/A History of the Upper Guinea Coast♦ 1545-1800

fcy

Walter Anthony Rodney

Thesis presented for the Degree ofDoctor of Philosophy?
at the University of London

May 1966

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Abstract

This thesis is concerned with the relatively small sectionof the West African coast between the Gambia and Cape Mount,Itseeks to reconstruct a picture of that society in the mid-sixteenth
century, while it was still free of profound European influence.
Such a picture provides the indispensable basis for analysing theimpact of external forces on the narrow coastal strip, •external1
being used to embrace not only the Europeans but also influencesfrom the hinterland and adjacent coastal areas*
In 1545 > Sierra Leone (the southern portion of the Upper
Guinea Coast) was subjected to invasions from Africans who werecalled •Manes’.

This is the starting point of the study of theexternal forces (Ch.Il), and the purely African influences aretreated once more in Ch* IX.

However, it is the presence of thePortuguese (Ch.IIl) and other European traders, which is the external
factor most in evidence;and the European association with the Upper

Guinea Coast was based largely on the development of the Atlantic
slave trade.

This latter topic is treated in Chs. IV and X, while

Ch. VJ; deals with African products other than slaves*
European rivalries as such constitute a very minor theme(as treated in Ch. V), for the aim has been to portray European
activity in this region only in relationship to the African rulers,
African peoples and African polities*

Owing to the great differences

3
in European and African culture, and owing to the potency and vicious­
ness of the Atlantic slave trade, the Afro-European relationshipincorporated violent contradictions, which resolved themselves to thedetriment of the society of the Upper Guinea Coast,

By 1800, thelittoral society was overwhelmed both from the landward and the seaward
side by forces set in motion by the Atlantic slave trade.

4
Preface

The scholarship on the history of the Upper Guinea Coast
has faithfully followed the boundaries laid down when the area waspartitioned between the English, French and Portuguese*

Subsequent

to colonisation in the nineteenth century, there is some rationale
behind such regional treatment, but to project colonial boundaries
into the pre-colonial period lacks all justification*

To begin with,therefore, this study concerns itself with a region which appears tobe geographically and ethnically a single entity, and which, further­more, was considered as such by the Europeans who traded there in the
period under discussion*
A second limitation of the secondary material on the historyof the Upper Guinea Coast is quantitative in nature*

The only

documented study of the early history of the area that is now Sierra
Leone was provided by Peter Kup, in A History of Sierra Leone* 14001787 (London 1961).

Since Andre Arcin essayed his Histoire de laGuinee in 1911 > nothing else has been forthcoming on that area in theform of a general history*

In Portuguese Guinea, the scene isdominated by a single scholar, A. Texeira da Mota, whose two-volume
work, Guine Portuguese (Lisboa 1954) is essentially a record of more
recent years, but which is fortunately deepened by the author*s senseof history and intimate acquaintance with historical sources*The

Gambia, too, has its single showpiece of historical writing relating toS'

the period before the British administration, that of J.M. Gray,published in 1940*

managed to spare only 10 pages on the Portuguese

epoch in a book which runs to 497 pages*
While it is true that many areas in Africa are no happierthan the UGC in the above respects, such paucity is neverthelessstriking, because the Upper Guinea Coast has been in long and unbroken
contact with Europe since the middle of the fifteenth century, and therecords of those centuries survive in considerable quantities - more so
probably than for any other section of the West African littoral.

Since

the purely documentary evidence was available and untapped, there was noneed to fraternise with Carbon 14 or tape-recorders;

and though every

opportunity was taken to utilise the insights from archaeology, ethno­graphy and the like, where these were forthcoming, it remains true that
this study is extremely orthodox in its methodology.

This reliance on

the European written word is not in itself inconsistent with aspiring to
the "new orthodoxy” of African history*

namely, the writing of thehistory of Africa as such, and not as an appendage to anything else.
There certainly axe limitations imposed by the nature of the European
sources.

Christopher Fyfe, illustrating the Sierra Leone Inheritanceby selected documents, rightly contends that "a barrier is set between
us and pre-European Sierra Leone.

We can only glimpse it through Euro­pean eyes, and must infer - not learn directly from unmediated African
sources - how its people lived1.*.

Yet, stumbling over such barriers is

an occupational hazard for those who seek to reconstruct the history not6only of Africa*s peoples “but also of all the voiceless millions who worked
and died*
In choosing Africa as a field of study, I have heen inspired by
the irridentist masses of the West Indies, who also supplied most of thefinances (via the University of the West Indies)*

The specific choiceof the Upper Guinea Coast was due to the direction of my tutor, Dr*
Richard Gray of the School of Oriental and African Studies, whose vast
knowledge of the disposition of archival sources is equalled by his
teohnical skills as a historian, and surpassed by the personal warmth
which went into the supervision of my thesis*

My thanks axe due also

to the Central Research Fund Committee of the University of London, whose
generosity permitted me to consult archival material in Portugal, Spainand Italy*

Both in England and on the continent, great help(was afforded

me by a large number of individuals in libraries and archives*

Mr*

T.M* Milne, Secretary of the Institute of Historical Research was always
ready to be of assistance;and I must also single out Senhor Comandante

A. Texeira da Mota, who willingly guided me to relevant material in
Portugal*UOJXTEflTSo

Abstract

preface4

List of Maps

8

Chapter Ones

The Land and the people

9\

Chapter t w o s

The Bra of the Mane Invasions,1343-1800

79

Chapter Threes

Portuguese Activity, 1550-1600

132

Chapter Fours

Slave Trading, 1562-1600

184

Chapter Fives

Free Trade vs Monopoly

24b

Chapter Sixs

. Products of the Forest

323

Chapter Sevens

The mature of Afro-European Commerce

376

Chapter Eights

The Rise of the Mulatto Traders438

Chapter .Nines

Influences from the Interior

487

Chapter Tens

Slave Trading* 1690-1800

523

Bibliography

597

LIST OF MAPS

1.

The Rivers of Guinea

16

2.

distribution of Tribes around 1545

35

3.

The coming of the Manes

100

4*

The Guinea of Cape Verde

181

5*

Distribution of Tribes around.

1800

511.

A HISTORY OF THE UPPER GUINEA COAST, 1545-1800

CHAPTER ONE

THE LARD AND THE PEOPLE*to
The Land and .the People
The spirit of enquiry and discovery of the Portuguese in thefifteenth and sixteenth centuries has imparted a distinct geographicalflavour to the surviving records of Portuguese activity in Africa in thatera*

Indeed, whatever shortcomings those records possess must he

attributed to the Portuguese preoccupation with the gathering of geo­
graphical data, to the exclusion of much else.

As the early Portuguese

moved south along the west coast of Africa, their main concern was the
preparation of navigational aids, necessitating a close attention todetail.

Frequent soundings were made off the coast and in the rivers,

and wind and weather conditions scrupulously noted, (l) In 1634» "theConselho da Fazenda approved the payment of a pension to Miguel Albernas,
who had be>en in their service sis a cartographer on the Upper Guinea Coast.
(2 ) The result of his work, like the work of so many others relating to
Asia and Africa, must have been known only to the Portuguese authorities,
since it was the policy to keep such information out of the hands ofrivals.

Thus, as late as 1607, the English•still had no precise idea of

the Upper Guinea Coast. (3 ) The Dutch knew the area around Cape Mount, butwhen Admiral Schouten was in the vicinity of the Nunez in 1615, he was not
at all certain of his whereabouts. (4 ). 1 .1....

................

1

1. „. . ■. 1 . 1 . 1

...

. „■

1

,

.

1

,,,

j

(1) Damiao Peres (Ed.) s Os mais antigos Roteiros da Guine (Lisboa, 1952)(2 ) A.H.U.T Guine, caixa I - Doc.II, Minute of the Conselho, Nov 1634*(3) Hakluyt Society N° LVI - Voyages of Sir James Lancaster to the East
Indies. William Keeling in Sierra Leone, March I607.
(4 ) Samuel Purchas:- Purchas his Pilgrims. London 1624, Part II, Book i, p.87

//The Land and the People
The fifteenth and sixteenth century Portuguese roteiros or charts,
in spite of their limited objectives, are extremely useful introductions
to the geography and the history of the Upper Guinea Coast.

More sub­stantial information followed later, as European commercial activities
intensified, and forced them to look ifiore closely at the land from which
they hoped to reap a profit*
Sierra Leone wts particularly favoured,csince enquiries were conduced with a view to Portuguese colonisation in
the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries*

Towards the end of

the eighteenth century, English and French colonisation projects generated
similar interest*

On the basis nf such evidence, and with some recourse

to more recent and morescientific studies, one can construct a tolerably
accurate geography of the region between the Gambia and Cape Mount, whichis the region described by the term "Upper Guinea Coast1* in this study, (l)Much that is of purely geographical value will be omitted*

The

purpose here is to provide sufficient of the physical background to makemeaningful the conduct and pattern of African life in that area during theperiod 1545-1800.
(l) The designations applied to various sections of the coast of West
Africa varied over the centuries*

In this study the three relevant

geographical divisions will be taken as (i) The Senegambia - between therivers Senegal and Gambia; (ii) The Upper Guinea Coast - from the Gambia
to Cape Mount;and (iii) The Malaguetta Coast, which coincides with them o d e m state of Liberia.

The Land and the People
Some slight advantage is to be gained by utilising contemporary
sources as a base for a purely geographical description*

Europeans inthe sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries observed the relation­
ship between human endeavour and physical environment in a context oftechnical skills, which, in some respects, differs from what prevails on
the Upper Guinea Coast to-day*Naturally enough, As Europeans, theseobservers were primarily concerned with whatever features would mostinfluence European activity, but often they made specific or obliquereferences to the Africans in relation to the local environment*Tofathom this relationship is the first essential in an attempt to recreate
the lives of these peoples - as is the case witi any given group in any
given locality*
The most striking physical feature of the Upper Guinea Coast is
its numerous rivers*

The Portuguese referred to the region between Cape

Verde and Cape Mount as "the Rivers of the Guinea of Cape Verde” j while theFrench, viewing the same area from their trade centres in the Senegal,
designated it "the Rivers of the South"*

Flowing in a generally westerly

or south-westerly direction, more than two dozen rivers reach the sea
independently on the stretch of coast between the Gambia and Cape Mount*
Of these, excluding the Gambia itself, the most important were the Casamance,
the Cacheu, the Geba and the Corubal (merging into the Geba Channel), theRia Grande de Buba, the Cumbidjam, the Cacine, the Cogon, the Nunez, thePongo, the Konkoure, the Greater and Lesser Searcies, the Sierra Leone(which is really an arm of the sea into which flows the Port Loko Creek

13
The Land and the People
from the north and the Rokelle from the south), the rivers of the Sherbro
estuary, the Moa and the Mano.

These rivers, along with their numerous

tributaries and streams, constituted a system of waterways, which was ofprimary importance in the life of the region.
The significance of the rivers can best be assessed in conjunction
with land relief and elevation.

With the exception of the Sierra Leone

peninsula and the region around Cape Verga the whole coast is flat, (l)Low level plains adjoin the rivers, and away from the immediate river banks
the ground seldom rises above thirty or forty metres above sea level.

Asingle belt of flat littoral plains can thus be distinguished, the widthof this coastal belt being determined mainly by the tides.
An extensive and shallow continental shelf, out of which rises the
Bijagos islands and a large number of shoals, is responsible for the factthat the tides here are higher and more powerful than anywhere else on theWest African coast. (2 ) On an average, the amplitude of the tides between
Cape Roxo and Freetown is between three and four metres while it is nearly(1) Early travellers noted the exceptional elevations of the coast.
(a) Th. Monod, A. Texeira da Mota and R. Mauny (ed) : Description de la
C6te Occidentale d fAfriaue (Senegal au Cap de Monte ArchipelSj par Valentim
Fernandes (1506-1510) (Bissau, 1951) PP> 56*58,68.
(b) R. Mauny (Ed.) : Esmeraldo de situ Orbis (Cote Occidentale d fAfrique duSud Maxocain au Gabon^par Duarte Pacheco Pereira (vers 1506-1508) (Bissau
1956) pp. 68,74(2 ) A. Texeira da Mota - Guine Portuguesa. (Lisboa 1954) Vol.I, p.57*

The Land and the People
seven metres on the Geba Channel.

These powerful tides, along with the

sunken ria character of the coastline, account for the penetration of thesea for considerable distances inland, and the silt deposited in theprocess has helped to build up the alluvial coastal plain.

The penetrationby the sea also accounts for the presence of salt marshes, and permits thewidespread germination of essentially littoral flora,such as mangrove andpalm.
The most characteristic vegetation is the mangrove, which, in thegreater and lesser profusion, lines the river banks to the very limit of thetides, (l) The roots of the mangrove have acted as stabilisiers of thesediment deposited by the tide, so that this plant is always associatedwith the richest alluvial soils of the ooast.

Indeed, the mangrove can betaken as the most easily visible symbol of the complex of numerous rivers,
low plains, marshy land and powerful tides:

a complex which decisively

affected all activity conducted on the Upper Guinea Coast.
A few of the principal rivers of the Upper Guinea Coast originate in
the Futa Djalon mountains.

The massif of the Futh Djalon, covering some

50,000 square kilometres, is an irregular triangle with the base on theupper Gambia and the apex just north of the frontiers of the m o d e m stateof Sierra Leone. (2)(1)

But immediately to the south of the Futa Djalon theAlvares de Almada - "Tratado breve dos Rios de Guine". In Monumenta Miss

ionaria Africana. Africa 0cidental.2nd. series (Ed. A. Brasio, Lisboa 19^4)
Vol. Ill, p.280(2 ) Unless specifically stated to the contrary, the term "Sierra Leone1* covers
that portion of the Upper Guinea Coast which extends from Cape Verga to Cape
Mount.

The Land and the People'^

country is mountainous, so there is virtually a continuous range, which is
the watershed from which flow the Senegal and the Niger as well as several
rivers of the Upper Guinea Coast, (l)Between the Futa Djalon and thecoastal plain is a region of hills and plateaux.

There, the rivers are

swift and shallow, while the edges of the escarpments give rise to waterfalls.
The area compares unfavourably with the coast as far as soils and vegetation
are concerned.

Heavy rainfall leads to the erosion of the soil, which iscarried down to the lower reaches of the rivers.

Large sections are barren,

being covered only with scrub and loose rocks - a landscape which the Susus
call oulai and the Fulas bowal. (2 )These features predominate in thehinterland north of Cape Verga, especially in the area known as the Badjar,
and on large parts of the Futa Djalon itself, while the Sierra Leone hinter­land is less arid.

There one finds open undulating plains, covered withtall fclei>htofc grass, and capable of supporting clumps of forest species.
The area which will form the basis of this enquiry comprises the coastal
plain and the transitional zone between the coastal plain and the Futa
Djalon.

But, from time to time, reference must be made to certain develop­

ments in the Futa Djalon and beyond, which profoundly affected the historyof the coast.
The Western Sudan forms the deep hinterland of the Upper Guinea Coast,
but relations between the two areas are often overlooked.

In part, this7 3 7 7 7 Machat : Guinee Franyaise - Les Rivieres du Sud et le Fouta-Diallon(Paris 1906) p.95
(2) Ibid. « p.95

(First Map to follow)

I

jagos

Em m sOf

G<J/R£A
ctfgrtOvNr

QJDL Ti±A__R Y Yj& R S\£

Q Q O j op.o

The Land and the People
reflects the fact that descriptions of the Western Sudan paid little attention
to the peoples of the Atlantic coast*

Leo Africanus, for example, simply

stated that there were fifteen kingdoms known to stretch between the Niger
and the sea, and that some intercourse was conducted with those who dwelt
along the sea-coast*

When he added that, towards the west, Mali was

confined by forests which stretched as far as the ocean, this was the closest
he came to any reference to the Upper Guinea Coast, (l) Secondly, while theSudan generated written records before the arrival of the Europeans, thiswas not true of the UGC;

and archaelogical evidence which has so often

come to the rescue of the African historian, is not available in any volume.
Such archaelogical finds as have been made, however, indicate that the tworegions were closely linked*
Numbers of laterite megaliths have been discovered on the Corubal,
on the Geba, to the north of the Casamance, on the Sine-Salum and in theWestern Sudan (notably Macina).

These megaliths are reportedly contempora­neous with the rock paints of the Sahara depicting horses and camels. (2 )In the Geba-Corubal area, ancient gold workings have also been found*
Shafts were sunk sometimes to a depth of twenty metres until the gold-bearing
strata were reached, and these shafts were then connected by horizontal
galleries, (j) This exact technique has persisted in large areas of the(1) Jean-Leon Africain 2 Description de L fAfrique (ed.A. Apaulard, Paris 1956)
Vol*2,p.466(2) R. Mauny s La. Prehistoire de L ^ r i q n e Occidentale Fran<^ais£ (Paris 1944)
p.52(3 ) Carlos Costa : Unpublished notes. (Cited in Texeira da Mota : Guine
Portuguesa vol.l, pp.129,130)

The Land and the People
Western Sudan as well as on the Gold and Ivory coasts.

I8
Qn the Upper Guinea

Coast, they were obviously abandoned before the Portuguese arrived, since,
after diligent enquiry, the latter reported only small quantities ofalluvial gold.

The likelihood is that those gold workings were associatedwith the medieval Sudanese states, (l)Quite apart from any possible political or economic relations
between the Upper Guinea Coast and the Western Sudan, the connection between
the two regions was intimate and fundamental, because the peopling of theUpper Guinea Coast was a result of the continuous dislocation of populationfrom the interior to the coast - a process that was largely precipitated bypolitical events in the Sudanese states.
In the opinion of one anthropologist, Mendes Correia, it was as
early as the third century that the relatively well-organised states of theWestern Sudan began to exert the pressure which led to population drifts
in the direction of the Upper Guinea Coast. (2) Richard-Molard also regards
the vast majority of the peoples of the Upper Guinea Coast as fRefoulesf driven back from their original positions away from the coast. (3)Indeed,the only poiht at issue has been to establish the sequence of arrival ofto establish 'the- sequence of arrival of the various immigrants.

Discussion

on that question has usually centred on identifying the tribes whose tenure(1) A. Texeira da Mota: Guine Portuguesa, vol.l, pl35
(2) A. Mendes Correia: Ra^aa do Tmpp-rio (Lisbon 1943) pp.147-14®
(3 ) Richard-Molard: Afrique Occidentale Fran^aise (Paris 1949) pl08

The Land and the People
on the coast has been the longest?

then, recognising that the Mande and theFulas were the latest arrivals, the problem can be posed in terms of whichgroups preceded the Mande and Fulas. (l)iOf the tribes which the Europeans found on the Upper Guinea Coast on
their arrival, those who were the oldest inhabitants were the Djolas, Banhuns,
Casangas, Papels, Balantas, Bijagos, Bulloms and Limbas.
regarded as the *Primitives* •These are generally

Virtually surrounding them by mid-sixteenth

century in a large semi-circle stretching from the estuary of the Gambia tothe coast at Dape Mount were the Mandingas, Susus, Djalonkes, Korankos, Konos
and Vais (all of Mande stock) interpersed with a few Fulacundas. the small
settlements of Fulas.

The *Pre-Mandingas1 were also contained along with the

1Primitives* in this semi-circle.

They can be enumerated as the Nalus,

Landumas, Cocolis, Bag as and Temmes. (2)(1) J. Machati Les Rivieres du Sud - This author reviews the differing cate­gories presented by nineteenth century scholars, (pp. 23G>232)(2 ) The orthography of tribal names on the Upper Guinea Coast has not beenstandardised, especially wit h regard to the formation of plurals.

Inthe "semi-Bantu" languages, the plurals are formed by prefixes and in
the Mande languages by suffixes.

Some European writers have preferred topluralise the African singular for both numbers.
English plural is used.
be fdlowed is consistency.

In this study, theOn other doubtful points, the rule which will
For instance, the same sound isrepresented throughout by *Djf, as in Djalon and Djola, instead of *Di*
or *J!, which are possible alternatives.

2-0
The Land and the ^eople
Immediately south of the Gambia, on the coast down to the Cacheu river,live a people whom the Europeans originally c ailed the Felupes.

The Mandingas

referred to them as Djolas, a name which they themselves have progressively
adopted, superceding the local variants by which each section of the t±ibe
was known.

It has been put forward that the Djolas were the first to people

the region of the Casamance, where they are now centred, (l) but the megalithic monuments found in the Casamance, as elsewhere in the Gambia and theGeba, were associated with ceremonies and a cult of the dead - features which
are alien to Djola society today - and the sharp difference suggests that acompletely different people inhabited the area before the Djolas. (2 )At thesame time, it is true that the Djolas have no traditions of origin or movement
except the memory of purely localised events which occurred during the lastfew generations.

This is a characteristic of the so-called Primitives1.

East of the Djolas, forming a parallel belt between the Gambia and theCacheu, lay the Banhuns.

The Sengeghu river, which flows southward into

the Casamance at about longitude 16°, was their approximate eastern boundary.
They call themselves 'Iagar', and say that the Portuguese gave the namefBanhun* to a number of different groups living in that area. (3) Actually
the Portuguese were aware of the local distinctions among them - JIabundos,
Iziguichors, Chaos - but it was emphasised that the Banhuns were a single
7 1 7 D*Anfreville de la Salle: Notre vieux Senegal. (Paris 1909) P-251(Apud L.V. Thomas: Les Diola (Dakar 1959) Vol.l, p.309(2 ) Louis Vincent Thomas: Les Diola (Dakar 1959) Vol. 1, p.309(3 ) Alvares de Almada: "Rios de Guine" pp. 288,304

The Land and the People
ethnic and linguistic group, (l)Only a handful of Banhuns have survived to the present day, a drastic
decline from their position in the sixteenth century.

Two rather

unconvincing reasons have been advanced to account for this.
practice of burying their dead in their houses?

Firstly, theirand, secondly, the mal­treatment which the young men received during the fanado, the ceremony ofcircumcision and initiation. (2)Neither of these features were peculiar to

the Banhuns, and their presence elsewhere in Africa has not decimated tribes.
What must have been decisive was the fact that the Banhuns faced severe
challenges from the Djolas to the west, and the ^andingas to the north andeast - and they lost both territory and men

to these two groups. (3)The Casangas, the eastern neighbours of the Banhuns, have also suffered
great numerical and political decline, and they recall their days ofpuissance, when the Casanga capital lay at Brucama. (4 )This is fully

confirmed by the Portuguese accounts of the Casangas in the sixteenth andseventeenth centuries.

A^ that time, they dominated most of the Casamance,

and their king did live at Brucama, the word Pruco* meaning "King^ court".
(5 ) Their decline can likewish be attributed to assimilation by other groups,(1) Landerset Siiooes: Babel Negra (Porto 1935)(2 ) A. Nogueira: "Monografia sobre o tribu Banhun" in Boletim Gultural daGuine Portuguesa, Vol.2, No. 8, Oct. 1947*(3 ) A. Nogueira: "Vida familiar dos Cassangas do Sedengal" in Incjruerito
Etnografico (A. Texeira da Mota, Biaaau 1947) PP* 118,119.
(4 ) Alvares de Almada: "Rios de Guine" p.305*
Andre Domelas: "Relacao em 14 capitulos sobre a Serra Leoa" 1625*"Relacoes do Descobrimento da Coata da Guine". Ms.51“VIII-25.
Biblioteca D fA.iuda

In

The Land arid the People

though in this case, the process has been determined largely by the willingnesof the Casangas to submerge their own identity, (l)in relation to the iv*andingas ?

This is particularly tru€

while a small group, known as the Cobianas orUboi, who live to the south of the Cacheu, are considered to be the productof Casanga intermixture with the Papels. (2 ).
Another large group of very early settlers on the Upper Guinea Coast
were to be found between the Cacheu and Geba-Corubal.

The Papels extended

from the Cacheu to the Geba, on the coast, and occupied all but one of theislands immediately offshore.

The only island in the Geba estuary which was

not inhabited by the Papels was Bolama, belonging to the Beafadas, the tribe
which occupied a large extent of territory on the banks of the Geba and the
Corubal, proceeding along the length of both rivers until they came up
against the Mandingas.

They were also concentrated on the shores of the

deep bay known as the Ria Grande de Buba.

Their neighbours on the Geba were

the Balantas, who covered a considerable area east of the Papels and north of
the Beafadas.
A caution about nomenclature is necessary at this juncture.

The

literature on the zone between the Cacheu and the Geba yields at least threeother •tribes1 - the Buramos or Brames, the Manjacos and the ^ancanhas.

Only

two names were in use among the Europeans in the sixteenth century « ’Papels*and ’Buramos* •These were considered as a single ethnic group and the(1) A. Taveira: "Cassangas de Sedengal" Inquerito Etnografico. p. 119(2 ) B. Marques: "Familiaridade idiomatica entre Cobianas e Cassangas"
B.C.G.P. Vol.2. p.8. (Bissau 1947)

The Rand and the People
names were used interchangeably, (l)Other titles made their appearance

much later, such as tManjanosl which is of creole origin, and was in use
at the end of the eighteenth century to describe the inhabitants of theisland of Jeta, south of the Cacheu estuary. (2)Recent studies have comefull circle and confirmed the unity of the peoples of this area, all of whom
speak only slightly varying dialects. (3 ) Thus, in place of the confusing
multiplicity of names in the literature of the nineteenth century and formost of this century, the term fPapelf will be employed.

On a similarnote, some of the ^eafadas are referred to as Djolas', a name of Mandinga
origin. (4 )This shall not be employed, to avoid confusion with the Djolas

or Felupes of the Casamance.
(1) Alvares de Almada: "Rios de Guine", pp.302,312
Andre Domelas: "Relapao sobre a Serra Leoa"(2 ) Philip Beaveri African memoranda relative to an attempt to establish a
British settlement on the island of Bulama in the year 1792 (London 1803)
P.127(3 ) A.J. Dias Dinis: "As tribos da Guine Portuguesa na historia", Congresso
Comemorativo do yuinto Centenario do Descobrimento da Guine*" (Lisboa 1956)
Vol.l, p.253.
(4 ) Antonio Carreira: 0 Fundamento dos Etnonimos da Guine Portuguesa ('Djola*is a Mandinga word without any ethnic significance.

In the period of

Mandinga expansion and dominance, it was used to designate individuals
under obligation to pay tribute.

From this it is easy to see how a numberof people, ethnically distinct, could be said to be Djolas.)The Land and the People
The two types of traditions of origin which are recounted by these threetribes are those which suggest close family relationshipSj such as the Balanta
account of descent from a Beafada hunter who acquired a Papel wife?' (l) andthose which simply s tate that God made them descend to e arth in the region
where they are now to be found. (2 ) Yet a number of factors indicate thatthese groups were all littoral •Refoules*, pushed onto the coast, mainly
through the action of the Mandingas.

This can be illustrated by taking asa point of departure, the residents of the Bijagos islands.
There are some seventeen islands outside the estuary of the Geba channel
and the Ria Grande de Buba.
known as the Bijagos.

Both the islands and their inhabitants are

The bulk of the population appears to have originatedfrom the adjacent mainland, inhabited by the Beafadas in the sixteenth
century, but still considered as "the patrimony of the Bijagos". (3 )However, all the islands were not peopled by the same tribe, especially thoseof later settlement.

Some show close affinities to the Djola$, some to the

Papels and some to the Nalus. (4 )Most important of all is a tradition

linking the inhabitants of the largest of the islands with the Coniaguis, a*Paleo-Negritic1 people of the plateau hinterland of the Upper Guinea Coast. (5(1) J. Pinto Bull* "Balantas de Mansoa", Inquerito Ethografico. p 140(2 ) J. Estevao dos Reis* "Manjacos de Calequisse", Inquerito Etnografico. p.14
(3 ) Manuel Alvares: "Ethopia Menor e Descrippao Geografica da Provincia de Ser
Leoa" 1616. Ms.l41-Cl-, Biblioteca da Sociedade de Geografica de Lisboa.
(4 ) A.J. Santos Lima: Organizacao economica e social dos Bijagos(Bissau 1947)(5 ) D.A. Gomes Alves* "Bijagos da Ilha Roxa", Inquerito Etnografico. p.134

The I'and and the People
Only recently have ethnic groups like the Coniaguis been the object ofattention and study*

Several others have been distinguished - the Hadjaranca

Bassaris and Tendas}with the last being a Fulani word, referring to peoples whoriginated from the middle Gambia or to the product of miscegenation which
occurred during the first Fula occupation (in the fifteenth century).(l)The Tenda country, as described by Mungo Park at the end of the eighteenth
century, was still a vast tract of land along the Gambia, between 10° and 14°
West Longtitude, (2) and, before the arrival of the Mandingas and the Fulas,
the whole extensive interior plateaux must have been the preserve of these'Paleo-Negritic* tribes*
The connection between the Bijagos and the Coniaguif is not the only link
between the "littoral Refoules" and the "Refoules sub-guineens" (As RichardMolard classifies the ^aleo-Negritics1).

Very close linguistic

similarities have been uncovered between the Beafadas, Tendas, Coniaguis andBadjarancas. (3)It has been advanced by A* Texeira da Mot a that theexistence of these pockets of ^aleo-Negritio* peoples, and their very
probable connections with the peoples of the coast may well ^e the key
to the whole problem of origins and affinities of the tribes north of the(1) A* Carreira: 0 Fundamento dos Etnonimos na Guine Portuguesfea. p9(2) Mungo Park: Travels in the internnr districts of Africa in the years

1795. 1796 and 1797. (London 1799) (See Maps of Park,s journey)(3 ) A.A. Wilson "TJma Volta linguistica da Guine'1 in B.C.G.P. Vol.15
No. 56 , 1959

The Land and the Peopled
Corubal.

His very credible hypothesis suggests that the Mandingar

population movements drove a wedge between the 'Paleo-Negritics1 whom theyencountered on the higher reaches of the rivers.

Some were pushed on the

coast, and those who were left behind either underwent assimilation or took
refuge on the inhospitable bowal zones, such as the Badjar. (l)In the southern sections of the Upper Guinea Coast, the tribal situationmust have been fairly straightforward (up) until the twelfth century.

Thesingle dominant element along the coast were the Bulloms, extending roughly
between Cape Verga and Cape Mount.

With the Bulloms were associated theKissi* and the Krim^ the languages of all three being extremely closely related(2 ).

The Kissis at that time occupied most of the eastern portion of the press]

Republic of Guinea and the region along the present Sierra Leone-Liberia
frontier, with the Krimsto their south on or near the coast.

In the hinter­land between the Greater Searcies and the upper Bum lay the Limbas. (3 ) They
had entered Sierra Leone at a very early date, pushing the Gbandes eastwards
into what is now eastern Liberia. (4 )The pattern which confronted the Europeans was considerably different
from that at the end of the thirteenth century.

Several waves of rdugees(1) A.Texeira da Mot a: Guin£ Pprtuguesa. Vol. 1, pl54
(2 ) Yves Person: HLes Kissi et leurs statuettes de pierre dans le cadre del fhistoire Ouest - Africaine" in Bulletin de l^nstitut Francaise de>l tAfriaue Noire, tome XX111, Ser B, No. 1, 19&1, pp.1-60 (see p.13)(3 ) Ibid: See map showing the distribution of tribes around 1300
(4 ) Peter Kup: A history of Sierra Leone. 1400-1787.(London 1961) p.124

The Land and the People1

had arrived either on tie coast or at positions in the near interior*

These

groups, unlike the ’primitives1, conserve traditions of movement, often in
extremely clear terms*
In the population movements south and south-west of the Futa Djalon, theMande people who played the most significant role were not the Mandingas but
the Susus.

Living on the Faleme, they were part of the empire of Ghana whenthe Almoravids invaded*

They subsequently took up the struggle against the

Berbers and Islamicised Saracoles, and achieved power in the Susu (Sosso)
empire in the twelfth century*

Itwas in 1235 that they suffered defeat

at the hands of the ^andingas,and numbersof Susus fled to the west, (l)Passing through Tenda country on the Gambia, the first Susu migrants
proceeded south along the west

sideof the Futa Djalon.

But, they faced

hostility from the Badjarancas,

andhad to move south of the Corubal.

Later

Susu travellers avoided the Badjar, and journeyed down the east side of themassif. (2)The Susu migration had multiplier effects in sparking off other populatioi
dislocations.

The Nalu traditions are very precise.

Led by Manga Taulia,

they travelled westwards, making their first settlement at Bigine (nearBafata on the Geba).

Later they moved on owing to Beafada pressure;andforming five sub-divisions, they occupied the region between Ria Tombali(1) D. Tamsir Nianes "Recherches sur 1 TEmpire du ^ali au Moyen Age",
Recherches Africaines* No. 1, Jan-March i 960, pp 17-36(2) M. Saint-Pere: "Petit Historique des Sossoe du Rio Pongas", Bulletin duComite des Etudes Higtoriques et Scientifiques 1930, tome XII, pp.26-47*

The Land and the People
and the Nunez, (l)Caught up in the same process were the Bagas, a group ofwhom, known as the Baga Pore, settled in the highlands of Cape Verga, as wellas in the low swamps of the estuary of the Nunez and the Componi. (2 )The Tyapis and Landumas never reached t hi coast, remaining in the immediate
hinterland of the ^alus and Bag as.

But the final group in this category,

the Temnes, were to become one of the most powerful tribes on the Sierra Leon
littoral.

Up to the beginning of the sixteenth century, the Temnes werestill considered as an inland people, (3 ) but, by the end of that century,
they had reached the Sierra Leone estuary, and had cut the Bullom tribe into
two parts, the northern branch of which was subsequently whittled down byTemne and Baga pressure.
The waves of migrations always had two aspects:
one of assimilation.

one of displacement andSome of the inhabitants of the Put a Djalon were pushed

on to the coast by the Susus, while others must have remained behind to form
part of a new ethnic compound.

The Futa Djalon was said to have been people<

at the time of the Susu arrival by the Djalonkes, which is a tautology, becaus
nke is a Mande suffix, meaning "man of". (4 )The tribe which is today known

as the Djalonkes or Yalunkas, who are considered as closely related to theSusus, must represent the fusion of the original stock of the Futa Djalon(1) J. Garcia de Carvalho: "Nalus de Bedanda", In Inquerito Etnografico p*150(2) Fernand Rouget: La Guinee. p .146 (Apud M.Saint-Pere,Op.cit.
Note 2.
(3) Valentino Fernandes: La Cote Occident ale d ’Afrique p.80
(4 ) Antonio Carreira: 6 fundamento dos Etnonimos na Guine^ Portuguesa n.10

The Land and the People
with the Susus.

It is perhaps not without significance that a large sectionof the Djalonke^s were called ’Soolimas* - men of the sharpened teeth - afeature which distinguished the Bagas and Nalus on their arrival on the coast.
In many respects, the Futa Djalon was a crucial transitional zone between
the Western Sudan and the Upper Guinea Coast.

The Susus, in theit turnwere to be replaced by the Fulas, who first made their entry into the area in
the fifteenth century.
The advent of the Fulas in the Futa Djalon is generally associated with awarrior king by the name of Coli Tenguela who features in a large number of
traditions collected over a wide area of the Western Sudan, the Senegambia
and the Upper Guinea Coast.

The core of these traditions suggests that Coli

Tenguela first liberated the Futa Djalon from the rule of the Handinga
emperor of Mali, and afterwards crossed the Gambia to do the same for Futa
Toro in the Tekrur, then directly under the sovereignity of the Wolof andpart of the empire of ^ali.
Coli Tenguela has been identified with Coli Temala, mentioned in the
Decadas of Joao de Barros as the king of Tucorol and of the Fulas.

De Barros

wrote that, "the said Temala in those times, lit in those parts the fire ofwar, raising himself from the south, in a district called Futa". (l)Animperfect understanding of Joao de Barros led to the dating of the harassmentof the Mandinga emperor by Coli Temala to a period around 1534?

but, in aclear exposition, the Portuguese scholar, A. Texeira da Mota, reveals that(l) Joao de Barros:

Asia, Primeira Decada (Ed. Antonio Baiao,

Coimbra 1932) p.117*

The Land and the People
the events to which Joao de Barros was referring, which involved the sendingof a Portuguese embassy to the Fula king, had taken place in the reign of
D.Joao II, that is to say, between the years 1481 and 1495* (l)Texeira da Mot a goes further and draws attention to the fact that other
Portuguese sources had recorded that there had been a full-scale invasion of
the Fulas from the Senegambia across the Gambia.

Alvares tiftlmada washimself familiar with the point on the Gambia where the Fula army had forded
the river, the spot retaining the name of Passo dos Fulas.
the Fula operations were colourfully recorded.

The details cf"They came determined toferry this army across the river, but having no boats for this purpose, theriver being at that point one league wide, they filled it with rocks in sucha way that the whole army crossed.

Many aver that the army was so greatthat it was unnecessary for each soldier to carry more than one rock.

Bethat as it may, they blocked the river, and the whole army crossed with its
baggage, which was great, because they had numerous horses, camels, donkeys
and cows ... they carried hives of bees, which they let loose upon theirenemies when the wind was favourable.

This was a terrifying army.

Never wasanother of equivalent size seen among these nations, destroying and laying
waste everything, passing through the territory of the Mandingas, Cassangas,
Banhuns and Buramos, a distance of more than 150 leagues, until they came to

the Rio Grande, the country of the Beafadas, where the Fulas were defeated!(2\(1 ) A Texeira da Mot a: Nota sobre a historia dos Fulas: Coli Tenguela e achegada dos nrimeiros Fulas ao Futa-Jalon (Lisboa 1952) p«59(2 ) Alvares de Almada: "Rios de Guine", pp.281,282.

31
The Land and the People
This event was known to Alonso de Sandoval, a Spanish Jesuit at Cartagena,
who collected information on the Upper Guinea Coast for his publication of atreatise on Africa in 1623;(l) and. later in the seventeenth century, thetradition reached the ears of the Portuguese trader, ^emos Coelho. (2)It is highly probable that the crossing represented the arrival of Coli
Tenguela.

Writing in 1594 >D<? Almada said that the events occurred about 80

or 90 years previously.

Texeira da Mota argued, with perspicuity, thatde Almada was likely to have been dating the events from the time he firstcame in possession of the material in the 1560*3 or 1570*s.
the likely period as between 1474 and 1484*

He thus gave

Be Almada*s own revision of

his text in 1596 bears this out fully, for on that occasion, he wrote that
the Pula army had arrived about a hundred and twenty years earljrer, (3 )which means about the year 1476.

If the conquest of the Futa Djalon was

carried out at that date, it would have been perfectly feasible for Coli tohave left for the north and established himself as king of Tucuror by thetime that D. Joao II sent his envoy. (1481-1495)
The early interpretation of the traditions surrounding Coli Tenguelaadvanced that the Fulas of Massina had revolted in 1512-13 against Askia
Mohamed;and, after this failed, a migration was embarked upon, led by(1) Alfonso de Sandoval: Naturaleza ... de todos Etiopes (Seville, 1623) P*38.
(2 ) Damiao Peres (Ed.): Du as Descricoes Seiscentistas da Guine' de Francisco
de Lemos Coelho (Lisboa 1953) P»19(3 ) Alvares de Almada: "Bios de Guine", p.282 (Editor's note)3 2
The Land and the People
Coli Tenguela.

Though it can now be taken that both the Futa Djalon andthe Futa Toro must have been lost to the emperor of ^ali before the end of
the fifteenth century, (l) it is not possible to give a clear alternative
explanation of the origins of the Fula invasions#
The knowledge of this subject rests on traditional histories, whichhave not been successfully unravelled.

Andre Arcin felt certain that it is

impossible for Coli Tenguela to have been the author of all the deeds thathave been attributed to him, so that several different persons must have beenpresented as a single personality.

(2) It has recently been discerned thatthe traditions refer not to an individual but to a dynasty.

This dynasty,

the Denianke, are considered as having originated in Massina, but the Coli
Tenguela who led the armed intrusion of the Fulas into the Futa Djalon,
according to two accounts, came from the Boundou (between the upper Gambia
and the Faleme).

From Boundou, Coli Tenguela proceeded to Timbo, Labe,

Timbi, and finally to Gueme Sangsn, where he built a fort, the ruins of which
are still to be seen.

