A short walk from Christ Presbyterian Church in Akropong stands David Asante’s family home. For generations, his descendants have been taking care of this historic building. Entering through the gate is like stepping through time into the nineteenth century. White-washed stone walls surround a large courtyard with a two-story house and a smaller one-story annex. Next to the annex stands a water tank made to collect rainwater. The date on the tank has become illegible, but family tradition tells us that the tank was part of the original construction.
Today three families live in David Asante’s family house. When people visit to learn about the history of the Basel Mission (BM), they like to stop by the beautiful historic site and meet with the descendants. While some early missionaries have a mounted plaque on the wall of their former residence, there is no such commemorative plaque or statue to tell the story of David Asante. The descendants have to take on this task. The house itself is a historic source: its unique architectural design and the wooden beams beg questions about the early days of the BM in Akropong and the changes it brought to all aspects of life.
The architecture of the Asante family house is reminiscent of old Swiss or German farmhouses with a stone foundation and a wooden second story. A wooden staircase on the side of the building leads to an arcade that runs along the building. Colonial houses in this style – heavily inspired by southern German “Fachwerk” houses – are called sobrado. The Basel missionaries were instrumental in popularizing this building style on the coast in the 1850s, but it took some time to spread further inland.[1] They not only taught converts about the Christian faith but also, among other things, about how to construct this style of building. In Akropong by 1847 the Basel missionaries had already built thirty-two stone houses in the Christian quarter,[2] but most of them were only one-story tall and did not incorporate wood into their construction. The difference in style and material indicate that David Asante’s house was built a few decades later than the first missionary houses.
David Asante was born into a royal family. The year of his birth is estimated to be 1834, but his descendant Benjamin Owusu Asante pointed out in our interview that David Asante was most likely born a few years prior. He places his birth around 1830, because Asante was described as a young man of seventeen years at his baptism on Christmas day in 1847.[3] He gained an education at the BM school in Akropong and from 1857 to 1862 he trained at the BM seminary in Switzerland to become a missionary.[4] In addition to his theological education he studied Latin, Greek, Hebrew, English and Mathematics. In 1860 David Asante was joined by his brother Oforikae who passed away from tuberculosis while in Basel. Abena Botchway, a descendant of David Asante, explained in our interview: “We do not even know where his [Oforikae’s] tomb is.”[5]
In 1862 the BM ordained David Asante as its first African clergyman. He would remain the only African ordained in Basel. Abena and Ivy Botchway told me that when David Asante returned from Switzerland he brought wood with him.[6] This was the dark brown wood used in the construction of the house which has been painted gray in the latest renovation. At Abokobi near Accra the Basel missionaries used imported and sometimes pre-fabricated wood from Bremen, Germany.[7] It would be interesting to find out whether David Asante used the same kind of wood or whether his import was independent. As with many details of this missionary’s life, the exact origin of the wood remains unknown.
David Asante served as a missionary in different areas of Ghana, using his cultural knowledge to navigate local politics. In Kyebi for example he forbade the teachers at the missionary school to help the chief write letters to the colonial administration in Accra. The influence he had over the Christian community in the town rivalled the power of the Okyenhene causing tensions between traditional forms of government and Christian leadership.[8] As a cultural mediator David Asante was valued by the BM, but as his influence grew, he started to become a potential threat to the authority of European missionaries and colonial administrations. More and more of the missionaries’ tasks were divided along “racial” boundaries, excluding the growing number of African clergy from influential positions. After this shift within the BM organization, David Asante never regained the degree of influence he had had in the early 1870s and he returned to live with his wife and eleven children in Akropong. In October 1892 David Asante suffered a stroke while attending Christ Presbyterian Church and passed away a short time later at his family home.
Interestingly, the house that reminded me the most of my hometown in Switzerland did not belong to one of the European missionaries but to the first African missionary of the BM. It not only demonstrates with what ease David Asante was apparently able to move between two distinct cultures, but also that the histories of Basel and Akropong are intimately intertwined. The house is a manifestation of ideas transported from Switzerland to Ghana. While many of the elements are of European origin such as the wood and the architectural design, it was most likely built by local African craftsmen who adapted it to the specific needs of a modern Christian family. Despite visual similarities to Swiss/German houses, the Asante family home is uniquely Ghanaian. It tells the story of a transnational agent moving from the Gold Coast to Switzerland and back.
The David Asante family home can be read as a historic source of a time period when British colonialism gradually took hold of the Gold Coast and the BM used this colonial infrastructure to do missionary work in this region. The house is not only a historic site, but also a home and a bakery operated by Abena Botchway in the annex. During his lifetime the BM relegated David Asante and other local clergymen to less prominent positions and historical narratives have long favoured stories about Western missionaries as “heroes” in a foreign land. Only recently have local actors become a focus of historical study. As the philosopher Nelson Maldonado-Torres writes: “Coloniality survives colonialism”[9]. Many questions remain open and documents about David Asante’s history are not readily accessible from Ghana. Yet, his biography showcases the agency of locals who were able to mediate between these two worlds using their skills to build – in this case literally – their own place in a rapidly changing colonial society.

A warm thank you to Abena Botchway, Ivy Botchway and Benjamin Owusu Asante for letting me interview them on 22 of January 2024 at their family home in Akropong and sharing a part of their family history with me!