HISTORY. 
233 
The Ashantee government concentred the mass of its original 
force, and making the chiefs resident in Coomassie and the few 
large towns they built in its neighbourhood, with titular dignities, 
conciliated those whom they subdued by continuing them in their 
governments, and checked them by exacting their frequent attend- 
ance at festivals, politically instituted. Military command seems 
to have been the sole prerogative of Sai Tootoo ; his judicial and 
legislative power being controlled by the chiefs or aristocracy 
much more than at present, who, as in the Teutonic governments, 
directed the common business of the state, only consulting a 
general assembly on extraordinary occasions. 
Sai Tootoo defeated the Akims and Assins, subjected the Tufel 
country, and subdued many small states in the neighbourhood. 
He also conquered Dankara, the King of which, Intim Dakarey, 
was so considerable a trader in slaves, that the Dutch Governor 
General paid him a monthly note from his own purse, and assisted 
him with two or three small cannons, and a few Europeans, on 
the eve of the Ashantee invasion: the former are now placed as 
trophies in Coomassie, at the top of the street in which the Mission 
was quartered. Booroom was subjugated soon after. 
Sai Tootoo did not live to see all the streets of Coomassie com- 
pleted, for war being declared against Atoa, a district between 
Akim and Assin, he invaded that country. The chief of the Atoas, 
unable to face such a power, dexterously insinuated his small force 
through the forest, until he reached the rear of the Ashantee army, 
which the King was following leisurely with a guard of a few 
hundred men, all of whom, were destroyed by the Atoas, who 
shot the King in his hammock. This happening near a place 
called Cormantee, (razed to the ground in vengeance,) and on a 
Saturday, the most solemn oath of the Ashantees, is " by Satur- 
day and Cormantee;" (" Miminda Cormantee;") and no enterprise 
has since been undertaken on that day of the week. 
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