After Coli left for the north, he never returned. (3&sthe result of the Fula arrival, there was some displacement of the Susus,
Djalonkes, Bagas and probably Temnes;
word 'Tenda' indicates.

and there was also intermixture, as

But the Fulas did not constitute a significant(1) French scholars have re-examined the issue, and have acogpted the late
fifteenth century date. (See.D.Tamsir Niane: A propos de Koli Tenguela",
Recherches Africaines. No. 4> Oot-Dec, I960
la(2 ) Andre Arcin: Histoire de/Guinee Francaise (Paris 1911) P*67
(5 ) D. Tamsir Niane:"A propos de Koli Tenguela" (Op.cit.,Note l)The Land and the People
proportion of the population of the region.

Their military victory was

accomplished by using the local tribes as their agents, especially the •PaleoNegritics*.

Some of the latter even claim descent from Coli Tenguela, thougl

they were clearly there when he arrived; (l) and it is fairly certain thatthe 'Cocolis1, mentioned very often in sixteenth and seventeenth century
European texts, were part of the Tyapi tribe which had served with Coli
Tenguela (2)Western Sudanese influences passed onto the Upper Guinea Coast not only
from the Faleme, but also from the Niger itself, via tributaries like the
Tinkisso.

The arrival of peoples from this latter direction affected themost southerly and south-easterly sections of the Upper Guinea Coast.
groups have to be considered:
two are closely r elated.

the Konos, Vais and Korankos.

Three

The first

They came from beyond the Upper Niger and settled

between the Limbas and the Kissis (3 )The tradition is that the Konoi'andthe Vais were the same people when they arrived in what is now the n a t h e mdistrict of the south-eastern province of Sierra Leone.

They were in searchof salt which they had heard was plentiful along the coast, but when the Konos(1) Claude Halle: "Notes sur Koly Nenguella, Olivier de Sanderval et les ruinsde Gueme-Sangan", Recherches Africaines No. 1, January-March i 960 , pp.37-4(2 ) A. Texeira da Mota: Guine Portuguesa. vol. 1, p. 152(3) a) Yves Personne: "Les Kissi et leurs statuettes de pierre"b) Ibid"Un Quete d'une Chronologie Ivoirienne", The Historian in Tronic

Africa. (Ed* J. Vansina, R. Mauny and L.V. Thomas, London 1964)
p*328.

34

The Land and the People
saw that there was much game andgood farming land onthe savannahs, theydecided to stop, while the Vais went to the sea. tt)
was a more powerful affair.

The Koranko migration

They too came from a north-eastly direction,

driving a further wedge between the Limbas and the Kissis. (2 )Finally, of the Mande peoples on the Upper Guinea Coast, special
consideration must be given to the Mandingas.

If (as one would expect) in

the process of population movement from the Sudan to the Upper Guinea Coast,
there were periods of greater intensity, then the eleventh century would
certainly have been such;
Saracole empire.

bringing as it did the Almoravid invasion of the

When attempts at Islamisation were made, population

dislocations resulted.

The Mandingas would have been affected by thisproselytisation, and prompted to move west, away from the centre of theSaracole power.

On the other hand, when thethey continued to move westward,

Mandingasachieved ascendancy,

to establish empire.

Sundiata, (1230-1255)

the first of the Mandinga emperors of ^ali, was very active in expanding
towards the west, and his empire reached to the Tekrur and the Gambia;

while

it was under Mansa Mussa (1307-1332) that Mali reached its greatest extension
westwards. (3 )The Mandingas were well established on the Upper Guinea Coast when the(1) Robert T. Parsons: Religion in an African society (Leiden 1964)
Introduction, p. xii.
(2 ) Y. Person: "Les Kissi et leurs statuettes de pierre" (Op.Cit) p.13
(3 ) D.T. Niane and J. Suret-Canale: Histoire de l'Afrique Occidentale.
(Conakry-Paris, 1961) See maps on pp.39>42

C*&>

et

w

'HM u

ZiorLOf,re,Acs /kpuri /S* 5■■t1 1 1 + i-

euLACUHDASV V v' ✓fHL£0 - *£Ce.lTiC<L— / .'4- .0on, n p p

5 4
The Land, and, th e P e o p lePortuguese arrived in the mid-fifteenth century.

There has been a tendency

to overlook this fact, and to date their arrival in the Gambia-Geba area aslate as the eighteenth century (l)Yet Cadamosta's chronicle indicated that

the Mandingas were already on the Atlantic at the Gambia estuary, (2 ) while atthe beginning of the sixteenth century they were pointdd out on the middle
and upper reaches of the Casamance, the Cacheu and the Geba. (3)Valentim

Fernandes had no hesitation in asserting that the Mandingas were the greatest
people speaking a single language in all Guinea, and he was referring not to
the interior but to the coast. (4 )It was only on the Gambia and about Cape Mount that the Mande wereactually present on the sea-coast, by the middle of the sixteenth century, and
it is significant that the contacts between the littoral peoples and the M a n d e
were very often made on or about the limits of the tide on the rivers.

L

As such,.

the latter were well away from the swampland as well as from the heaviest
forests of the river basins:that is to say, they had avoided the least

hospitable of environments, which are to be regarded as the last refuge of the'semi-Bantu' speaking peoples who had been pushed ahead of migrations such as
those of the Mandingas and. Susus.
(1) Yelez Caroco? Mqiuut» Q Gafru e a sua historia (Bissau 1948) p.104(2 ) G.R. Crone (Ed.): The Voyages of Cadamosta, Hakluyt society, 2nd series,
No. LXXX, (London 1937)(3) a) Pacheco Pereira: Esmeraldo de Situ Orbis pp.6 8 ,74b) Valentim Fernandes: La Cote Occidentale d'Afrique. pp.3 6 ,58,68(4 ) Ibid: p.44

5 7
The Land, and the Peoples
All the peoples so far enumerated, whether Mande or non-Mande, madetheir contribution to building up the population of the Upper Guinea Coast.
The corollary to the numerical increase of the population is that the whole
cultural pattern can only be understood in the light of the continuous driftof population from the Western Sudan.
It is usual to classify the peoples of the Upper Guinea Coast as the West
Atlantic language group.

But Baumann, who first employed the categorisation

West Atlantic, did not intend that it should be viewed simply from a pointof view of language,^e accepted the linguistic classification "semi-Bantu1',

while "West Atlantic" was a cultural definition, best brought out in contrast
to the "Upper Niger Circle", where the Mande and Fulas had their homes.

Themost characteristic trait of the Upper Guinea Coast was "the initial absenceof all state organisation and the superior civilisation which distinguishedthe Mande of the interior", (l)On the coast, the society comprised basically the "Paleo-Negritics" andthe other "semi-Bantu" newcomers (like the Bagas and the Temnes).

Sudanese

peoples arriving on the Upper Guinea Coast had indeed overlaid the West
Atlantic culture with a lamina of Mande civilisation, but in the process they
too had become part of the littoral society, swallowed up by the forest towhich they had come seeking refuge from the states of the Western Sudan.
Baumann explains as follows: "In giving this term (West Atlantic) an(l) H. Baumann and D. Westermann: Les Peunles et les Civilisations de lfAfriq-u(Suivi de) Les Langues et 1*Education (Paris 1962) pp.367

38

The Land and, the People

ethnographical connotation, it comprehends not only the Semi-Bantu tribes who
are recognised as a linguistic entity, and who constitute the kernel of theWest Atlantic circle, but also those Mandes known as M&nde-fou.

These latterare a branch of the Mandinga people who dominate the Western Sudan?

they havepenetrated the forests in a southerly direction, and are mixed with the peopleof the West Atlantic type, giving birth to the type known as Mande-fou, butwhose civilisation is essentially West Atlantic", (l)The two features implicit in the development of the West A-fclantic
civilisation are thus, firstly the evolution of a way of life to suit thegiven ecology, and secondly, the accretionary growth about a cultural nucleus,
resulting from the arrival of newcomers.
By the time that the Europeans arrived on the Upper Guinea Coast, all
the peoples had passed the stage where they led a semi-nomadic life as
hunters and fishermen.

Such were the circumstances of the earliest days of

migration, as some traditions recall.

Though group conflict was also

recorded, the fundamental struggle must have been against an environment
which was strange and hostile.

The earliest European accounts indicate thatthe people of the Upper Guinea Coast had evolved a settled way of life inresponse to the land.
M o d e m investigators have found that there is a basic linguistic andcultural unity corresponding to the geographical unit of "the Rivers of theSouth".

This unity hinges about the radical, bulom, which in various derived(l) H. Baumann and D. Westermann: Les Peuples et les Civilisations de l'Afriqu(Suivi de) Les Langues et l 1Education (Paris 1962 ) p. 368.

The Land and the People
forms, appears among all the coastal populations to designate the low lands,
the stagnant water that accumulates thereon, the processes associated withthe extraction of salt, the agriculture conducted on swampy soil and thehuman settlements established there, (l)Bullom tribe in Sierra Leone.

The most obvious example is the

They took their name directly from thehabitat with which they were so intimately associated, and which must always
be borne in mind when one speaks of the littoral plains. (2)blom means "low flooded land"?

The Papel word

among the toponyms for rivers, estuaries andislands feature names such as Buam, Biblama and Bolong?
inundated rice is carried on in bolanhas t

the cultivation ofand tradition has it that theoriginal inhabitants of the ^ansoa region (between the Cacheu and the Geba)
were a people called Olonu(3 ) Perhaps the most significant of the terms

in this group is the word pulpm, which is applied to the silk-cotton tree.
(Bombax ceiba)

It is significant because these trees are held to be sacred,the residence of certain spiritual beings (often called Bloms) and theidentification of a people with their environment is never close than when
it is expressed in religious terms.
(1) Richard-Molard: Unpublished manuscript.

Cited in A. Texeira da Mot a andM.G. Ventim Neves: A habitacao indigena na Guine Portuguesa (Bissau 1948)
pp. 40,89.
(2 ) a) Manuel Alvares: "Ethiopia Menor" (Op.Cit).
b) John Barbot: A Description of the Coasts of North and South Guinea
London 1746) p*97
(3 ) km Texeira da Mota:

Guine Portuguese vol.l, p.330

^lo
The band and the People
One common and basic reaction to the riverain nature of the Upper Guinea

Coast was the utilisation of the water routes for transport and communications
Life was characterised by frequent re-unions for social, religious andpolitical purposes, and for these the canoe was the means of transport.

The

Jesuit missionary, Father Baltezar Barreira, was struck by the speed withwhich Sierra Leoneans assembled at any given spot by means of their canoes.(l)Moreover, they demonstrated a distinct preference for this form of travel,even if it meant porting their canoes overland to make the necessaryconnection b etween two rivers.
Canoes were carried overland across the neck of the Sierra Leone peninsula
which meant in effect the linking of the water systems immediately north andsouth of the mountainous portion of Sierra Leone. (2)Further north, thetributaries of the Gambia, Casamance and Cacheu virtually reached out foreach other, so that, by a combination of water routes and short land connec­
tions, the whole region became a unit. (3 )also used for non-pacific purposes*

Naturally the waterways were

The Bijagos, strategically situatedclose to the Cacheu, Mansoa, Geba and Ria Grande de Buba, used their almadias(1) Ferhao Guerreiroi Relacao annal das coisas que fizeram os Padres daCompanhia de Jesus nas suas missoes Vol. 3» 1607-1609 (Ed. Artur Viegas,
Lisboa, 1942) p.250(2 ) Ibid: Vol. 1? 1600-1603 (Ed.Artur Viegas, Coimbra, 1930) p.408(3 ) M. Bertrand-Bocande: "Notes sur la Guinea Portugaise ou Senegambie

Meridionale", Bulletin de la Societe de Geograohie de Paris. 1849> Vol.11,
pp.265, 350 and Vol. 12, pp.57-93

41
The Land and the People
or war canoes to terrorise the inhabitants of the region.

Without a doubt,

whether used for good or ill, the rivers were tte autobahnen of the Upper
Guinea Coast.
The canoe could vary from the tiniest of vessels, barely able to holdone person, to relatively sophisticated craft, capable of holding upwards ofsixty persons and of travelling on the open sea.

The first extreme isprovided by the small canoes used by the Djolas to traverse their flooded
rice fields, and the second by the almadia or war canoe, which was most fully
developed by the Bijagos.

On his second voyage to Guinea, Hawkins foundsome fifty medium-sized canoes within the Sherbro estuary.

Fashioned froma single trunk the final proportions were 24 x 3 feet, with a prow in theform of a beak, a proportionately raised stem, and an exterior artisticallycarved and painted blue.

Each held about twenty to thirty men, but theactive crew comprised a helmsman and four rowers, using very long oars withrelatively small blades, (l)The Bijago almadia was a much larger affair, hewn from the giant silkcotton tree, and measuring about seventy feet in length.

A number of boards,

called falsas by the Portuguese, were added to the sides, and, thus modified,each almadia carried twenty-four men and their weapons, and had room for
prisoners and cattle when returning from their expeditions on the mainland.
Yet its principal advantage was not its size but its seaworthiness.

On theSenegal, the residents built vessels which allowed them to engage in deep-sea
fishing, but south of the Gambia it was only the Bijago almadia that(l) Hakluyt Society, Vol. LVIIj p.17

The I'and and the People
traversed the open sea*Thus it was that the coastal peoples were incapableof retaliation against the Pijago attacks*

One feature which won admiration

was the way in which the trunk was scooped to leave a thin shell, which attjie sides was only as thick as the thumb, (l)It was also propelled in adifferent manner from the canoes lower down the coast in Sierra Leone,
according to a nineteenth century reference.

All the individuals on board

were rowers, who squatted at the bottom of the boat, and rose at the
beginning of each stroke of their short oars, (it)These techniques were the

Bijagos1 answer to their insular conditions#
At all times, the canoe held its place as an integral and distinctive
part of the littoral culture.

It was not just coincidence that the Bulloms

were said to inhabit the country "as far inland as one can paddle a canoe" (3 )Nor is it surprising that in 1620 Richard Jobson found on the Gambia that"the country people have no boates or canoos above the ebbing and flowing". (4A large canoe was a valuable piece of property, which was not as common as
the thick forests might lead one tobelieve.

^ts construction was the workof specialists, sometimes brought in from outside the tribe, as in the caseof the Djolas, who employ Mandinga boatbuilders • (5 )The importance of such(1) Manuel Alvares: "Ethiopia Menor"(2 ) E. Stallibrass: "The Bijouga or Bissagos Islands", Proceedings of the Rova
Geographical Society. 1889
(3 ) Valentim Fernandes: La Cote Occident ale d'Afrique. p.80
(4 ) Richard Jobson* The Golden Trade (London, 1626) p.20
(5 ) L.V. Thomas: Les Diola. Vol. 1, p.30

The ^and. and the People
a specialist is attested toby the proverb "the blood of kings and the tearsof the canoe-maker are sacred things which mast not touch the ground", (l)Just as the dependence on water transport was the outcome of the numerous
rivers of the Upper Guinea Coast, so the manufacture of salt was theconcomitant of the salinity of the water.

Investigation has disclosed threemethods of obtaining salt in northern Sierra Leone.
of salt deposited on the leaves of the mangrove?
evaporation from sea-water?
soils.(2)Firstly, the collection

secondly, the direct

and, thirdly, the extraction from salt-impregnate

To collect salt from the mangrove leaves must always have been theeasiest operation, though it could hardly have yielded much.

The Portuguese

had noticed that the salt was prepared with the aid of fire, (3) whichembraces both of the remaining two methods.

The more popular was themextraction from areas of salt marsh.

owards the end of the eighteenth

century, Lieutenant John Matthews, after visiting Sierra Leone, wrote that thesun-hardened silt was collected sometime after the biennial flooding of the(1) A. Pereira Cardoso: "A influencia exercida nos povos da Guine* pelas
principais culturas que, em epocas pre-historicas, penetraram noContinents Africano. "Boletim Geral das Colonias. 1929. No. 44. P.15
(2 ) R. Glanville: "Salt and the salt industry of the Northern Province"in Sierra Leone Studies. No. XVL(3 ) (a) F e m a o Guerreiro: Relacao anual. Vol.2, 1604~1606 (Ed. Artur Viegas,
Coimbra 1931) p.200(b) Alvares de Alsaida:"Rios de Guine" p.345

The Land and the People
plains at the vernal and autumnal equinoxes.

The caked mud was then dissolvedin water in large earthen pots, and boiled in shallow brass pans.

The ihardenec

silt could only be obtained during the dry season, but where the plains wereextensive the collection was carried out during the dry season, and huts werebuilt for a few old people to boil the salt during the rains, (l)Matthews' description is incomplete, and gives a too casual picture ofthe. salt industry of the Upper Guinea Coast.

Salt manufacture was not tied

to the biennial flooding of the plains, but was linked to the daily tidal
pattern.

The water of the sea or a nearby river was received into large

shallow ponds at high tide and permitted to evaporate.

The saline crust

which remained was scraped up with a portion of earth to a depth of a l/4
inch, and dissolved in warm salt water to which a quantity of wood ash wasadded.

The solution was poured into a conical strainer of palm leaves, atthe apex of which s traw was placed to prevent the earthy matter from passing
through.

Thus, by percolation, the salt water and the soil were separated,

and the salt finally evaporated to dryness in specially constructed clayovens, covered with tin or iron basins. (2 )The operation had very often

to yield results before the rainy season started in June.

This was partly

because from May onwards the labour force was deployed in agricultural wcrk,
and partly because the salt was sold during the dry season to obtain basic
foodstuffs.

Thus, in 1728, Senhora Maria, a leading Bullom lady, concentrated(1) John Matthews: Voyage to the River Sierra Leone. (London 1788) p.37
(2 ) R.R. Glanville: "Salt and the salt industry of the Northern Province"in Sierra Leone Studies. No. XVI

4The Land and the People^

her attention until late May on the production of salt, canoe loads of whichwere immediately transported to the upper Port Loko Creek and exchanged for
rice, (l)That it was still found necessary to use the labour of old people

during the rains, shows that salt making was virtually an all the year round
activity.
The final product of the evaporation process was of excellent quality,
in spite of the incomplete separation of soil particles, and it was preferredto that procured by boiling the sea water. (2 )As already indicated, thenames of the process associated with the manufacture of salt often derived
from that very expressive andcentral term Bulom.

Salt manufacture on theUpper Guinea Coast formed part of a basic geographical, economic andcultural complex.

De Almada had noticed the conjuncture of four factors -the limit of the tides on the river was the point where the mangrove ceased,
where canoes became rare,

and where salt became really scarce. (3 )This

scarcity bred trade.
The ability of salt to generate trade and to attract people over amazing
distances is well known.

The Senegal was involved in the great trade netof the Sudanic empires by virtue of the salt obtainable at Aulil, at themouth of the Senegal river. (4 )The same cannot be said for the Upper Guinea(1) P.R.O.f T 70/ 1465* Diary of chief factor, Walter Charles, Bence Island,
Sierra Leone, 1728.
(2 ) John Matthews:

Voyage to the river Sierra Leone, p.37

(3 ) Alvares de Almada: "Rios de Guine", pp.280(4 ) E. Bovill* The Golden Trade of the Moors (London 1958) p.81.

46

The Land and the People

Coast, hut salt was nevertheless the most important item fostering contacts
between the littoral and the hinterland.
The Bagas, on the swampy coast where the Pongo entered the sea, wereparticularly important ssLt-producers as far as exports were concerned.

It

was noted in the latter half of the seventeenth century, that, every year,
three great caravans of Djalonkes (the inhabitants of the Futa Djalon) set out
for the coast, principally in search of salt.

One went north to the Senegal,

one to the Gambia, and a third to the Pongo, where their preseno© was
responsible for the existence of the largest market in the region, (l)The

Susus also resorted in great numbers to the Pongo and the Nunez, and in thesixteenth century were acting as middlemen between the Fulas and the coastal
people. (2) Salt generated similar activity on the Gambia.

In the sixteenth

century, the Gambia salt supplies were shipped upriver and deposited at Cassan,
where crowds of Mandingas and Fulas were attracted. (3 )Up to the lateeighteenth century, this trade gave great power and authority to the Mandinga
king of Barra at the Gambia estuary, since he had a fleet of canoes employedin ferrying salt upriver. (4 )(1) Lemos Coelho: Duas Descricoes Seiscentistas da Guine. pp.23,61(The word Coelho used is "Jagancazes".

This (along with "Jalungas" used

Uy Valentim Fernandes) is to be identified with'the people of the Futa
Djalon.)(2 ) Alvares de Almada: "Rios de Guine" p.347(3 ) Ibid: p.347 (Be Almada also referred to the 'Putagjes1, who appear to havebeen a section of Susus.)(4 ) Mungo Park:

Travels p .4

47
The Land and the People
Of course, it was in the sphere of agricultural production that thelittoral peoples faced their greatest challenges, having to wrestle, not onlywith the forests, but also with the more intractable swamps.

The major

problems involved in the agricultural utilisation of the swamps were drainage,
desalination and the protection of the recaptured land from the sea and thetides.

Even after this, the heavy rainfall and resultant flooding for many

months of the year automatically eliminated certain crops from among thosewhich might have been desired.

Indeed, inundated rice was virtually the

only possibility, and it was to this that the Africans turned to achieve
agricultural mastery of the marshlands.
De Almada specified that on the Gambia the residents were growing theircrops on the riverain deposits, and by a system of dikes had harnessed thetides to their own advantage, (l)The system of irrigated farming extended

south of the river Cacheu - that is to say, throughout the territory inhabitedby the Djolas.

The name Baiotes given to a large section of the Djolas,means "men of the rice nursery" (the rice nursery being the distinguishingfeature of swamp rice cultivation).

(2 ) By the early seventeenth century,

this creole designation was already current, attesting to the characteristic
employment of a large number of Djolas (2)When an official of the French

Company of the Senegal travelled through Djola territory in 1685 He remarked
that there was no house which did not have a rice nursery nearby, while along(1) Alvares de Almada: "Rios de Guine" p.285(2 ) Antonio Carreira: 0 Bundamento dos Etnonimos na Guine Portuguese, p.6(3 ) Alonso de =Sanderval: Natureleza de todos Etiopes. pp.6, 38

4 $The Land and the People
the river hanks the landscape had been t ransformed into a pattern of causeways
with rice plants appearing above the flooded fields* (l)The Djolas were important vendors, who supplied rice to their Africanneighbours as well as to the Portuguese settlement of Cacheu? preserving
their role as the main rice producers of the area well into the nineteenth
century. (2 )Their productivity must have been based not on any greaterarea of cultivation but on superior yields, and it is well known thatquantitatively the yield of 'dry1 rice is far inferior to that of ’wet1 rice.
This consideration inclines one to believe that there were two other localities
where swamp rice was grown on an appreciable scale*Port Loko Creek in Sierra Leone*

The first is the Upper

Both the Bulloms of the coast and theEnglish of Bence Island were dependent on the Port Loko area for supplementary
supplies of rice obtained principally in exchange for salt prepared by the
Bulloms.

The fish caught by the Bulloms was also used to acquire rice fromthe Lokos (3 )The second region is the estuary of the Nunez, which was

one of the chief sources of rice for the Portuguese in the seventeenth
century.

The Portuguese (mainly Afro-Portuguese) carried on an extremely(1) P. Cultru: Premier Voyage df Rieur de la Courhe fait a. 1» Cnate d'Afrique,en 1685 (Paris 1913) p.209.
(2 ) M. Bertrand-Bocande: "Notes sur La Guinee Portugaise ou Senegambie
Meridionelle" (Op* cit.)(3) Manuel Alvares: "Ethiopia Menor"

The Land and the People
flourishing trade in local products such as rice, salt and kola, (l) The nagag
andNalus were producing rice surpluses which the Portuguese were able toredistribute.

The only time when dry rice was being prodund in similar

quantities dated from the late eighteenth century, when the Susus were
cultivating extensive areas with forced labour. (2 )The creole Portuguese vocabulary provides two words which distinguishthe change wrought on themarshland by rice fanning.

the swamp is called a lala:while,

Before its utilisation

subsequently, it is known as a bolanha

Both words appear in the literature on the region since the sixteenth
century.

The transformation from lala to bolanha was a very laborious

one, requiring, as the first essential, the building of large dams of earth
and wood along the river banks*

These vary in size according to theamplitude of the tides in the particular area*

At various points, outlets,

called bombas in the creole dialect and ehungat by the Djolas, were fitted
into the dikes*

To fashion a bomba, a section of the trunk of the cibe

(Borassus Aethiopium) was

selected, which narrowed into a cone at one end.

After being hollowed, thesmall end was covered with woven straw in such a

way that it acted as a valve opening only towards the exterior.

Sometimesa small canoe was employed, with a board placed in position to act as a(1) See below,

Uh.Vill^(2 ) Lord Stanley: "Narrative of W.C. Thompson’s Journey from Sierra Leone to
Timbo, Capital of Futah J'allo in West Africa" in the Journal of theRoyal Geographical Society, I846 , p*106

S'O
The Land and the People
valve.

In both cases, the valves function automatically, remaining closed

against the pressure of sea-water on the outside, and draining the excess
of rain-water within the bolanha when this water reached the height of thebombas.
The Bolanha was not normally used during the first two or three
years.

During this period, the rain water was allowed to accumulate andwas dicharged several times in the rainy season, thus reducing the salinityof thesoil.The mangrove which remained insiderotted, and was spread as fertiliser.

the reclaimed land died andSmaller interior dams were also

constructed, dividing the bolanha into property lots.
was lengthy and strenuous.

The whole operation

The main dike was sometimes several miles long,and in such cases, hundreds of people wereinvolved in its construction.
Besides, the dikes subsequently required constant care against the crabs whichbored holes from one side to the other, against the cracks which appeared whenthe mud dried,

and above all against the powerful action of the tides, (l)Although fwet* ricewas important, the *dry* varieties

were far moreprevalent, and the most widespread form of agriculture practised on the Upper
Guinea Coast was the itinerant rotational one, which is still prevalent.
Essentially, this consists in winning from the forest each successive year(l) (a) A. Marques de Mano: "Visita a Guine", B.C.G.P., Vol.2, No. 6, 1947
Bo]etim Cultural da Guine Portuguesa.
(b) A. Texeira da Mota: Guine Portuguesa. Vol.l, pp.292-294(c) L.V. Thomas: Les Diola. pp#lll-ll6 (Description of the highly evolved
Di#la techniques of rice farming)

The Land and the People
enough ground on which to sow the necessary crops.

It was observed that

the Sierra Leoneans were able to distinguish the Pleiades (which the Bulloms
called a-warrang) and, by their position at sunset, could judge when it wastime to prepare the fields for sowing.

(2)

The period between March and June

was one of great activity, when, by collective effort, certain areas
selected by the tribal authorities were cleared of f orest byycutting andburning.

Naturally, this had to be effected before the rains came, usuallyin June.

A Jesuit report from Sierra Leone in 1616 recounted that in thatyear the rains set in before the work of clearing the forest could begin.
This was attributed by the exponents of the tribal religion to the presenceof the Jesuits, but fortunately for the missionaries and the Christianconverts, the weather cleared up in May. (l)The bulk of the heavy work of clearing the forest was undertaken by themen.

The smaller trees were cut level with the ground, while the larger

tree-stumps were left to be consumed by termites and fire.

(2)

The tallelephant grass which grows in the near interior permitted the flames tospread quickly.

Travellers at that time of the year often commented on thesmoke rising from the forest (3).
m

The groundthus prepared for cultivation

A.T.T. Castorio das Jesuitas 304*56, No. 1, Journey of Francisco Pinto
Pereira to Salvador, Sierra Leone, April 1616

(2) Manuel Alvares*"Ethiopia Menor"(3 ) The early Portuguese observers named one of the rivers leading into the
Sherbro estuary as "the River of Smoke", conceivably because they saw thesmoke rising from the rice farms, as Peter Kup suggests.
See History of Sierra Leone, p.8

5-2
The Land and the People
was referred to by the Portuguese as lugars.

Since the term was adoptedby

the English and the French (modified to lougan) T it is useful to retain it todescribe this type of agriculture.
In July, when the first rains had already moistened the soil, theseeds were sown.

It was simple hoe culture.

recognised in Sierra Leone:

Three types of hoe have beena straight-handled, narrow bladed hoej

one formed

from an angled stick with a charred point, which was used for drilling;

and athird broad-bladed hoe, employed for cleaning out weeds# and scraping thesoil surface. (i)The demands made by this agriculture on the time andenergies of the people of the Upper Guinea Coast have sometimes beai under­
estimated.

Some reports would have it th >t, once sown, the grain was left tonature's mercies until the harvest. (2)that this was not the case.

Closer observation makes itclear

The inhabitants of Sierra Leone were absent fromtheir homes for three-quarters of the year, during the time that thy had toclear the forests, hoe the ground, weed their fields and reap the crop.

Theynever bothered to return to their homes during this period, but instead built
themselves accommodation in huts called chicas. close alongside theirriugars.(3 )The ripening of the grain attracted large flocks of rice-birds(1) G.C. Dunstan: The Agricultural and Forest Products of British West Africa(London 1911) P»17(2 ) T. Winterbottom: An Account of the Native Africans of Sierra Leone.
(3) B.R.A.H., Papeles de Jesuitas, tomo 185, No.1343* "Relaqao da Costa
da Guine", 1606 by Baltezar Barreira.

£"3
The Land and the People
and it was the job of the children and the old people to scare these off*
Every year the whole process was repeated*

It was usually some five toseven years before any given lugar was cultivated anew, the extensive forests
offering an easy inducement to this long rotational cycle*
The lugar was the least desirable method of cultivation*of the forest species and encourages soil erosion.

It is wasteful

It is felt in somequarters that most of the interior plateaux was wooded, but was denuded overcenturies by the "cut and burn" lugar methods, (l)But it is -almost certainthat this system of f armingwas not the only one encountered on the nonswampy soils of the Upper Guinea Coast during the period under discussion.
Modern studies among several tribes have indicated that they possess ahighly evolved system of agriculture based on multiple crop rotation, andthe intensive use of fertilisers*

None of their processes owe anything toEuropean influence, and they all sh<w signs of being the product of longevolution. (2)A number of considerations suggest strongly that relatively sophisticatedagricultural methods (apart from irrigated rice farming) already existed
as early as the sixteenth century on the Upper Guinea Coast.

To begin(1) (a) A. Texeira da Mota: Guine Portuguesa. Vol.l, pp*47i48(b) Th. Monod and H. Schnell: Melanges Botaniques (Dakar 1952) pp#53«54*(2 W .

Texeira da Mota: A Agricultura de Brames e Balantas Vista Atraves

da Fotografia Aeraa (Biasau 1950) PP*135»142.
(b) Ibid: Notas Sobre o Povoamento e a Agricultura Indigena na Guine*
Portuguesa (Bissau 1951)

4
-

^

The Land and the People
with, some tribes were buyers and others were sellers of the same crp,ps
which they all produced.

Though the amount of cultivable land may havevaried from tribe to trib^^ the explanation seems to lie, not in theamount of land under cultivation, but in the yield, based on differing
agricultural techniques.

Thus, in the same way that the Djolas had large

surpluses of rice to offer for sale; so the Balantas had quantities ofprime yams, while the Banhuns produced enough millet to support themselves
and the resident Portuguese, as well as to supply the slave ships, (l)All the peoples who today demonstrate superiority in agriculture arealso livestock breeders.

This pattern has long been in existence.

Cattlehad and still have a high religious and social value, aSfi/S&at was notreared for everyday domestic consumption, jndt obviously, mixed farming
made supplies of manure available.

The best farmers of the sixteenth andseventeenth centures - the Balantas, the Banhuns and the Djolas - all had
cattle and goats, while the remaining peoples of the coast had little orno livestock (especially in Sierra Leone), they are never reported ashaving been accustomed to the use of fertilisers on any appreciable scale,and they had no great reputations as agriculturalists.
Another prominent feature of the advanced agricultural tribes of theUpper Guinea Coast today is that they have gone a long way towards
transforming and controlling their natural forest environment.

Just asthe inhospitable mangrove lala gave way to the cultivated bolanha. so the(l) Biblioteca de Ajuda (Ms.51-VIII-25: "Relacoes do Descobrimento da
Costa da Guine". fl.87, Report on Cape Verde and Guine c.1606.

The Land and the People
thick forest has given way in places to open woodland, where certain species
useful to man and domestic animals have been carefully preserved.

Among

those species retained are the Parkia biglobosa and the Faidherbia albida
both important as cattle fodder.

This ‘humanisation1 of the landscape isconsidered an unmistakeable gauge to agricultural development, (l)Since

the beginning of the seventeenth century, Andre Domelas had pointed out that
Balanta territory was free of heavy vegetation. (2)It was these very

Balantas who reared the most livestock in the area, and it was they who
provided supplies of foodstuffs for their neighbours. (5)It is recognised that the 'Paleo-Negritic* Tendas are remarkable
agriculturalists, (4 ) who make the surrounding Mandingas appear shoddy incomparison.

Even the much-lauded Fula animal husbandry is far lessscientific and effective than that of many of the littoral peoples.(5)That peoples who weru far superior producers of food than the Mande andFula are consistently dubbed ‘primitives* is due solely to the contention
that they did not erect a superstructure of states.

(1) A. Texeira da Mota: Guine ^ortuguesa. Vol. 1, pp.394w303(2 ) Andre Domelas: "Relacao sobre a Serra Leoa"(3 ) Alvares de Almada: "Rios de Guine", p*309(4 ) (a) Baumann and Westermann: Les Peuples et les Civilisations de l ‘Afrique,
P.378(t) Richard-Molard: Afrique Occidentale Francaise, p.108(5) A. Texeira da Mota: Guinex Portuguesa. Vol.l, p.275

r6
The Land and the People
It is undeniable that the iViande peoples represented the most importantstate-building factor on the Upper Guinea Coast;and this holds good for

i'X

the

ande as a whole, because, contrary to Baumann's contention, the Susus

or Mande-fou were no less developed in their political structure than the
Mandingas or Mande-tan.

Even after the emperor of Mali lost the Futa

Djalon to Coli Tenguela his authority was still maintained on the Upper
Guinea Coast through the agency of the Mandingas and Susus.
The central organisational feature of Mande rule on the Upper Guinea
Coast was the creation of provinces under the rule of a Farim or gaemor.
(1)

In the early sixteenth century, one of the governors was identified

as Farinbraco. who was resident on the upper Cacheu.(2)At that time, theMandingas called the Gambia region Guabuu (3) and from the accounts at theend of the sixteenth century, it turned out that between the Gambia andthe Corubal there were two main provinces - Brayo and Cabo (or Gabu).
Even to-day the Mandingas retain the name Cabo for a large area stretching
between the Gambia and the Corubal, while Bra^o is a smaller region to theeast, between the Casamance and the Cacheu, (4 )Farim Cabo ruled over the

Mandingas who lived to the south of the Gambia, having his capital at
Cahtor, the greatest trading city on the river.

The Beafadas were also

subjects of this Farim,while the peoples of the Casamance and the Cacheu(1) This title in the forms far in. fari and far an was to be found all over
the Western Sudan.
(2 ) Valentim Fernandes: La Cote Occidentale d 1Afrique. p.68
(3 ) Pacheco Pereira: Esmeraldo de Situ Orbis. p .64(4 ) Ibid: Editor's Note 121.

%7
The Land and the People
were subjects of the Farim Braco.

These two major provinces were themselves

subdivided into smaller units with a lieutenant of the Farim to be foundevery sixty or seventy miles.

Beneath them lay the petty chiefs, so thatthe structure of Mandinga rule on the Upper Guinea Coast was extremely
hierarchical.

Ultimately, all authority was owed to the emperor of Mali,

though there were further intermediaries between the Farims of Cabo and Bracoon the one hand and the Mandimansa or Emperor on the other, (l)South of the Corubal, the Susus held sway.

This region, the hinterlandof Sierra Leone, also had its Farims owing ultimate allegiance to the
Mandimansa.

Farim Concho (or Farim Susu) and Farim Cocoli were the two

principal governors, and th y were regarded in the same way as Farims Caboand Braco to the North.

Beneath them were lesser dignitaries like the kingof the Bena Susus, who bordered on the Temnes, and the Farim Caput a who held
authority in the hinterland of Baga country. (2 )Portuguese observers were impressed by the v/ay that the Emperor of Mali
was revered on thfc^oast, recounting that those who were present when his
name was called never failed to uncover their heads. (3 )However, this wasin most cases likely to have been the full extent of their homage to theruler of Mali, given the system of delegated authority, which left mostindividuals on the coast virtually under the sole authority of their own
chief.

Yalentim Fernandes stated that the people of the Upper Guinea Coast(1) Alvares de Almada: "Rios de Guine", pp.271 >283*(2 ) Andre Domelas: "Relacao sobre a Serra Leoa"(3) Ibid£2
The Land and the Peopleobeyed the Mandimansa perfectly, (l) but this was certainly an overstatement
which could scarcely have applied even at the height of Mandinga power, andwould have been less true in the sixteenth century when that power was on
the wane.
The most concrete aspect of Mande sovereignity was the tribute which
they received from the subject peoples, but the further one went from actual
Mandinga presence and power, the less likely it was that any obedience oftribute was paid to the Farim. (2 )This was to be expected, and it must havebeen particularly true of those people who were away from actual physicalcontact with the Mand.in^ aa on the middle reaches of the rivers.

Even onthe Gambia among the Mandingas there was no unity in the seventeenth century,and no vital political connection with the Sudan.

The reverence which thepeoples of the Upper Guinea Coast continued to give to the Mandimansa canonly be taken as evidence of the fact that the past glory of the Mandinga
emperors continued to live in their minds, and they considered themselves
subjects of the Mandimansa even when there was no longer a Mandinga at thehead of a Sudanese empire.
As opposed to the vast, if loosely bound, empires of the Mande, thevillage and the family were the meaningful categories, where the littoralpeoples were concerned.

On the Upper Guinea Coast, the population was

generally distributed in small to medium-sized villages.

Occasionally,(1) Valentim Fernandes: La Cote Occidentale d 1Afrique, p.74
(2 ) Andre Domelas: "Relacao sobre a Serra Leoa"£ 1
The Land and the People
there were references to towns with populations of several thousands, suchas Quinamo, a Bullom or Krim village on the Bum, which was said to have a
population of 5>000 to 6,000 (l) but the average tillage was not that
populous.

At the beginning of the sixteenth century, the following werenamed as the main villages of Sierra Leone:
thousand inhabitants;

Manguy, village of some

Maguem, village of 300$

Pinto, village of 200; andBop, village of 150. (2 )Village organisation displayed a marked familial tendency, as recent
studies stress.

Among the Mendes of Sierra Leone, the basic social unit

is the Mawei or farming household, consisting of a man and his wives andchildren, and frequently also, blood and affinal relatives, such as juniorbroihers, unmarried sisters and dependents.

Regulation of affairs within

the Mawei is the responsibility of the Mawei-mui. who is in turn subject
to the larger group of his kinsfolk of which the Mawei is a part.

As arule, this group occupies a number of adjacent Maweisia (pi)-in the form of
a compound, which constitutes a section of a town or sometimes a whole
village.

The head of this compound or Kmloko is a semi-political figure,acting as a representative of the compound on the town council. (3 )Similarly, the Beafadas distinguish between the Unanga-corda who is\

the head of a group of huts belonging to the same family and the Unahga-riaquaT
rf

*

*

(1) Pacheco Pereira: Esmeraldo de Situ Orbis, p*96

-V1'(2 ) Valentim Fernandes: La Cote Occidentale d fAfrique. p.80
(3 ) M. McCulloch:.Peonies of Sierra Leone (London 194&) PP*13»15.•, r

The Land and the People
who is the chief of the whole village, (l)The family thus retained its

identity within the village and had its interests articulated within thevillage government.
In a Mende village, comprising one hundred persons, using as a point ofreference one of the sons of the village headman, Little found thirty
persons who were his paternal kin, taiwho were his maternal kin, and thirtytwo who were connected with him through marriage* (2 )This tight familyorganisation has always been known to be the case among several of thelittoral peoples.

The Balantas had a multiplicity of petty settlements

consisting of family lineages; (3 ) while the Bijagos and Beafadas weresimilarly organised.

Today, under Mandinga influence, the centralised

village is usual among the Beafadas, but in the sixteenth century, thepopulation was so dispersed that attention was drawn to the fact that the
Beafadas were an exception to the normal Guinea pattern of the nuclear
village.

Instead, each noble would have his several wives in a number ofhouses grouped under his own protection, and at some distance from thenearest such settlement or Anolonia.

