The Akyem of the Eastern Region, headquartered at Kyebi (Kibi) were the most potent force that countervailed Asante imperialism. The Akyem are also perhaps the only major Akan group that did not actively participate in the Trans-Atlantic Slavery; the colonial history of Ghana, the erstwhile Gold Coast, was not simply a rivalry between Asantes and Fantes over trade with Western Europeans. It is, indeed, not for no reason that today the Okyenhene is the only monarch in Ghana indisputably regarded as the co-equal of the Asantehene. - Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.