Stolen from Africa: Return antiquities looted by colonial powers

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Antiquities are more than mere physical objects – they are a reflection of a people’s history, culture, and identity. Throughout history, many of these artefacts have been looted or taken from their countries of origin, often through violence. Many of these ill-gotten artefacts are held in museums, private collections, or displayed in public spaces around the world, far away from the communities and cultures they were originally created by and intended for.

In recent years, there has been a growing movement advocating for the return of these stolen antiquities to their rightful owners, arguing that the repatriation of these objects is a matter of social justice, cultural heritage, and respect for the rights and sovereignty of those communities from whom they were taken.

African antiquities looted from the continent during the conquest and colonialism by the European powers must be returned. Yet there is an intractability to the stance of these European powers when it comes to returning that which they stole from Africa. Even though progress has been made, such progress has been torturously slow. It is clear that European powers want to hold on to that which they looted.

Excuses, excuses

Colonial powers have in the past and continue to raise several paper thin rationales for why the return of such stolen treasures is not possible, every excuse as ridiculous as the next. Some of the justifications for holding onto stolen property are:

“We legally acquired them”: Colonial powers have often claimed that they acquired the antiquities through legal means such as purchase or donation, and therefore they have the right to keep them. But what this implies is that the chain of custody is above board. Between the original ownership of the artifacts, through a network of black markets, shadowy dealers, and corrupt officials, the true nature of how these artefacts were acquired was laundered, together with the reputations of colonial looters such as Giovanni Battista Belzoni, Lord Elgin, Jacques de Morgan, Arthur Evans, and Henry Salt to mention a few.
“We are preserving them better”: Some colonial powers argue that they have the expertise and resources to better preserve and protect the antiquities than the countries from which they were taken. They argue that returning the antiquities would result in their deterioration and destruction. At the opening of the Ethnological Museum and the Museum of Asian Art in the Humboldt Forum, Nigerian author and activist, Dr Chimamanda Adichie Ngozi called this “paternalistic arrogance of the highest order”.
“They are part of our national heritage”: Some colonial powers argue that the antiquities are now an integral part of their own national heritage, and that they have a responsibility to preserve them for future generations. If a culture claims that looting and desecrating the culture of others is an intrinsic part of their heritage, then it speaks volumes on the moral and ethical depravity that is the foundational premise of the national culture of colonizers.
“It’s too complicated to return them”: Some colonial powers argue that the process of returning the antiquities is too complex and time-consuming, involving issues such as legal ownership, provenance, and restitution. They claim that the process would be too burdensome and expensive to undertake. Of course, it was never too complicated to steal these artefacts in the first place.

The Great British Loot-off

Few countries in the world immortalise those who looted treasures and imposed slavery and colonialism quite like Britain. Britain’s veneration for its slavers, colonisers, and murderers is institutionalised. The toppling of the statue of Edward Colston, a British slave trader was a rare symbolic victory. But the toppling of his statue ripped the mask off the British facade of being a dignified, civilising force reveal the barbarism that is embedded in the fabric of British society. It brought to the surface a large cohort of racist, right wing, slavery apologists. These fanatical colonialists who mainline the cultural residue of slavery and white supremacy often point to the philanthropic endeavours of psychopaths like Colston. But an acknowledgement that his generosity came from the largesse accumulated in the main from the transatlantic slave trade is never forthcoming. In any event, the beneficiaries of his patronage were always white and colonial institutions and individuals.

Having been one of the powers who imposed a colonial regime on Africans, the British now impose a legal regime that renders the repatriation of stolen treasures illegal, or at the very least almost impossible. The deaccession policy of the British Museum of 2018 says that it’s hands are tied when it comes to repatriation of antiquities it has to defer to the British Museum Act of 1963, a barely 10 page piece of legislation that legally ring-fenced British colonial loot.

Of course, not all victims of the colonial project of looting are equal. The policy of the British Museum makes allowance for repatriation of objects or exhibits that were looted during the Nazi era. Mechanisms are available for the return such artefacts when “a claim is made in respect of an object related to events in the Nazi era (1933 – 1945)”.