An Anolonia could be quite large,

since a wealthy noble could have numerous wives, and in practice itapproximated to the village type of political organisation, the family headruling with the advice of a council. (4 )(1) 0. Gomes Barbosa: "Breve Noticia dos Caracteres Etnicos dos Indigenas da
Tribo Biafada", B.C.G.P., Vol.l, No. 2, April 1946
(2 ) M.McCulloch: Peonies of Sierra Leone, p.15
(3 ) Bib, de A.juda, Ms.51-Vm-25 s "Relacoes do Descobrimento da Costa da
Guine", fl.87, Report on Cape Verde and Guinea, 1606.
(4 ) Alvares de Almada: "Rios de $uine", p*352.

c\
The Land and the People
In so far as the size of political organisation was concerned, it isobvious that one can maintain a distinction b etween tie littoral peoples, on
the one hand, and the Mande and Fula^ on the other.

But it is an entirely

different matter to dismiss the one as 'primitive1 and commend the other as'superior*, as is the underlying assumption of the categorisations "WestAtlantic" and "Upper Niger".

In part, the dichotomy is based on ignorance,

and in part on certain entirely unscientific assumptions.

Machat, a mostcompetent nineteenth century scholar, asserted that the 'primitives' on thelittoral of the Upper Guinea Coast had no private or public law. (l) Sucha "state of nature" might perhaps have some value as an abstraction ofpolitical philosophy, but it obviously exists in no part of the globe where
human society has been cradled.

M o d e m investigations show the Panels witha juridical system based on five categories of property; (2) reveal thecomplexities of Djola law; (3 ) accredit the secret societies of Sierra Leone
as powerful law-making and law-enforcing institutions; (4 ) and are
addressed to such questions as "Le Droit Prive Coniagui". (5 )But thestudies which reveal such features must be prompted by an awareness thatsuch socieities provide a valid and valuable framework for human activities.
(1) J. Machat: Guinee Francaise, p.
(2) Antonio Carreira: Vida Social dos Man.iacos (Bissau 1947)(3) L.V. Thomas: Les Diola.
(4 ) M. McCulloch: Peonies of Sierra Leone(5 ) J.L. Clavier ?,Resume du droit prive Coniagui", Bulletin de tfX+F.A.N..
No. 14. Jan. 1952

The Land and the People
The contention that the "West Atlantic" society is characterised by the"initial absence of all superior organisation of states and of all the
manifestations of a superior civilisation which distinguishes the Mandedomain of the interior" is also extravagant, (l)It seems to be basedlargely on the contrast between the considerable territorial proportions of
the Sudanese states as opposed to the smallness of the social units on the
coast.

Linked with this is the belief that the littoral peoples had nostate superstructure, and thus lived in "societies without states".
As a working definition of a society with a political state, thefollowing will suffice: "A state system may be defined as a politicalstructure in which there is differentiated status between ruler and ruled*
It is founded not only on relations of kinship but also on a territorial
basis.

The most important index is the presence of political offices,

i.e., of persons invested with roles which include secular authority overothers in given territorial aggregations for which there are effective
sanctions for disobedience.

Such political offices must furthermore beco-ordinated hierarchically". (2 )With respect to all of these criteria, thelarge majority of societies of the Upper Guinea Coast could scarcely betermed 'stateless1.

(1) Baumann and Westermann: Les Peuples et les Civilisations de 1' Afrique .p. 56(2 ) Jan Vansina, Raymond Maunty and L.V. Thomas: The' Historian in Tropical
Africa (Studies presented and discussed at the Fourth Into m a t ional
African Seminar at the University of Dakar, Senegal 1961) (London

1964) p.87

65
The Land and the People
It is only the Balantas who can he cited as lacking the institution ofkingship.

At any rate, there seemed to have beeh little or no differentiation

within Balanta society on the basis of who held property, authority andcoercive power.

Some sources affirmed that the Balantas had no kings; (l)while an early sixteenth century statement that the Balanta 'kings' were nodifferent from their subjects must be taken as referring simply to the headsof the village and family settlements. (2)It is possible to exclude the

Djolas also from the ranks of those who had a political state.

Not that the

Dj^laslack a king, who was in fact a very powerful figure in the early
sixteenth century, (3 ) but clear territorial boundaries of authority do notexist, and, as in the case of the Balantas, the family is the sole effective
social and political unit. (4 )But, the Balantas and Djolas apart, thepeoples of the Upper Guinea Coast had erected institutions of kingship andchieftainship on the base of the village and the family.
Each locality had its chief, who paid allegiance to tbs king or one of
the kings of the tribe.
and its environs.

Each king controlled a specific area usually a town

In the remaining position of the kingdom, the chiefs

wielded power over determinate areas. (5 )(1) Manuel Alvares: "Ethiopia Menor"(2) Valentim Fernandes: La Cote Occidentale d fAfrique; p.60
(3) Ibid: p.62
(4 ) L.V. Thomas: Les Diola(5 ) In this study, 'king* will always refer to a personage, who within thegiven tribe, has no superior;

while the term 'chief* will refer to theholder of authority within a section of the tribe, but owing loyalty to
the king.

The Land and the People

A few examples will illustrate the pattern, of organisation of thepeoples of the area during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Centredon the large hay of the Ria Grande de Buba were three Beafada kingdoms of
Biguba, Guinala and Bissege.

The king of Biguba had four chiefs under him,

the king of Guinala had seven, and the king of Bissege had five, (l) What
this meant in practice was that the kings had absolute control over thetowns of Biguba, Guinala and Bissege, respectively^and far lesser authority
in the remaining areas of the kingdom, which were ruled by the chiefs.
Papels were similarly organised.

The

The strongest personage in the wicinityof the Portuguese settlement ofCacheu was the king of Mata, with the chiefof Mompata falling under his jurisdiction. (2)Apparently, the most pa/erful

Papel leader was to be found at Bassarel in the vicinity of the river
Calequisse, south of the Cacheu.

At any rate, he is still known as the"chief of chiefs", being vested with the power to determine in part thefilling of vacant chieftainships over a wide area. (3 )The Sapes also

followed the same pattern of political organisation.

Each one of thevillages had a chief, one of whom was recognised as the sovereign, called
Obe Vrig by the Temne* at the beginning of the sixteenth century. (4 )(1) Andre Dornelas: "Relacao sobre a Serra Leoa"(2) These were the two rulers to whom the Portuguese had to pay rent for
their occupation of Cahheu. Cf. Documentacao Ultramarina Portuguesa.
Vol. II, "Relacao para el Rey, nos so Senhor do Bispo de Malacd', 1635
(3 ) J.E. dos Reis: "Manjacos de Calequisse", Inquerito Etnografico, p.149(4 ) V'alentimSBernandes: La Cote Occidentale d*Afrique, pp.80,82

6sr
The Land and the People
In many respects, the king or chief had no greater power than thenobles.

Valentim Fernandes emphasised that the Bullom and Temne overlordsof the early sixteenth century had only nominal authority, but were nodifferent from the other chiefs where power was concerned, (l) Be Almada
reversed the comparison by saying that each Beafada chief was king in his
own district. (2Nevertheless, kingship had developed its own rich symbolish.
There were a number of items with which th king was presented at his
coronation without which he could not call himself king.

These insignia

comprised mainly arms and clothes, generally intended as symbols to maintaintradition and continuity.

Thus, in the island of Bissau, the king's spear

was like a badge of office, handed down through generations. (3) Other Papel
kings had bows which served the same function, whilethe
Sape kings was a sword known as a queto.

sceptre of the(4 )Perhaps the most significant aspect of the coronation ceremony of theUpper Guinea Coast was the practice of binding and beating the prospective
king before he was anointed.

This practice was found among the Papels, theBeafadas and the Sapes, and was always given the same justification; namely,that the king had to learn what punishment was like before he could
administer justice to others in strict fairness to all. (5)(1) Valentim Fernandes: La Cote

Occidentale d fAfrique,p.82(2 ) Alvares de Almada: "Rios deGuine", p.322

This highlighted(3 ) Manuel Alvares: "Ethiopia Menor"(4 ) Alvares de Almada: "Rios de Guine", p.350(5) Ibid: p.350.
Antonio Dias (Ed.) "Cren^as e Costumes dos Ingigenas da Ilha de Bissau
no Seculo XVIII", Portugal em Africa, Vol.II, No.9, pp.150-165 (based on
missionary reports

64
The Land and the People
the importance of the judicial functions of the king.
The intimate link between the king and the concept of law is demonstrated
by the fact that tbs absence of a king, as in the interval between the deathof one king and the crowning of the next, usually meant disorder andlawlessness.

When there was civil strife over the succession, an interimof disorder for as much as two years could ensue, (l) but, even when the
succession was not disputed, the Papels, for example, utilised the hiatus
to commit acts of robbery. (2 )In September 1757 > the resident slave dealer, Nicholas Owen, reported
that they had had the secret news that the king of Sherbro was dead, "but it
is not yet spred abroad, according to thier usual custum of keeping theirdisseased kings a good while hid, in order to make a new one before any
trouble ensues". (3 ) Whether this was consciously held to be so or not, in
effect this meant that law existed only through the person of the king, andthat if the king was dead everything was permitted.

According ^o recent

investigations, there are among the Mendes a large category of crimes against
public order, which are classified as crimes against the king's dignity, (4 )(1) Alvares de Almada: "Rios de Guine", p.334*(2 ) Antonio Dias

"Cren^as e Costumes dos In^igenas da Ilha de Bissau, noSeculo XVTII" (The Papels indulged in three days of looting and rioting)(3 ) Nicholas Owen: Journal of a Slave Dealer (Ed. E. Martin, London 1930)
p. 106(4 ) M. McCulloch: Peoples of Sierra Leone, p.24

67
The Land and the People
in much the same way as the English law contains the concept of the king's
peace.
^he kings had their courts and their entourages, comprising officials
whom European observers variously designated as alcaldes, governors,
ambassadors and generals;

and there is one reference to the President of

the Privy Council of Guinala, (l) and another to the Prime Minister of a
Sierra Leone kingdom. (2)However inappropriate such European terms were in

the African content, they undoubtedly point to the existence of thepolitical offices which have been consids?ed as the most important index ofpolitical states.
The fragmentation of the littoral peoples has also been greatly over­stressed.

It should not be overlooked that in some tribes, unity existed

at a religious level, as in the case of the Djolas, all of whom ultimately
recognise the authority of a king-priest. (3)But in any event, the coastal

peoples were perfectly capable of entering into viable relations with theirneighbours within and without the tribe.

The distribution of goods, to takea very important facet of social activity, was extremely well organised on
an inter-tribal basis in the Geba-Casamance area, and one of the groups
primarily concerned in this were the Balantas, who are often cited as themost typical example of the inhibited 'Primitives'.

(1) John Ogilby: Africa, p.336(2) S.M. Solberry: Fragmens d'un Voyage en Afriqug (Paris 1802)
Vol. 2, p.266(3) L.V. Thomas: Lqs Diola^ pp.201-204

6S
The Land and the People
In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Portuguese realisedthat the Balantas were the chief agriculturalists and the suppliers of foodto the neighbouring peoples.

The Beafadas and Papels were heavily

dependent on Balanta produce, and in return, owing to the Balanta refusal
to trade with the Europeans, goods of European origin reached them via the
Beafadas and the Papels.

The Balantas did now allow foreigners in their

midst, but they were always present in the numerous markets held in the
territory of their neighbours, (l)Markets or fairs were held in the domains of the Cassangas, Banhuns,
Papels and Beafadas.

A market in any given locality was open to the public

either on a given day per week or once eve:ty eight days, and the system
was organised to permit a large amount of reciprocal attendance. (2 )Themost important centres attracted a conglomeration of several thousands ofbuyers and sellers from distances up to sixty miles.

At the end of thesixteenth century, the largest was at Bijorei, in Beafada territory, which
was said to have been attended by 12,000 people.
At the beginning of the sixteenth century, a typical market in Banhun
country was described in some detail.

Each type of merchandise wasreserved to a particular section with the exception of wines made from the(1) Alvares de Almada: "Rios de Guine" p.309(2 ) Valentim Fernandes: La Cote Occidentale d fAfrique. p*74
(5) Alvares de Almada: "Rios de Guine", p.290,311(3 ) Ibid: p .328

The Land and the People
fruit of the momnataz and from honey, both of which could be sold in any
part of the marketplace.

This concession to the wine-vendors was no doubt

based on the fact that the market was not solely an economic institution,
but was also a social Tenue of great popularity, where the local fermented
drinks were in great demand.

The nobles, in particular, being in aposition to afford it, used the market as a recreational and social centre.
The vendors took up their places early on the morning of market-day;
10.00 A.M. the stalls were opened;

and by evening the activities were

terminated until the following week.

Two officials of the king had

charge of the market.

at

To begin with, they saw to the carrying out of

the king's prohibition against the presence of weapons in the market-place,and they also saw to it that justice was done, especially to foreigners
in their midst, (l)A unity of a different sort was found among the peoples south of the
Corubal.

^n the region of Ria Tombali, the Beafadas gave way to the Nalus,

and from this point southwards the differences between various groups ofpeople were so small, and their affinities w#re so great, as to make theminto a virtually homogenous society, which went under the generic name of'Sapes'.

The two principal members were the Bulloms and the Temnes,

while the Limbas were also an integral element, suggesting that the 'PreMandingas* had merged with the earlier Bullom, and Limba stock.

The

Cocolis or Landumas, the Nalus and the Bagas were not always called 'Sapes*
by European observers, but there is little doubt that substantially they(l) Valentim Fernandes: La C6te Occidentale d 1Afrique pp.68 ,70

70
The Land and the People
were members of the same group.

Here the evidence of de Almada is revealing

Firstly, he made it clear that the Bagas, Cocolis and Nalus themselves formec

a group, and secondly, he affirmed that the relationship between them and theSapes was comparable to the relationship between the Spanish and thePortuguese.

They all dressed alike, had the same system of justice, and"Understood each other" - a phrase with more than just linguistic
significance.

De Almada went on to include the Bagas and the Cocolis in

the Sape community excepting anly the Nalus, because at that time they werevery much less domesticated, (l)Although today the Cocolis or Landumas are

separated from the mass of Sapes by the Susus and Fulas, they consider them­selves related to the Temne. (2)Indeed, the very small tribe of Tyapis, orSapes who are closely related to the Cocolis, may well have been the ones
who gave their names to the Sape grouping. (3 )Andre Dornelas had this to say about the peoples of Sierra Leone "Allthese nations are Celled in general 'Sapes1, in the same way that in Spainseveral, nations are called 'Spaniards'".

However, unlike sixteenth

century Spain, Sierra Leone lacked the elements of a unitary state.

In arecent history of Sierra Leone, Peter Kup draws a useful parallel by(1) Alvares de Almada: "Rios de Guine" pp.341,344>353(2 ) Baumann andWestermann: Les Peunles et les Civilisations de 1'Afrique.p.3(3) This seems to be borne out by a reference to "the Sapes Bagas, Sapes
Bulloms and Sapes Sapes"
Africa(Ed.

in Mateo de Anguiano: Mi si ones Caouchinas en

Buenaventurade

Carrocera, Madrid 1950) Vol.

2,

p.1

The Land and, the People
pointing out that while the Sape alliance exercised some kind of loose-knit
suzerainty, it was in no way comparable to the well disciplined empires ofthe Western Sudan at the same date, (l)It was not political centralisation

but social homogeneity which caused all observers to identify the Sapes as asingle family of tribes.

In 1507 > when Valentim Fernandes wrote, theinhabitants of Sierra Leone were speaking either Temne or Bullom, and, fromall accounts, no Sape had any difficulty in communicating with any other
Sape.

Another common feature of Sierra Leone society was the presence ofpowerful secret societies, one of which - the Simo - was found among theBagas, Nalus, Cocolis and Temnes. (2 )What prevailed on the Upper Guinea Coast, and was to prove moresignificant than the tribal divisions was the class differentiation, basedon the distinction between those who had power and authority within thestate and those who did not.

Most of the Europeans on the Upper Guinea

Coast used the Portuguese term 'fidalgo', when speaking of a noble of theregion, and they were all careful to distinguish between the king and his
fidalgos, on the one hand, and the mass of the population, on the other.
The latter were referred to as the olebeus (plebeians), gente comum (common
people), or words to this effect. (3 )Manuel Alvares spoke of the special

situation created when a fnoblewomanf married a 'peasant1, among the Banhuns;(4 ) while an eighteenth century missionary report maintained that in Bissau
the sons of the kings were fidalgos. but the grandchildren (in a(1) Peter Kup: A History of Sierra Leone, p.123(2 ) See below, Ch.2, p. IZS(3) Alvares de Almada:"Rios de Guine", pp.323 >324>333 and Valentim Fernandes:
La Cote Occidentale d'Afrique, p.88
(4 ) Manuel Alvares: "Ethiopia Menor"

72
The Land and the People
matrilineal system) were "common mechanics", (l)It was reported that the Banhun nobility had titles equivalent to 'Dukes*
and 'Lords1, and each travelled with his train of dependents and hangers-on,
who went before him, heralding his arrival. (2 ) These European distinctions
w0re well grounded in reality, and, judging from both historical evidence andmodern field studies, they were the type of distinction that the people of
the Upper Guinea Coast themselves drew.

The Papels of the district of Prabis

divide themselves into seven large classes, the most important of which isthat of the Jagras or nobles, from among whom the king's and chiefs arerecruited. (3)The Beafadas and Bijagos also use this term, (4 ) and though

it must obviously have passed from tribe to tribe, the borrowing is of norecent date.

In the sixteenth century, among the Beafadas of Biguba, only

the Jagras could succeed to the throne; (5) and the title J agar a. applied toa Banhun king at the beginning of that century, clearly derived from Jagra.
(6)

The same applies to the Jagarefe. who was the most important dignity

apart from the king, among the Papels. (7)The Banhuns, Papels, Beafadas and(1) Antonio Dias: "Crenpas e Costumes dos Indigenas de Ilha de Bissau" (Op.cit(2 ) Alvares de Almada: "Rios de Guine", pp.304>305(3) Antonio Carreira: Vida Social dos Maniacos. p.104 (He calls them Babucim)(4 ) Valentim Fernandes: La Cote Occidentale d'Afrique. (See Editors'note 128)
(5) Alvares de Almada: "Rios de Guin6", p.334(6) Valentim Fernandes: La Cote Occidentale d'Afrique. p.70
(7) Manuel Alvares: "Ethiopia Menor"

7 3
The Land and the People
Bijagos have thus long recognised a class of nobles who transcended tribal
boundaries.

Among the Sapes, the situation was even more straightforward.

The Sape noble was called a Solategi, and it was a status recognised
throughout all the tribes of the Sape confederation.

It was said of theSolategi in the latter sixteenth century: "And finding himself in any otherkingdom whatsoever, even though it was not his , he continued to use andenjoy his privileges and liberties, as if he were in his own land".(l)It is striking that the Papel Jagras or nobles are the owners of theland, and that everywhere else on the Upper Guinea Coast ethnographic
studies point to the fact that the political rulers are the heads of theland-owning families, whose claims derive from descent from those who firstsettled the locality*

The ownership of the land by the kings and nobles

is limited in the vital respect that they cannot dispose of the land toanyone outside the tribe, but they have its usufruct, and rights over its
disposition within the tribe. (2)Among all these people, the regime ofprivatd property is firmly established.

Only trees growing wild are

regarded as common property, (3 ) and here one is reminded of Hawkins1
observation when he visited Sierra Leone and spoke with the Lane ados, (theresident Portuguese traders).
which is unset by man's hands".

"Nothing is common", he said, "save thatIndeed, even the common products of thebush could only be gathered when the nobles gave their approval. (4 )(1) Alvares de Almada: "Rios de Guinl", p. 351(2 ) M. McCulloch: Peoples of Sierra Leone, pp.15,16,25,26,67(3) Ibid: pp.26,67(4 ) Hakluyt Society, No. LVII, The Hawkins Voyages, p.20

74
The Land and the People
North of the Sapes, the position was the same.

Of the Beafadas, it

was said at the end of the sixteenth century that "the lands belong to thefidalgos. to whom other individuals pay rent in the products that they have,as among us tithe;but as far as the common people are concerned, they haveno lands and inherit nothing".

When the time came for gathering the fruitsof the trees that were common to all, they did so at the direction of thelord of the land.
penalties;

Any unauthorised picking of fruits met with severe

and, of course, it was the nobles and the kings who dispensed

justice. (2 )Among- the Balantas, who are to be classed as a "stateless society",the system of land tenure is different.

The Balantas are all small land­owners, working their lands on the principle of voluntary reciprocal labour.
Thus, when the Balantas clear new areas of swamp for rice cultivation, eachone of the working force benefits by receiving a portion of the land
reclaimed.

Not so with the Papels, however, for they have a well-developed

hiearchy of nobles, chiefs and kings who own the land.

In .their case, landdevelopment can only be achieved through the initiative of a richindividual, who can hire the necessary labour;

and, since the workers haveno stake in the final product, it is not surprising that they have no
incentive to undertake the strenuous and demanding job of clearing theswamps. (3)These two contrasting examples indicate that the existence(1) Alvares de Almada: "Rios de Guine", pp.332,338(2) Ibid: 324,333,548(3) A. Texeira da Motas Guine Portuguesa. Vol.l, p.312

The Land and the People.

of a super-structure of states was associated with the presence of a land­
owning nobility.
As with the ownership of the land, so with the distribution of the
products - there was a manifest inequality among the vast majority of thepeoples of the Upper Guinea Coast.

At the end of the eighteenth century,

Winterbottom wrote of Sierra Leone that ”the plantation is cultivated by all
the inhabitants of the village in common, and the produce is divided toevery family in proportion to its numbers”.(i)His contemporary, Golberry,held that this was true of many parts of Africa but not of Sierra Leone.
”In this country,” he said, ”where teriitorial possessions are known, whereindividuals own lands, the negroes are rich.” (2 )Certainly, the principleof ”to each according to his need” did not operate anywhere on the Upper
Guinea coast, where the state structure embodied a class of privileged
rulers.

”He is the greatest among them who can afford to eat rice all theyear round”, wrote John Atkins, (5 ) and the botanist Azfelius, who made a
careful survey of Sierra Leone, in connection with the project for thecolonisation of that area, attests that the "Lower class” (sic) subsisted
frequently for days together on boiled rice alone, seasoned with some kindof pepper. (4 )Further north, Mungo Park also found that ”the common class(1) T. ¥interbottom: An Account of the Native Africans of Sierra Leone, p.52.
(2 ) S.M. Golberryj Fragmens d fun Voyage en Afrique. p.|4:4(5) John Atkins 1 A Voyage to Guinea (London 1737) p.49
(4) JB±M* Add. Ms. 12151 (Papers relating to Sierra Leone 1792-96.

lb'The Land the the Peopleof people is hut sparing supplied with animal food”, (l)Even the limited

diet of the poor was exhausted in between harvests, and they had to seek out
the tarrafe. growing alongside the river banks. (2)The difference between the nobles and the plebians was most obvious where
their dress was concerned*

In the sixteenth century, some of the poorest

members of the society still wore grass skirts, but the majority wore asmall covering of the skin of some animal, usually goatskin.

(3) Over this,the kings and nobles wore ample shirts and trousers of cotton* (4 )Theirornaments and accoutrements equally reflected the difference in status*For

instance it was customary for the fidalgo to wear an iron ring on his thumband a jingle in his palm, knocking the two together to give certain commands.
(5) Another possession of the nobles was the Bombalon or telegraph drum.
This is a unique instrument, consisting of a length of tree trunk ofconsiderable girth, which is hollowed out through a narrow slit in one side.
Beaten with wooden sticks, the bombalon can clearly be heard up to a
distance of nearly ten miles in the silence of the night. (6)The messages(1) Mungo Parks Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa, p.11
(2) Manuel Alvaress “Ethiopia Menor”(3) Ibid
Valentim Fernandes: La Cote Occidentals d tAfrique* pp*76,94 (See
Editors1 note 152)
(4 ) Ibid: p .94
Alvares de Almada: MRios de Guine” , pp.302,325*347>289(5) Ibid: p.327(6 ) I am grateful to Senhor Antonio Carreira, who showed me various exemplarsof this instrument, which were being collected for the Museum of Ethno­graphy in Lisbon.

Re also fully explained the function of the bombalon.

77
The Land and the People
were sent by specially trained players of the bombalon and these had to be
paid.

The time and labour involved in its construction, and hence, presumably

its high cost, along with the need to pay the players, would have tended toconcentrate the possession of the bombalons in the hands of the rich, even
if there was no specific ruling which debarred other members of the society
from its ownership.

In any event, it was recorded that this key techniqueof communications was monopolised by the ruling class, (l)In their dwellings, as in their dress, one finds the same differentiation
between noble and plebian.

At the beginning of the sixteenth century thehouses of the poor in Sierra Leone were made of stakes driven into the groundand covered with thatch.

Those of the rich were made of brick and adobe.

These latter were beautifully whitewashed with chalk or white clay, while
the interior was tastefully decorated with fine quality mats and pelts.
Among the furnishing^featured well-made three-legged stools covered with
ox-hide. (2 )The houses had special porches for leisure and relaxation. (3 )Another illustration of the same nature is the fact that the few horsesthat were to be found north of the Geba were owned by kings, chiefs or noblesj
while the other alternative animal transport - the castrated ox with its
pierced nose - was also in the hands of the nobles. (4 )It would be very surprising indeed if these numerous indications of a(1) U v a r e s de Almada: "Rios de Guine", p.326(2 ) Valentim Fernandes: La Cote Occidentale d tAfrique. PP.92,94(3 ) Manuel Alvares: “Ethiopia Menor”(4 ) Alvares de Almada: “Rios de Guine », pp.296,327

The Land and the People
well-defined cleavage in the society of the Upper Guinea Coast were notreflected in th

conduct of moble towards non-noble in many other spheres

which generally escaped comment by Europeans.

On one occasion, the king ofBissau wrote the king of Portugal demanding the recall of a Portuguese
captain-major who had treated one of the Bissau fidalgos with grave dis­
respect.

Had any ordinary member of the island society dared to haveacted towards the fidalgo in that manner, it would have cost that citizen
his life, averred the king of Bissau, (l)This is a very pertinent insight

into the way the society emphasised a certain pattern of conduct between
privileged and non-privileged.
The prevalent communal image of African society may serve to obscurethe decisive differences between the masses and the nobility.

It is truethat a village chief might be related to most of the residents of the village
but even though, for certain purposes, he acted as family head, there rests
little doubt that his level of existence was markedly superior to his poorer
relations.

The noble was a social being apart from the masses of the people

and a recognition of this fact is basic for an understanding of much that
occurred on the Upper Guinea Coast between 1545 and 1800.

In terms of theancient influences from the interior, new intrusions usually meant change at
the level of leadership - that is to say, the Mande and FulaSwere partiallyto replace the old ruling class of the littoral.

But, even more important,in its contacts with the Europeans, the African society of the Upper Guinea
Coast did not present itself as an undifferentiated entity.

The pattens oftrade often transcended tribal divisions, but never the distinction between
fidalgo and plebeian.
(l) A.H.U., Maco V, Guine - Anhanheta Co to the king of Portugal^
13 April 1753

A HISTORY OF THE UPPER GUINEA COAST. 1545-1800

CHAPTER TWO

THE ERA OF THE MAKE INVASIONS
1545-1800

Ho description of Sierra Leone in the late sixteenth century andduring most of the seventeenth century fails to make mention of invading
peoples, generally called 'Hanes'.

There is little agreement either on

their origins or on the date of their arrival in Sierra Leone, in spite ofa lengthy historiography.

In 1884, the botanist Conde de Picalho, in thecontext of the spread of food crops, considered it possible that there may
have been a region of instability north of the Congo, from which peoples
dispersed in various directions, the Hanes being one of these. (i)Someyears later, Captain Avelot, in a discussion concerned primarily with the
Jagas of Angola, equated the Hanes with the Temnes, and suggested that theinvaders must have arrived in Sierra Leone around 1550. (2)In 1919, theanthropologist Northcote Thomas, addressing himself specifically to thequestion "Who were the Manes?", dismissed the identification of Hanes with
Temnes, and also advanced that the Mane migration took place at the
beginning of the sixteenth century, at the very latest. (5 )Since then,there have been several other contributions, such as that of a Nigerianorigin (4 ) and the view that the Manes of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries are the Mani tribe of today, who live on the Lower Searcies.(5 )(1) Conde de Picalho: Plantas Uteis de Africa Portuguesa (Lisboa, I 884)
(2 ) R. Avelot: "Les Grandes Mouvements de Peuples en Afrique: Jaga et ZimbaS,
Bulletin de Geographie Historique et Descriptive, Ho.27, 1912, pp.75-191*(5 ) N.W. Thomas: "Who were the Manes?" , Journal of the African Society« Vol.

xix, pp.176-168; voi.xx, pp.53-42 (1919,1920)(4 ) Peter Kup: A History of Sierra Leone, pp.128, 129(5 ) Marcel Moity: "Notes sur les Nani (Guinfce Francaise)", Bulletin deTHE ERA OF THE MANE IN VASIO N S:

1 5 4 5 -1 6 0 6This diversity of views is largely a reflection of the ignorance
and uncertainty of individuals who were the closest contemporaries of theMane invasions*

But, the hesitancy and errors of modern scholarship on

the subject are also products of the failure to utilise the extant
documentation with due care* (l)By remedying this, and with the help ofmaterial which has recently become available, it is possible to reconstructan important facet of the history of the Upper Guinea Coast*
The earliest contemporary European observer of tie Mane invasions,who has gone on record, was John Hawkins.

The people whom he called the"Sumboses” had arrived on the river Sherbro in 1561 according to Hawkins,
but he did not throw any light on the problem of their origins. (2 )The next source which c an be consulted is the work of Alvares de
Almada.

Christopher Fyfe, in a short contribution to the discussion ofthis issue, wrote that ,fAlvares d 1Almada1s book was published in 1594 > thirty
years after the events took place.
inconsistencies:

His account is confusing and full ofsome passages it is hard to make sense of". (5 )While itis true that his book was published in 1594» it is more apposite to pointout that De Almada, a Cape Yerde mulatto, had been an eye-witness to eventson the Upper Guinea Coast since the 1560* s, and in I 58O he was sent to(1) Yves Person found it necessary to comment to this effect.

See "Les

Kissi et leur statuettes de pierreH , Bulletin de l fI.F.A*N., Tome XXIII,
Ser. B, No. 1, 1961, p.20
(2 ) Hakluyt Society, No. LVII, The Hawkins Voyages, pp. 17-21(3 ) Christopher I'yfe: Sierra Leone Inheritance (London, 1964), p»43

<3 2.
THE ERA OF THE MAKE INVASIO N S:

1 5 4 5 -1 6 0 6

Lisbon to advise the Portuguese crown on the colonisation of Sierra Leone, (l)Apparently, he had begun the systematic collection of information about the"Rivers of Guinea" to aid in the mission.
Almada expressed himself as follows:
Rivers of Guinea and Cape VerdeIn the prologue of his book, De"I wish to write something about the
because I have seen the greater part ofit, and traded on many rivers, proceeding many leagues inland, and above all
I have taken great pains to resolve doubtful issues, by consulting both ourmen (the local Portuguese) and the Negroes themselves." (2)Neither thisstatement nor De Almada* s undeniable accuracy in other contexts absolves his
pronouncements on the Manes from critical assessment, but his awareness ofthe need to clear up dubious points and his striving for accuracy are
nowhere better seen than in his discussion of the Manes.
De Almada gathered from the old Sapes that the Manes had been comingfor hundreds of years to make war.

This statement probably reflects thefact that Sierra Leone had received attacks and migratory currents from that
direction for a very long time, although the specific wave of invasion whichbrought the Manes was dated about ths middle of the sixteenth century.
De Almada advanced his own conjecture that the Manes were a Mande people,
giving detailed reasons for his opinion.

Drawing upon his knowledge of theMandingas and the Mande empire, which, he affirmed, lay in a vast belt above(1) (a) Sena Barcelost Subsidios nara a Historia de Cabo Verde e Guine(Lisboa, 1899) > Part 1, Ch. V.
(b) Alvares De Almada:"Rios de Guine", p. 37?.

(2) Alvares de Almada: "Rios de Guine", p.231

THE ERA OF THE MANE INVASIO N S:

1 5 4 5 -1 6 0 6

all the coastal peoples, he noted that the Manes spoke the same or nearly thesame language as the Mande he had encountered trading on the Upper Gambia,
and they had exactly the same arms and clothing.

The Manes carried smallbows and arrows, which they claimed were useless to their enemies, while thesmall Mane bow could discharge the large arrows of their opponents.

The

rest of their arms consisted of large shields made of reeds, large enough togive complete cover to the user, two knives, one of which was tied to theleft arm, and two quivers for their arrows.

Their clothes consisted of loose

cotton shirts with wide necks and ample sleeves reaching d own to the knees
to become tights.

One striking feature about their appearance was theabundance of feathers stuck in their shirts and their red caps, (l)Thefull significance of this description can be gained by comparing it withan earlier description given by De Almada, when he was dealing with the Mandetrading caravans which arrived on the Gambia.

All the members of the trading

party spoke the Mande language, and the majority were dressed exactly likethe Mandingas, in short breeches which did not reach their knees;

but theguards on the caravan, which sometimes numbered 1,000 and more, were dressedrather differently.

They wore the same type of trousers as the Manes;

theycarried the same weapons, giving the same explanation about the efficiencyof their enemies' arrows on their bows and vice versa;
same profusion of feathers about their person. (2 )people with whom De Almada equated the Manes.
(1) Alvares de Almada:(2) Ibid., p.279‘'Rios de GuineM ,pp.360 , 361

and they had the

It is clearly theseTHE ERA OF THE MAUE IN VASIO N S:

1 5 4 5 -1 6 0 6The caravans arriving at the Gambia were supposed to have madetheir way along a highway which passed above the nations of Guinea.
De Almada elicited from the traders that the copper which they purchased
would be sold to non-Islamfcised peoples (cafres), and although it is perhaps
a coincidence that he added at this point that the emperor of Mandimancau
under whose orders the caravans travelled, was known as the Great Elephantby the Africans near Mina, it is feasible that the six-month journey ofthese Mande traders originated in the hinterland of the Gold Coast*

At thebeginning of the sixteenth centuryj Pacheco Pereira had described the Mande
trade on the Upper Gambia, stating that the gold which they brought camefrom a country called ^ o o m 1, which was some two hundred leagues away from
the Mandinga kingdom, (l)Delafosse identified ‘Toom* with Ashanti, which

the Mandingas call 'Ton1, and this agrees roughly with Pacheco Pereira1s
estimated distance. (2 )Assuming that the caravan guards were the same people as the Manes,
then this provides the first slim clue that the Manes were a southern Mandepeople who may have lived in the hinterland of the Ivory or Gold Coasts.
Christopher Fyfe cited as an example of De Almada1s confusion andinconsistency the fact that "he conjectured that the invaders came from aninland realm, Mandimansa - but also suggested elsewhere that they came fromfurther down the Coast".

Since the Mande world stretched across parts of them o d e m Ivory Coast and Ghana, there is no reason why De Almada1s statement(1) Pacheco Pereira:Esmeraldo de Situ Orbis. p. 64(2 ) Ibid.. Editor1s note 130

TEE ERA OF THE MANE INVASIO N S:

1 5 4 5 -1 6 0 6that the Manes came from Mande country andthat they reached Sierra Leone via
the Malaguetta Coast should he regarded as inconsistent, (l)De Almada for once seems to have relinquished his judiciousness
when he asserted that the Manes reached Sierra Leone after passing across theCongo.

This idea enjoyed great currency in Sierra Leone, nor did it deter

the counter assertion that the Jagas of Angola came from Sierra Leone.

Eventhose who are familiar with the great Bantu travels would marvel at the factthat the Bagas of the Pongo were supposed to have dispatched a regiment to
Benguela in Angola. (2 )Kup cited Barreira:

But not only the sources are to he hlamed.

Peter"These people are called Jacas in the Congo, in Angola

Grindas••. •and here they called them Cumhas, a nick-name for Manes." Taking
this statement literally, he went on to date the arrival of the Manes in
Sierra Leone hy events in the Congo. (3 )passage which reads:

If he had taken due note of the"These people are called in the Congo Jacas, in Angola

Gindas, in India Zimhas, and in the Ethiopia of Prester John Galas” (4 )* hewould at least have harboured some slight douht of the physical possibilityof one and the same people appearing simultaneously in such widely dispersed
parts of the Continent as Ethiopia, Angola, Sierra Leone and Mozambique.
The apparent link with these diverse regions seems to lie not so(1) Christopher Fyfe:

Sierra Leone Inheritance, p.43

(2 ) F.W. Butt-Thompson: Sierra Leone in History and Tradition (London,

1926).
(3) Peter Kup:

A History of Sierra Leone. 1400-1787, PpJ29> 130*

(4 ) F e m a o Guerreiro:

Relacao Anual. Vol. 3> P*255

THE ERA OF THE MANE INVASIO N S}

1 5 4 5 -1 6 0 6much in the Manes themselves but in their cohorts, the Sumbas♦

Most of theearly writers on the subject distinguished between tbs Manes proper and theforces which they drafted into their army on their way to Sierra Leone.
Those forces were said to be cannibals, the word ,Sumbal meaning precisely"an eater of human flesh", and it was applied firstly to the anthropophagi
and more generally to ths whole attacking force, (l)Sincethe Jagas ofAngola and the Zimbas of Mozambique were both said to be anthropophagi, it
must be the simultaneous appearance of ths same phenomenon which led
Portuguese observers to make the identification.

It is noteworthy, far

example, that Barreira, who was the chief exponent of this view, washimself in the Congo for a period of fourteen years before he started his
missionary activity in Sierra Leone. (2), and he would have been very
familiar with the Jagas, who were at one time employed by the Portuguese as
auxiliaries.
A far more coherent account than Barreira* s was that of Andre/
Dornelas, whose work has recently been re-discovered.

Like Be Almada,

Bomelas wrote his account of Guinea some time after he had witnessed theevents there.

It was only in 1625» after he had retired to Santiago, that

Bornelas decided to record his fifty years of experience on the Upper Guinea
Coast.

His father, also a Cgpe Verde trader, purchased three Manes in

Sierra Leone in 1560, naming them Belchlor, Baltezar and Gaspar;and fromthese Andre Dornelas had obtained information even before he first visited(1) Alvares de Almada:(2 ) Feraao Guerreiro:"Ries de Guine", p .565
Relacao Anual, Vol. 1, p.539

THE ERA OF THE MANE IN VASIO N S: 1 5 4 5 -1 6 0 6

Sierra Leone in 1574*

Dornelas was an eye-witness not so much to thestruggles between the Sapes and the Manes as to the internecine fighting
between the Manes themselves, since by the time of his arrival the conquestof the Sapes had been effected and the early history of the Manes wasreceding into the background, guarded only by a few elders*"The origin of the Manes is reported by their elders as tradition
handed down from their grandparents, and what they say is that ...**Such isthe auspicious beginning of Dornelas* account of the origins of the Manes.
In essentials, the tradition stated that the original chief of the Manes wasa leading lady in Mandimansa. Ma^arico by name, who offended the emperor andhad to leave the city.

She took withher large numbers of Jfriends, relatives

and dependants, who were transformed into a conquering army*

This army

overran vast territories and many nations, and. its ranks were swelled withrecruits to such an extent that for sustenance it was necessary to eat someof the defeated peoples.

When she reached the Atlantic, Macarico divided

the army into two parts:

one of these marched along the sea coast, a second

proceeded parallel to the first, some forty-five miles away, while the third
was equidistant on the right flank.

Each section comprised a vanguard, arearguard, and the main force in the middle, and in this order they marchedslowly until they reached the Portuguese fortress of Mina.

The Manes

engaged in a few skirmishes with the Portuguese at the fortress, but they
were discouraged by the artillery and thought better of tarrying there.
Instead, they regrouped, creating a fourth army and sending it eastwards
while the bulk of the forces continued westwards along the Malaguetta Coast.

THE ERA OF THE MAKE IN VASIO N S:

1 5 4 5 -1 6 0 6

In the vicinity of Cape Mount they had a serious battle against the Bulloms,
in which Macarico*s son was killed, and she herself died shortly afterwards
from grief and old age.

The date was then 1545 > and. it was forty years

since Macarico had set out from Mali.

It took another fifteen years before

the conquest of the Sapes was effected.
The tradition, as recorded by Dornelas, finds support on several
details.

