordinate their individual interests to central authority in matters of national concern.

By the mid-eighteenth century, Asante is a highly organized state.

The wars of expansion that bring the northern states of Mamprusi, Dagomba, and Gonja under Asante influence are won during the reign of Asantehene Opoku Ware I (d. 1750), successor to Osei Tutu.

By the 1820s, successive rulers have extended Asante boundaries southward.

Although the northern expansions link Asante with trade networks across the desert and in Hausaland to the east, movements into the south bring the Asante into contact, sometimes antagonistic, with the coastal Fante, Ga-Adangbe, and Ewe peoples, as well as with the various European merchants whose fortresses dot the Gold Coast.