The Fante are the coast-dwelling people who live between the western border of Ghana’s capital city Accra and Cape Three Points, the southernmost point of the country located in the Western Region.
The Fante are a part of the Akan people, the largest ethnic group in Ghana who make up more than 50% of the country’s population.
Oral historians in the courthouses of Fante chieftains recount that their forefathers tore away from the Bono people, another Akan group in Ghana’s hinterlands, in about the 1200s.
Descending southwards, the Fante were split into three groups and led by three mysterious warrior-priests, namely Oburumankoma, Odapagyan and Oson.
For proponents of this argument, including F.L. Bartels writer of The Roots of Ghana Methodism, Oburumankoma, Odapagyan and Oson are supposed to be metaphors of Fante self-perception and a privileged retelling of the story of their founding in their present home.