Both De Almada and Manuel Alvares were informed that the original

leader of the Mane forces was a woman, whom Alvares referred to as fMabete*
1Queen of Guinea*•

Their reports also ggree that Macarico died just before

reaching Sierra Leone,(l)With regard to the identification of thePortuguese fort at Mina, Barreira claimed to have been told by Tora, a Maneking alive in 1606, that the invading forces had come into contact with thePortuguese at Mina. (2 )But, the only serious confirmation of the invaders*route is confined to the Malaguetta Coast, which was generally considered as
extending from Cape Mount to Cape Ealmas and which, therefore, leaves one
some distance from the Portuguese at Mine.
Two members of the crew of a Portuguese ship, which was wrecked off
the Malaguetta Coast, confirmed the direction of the invasion.

One of these

seamen, Paulo Palha, was black, while the other, Francisco Yaz of the(1)Alvares de Almada:

HRios de Guine", pp. 5 6 1 ,5 6 6 .

(He had heard thatthe original leader was a woman, but his account is that the general of
the army was called Maparico and it was his sister who was grief-stricken
at his death.)

Also Manuel Alvares:(2 ) Fernao Guerreiro:"Ethiopia Menor".

Relacao Anual, Yol. 5* P»255

THS IR A OF THE MANE IN VASIO N S:

1 5 4 5 -1 6 0 6Portuguese province of the Alentejo, was white.

These two served the Manesin the capacity of soldiers until they reached Sierra Leone, (l)While there

is no indication as to exactly where the shipwrecked sail&rs joined theManes, one gathers from the activities of Hawkins that the Manes were ateast
least as far sfinrtebc along the coast as the river Uess, since a Mane king,fighting in Sierra Leone, was able to promise Hawkins that if he sailed down
the coast to the river Cess he would be provided with slaves. (2)As the traditional account, drawn up by Dornelas and supplemented
by the writings of other Portuguese contemporaries, moves into Sierra Leone
itself, it becomes clearer and more precise.

The Manes advanced slowly

northwards, across the Sherbro, Rokelle, Port Loko and Searcies, casting
their dominion over most of the Sapes.

When the Manes appeared before agiven village, they would send an embassy bearing cloth and arms.
accept was to recognise Mane suzerainty;To

to reject was not only to risk

defeat in battle but there was the further threat that failure to submit
would mean for the recalcitrants that their final resting place would be thestomachs of the Sumbas. (3)As it was, the reputation of the Sumbas,

enhanced by rumour, was enough to spread terror and a disinclination toresist.

It was in this context that the political weakness of the Sape

confederacy was most obvious.

Before a disciplined military f orce, theSapes could only present a spectacle of political disunity and indecision.
(1) Alvares de Almada:"Rios de Guine", p.361(2) Cited in Peter Kup:

A History of Sierra Leone, p.129(3 ) Alvares de Almada:"Rios de Guin^", p.362.

%THE E2A OF THE MAKE Iim S IO N S i

1 5 4 5 -1 6 0 6

The principle of action seemed to be that one should fight only when it wasabsolutely necessary;

namely, when one’s turn came, and the Manes were

exactly on the doorstep.

So each tribf* each village, submitted or fought

its own battle, as it thought fit. (l)In the purely military sphere, the Manes suffered reverses in two
ways.

Firstly, they had little success against the Limbas and Djalonkes, who

adopted the policy of burning their own homes and retiring to undergroundcaves.

From these they sallied forth to conduct a species of deadly guerrilla

warfare. (2 )Secondly, the attempt to subjugate the Susus backfired.

When

the usual Mane arms were sent to the Susus, the latter returned them sayingthat those arms were no different from theirs.

The Susus expressed awillingness to establish peaceful relations with the Manes, on the terms ofequity and mutual benefit which they had previously maintained with theSapes, but the Manes would not be dissuaded from the attempted conquest.
The decisive encounter between the Manes and the Susus was longafter spoken of with awe by the people of Sierra Leone.

The Mane Army was

the largest ever assembled in those parts, comprising mainly Bulloms andTemnes in the service of their new masters.

The Susus, too, boasted large

numbers, their ranks being buttressed by Fula allies who contributed sevenhorses, a novelty in Sierra Leone.

The story &oes -that the Susus preparedlarge supplies of poisoned food and fell back in apparent disorder.

The ruse

worked because the Manes partook of thsL food with resultant mortality.
(1) Alvares de Almada:(2) Ibid., p .563

"Rios de Guine", p. 362

At

<?/

THE ERA CF THE MANE INVASIO NS:

1 5 4 5 -1 6 0 6

this juncture, the Manes, contrary to their usual practice, decided to go on
the defensive, and entrenched themselves.

The Susus took the initiative,

and, led by the Fula horsemen, they stormed the Mane position so furiously
and gained entrance so quickly that Salvador da Costa, a Portuguese who had
been enlisted by the Manes because of his skill as a musketeer, was unable
to reload after firing his first round.

The Mane forces fled in disorder,

but the Susus were familiar with the terrain because of their earlier inter­course with the Sapes, so they pursued the fleeing Mane forces and decimatedlarge numbers, (l)The dating of the military conquest can be ascertained withexactitude,

Banreira, writing in 1607> said that the Manes had arrived about

sixty yeans previously (2), and De Almada says that the invasion began around1550* (3)On the latter*s evidence, Person was able to date the arrival of

the Manes between 1540 and 1530. (4 )}This is confirmed by Dornelas, whostated categorically that the subjugation of the Sapes was effected in thefifteen years between 1545 and I 56O.

Quite unintentionally, Dornelas

substantiated his claim that the Mane conquest was over by 1560, by pointing
out that the original Sape kings hadbome the title *Beca*.

Two of the

Sape kings, who had escaped on Portuguese ships to Cape Verde and later
Cacheu, were known as Beca Caja and Beca Boure.

But this title hadcompletely disappeared in Sierra Leone during the 1560*s and 1570’s, and,
(1) Alvares de Almada:"Rios de Guine", pp#369“373«(2 ) Ferriao Guerreiro:

Relacao Anual. Vol. 3> P* 255(3) Alvares de Almada:(4 ) Yves Person:"Rios de Guine", p. 359"Les Kissi et leurs statuettes de Pierre", p.21.

*.

THE ERA OF THE MANE INVASIONS;

1545-1606

instead, the participants in various struggles bore titles such as 'Farma*and fSherer.

fFanaaf was obviously a Mande word, having much the same

meaning as !Farimf (l), while ,Shere* (or ,Serel) is an alterative for,Kamara', traditionally the earliest Mande clan in the Western Sudan. (2 )Thus, Avelot!s view that 1550 was the date of the Mane invasion
is much closer to the truth than that of Horthcote Thomas, who had
established his chronology by accrediting the evidence of Valentim Fernandes(1506) to Pedro da Sintra (1462).
Peter Kup fixed the beginning of the Mane invasion in the early
1560fs, at a time when thethe battle in 15&7

conquest of the Sapes was already over.

between the Mane chief, Sasena,andShere, theking

He citedof

Sierra Leone, as an episode at the onset of the Mane invasion. (5 ) But
Shere himself was a Mane, the first Mane ruler of the kingdom of Boure.
Where Kup is right is in pointing out that new forces were advancing from theMalaguetta Coast.

De Almada stated that when one set of Manerrulers of Sierra

Leone forgot their obligations to pay tribute to the kings and captains who
remained behind, a new invasion was launched against the defectors. (4 )The Mane generals and captains, on the basis of a clan system, hadapportioned Sierra Leone among themselves, and proclaimed themselves 'kings'.(5 )(1) See above, Chapter l^p.56(2 ) M. McCulloch:(5) Peter Kup:

PeoniesA

History of Sierra Leone, p.129(4 ) Alvares de Almada:(5 ) Ibid., p.574*

of Sierra Leone, p .56"Rios de Guine'1, p .360

Manuel Alvares:"Ethiopia Menor"

THE ERA OP THE MAKE IN VASIO N S!

1 5 4 5 -1 6 0 6

There were four principal kingdoms:

firstly, the kingdom of the Bulloms,

which extended from Tagrin Point northwards, and included the Idolos islands;
secondly, the kingdom of Logos or Mitombo, centred about Port Loko;

thirdly,

the kingdom of Sierra Leone or Boure, which stretched south from the Sierra
Leone channel until it came up against the fourth kingdom, that of Sherbro. (l)Within each of these kingdoms, there were subdivisions, whose rulers sometimes
wielded great power, as in the case of Tora, who commanded only the islandsof the Sierra Leone channel but who, by 1605, was the eldest survivor of theManes, anl this gave him the status and authority of a king. (2 ) though he wassubject to Fatima, the king of the northern Bulloms. (3 )Strictly speaking, a number of the petty rulers called 'kings* by
the Europeans should really be regarded as 'chiefs'.

It was a pyramidical

structure of government, very similar to the Mandinga and Susu hegemony further
north.

The chiefs owed allegiance to the local kings, who themselvessupposedly paid deference to the kings of the 'metropolis' at Cape Mount (4)»
who in turn paid tribute to an overlord who remained behind.
(1) B.R.A.H.. Papeles de Jesuitas, Tomo

185, No* 1343» "Relacao da Costa da Guireby Baltezar Barreira, 1606. (He excludes Sherbro from Sierra Leone proper,
and thus has three kingdoms, plus a forth mentioned in the following note.)(2 ) Fernao Guerreiro:

Relacao Anual. Vol. 3> P»250 (Tora's was

regarded as a

kingdom in its own right).
(3) E.R. Taylor (Ed.):

The Troublesome Voyage of Captain Edward FPnton.

Hakluyt Society, 2nd ser., No. CXIII.
(4 ) Manuel Alvares:"Ethiopia Menor".

(The word 'metropolis' is his.)°lf
THE BRA OF THE MANE IN VA SIO N S!

1 5 4 5 -1 6 0 6What is needed to clarify the issue is information as to what
transpired in the adjacent region that is now Liberia.

No fir&t-handsixteenth century accounts seem to be available for the Malaguetta Coast,but information has survived in late seventeenth century descriptions by
Barbot, Dapper and Ogilby. (l)Their work was mainly based on theobservations of Dutch traders resident at Cgpe Mount at the beginning of theseventeenth century, and, indeed, these "traders, like Dornelas, must haverecorded the local traditions of much earlier events.

They threw

considerable light on the question of the Mane invasion, and place beyond
doubt the fact that events in Sierra Leone were part of a chain of
circumstances affecting the area as far south as the river Cess.
Barbot repeated old lore, which seems questionable, along with new
information, which appears to be highly credible.

Of the Manes, he wrotes"The Portuguese at Congo and Angola reckon these to be of the same race as
the barbarous Jagos and Galas...and all of them generally supposed to proceedfrom the nations of the Galas Manou, living far up the inland of the river
Sestro.”The Monou or Manoe were responsible for the conquest of the

Malaguetta Coast, and all authority was held by the emperor of Monou, towhom tribute had to be paid. (2 )The Monou, though a small group, succeeded in imposing their willon far more numerous tribes, by using different ethnic groups at different(1) Ogilby*s work is virtually a translation of Dapper1s.

Barbot andOgilby are the two sources which will be utilised here. ,(2 ) Barbots

Description of the Coasts of North and South Guinea, p.96

THE ERA OF THE MANE nTVASIO HSitimes as their agents •1 5 4 5 -1 6 0 6The three groups mentioned in the seventeenth century

sources are the Quojas, the Karos (Krus) and the Folgias.

The Folgias,

apparently a Mande people, attacked the Krus, who lived in the hinterland of
the river Junk*

Flansire, the king of the Eolgias, desired reconciliation

after defeating the Krus, so he married the s ister of. Flonikerri, king oftheKrus, and appointed Flonikerri as his general in a battle against the kingof the river Cess*

Flonikerri distinguished himself in this and other battles

and, as a reward, he was allowed to attempt the conquest of Cape Mount.

The

Cape Mount region was at that time inhabited by the Vais and the Quojas.
They, in particular, fought bitterly against the Kru armies, which
represented the interests of the Folgias and the Monou, but, after a seriesof struggles, the conquest was carried to completion by Zyllymanque, thebrother of Flonikerri.
After the kingdom of Cape Mount had been won, the conquest of
Sierra Leone was said to have been undertaken by "the young monarch
Flansire11, possibly not the original Flansire of the Folgias, but asuccessor.

The country was divided up among his generals.

The area aroundthe Sierra Leone channel went to Kandaqualle, the Sherbro was granted to
Selboele, while the Gallinas (Moa) was ruled by Sytrej
Monou.

all viceroys of the

But this arrangement was challenged by one Falma, who expelled

Kandaqualle from his government.

Flansire proceeded down the Moa and up

along the coast, crossing to the Bananas to take under his protection thoseof his subjects who had fled there from F&lma.
Europeans, Flansire besieged Falma in aWith the aid of somevillage to which hehad retired,u'THE ERA OF THE MANE IN VASIO N S:

154-5-1606(cutting through the palisades and the double row of trees which surrounded:it, and setting the place afire.

Falma escaped with great difficulty, andKandaqualle was re-established.

In the meanwhile, the viceroys of Sherbro

and Gallinas had conspired with Gammina, Flansire^ brother, to usurp the
kingdom of Cape Mount.

Hastening to return south, Flansire fought and(defeated his brother at the river Moa. (l)It is obviously necessary that the account of the events viewedbyfrom the Malaguetta Coast should be complemented/and correlated with theaccount of events viewed from Sierra Leone.

In the first place, it is to beobserved that the identification of the Manes with the Monou in no way
contradicts the substance of earlier Portuguese assertions.

Indeed, it

accords well with the Portuguese claims that only the vanguard of theattacking forces had reached Sierra Leone, and that tribute was owing to an
overlord who remained behind.

The name Manow still exists as that of asmall iviande group in the hinterland of Liberia.

On the other hand, there isagain a definite gap between the river bess and the f ortress of Mina, so thatthat aspect of the Portuguese reports remains unconfirmed.
The second major issue relates to those peoples who had a greatpart to play as agents of the Manes in the conquest of Sierra Leone.

It hasbeen suggested that the cohorts of the Manes were drawn from around Zaria
and other parts of the Western Sudan, from cannibal tribes known to theArabs as "Dem Dem". (2 )(1) John Ogilby:(2 ) Peter Kup:

However, if the Manes are to be identified with

Africa (London, I670), pp.407-412.
A History of Sierra Leone, p.139

THE ERA OF THE MANE IN VASIO N S;

1 5 4 5 -1 6 0 6

Monou of Liberia, in the first instance, then one must seek the Sumbas
along the Malaguetta Coast, en route to Sierra Leone, concentrating inparticular on the Quojas and the Krus.
When the Krus appear in the literature of Sierra Leone, it was
because of their skill as sailors, which earned them f requent mention in theeighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Ho wiiter on Sierra Leone or the

Malaguetta Coast in the sixteenth or early seventeenth centuries appears tohave heard of the tribe under that name.

But, even today, the Krus are

considered as a heterogeneous group comprising, among others, the Quojas and
the Queas. (l)The latter also played a prominent role in the Mane conquestof Sierra Leone, assuming leadership in the kingdom of Boure, according to
Manuel Alvares.
the Cubales.

The ,Queisl, as he calls them, were closely associated withThis latter name seems to have disappeared, but in the early

sixteenth century it was given to the inhabitants of the area on the coast
between the Gallinas and Cape Mount. (2 ), so that this again emphasises that
the Mane forces contained a high percentageof peoples drawn from immediately
to the south and west of the Sherbro.
Not all of

the ethnic groups between the Cesstaken up as allies of theManes.

The Vais , forand the Sherbro were
example, were saidtohave

put up a stubborn resistance until they were almost decimated. ($)
the Galas, whowere apparently in the hinterland north-west of Monou(1) Peter Kup:in theA History of Sierra ^eone. p.145(2 ) Pacheco Pereira:(3 ) John Barbot:

Then,

Esmeraldo de Situ Orbis. Map facing p .46

Description of the Coarts of North and South Guinea, p.Ill

THE ERA OF THE MANE INVASIO NS:

1 5 4 5 -1 6 0 6

middle of the sixteenth century, descended to the coast, playing anequivocal role in the struggles of the Krus and the Quo jas.

When, forinstance, Flonkerri, the Kru King, was subduing the Quojas, he had tocontend with the hostility of the Galas, led by the son of Manimassa, theemperor of Monou* (l)From their location, the Galas were likely to havebeen a group of Kpelles or Tomas.
To this already lengthy list of ethnonyms must be added the name^ e n d e 1, before the picture can be completed*

The Mendes are the only tribe

who presently inhabit Sierra Leone (and Liberia) but .who were given no
mention whatever in the sixteenth century, implying arrival after that date*
It is unlikely to be simple coincidence that the subjects of the Monnu
called themselves *Mendef. (2)On linguistic grounds, Northcote Thomas

linked the Mendes with the Gbandes and Tomas;

and he suggested that 11in the

Mende we have the portion of the Manes who drove out the aborigines orcompletely dominated them;in the Loko, a tribe originally of the aboriginal

stock but brought so completely under Manes influence as to adopt theirlanguage instead of their own;

and that the Temnes are also aborigines who

were forced to take alien chiefs, but maintained in large measure their own
culture, and in places won back from the invaders a portion of the territory
the latter had subjugated”• (3 )(1) John Ogilby:

Africa* p.410(2) John Barbot:

Description of the Coats of North and South Guinea* p. 123(3 ) Northcote Thomas:”Who were the Manes?” , J*A*S,t No. XIX, XX.

THE ERA OF THE MANE IN VASIO N S:

1 5 4 5 -1 6 0 6Apart from inaccurately ascribing these events to the late
fifteenth or early sixteenth century, Thomas made a convincing assessment of
the Manes, which is largely corroborated by the recent researches of Yves
Person*The latter, however, went much further afield in attempting to trace

the origins of the Manes, and reconstructed their travels from the oral
traditions of the Kamara or Dyomande.

The Kamara had begun their descentfrom the Niger to the sea in the hinterland of Sierra Leone, making theirfirst halt at Kourousa.

From there, they moved south-east into the Konian,and then down to the Liberian coast*

The expansion from the Konian (theregion around Beyla) involved an attack on Sierra Leone in the middle of thesixteenth century, with the Kamara aristocracy leading Mande-fou elements,
such as the Gbandes and Tomas, in a westerly direction* (l)The prevalence

among the Mane ruling class of the name ’Shere1 or ’Sere’ which, as mentioned
before, is an alternative to ’Kamara1, leaves little doubt that thisidentification is correct.
Serious doubt attaches to Person’s conclusions, however, on theissue of the ”Kru-Quoja invasion” , which he separates from the earlier Maneor Sumba invasion, and places in the third decade of the seventeenth century.
This date is established from the fact that the Kamara traditions speak of asecond invasion two or three generations after the first, as well as from the(l) Yves Person:”Les Kissi et leurs statuettes de pierre”.

Also.

"En

Quete d ’une Chronologie Ivoirienne”, in The Historian in Tropical Africa,
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lot
THE ERA OF THE MAKE IN VA SIO N S:

1 5 4 5 -1 6 0 6late seventeenth century contribution by Dapper* (l)Peter Kup also

inclines to the view of seventeenth century invasions on the basis of thesame written evidence* (2)Once more, the utilisation of the sources is

unsatisfactory.
Person partially established the date of his second Mane invasion
by calculations which assumed that certainkey personalities were alive when
Dapper was writing in the late l660’s;

and Kup very clearly arrived at his

chronology by dating certain events from 1670, whan Ogilby put hiscompilation together.

Thus, Kup says of Flamburre:"By I67O, christened

Philip by the Portuguese missionaries, he had settled his four brothers as
rulers along the river Sierra Leone*" (3)In reality, Ogilby (andDapper, whom Ogilby translates) is at this point relying on the reports of
the Jesuit, Father Baltezar Barreira, as collected by Fernao G-uerreiro andtranslated into French by Jarric.

The Flamboere of Jarric and Ogilby, who

was Flansire’s eldest son, and who was christened Philip by the Portuguese
missionaries was Fattema or Farma Boure, who was baptised D. Filipe byBarreira in 1607. (4)Ogilby is quite explicit on this point.

He mentions(1) The second article cited above slightly modifies the first, one particularbeing’ that the date of the second invasion is shifted from I6OO-I6IO to
1620- 1630.

(2) Peter Kup:

A History of Sierra Leone* pp. 144-148.

(3) Ibid., p.147(4) Femao Guerreiro:

Relacao Anual, Vol. 2, p.204. (Andre Arcin read Dapper’s*ork to this effect:"Dapper tells us that Sierra i^one in 1607 wascommanded by the chief Fatima".
p.133.

See Histoire de la Guinee Francaise,

THE ERA OF THE MANE IN VASIO N S:

1 5 4 5 -1 6 0 6that the supreme king of Sierra Leone was a Quoia, who had "left his old
title Flamboere* and from the Portugals, by whom converted to Christianity,
received the name of Don Philip

The people, before the coming of theJesuit Barreira, lay wholly drencht in idolatry, but he converted many to theChristian faith;and in the year sixteen hundred and seven baptized theking, his children, and many others, giving to the king at his baptism thename of Philip, as we said before, to which the Portugals flatteringly
added Don, and because he was king of Serre Lions, called him Don Philip the
Lyon'1*(l)Such an understanding of Ogilby leaves unaltered the 16th century
chronology, which can be built up from Portuguese sources*

Ogilby does

indeed mention a number of Mane kings, who were alive in 1670, but they were
all born in Sierra Leone*

No further invasions had occurred since Domelaswrote - to the best knowledge of later 17th century writers*

The years

1620**30 in the history of Sierra Leone are by no means well documented (2 )but there were Capuchin missionaries in Sierra Leone about the middle of the
century, who never hinted at an invasion only twenty years earlier, while theJesuits hadbeen informed of the first Mane arrivals fifty to sixty years
previously*

Besides, there is one detailed monograph on Sierra Leone,(1) John Ogilby: Africa* p*575(2 ) In this period, there were English and Dutch traders on the rivers
leading into the Sierra Leone and Sherbro estuaries, but the English
provided no references to local events, while the Dutch sources are notyet fully explored#10 2,THE ERA OF THE MANE IN VA SIO N S:

1545Q 1606

written in l 669> which lends no support to a later ,fKru-Quoja,f invasion*
This was a description of the Upper Guinea Coast by Lemos Coelho, a Guineahorn trader who hah visited Sierra Leone regularly between 1646 and I658.
He, too, referred to the Mane invasions as something long past - r*ninety
years ago1' was his estimate*

Coelho was very unlikely to have overlooked new

developments of magnitude in the decade I 62O-I65O.

Not only did he gather

information from Afro-Portuguese traders who were b o m in Sierra Leone, but
he was personally acquainted with a Mane ruler named Sherabola, who resided
on Sherbro Island*

Coelho knew him as a very old man, reputedly more than

one hundred years old, and understandably,so, because Captain Fenton had met
him fighting there in 1584• (l)li is almost certain that Sherabola is thesame ’Selboele* of Barbot and Ogilby, who was said to have given his name to
the Sherbro, because the same claim is advanced for Sherabola* (2 )A further enquiry into the way that certain source materials weregenerated, though seemingly pedantic, is essential to establish clearly that
the Mane or Sumba or •Kru-Quoja* invasions all occurred in one spate in about
twenty years after 1545*
changed.

He could no longer use Jarric, since the Jesuits did not know thearea south of the Sherbro*
traders*

Once Ogilby moved south of the Sherbro, his sources

He then utilised records provided by Butch

Possibly, these were acquired at the very beginning of the(1) Hakluyt Society, 2nd* ser*, No. CXIII - The Troublesome Voyage of Captain
Edward Fenton.
(2) Lemos Coelhos

Buna Bescriyoes* pp.72 , 250.

THE ERA OF THE MANE IN VA SIO N S:

1 5 4 5 -1 6 0 6seventeenth century, when the Dutch had a fort at Cape Mount, (l);they were acquired later;

possibly,

but they certainly were not eye-witness accountsof sixteenth century events.

The Dutch traders, therefore, when they gavea chronicle beginning in the first half of the sixteenth century andstretching across several reigns, were, like Dornelas, recording African
tradition.

Treating their material as traditional history, one can seek toestablish a link with a precisely dateable occurrence, involving theEuropeans on the coast*
It will be recalled th:b Flansire had subdued the region between
the Sierra Leone estuary and the Gallinas, leaving Kandaqualle as viceroy ofthe provinces of Sierra Leone.

That arrangement was disturbed by an attack

by Falma on Kandaqualle, forcing Flansire to return to Sierra Leone tore-establish the -latter.

Flansire sought the aid of the Europeans tobesiege Falma in a heavily fortified town, which was eventually taken, though
Falma himself escaped.

None of the names were the same, but the struggle

between Sasena andShere in 1567-68,.in which John Hawkins played a part,fits the circumstances in all essentials, if for Sasena one reads Falma andfor Shere one reads Kandaqualle.
Hawkins calls Shere "king of Sierra Leone", and he was asked by
Shere and "the king of the Castros" (the river Cess) to help dislodge
Sasena and Seterama, two other Mane kings, who had fortified themselves at(l) Fernao Guerreirot

Kelacao Anual. Vol. 2, p.211.

it>sr
THE ERA OF THE MANE INVASIONS*

1 5 4 5 -1 6 0 6

Bonga, on the south side of the Sierra Leone channel* (l)From the state of

the fortifications and the large number of inhabitants of the town (about
ten thousand), it was obvious that Sasena had effectively challenged andusurped Shere, who was the first Mane king of Boure, on D o m e l a s ’ authority,
and who was at that juncture waging a counter offensive for the recovery of
his kingdom.

Hawkins lent his assistance to Shere in January 1568, on

condition that •‘as many negroes as by these wars might be obtained, as wellof his part, as of ours, should be at our pleasure”.

After considerable

casualties, including- several of the one hundred and twenty men whom Hawkins
had contributed, the town was eventually taken, though Sasena escaped - as
Falma is said to have escaped.
Hawkins ends his account by castigating Shere for not handing overthose captives which the latter had taken, and the English ships sailed awaywith the two hundred and fifty that they themselves had seized. (2 )According to

be narrative of anotha: crew member, Hawkins was told by hisformer allies, as the latter departed, that he should send to the Cess andcaptives would be made ready for him. (5 )Again, there is an exact

correspondence between the

Hawkins episode and the tradition.

Shere was

(1) B.M. f Cotton Ms., Otho

E viii, fls. 27- • For Shere*s ally, Kupreads“king1 of the (?Casseti)“, while Basil Davidson renders it “king of theCastros”.

The latter can be verified because it appears twice in the

document.
(2 ) Hakluyt Society, No. LVII, The(5) B.M. T Cotton Ms., Otho

Hawkins Voyages, pp. 71 > 72

E viii, fl.

THS BRA OF THE MANE INVASIO N S:

1 5 4 5 -1 6 0 6helped to re-establish his authority in Sierra Leone in precisely the samemanner as Kandaqualle* had been:
Malaguetta Coast*

namely, by troops moved up from the

Furthermore, the traditions (via Dapper and others)

relate that Flansire returned to the Cess to discipline other dissidents, sothat he would have been in a position to make a promise to Hawkins to provide
further captives from that area.
Years later, De Almada recalled the incident of the siege of Bonga,
pointing out that some Portuguese had fought on the side of Sasena (l), a
fact to which Job Hortrop, a member of Hawkins1 crew, had drawn attention. (2 )There is no recorded incident even vaguely resembling this one, and direct
European intervention of this sort was uhlikely to have passed unnoticed.
Given that it was Kandaqualle whom Hawkins had helped to place once mode in
power, then the "Kru-Quoja invasion1’ must have taken place prior to 1568.
The two Jesuit missionaries, Baltezar Barreira and Manuel Alvares,
both testified to tie presence of the Quojas (Coyas) in Sierra Leone, during
their stay on that part of the coast between 1606 and 1616. (3 )The Quojas

and Queas, who are part of the heterogeneous Kru people, must indeed havebeen in Sierra Leone for a considerable period before the Jesuits wrote,
because two things are clear from the latter's lengthy reports:

firstly,

the Jesuits were not contemporaries of any invasion from the Malaguetta Coast?
(1 ) Alvares de Almada:"Rios de Guine”, p.375(2) Richard Hakluyt:

Voyages, Vol. 3> PP» 487>488(3 ) Barreira was in Sierra Leone between 1606 and 1610, and Manuel Alvares
from 1608 to 1616.

107
THE ERA OF THf. MAflE IN VA SIO N S;

1 5 4 5 -1 6 0 6

and secondly, all invasions from that direction had come to an end many years
previously.

By 1594? all "t*16 invaders were held to he naturaes (‘'locallyborn") and in many instances indistinguishable from the Sgpes.
nothing had intervened to change this.

Commented Alvares:(l)

By 1616,"It is difficult

to speak of the Manes of Sierra Leone b ecause of their assimilation into thelife there.

Such genuine Manes about whom one could speak arefew and fastdisappearing."
The authentic Manes who were still to be found were the Queas,
Quojas and Cubales.

These formed the elite which ruled the province ofSierra Leone and Boure.
of 'Filamanqua'5

They claimed to have fought alongside the father

and, even allowing for the fact that similarity of names

canbe notoriously misleading, this 'Filamanqua* seems to be the 'Zyllmanque*of Ogilby.

R everting again to the traditions contained in the European

chronicles, one finds that the father of Zyllmanque was the Kru kii^, who
put up a desperate resistance to the Folgia invasion.

He was succeeded byhis son, Flonikerri, who in turn was succeeded by his brother, Zyllymanque.
’Filamanqua' was mentioned by Alvares in the context of the pedigree claims
put forward by the Queas, who considered themselves superior to the Aperme,
who were "half-slave and half-free" - the offspring on one side ofconquered peoples.

By inference, therefore, Filamanqua or Zyllymanque

lived at least a generation earlier;and since he preceded Flansire, hewould in fact have died before 15^8 , the date which is advanced here for the
re-conquest of Sierra Leone by Flansire.
(1 ) Alvares de Almada:"Rios de Guine", p. 575

THE ERA OF THE MAKE m A S IO N S :108

1 5 4 5 -1 6 0 6

It is possible that personalities like Zyllymanque and Flansire go
back well before 1568 - to the original invasion of Sierra Leone by the Manesin 1545*

This would mean that the invasion of the Toma-Gbande directly

westwards across the Bullom^Kissi hinterland to the Rokelle and Port Loko wascontemporaneous with and part of the *Kru-Quoja invasion".
is what the weight of evidence suggests:

After all, thisnamely parallel fronts approaching

Sierra Leone along the coast and in the sertao.

But whether or not theKrus were partof the1545 invasion, their political control of Sierra Leone

ante-dated theend ofthesixteenth century by some forty years at least.

It is necessary to stress once again that the forces that matterednumerically as

far asthe Mane Invasion of Sierra Leone was concerned camefrom close by.

Whenthe Manes fought the Susus, Limbas and Fulas (in what

appears to have been the upper Searcies region), they did so using primarily
Bulloms and Temnes. (l)Similarly, it is to be expected that when they

attacked the Bulloms and Kissis of the Sherbro and Gallinas, their main
troops were drawn from the neighbouring Malaguetta Coast.

The supposedcannibalism of some of the invading forces has provided a false trail,
leading to the Bern Bern of Northern Nigeria. (2 )*Dem Bern* or ’Bemdemeh* isa generic Arab term meaning fcannibals1, the existence and location of whomare extremely vague, and the whole idea is established mainly on rumour andmyth. (5 )Both among the Sapes and the Europeans, the notoriety of the(1)

Alvares de Almada:(2)Peter Kup:

(3 )Basil Bavidsons"Rios de Guine", p.375

A History of Sierra Leone, p.139
Old Africa Rediscovered (London, 1961), pp.66, 67

lo9
THE ERA OF THE MAKE J ffA S IO H S i

1 5 4 5 -1 6 6 6

Sumbas probably far outstripped their performance.

It was said that theywould sometimes appear brandishing a human joint for effect - and the effect
was terrifying, (l)They were also said to have eaten of the flesh of theirenemies ”for courage and ferocity”, and for the psychological effect it would
have on their future opponents - being deliberately encouraged by the Maneelite, although the latter themselves refrained from any such practice. (2 )These comments suggest more a ritual than a way of life.
Whatever the origin of the various s trands of th. invasion, theimportance of the overlying Mande influence must be recognised.

It wassaid that all new soldiers who were enlisted were not only trained in theuse of Mane arms but were also inculcated with a new sense of loyalty.

The

recruits were chosen as young men, who, after training and indoctrination,
were said to have been puffed up with pride at being among the Mane ranks. (3 )The arms and clothing were clearly Mande, and the language, too, showedpronounced Mande characteristics, which today set the Manles and the Lokos
apart from the Temnes, Bulloms and Kissis.
All of the Mande leaders of the Manes could have descended onto theMalaguetta Coast directly from the interior, along the routes suggested by
Yves Person.
interpretation.

Geography and verisimilitude are on the side of such an
Yet, one must take some cognizance of the insistence of

sixteenth and seventeenth century reports that the origins of the Manes can(1)

F e m a o Guerreiros(2 )Alvares de Almada:

(3)

Ibid.

Rglacao Anual« Vol. 3» P*255"Rios de Guine”, p.359

ne>
THE ERA OF THE MANE IN VA SIO N S:

1 5 4 5 -1 6 0 6

be traced as far away as the hinterland of the Gold Coast**
As late as 1669, Lemos Coelho mentioned that the Manes had attacked
the Portuguese fortress of Mina, after which they took ten years to reach
Sierra Leone, (l)In part, the Portuguese must have deduced from theinformation that they received that the Manes had attacked the fort of Sao
Jorge de Mina, but, unless there was a deliberate invention on the part of
the Portuguese traders and missionaries, the Mane traditions themselves
mentioned contact with a European fort.
in person from Tora, a Mane king:Barreira elicited this information

flHe told me that they were ten years on

the march, because of the wars which they waged wherever they passed, and hestill remembered the castle of Mina, and the shots with which they weremet." (2 )On the whole stretch of coast between Sierra Leone and the Gold
Coast, there were no forts in the sixteenth century, so that, once the Manes
did come into contact with a European fort, this suggests that they hadreached the coast at a point east of Cape Ttjree Points.

At any rate, there

could have been among the Manes individuals who had arrived on the Malaguetta
Coast after a circuitous journey from the hinterland of the Gold Coast,merging with those who descended to the Atlantic from the region around Beyla.
This would not be contradicted by the general picture of population shifts on
the Gold Coast and its hinterland during the fifteenth and sixteenth(1)

Lemos Coelho:

Duas Descricoes. p.72

(2)

F e m a o Guerreiro:

R Placao Anual, Vol.

P«255

IEHE ERA OF THE MAKE INVASIONS:
centuries, (l)1545-1606

Above all, to construct a theory of

without a single reference to evidence of this sorta serious historiographical omission.

(if only to reject it)isNorthcote Thomas was particularly

judicious in his conclusions on this issue.
to say:the origins of the Manes

Of Tora,s evidence, he had this"We can hardly suppose that the chief was aware of the Portuguese

name of the place;available."and it is unfortunate that his exact words are not

Then, having drawn attention to the possibility of the Manes

having travelled from the Niger to Mina and then on to Sierra Leone, he added;"I must not be understood to argue that the Manes actually came by this route,or by any other, from beyond the Niger;

I am merely exploring possibilities.

Certain data have to be accounted for."(2)

In the final analysis, the most

relevant aspectsof the Maneinvasions are not the origin of these people but their impact upon thesituation in Sierra Leone itself.

This aspect has already been touched on in

the suggestion that the Mendes and the Lokos were products of the Maneinvasions - a suggestion that seems well founded.
Today, the Mendes are one of the largest tribal groups in Sierra
Leone.

They are clearly the product of an intermixture on a Bullom base,and with an upper strata showing distinct Mande traits.

Anthropometricmeasurements of some seven hundred subjects suggested that there were among
the Mendef both a Mande type and a type indigenous to the forest region. (3 )(1)

J.D. Fage: Ghana*

A Historical Interpretation (Madison, 1961), pp.28, 29.

(2)

Northcote Thomas:"Who were the Manes?", op.cit.

(3)

K. Little:
Migeod).

The Mende of Sierra Leone (London, 195l)» p«21 (citing

112.
THE ERA OF THE MANE IFVASIO ITS:

1 5 4 5 -1 6 0 6

Certain cultural divergencies, such as the presence of "both matrilineal andpatrilinaal patterns of inheritance, support the idea of cultural fusion.
Mende tradition distinguishes between the earliest settlers and invaders whocame from the north.

The leaders of the invasions set themselves up as

chiefs, but difficulties over boundaries brought them into constant conflictwith each other, as well as with any of the original rulers who were able towithstand them, (l)All this sounds remarkably similar to the comments of

the Portuguese on the Mane invasions.
It was only late in the eighteenth century that the Mendes wererecorded as making attacks on the Sherbro Bulloms, and they are in fact
relatively recent arrivals in the modern state of Sierra Leone as far as
numbers m d influence are concerned. (2)In this situation, one must draw

a careful distinction between the arrival of the conquering forces and theformation of new tribal entities.

The Manes overran all of the Sherbro

Bulloms, but their greatest impact was made around the Gallinas and Cgpe
Mount, and at some distance inland following the line of the Toma invasion#
Here, therefore, the Mende 1tribe* can be said to have emerged, moving deeper
into Sierra Leone proper during the eighteenth century.
It can similarly be maintained that the Lokcs'were a product of theMane invisions.

Person argues that they stem from the section of the Toma-

Gbande force which took an inland route across the hinterland of theSherbro
Bulloms.

In reality, the Portuguese spoke not only ofcoastalmovements(1)

K. Little:

on. cit.« p#28

(2)

Peter Kup:

A History of Sierra Leone, pp.155-157

but

>15
THE ERA OF THE MANE INVASIO N S:

1 5 4 5 -1 6 0 6of roughly parallel fronts in the aertao or hinterland, (l)They also madeit clear that the region around Port Loko (or Logos, as it was then called)
was one of the most important centres of Mane power within Sierra Leone.
Farmi, the first Mane king of.the area, was also addressed as "Emperor of
the Sapes", a title retained by his successors* (2)As far as the Portuguese were concerned, Farmafs subjects were
Temnas, and today the Temnes retain traditions concerning their great king,Bai Farma, who came from the east. (5)As would be expected if the Lokos

were part of the Mane invasion, the Lokos and Mendes are regarded as being
divisions of the same people (4 ), though the Lokss display marked Temne
characteristics in their speech, setting it apart from fpuref Mende.

These

characteristics are held to have been acquired when the Lokos traded with the
Temnes(5)» but it seems far more likely that the situation is to be explainedby the fact that the Mendes represent the Mane fusion with the Bulloms andKissis, while the Lokos represent the same Mane elements fused with Temnes.
Today, the Limbas still call a Loko Gbande, while the Gbandes themselves saythat their brothers left them at an early date to fight a war in the west. (6)(1)

Andre Domelas:"Relacao sobre a Serra Leoa".

Alvares de Almada:(2)"Rios de Guine", p. 5^5*

A.P.F. - Lettre Antichi, YOl. 248,

fl. 57, "Declaration of king Farma,emperor of the Sapes, in favour of Fr. Seraphim de Leon",(5)

15 Sept. 1654*

C.F. Schenkler: A Collection of Tenrne Traditions, Fables and Proverbs(London, 186l), p.$.

(4 )M. McCulloch:(5)Peter Kup:

(6)

Ibid, p.124

on.

Peonies of Sierra Leone, pp.l, 5oit.. p.124

"iTEE MRA OF THE MANE INVASIO NS:

1 5 4 5 -1 6 0 6

The name Mane itself fell rapidly into disuse, except in the
Searcies.

By some curious chance, it was this section of the invaders,furthest removed from their origins on the Malaguetta Coast, who were still
being called Manes later in the seventeenth century, while to the south there
was a reversion to the name 'Bullom*. (l-J

The Mane or Mani people of the

Sherbro are almost certainly products of these sixteenth century occurrences.
While the creation of new tribal entities was essentially a long­term process, there were a number of ways in which the Manes made theirpresence felt immediately.

The state-building Mande element was in aminority, but the forces were numerous, providing an example of an unusually
powerful invasion in the history of the region.

From the accounts of theJesuits, the direct consequences were felt until 1606, when the death of
Farma, king of Port Loko, marked the end of an era.
The defeat of the Sapes at the hands of the Manes was explicitly
attributed to the lack of fighting spirit among the former, and theirvirtual ignorance of the arts of war, in contrast to the Manes.

Mane methodsof warfare won the admiration of Domelas, who rated them as better warriors
than the Senegal Wolofs, for whom he had the highest reppect.

Barreira

praised the Sapes for their intelligence and their ability to learn, but heconceded that they had "weak and effeminate minds". (2 )Almada had said much the same things.