The prerequisites for this are:

3.8.1 any claimant had a strong moral claim to the transfer of an object claimed and
had the authority to represent all heirs of the original owner of that object;

3.8.2 any object claimed was lost to the original owner as the consequence of
wrongful action of the National Socialist Government of Germany or its
collaborators in Nazi occupied Europe;

3.8.3 the victim of such wrongful action (or his/her heirs) had not previously been
justly and fairly compensated for the loss;

However, even in this case, the British Museum would factor in the value of the piece to the museum as one of the considerations. Even when the British Museum appears to make an exception, it views itself as an institution imbued with the British exceptionalism of a colonial bent. It is the self appointed arbiter of what is fair, what is just, but mainly what is just too important to give back to whom it was stolen from in the first place.

Africa as custodian of its own heritage – The Ashanti Golden Stool

“This belongs in a museum”, says Indiana Jones as he swashbuckles his way through the colonial world, snatching antiquities from the hands of bad guys, so that artefacts could be displayed behind glass for Western eyes. The glorification of the curatorship of Western institutions for what it terms “ethnological” (a racist classification) artefacts pervades the orthodoxy. It holds that Africans, Indians, South Americans, and the colonized in general, are not competent to preserve their own history.

African antiquities don’t need to be protected from African neglect. Historically speaking, these treasures needed to be protected from the unquenchable, rapacious Western instinct to loot and hoard from people who have been under their cruel yoke.

Stories of African resistance to colonial looting are few and far between, but where they exist they should be amplified. One such story is that of the Ashanti Golden Stool.

The Ashanti Golden Stool is a sacred symbol of the Ashanti people of Ghana. It is believed to embodying the soul of the Ashanti nation and is regarded as the ultimate source of the Ashanti kingdom’s power and wealth.

According to legend, the Golden Stool descended from the heavens and landed on the lap of the first Ashanti king, Osei Tutu, in the 17th century. The stool is said to have been covered in gold, and its value is not only in the precious metal but in the spiritual and cultural significance it holds for the Ashanti people.

The Golden Stool is not just a physical object but is also a symbol of the Ashanti people’s unity and strength. It is said to contain the souls of all Ashanti ancestors and is a potent symbol of the Ashanti people’s resistance to colonial rule and oppression.

In 1896, a British representative named Frederick Hodgson demanded the Golden Stool from the Ashanti king, Prempeh I, who refused. This led to a conflict between the Ashanti people and the British known as the “War of the Golden Stool,” which lasted from 1896 to 1897.

The Ashanti people were outraged and prepared to defend their sovereignty. Yaa Asantewaa, the queen mother and warrior of the Ashanti Kingdom emerged as a leader of the Ashanti resistance and rallied the people to fight against the British. She famously declared:

“If you, the men of Ashanti, will not go forward, then we will. I shall call upon my fellow women. We will fight the white men. We will fight until the last of us falls in the battlefield.”

Queen Yaa Asantewa

Yaa Asantewaa led the Ashanti army into battle against the British, and although the conflict was ultimately unsuccessful, her bravery and leadership inspired many in Ghana and throughout Africa. She was eventually captured by the British and exiled to the Seychelles, where she died in 1921.

Despite their victory, the British were unable to locate the Golden Stool, which had been hidden by the Ashanti people. The British then resorted to other means to obtain the stool, including offering rewards for information and searching the homes of Ashanti leaders. However, their efforts were unsuccessful, and the Golden Stool remained hidden.

Eventually, the British were able to negotiate with the Ashanti people and reached a peace agreement that allowed for the return of King Prempeh I from exile and the recognition of Ashanti sovereignty. However, the Golden Stool remained hidden and was never captured by the British.

Today, the Golden Stool remains a powerful symbol of the Ashanti people’s cultural identity and heritage. It is kept in a secret location, and only a select few elders are allowed to see it. Any attempt to harm or defile the Golden Stool is considered sacrilegious and is met with severe consequences.

Had history taken a minor turn, the Ashanti Golden Stool would have been in a European museum. The purpose of antiquities is not to keep the turnstiles whirring like rotor blades, every rotation adding to the lucre of his majesty the successor to colonisers, looters, slavers, and barbaric western culture. Antiquities belong with the people. The Ashanti Golden Stool will probably never be seen by uninitiated eyes. This is not a pity. It’s the way it was always meant to be.

Former colonisers can’t have it both ways. We are either in an era where colonialism is dead, and as such restitution and efforts at repatriation must be made, or we are still living within the colonial framework of “might makes right”. If Western powers are to court Africa, the return of antiquities would go a long way toward righting the wrongs of the colonial past.