Fanti

Fanti (făn`tē, fän`–), black African ethnic group, S Ghana, living around Cape Coast and Elmina, one of the Akan peoples. The Fanti speak a Twi language, which is part of the Kwa group of the Niger-Congo branch of the Niger-Kordofanian linguistic family (see under African languages); they number around 500,000. Inheritance and succession to public office are determined mostly by matrilineal descent. According to their oral traditions, the Fanti arrived in their present habitat from the north by the 17th cent. They served as middlemen in the commerce between the interior and British and Dutch traders on the coast. In the early 18th cent. the Fanti formed a confederation, primarily as a means of protection against Ashanti incursions from the interior. Several Fanti-Ashanti wars followed. The Fanti were aided by the British, who, however, destroyed the strong Fanti confederation established between 1868 and 1872, believing it a threat to their hegemony on the coast. In 1874 a joint Fanti-British army defeated the Ashanti, and in the same year the Fanti became part of the British Gold Coast colony.

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Fante

 or Fanti

Second largest segment of the Akan peoples of the southern coast of Ghana. The Fante speak a language of the Kwa group of Niger-Congo languages. As intermediaries in colonial-era trade between the Asante to the north and the Europeans to the south, the Fante established several independent kingdoms that formed a confederacy in the late 17th century. The confederacy aided the British in wars against the Asante in the 19th century but was disbanded in 1873 under British pressure. The Akan peoples all together make up about half of the population of Ghana. An important Fante organization called the asafo began as a military group, but in contemporary society it serves mostly political, social, and religious functions.