Before him, De

He claimed that the Sapes were "given

to feasts and pleasures, which they continually have, because the land gives(1)

Lemos Coelho:

Duas Descricoes. p.72

(2 )i'emao Guerreiro:

Relacao Anual, Vol. 1, p.409

wsr
THE ERA OF THE MANE IN VA SIO N Si

1 5 4 5 -1 6 0 6

everything in abundance, and they do not use arms like other nations"• .(l)This last statement is obviously exaggerated, b ecause early in the sixteenth
century the Sapes were said to have had their war captains, and to haveorganised war by sea and by land, (2)The traders and missionaries who had knowledge of both peoples
stressed the change which came over the Sapes by the end of the sixteenth
century.

’’These Sapes who inhabit Sierra Leone and its vicinity were a weakand cowardly people?

now with the discipline of the Manes they have become

excellent soldiers and are good captains'* was one assessment (3)j"The

continuation of the war with the Manes has made them soldiers" was another. (4 )The Bulloms, who had previously been regarded as the most aggressive of the
Sapes, came into closest contact with the Manes, and were subsequently
considered as the most expert in the use of Mane arms and Mane methodsof warfare. (5 )Throughout Sierra Leone, the arms, military strategy andfortifications had been profoundly influenced by the Manes.

The bows, shields

and knives described as being in the possession of most of the inhabitants of
Sierra Leone in the early seventeenth century were exactly the same as thosewhich distinguished the Manes on their arrival.

After service, both for andagainst the Manes, the people of Sierra Leone had learnt to fight in formation,(1)

Alvares de Almada:"Rios de Guine", p.356(2)

Valentim F emandes:

La C5te Occidentale d fAfriquet p.94

(3 )Alvares de Almada:on. cit.. p.374(4 )F e m a o Guerreiro:on, cit.. Vol. 1, p.409(5 )Andre Domelas:"Relacao sobre a Serna Leoa".

UL
THE SIA OF THE MAKE IN VASIO N S:

1545-1606

using squadrons of archers and bowmen carrying the large Mane shields.
Mane entrenchments, known as atabanka were in general use.

The

These consistedof three or four fences of stout palisades, with a ditch on the outside.

Talltowers and garrison posts were built on the walls, within which the older andless energetic archers remained, (l)Planning encirclements and breaking

out of sieges had become commonplace in Sierra Leone befofe the end of thesixteenth century. (2 )As far as military matters were concerned, the Sapes emerged the1

better off after passing through the Mane ordeal, but this was small recompense
for the oppression, disruption and destruction which were the main featuresof the period.

The Sapes were sold to the Europeans in thousands, they wereforced to labour for the new ruling class, their trade with the interior wasinterrupted, and their very creativity was severely impaired.
When John Hawkins made his second slaving expedition to Sierra
Leone in 1564, he found that the island of Sherbro had been transformed intoa veritable granary.

The Manes were using Sape labour to produce an abundanceof millet, rice, root crops and palm wine. (3 )The Sapes were harshly used,

and in some cases they made efforts to throw off the yoke, if only by flight.
In 1572) some Sherbro Bulloms staged a revolt which their Mane chief, Shere
Mambea, was unable to quell single-handedly, and he left to seek the help of(1)

Andre Domelas:"Relacao sobre a Serra Leoa".

(2)

Alvares de Almada: "Rios de Guine", p.374* (For a description of methods. of warfare in Sierra Leone, see Peter Kup:

A History of Sierra Leone.

pp.165-171)(3 )Hakluyt Society, Ho. LVII, The Hawkins Voyages, pp.17, 18

117
THS ERA OF THE MANE IN V A S IO N S ;hie confreres.

1 5 4 5 -1 6 0 6

In the meantime, his Bullom subjects, who were grouped in one

large village, withdrew in a body to the bush.
1 5 7 4 > everything

pe3tles, etc.

When Domelas saw the site in

was still intact - houses, agricultural implements, pottery,

The number of people involved in this escape was 1,000 adultmales, apart from women and children.
making their escape.

Many other Sapes were successful inWith the help of the Portuguese, some made their way

to the Cape Verde Islands and to Cacheu.

Frequent mention was also made ofa 1tribe* called Tagunchos or Dagunchos.

They had fled from the Manes, andhad settled down in a hilly and relatively inaccessible section near to theGreat Searcies, (l)Mainly on the basis of their salt manufacture, the Sapes had beenable to attract trade from the Futa Djalon.

At one end of the trade routes,

the Fulas and Djalonkes supplied white doth, cattle and gold.
passed on through the Susus who added iron and dyes.

This wasThe caravans had

usually followed the Pongo to the coast, and the Portuguese lancados hadentered the transit coastal trade which allowed the goods from the interior
trade to find an outlet further north (on the Nunez) and the coastal
distribution southwards had to stop.

Fortunately, by the end of thesixteenth century, conditions had become settled enough to permit a
resumption of commerce on the Pongo. (2)One of the most disastrous results of the Mane invasion was thedestruction of the skills of the Sapes.

In the early sixteenth century, the(1)

Andre DomelasJ

Alvares de Almada: flRios de Guine11, pp.546>555(2)

Alvares de Almada, op.cit., pp.547> 575

THE ERA OF THE MANE IN VASIO N S:

1 5 4 5 -1 6 0 6

Sapes had great reputations as artists and craftsmen, working in ivory andraffia#Both Pacheco Pereira and Valentim Fernandes praised them in thehighest terms.

What they found most striking was the ability of the Sapes tocarve to European specification items such as spoons, salt-cellars, anddagger hilts#

Vaientim Fernandes wrote:

11the men in this country are thecleverest Negroes where manual art is concerned;
spoons of ivory#

they make salt-cellars andAnd also it does not matter what work one sketches, they

will carve it in ivory*" (l)In his hook, Afro-Portuguese Ivories. William Fagg established theidentity of a number of ivory objects - spoons, forks, salt-cellars andhorns,- carved for European use and to European design, but fashioned by
African artists in a style of their own.

He was unable to identify the areaof provenance, but considered the Slave Coast very probable.

A.F. Rider,basing his conclusions mainly on an account book of the Portuguese Casa da
Guine for the year 1504-1505> and on the remarks of Pacheco Pereira, pointed
out that Sierra Leone was the area from which the majority of these hybrid
art specimens must have originated#

He also warned that one could easily be

misled by "negative tradition", since Fagg had considered Sierra Leone anunlikely region on the grounds that no tradition of carving in ivory survived
there. (2 )That neither skills nor tradition survived is due to the ^aneinvasions.
(1)

Valentim Fernandes: La C6te Occident ale d fAfrique, p. 104. (Also pp. 76, 96)
Pacheco Pereiras Bsmeraldo de Situ Orbis. pp# 80,84(2)

A#F.C. R^der: "A Note on the Afro-Portuguese Ivories", The Journal of
African History. Vol. 5* 1964 > No. 3> pp.363-65 .

U<\
THE ERA OF THE MANE IN VASIO N S :1 5 4 5 -1 6 0 6

After the Manes had arrived and settled in Sierra Leone, objects ofhigh artistic merit were still to be seen#In the same vein as the early

sixteenth century writers, Manuel Alvares commented on the ivory spoons, thehandles of which had carved on them various adornments such as the heads ofanimals, birds, and krifi (l), ’’with such perfection that when one has viewed
them one has seen everything*1#

Unfortunately, many of the items he observed

must havebeen carved at an earlier date and were no longer beingproduced.

The Mane

destruction of the Sape skills was made explicit -"It is thefaultof these

foreign kings that the country is so poor,

they havecaptured so many master craftsmen, andthe indigenous people that these latterand havebecausehave committed so many vexations on
have becomeless and less concerned

given up the exercise of their arts#'* (2)It is also clear that a number of stone figures found in modern
Mende country were associated with a pre-Mane culture.

These anthropomorphic

carvings, called Nomoli by the Mendes and Pomta by the Kissis, are not integral
parts of the culture of the people who live there today, and were often turned
up accidentally in agricultural operations# (3)They exist all over a

region which would have been the original home of the Kissis, and the art ofcarving them was obviously lost in the face of a substantial invasion which
entirely overran the area - almost certainly that of the Manes.

Objects

fashioned to European specification were but an insignificant part of the(1)

Krifi is a generic term for spirits#

See-below.

(2)

Manuel Alvares:(3 )Stanley Brown: "The Uomoli of Mende Country", Africa# vol#18, Jan# 1948*

f,Ethiopia Menor"#THE ERA CF TBB MANE INVASIONS:

1545-1606

artistic output of the peoples of Sierra Leone*

Art was functional - expressedin articles of domestic use, such as wooden howls, pottery, stools and mats,and, above all, in the creation of ancestor images.

Anthropomorphic ancestor

images carved in wood were known among the Sherbro peoples in the early
sixteenth century (l), and the Nomoli are said to have required much the same
tools and techniques as wood. (2)More than an art form would have been

involved in the disappearance of the Homoli. since the religious andontological framework in which they functioned would inevitably have been
affected.

For the coastal peoples the encounter with the Manes must indeed

have been a traumatic experience.
In at least one respect the Manes made a positive contribution to
the domestic skills of the Sapesj

and that was in the working of iron.

Again, Manuel Alvares furnished precise informations "Of the mechanic
they have not a single office, with the exception of ironsmiths;

arts

and in theunderstanding of this they far surpass the naturals of Sierra Leone."
Turning to the records before the Mane invasions, one finds confirmation of
the Sape limitations in the working of iron.

In the early sixteenth century,

they were reported to havemanufactured their own weapons, but they could nottemper the iron properly and the product was brittle. (3 )Possibly, techniques of weaving cotton could also have been broughtby the Manes.

Most of the cloth on the Sierra Leone littoral before the era(1)

Valentim Fernandes:(2)

Yves Person:(3)

Valentim Fernandes:

La C8te Occident ale d !Afriquet p .88"Les Kissi et leurs Statuettes de Pierre".
on. cit.. p.76 .

THE BRA OF THE MANE INVASIO N S:

154*5-1606

of the Manes arrived by way of the Fulas and Susus, and the art of weaving was
also introduced from the east and north*

In the early nineteenth century,

Major Laing noted that the manufacture of cloth among the Temnes was very
limited, and tint the techniques had been acquired from th Koranko to theeast.

He added that "as the traveller advances eastward, he finds the natives

improve both in the texture of the cloth and size of loom.

In the country of

Sangara very handsome and large cloths are manufactured... .and form an
important article of trade among the interior nations.

I have seen cloths

similar to those of Sangara on the Ivory and Gold Coast”, (l)Obviously,

therefore, the Manes could have made their contribution from the south-east.
Today, the Mendes use a smaller loom than the Mandinga model originating in
the north (2 ), and it is probably significant that the section of Temne
country where weaving is practised is called Ro Mende. (5)Both cotton and iron working fuither emphasise the Mandecharacteristics of tie Manes.

As far as craftsmanship in iron was concerned,

the Manes were displaying the superiority of all the Mande peoples over the
littoral tribes.

Iron mining, smelting and refining were associated with

the Susus and Mandingas, who had special clans or castes specialising in t hiscraft.

Such clans, like the Kante, often held positions of the highest

authority within the tribal polity.

On all these details the Manes conformed

to the Mande pattern, for among them the craft of ironworking,.was open only
(1) G. Laings Travels in the Timannee, Kooranko and Soolima Countries(London, 1825)> P*81
(2) M.C. E^smon: ”Sierra Leone Country Cloths” , in British 'Empire ExhibitionZ(Sierra Leone Section) (London, 1920).
(5) N.W. Thomas:"Who were the Manes?” (Op.cit.)

I2L.1—
THE ERA OF THE MANE INVASIO N S:

1 5 4 5 -1 6 0 6

to a privileged few. (l)There were othrr changes which had to do with cold steel and warfare,hut which ramified into sectors which at first sight appear far removed ••namely, the religious and the metaphysical.

One of the principal Xinas (2 )or spirits of Sierra Leone in the early seventeenth century went under thename of Mane Mane.

Physically, this comprised a pile of rocks with a sheafof leaves placed in the centre.

To this site the usual food offerings were

made, but iron was the favourite item of oblation because the spirit which
resided there was one to whom appeals were made on matters of honour andrevenge, and iron was the instrument for this purpose. (3)Besides thisparticular spirit, a whole range of Medicines' for war seemed to have beenbrought by the Manes and accepted by the Sapes;

no doubt because thesuccess of tb Manes would have been attributed in part to the efficacy ofthe means which they had at their disposal for ensuring the intervention ofsuperior forces on their behalf.
Among the Manes, women played a special role in the preparation of
war ’medicine1, and as a result the Mane invasions may well have strengthened
existing female secret societies among the Sapes, and may perhaps have led to
the formation of new ones.
(1) Manuel Alvares:

In the early sixteenth century, both male and"Ethiopia Menor".

(2 ) Europeans often referred to the Xinas as 'fetishes1.

In reality, the wordreferred to spiritual beings who resided in determined places or material
objects.
(3) Manuel Alvares: op. cit.

12?
THE ; ;RA OF THE M

INVASIO NS*

1 5 4 5 -1 6 0 6

female secret societies were known to the Portuguese as existing in Sierra
Leone, (l)By the end of that century it was made clear that the femalesocieties were concerned mainly with the training of young girls who hadreached the age of puberty.

All the young girls of a given area who were to

be initiated were placed in a large house isolated from other residences,remaining there for a year or more under the guardianship of an old man withthe reputation of having led a virtuous life.

During the period of seclusion,

the girls were given new names, were sustained by food supplied by theirparents, and underwent training which prompted the Portuguese to regard theinstitution in which they were housed as a convent.

On graduating, they

dressei in their best garments and attended feasts and dances, where thenobles and the young men had the opportunity of selecting their wives.

These

initiates were called Mendas. (2 ) Almost in every detail, this description
fits the Sande and Bundu female secret societies as they have survived into
the twentieth century.
It is unlikely that the Manes brought about any fundamental change
in the pattern of female education and initiation, but they seemed to haveadded to the power of women.

For instance, the Manes established a large

village exclusively for women, who could only be visited by men under certain
circumstances.

Their main function was the manufacture of •medicines’,

especially for war, and every king had one of these ’priestesses’ in his(1) Valentim Fernandes:

La Cote Occidentale d ’Afrique. p.88

(2 ) Alvares de Almada:”Rios de Guine”, p.352.

THE ERA OF THE MANE INVASIONS?

1 5 4 5 -1 6 0 6service, allowing her wide privileges♦ (l)this context was thAnother contributory factor inpolitical power which a woman of high birth could wieldin ^ane political circles*

Mobora, the sister of Farma Boure, was one of themost outstanding political figures in Sierra Leone during the early seventeenth
century.

Her authority was attributed partly to the fact that, had she beena man, she would have been king, and partly to her own personal qualities. (2 )*e calling that the Mane movement was at the outset supposedly led by a woman,it could be that behind the Mane kings there was a female figure in thecapacity of "Queen Mother", but, whether there was any such institution or not,very high status was obviously accorded tosome Mane women,whichwould

strengthened the female secret societies, as well assome role in the preponderantly male societies.

haveallowingthem toplay

Today, the office of Eabolain the Poro society, which is held by a woman, commands the highest respectand has an integral role in the ceremonial life and purpose of thatorganisation. (3 )In the case of the male secret societies, the evidence also suggeststhat the Manes gave a great impetus to institutions that were alreadyestablished.
century.

Only the most obvious externals were described in the sixteenth

Women could not enter the lodge of the male societies, nor were they

permitted to pass nearby when the deliberations or prayers were going on. (4 )(1) Manuel Alvares:"Ethiopia Menor".

(2) F e m a o Guerreiro:(3 ) K. Little:

Relacao Anual, Vol. 3> P*259

The Mende of Sierra Leone, p .164

(4 ) Valentim Fernandes:

La Cote Occidentale d fAfrique. pp. 84 , 38

THE ERA CF THE MAKS IN VASIO N S:

1 5 4 5 -1 6 0 6

The plehians were told that on certain days a powerful spirit walked abroad,requiring that they should shut their doors and keep off the streets*What

happened at this time was that tie king and the nobles ran naked in thestreets, making a great commotion*

If any outsider came across their path,he was either killed or made a member* (l)By the beginning of the seventeenth century, the situation
described was recognisably the same as that which exists today.

There were

three important socieities, called the Pero, the Benle and the Cymo - whichmust clearly have been the Poro, the Ragbenle and the Simo, not only becauseof the close similarity of names, but also because the details which aresupplied make the identifications possible.

The Cymo, for instance, was said

to have operated among the most northerly of the Sapes-Manes, and today it
is indeed confined to the Nalus and Bagas.

In the case of the Benle, it isstriking that Manuel Alvares should have considered it as a very exclusive
association, because the restricted nature of the Ragbenle is one of thecharacteristics to which m o d e m scholars have drawn attention* (2 )As far as

the Poro is concerned, mention was made by Valentim F emandes of a secretsociety with a female mascot called Pere, which could have been the Poro. (3 )Manuel Alvares thought that the Poro was a Mane institution, but even if thiswas not so, it must certainly have fallen into the hands of the Manes after
the conquest.
(1) Alvares de Almada:(2 ) M* McCulloch:(3 )"Rios de Guine", p.551

Peonies of Sierra Leone* p.68

Fernandes:

La Cote Occidentale d !Afrique« p .84

\2.L
THE ERA OF THE MANE INVASIO N S:

1 5 4 5 -1 6 0 6

The question of the spread of tbs secret societies of Sierra Leone
has long been of interest.

Butt-Thompson suggested that the Poro wasintroduced by the Temnes as an adaptation of the Simo which they had known in
the area that is now the Republic of Guinea, but the Temne traditions saythat the Poro was borrowed by them from the Sherbro Bulloms, while the Mendes
claim to be its originators, (l)This latter claim is interesting in thelight of Alvares1 opinion that the Poro was a Mane introduction, but, if
anything, it would have belonged to the Bullom-Kissi peoples who were overrunin the south of Sierra Leone and who were incorporated into what is now theMende tribe.

The female organisation, the Bundu, which is widespread in Temne

country, is also felt to have been derived from the Sande of the Mendes. (2 )When the strength of the secret societies is viewed in relation to
the geography of the Upper Guinea Coast, a certain pattern emerges.

From theGambia southwards to Cgpe Verga, there are to be found associations forcircumsicion and initiation, but no all-powerful secret societies comparable
to the Poro.

Powerful secret societies were part of the cultural make-up of

all the Sapes;

and moving from north to south among the latter the strength of

the institution grows.
even more so in Liberia.

It is well entrenched among the Sherbro Bulloms, and

The V ais in Liberia have the most elaborate form of the

Poro (3)» and it seems feasible that they and other early inhabitants ofCape Mount, playing an important role in the Mane conquest, would have(1) M. McCulloch:(2) Ibid., p.69
(5) Ibid., p.93.

Peonies of Sierra Leone, p.30.

\2TI
THE ERA OF THE MANE IN VASIO N S:

1 5 4 5 -1 6 0 6

contributed to the increased authority of the Poro, Sande and the like, as
they moved northwards.
Another issue of importance hinges on the political power of thesecret societies, in relationship both th the local tribal authorities and to
the rulers over large areas of country.

In a comprehensive review of thePoro, Little concluded from historicaldata and from the results offield

enquiries that there were “inner councils" of the Poro, who were theeffective government in the chiefdoms, but it is doubtful whether there wasa centralised supreme council, (l)On both these points, sixteenth andseventeenth century contemporary contemporaries yield some information.
The secret societies are all hierarchically organised in grades,
and the highest grade or inner circle was obviously the seat of power within
the tribe.

This “inner council” was described by the Portuguese as the “oldmenfs Cymo", its members making public appearances only at importantfunctions such as the death of a king.

(2)

These old men ornobles or

solategis, as they were called, met in

the Funco or “Palaver House” in thecentre of the village to conduct the business of government and law.

When

Hawkins was in Sierra Leone he learnt from the resident Portuguese tradersthat in the Funco the nobles made their decisions concerning peace and war,
about the harvesting of the grain, and about the time for tapping the palm

(1) K. Little:“The Political Function of the Poro” , Africa, Vol. XXV, No. 4>

October 1965* PP*350~364>(2) Manuel Alvares:Vol. XXXVI, No. 1, Jan.1966, pp.62-72*“Ethiopia Menor” .

\lJ&
THE ERA OF THE MANE INVASIO NS>

wine, (l)1 5 4 5 -1 6 0 6

At a later date these were all known to he decisions within theprovince of the Poro, .and in the sixteenth century De Almada considered
the nobles or solategis as being identical with those members of the secretsociety who had the right of parading in company with the guardian spirit attimes when the 'plebeians1 (sic) had to be indoors.

Furthermore, these

solategis wore masks and costumes when they appeared in the Funco.

It wasspeculated that they were disguised when defending clients so as to be able
to speak their minds frankly before the king, but the mafeks were thedistinguishing mark of the secret societies.

In the sixteenth century themasks were called axons (2), which is the name retained within the Ragbenlesociety. (3 )More pertinent to the coming of the Manes is thedebatable

point

about the extent to which the activities of all the local lodgeswere
centrally controlled and directed.

In recent times, this facet of theorganisation cf the secret societies seems to have declined, but there havebeen hints of a "Grand Poro" with wide cross-chieftain powers for making wars
and settling disputes. (4 )Such powers were wielded in the earlyseventeenth century, and they emanated from a centralised institution.

The

Poro 'University* (sic) was sai-d to have been situated just beyond Cape
Mount.

Students spent four years there, during which time they were equipped(1) Hakluyt Society, No. LVII, The Hawkins Voyages. pp*17> 18•(2 ) Alvares de Almada:(3) M. McCulloch:(4) Ibid.. p. 30"Rios de Guine", pp.348-351*

Peoples of Sierra Leone,p. 69

129
THE ERA OF THE MANE INVASIO NS:

1 5 4 5 -1 6 0 6

to conserve the peace and deal with homicides and revolts* (l)One cannot be certain that the ’University* was founded by the
Manes, but if it had existed before their arrival they had good reason tostrengthen it*

It was a logical solution to the difficulties which thedispersed Mane ruling class would have faced in trying to govern so wide an
area.

Apart from common training at Cape Mount, the Mane kings met from time

to time in what were very likely to have been Poro councils.

For instance,

when Farma, the first Mane king of Port Loko, died in 1606, his funeral was
attended by important persons from ’’beyond Cape Ledo on the Malaguetta
Coast”. (2) Those persons would have been members of the inner circles of/•the secret organisations, since Farma was important enough to warrant theirpresence at his ’cry1 or funeral ceremony*

Besides, a fcryr could be heldat certain intervals after burial had taken place, and this was sometimes
used as a pretext for a political convention*

On one occasion, a Mane king

was anxious to hold a ’cry*, ostensibly on behalf of an ancestor, but thegathering was regarded primarily as an important political conference, wherea subject of importance to the Manes as a whole was to be discussed.

Rulersfrom -all over Sierra Leone were ready to attend, though the success of theventure was jeopardised by the intransigence of Tora, the oldest of the Manekings, then ruling over Temne subjects. (3)Such a gathering could hardly

have been contemplated outside of the councils of the secret societies or(1) Manuel Alvares:(2 ) Farnao Guerreiro:(3) Ibid., p.250"Ethiopia Menor”.
Relacao Anual, Vol. 3 1 P-259*

\Z0
THE ERA 0? THE MANE IN VASIO N S:

1 5 4 5 -1 6 0 6of "the cult of the masks" (l);and it is to he reiterated that the inter­tribal feature was a logical concomitant to the super imposition of the Maneruling class.
By 1623, the phrase "Sapes Manes" was used to describe the ethnic
situation in Sierra Leone. (2 )There were areas where the Mane element wasmore pronounced, as in the former Bullom-Kissi country in the Gallinas andthe former Temne country on Port Loko Creek, giving rise to the Mendes and
Lokos, respectively.

Elsewhere, the Manes were completely assimilated, andeven though there were references to wars between the Manes and the Sapes
in the third quarter of the seventeenth century, the distinction between thetwo people had long worn thin.

As far as the Upper Guinea Coast itself isconcerned, the Mane penetration and its consequences are useful pointers to
the sort of process which must have occurred when the Mande met the "SemiBantu" speakers of the Put a Djalon, when the Fulas merged with the Volofs in
the Senegambia, and when the Mande and Fulas met the "Paleo-Negritics" of Cabo.
The Mane invasions also constitute a typical episode in the spread of theinfluence of the Mande in West

(1) K. Littles

which is recognised as one of the"The Political Function of the Poro".

He cites Harley tothe effect that the pinnacle of power may not have lain within the Poro,but rather within the cult of the masks of which the Poro was the mosthighly developed form for manifesting the power of tbs ancestors towards
the people.
(2 ) Alonso de Sanderval:

Natureleza de Todos Etiopes, p*40

131
THE ERA OF THE MAME IN VASIO N S;

1 5 4 5 -1 6 0 6

most important themes in the history of West Africa.

(i)And, to generaliseeven further^ as J.D. Fage has done with reference to similar occurrencesin Ghana, "this process of the eventual mergence of small groups of stateforming conquerors with tbe more numerous populations of the conquered would
seem to be the key to a great deal of African history”. (2 )

(1 ) J.D. Fage:

Ghana, A Historical Interpretation, p.26 .

(2 ) Jan Vansina, R. Mauny and L.V. Thomas:
pp.90-93.

The Historian in Tropical Africa,A ffTSWiBY ffl? THE! TTPPER GUINEA COAST. 1545-1800

CHAPITER THREE

PORTUGUESE ACTIVITY
1550-1600

>53
PORTUGUESE A C T IV IT Y (1 5 5 0 -1 6 0 0 )Cape Blanco was discovered "by Nuno Tristao in 1441 > Cape Verde was passed
by Diniz Dias in 1444» and the hills of Sierra Leone were sighted from the northby Alvaro Fernandes in 1446.

For a few years there was no progress.

Then, in

1460, Diogo Gomes and Antonio Noli discovered the western islands of the Cape
Verde archipelago. (1 ) After Pedro da Sintra surveyed the Coast of Sierra Leone
in 1462, the outlines of the Upper Guinea Coast were known to the Portuguese.
It was the Cape Verde archipelago, rather than the mainland, which first
provoked direct..action on the part of the Portuguese crown.

After the death ofPrince Henry in I46O, the five islands of Santiago, Fogo, Maio, Sal and Boavista
passed to his cousin, Ferdinand of Braganza by a royal decree of December I46O.
By a similar decree of September 1 4 6 2 , the remaining seven islands of Brava, Sao
Nicolhao, Sao Vicente,Rasa, Blanca, Santa Luiza and Santa Antao also passed

into the possession of the same prince. (2 )PrinGe Ferdinand!s widow and his son

Diogo, held the islands until 1484 > after which possession reverted to thePortuguese crown. (3 )(1)

The claim has been put forward that it was Cadamosta who
discovered the Cape Verde Islands, but this finds little
support.

See The Voyages of Cadamosta. Hakluyt Society,

2nd Series, No. LXXX (ed. G.R. Crone) pp.xlv & 159*
(2 )A. Texeira da Mota:

Cinco Seculos de Cartografia das Ilhas

de Cabo Verde (Lisboa 196l) p*l(3)

Joao Barreto:

Historia da Guine'! (Lisboa 1938) pp«63> 64 .

D. Manuel I held the islands for several years before heactually became kirg in 1 4 9 5 *PORTUGUESE ACTIVITY

Colonisation and settlement were not dominant motives in the earlyphases of the Portuguese quest in Africa, hut it is noteworthy that where islands
offeredconvenient intermediary points for trade
did pursue a policy of colonisation.

with the coast, the Portuguese

This was true of the Cape Verde islands

as it was of S&o Thome and other islands in the Bight of Benin.

PrinceFerdinand divided Santiago, the largest of the Cape V erde islands, into two
captaincies, one of which was bestowed on the discoverer, Antonio Noli, while
the other was granted to Diogo Afonso, Auditor of the Exchequer of Madeira.
Noli it was who, with the help pf Prince Ferdinand, set up the first European
settlement, and Diogo Afonso soon followed suit.

The experience gained in thesettlement of Madeira was put to good use, and the Santiago colony grewquickly, (l)By the early sixteenth century all the Cape Verde islands had been
settled, and all but Sal, Santa Luiza and Sao Vincente had churches, thepresence of a church being presumably a sign that the population was bothsizeable and permanent. (2)However, apart from Santiago, only Fogo and Maio

had their own administrative machinery, and this provides a better index(1)

Joao Barreto:

Historia da Cruine\ p.67 *Madeira served as thepattern for the Cape Verde settlements in many respects.
Antonio Brasios

See

Monumenta Missionaria Africanaa Africa Occidental(1500-1569). 2nd series, Vol. II - No. 115, Royal, grant of several
Cape Verde islands to D. Joao Pereira, 22 Oct 1545* p#381»(2 )Antonio Brasio:

2nd series, Vol. II - No. 28, Manueline

legislation on trade, 28 June 1514* P*®9*

PORTUGUESE A C T IV IT Y

than the church to the relative importance of the various islands, (l)Pogo

was second in importance to Santiago, and was the principal centre of cotton
cultivation*

The orchilla. , which grew wild, and the indigo, which wasplanted, provided the remaining raw materials for a cotton manufacturing ■industry in the sixteenth century*

The cotton industry and livestock breeding

were the principal occupation of the Cape V erde community.

Apart from thecattle, horses, donkeys, mules and pigs which were reared, there were a
considerable number of wild cattle and goats in several of the islands. (2 )These were hunted and their hides exported.

Sal, as the name implies, had

valuable deposits of salt, and was thus a boon to the preservation of thehides, as well as being a popular port of call for passing ships.
The agricultural and trading activities of the Cape Verde islands weremade possible by the transportation of Africans from the neighbouring mainland
to provide slave labour.

In 1582, the combined population of Fogo andSantiago was given as 1,608 whites, 400 freed slaves and 13,700 slaves. (3)This numerical dominance of the slaves was extended to many other spheresof Capa Verde society, largely because the ties with Africa and African
customs were never broken.
(1)AntonioBrasio:

2nd series, Vol. II - No. 15, Royal revenues from theislands of Santiago,(2 )Antonio

The African slaves provided not only the labour

Fogo and Maio, 23 Oct. 1510, p.41«

Brasio:2nd series, Vol. II - Documents No. 4,6,15, relating to

the years 1504, 1506, 1510.
(3 )Antonio Brasio:

2nd series, Vol. Ill (1570-1600) - No. 42 , Account of theIslands of Cape Verde by Francisco de Andrade, p.99*

13-6
PORTUGUESE ACTIVITY

for the cotton and dye industries, but also the techniques.

The Cape Verdeislands specialised in the manufacture of "country cloths", using the same
small loom that the Africans introduced from the mainland.

A-^ the same time,

the Portuguese provided the organisation for a large-scale industry, andexperimented with new fibres brought from Europe.

a) The nett result was a

cotton industry whose products enjoyed the highest esteem among the peoplesof the Upper Guinea Coast, being preferred to the cloth imported directly from
Europe.
Slavery was the basis of the Cape Verde society in yet another sense*
The Portuguese settlers were not only interested in the import of slaves fortheir own labour force, but they also regarded the re-export of slaves as apriority.

Cloth, dyes, hides and livestock were exported to Europe and the

New World, but the profits from these must have been trifling compared withwhat could be expected from the slave trade. (2)The Cape Verde planters,

therefore, concentrated on selling their own products on the mainland forslaves, and then selling these latter to Efurope and the Americas.
As early as June 1466, the Cape Verde settlers received their firstcharter from the Portuguese crown;

allowing them to have a judiciary andrevenue department, giving them absolute rights over the Africans, and granting
them axclusive licence to trade on the adjacent mainland.

The Cape Verdesphere of influence on the coast extended officially between the Senegal,(where the commercial zone of Arguin came to an end), and Cape Mount, (where(1)

See below, Ch. VII, p. 3

(2)

See below, Ch. VII, p. 4-3 4-

137
PORTUGUESE A C T IV IT Y

the monopoly of P e m a o Gomez took effect)* (l)However, in the second halfof the sixteenth century, the Senegambia was a very marginal portion of theCape Verde monopoly*

It remained very popular with individual Portuguese

and Cape Verdeans, but competition from the French, Dutch and English had
reduced the Portuguese nationals to the status of agents for rival European
powers•In reality, therefore, the area which was effectively the preserve of theCape Verde traders in the second half of the sixteenth century lay between theGambia and Cape Mount - that is to say, the region which is considered here as
the Upper Guinea Coast. (2 )The gortuguese very often termed it "the Guinea

of Cape Verde", and with justification.

To begin with, Santiago held thereins of administration for the Cape Verde archipelago as well as for theUpper Guinea Coast.

At least this was so from 1550 onwards, after theappointment of Jorge Pimentel as captain major of Ribeira Grande, Santiago. (3 )During the first half of the century policy had vacillated between the(1)

The text of the charter is to be found in J.W. Blake:

Europeans in West

Africa. Hakluyt Society, 2nd series, No. LXXXVI, pp.64-67(2) For J.W. Blake, the term "Upper Guinea" embraces the Senegambia, but he3tates that "after the middle of the sixteenth century, the Portuguese wereforced to abandon the greater part of their trade with Senegambia, owing
to competition and strife with English interlopers, and they then began
to concentrate upon the development of the trade of the region south of(3)

the Gambia".

(Europeans in West Africa, p.37, Vol. i)

Joao Barreto:

Historia da Guine, p.77

1V2
PORTUGUESE ACTIVITY
alternatives of direct royal administration and thefarming of the revenues.

In 1550, the compromise was reached whereby a royal factor was permanently
resident in Santiago, while the commerce of Cape Verde - Guinea was leased
under contract,(l) In religious matters, too, the Senegambia did not lie

under the jurisdiction of Santiago since the diocese of Cape Verde - Guinea
created by Pope Clement VII in 1533, extended between the Gambia and Cape
Palmas. (2)But, quite apart from playing a key role in secular andecclesiastical arrangements which the Portuguese crown made for the Upper
Guinea Coast, the Cape Verde islands were important to the mainland in that
their population provided the majority of settlers of European extraction who
were to be found on the Upper Guinea Coast.
Consistent with the Portuguese partiality towards islands, theBijagos were seriously viewed as possible sites forPortuguese colonisation.

In 1532, king Joao III gave the Bijagos islands (then known as the islands ofBuam) to his brother Luis, to be held during the latter1s lifetime. (3 )Twoyears later, an attempt was made to encourage settlement by giving them thesame privileges as the Cape V erdeans. (4 )most of the islands were peopled.

There was, however, one difficulty:

In the original grant, it was stated that

(1) Georges Schelle: La Traite Negriere aux Indes de Castille Vol. I (Paris 190$
(2 ) Antonio Brasio:

2nd series, Vol. II - No. 80, Erection of the Diocese ofCape V erde, 31 Jan, 1533, p .246
(3 ) Ibid: No. 72, Royal letter to the Prince D. Luis, 27 March 1532, p.226(4 ) Ibid: No. 84 , Settlement of the islands of Buao, 5 Sept 1534, P*263

IV?
PORTUGUESE A C T IV IT Y

war could "be waged against the indigenous population if they proved intransigent,and they could then he sold as slaves*

D. Luis sent a force under Gomes

Baleiro of Santiago to attack Ilha Roxo, the largest and most attractive of
the Bijagos islands.

The expedition was a dismal failure, very few of its

msmbers surviving*

The result of this was that for several years the Bijagos

refused to trade with the Portuguese, and dealt harshly with any Portuguese
vessels which were shipwrecked on the dangerous dioals of that section of thecoast* (l)Some time later, trade with the Bijagos was resumed - possibly

before 1550, when D. Luis succeeded in disposing of his grant of the Bijagos
islands for a sum of 15,000 cruzados. (2)While settlements on all offshore islands was encouraged by thePortuguese, stringent measures were adopted in attempts to prevent any whites
from settling on the mainland.

The bogey of the Portuguese authorities was

the lane ado or tangomao, terms used to describe the private trader on the coast#
The former takes its origin from lancar, "to throw1*, and refers to the fact
taat these white residents had **thrown themselves" among the Africans. (5)(1)

Alvares de Almadas "Tratado Breve

dos Rios de Guine", p*319*(2)

Antonio Brasio:

II - No. 72 Royal letter to Prince D#

2nd Series, Vol.

Luis, 27 March 1532 (Rubric addedby Damiao de Goes, guardianof theTorre

do Tombo) p.229
Cruzado - writing in 1918, Dames gave the value of the Portuguese cruzado
in 1510 as nearly ten shillings in the English currency of his day.

A

century later its value had more than halved. See M.L. Dames: The Book of
Duarte Ba.rbnsa.r Hakluyt Society, No.1918. Cited in B. Davidson: Black
Mother, p.135(3)Antonio Brasio: 2nd series, Vol. II - No. 28,
trade, 28 June 1514, P*89*

Manueline legislation on

iq-o
PORTUGUESE A C T IV IT Y

A tangomao was defined as a white trader who had gone to the extreme of adopting
the local religion and customs, and who had his body covered with tribal
tattoos, (l)A^ other times it seems that the term was applied only to theAfrican-born auxiliaries of the white lancados. (2 )It is very likely, there­

fore, that there was in the lingua franca of the Upper Guinea Coast some slight
distinction between a lan^ado and a tangomao, based probably on the closer
attachment of the tangomao to the Africans, either by birth or by choice. (3 )But the Portuguese administration regarded them both in the same light:

theywere private traders who resided in Guinea against repeated prohibitions,providing a ready means whereby the attempted Portuguese monopoly of trade
could be evaded.
Illustrating the spirit of the times, the Portuguese, on the discoveryof the African coast, asserted the right to a monopoly of vhatever benefits werein store.

Quite apart from the defence of these claims to monopoly at aninternational level, the Portuguese crown found it necessary to enact a massof codes, regulations and statutes applicable to its own citizens;and thelane ado, by his presence and his trading activities on the Upper Guinea Coast,
contravened many of these.

The 1514 Manueline codification of legislation(1) Fem a o Guerreiro: "Relacao Anual. Vol. I, p.400(2 ) Alvares de Almada: "Rios de Guine", p.326 andJohn Ogilby:

Africa, p.366(3) Tangomao may possibly be derived from a certain category of priests in
Sierra Leone, known as tangomas.
Occidentale d fAfrique, p.102

See Valentim Fernandes:

La

Cote

/41
PaRTOGTJESE ACTIVITY
relating to the trade of West Africa revealed the main points of Portuguese
policy.

To begin with,royal licence.

it was a capital offence to go to Guinea without a

Secondly, it was

illegal to send or carry ^ny trade goods toGuinea, unless one was a licensed trader. Thirdly,

except in .an emergency, no

ship which was bound for a given port was allowed to touch at any other pointon the coast.

When a ship did lend at an authorised port, it was the captain1s

responsibility to see that the crew returned on board.

His failure to do so

could lead to severe financial penalties and exile to Ceuta.

Finally, it was

specifically stipulated that nno person, irrespective of rank or station, ,should throw himself with the Negroes, nor, under any circumstances, remain
with the said Negroes, on pain of death, (l)This legislation clearly implied that apart from those ships whichwere trading illegally, the licensed vessels also accounted for numbers of
the private traders who were to be found in West Africa.

The Upper Guinea

Coast was the area where the problem of the renegade private traders was mostin evidence.

In January 1508 a decree was issued against the lan^ados ofSierra Leone.

This ordered the sequestration of the goods of all suchindividuals, and the donation of the proceeds to the All Saints' Hospital in
Lisbon(2) That Sierra Leone should have been singled out for mention issignificant.
(1)

The Upper Guinea Coast was an area better suited for small-

Antonio Brasio: 2nd series, Yol. II - No. 28, Manueline legislation on
trade, 28 June 1514# P«89

(2 )Sousa Viterbo: M0s Portugueses e o Gentio", in 0 Instituto, Vol. 43#
No. 3 (Coimbra 1896)

7^2.
PORTUGUESE A C T IV IT Y

scale rather than large-scale trading, and this was particularly the case with
Sierra Leone.

The area between Cape Verde and the bays of St. Ann was

regarded as the ideal resort of*K the 1anyado. and, in the early sixteenth
century, poor men went nowhere else but there.

"Sierra Leone was the refugeand shelter of many, and the haven of those who had arrived as nobody and cameout as men." (l)Towards the end of tie second decade of the sixteenth century, themeasures against the 1 any ado grew more harsh and determined than ever.

