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Humanity’s geographical separation resulted in a great variety of its civilizational development. Depending on the surrounding conditions, different communities formed towns, cities, countries, and even empires, each representing sets of unique features. For this comparison, three civilizations were chosen: West-African Ashanti of the 18th, North-American Cherokee of the 18th, and Latin-American civilization of the 19th century. The first aspect of comparison is their political and economic structure; the second aspect presents the diplomatic and military affairs of mentioned civilizations; the last aspect will focus on their people’s social and cultural life. While it may seem that being separated by oceans would result in a total mismatch, more profound research can show that their developmental patterns are predominantly similar.
With the Republic of Ghana as its modern successor, the Ashanti civilization was a state in western Africa. It emerged from the union of several chiefdoms in the late 17th century and resembled a strongly centralized confederation (Abaka and Kwame, 2021). Despite their social stratification being determined by clan affiliation and matrilineage, the Ashanti people created a purely democratic apparatus, where they chose leaders according to their abilities (Busia, 2018). The civilization was agricultural, with its population dispersed across villages. It steadily expanded through the 18th and 19th centuries due to its military strength, confronting its direct neighbors and the British colonists. The latter required significant effort to defeat the Ashanti and subdue them into a colony state (Britannica, The Editors). Although Christianity and Islam entered the country, most people stayed true to their polytheistic views.
Cherokee is a tribe of North American Indians that successfully assimilated the culture of European colonists. Back in the 18th century, they were spread across numerous towns and settlements, resembling a confederative structure (Britannica, The Editors). They had two types of settlements dedicated to either war or peace matters, and each territory had its own democratically appointed chief. Cherokee were skilled hunters and cultivated different cultures, such as corn and beans (Britannica, The Editors). Having to share the land with European colonists, they also had to participate in their war conflicts. Unfortunately, they could not stand against the colonization power and were stripped of their homeland (Britannica, The Editors). From the religious perspective, Cherokee people were historically polytheistic, with great faith in the spiritual world (Michaelsen, 2020). Nevertheless, with the creation of syllabary for the Cherokee language and the spread of literacy, many people turned to Christianity brought by Europeans.
The civilizations of Latin America managed to protect their independence in the early 1800th. The crisis in Spain in 1808, when Napoleon took the Spanish king and his son hostage, allowed Spanish-American elites to seize power (Bushnell). However, holding power proved an issue due to the lack of elites’ authority (Bushnell). Three hundred years in the service of a monarch consolidated his figure as a leader, thus making local governments search for another way of legitimacy. Consequently, the emerged states decided on the republican structure, emphasizing centralization to deal with political and civil instabilities. Their economies concentrated mainly on export – the same as during the colonial times (Bushnell). Regarding social life, European ideas of enlightenment, together with Christianity and gender inequality, were rooted deep in Latin-American society (Acosta-Belen and Bose, 2019). In other words, an imprint of a colonial legacy could be seen in all aspects of a newborn civilization.
To summarize, many similarities are evident in the history of Ashanti, Cherokee, and Latin-American civilizations, despite their geographical remoteness. Each culture suffered from great to unsustainable damage to the colonial policies. In addition, every mentioned civilization decided to rely on the people’s choice of leadership; they also shared the agricultural specialization. The significant difference comes in the cultural context – Cherokee and Latin-American civilizations embraced the colonial culture and were assimilated. Ashanti, however, showed the most substantial resilience to external influence, both in cultural and military aspects.
References
Abaka, E., & Kwarteng, K. O. (Eds.). (2021). The Asante world. Routledge Worlds.
Acosta-Belen, E., & Bose, C. (Eds.). (2019). Researching women in Latin America and the Caribbean. Routledge.
Britannica, the editors of Encyclopaedia. (n.d.). Asante. In Encyclopaedia Britannica. Web.
Britannica, the editors of Encyclopaedia. (n.d.). Asante Empire. In Encyclopaedia Britannica. Web.
Busia, K. A. (2018). The Position of the chief in the modern political system of Ashanti. Routledge.
Britannica, the editors of Encyclopaedia. (n.d.). Cherokee. In Encyclopaedia Britannica. Web.
Bushnell, D. (n.d.). History of Latin America. In Encyclopaedia Britannica. Web.
Michaelsen, R. (2020). “Civil rights, Indian rights.” In T. Robbins (Ed.), Church-state relations: Tensions and transitions. Routledge.
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