The once-thriving coastal town of Busua, capital of the Ahanta Kingdom, lay under siege. Dutch gunboats patrolled the shoreline, cutting off food and supplies. Inland, villages were raided and burned, allies were hunted, and informants were paid in gold to betray their neighbors. The Ahanta resistance—brave but exhausted—began to crumble under the relentless assault.

Amid the chaos, Badu Bonsu II refused to surrender. He moved from village to village, seeking refuge among loyal chiefs and family allies. Each move, however, tightened the noose around him. His warriors were scattered, his kingdom reduced to ashes, and his people caught between loyalty and survival.

By July 1838, the Dutch had all but sealed his fate. Desperate and cornered, the Ahanta king fled to Butre, a coastal settlement just east of Busua, historically tied to the Dutch through a long-standing treaty dating back to 1656. That treaty, once a symbol of mutual respect, had become a tool of colonial manipulation. Badu Bonsu II hoped the people of Butre might offer protection or at least delay his capture. What he found instead was betrayal.

On July 27, 1838, after weeks in hiding, Badu Bonsu II was betrayed by his own countrymen. The Dutch did not storm his hideout with soldiers—they bought his capture with ten ounces of gold. The betrayal was swift and devastating. The men who delivered him to the Dutch saw not a sovereign monarch, but a bounty. They chose survival and silver over loyalty and honor.

Badu Bonsu II was immediately taken to Fort Batenstein, the Dutch stronghold that loomed over the coast at Butre. It was here that his final hours would unfold. The fort’s thick stone walls, once built for trade and defense, now echoed with the grim efficiency of colonial justice.

There was no real trial, no defense, no chance for appeal. The proceedings were a mockery—a show trial staged to restore Dutch pride after the humiliation of the Ahanta uprising. The Dutch authorities labeled Badu Bonsu II a murderer and a traitor, ignoring that he had acted as a sovereign ruler defending his land against foreign occupation. The verdict was decided long before he stood before them.

The sentence was death.

In the courtyard of Fort Batenstein, under the unrelenting tropical sun, Badu Bonsu II faced his executioners. He met his end with the same dignity that had defined his resistance. According to later accounts, he refused to plead or beg. To the very end, he stood as a king.

He was hanged, and after his death, beheaded—a brutal punishment meant to send a message to all who might defy Dutch authority. His body, stripped of royal honors, was cast into the Ankobra River, its waters carrying him away from the land he had fought to protect.

But even that was not enough for the Dutch. They wanted a trophy—a symbol of their victory over Ahanta resistance. After the execution, Badu Bonsu II’s head was preserved in formaldehyde, placed in a glass jar, and shipped across the sea to the Netherlands. It was sent to Leiden University, where it became part of a “scientific” collection—studied and displayed under the guise of ethnographic research.

For more than 170 years, his head remained there, silent but accusing, a grotesque relic of colonial arrogance. Generations of Ghanaians were denied the dignity of knowing where their king rested. The story of Badu Bonsu II became part of whispered memory—a legend of courage, betrayal, and loss.

It was not until 2009 that the cycle of indignity began to close. After years of appeals by Ghanaian historians, traditional leaders, and diplomats, the Netherlands agreed to return Badu Bonsu II’s head. In a solemn ceremony in The Hague, the jar containing his remains was finally handed back to representatives of Ghana and the Ahanta people. The repatriation was not merely an act of restitution—it was a reckoning with the past, a moment of truth for both nations.

For the Ahanta, the return of their king’s head symbolized more than closure—it was the restoration of dignity, the reclaiming of a story that had been stolen. For the Dutch, it was an acknowledgment of a painful chapter in their colonial history, one that could no longer be ignored.

Today, the name Badu Bonsu II stands as a testament to the enduring struggle for freedom and identity. His rebellion was crushed, his body desecrated, but his legacy survived—the spirit of a ruler who refused to kneel before empire. His story reminds us that resistance is not measured by victory alone, but by the courage to stand against oppression, even when the cost is everything.

In death, Badu Bonsu II became immortal—a symbol of defiance, betrayal, and the unyielding quest for dignity on the Gold Coast.