By adecree of the l6th December 1517# various restrictions were imposed on the
trading rights of the Cape Verdeans, prohibiting them from conducting* trade in
the ports of Sierra Leone, forbidding them to purchase more slaves than wereindispensable for the conduct of agriculture in the islands, and limiting
their possibilities of trade solely to goods produced in the Cape Verdeislands. (2)Very shortly afterwards on the 18th January 1518# Cape Verde

trade with the Upper Guinea Coast was completely outlawed.

All who contin­

ued trading to the mainland were liable to imprisonment, and thelos3 of their goods and vessels. (3)(1)

Alvares de Almada:"Rios de Guine", pp.355#356(2 )Antonio Brasio; 2nd series, Vol. II - No. 45 - Instructions to the chiefmagistrate of Santiago, 16 Dec 1517# P«159»
Also cited in J.W. Blake Europeans in West Africa. Vol. I, p.124(3 )Antonio Brasio:

2nd series, Vol. II - No. 45# 46, Royal edicts on the

trades of Guinea in 1518» pp.l44”148»

/43>
PORTUGUESE A C T IV IT Y

The reason for these restrictions on the livelihood of the Cape
Verdeans was vaguely given as "the harm that the residents of Cape Verde haveinflicted upon the trades of Guinea", but the ferocity of these measures isonly explicable in terms of the problem of the lane ado.

This legislation

represents an attack on the Cape Verde islands as the place where lanyados
were principally recruited.

If CaP© V0rde ships no longer went to Sierra

Leone or to the rest of the Upper Guinea Coast, then the physical opportunities
for private traders lancing themselves on to the mainland would be considerably
reduced.

D. Manuel also had further threats in store for those lancados
1----

who were already on the coast in large numbers.

On the 15th March 1518# hecommissioned Bemadim Gomes to sail to Guinea and superintend the removalof the 1any ados.

Those who returned to Europe would be pardoned, although halfof their goods would be confiscated, and each would be made to contribute ten
cruzados to the All Saints* Hospital in Lisbon.

Those who refused to embark

for Europe should be executed by the local kings.

Gomes was instructed tooffer the African rulers the goods of the lanyados and whatever gifts werenecessary to assure their complicity in this matter, (l)None of the above moves were successful.

To all intents and♦purposes, the Cape Verdeans continued to trade freely on the mainland, and thenumbers of lanyados continued to increase.

This is clearly inferred in theletter of appointment of Afonso Lopes de Avila to the post of factor ofSantiago in 1520.
(l)Antonio Brasio*

He was cautioned not to allow metropolitan Portuguese to
2nd series, Vol. II -No. 4 6 , Edict on the trade of Guinea, 1? March 1518, p.147

>44
PORTUGUESE A C T IV IT Y

proceed to the mainland along with the Cape V erde residents;

while to stop

the latter from taking up permanent residence in Guinea, it was proposed that
all who left Santiago for the coast should deposit security*

Captains were todeposit two hundred cruzados, pilots one hundred and fifty cruzados, andordinary seamen one hundred cruzados, (l)That the punitive measures against the lancados should have assumed
a less ferocious aspect by 1520 must have been due largely to their proveninefficacy.

At the same time, the idea of settlers on the Upper Guinea

Coast gradually became a matter of sympathetic concern to the Portuguese
authorities during the course of the sixteenth century.

R eligious

considerations caused the lanyados to be viewed in a more favourable light.
The diocese of Santiago was responsible f or sending a 'Visitor* periodicallyto the mainland to see to the spiritual welfare of the Portuguese, but whensuch a priest did arrive, he invariably engrossed in trading ventures,
according to Jesuit report. (2)Three missionaries of the order of the

Discalced Carmelites visited the Geba area around 1584# and the need for a
substantial mission was emphasised. (3 )In 1598, a priest was appointed toserve Cacheu, and the king of Spain and Portugal urged the establishment of a
Jesuit mission, "both for the doctrine and salvation of the Portuguese, his( 1 ) A. n r a s i o i 2nd s e r i e s , Vo l. I I - n o . 52, I n s t r u c t i o n s to the t ra d e
f a c t o r o f S a n t i a g o , Afonso Lopes de A v i l a , 13 Jan 1520, p . 159(2) A..R.S.I. - Lusitania 83, fl. 316 , Report from the Jesuit mission in
Santiago, 30 May 1627#%(3 )Alvares de Almada:"Rios de Guine", p.330.

J4 S'PORTUGUESE A C T IV IT Y

subjects, who dwell in those parts, as well for the conversion of the pagan
inhabitants", (l)More important, was the realisation by the authorities that somesettlers on the coast were necessary to facilitate the Cape Verde trade.

In

1535, mention was made in official correspondence, of the "factory of Sao
Domingos" on the Cacheu river, and though there was no royal factor appointed,
it had already assumed a semi-official status. (2 )The port of Guinala on the

Ria Grande de Buba was similarly referred to in 1558* (3)By November 1605,

the settlement of Cacheu was granted a municipal charter by the crown.

Forsome reason, this was not accepted, but the offer itself is clear evidence ofroyal approval for settlement on the coast. (4 )Indeed, during the wholeof

the second half of the sixteenth century, there was no hostile legislation
aimed at the lanyados.
(1) F e m a o Guierreiro*

Relayao Anual. Vol. I, p.399 (This was based on adecision of the Mesa da Consciencia, made on the 27th April 1596;
to say, by the spiritual council of the monarch.

that isSee A. Brasio: Vol. II,

9 .385.)(2 )Antonio Brasio*

2nd seriesi Vol. II - No. 89 - Certificate from the Casade Mina to the superintendent of cotton on the island of Fogo, 10 Sept.
1535, P.275.
(3)Antonio Brasio: 2nd series, Vol. II - No. 143, Voyage from Santiago to
Guinea (report by the royal treasurer in Santiago), 19 May 1558, p.4^7*(4)

A.H.U.. Guine, caixa I - No. 74, copy of municipal charter granted to
Cacheu on 15 Nov. 1605.
Texeira:(For a discussion of this issue, see C. &a Silva"Companhia de Cacheu, Rios e Comercio da Guine (documentos paraa sua historia)", in Boletim do Arquivo Historico Colonial Vol. I, p «88(Lisboa 1950).)

14 ^PORTUGUESE ACTIVITY
On. the Upper Guinea Coast during the sixteenth century the power ofthe European nation state was hardly f&lt.
living in the region was appreciable.
there were no resident Europeans;

Yet the number of Portuguese

On the Malaguetta Coast, in contrast,

while on the Gold Coast, Europeans seldom

ventured far outside the walls of their forts.

The Upper Guinea Coast andthe Senegambia were unique in that the Africans there had living amongst themin their villages throughout the region numbers of European newcomers withwhom they had to work out basic day to day relationships, (l)To appreciate

the nature of Afro-European contacts on this section of the coast, one must
piay careful attention to the status and role of the 1any ado within the local
societies, from the time of hisarrival until, his departure or death. (2 )Indeed, it is worthwhile to ascertain his social identity before his arrivalin Africa.
The social selection of the lanyados obviously depended in largepart on the social character of the Cape Verde settlers.

Surprisingly

little seems to have been recorded on the early colonisation of the Cape Verde(1)

Within and around the forts on the Gold Coast, close working relations
existed between the Africans and the Europeans, but these were of a type
different from that on the Upper Guinea Coast where the Europeans weredispersed.

(2 )The fact that the 1anyado role was of central importance has been
acknowledged before.

See, for example, J.W. Blake: Europeans in West

Africa, Vol. I, pp. 28,39 and A. Texeira da Mota: Contactos Culturais
Luso-Africanos na "Guine do Cabo Verde". (Lisboa 1951)

'
4
7
PORTUGUESE ACTIVITY
islands.

Apparently, apart from Portuguese from the metropolis and from

Madeira, some Spanish and Genoese were involved, (l)Among the colonists wereseveral individuals who were relatively high up on the Portuguese social
scale, and several plantation and slave owners of wealth. (2 )It has been

said that of Santiago that "white society on the island was feudal, aristo­
cratic and, sometimes corrupt". (3 )However, the vast majority were poor

members of the Portuguese community, and the lanyados were mainly drawn fromthe impoverished section.
In the seventeenth century, after the settlements on the mainland
gained official sponsorship, it was the usual practice to augment theperpetually inadequate white population by sending miscreants whose offenceswere punishable by exile.

This element must have been present in the CaP©

Verde islands and on the Upper Guinea Coast from the earliest days.

CaptainGeorge Fenner reported in 1566 that the Cape V erde population comprised mainly
those who had been sentenced to exile for a period of years. (4 )In 1591,

Richard Rainolds claimed that the majority of the lanyados of the Gambia andelsewhere were banished men or fugitives who had committed "most heinous(1)

J.W. Blake: Europeans in West Africa, Vol. I, p.27

(2 )Antonio Brasio: 2nd series, Vol. II - No. 19, Petitionfrom

the peopleof the island of Santiago to the king of Portugal, 24Oct 1512.

(They averthat the population contained "squires, knights and even nobles".)(3 )J.W. Blake:(4 )Richard Hakluyt:

Europeans in West Africa. Vol. I, p.27
Voyages, Vol. Ill, p.60

/4%
PORTUGUESE ACTIVITY

crimes and incestuous acts", (l)This was a gross overstatement.

Onoccasions in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuriew, when the crimes of thedegredados or exiles to Guinea were placed on record, they included theoffence of having marked playing cards;
offenders. (2)while the majority were civil

Gensally speaking the lanyados were mord likely to have been

victims of social oppression in Portugal than vicious men.
A significant proportion of the lanyados were victims of anotherkind of oppression - anti-Semitism.

Large numbers of whites in the Cape

Verde islands and on the coast were either gente de nayao or christaos novos.
that is to say, either Jews or forcible apostates to Christianity.

A reportof 1544 refers to a multitude of christaos novos being present in the Cape Verdeislands. (3 )At the beginning of the seventeenth century, the traffic of

Portuguese Jews to Cape Verde and the Upper Guinea Coast seems to haveincreased, many of them arriving via Flanders. (4 )(1)Richard Hakluyt:

Voyages. Vol. Ill, p. 192(2 )A.H.U., Guine', caixa I - No. 35, Minute of the Conselho, 5 Sept. 1644*(some serious crimes are mentioned here, including murder.)Guine, maco II - Memorandum of the Conselho Ultramarino, 1765*(3)

Antonio Brasio:

2nd series, Vol. II - No. 112, Letter from the captainof Santiago to the king, 30 Oct 1544, P«372.
(4 )Bib, de Aiuda - Ms. 51-VIII-25 , fl*97> copy of a letter to the king on thefort of Cacheu, unsigned and undated, but written by Sebastiao Casao
around I6O 7 .

PORTUGUESE A C T IV IT Y

That some of the Jews used the opportunity to practice theirreligion can he seen from the fact that in the seventeenth century there weresynagogues in Ale and other ports of the Senegambia, (l) while, as late as
September 1672, the long arm of the Inquisition reached out and seized a few
persons in Santiago for taking part in Jewish rites. (2)But, as was thecase with the Christians, the religion of the Jews was not generally inevidence.

It was their physical presence as Europeans and traders thatmattered.
The Lancpado of the sixteenth century was almost invariably a
Portuguese, but he is best regarded as a phenomenon - the private European
trader, living among Airican tribesmen nationality,

and as such he could be ofany

Barreira found a Greek and an

Indian in SierraLeone5(5 ) in

1686, Be la Courbe found a Spaniard from Cuba wielding' great influence at
Hareges; (4 )in the 1750*8, a Genoese was the most prominent laneado on theriver Geba. (5)Besides, there were Dutch, French and large numbers ofEnglish traders who fell into this category.

However, the English arrived

in appreciable numbers only during the seventeenth century, and in fact up to(1)

Lemos Coelhoi Duas Describes. p.7,

and A.H.U. t Guine, caixa I - Ho. 27,

25 Dec. I64I, Joao Corte Real(2 ) A.S.V. - Nunziature Portogallo, Vol. 27, f1.174, 9th Sept. 1672

(5) Ferriao Guerreiro: Rpla<pao Anual* Vol. II, p.202, Vol. Ill, p.252(4) P. Cultrus Premier Voyage de Sieur de la Courbe. p.207(5) A.H.U... Guine, maco V - Memorandum of the Conselho Ultramarino,
6 April 1755.

cerca

?^re>PORTUGUESE A C T IV IT Y

the middle of that century, it is the Portuguese lanc^ado upon whom attention
must be focussed.
Allied to the lan^ado was the grumete, another Portuguese term bestleft untranslated.

Originally, it meant a sailor*s slave, but it was applied

to a large category of African helpers of European traders.
purchased as slaves,some were paid what amounted

virtually affinal relatives of the whitetraders,

Some wereto a wage, and others were(l)

The grumetes wereat

all times a significant part of the resident trading community led by thelancados. (2)Of course, the phenomenon of the lan^ado could only have arisen after
a certain minimum ofcontact between the Africans

and the Portuguese hadledto the establishmentof trust as a basis for trading relations.

In the Sene-

gambia and on the Upper Guinea Coast, this occurred at an early date, since,
when Cadamost* sailed in 1456, organised trading had already taken the placeof the earlier manhunts of Nunez Tristao, and it was on account of thisevidence of the possibilities of peaceful commerce that Pernao Goeses wasgiven his grant in 1469* (5)The main business of the lancados w as slaving.

This will betreated in detail later, but it can be briefly considered here in so far as
it helps to establish a typology of Apro-Portuguese and Afro-European relations*(1 )See below, Ch. VIII, p. 4.^4.

(2 )English traders retained the word in a slightly distorted form, namely,
grommeto.

(3)

Joao de Barross

Asia. Primeira Decada, p#65

»S"I
PORTUGUESE A C T IV IT Y

Basil D avidson writes that “the general run of the Atlantic trade can bel a i d
to fall into three stages, of which the third was the most important.

These

were slaving by piracy, by warlike alliance, and by more or less peacefulpartnership.” (l)In the first of his stages, he recognises the very briefphase of direct attacks by the Portuguese on the Africans in the mid-fifteenth
century. (2 )He then cites the activities of John Hawkins as typical of thesecond stage.

But, what Hawkins represents is not so much a new anddefinitive stage but an abenation and an anachronism.

His methods were typicalof the first phase which the Portuguese had long left behind.

He made direct

attacks on unsuspecting villagers on the Upper Guinea Coast and, he seizedslaves whom the Portuguese merchants had purchased through “peaceful partner­
ship”.

Only on his third trip when he found that the Africans were preparedand that violence on his own initiative was not paying dividends, did he enter
into an alliance with local kings (Manes) who were waging war. (3)This does not detract from the substance of Davidsonfs thesis
concerning the partnership which marked the Afro-European trade.

The

qualification is simply that the all important stage of “more or less peacefulpartnership” followed directly after the initial suspicion and hostility of
the fifteenth century had declined.

The Mane warfare was coincidental, andin the absence of those wars, Hawkins, like other European captains after him,
would have had to do business with the African ruling class through the inter(1)B. Davidsons Black Mother (London 1961) P*88

(2)

Ibids p.54

(3 )See above, Ch. II, p*/o</-PORTUGUESE A C T IV IT Y

mediary of the lancados;

as Captain Fenton found in 1582, (l) and as Sieurde la Blanc testified for the more northerly section of the Upper Guinea
Coast on the basis of observations made around 1592. (2 )' To understand the nature of the trade on the Upper Guinea Coast andthe role of the lan<pado it is essential to appreciate the effect of topography
and physical conditions as a limiting factor on European activity.

On theUpper Guinea Coast, there were very few ports of call for sea-going ships.
The river Sierra Leone had the best harbour, capable of berthing the largest
vessels of the day.

This fact, together with the availability of fresh

water and citrus fruit made it the favourite port of call for ships bound forthe southern Guinea Coast or for India.

The limited nature of the port

facilities can be gauged from the fact that in 1641* the master of a 400 ton
vessel refused to risk taking it into the port of Cacheu, at that time thebusiest on the Upper Guinea Coast# (3)Fortunately, the sea-going vessels

calling at the Sierra Leone estuary, at the island of Bissau and at Cacheu
were themselves tiny, ranging from 100 to 250 tons.

Commerce on the Upper

Guinea Coast settled down into a pattern dominated by the lanyados.

Theirjob was to scour the rivers and the creeks in small boats and make theproduce available in the seaside ports.
(1 )E.R. Taylor (ed):The Troublesome Voyage of Captain Edward Fenton,

1582-83. Hakluyt Society, 2nd series, No. CXIII.
(2)

Vincent le Blanc:

Les Voyages F^meux de Sieur Vincent -le Blanc(Paris I648), Part III, “Voyage de Guinee,f#(3)

A.H.U., Guine, caixa I - No. 24> Memorandum of the Conselho Ultramarino,
Oct. I64I.

li'b

F0RTPGTJES3 ACTIVITY
Like the Africans, the lanyados found that transport was almost
entirely dependent on the riverain character of the region.
problem was to obtain the necessary small craft.

Their first

The canoe came to play animportant role within the framework of the trade generated by the arrival of
the Europeans.

On the Gambia, the Mandinga almadias could transport upwardsof ten tons of trade goods, (l)For the 1anyado. though, the canoe was not the

principal means of transport.

Whenever boats could be bought from European

ships the lancados availed themselves of the opportunity.

For example,

Captain Fenton was offered 600 bushels of rice and 400 pounds of ivory by
Portuguese lancados in Sierra Leone as the price of a small three-masted
vessel, (2 )In 1622, the governor of Cape Verde reported that the 1anyados

were primarily interested in purchasing iron and launches from the French. (3 )But, in the main, it was the self-reliance of the 1any ado which allowed him
to achieve mobility on the waterways.
The 1any ados built most of their boats themselves.
building materials were at hand.

All theIn Sierra Leone, there was a plant whichyielded an-excellent fibre for caulking, while hawsers and ropes were also
made from it. (4 )The cabopa tree yielded planks which were resistant to(1)

P. Cultrus Premier Voyage de Sieur de la Courbe. p»193(2 )E.R. Taylor:(3)

Sena Barcelos:

Voyage of Captain Edward Fpnton.
Subsidios para a Historia de Cabo Verde e Guine, Ch. VII(1622-40) p.221.
(4 )Fernao Guerreiro:

Relayao Anual. Letter of Andre to the king, Sierra

Leone 1606, Vol. II, p. 211.

PORTUGUESE A C T IV IT Y

worms;and only the masts of the ships were said by De la Courbe to havepresented difficulty, (l)though, much earlier, Andre Domelas had pointed tothe tall straight trunk of the cabopa for this purpose also. (2 )Domelashad obtained the timber for his coastal vessel from Balola in Beafada
territory, while Coelho resorted to the island of Bulama for his. (3 )When

Cacheu was at the height of its prosperity in the early part of the seventeenth
century, a sizeable proportion of its inhabitants seem to have been boatbuilders. (4 )At Cacheu and elsewhere, these boatbuilders were mainly

grumetes who had been trained to do such jobs.
The inventiveness of the lanyados. and their consequent mobility,
contrasts with the dependence which theservants of the Royal African Company
showed on London, and their consequent incapacity.

Numerous letters were

despatched to the Company1s directors by the agents in the Sierra Leone andSherbro rivers, emphasising the necessity for sloops and launches.

Boats andnaval stores were always slow in forthcoming, and to make matters worse, thelocal agents were carsLess with respect to Company property. (5 )On the other hand, those private English traders who followed thePortuguese in Sierra Leone in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were
just as adaptable as their Portuguese forerunners, andthey were actually in(1) P. Cultru: Premier Voyage de Sieur de la Courbe.p#227(2 ) Andre Domelas:"Relayao sobre a Serra Leoa"(3) Lemos Coelho:

Duas Descriyoes. p.51

(4 ) Manuel Alvares:“Ethiopia Menor”(5) See below, Ch. VI, p.

ikT
PORTUGUESE A C T IV IT Y

a position to hire their boats to the Royal African Company, (l)In thelatter part of the eighteenth century, when these English private traders
were slaving intensively in the Rivers of Guinea, they set up impressive
facilities for building and careening boatsj (2 ) demonstrating once more thatwater transport was an absolute priority on the Upper Guinea Coast.
River travel was not easy.

The Geba channel was formerly called

the Rio Grande because of the width of its estuary, but, within this, there
were several islands, sandbanks, mudbanks and the occasional rock, between
which the current flowed swiftly. (3 )European ships usually had a choice

between three or four alternative entrances to the same river, but each wasequally dangerous.

New dangers were encountered in the channels themselves.

Allowance had to be made for the volume of the water which varied daily withthe tide, and seasonally with the rainfall, so that what might have been a
considerable river under optimum conditions, at other times either shrunk to atrickle or disappeared entirely. (4 )In addition, some of the channels were

continually shifting.

example of thiswas theAnimportantwhich it was impossible to give

anydefinite

Casamance, aboutnavigational instructions, since(1 )See below, Ch. VI,(2)

See below, Ch. X,(3 )Pacheco Pereiras(4 )Carrington da Costa: Fisiografia e Geologia da Provincia da Guine,(Porto 1946) p.33.

p.

Egmeraldo de Situ Orbis. p*70«

The highest water levels are between August andDecember, and the lowest between May and June*

—

—

■

"I

15“4
PORTUGUESE ACTIVITY
the channel was so unstable* (l)The navigation of the rivers was dependent upon the tihs, above all
else. (2 )In the parlance of the coast, expressions such as ”on the nexttide” and “a tide’s distance away11 became very common.

The ebb and flow of

the water in each particular river was carefully noted.

On the Geba, the up-tide consisted of three powerful waves, each of which could have filled aboat.

One surge came each hour, and, after these, the tide ebbed for nine

hours. (3 )On some rivers the current was so powerful that it gave rise to amacareu or water-spout, which was another hazard. (4 )The rivers determined not only the pattern of movement, but also
the pattern of settlement on the Upper Guinea Coast*

At almost every estuary

a trading nucleus was tobe found, sometimes in direct contact with Cape Verdeand the world outside, and, at other times, serving as intermediary clearing
houses for Cacheu, Bissau and Guinala.

A trade centre, equal to the one

at theestuary was to be found at the furthest navigable point on each river, thesewere used to tapethe produce of the sertao of hinterland.
For this pattern to emerge, the laneados usually chose the most(1)

Pacheco Pereira:E^meraldo de Situ Orbis. p*70

(2 )For example, Mungo Park, travelling on the G ambia at the end of theeighteenth century, explained that his boat had to anchor wherever thetide failed.

(Travels into the Interior Districts of Africa. p*6)

(3)

Alonso de Sanderval:(4 )Alvares de Almada:Natureleza de Todos Etiopes. p.39
"Rios de Guine11, p.345*

IS 7
PORTUGUESE A C T IV IT Y

convenient African village in which to settle.
settlements.

Sometimes, they pioneered

On the upper Cacheu, for example, the lan^ados had a villageof their own, which the Mandingas called Tubabodaga, nthe whiteman*s village”,(l) This was usually referred to as Farim, because it was in the territory of
the Farim Brayo.

The presence of the lan^ados enhanced the importance of asite or village, and attracted Africans to live there.

In 1594> there was aport on an estuary of the Pongo, which had a population of 5>000 Africans,probably all Bagas.

It had its origins in the efforts of a Sao Thome family,

which had established itself there two or three generations earlier. (2 ) After
1591> the Papels resorted to the fort of Cacheu, and, during the course of theseventeenth century, they had overflowed the walls and were to be founddwelling outside the perimeter of the stockade.

In Sierra Leone, the Manes

became quickly aware of the advantages of residing at the waterside invillages already favoured by the lan^ado presence and European commercial
activity.

In 1608, D. Pedro, a recent convert to Catholicism, moved fromhis inland capital!*: and took up residence on an island near the Sierra Leone
estuary.

The move was ostensibly occasioned by the desire to live among

the Christians1, for which one can read "Portuguese traders". (5)In thelate eighteenth century, there was a reversal of this process, because theferocity of the slave trade made proximity to the European factories a very

(1)

Lemos Coelho:

Duas Descriyoes, p.56

(2)

Alvares de Almada:($)

Fernao Guerreiro:"Rios de Guine", p.546.
Rplapao Anual. Yol. Ill, p.253*

/s~S
PORTUGUESE A C T IV IT IE S

perilous matt r. (l)But, in the sixteenth century and for much longer, theEuropean ships and lanyados acted as magnets in drawing

he African populationof the Upper Guinea Coast even closer to the waterways and especially to theestuarie3.
The above process was essentially one involving local population
movements, and is not to be confused with the migration of peoples from theinterior to the coast.

The Susu and Pula descent to the coasts was largely

motivated by the desire to make contacts with the Europeans on the waterside,
but these occurred during the late seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries.

Before that time, it was the Portuguese who took the initiativein probing inland.

The Portuguese were first drawn to the Mande people intheir determination to tap the reported wealth of the Western Sudan.
Some time in the 1480fs or 1490*s a three-man delegation journeyed via theGambia to the city Mali, where they spoke to the Mandimansa.

In 1534> a

Portuguese ambassador was again despatched along the Gambia to Mali. (2 )Several official Portuguese attempts to reach the Western Sudan werealso made using the Senegal river. (5 )place in 1565 >The last of these apparently took

only record of it is a letter to the king of Portugal

from Diogo Carreiro, reporting his arrival in the Senegal, and his resolution(1)

See below, Ch. VIIJ;p. Z/-7?

(2 )Joao de Barros;(5)

Ibid: p.116.

Asia. Primeira Decada, pp.115,116.

\Z°l
PORTUGUESE A C T IY IT I

to make his way to Timbuctu. (l)But Before and after this date there musthave been several unofficial and unrecorded journeys made into the deep
hinterland of the Upper Guinea Coast, since both De Almada and Dornelas mademention of lan^ados who were familiar with the Mandimansa and the Pula kingof Futa Toro, (2 ) while, further south, the lan^ados had penetrated into Susu
territory, and, at the end of the sixteenth century, they were wellestablished in the court of the king of the Bena Susus. (5)The Portuguese did not find the fabulous riches that they had
hoped for, but they quickly came to realise that the Mande peoples offeredprofitable trade in gums, ivory, hides, civet, dyes and slaves, as well as
small amounts of gold;these products.

and the lan^ados were prepared to journey inland for

The points of greatest lanpado penetration inland were very

often in Mande territory.
(1)

Cantor, some 250 miles up the Gambia, was the seat

A. Brasio: 2nd series, Vol. II - No. 158, Letter from Diogo Carreiro to
the king, 29 March 1565? P* 524;
J.W. Blake:

(2 )

and-

Europeans in Vest Africa, p. 54

For example, De Almada mentions Joao F erreira, a Jew, b o m in Crato,
who married a sister of the Fula king.

(’Rios de Guine", pp. 255

254 )
(3 )

F e m a o Guerreiro:

Relacao Anual (Vol. II includes a letter written

to the king of Portugal in 1606 by Andrea Sierra Leone

trader who was familiar with the court of the Susus of Bena on the
Searcies.

Vol. Ill contains the report which Father Barreira made on his

trip to the Bena Susus, mentioning the influence of the lan^ados there.)Ii>D
PORTUGTJBSE A C T IV IT Yof the ----------------------------Farim Cabo, and marked the limit of the lancado settlements j----on thatriver.

The town of Farim, the residence of the Farim Braco. was more than

100 miles up the river Cacheu;

while the important trading centre of Malampana

or Geba, about 70 miles up the Geba river, was also in Mandinga territory.
Concentrations of 1anyados on the Casamance, the Corubal and the Nunez were inareas where the local population were under Mandinga influence:
the Caaangas, the Beafadas and the Cocolis.

namely, among

On rivers such as the Pongo, theKonkoure and the Searcies, the terminal points for European settlement fellwithin Susu country.

Thus it was that when the 1any ados selected or formed

settlements on the middle and upper reaches of therivers, they not only
achieved complete coverage of the littoral peoples, but they effected ameeting point with the Mande, and encouraged the latter to look towards thesea.
De Almada claimed that the Africans on the Upper Guinea Coast did
not have the capacity for handling the despatch of European ships with cargoes
in bulk.

Were it not for the lanyados. he said, only local coastal products

would have been brought to the ships, while the products of the hinterland
remained untapped, (l)This generalisation is not completely tenable, but it

does highlight the principal role of the 1anyados - a role which is very
similar in some respects to that of the pombeiros of Angola;

who made surethat the European ships on the coast were well-provided for, no mattr how far
inland it was necessary to proceed to secure the human and other merchandise. (2 )(1)

Alvares de Almada:(2 )James Duffy:"Rios de Guine", p.252

Portugal in Africa., pp.60f10$

of European descent.)(many of the pombeiros wereI6> IPORTUGUESE A C T IV IT Y

It was to be expected that the arrival of the Europeans would havegiven a new significance to the Atlantic, and would have caused the Africans tolook more towards the coast.

The east-west connections between the river

estuary and its source were thus emphasised.

What was less obvious was thatthe north-south links along the length of the Upper Guinea Coast had also been
considerably reinforced.

Before the arrival of the Europeans, the loose

association which existed among the Sapes gave some semblance of unity to thearea between the Cogon and Cape Mount.

Between the Gambia and the Cogon,

there was also a degree of unity exemplified in the trade between the Banhuns,
Casangas, Baafadas and Balantas.

But the only common bond between the Sapes

and the peoples to the north was provided by the Mande empire.

The Europeans

opened new vistas by linking the coast from the Gambia to Cape Mount by searoutes.

The Cape Verdeans made long journeys directly to the rivers of Sierra

Leone;

1anyados travelled from Cacheu to the river Searcies on the well-established kfcla trade;frequented;(l)the Cahheu-Nunez run for dye-stuffs was equally

and, for a variety of purposes, the lanyados travelled fromestuary to estuary along the coast, helping to transform the rivers of theUpper Guinea Coast into a single entity - "The Rivers of Guinea"*
The 1anyados were not evenly dispersed over the Upper Guinea Coast,
because the idea of trade with the Europeans and the acceptance of theEuropean presence did not find a universal and simultaneous welcome.
some tribes displayed dironic hostility towards the Europeans.
were in this latter category.

Indeed,The Djolas

At the end of the eighteenth century, Mungo(l) For kola and dyes, see below, Ch. V H I

^£3

/62_
PORTUGUESE A C T IV IT Y

Park still considered them "a wild and unsociable race", (l)Balantas.

So too were the

They did not encourage their neighbours to enter Balanta territory;

and they were more adamant and hostile as far as the Europeans were concerned.
The belief was widespread among the Europeans on the coast that the Balantas
killed all white men that they caught. (2)The Bijago islgnders also had areputation for ferocity, and the unsuccessful attack on Ilha Roxa in 1550 did
not help Portuguese-Bijago relations.

When diffeiences of opinion with thePortuguese traders arose in the seventeenth century, the Papels of Bissau
often had recourse to this sarcastic barb - "If you do not like it here, thenperhaps the Balantas or the Bijagos would be more to your liking." (5)It isto be noted that these three groups, who were slowest to forge relations with
the Europeans were the least developed as far as their state structure wasconcerned, especially the Djolas and the Balantas. (4 )All the remaining tribes harboured greater or lesser numbsjs oflancados. and treated them with varying degrees of consideration.

Many

Europeans dwelt among tin Bagas in the sixteenth century because of the profits
to be made, although European lifd was not very safe.

Some of the lanyados

received adequate protection, but in other instances they were likely to be(1)

Mungo Park: Travels into theinterior Districts of Africa, p. 15(2 ) P. Cultru* Premier Voyage de Sieur de la Courbe. pp.256,257;

a^dP. Mateo de Anguiano: Mi si ones Capuchinas en Africa. Vol. II, p. 145(5)

A.H.U., Guine, caixa II -No. 268, Rodrigo Fonseca, 22 March 1699

(4 ) See above, Ch. I, p.

>
63
PORTUGUESE A C T IV IT Y

ambushed in the forests, (l)On the other hand, among the Casangas,

Portuguese life and property were virtually sacrosanct, (2 ) while other tribes
fitted in between the two extremes.
In spite of the above variations, once the brief initial phase of
hostility was over, certain common patterns of behaviour were to be foundthroughout the region where the lancados were welcomed by the Africans.
The Europeans dealt always with the kings, chiefs and nobles of theregion.

One English trader in the mid-eighteenth century explained that "tokeep as far as possible from these people as we can, we seldom get so far
engaged with any black as to involve ourselves in quarrels, always siding
with the great men of the country who defends us in case of quarrels or
disturbance". (5)Each resident trader in fact placed himself under theandprotection of an African ruler;/between the two, there was an understanding
on mutual rights and obligations.

In the eighteenth century, the English

traders were referred to as 1strangers*, and the ruler with whom they dealt was
known as their ’landlord*.

The European 1stranger* entered into contract

with his African ’landlord’ for the protection of his life and property.

He

could also rely upon his ’landlord* to act as broker, assuring that therequired local produce was available for purchase, and taking responsibility
for any debts incurred by the trader.

(1) Alvares de Almada:In return, the European ’stranger*"Rios de Guine", p.543(2 ) Andre Domelas:"Relayao sobre a Serra 'Leoa"(5 ) Nicholas Owen:

Journal of a Slave Dealer, p.62

IQjPORTUGUESE A C T IV IT Y

made certain financial payments, (l) The Portuguese termed all their European
rivals on the Upper Guinea Coast as estrangeiros or ’strangers*, and theAfricans, coming first into contact with the Portuguese adapted this word todesignate whites other than Portuguese.(2 )The Portuguese used the word

hospede (meaning either ’host* or ’guest1, according to context) to refer toboth the African chief and the -lanyado. (5 ) and for the sixteenth century, it
is important to consider the model cf Afro-Portuguese relations as that of"host and guest" rather than the more impersonal "landlord and stranger".
Even in the eighteen th century, the obligations which tie chiefs
discharged towards the resident European traders, went beyond what would
normally be implied in a business arrangement between landlord and stranger;
and, in the sixteenth century, the warmth and personal element of therelationship was marked.

The comfort and well-being of his guests was the

responsibility of every ruler;

who welcomed the Portuguese among his people.

Among all the Sape tribes, the custom was to welcome the lane ado with a hot
bath.

He was then allowed to choose one of thchief’s wives, with whom heco-habited for the remainder of his stay among that particular people.

If(1) V.R. Dorjahn and C. Fyfe: 'Landlord and Stranger - change in Tenancy
Relations in Sierra Leone", Journal of African History, Vol. Ill, No. 3(1962), pp. 391-397.
(2 ) A.W. Lawrences (Ed.)

A Series of Uncommon Events which befell Captain

George Roberts (London 1930), p.106; and see below, Ch. V I I p .
(3) Manuel Alvares:"Ethiopia Menor"

Alvares de Almada:"Rios de Guine", pp. 299> 343 > 348*

ICS~
BQRTPGUESE A C T IV IT Y

the trader were to leave and return, he would take up residence with the same
woman, and his duties towards her were clearly defined.

Fidelity was demandedof hin, and any failure in this respect made him culpable before tbs African
law, and liable to lose all his goods.
offspring, (l)He was obliged to clothe her and their

To all intents and purposes, the lane ado was thus legallymarried.
At the beginning of the seventeenth century, a Portuguese trader in
Sierra Leone mentioned that the equivalent of the word hospede or ’guest* wasused not only for the Portuguese but for Africans who came to visit withfriendly intentions.

When that trader advised the king of Sierra Leone totake action against two African visitors from Cape Mount, he was told that thelatter were the guests of the king and could not be harmed. (2)This was thecode of conduct which frustrated the designs of the Portuguese king in 1518
to have the 1any ados surrendered to him or murdered.

In other words, sincehospede or ’guest1 could be either African or European, and since the latter
was the newcomer, the Africans were obviously extending to the Portuguese at
the outset those norms of hospitality which they were accustomed to apply
among themselves.
The Bijagos from any given island engaged in hostilities with fellow
tribesmen from other islands once they were at sea, (3) but this was not thecase with visitors to the islands themselves, who were welcomed as "friends(1) Alvares de Almada:"Rios de Guine", pp.347 j 348(2) Fernao Guerreiro:

R0layao Anual, Vol. II, p.210(3) Manuel Alvares:"Ethiopia Menor"

(Lb
PORTUGUESE A C T IV IT Y

and guests", (l)Another curious example bears out the above contention that

the Africans reacted to the Portuguese within the context of their own moresof hospitality.

The Beafadas prohibited the killing of ;any bird perched in atree close to Beafada homes, "because they say that the birds are their guests,
to whom they can do no harm". (2 )Theoretically, it is difficult to imagine

that the Africans of the Upper Guinea Coast could have reacted to theEuropeans by using s tandards which were inconsistent with or derived fromoutside their own culture, though their norms were not unique.

Mannoni foundthat "when the coloniser first appears, it isnot £as an enemy but as a stranger,
as a guest.

In Madagascar he is called vazaha, an expression which means as

nearly as possible, ’Honourable stranger*. (3 )This was precisely thesituation on the Upper Guinea Coast when the Afro-European contact was first
made.
Hospitality has always been a dominant theme in the social conductof the Africans of the Upper Guinea Coast, as elsewhere on the continent.
Above all, hospitality was a duty attached to kingly office, (4 ) and it was
the ruling class with which the lanyados dealt directly.

It is noteworthy,

for instance, that the Portuguese, while sympathising with the Sapes, lost
(1) Alvares de Almada:"Rios de Guine", p.317*(2) Ibid: p.328(3) 0 . Mannoni:

Prospero and Caliban (Trans. New York 1964) P*®6(4 ) T. Winterbottom:

An Account of the Native Africans of Sierra Leone.

(He advances that the honour of reigning was sometimes rejected becauseof the expense involved.)

167
PORTUGUESE A C T IV IT Y

no tim e in b e c o m in g th e g u e s ts o f th e M a n e s.

The records indicate that the 1anyados were paying guests, making
various payments in kind, which were called 'gifts* or 'presents'.

A gift,in legal terms, is a voluntary transfer of property without consideration.

On

the Upper Guinea Coast, and elsewhere on the West African Coast, it was used
in a variety of contexts, where it implied an obligatory transfer, withsomething given in return.

For instance, 'gifts' had to be given to theBui lorn chief of the bay of Sierra Leone to obtain water; (l)'gifts* had to

be offered to the Banhun chiefs to allow wax to be collected in theirterritory; (2 ) and 'gifts* were periodically handed over to the king of Cacheu
to countenance the presence of a Portuguese fort. (3)These were, of course,

the equivalents of purchase price, taxes and rent.
Yet, the fact that they should all be termed 'gifts' issignificant, because it stems from the African concept of hospitality which
incorporated the exchange of gifts.

European traders were quick to put all'gifts' which they gave to the Africans on the debit side of their accounts,
but, rather less often one comes across an admission that the African chiefs(1) Nicholas de Vallault:

Relation des Costes d'Afrique. p.62 (section

relevant to Sierra Leone is reproduced in Christopher Fyfe: Sierra Leone
Inheritance, pp.55-58)(2) See below Ch. VI, p.3 4-i(3) See below, Ch. V, p.

u %PORTUGUESE A C T IV IT Y

were in the habit of offering presents to the Europeans, (l)At times, the exchange of presents seemed indistinguishable frombarter trade and exchange for profit.

As Manuel Alvares put it, when the

Africans gave a chicken, they expected a goat in return;a goat, they expected a cow.

and, if they gave

By the mid-eighteenth century, if not before,

this exchange of presents was a standard procedure known as 1service', and
the African rulers clearly looked forward to a profit.
did not reciprocate a gift, this led to a 'palaver*.

When the Europeans(2 )However, it ishighly probable that, at the outset, the question of the compulsory return ofa gift with a view to profit did not enter into the consideration of theAfricans.

In 1621, the Englishman, Richard Jobson, conducted an expeditionon the river Gambia.

As he travelled on tie upper stretches of the river,

he found that the demands he had to meet grew less and less.

"We payd akind of poore custome, which in the mouth of the river, where the Portingall
hath used, is not onely greater, but perremptorily demaunded, whereas above
it is lesse and rather taken as a curtesie presented, which morall kindnesse(1) R--R-Q., T70/14 - Greenaway, 26 Jan. 1703*(Having received a directivefrom the London officials not to engage in trade on his own accountand not to receive 'presents', this agent protested that it was thecustom of the Africans to give gifts to all white newcomers,

andsubsequently the agents received presents which had nothing to do withtrade)(2 ) Nicholas Owelhs

Journal of a Slave Dealer, p. 74

PORTUGUESE A C T IV IT Y

requires all strangers, comming in the way of amity." (l)The duty of hospitality, particularly as far as the rich wereconcerned, also led directly to a situation where the 1anyado was expected
to share out small gifts from time to time, especially if a local ceremonysuch as a 'cry1 demanded such action.

