Man pens book after discovering familial ties to Chief Takyi

Enoch Tackey, who has lived in The Netherlands for over three decades, found himself with a lot of unanswered questions when his then 11-year-old son brought to his attention that there was a man on the Internet with similar facial features to him.

That man was Chief Takyi, an enslaved African who was brought to Jamaica from Ghana, which is also Tackey’s native country.

Tackey told The Gleaner in an interview on the sidelines of the National Chief Takyi Day commemoration event on Saturday that he initially wondered how he could have any connection to Takyi, whom he thought was from Jamaica, but that after looking at the images that came up from his son’s Google search, he saw a resemblance that he could not deny.

It was this resemblance that sparked his interest to dig further into his background.

“Because of the name connection, I wanted to know if we were family or not,” he said.

In 2019, Tackey and his family first came to Jamaica to discover his roots and connection to Chief Takyi. After realising that there were no descendants of Takyi in Jamaica, he eventually visited the St Mary Parish Library, where he got some information.

Tackey’s research did not end there; even after returning home, he was still not satisfied, leading him to conduct more investigations.

“Eventually, I’ve been able to determine that we are from the same royal roots, from a place called Techiman, and due to wars with the Asantes, we had to flee, and we fled towards the southern part of Ghana and built settlements there and that is how the Eguafo Kingdom also came into being,” he said.

After compiling his findings from October 2022, Tackey wrote the book, Chief Takyi – Breaker of Chains, which was completed two weeks ago and launched officially in Jamaica at the celebrations of National Chief Takyi Day in Port Maria on the weekend.

The book is about the tragic story of an African royal slave, Chief Takyi, who endured unspeakable hardship and inhumane treatment from his captives and slave masters until he eventually forced his freedom.

Tackey told The Gleaner that he already knew of his royal Ashanti ancestry from his mother’s side of the family but had refused to look into his Techiman name since he moved away from his father when he was 11 years old.

“I was angry, so I wouldn’t think about him. I just went my way with my mom, and my mom took care of me and things like that, ... [but] this came up, and all of a sudden, I was so excited about my Tackey background and I wanted to find out more and investigate more, and now I’ve accepted it,” he said.

Tackey said that after learning more about Chief Takyi, he was particularly inspired by his efforts to free the other slaves.

“I could tell he was a very strong and real person, who would not accept slavery in any form. Despite that label being placed on him, internally, he never accepted it so that is the strong character of the Takyi family, so I saw him in myself with the way that I am,” he said.

Takyi, who presented a copy of his book to Culture Minister Olivia Grange and Port Maria Mayor Richard Creary, expressed hope that the book would eventually be used in schools, national libraries, universities, and “everywhere, so that all the kids will read about him and know about him. That’s why I made and took the children also into consideration ... and put pictures ... so that they can go through it without much difficulty’, he told The Gleaner.

Over 260 years ago, Chief Takyi, who came from Ghana’s Fante ethnic group and was enslaved on the Frontier Plantation in St Mary, led the 1760 Easter Rebellion in Port Maria, with 400 enslaved warriors to confront the British Military in the Battle of Rocky Valley, with the goal of taking control of the island and making it a free and independent nation. He was later betrayed and shot by the British.

The blurb of Chief Takyi – Breaker of Chains states: “This book is the result of our journey into the realm of our forefathers. It took a lot of research and an enlightening visit to Jamaica to reconstruct the past. Apart from that, it became clear that he was a hero in his own right, a true African king in appearance and behaviour and that we fully support all efforts to recognise Chief Takyi of Jamaica as the national hero he was.”

Chief Takyi – Breaker of Chains is available at https://chieftakyi.com/en

asha.wilks@gleanerjm.com