This is a photo of the former Asantehene Mensa Bonsu, aka Bonsu Kumaa/Ketewa or Bonsu the Younger. He ruled from 1874 to 1883. He was deposed in 1883.This photo was taken in 1896 when the British forces led by Sir Robert Baden-Powell entered Kumasi. Nana Mensa Bonsu was banished from Kumasi, the seat of Asante power, after he was deposed. However, after the British arrested Asantehene Prempeh I in 1896, they also rounded up important Chiefs and notable people (Abrempon). Nana Mensa Bonsu was therefore arrested. In this photo, he sits beside his mother Nana Afua Kobi I, the former Asantehemaa.
Nana Mensa Bonsu was part of the large entourage of prominent Asantefuo arrested with the Asantehene Prempeh I who were being taken to Cape Coast, then Elmina to be exiled to the then British colony of Sierra Leone. Nana Mensa Bonsu died en route at Twifu Praso in 1896. His body was later disinterred in 1911, taken to Kumasi, and reburied, with all appropriate royal rites beffiting, at the Asante Royal Mausoleum in Breamn.
Incidentally, Baden-Powell was fascinated by the work of the scouting work of Asantehene’s Twafuo and Asokwa groups. Upon his return, he wrote a hand book titled “Aids to Scouting.” and according to him (in his and his wife’s memoirs), it the Asantehene Asokwafuo and Twafuo scouting practices that influenced him to start the BOYS SCOUT. From Kumasi, he on to fight in the Boer War 1899-1902 in South Africa.
Baden Powell later re-wrote his handbook as “Scouting for Boys,” in
1906, and the BOY SCOUT Organization was born; thanks to Asante traditional scouting methods.