The Portuguese continually complainedthat they were pestered for small items by the Africans, (2) and no other
Europeans were free from this.

The English trader, Nicholas Owen,

stressed that the articles requested were small - an old hat, a meal, a t o mshirt - but their nuisance value was high.

Prom the viewpoint of the

1any ado or any other type of European trader, there must have been a few
items which were not given to the Africans in pursuance of trade, whether
those items were called 'gifts' or not;but it is likely that for many of

the Africans such demands did not fall within the bounds of trade - they
were legitimately to be expected as acts of hospitality from richindividuals.
Very broadly speaking, the lanyado was asked to fit into theAfrican way of life.

Not only the concepts of hospitality, but the laws andcustoms of society as a whole were also applied to the Portuguese, and had tobe respected.

Every time that a 1any ado breached a local prohibition, thiswas cause for annoyance, anger or hostility, depending on the circumstances
and the magnitude of the offence.
(1) Richard Jobson:

There was a single word for such

The Golden Trade, p .64(2 ) Alvares de Almada:"Rios de Guine", p327-

17 0
PORTUGUESE A C T IV IT Y

offences in the lingua franca of the Upper Guinea Coast - chai. (l)A chaialways meant a 'palaver1, that is to say, the matter went into the local
courts.

The customary law of the Upper Guinea Coast was not so foreign tothe experience of the Portuguese that they could not understand it*

To felltimber in many areas of Europe would have been an offence, so that, on theUpper Guinea Coast, to fell trees which had not only an economic value, butalso tremendous religious significance, was obviously going to bring thePortuguese into conflict with the Africans. (2)Even when a custom was

unfamiliar to European experience, the 1anyado was not being taxed for
ignorance - not after long years on the Upper Guinea Coast.

The Beafadas

had a special bird which was taboo, since it was supposed to contain the soulof the Beafadas.

The European traders of experience knew the seriousness of

this matter, but they would nevertheless shoot and eat this bird, if they
thought they would not be detected. (3)Most offenders

against the law

share this optimism.
The 1anyados and all other categories of European traders tookgreatest exception to those African laws which had a direct bearing on
European property.

One such law, followed by all tribes of the littoral, wasthat any ship which ran aground in their jurisdiction was legitimately theirs. (a )(1) P. Mateo de Anguianoi Mi si ones Capuchinas en Africa. Vol. II, P. 144(2) A.H.U., Guine, maco XI - J. Antonio Pinto from Cacheu, 28 Dec 1809* (A War
started with the Papels because the Portuguese cut down dome trees.)(3) Alvares de Almada:"Rios de Guine", p.327; and see below(4 ) A. Brasio: 2nd series, Vol. II - No. 143 > Voyage from Santiago to Guinea,r 2port of the treasurer of Santiago, 19 May 1558> P-4&7

'7/

PORTUGUESE A C T IV IT Y

According to a report of 1558, the African rulers considered that it increased
their prestige to have the hulk of a vessel on their foreshore, and so were notprepared to help refloat ships which ran aground, (l)the crew were held for ransom. (2)Besides, in most cases,

On the treacherous coats of the region,

there wa3 plenty of scope for the application of these African laws ofsalvage, and it is also interesting to note that these practices had a close
parallel in the rights which the ruler of a district claimed if an animal felldead in his domains, after having been wounded outside of his territory byhunters who were not his subjects. (3)Perhaps the most galling imposition, from the viewpoint of thelancados. was the fact that when any of them died, the African ruler, in
whose country he resided, inherited his goods.

Indeed, the African rulers

laid hold of all the goods in the possession of the laneado at the time of hisdeath, not taking into account that he might have been keeping trade goods onbehalf of other individuals. (4 )One explanation of the origins of this law

was that a laneado had made a king his heir, and this was afterwards taken to
be the rule. (5)However, it is far more realistic to view the rule as the(l) A. Brasio: Monumenta Missionaria Africana. Africa Ocidental. 2nd Series,
Vol. II - No. 143f Voyage from Santiago to Guinea, 19 May 1558, p.467 .
Ferriao Guerreiro:R^lacao Anual. Vol. Ill, p.283 5 andAlvares de Almada:"Rios de Guine", p.319*(3 )Valentim Fernandes:

La Cote Occidentale d fAfrique. p .96(4 )Fernao Guerreiro:(5)

Lemos Coelho:(2)

Relacao Anual. Vol. Ill, p.283

Duas Descricoes. p.192.

172.
PORTUGUESE A C T IV IT Y

extension to the Europeans of the normal practice of African society.

At

the "beginning of the sixteenth century, the powerful Djola king, •Mansa
Felupe", was the only ruler who, apart from inheriting the goods of all who
died in his own domains, was able to demand the goods
died in foreign lands, (l)of his ownsubjects who

From this, one can infer thecustomary law ofinheritance in instances of this sort#Very often, though the Portuguese and other Europeans objected to or
offended against African custom, they looked to this same customary law for
their own protection.

The lane ado was

not only the object of charges of_chai, but he could alsobring a 'palaver* against an African, and have hiscase decided in open court. (2)The word 'contract* can rightly be applied to certain unwrittenagreements between the Africans and the Europeans, because many of these
agreements were based on oaths which were binding under the customary law*
Experienced traders learnt to insist that arrangements made with the Africans
were sworn on some 'medecine1.

There was a special ceremony practised by

the Banhuns and the Papels on the river Cacheu.
was offered to their Xina;Firstly, the blood of a dog

then two chickens were made to sink to the bottomof the river by tying rocks to their legs;

and finally an oath was arom.

For their security, theCahheu had this oath repeated annually

1 any ados on the($)

Even the fearsome Bijagos werethemost reliable of friends once theyhad(1)Valantim Fernandes: La C6te Occidentale d'Afrique, p .64(2)

Fernao Guerreiro:(3 )Alvares de Almada:

Relayao Anual, Vol.
"Rios de Guine", p.312.

Mb

PORTUGUESE A C T IV IT Y

performed a ceremony of welcome; (l)while in matters such as calling a halt

to hostilities or the ceding of lahd; the African rituals were the only
guarantee of validity. (2)Call the Afro-Portuguese relationship that of "host and Guest","partnership", or "contract", the fact remained that the 1anyados had torecognise the laws of the land, and the will and sovereignty of the local
rulers.

The latter half of the sixteenth century was a period of crisis for

the Afro-Portuguese understanding on the Upper Guinea Coast, during which thelancados made strenuous attempts to change the nature of the agreements, andto escape, in one way or another, from the authority of the African rulers.
Both the causes and the consequences of the attempts are of the utmost
importance.
The first indication of the crisis came in the region between the
Casamance and the Cacheu.

Throughout the sixteenth century, this area was a

popular market for the Cape Verde traders.

The Banhuns and Casangas wereskilled weavers and dyers, and provided a ready market for raw cotton from theCape Verde islands. (3 )Banhun agriculture was also in a flourishing state,

and provided amply for resident Europeans, as well as supplying food to the(1) Alvares de Almada:(2 ) Manuel Alvares:"Rios de Guine", p.317"Ethiopia Menor" (a Papel ceremony marked the end of thehostilities in I691)(3 ) Valentim Fernandes:

La Cote Occidentals d'Afrique. pp.5$> 68 (and see

below, Ch. VI, p.^37 )(74
PORTUGUESE A C T IV IT Y

slave ships, (l)These advantages accounted for the presence of large numbersof lancados on the right bank of the Cacheu, especially in the Banhun town of
Buguendo, which the Portuguese called Sao Domingo. (2 )There was a marked

deterioration in the treatment which the Banhuns accorded the Portuguese
during the latter part of the sixteenth century.

The ruling class was said tohave ceased to extend their protection to their guests, and the rest of the
population adopted an unfriendly attitude.

The Portuguese were particularly

irritated that their hats and swords were liable to be seized from time totime, frequently to the accompaniment of a few clouts, thus offending boththeir persons and their dignity.

Important robberies were also committed,

and, occasionally, some whites lost their lives. (3)A similar situation

prevailed at Hereges, south of the Gambia, where some 1anyado3 met their
deaths at the hands of what was a predominantly Banhun population. (4 )The crisis in Banhun-Portuguese relations came to a head in the1570fs.

Towards the end of that decade, the lanyados at Buguendo invoked theaid of Masatamba, king of the Casangas, to force the Banhuns to ameliorate
conditions.

Masatamba launched an attack on Buguendo, and was reportedly

victorious. (5 )Nevertheless, when the captain-major of Santiago journeyed.

(1) Biblioteca de Ajuda, Ms. 51-VIII-25: "Relayoes do Descobrimento da Costa da
Guine", fl.87, Report on Cape Verde and Guinea, c.1606.
(2) Andre Domelas:"Relacao sobre a Serra Leoa"(3) Alvares de Almada:"Rios de Guine", pp.303> 304(4 ) Ibid: pp.285 ,286.
(5) Andre Domelas and Manuel Alvares.

17 STPORTUGUESE ACTIVITY
to the mainland in 1580, he found that thv conditions under which tha lane ados
dwelt at Buguendo were still untenable, and he arranged with Masatamba forthe transfer of th

inhabitants to Sarar, a Casanga settlement, further up

the Cacheu river, (l)Less than three years after the abandonment of Buguendo, thelanyados found themselves at loggerheads with some of their oldest friendson the Upper Guinea Coast - the Beafadas.

The Beafadas had been particularly
wereaccommodating towards the Portuguese, and there/settlements throughout their
domains.

At this date there were more than 100 whites at Guinala on the Ria

Grande. (2)In that port events were moving in the same direction as in

Buguendo.

As a result the lanyados withdrew to a fortified place not far from

Guinala,The fortifications were ostensibly set up as a protection against

French pirates, and the site was subsequently known as Porto da Cruz. (5)In the meantime, the Sarar settlement had not been very successful*
The centre of lanyado activities on the river Cacheu shifted to Papel
territory on the left bank of the river.

It turned out that the exchange of

Banhun for Papel masters brought no better deal for the langados. They
claimed to have suffered abuses in the Papel village where they lived intheory "under the word and protection of their hosts".
lives were lost.

Goods were stolen and

In 1589 > the Portuguese of Cacheu ddcided to set up their(1) Andre Dornelas and Manuel Alvares, and Alvares de Almada "Rios de Guin^*,p3Q5(2) A. Brasios Monuments Missionaria Africana, Africa Ocidental, 2nd Series, Vol.
Ill, No. 42, Relayao of Francisco de Andrade on the Islands of Cape Verde,
26 Jan. 1582, p.105(3) Alvares de Almada:"Rios de Guine", p.329*

\iL
PORTUGUESE ACTIVITY
own stronghold, following the Porto da Cruz precedent.

Firstly, Chapala, theruling Papel king of Cacheu, was approached with a request to allow a fort to hebuilt near the estuary of the river to provide defence against the attacks frompirates.

These latter did present a threat, so permission was granted tobuild a stockade dnrwhich several pieces of artillery were mounted.

Next, thePortuguese argued that some houses had to be built within the stockade forthose who were to man the artillery.

This request was also granted.

Finally,

the Portuguese withdrew en masse from Chapala1s town and took up residence
within the fort, (l)At this juncture, Sierra Leone was passing through a very unsettled
period, occasioned by the Mane conquest, and this had interrupted the develop­
ment of Afro-Portuguese relations.

Of the tribes who were continuously conduct­

ing trade with the Portuguese on the Upper Guinea Coast for most of thesixteenth century, only the Casangas remained friendly.

What happened among

the Banhuns, Beafadas and Papels is, therefore, sufficient basis forgeneralisation.

The generalisation made by De Almada, himself personallyinvolved for about twenty-five years, was that the 1 any ados had been on theUpper Guinea Coast long enough for the residents to become familiar with andcontemptuous of them.

He emphasised that it was after long intercoursewith the Portuguese, and after the Banhuns had become versed in the Portuguese
language that they reacted so unfavourably to their guests. (2)(1) Alvares de Almada:(2) Ibid., p.304.

"Rios de Guine", pp.299>300

The Papels and177
PORTUGUESE ACTIVITY
the Beafadas likewise, were fluent in the Portuguese language (l) that is tosay, in the "Creole Portuguese" which was spoken on the Upper Guinea Coast. (2)The model of "host and guest", therefore, is only a point of
departure.

The period of its historical existence is ascertained 1 argely by

the laments of the Portguese themselves at the end of the sixteenth century,that things had been fine up to a few decades before the fort of Cacheu had tobn built in 1591*

But relations could never have been static, even in thefirst half of the century, because the Africans and tbe Portuguese werereacting to each other’s differences and adopting new positions.

Evidently,

the barter with the Europeans was initially conducted in a guileless mannerby the Africans of the Upper Guinea Coast, but with time this was abandoned.
The ruling class in particular came to place a very high priority on
European imports, and sought to acquire such goods by a variety of means.

A•gift 1 , as Jobson found, was changing from something' which was not requested
and the receipt of which gave pleasant surprise, to something which was
demanded and, when it was not forthcoming, this was a unpleasant surprise about
which steps would be taken. (5) The process of change, which was observable on(1) Alvares de Almada: "Rios de Guine", pp.325 and 326 and Manuel Alvares"Ethiopia Menor"(2) For a linguistic assessment of "Creole Portuguese", see Bertrand-Bocande:"Notes sur la Guinee Portugaise ou Senegambie Meridionelle", Bulletin de laSociete de Geographie de Paris, 1849> 7ol. XI, pp.265-350 snd- Vol. XII,
PP.57-93; and A. Wilson "Uma Volta Linguistica da Guine Portuguesa", Boletim
Cultural da Guine Portuguesa.
(3) Once again Mannoni offers an intriguing psychological analysis.
Prosuero and Caliban, pp. 42 et seq

See

|7§
PORTUGUESE a c t i v i t y
the middle and upper Gambia in 1627, lad taken place long before on the coast
itself*, which was more exposed to European trade.

By the 1560*s the Africansof the Upper Guinea Coast were acting in a manner which the lanyados considered
intolerable enough to warrant the use of force on their part.

This would seemto be the explanation of :he genesis of the breakdown in the understanding
which existed between the Portuguese and all but one of the principal trading
peoples on the Upper Guinea Coast, north of the Sape ethnic group.
The results of the Portuguese actions are not in doubt*

The Cacheu

episole sparked off a full-scale attack by the Papels, which the Portugueselan^aios beat off, inflicting heavy casualties upon the Papels, and suffering
none themselves, (l)Shortly afterwards, the combatants came to a modus

viviendi« which permitted the return of some traders to the African villages,
while numbers of Papels went to live within the stockade.

The reaction of the

Beafalas of Guinala to the Portuguese entrenchment in Porto da Cruz was lessviolent but more effective.

This was how the consequences were reported:"After we grouped ourselves together under the shelter of the fort, we bought
our slaves and other goods at higher prices.

Formerly, ww were separated,lodged in the houses of nobles, with more than a league and a half separatingeach trader.

Then we gained more trade, we did not compete with each other,and our persons were protected by our hosts and their relatives.

Today, if

we go beyond the confines of the fort the Negroes treat us badly - by •badly*
I mean that if we or our servants are involved in any dispute, the Negroes
are uncompromising, so that violence occurs, resulting sometimes in deaths,(l) Alvares de Almada:"Rios de GuinO", p.300.

PORTUGUESE ACTIVITY
something which never happened when we were living among them., (l)The withdrawal of the Portuguese from Buguendo,- and their construc­tion of forts at Cacheu and Guinala were conscious attempts to opt out of
the old arrangement of "host and guest", and it was so interpreted by theA-pricans.

The new conditions which the Portuguese hoped to create entailed

the ultimate use of force to flout the authority of the local rulers.
was not tolerated by the latter.

This

In Guinala, apart from the higher prices

and ill-treatment which resulted from the Portuguese actions, there was aninteresting conflict over the Beafada laws of inheritance, as applied tolancada property.

The construction of the fort of Porto da Cruz offered an

opportunity to transfer the seriously ill and their belongings to the strong­hold, where the local rulings could be resisted. (2 )However, it was alosing battle on the part of the resident traders, since the Beafadas inturn made a point of placing a guard on the property of the sick, (3)*The laneados simply could not deploy sufficient force to make their
independence a permanent reality.

They had built and armed the two

garrisons of Cacheu and Porto da Cruz entirely at their own expense, butthey could not maintain them.

By a curious twist, the Portuguese artillery

had to be used to defend both themselves and the Beafadas from the attacks of
the Bijagos, when these intensified at the beginning of the seventeenth
century, and both the Portuguese and Beafadas had to flee from the foreshore.
(1) Alvares de Almada:"Rios de Guine", p.330(2) Ibid., p.334(3) Fernao Guerreiro:

Relayao Anual. Vol. Ill, P*283

PORTUGUESE A C T IV IT Yof the Ria Grande de Buba.(l)But, without this extraneous factor, themaintenance of the fort would have been beyond the 1any ado s .

The Cacheu

experience demonstrates this clearly.
It was in Cacheu that the seventeenth century Afro-Portuguese
relations were to be most clearly seen, and All the evidence indicated thatthe buildings of the fort did not effectively emancipate the 1anyados fromAfrican control.
At the beginning of the seventeenth century, Cacheu had apopulation of 1,500 of whom about 500 were white, while the Africans there
were closely

attached to the Portuguese interest.

The town was divided into

two sections:Villa Fria and Villa Quente.

In the former -the cooler partof the city - resided the rich merchants;

while the hot district was thehome of "the ordinary people, ... who live by their labour and daily
earnings, some workers in the careening yards, others sailors".

The

bourgeoisie in Villa Fria lived well, and Cacheu bustled as the main centreof the Hispano-Portuguese slave trade at that time;

but this lane ado(l) A.R.S.I.. Lusitania 74» FI. 78 - Letter from Mangali, king of Bissege tothe kingof Portugal, 20 April 1607J and from Emchabole,king of Biguba,

24 April1607.

The king of Guinala, Bamalla, writing on the 1st May 1607,

also mentioned that the Portuguese had left during the rule of his
predecessor, Campecho, but that he had provided the conditions for theirreturn.

This could mean that, as happened in Cacheu, a normalisation ofrelations came about when both parties realised that complete alienation
was unprofitable.

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PORTUGTJ 33E ACTIVITY

settlement was not a citadel against the Papels,

After the war of 1591,

the fid ilgos were said to have invented new chais, that is to say, notbreaches of local prohibitions with deontological significance, but pretexts
to mulct the laneados by ‘palavers* and fines, (l)Any time that the kingof Mata, who controlled Cacheu, needed money (or purported to be in need) hesent a noble to inform the Portuguese.

This noble arrived with a large

retinue, and took such liberties that uone would have imagined that thePortuguese were his slaves1*, alleged Barreira.

The lanyados did not dare

deny him what he wanted, and the more he was given the more he wanted. (2)In reality, viewed against the petty scale of these demands, the Portuguese
complaints were grossly exaggerated, but the halcyon days of their relations
with the coastal people were certainly over, except where they were still
forging new contacts with the Mane ruling class to the south.
The 1anyado attempt to wrest sovereignty from the Africans on theUpper Guinea Coast in the late sixteenth century had failed, and, in theprocess some of the gilt had been rubbed off the Afro-Portuguese relationship.
But, the partnership still had much substance.

The African ruling class were

eager to maintain a relationship which meant trade goods, provided that
their own sovereignty in their own estimation was not threatened.

The

favourable terms extended in Sierra Leone to European ‘strangers* up until thenineteenth century provided evidence of this desire.

To the north, theAfrican ruling' class was no less avid to have Europeans reside in their(1) Manuel Alvares:(2) Femao Guerreiro:"Ethiopia Menor"
Relayao Anual, Vol. Ill, p.285.

IS3
PORTUGUESE A C T IV IT Y

territory.

At the end of the eighteenth century, it was a common saying

north of the Geha that "all white man rogue, all white man witch'*, (l) "but,nevertheless, hoth the Bijago fidalgos and those of the Beafadas wereconvinced that "so long as white man lived near they would lack nothing,hut if white man does not live here we shall want everything, (2 )Using hindsight in an attempt to see to what extent the early AfroPortuguese relations had set the pattern for the future, it must he stressedthat the arrangements for the lane ados should he viewed differently from theconnection with the visiting ships.

These latter, trading privately or

under the aegis of state orprivate company, brought individuals, who, like thelancado3 in the late sixteenth century, sometimes attempted to challenge thepower of the African ruling class*

In fact, as the resident traders them­selves and their descendants grew more Africanised culturally and ethnically,
they moved closer to and eventually penetrated the local power structure, (5)Other Europeans, therefore, had cause to struggle against the new 'AfroPortuguese* class, which was allied to the African fidalgos.

For threecenturies after 1600, the social formations which wielded power and authority
locally, successfully resisted attempts at European domination, when these were
made.

Though for the sake of peace, self-preservation and profits, theEuropeans generally accepted the status quo.
(1) Philip Beavers African Memoranda R 0lative to an Attempt to Establish a
British Settlement on the Island of Bulama in the Year 1792. (London I8O 5 )p.200(2) Ihids pp. 72,105(5) See below, Ch. VIII, p. 4 & Q

A HISTORY OF THE UPPER GUINEA COAST. 15/15-1800

CHAPTER FOURSLAVETRADING1562-1640

IS S'SLAVE TRADING. 1562-1640

The Upper Guinea Coast had a lengthy association with the Atlantic
slave trade.

Together with the Senegambia, it was being exploited for slavesin the 1460’s even before the southern sections of the West African coast had
been charted by the Portuguese.400 years later, the Atlantic
was still being prosecuted in the area.

slave trade

Over this span of centuries, theUpper Guinea Coast was involved in all the phases of the slave trade.
first it supplied Europe;Atthen, when labour was required for the mines ofCentral and South America, the Upper Guinea Coast made its contribution;

and,when slaves were needed on the Caribbean and North American plantations, theUpper Guinea Coast was not to be left out.

In the late eighteenth century,

it was Sierra Leone that was chosen as the site for the first settlement of
freed slaves in West Africa;

yet, in spite of this memorial to freedom, andin spite of the British navy,

the slavers were still present on theestuaries and rias of this region until the second half of the nineteenth
century.

Thus, though the Upper Guinea Coast is not as notorious as theCongo and the Bight of Benin, it is in many ways a classic area for the studyof the Atlantic slave trade.
The growth of the Atlantic slave trade on the Upper Guinea Coast andthe Senegambia illustrates how rapidly the ’trickle* became a ’flood*, (l)Fifty years after these shores had been seen by the Portuguese, the latter(l) The terms are Basil D avidson*s.

See Black Mother, Part two.

1S4
SLAVE TRADING

were shipping abroad, ”when the trade of the countrywas well ordered”,

morethan 3,500 Africans every year, (l)Captives taken were mainly destined for the nearby Cape Verdeislands and the Iberian peninsula, with Madeira and the Canary Islands
providing secondary markets.

(2 )Sometimes, captives from this section of

the coast were procured by passing ships, and became galley slaves - as, forexample, in 1504, when the East Indies fleet of Alfonso de Albuquerque obtained
70 Negroes at Santiago* (3)the Americas.

This may also have applied to ships bound for

The Cape Verde islands were situated on the route of thesailing vessels proceeding from Portugal to Brazil, and it is not unlikelythat small numbers o f Africans from the Upper Guinea Coast made their way to
Brazil at an early date to serve as slaves.
It was the Spanish market which ultimately held out the greatest
prospects.

After the famous pleas of Las Casas, Charles V granted to a

courtier the right to furnish 4,000 slaves to the Antilles, and the deal was
eventually carried through by Genoese merchants who made their purchases in
Lisbon. (4) A great portion of these(1) Pacheco Pereira:slaves were saidto have been obtained

Bsmeraldo de Situ Orbis, p.90

(2 ) A. Brasio: Monumenta Missionaria Africana, 2nd series, Vol. II - No. 19,
Petition of the People of the island of Santiago, Oct. 1512, p*54*(3) Ibid: No. 14, Privileges to the residents of Santiago, May 1510,
P*39(4 ) D.P. Mannix in association with M. Cowley:1963), p.3.

Black Cargoes. (London

187
SLAVE TRADING

through Cape Verde enterprise, (l)In 1512, a royal edict had declared thatall Guinea slaves should go directly to Lisbon. (2)The Cape Verdeans^protested that in that event no ships from Madeira, the Azores, the Canaries
or Spain would visit the Cape Verde islands, (3) and they may have broken thisstrict provision.

In any event, many of the slaves on the Lisbon Market

would have been acquired on the Upper Guinea Coast and in the Senegambia.
Indirectly, therefore, the Upper Guinea Coast was in touch with the market in
the Spanish Indies since the second decade of the sixteenth century.

By thesecond half of that century, the Spanish Indies had become the principal
destination of captives from this area.
The close connection between the Upper Guinea Coast and the Spanish
Indies can be seen from the Spanish records of the registration of slave ships.
The principal administrative device which the Spanish developed to organise
the importation of slaves into the Americas in the sixteenth century was theregistro.

This was a licence, which, on payment of a fee, was issued to aship’s captain, authorising him to transport an agreed number of slaves froma given point in West Africa to a specific port in the Americas .(4)Registros(1) J. Barreto:

Historia da Guine1. p.73

(2) A. Brasio: Op.cit., No. 18, Edict on the. Trade of Guinea, 24 Oct 1512, p.51*(3)lbid No. 19, Petition of the People of the island of Santiago, Oct.

1512, p. 53.
(4 ) In 1624, the Portuguese were asking 40 ducados per registro.
See A.H.U., Cabo Verde, caixa I - Petition of Francisco Rodrigues Serra,
1624.

*
SLAVE TRADING

were obtainable in Tenerife (Canary Islands) and Lisbon, but by far themost important office of issue was the House of Trade in Seville.

The Houseof Trade first issued registros in 15&2, and from then until 1593, the vast
majority of the licences named Cape Verde - Guinea as the area of provenienceof the slave cargoes, (l)After 1595, the licences did not specify the sectioiof the West African coast where the slaves were to be procured, but, fromother sources, it is clear that Upper Guinea remained a key region for the
supply of slaves to Spanish America for another four decades, until thepolitical break between Portugal and Spain in I64O.

Thus the period 1562-

1600 represents the kernel of the Hispano-Portuguese slave trading partner­
ship.
During the height of the registro system up to 1595, there seems
to have been no standard number oflicences issued every year, and the numberof 3laves which each captain was allowed to carry varied considerably.
Some licences authorised the transport of more than 600 slaves, while others
related to less than 100. (2 )Nevertheless, it is possible to arrive atsoma conception of the overall volume of slave exports in this period.

BothAlvares de Almada and Andre Domelas left the firm impression that the yearsof trade which they experienced from the 1560*s and 1570*s to the end of the
century were years of boom and prosperity for the slave traders.
(1) H. and P. Chaunu:

DomelasSeville et 1 1Atlantiqne, Vol 3, 1561-1595(Paris 1955)(2) A.G.I., Casa de Contratacion - No. 2875, Registros de Esclavos,
1584-1599.

\*&9
SLAVE TRADING

found on one occasion in the port of Guinala eight boats belonging to Cape
Verde traders, ten belonging to the lan^ados. and two ships with registrosfor slave cargoes for the Indies. (£)

A report to the crown in 1582

claimed that it was usual to have twenty to thirty vessels at a time in the
Ria Grande de Buba, mainly loading slaves. (2)The size of the vessels used in the Atlantic slave trade was quite
small.

Even in the eighteenth century, they seldom went above 300 tons,

while crafts of only 60 toms were known to make the Atlantic crossing. (3)However, the size of the ships belied the number of slaves transported.
Dornelas remarked that it was not unusual to find 200 ’pieces* of humanity
packed into a small coastal boat, and the ships which made the Atlantic
crossing- carried at least twice that amount.

At the onset of the registro

system the slave ships to the Spanish Indies carried 400 to 500 slaves each(4) and this was later increased.

Under these circumstances, it is not

surprising that the average annual export of Guinala alone was reported to
be close to 3,000 slaves. (5)(X) Andre Domelas "Rela^ao sobre a Serra Leoa"(2) A. Brasio: Monumenta Missionaria Africana. 2nd series, Vol. Ill - No. 42,
Relacao of Francisco de Andrade on the islands of Cape Verde, 26 Jan
1582, p.105.
(3) See above, Ch. Ill, p./5"2, Mata
(4) Thomas Mercado:.Tra.tos y Contratos de Meroaderes (Salamanca I569)

p. 66.

(5) Andre dornelas:

op. cit.,r

19b
SLAVE TRADING

On the other side of the Atlantic, the Spanish authorities were
having great difficulties in regulating the inflow of slaves in such a way
as to collect revenues#

It appears that the registered ships usually carried

more than their stipulated complement.

In 1590, the House of Trade in

Seville, having received reports that the customs of Cartagena were being
systematically defrauded by the arrival of vessels with large:numbers ofslaves beyond the amount authorised by the registros, demanded a complete
account of slaves entering the port for the preceding five yeans#

The

Cartagena officials were bent on denying their own complicity inirregularities, and claimed that the ships seldom ever arrived with more slavesthan they were licensed to carry#In their accounts, the Cartagena officials

expected the House of Trade to believe that ships licensed to carry, say
159 of 511 slaves, arrived in America with exactly that number on board.(l)Not only was this highly improbable, but whatever numbers arrived in the New
World represented a considerable reduction of those who were embarked.

In

1569? Thomas de Mercado estimated the mortality of slaves shipped from theCape Verde islands to Spanish America as at least 20^ and much higher in someindividual cases#

He cited one example which had occurred shortly before hewrote, where 500 out of 500 slaves died on one vessel bound from Cape Verde(Santiago) to Mexico. (2 )Thus, it is clear that the registro system was not

being complied with in terms of the numbers of captives taken on board on the
African Coast.

Indeed, at the outset, the regulations struggled to replace(1) A.G.I., Casa de Contratacion - No. 2877 > Registros de Esclavos, I6l0-l6l6.
(2) Thomas Mercado : Tratos y Contratos de Mercaderes (Salamanca 15&9) P*66#

v?l
SLAVE TRADING

what the Portuguese regarded as ’interloping* and acts of piracy by Spanish
ships, (l)The extent of the defrauding of the Spanish and Portuguese
revenues and more realistic figures of slave exports were given in a reportto the crown by the governor of Cape Verde in 1622.

It appears that since1595 the Atlantic slave trade from the Upper Guinea Coast to Spanish America
had been standardised to permit four slave ships to call on the Upper Guinea
Coast every year.

Reports from time to time suggested that the number ofships was not exceeded. (2 )But the agreed cargo was usually between 100 and

200 si ives end this was completely disregarded, ships being packed withcargoes of 800, 1,000 or more slaves.

The object of the captains of theslave ships was to defeat the revenue provisions on both sides of the(1) A. Brasio:

Monumenta Missionaria Africana, Africa Ocidental, 2nd Series,

Vol. II - No. 152, Spanish Trade in Guinea, 15 May 1563, p.501, andNo. 155» Directive from the King of Spain to the mayor of Seville,
17 May 1565, p.506.
(2 ) A.H.U., Cabo Verde, caixa I-No. 27, Nicolhao de Castilho, 27 Jan 1616;(There had been twelve registered ships clearing the port of Cacheu overthe past three years.) No. 99, Baltezar Castel Branco to Antonio
Francisco Luas, holder of the contract, 15 April 1617.

(He reported thatin 1616, four ships were sent from Cacheu to the Spanish Indies,and three or four to the Cape Verde islands.
ment was to be the same.

That year, the arrange­

I °tzSLAVE TRADING
Atlantic, robbing the Portuguese coffe .rs in Guinea and the Spanish coffersi/in the Americas, because they paid duty only on the number inscribed on theirregistros, at the rate of 28 cruzados on every slave to the Portuguese and
40 ducados (44 cruzados) to the Spanish, (l)It is very likely that thesepractices were prevalent not only in 1622 and in 1590 when the House of Trade
made enquiries in Cartagena, but since 1562 when the registro system began.
Certainly, in the 1560*s there were instances where ships obtained slaves even
without registros. (2 ) so it would not be surprising if the registered ships
made the most out of their title to legality.
Pour ships annually carrying between 800 to 1,000 slaves, asreported in 1622, would have placed the Cacheu exports well over 5,000 per
year.

The Conselho Ultramarino was appraised in 1643 that the Cacheu exports

previously averaged 5>000 per annum. (5)In arriving at a total for the wholeof the Upper Guinea Coast, one must take into account that the primacy of the(1) Sena Barcelos:

Subsidios para a Historia de Cabo Verde e Guine, Ch.

VII, p.221, Report of governor Francisco de Moura, 1622.

A similar

report had been made by the Jesuit Superior in Santiago, P. Sebastiao
Gomes around 1620.

He indicated that each registered ship declared 200

slaves or less as their cargo, and thus robbed the Portuguese revenues of
payments on 500 to 600 slaves.
(2 ) Thomas Mercado:

See A.T.T., Jesuitas 504* 56 > Ho. 7*

Op. cit., p.66} and Brasio, p.501.

(5) A.i.U.. Buine, caixa I - No. 28, minute of the Conselho Ultramarino,
20 Nov. l643«

(<J3SLAVE TRADIMS
slave trade in this zone passed from Guinala to Cacheu at the beginning of
the seventeenth century, and that both of them served as entrepots, whose
trade nets were spread over all the rivers of Guinea.

At no time, however,would Guinala or Cacheu have been the sole point of despatch for slaves to theAmericas, nor would the Santiago and Lisbon authorities have accounted forslaves sold to Europeans other than the Spanish, though privateering voyages
were becoming more and more frequent in the last few decades of the sixteenth
century.

As a rough estimate in the light of these considerations, 5,000

slaves per annum would seem to be a reasonable figure for the volume of theAtlantic slave trade as conducted on the Upper Guinea Coast between 1562 andI64O ; that is to say, during the period of registros corresponding to a
substantial Spanish interest in African slaves, but preceding the extension ofplantation slavery in the Caribbean and North America, as well as the fulldevelopment of the asiento agreements.
It is clear that the Spaniards identified the Atlantic slave t radewith the Upper Guinea Coast.

Thomas Mercado mentioned Sao Thome, but his

brief discussion of the slave trade is entitled "Concerning the Trade in the
Negroes of Cape Verde"; and he refers specifically to the Sapes, Beafadas
and Wolofs, (l) which indicates that the zone from which the captives weretaken included the Senegambia and Sierra Leone, though about this time theSenegambia was declining in importance, as far as the Portuguese wereconcerned. (2)(1) Thomas Mercado:

Tratos y Contratos de Mercaderes, pp.63-68(2 ) See above, Ch. Ill, p«

SLAVE TRADING
According to another Spaniard, the Jesuit, Alonso de Sandoval,
who was in close contact with slavers and slaveowners in Cartagena in theearly seventeenth century, the slaves of the Upper Guinea Coast were the mostpopular in the Spanish Indies, and were referred to as escravos de ley, (l)This expression, probably stemmed from the fact that the slaves were brought
under special contract, namely, the registroj (2) but it came to mean that they
wsre slaves of the highest quality.

The escravos de ley of the Guinea ofCape Verde were said to have been diligent, keen, intelligent, good-natured
and happy;

and they never lost an opportunity to play their instruments,

xingxxs. sing and dance.

They were also quick to learn the Spanish

language, adopt the Spanish dress, and follow the fiesta a la Espanola.

Tothis already imposing list of virtues (from the slave owners’ viewpoint),
the Conselho Ultramarino added that the slaves of Cacheu were known for theirfidelity. (3 )'Keen','intelligent’, ’good-natured’ and 'faithful* are dubious

compliments, likely to have been gratuitously thrown in once it was clearthat the slave was working and not attempting to rebel or escape at euery
opportunity;

but there seems to be some truth in the report that the slaves(1) Literally "slaves of the law".
(2 ) Assuming that the Spanish and Portuguese usage was the same, then there
were two categories of goods which could be imported into a colonial area.
Some commodities were livres (free) and could be imported by any private
person, while others were de lei and were the preserve of the governmentor specially authorised agency.

See,- e.g., A. Lobato:

Evolu^ao Adminis**trativa e Economica de Mozambique. 1752-1763 (Lisboa 1957) P-251(3 ) Alonso de Sandoval:

De Natureleza de Todos Etiopes. pp.39>41>51

19ST
SLAV-C TRADING
from the Upper Guinea Coast adapted themselves rapidly to the New Worldsituation, with a heavy emphasis on forms of amusement.

The resort to songand lance constitutes perhaps the most important survival technique ofAfricans enslaved in the Americas. ^Some scholars have felt that the specific provenance of the slaves
has 3ome significance for New World studies, (l)However, quite apart fromthe likelihood that many of the alleged tribal characteristics were misleading
stereotypes, what is relevant from an African viewpoint is whether the
reputation of a given tribe or locality was sufficiently decisive to affectthe conduct of the slave trade with r espect to that tribe or locality.
Sandoval held that the preference for the Negroes of the Upper Guinea Coastmeant that the Spanish American buyers paid more for them than they did forother slaves*of this.

Later in the seventeenth century, there is some corroboration

Barbot said of the Upper Guinea Coast that "the slaves purchased

by Portuguese and others in these parts of the continent and the neighbouring
islands, especially those called Bijagos, are the ablest and most serviceableof any throughout North Guinea, and are valued at Mexico and Cartagene beyond
those of Benin and Angola";

while Ogilby stated the difference in prices tohave been ten reales on an average. (2 ) In 1678, the chief factor of the Royal
African Company in the Gambia indicated that he could not possibly buy slaves(1) See, e.g., Henri Dumont:

Anthropologia y Patologia Comparadas de los

Negros Esclavos (Ed. Fernando Ortiz, Havana 1916)(2 ) John Barbot:

Description of the Coasts of North and South Guinea, p.84;

and John Ogilby:

Africa, p.363

ftb

SLAVE fRADIHG
at Cacheu because the Spanish were offering thrice the amount with which aslave could normally be secured, (l).
There is the possibility that the Spanish preference for escravosde ley was affecting the volume of slaves exported from the Upper Guinea Coast,
In 1643 > the Portuguese Conselho Ultramarino stressed the importance ofpreserving Cacheu, because of the quality of the slaves, and because "it wasfrom there that the greater part of the slaves needed in the Spanish Indies andthe mines of Potosi were obtained.

Furthermore its loss would ruin the sugar

estates of Bahia and Rio de Janeiro". (2 )The reference to Bahia and Rio deJaneiro is quite perplexing, as the Conselho should have known that Angola andthe Congo were supplying the Portuguese demand for labour in Brazil.

Between

1575 and 1587, Luanda exported an average of 2,500 slaves per annum and'over
the next four years this yearly average tripled. (3 )The most that can safely

be advanced is that, firstly, the element of preference affected the destina­
tion rather than the numbers of Africans taken from the West African Coast;and, secondly, since the total of victims; taken from West Africa was not as(1) P.R.O., T70/10 - Thurlow, 15 March 1678.
(2 ) A.H.U., Guine, caixa I - No. 28, Minute of the Conselho Ultramarino, 20
1643*

When the Conselho

Nov

had been informed in I64I of the importance ofCacheu,they lad at the same time been told that Angola produced more slaves.

See theConsultas of theConselho, Cod.30, fl.l07> Christovao da Cunha

Trist&o to the Conselho, 11 Sept I64I.
(3 ) J* Duffy:

Portugal in Africa. p*50 (These figures do not include covert

commerce from informal ports of embarcation.)

1*7
SLAVE TRADING.
tremendous in the sixteenth and early seventeenth century, then the few
thousanls per annum transported f rom the Upper Guinea Coast were relatively
more significant, especially in the Spanish Indies.
The figures .produced by the Cartagena trade officials in the context
mentioned above, though underestimates of the totals, were probably an
accurate representation of the relative proportions of the slaves obtained
from various parts of W est Africa.

Of the 6,884 slaves said to have been

imported between 1585 and 1590, all but 507 originated from Cgjpe Verde Guinea.

At the same time, the Upper Guinea Coast was also exporting slaves

to Tierra Firme (Panama), Nueva Sspana (Mexico), La Guira (Venezuela) and Riode la Plata (Argentina).
To obtain even a few thousand captives per year from this small
stretch of coast was a major undertaking, providing a clear example of theorganisition which went into slaving activities on African soil and thedisorganisation which resulted within African society.

How were such

numbers of Africans made available for shipment to the New World?

The great

debate on the slave trade in the late eighteenth century and in the nineteenth
century led to keen attention being paid to this issue.

Lists and tabulationsof slaving methods were produced in an effort to £how whether or not the
Atlantic slave trade was vicious.

