Akan Kingdoms

The Akan (meaning “enlightened”) are an indigenous people of West Africa. Inhabiting a region fruitful in both produce and gold, they enjoyed immense wealth throughout the late medieval and early modern periods. For all its benefits, this opulence attracted the avarice of European explorers and adventurers, particularly the Portuguese, British, and Dutch. A complicated dynamic ensued: the power and wealth of the Akan fueled generally effective resistance to Europeans who sought to encroach on their homelands and subjugate them, but it was just as often leveraged to actively participate in the trans-Atlantic slave trade through the capturing, buying, and selling of slaves. Although the British eventually subjugated the Akan in the early 20th century, this dominion was only very temporary, and the Akan nations regained independence several decades later.

From the game's History encyclopedia, AoE3: DE 100.19.18309.