This particular question no longer needs

debating, but the categorisation of slaving methods is still useful.

Amodern history of the Atlantic slave trade states that "African natives became
merchantable slaves in any one of five ways.
the native chiefs as punishment;

They were criminals sold byor they were individuals sold by themselves

i<n
SLAVE TRADING.
or their families in time of famine;or they were persons kidnapped either

by European slavers or, more often, by native gangs;
in Africa and were sold by their masters;(l)or they had been slaves

or else they were prisoners of war",

This list can serve as a basis for the discussion of the conduct of theslave trade on the Upper Guinea Coast, with the exception of the category whowere supposedly slaves in Africa, since this requires fuller investigation at
a later stage. (2 )When John Hawkins sailed to Sierra Leone for the first time in 15&2,
he took 300 victims, "partly by the sword and partly by other means". (3 )Fromhis own account, and from the complaints of the Spanish, this means that heeither came upon the Africans, unawares or he seized them from Portuguese
slavers.

As argued earlier, such methods were anachronistic, and had been

rejected as the dominant mode of obtaining slaves since the early years ofPortuguese activity.

(4 )Up until the end of the ara of slave trading,

ship’s captain would occasionally risk kidnappingaafew Africans from theshore, but such forays did not really pay, since they could entail casualties
to the ship’s crew.

Besides, no regular or seasoned trader would resort to man-stealing either by trickery or by force, because it harmed European commerce
as a whole.

At the time of Be Almada*s writing, the Nalus on the Cogon hadfor several years been hostile to all Europeans. This
(1) D. Mannix and M. Cowley:(2 ) 3ee below, Ch.

Black Cargoes, p.40

f-5~~lLh(3) iakluyt Society, No. LVIII, The Hawkins Voyages(4 ) 3ee above, Ch. III^ ^/5~/.

hostility came about

SLATE TRADING
after a European ship, which was loading ivory at the Cogon, sailed away witha dozen Nalus on board.

De Almada referred to the ship as being manned by"individuals who had no experience of trade in those parts", (l)Given that, for the most part, the Europeans paid for their humancargoes, then the main issue relates to the methods b y which the Africans
were made available for purchase.
volunterred themselves.

In times of famine, it is said that

they

Occasionally, such instances are documented,usuallywith reference to the Senegambia, where famine was producedby locust plagues.
John Barbot and Mungo Park for example, reported faminesin the Senegambia

giving a fillip to slave exports. (2 )However, to cite famine as a major contributor

to the Atlantic slave

trade is a gross distortion, and to add that "most of the tribes had no meansof storing food for long periods" (3) is to introduce cobwebs.

Food shortages

wers not unusual on the Upper Guinea Coast (among certain tribes).

When

there was a period of scarcity preceding1 the reaping of the crop, those persons
who were not rich enough to have food supplies all the year round had othermeans of supplying their wants until the main grain crop had been reaped. f H
It would have taken not only the failure of the staple crop but also thefailure of subsidiary cultivation and the disappearance of most of the other(1) Alvares de Almada:(2 ) John Barbot:"Rios de Guine", p.340

Description of the Coasts of North and South Guinea. pp.33>47>

and Mungo Park: Journal...1805. p.18
(3 ) D. Mannix and M. Cowley:( Q 8 nn flhcnrn

Black Cargoes, p.43

2DO
SLAVS TRADING

supplementaries of the sea and the forest before famine could he said to havestruck.

Only a serious locust plague did this, and for most of the West

African coast they were rarities.
The first record of a locust attack on the Upper Guinea Coast isprovided by a captain-major of Cacheu, who reported that there was a famine in
the area in 1629-41, which was occasioned by locusts, (l)the possibility of another swarm.

In 1750, there was

Fears were expressed that since locusts

were reported in the hinterland thatyear they would descend to the coast.

Shortly afterwards, the locusts wereat the estuaryof the Gambia spreading(2 )desolation, (3 ) and they may conceivably have arrived on the coast south of
the Gambia,

Of course, these may not have been the only such occurrences, butfrom 1750 onwards the chronicling of events on the Upper Guinea Coast was more
continuous and more complete, and yet one does not hear of another locust
plague until 1841-45, (4) and then again in 1895* (5)Thus, locust attacks,

though dramatic, were most infrequent on the Upper Guinea Coast, and the samea).- A.H.U., Guine, caixa I - No. 27, Paulo Barradas da Silva,
18 October I64I(2 ) Nicholas Owens

Journal of a Slave Dealer, p,87

(3 ) M. Adamsons

A Voyage to Senegal(4 ) Lord Stanleys"Narrative of Mr.

(Paris 1789)
W.C. Thompson’sJourney from Timbo,

capital of Futa Jallo in West Africa", Journal of the Royal GeographicalSociety, I846, pp.106-138,(5) Christopher Fyfes

A History of Sierra Leone, pp.221,506.

2-C>|SLAVE TRADING
can be said for most of the slave trading areas of West Africa, (l)Africans, in the main were not captured by Europeans, nor did
individuals rush to sell themselves - they were forcibly brought to theEuropeansbuyers by other Africans.

'Wars1 are admittedly the most prolificagencies for the recruiting of captives.

When theManesled the invasion

into Sierra Leone in 1545> they sparked off a period of unprecedented
slaving.

The Portuguese seized upon the opportunity to profit from the routof the Sapes.

The ocean-going' slavers remained in the coastal bays andestuaries, while the boats of the 1anyados hovered like vultures in every
river, waiting to take hold of the victims of the struggles.

So numerous

were the unfortunates that the boats sometimes rejected further offers ofslaves after they had gorged their fill. (2)The Sape peoples were restless under the Mane yoke. (5 )Afterrecuriting some Sape youths to train as soldiers, the Manes were prepared
to sell as many as possible to mdse the population manageable.

Whenever a(1) The difference between the Senegal and the areas further south seems
to be that the former is exposed to frequent attacks from the Desert
Locusts which breed in the Sahara, while the species which attacks theWest African coast are the African Migratory Locusts which have theirhome in the middle Niger, and only occasionally swarm
various directions.

See P.J. Pedler:

Economic Geography of West Africa(London 1956) p. 19*(2 ) Alvares de Almadas(5) See Above, Ch.

and disperse in"Rios de Guine", pp.565,564*

"2.b 2_SLAVE TRADING
ship needed slaves, the Sapes were the ones to he sold.

Farma, the first Maneoverlord, was a ruthless ruler, whose tyranny was only ended by poison.

He

was said to have been 130 years old when he died in 1606, and, during hislong regime, conditions were such that it was not unusual to have 20 or 30
vessels loading slaves at any given time in the ports of Sierra Leone, (l)In his investigations of African regional origins of Cuban Negroes, Fernando
Ortiz encountered the term ^apes* in many of the older documents, but had
difficulty locating it in Africa. (2 )Almost certainly, this referred to theSapes of Sierra Leone, since the Spanish orthography was usually 1Zapes1. (5)The Mane example illustrates one extreme of the inter-relationshipbetween tribal wars and the slave trade.

The origins of the Mane-Sape wars

were entirely independent of the presence of the Europeans, but, as a by­
product, they filled the holds of the slave ships.

It was certainly

unfortunate for the Sapes that the Mane affliction should have coincided withthe presence of slave-buying Europeans.

Inevitably, the Manes came to lookupon the supply of slaves to the Europeans as an end in itself.

Englishslave traders in the 1580*s reported that Farma would obtain 300 or 400 slaves(1) B.R.A.H. r Papeles de Jesuitas, Tomo 185, No. 1346, Report of P. Baltezar
Barreira on the slave trade of the Upper Guinea Coast, despatched from
Sierra Leone 1606.
(2 ) Fernando Ortiz:

Hampa Afro-Cub ana (Havana 1916)(3 ) See, e.g., Mateo de Anguiano:
Vofc. II, p.131.

Missiones Canuchinas en Africa.

0 3

SLAVE TRADING
on request, by embarking on, a campaign, (l)This was one indication of what

was largely true of the Upper Guinea Coast in the era of slave trading;
namely, that most of the inter-group hostilities were motivated by andorientated towards the Atlantic slave trade.

The melee of peoples on theriver Cacheu - Banhuns, Casangas, Djolas, Papels and Balantas - wasregarded by the slave traders as a paradise. (2 )Indeed, the whole of theUpper Guinea Coast offered ample opportunities for conflicts between ethnic
groups.

Sometimes, captives were sold to the Europeans as incidental by­

products of tribal wars, but, more often, localised wars were fought
specifically to procure slaves for export.
One primary source of slaves on the Upper Guinea Coast lay in the
antagonism which existed between the Bijagos islanders and the residents of
the adjacent mainland.
conduct of war.

The whole Bijagos society was geared towards the

While the Bijago women cultivated the land, built the houses,

gathered sea-food and fished, the Bijago men dedicated themselves to building
almadias and waging war.

They attacked indiscriminately all the peoples of

the adjoining mainland - Djolas, Papels, Balantas and Nalus - and theresidents of one island preyed upon those of other islands, once they were on
the sea, for the sea, they said, had no king.

The Bijagos were excellent

sailors and swimmers and disciplined soldiers.

Their weapons were handledwith a dexterity b o m of assiduous practice;(1) G.R. Taylor (ed.):and tremendous prestige

The Troublesome Voyage of Captain Edward Fenton,

Hakluyt Society, No. CXIII.
(2 ) Alvares de Almadas"Rios de Guine", p.307»2.0^.
SLAVE TRADING

resulted from success in the use of arms.

Women took initiative inchoosing their husbands, and they chose only warriors with fine reputations,(l)

A Successful combatant acquired many wives and almadias. and this inturn led to more wealth, especially since the owner of the almadia wasentitled to one-third of the spoils from any expedition.
The Bijago assaults on the mainland had all the elements ofcinematographic spectacle.

The warriors anointed their bodies with redochre, coal and white clay;

stuck feathers into their hair;horses* tails on their breasts, attaching little bells to them.

and hung
An elaborate

ceremony was presided over by a priestess, whose final duty was the breakingof an addled egg on the s t e m of each almadia.

Then, with a dip of paddles,

the almadias went scudding off at a rate that the Europeans found amazing.
Their journey was timed so that they arrived on shore during the hours ofdarkness.

Surrounding a given village, they quickly set fire to thethatched huts.

If the occupants came out fighting, they were cut to pieces

by the expert Bijago warriors, and, mord often than not, they were preparedto surrender.
The sordid reality behind these bizarre episodes was that the
Bijago activities had been considerably stimulated and enlarged on account of
the European slave traders.

It is true that some Portuguese traders on themainland opposed the Bijago tactics.

Sebastia Casao, a prominent trader in(l) This observation made by Manuel Alvares was confirmed by m o d e m fieldstudies.

See A.J. Santos Lima:

Bijagos, (Bissau 1947)> P*98*

Organizayao Economica e Social dos

SLAVE TRADING

the Geba - Ria Grande area, was in the forefront of a move to enlist theaid of the Portuguese government to put down the Bijagos, because they were
decimating the Beafadas, among whom he traded.

On the whole, however, themore important consideration for the Portuguese was that they could buy
slaves from the Bijagos, and the more frequent and ferocious the attacks, thebetter were the slave merchants pleased.

Up to 1594» De Almada seems tohave been quite happy with the fact that the Bijago attacks yielded large
numbers of Beafadas and Papels as slaves, (l)Later, in 1669, another Cape

Verde trader with long experience on the coast, provided a lengthy descrip­tion of trade among the Bijagos.

N e waxed ecstatic over the capacity ofthe small Bijagos islands to provide slaves.

In 25 trips over a period ofyears in his own boat, Coelho had personally acquired well over 1,000 slaves,apart from large quantities of other merchandise. (2)The extent of the Bijago response to the European demand for slaves
can be measured by the development of unity among the different islanders,with respect to the pursuit of slaves.

By the early seventeenth century,

each island decided to put aside insular jealousies in favour of joint cam­paigns against the mainland, amassing fleets of almadia.s for this purpose. (3 )(1) This information on the Bijagos comes from three sources:

Alvares de.Almada: "Rios de Guine", pp.315-520; Manuel Alvares: "Ethiopia Menor"; andthe letters of Sebastiao Casao to be found in the Bib, de A.juda. Ms. 51“VIII -25 and A.R.S.I., Lus.74, fls. 79-87.
(2 ) Lemos Coelho:

Duas Descriyoes. pp.42-45*(3) A.R.S.I.. Lus.74> fl.78 - Emchabole, king of Biguba to the king ofPortugal, 24 April I607.

Z O £SLAVE TRADING

A s the century progressed, the Portuguese talk of defending the coast fromthe Bijagos was no longer heard.

They and the other Europeans tradersconcentrated whole-heartedly in exploiting the potential of the Bijago market.
When slavers arrived at the Bijagos, and found few or no slaves, they would
reproach the islanders, insisting that this was a stain on the latter1s good
name.

Other Europeans, they said, would ignore the Bijagos on hearing thatthese famous warriors had become decadent.

Such appeals to the Bijagos*

sense of honour, accompanied by the liberal distribution of alcohol, usuallyachieved the purpose of the Europeans of inciting the Bijagos to go out andbring in more victims for the slave merchants, (l)The Beafadas were particularly exposed to the Bijago attacks, butthey in their turn were active slave raiders who spread terror in the seriao.
(2 ) Similarly, the Papels, especially those on Bissau, organised slave
expeditions against the Balantas, Beafadas, Bijagos and Nalus.
Papels had the direct assistance of the European traders.

The Bissau

Like the ships*

captains, the resident traders did not usually undertake slave raiding on
their own initiative.

However, there were exceptions, the most important

being the 1any ados and grumetes on the island of Bissau.

In 1686, three

Spanish Capuchins carrying1 out missionary work on the Upper Guinea Coast
prepared a description of the conduct of the slave trade.

They reported

aggrievedly that the Bissau lanyados and their descendants not only
(1) Mateo de Anguiano:(2 ) Manuel Alvares:

Misfliones Capuchinas. Vol. II, p.135*"Ethiopia Menor".

2-C=>7
SLAVE T RAPING
engineered hostilities, hut had demanded of the missionaries that they should
bless the slave rading expeditions, threatening to hang them if they did notcomply, (l)No tribe was free from involvement in these hostilities.

The Nalus,

Balantas and Djolas did not take an aggressive stand, but they were liable toattack from other tribes:

the Nalus from the Beafadas, Papels and Bijagos;

the Balantas from the Papels and Bijagos;

and the Djolas from the Mandingas.

This last instance - that of the Djola-Mandinga confrontation - had the samepiratical overtones as the Bijago attacks on the mainland.

Sailing’ south outof the estuary of the Gambia in their almadias, the Mandingas fell upon the
Djolas as they gathered sea-foods in large parties upon the coast.

A-fc first,

the Djolas were taken unawares, but, obviously, they soon began to prepare
themselves for these attacks, and many Mandingas in turn were made captive. (2None of these ’wars' were fought to gain territory or politicaldominance;

few of them arose out of tribal animosities.

This was the view

consistently maintained by Catholic observers like Thomas de Mercado in 15&9>
the bishop of Cape Verde at the end of the sixteenth century, (3) and Baltezar
Barreira and Manuel Alvares in the early seventeenth century.

Even though

their eye-withess reports on slaving on the Upper Guinea Coast in the era(1) Mateo de Anguiano:

Mls-Lonea Capuchinag, Vol. II, p.141(2 ) Alvares de Almada!

"Rios de Guine", p.288.

(3 ) Thomas Mercado;
Guerreiro:

Tratos .v Contratos de Mercaderes-, pp.63-68 ; and Fernao

Relayao Anual. Vol. I, p.400.

Verde Bishop, D. Fr. Brandao, see below^(For the protests of the Cape

1.0%
SLAVE TRADINGof the registros were usually as brief as they were condemnatory, the picture
can legitimately be filled in by evidence taken from later in the seventeenth
century, which was also generated by Catholic missionaries:
Capuchins mentioned above.

namely, the three

They were resident on the coast for a few years,

they had nearly forty years of intermittent Capuchin activity on the Upper
Guinea Coast behind them, and they fully corroborated comments made in theprevious century and earlier in the seventeenth, while adding further details
and illustrations.
One of the things about which the Capuchins were quite definite wasthat all the conflicts which they heard termed 'wars1 were nothing more thanrobberies and man-hunts.

The expression caer guerra ("to wage war"), which

was commonly in use among the laneados, referred to the raids deliberately
undertaken with a view to procuring slaves, (l)The coastal lingua franca wasrich in such words, denoting the violent seizure of persons for sale intoslavery.

Amarrar was one of these, being the Portuguese word for "to bind";panyar was another, derived from apanhar ("to seize");

while tomadia was yet

another meaning "a captive expedition", and derived from the Portuguese word
tomada ("capture").
With the incentive of European goods, slave rading became aprofession, with persons dedicating themselves entirely to the service of theslave trade.

The heir to the throne of Bissau in 16.06 was one such(l) Also the expression ir a la guerra - See Mateo de Anguiano:
Capuchinas, Vol. II, pp. 137>141>144*

Misiones

^LO?
SLAVE TRADING

individual, (l)In 1663, the Franciscan, Andre de Faro, encountered (andbaptised) a noble on the river Nunez, who had a retinue of over sixty servants,
all employed solely in man-hunting.

His name was Salim, but the Portuguese

called him Salteador ("Highwayman"). (2 )Such professional slave hunterswere called gamnisas in the Beafada language.

It was their custom toacquire with the purchase-price of their captives some wine or food, which
was offered to the captives.

This, apparently, was a sop to the gampisas. (3 )The Portuguese found it cheaper to baptise the slaves.
There was thus no real distinction between persons kidnapped by"gangs of natives" and those who were "prisoners of war".

Bracketed together,those categories undoubtedly constitute a very considerable proportion of theAfricans on the Upper Guinea Coast who were sold to European slavers.

Equal

in importance to the methods of force were the 'legal1 methods which produced'criminals1 for sale.

Just as there were veiy few tribal wars which supplied

victims to the slave ships in a purely incidental manner, and just as theslave trade gave rise to the violence upon which itin turn battdned, so the'criminals' who were transported to tte Americas were more often than not, thecreation of the slave trade.
By the end of the sixteenth century, the individuals who could be
deprived oftheir freedom by process of law were those condemned to death,those who administered poisonto or placed a fatal fetish on others, adulterers(1) F e m a o Guerreiro:(2 ) Andre de Faro:

R^lacao Anual. Vol. 1, p . 4 H

Peregrinacao. p.83

(3) Alvares de Almada:"Rios de Guine", p.337-

xl D
SLAVE TRADING
with one of the king's wives, and those who solicited war against the king or
asked the Xinas to bring about his death, (l)To these it must be added thatdebts often led to slavery, and the same can be said for the variety ofoffences which came under the term chai, namely, the failure to comply withprohibitions or taboos. (2)The slaves obtained in these several ways could beconsidered in one sense as criminals, since they were duly convicted by thelaw of the land.

JLj. the same time, it is clear that customary law on theUpper Guinea Coast was functioning in a radically different way during the slave
trade era than it did before and after.
Many of the charges which resulted in enslavement were complete
fabrications.

"Subversive plots against the local government became

surprisingly common in seacoast towns off which the slavers dropped anchor.
The king almost always discovered a number of dangerous conspirators, and theynaturally had to be sold." (3 )prosaic character.

However, most of the 'crimes' were of a more

Adultery, as many observers realised, was one of thecharges which offered great scope for fraud.

Marital infidelity was a common

affair in the polygamous societies of the Upper Guinea Coast, where the kings,
chiefs and nobles had dozens of wives, many of whom were simply domestic
servants. (4 )If in the normal course of things enough accusations were notmade, traps were set by husbands, with the complicity of their wives, so that

(1) B.R.A.H., Papeles de Jesuitas, tomo 185, No. 1346, Barreira 1606.
(2) Matea de Anguiano:

Misiones Canuchinas. Vol. II, p.134(3) D. Mannix and M. Cowley:Black Cargoes, p. 41(4 ) Mateo de Anguiano: op. cit., p.136.

al /SLAVE TRADING-‘’woman palavers/ could "be raised.
Above all, the allegations relating to the deaths of individuals
were the ones which gave opportunities for chicanery.
of two sorts:

Crimes were essentiallythose which were concretely discoverable (such as murder,

theft, or adjultery) and those which were discoverable because sickness ordeath had come about, (l)Many deaths, whether resulting from disease or

accident, were attributed to evil influences.

In most cases, this evil

influence was said to have emanated from a feticeiro.

He was sought out andcharged with the offence of ’’eating the spirit” of the deceased. (2 )Some­times, the evil was conceived of as residing in the deceased himself;

whosedeath was constructed as proof of and punishment for his misdeeds.

The

Africans were prone to come to this latter conclusion when death resulted froman accident or a stroke of fate.
Clearly, offences in the above category had to be detected in amanner that was quite different from that of ordinary crimes.

It was theinterrogation of the dead person by the priest or .iambacouce. which yielded
the information as to whether a given person had died because of a fatal’fetish* being placed upon him or not, and it was the .iambacouce who
ferreted out the guilty party, though ostensibly, it was the dead man who
acted as the accuser.
infinite.

The possibilities f or fraud in these cases were

It was not that every death was attributed to a feticeiro - atleast things had not deteriorated to that extent before the end of the(1) L.V. Thomas 1

Les Diola. Vol. 2, p.496(2 ) A.I.S.I.. Lus.83 , fls. 349-552, Manuel de Barros, 19 April 1605.

212,
SLAVE TRADING

sixteenth century when De Almada was writing, hut when the interrogation led
to 3omeone being branded as a feticeiro, this had all the appe&asances of adeliberate plot, with the slave trade as the incentive, (l)Travelling in

1822, in a section of Temne country where the slave trade had been stamped
out, Major Laing was witness to the interrogation of a dead girl.

On thatoccasion the answer was that nobody was responsible for her death, but, as
Laing remarked, ,fhad the slave trade existed, some unfortunate individual
might have been accused and sold into captivity". (2).
W&en anyone was successfully arraigned on a charge, his family anddependants often followed him into slavery - as though he had committed
Adam’s original sin, reported the Capuchins. (3)This was always the casewith feticeiros. and sometimes a whole settlement or apolonia could be wipedout in one sale. (4 )In part, this was a safeguard for those who were

responsible for enslaving others, since they were freed Irom the possibilityof vengeance being taken by the victims* families. (5)In some cases,

however, it was the family alone who were sold, because the supposed feticeiro
was already dead.

If, as outlined above, accidental death was held to be

proof of evil dealings, then the person’s family was also liable to penalties.
De Almada was at the court of Masatamba, the Casaggg king, in 1570, when a(1) Alvares de Almada:(2 ) A.G. Laing:"Rios de Guine", p.295

Travels, p .85(3 ) Mateo de Anguiano:

Misiones Capuchinas, p. 136(4 ) Alvares de Almada:"Rios de Guine", pp.263,295>332.

(5) B.R.A.H., Papeles de Jesuitas, tomo 185, Ro* 1346, Barreira.

zi3
SLAVE gRAJIMG
man fell from a palm tree and died.

Immediately, the officials of the kingwent to the house of the dead man;seized his wives, children and relatives;and sold them all. (l)This was not .can isolated instance.

By the end of

the sixteenth century, it had become the law on the Upper Guinea Coast thata fatal fall from a palm tree was a ’crime*, the punishment for which wasthat the deceased’s family was automatically sold. (2)From the above example, it can be discerned that, in the slave
trade era, not only was there scope for fraud on the basis of the pre-existing
law, but that the customary laws were themselves changing, especially withrespect to the penalties imposed.

This is the aspect of the situation which

stands inineed of the greatest emphasis.
f

One is presented with the pictureIon the Upper Guinea Coast of sale into slavery becoming the punishment
meted out for a greater and greater number of crimes, descending to the mosttrivial, so that even when a charge was not spurious, there was a ludicrous
disparity between crime and punishment.

Before exemplifying this, it isnecessary to lay bare the nature of legal punishmait on the Upper Guinea Coastas far as they can be discerned in operation when the factor of slaving had
not intruded.
Perhaps the assumptions of savagery which were long current inrelation to the "Dark Continent" may lead to the belief that, slavery or noslavery, the system of punishment on the Upper Guinea Coast may have been
cruel.

This is far from the truth.

(1) Alvares de Almada:(2 ) Ferriao Guerreiro:

Valentim Fernandes reported in the"Rios de Guine”, p.295
Rela.can AnufyL, Vol. I, p.405.

SLAVE TRADING

opening years of the sixteenth century that only murder was punishable bydeath among the Bulloms, while the Temnes had no capital punishment, (l)Indeed, on the whole West African coast, capital punishment was a rarity in
distinct contrast to Europe at that date. (2 )in the form of fines.

The only other punishment was

Adultery, for instance, was easily resolved, by theoffending male paying the husband agreed damrges. (3 )Deprivation of liberty

seems to have been entirely unknown as a form of punishment. (4 )Yet, withthe advent of the Atlantic slave trade, the Africans of the Upper Guinea Coast
were led to become parties in plots which resulted in the lifelong deprivationof the liberty of their fellows.
Chais were understandably very common on the Upper Guinea Coast.
When the 1 anyados committed chais, they were subject to fines, and theyclaimed that every pretext was used against them. (5)Some of the Africans

themselves were open to the same kind of exploitation, with the vital
difference that they suffered slavery as a consequence. (6) The treatment
of debtors is another example of the severity and ruthlessness introduced.by
the Atlantic slave trade.
(1) Valentim Fernandes:

To borrow and fail to repay the most trifling
La Cote Occidentale d ’Afrique, p .96(2 ) For the Gold Coast, Mannix cites Bosman to this effect.

See Black

Cargoes, p.38.
(3 ) Valentim F emandes:

La Cote Occidentale d ’Afrique, p .96(4 ) See below, Ch. X,(5) See hbove, Ch. III^ ft (6) Mateo de Anguiano:

Misiones Capuchinas, Vol. II, pp.134,142.

21 S'SLAVE TRADING

item in the seventeenth century on the Upper

Guinea Coast was sufficient

warrant for arrest, conviction and executionof sale, (l)That people shouldhave been sold for debts may seem plausible in the light of the imprisonmentof debtors in Europe, but it must be reiterated that it was by indigenous
standards that the punishment of offences by slavery was lop-sided and vicious.
For the fabricated charges to have been successfully carried, andfor the scale of penalties to have been so radically altered, the local courts
obviously had to be parties to the travesties of justice.

The procedure of

the courts appears to have undergone alteration in the interests of injusticeand the slave trade.

The judges, along with the king, usually gave theirdecisions on the basis of the evidence. (2)However, there were certain

ordeals to which the accused were subjected in doubtful cases.

The use of the

hot iron on the tongue or in the palm of the hand, with a few leaves placed
beneath it, was the most common of these ordeals, and was used in simple cases.
(3 ) One seldom hears of this method as the seventeenth century progressed.
Instead, the most dreaded ordeal, that of the "red-water" was the mostprominent.

This test consisted in the drinking of the bark of a certain tree

infused into water. (4 )The innocent party was supposed to escape with hislife after drinking* the poisonous solution.

But the court was in a position(1) Mateo de Anguiano:

Misiones Capuchinas, Vol. II, p.145(2 ) Alvares de Almada:"Rios de Guine", pp.348,349(3) Ibid: p.262; and Manuel Alvares: "Ethiopia Menor".
(4 ) The tree in question appears to have been sasswood (Erythronhleum guineense)
See Peter Kup:

A History of Sierra Leone. p.l60

:z> LSLAVE TRAD IMG

secretly to vary the strength of the infusion, as well as to add otheringredients, which could act as anti-toxins or emetics, so that the guilt or
innocence was pre-determined - and it was usually guilt, (l)In many

instances the accused preferred to refuse the test, and accept being sold;while, alternatively, if the accused died drinking the "red-water” , his
relatives were still available for enslavement.
The Djolas and Balantas were hostile to the slave trade, anddid not indulge in preying upon each other by using the various
stratagems just outlined. (2)dodges andOn the other hand, the Casangas and the

Beafadas were prolific in producing criminals for the benefit of thePortuguese lanyados and European slavers. (3 ) Perhaps this may lie at thebasis of the charge which the neighbours of the Beafadas levelled at them,and that is, that it w§s the Beafadas who introduced slavery into the world.
(4 ) On the Upper Guinea Coast, taken as a whole, during the period cf
intensive trade with the Spanish Indies, the victims produced as alleged
criminals were substantial in number.
is required.

No lengthy list of slaving methods

The two overwhelming forms of conducting the slave trade wereforce of arms (wielded by Africans) and the chicanery of a warped system of(ffi) F e m a o Guerreiro Relacao Anual, Vol. I, p .404
(2 ) For the Djolas, see De Almada: "Rios de Guine", p.290;

and for the

Balantas who were said never to have preyed on each other, see J.B. Labat:
Relation
IfeiLafcxoax Nouvelle/de l ’Afriaue Occidentale. Vol. V, p.200.
(3 ) Fernao Guerreiro: Relacao Anual. Vol. I, p .404
(4 ) Lemos Coelho:

Duas Descricoes, p.55

SLAVE TRADING_^.customary law.
Prom the methods of the slave irade there sprung certain
consequences.

Since some tribes were more predatory than others, it ispossible very broadly to assess the results of slaving on individual tribes.
The small Bijagos islands appear to have held a unique position in being
largely cushioned from the effects of slaving.

To begin with, the main­

land peoples did not counter-attack the Bijagos in their island homes;
and in the second place, the Bijagos were not favoured as slaves by theEuropeans.

De Almada claimed that the Bijago children made goodslaves,but adults (especially the men) were not good bargains, as they were able towish death upon themselves and frequently did so. (l)Lemos Coelho pin­

pointed the Bijagos of the island of Permosa as being prone to committing
suicide, because of the belief that if they died abroad their spirits would
return home. (2 )It is indeed true that the inhabitants of Fermosj believethat the spirits of the initiated return to an adjacent islet. (3 )In anyevent, the Portuguese on the coast steered clear of the Bijagos as fax as
securing slaves for service on the coast was concerned, and the Bijago
reputation in the Americas was equally bad.

Labat, who was a well-informed

commentator on the American scene, said that the Bijagos were noted forrebellion on the slave ships, and that they were sold with great difficulty(1 ) Alvares de Almada:(2 ) Lemos Coelho:"Rios de Guine", p.318

Duas Describes, p.45

(3) J* Faria Leitao:"Bijagos da Ilha Formosa", in Inquerito Etnografico,

■2I&
SLAY 3 E-iADING
in the Caribbean because of their natural ferocity and tendency to escape.
Theywould not work except under the whip, they wounded themselves, and theyfrequently committed suicide, (l)The Bijagos, therefore, could scarcely

have qualified as escravos de ley.
A few other tribes may also have escaped with relatively slight
losses from the slave trade in the period under discussion.

Be Almada feltthat the Djolas were increasing in numbers because they did not indulge in theslave trade.

This is not difficult to believe, because though the Djolas wereraided, from all accounts, they were quite capable of defending’ themselves. (2 )The 3ame can be said of the Balantas, (3) so that relatively few of these
tribas must have appeared on the market.
The Upper Guinea Coast was unfortunate in that it comprised so many
petty polities offering scope for inter-group conflicts?

and it was doubly

unfortunate in having the powerful Mande peoples as its neighbours.

When thePortuguese reached the Gambia in 1455 > their reputation as dealers in human(1) J.B. Labat:

Nouvelle RQlation de l !Afrique Occidentale, Vol. V,

3*198(2) See below, Ch. X, p.^y? for counter-attacks against the Mandingas.
the Djolas also gave an excellent display against a European attack.
J.M. Grays

In 1780,See

A History of the Gambia, p.270.

(3 ) Vhen the Balantas were provoked by Bissau slave expeditions into counter­attacking the prapa of Bissau, they made successfor sorties right under thewalls of the fort.
(4 )See A.H.U., Guine', maco V - Relacao of 2nd Nov 1778

SLAVE TRADING
kind had already preceded them from the Senegal, and the Mandingas would havenothing to do with them, (l)However, the very next year, the Mandingas

accorded a friendly welcome to the Portuguese, and, for the remainder of thelong period of pre-colonial trade, they were the chief collaborators with theEuropeans on the Upper Guinea Coast.

In the light of the Mande inclination

towards trade, it was not surprising that the Europeans and the Mande shouldhave forged strong trading relations.

If human beings were the most saleable

objects, then the Mande were willing to provide them.

Not only were they

willing, but they were also able, on the basis of their military superioriiy
and the political control which they still maintained over several of thelittoral groups in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. (2 )It was no

accident tint the Mandinga Farim Cabo was the biggest slave dealer in his partof the world, and he obtained his victims by raiding. (3 )The Mandinga sea

raids on the Djolas have already been cited, and Mandinga attacks were also
carried out on land in the area around the Hereges river.

The Mandinga rulerof Hereges, known as the Emperor of Fogny, was still attempting in theseventeenth century to exercise dominion over the Djolas and the Banhuns andto collect tribute from them.

He attacked them when they refused to comply,

and sold large numbers as slaves. (4 )Not only the Mandingas, but tribes who had come under close Mandinga(1) Valentim Fernandes:

La Cote Occidentale d fAfrique, p.34

(2 ) See above, Ch. 1^ f-SC.
(3 ) Mateo de Anguiano:

Misiones Capuchinas, Vol. II, p. 136; and P. Cultru:

Premier Voyage de Sieur de la Courbe. pp.25G~252.
(4 ) J.B. Labat: Nouvelle Relation de l !Afrique, Vol. V, p. 19,20

1X1D>SLAVE TRADING

influence, took the initiative in raiding their neighbours to provide slaves
for the European traders.

The Casangas were outstanding in this respect, andtheir ready supply of slaves and exceptionally favourable treatment of thelancados J^ade Casanga territory a haven for the Portuguese.

That the Casanga

king should have been in the habit of bestowing on his Cape Verde friends whocame to visit him gifts of at least ten or a dozen slaves attests both to theamicable relations with the Portuguese as well as his ability to produce thisparticular merchandise, (l)The powerful position of the Casanga king was due in part to the rolewhich

he played within the Mandinga system of hegemony over the littoral peoplea

He was directly under the Farim Brayo. and other subject peoples of tie Farim,such as the Banhuns and the Balantas, paid their tribute to the king of
Casanga. (2 )In the latter half of the sixteenth century the Banhuns werevigorously rejecting the supposed Casanga sovereignty, and this was
associated with a serious conflict between the two tribes in the 1560*s. When
the Casanga king Masatamba, chose to dictate on what terms the lancados should
reside in Banhun territory, this led to further violence, and the powerful
Casanga king overran Banhun territory in 1580. (3 )Thus the Banhuns musthave featured prominently among the victims whom the Casanga king offered to
the Europeans.
The Cocolis were another tribe who were agents of Mandinga(1) Andre Domelass"Relapao sobre a Serra LeoaM(2 ) See above, Ch. I, p 5 l(3) See above, Ch. I I I ^ - H ^1 2 -I<■*SLAVE TRADING'.*

expansion on the Upper Guinea Coast.
slave trade.

They played a key role in the Nunez

The Portuguese and Spanish traders, seeking to fill the quotas of

their registros. proceeded up the river Nunez through Nalu country until they
arrived at Kagandy among the Cocolis. (l)Kagandy was a great slave mart andthe slaves must have beendrawn mainly from within the domains of the Farim
Cocoli.

Right up to the middle of the nineteenth century, the Cocolis werestill in the forefront of slave trading in that district. (2 )Unlike the Mandingas, the Susus and Fulas did not wield political or
military dominance over the coastal peoples in the sixteenth century, hut one
effect of the Mane invasion was toset

theBulloms,Teenies andwith the Susus and Fulas. (3) Onceconflicts

Lokos

at odds

flared,the captivesinvariably

found their way into the holds of the slave ships.

The Susus themselvesbegan to move closer to the sea after routing the Manes.

By the mid­eighteenth century they had found an outlet on the Atlantic between the Pongo
and the Searcies, largely at the expense of the Bagas. (4 )Susus and the Fulas had joined the Mandingas as

By this time, thethe most active agents of theslave trade on the Upper Guinea Coast, but long before that the Susus and Fulas
had begun to abandon their former peaceful trade with the coast.

During thesecond half of the seventeenth century, the majority of the slaves shipped from(l)Alonso de Sandoval:(2 ) William Shreeve:

Sierra Leone (London) 1847)(3) See above, Ch. I I } ^(4 ) See below, Ch.

De Natureleza de Dodos Etiopes, p .40?<?

SLAVE TRADING

Sierra Leone were provided by these two tribes, (l)The greatest victims of the slave trade may well have been not thepeoples of the littoral fringe, butthe 'Taleo-Negritics11 who occupied theinterior plateaux and parts of the Futa Djalon.

The Tenda country, as

described by Mongo Park, was a vast tract of land along the Gambia between 10°
and 14° West Longitude. (2)All this was under the rule of Mandinga chiefs

and Farims from the earliest European reports, but a few discerning observers
in the seventeenth century had noticed that the supposed Mandinga population
was not homogenous.

Jobs on, for example, found that above Baracunda on theGambia the men wore hides instead of cloth, the women were heavily tattoed,
and a different language was spoken, though Mandinga was understood Mby thebetter sort". (3)Lemos Coelho was also able to point out that the

population of the Gambia and Cabo was Mandinga only in the s ense that t his
tribe had come to dominate the original inhabitants in every cultural sphere.
The Mandingas had become 1naturalised1, and the indigenous people had taken
the name of the Mandingas. (4 )Thus, many of the slaves who may have been

described as Mandingas must have been Tendas or fPaleo-Negriticsf in theprocess of assimilation.

Apart from these, Coelho also specified that the(1) Mateo de Anguiano: Misiones Canuchinas. Vol. II, p.132; and P.R.O.,
T70/14 - Greenaway, 26 Jan 1703.
(2) Mungo Park: Travels#.1785-1787.
(3 ) R. Jobsons

See accompanying map.

The Golden Trade, p.128.

West Longitude.)(4 ) Lemos Coelho:

Duas Descricoes. p.117.

(Barracunda is around 13°30

SLAVE TRADING

Bassarels, a distinct Tenda group, were the principal captives sold hy the
Mandingas; (l)and some years later De la Courbe found that the slaves on theGambia had become merchantable because of war, crimes, sorcery or the fact of•belonging to "a subject race". (2)The latter could hardly have been otherthan the !Paleo-Negriticsf.
To circumstantiate the above claim, two pertinent parallels can be
drawn.

Firstly, the Manes considered themselves as licensed to exploit andsell the populations that they had conquered;

and, secondly, the Fulas, in thelatter part of the eighteenth century, practised a similar opporession overgroups that they had defeated. (3 )It seems very probable that after having

established their dominance over the middle Gambia and the plateaux of Cabo,
the Mandingas would have asserted similar rights over the various groups ofTendas who dwelt there.

It is to be noted in the cases of the Mane and Fulaempires that these supposedly sovereign tribes had to resort to violence on
every occasion on which they wished to lay hands on the auctoctones for saleto the Europeans.

The very likely pattern in the intermediary zone between

the coast and the Futa DJalon, therefore, was one where the submerged groups
were continually fighting for their existence in the face of dominant tribes
such as the Mandingas, who were being spurred on by the European demand forslaves.

(1) Lemos Coelho:(2) P. Cultru:^uas. Lescriyoes.pp. 25,134*

Premier Voyage de Sieur de la Courbe. p.l94«(3) See below, Ch. IX, p

and Ch. X, f S'* <4 •

SLAVE TRADING

For the period 1562-1640, the great slave raiding tribes on theUpper Guinea Coast were the Manes, the Mandingas, the Casangas, the Cocolis,theand^ to a lesser extent, the Susus and the Fulas.

It is therefore accurate

to represent the littoral non-Mande peoples of the Upper Guinea Coast as being
to a considerable degree encircled and exploited by their Maude neighbours of
the interior in the interests of the Atlantic slave trade.

One principal

result of the slave raiding was to emphasise and prolong the harassment of
those ethnic groups who had sought the Upper Guinea Coast as a refuge from thepolitical turmoil and subjection of the Western Sudan.

Thus, when thelanpados met the Mande on the ’’mangrove line” of furthest river travel they
forged a slaving partnership which boded evil for ths peoples of the Upper
Guin3a Coast.
With respect to intra-tribal slaving operations, it is equallyimperative to seek out the aggressors and the aggrieved parties.

The slave

trade exacerbated personal rivalries of all sorts, and no section of thesociety was exempted from these.

There must have been conflicts among nobles,

and among individuals in the lesser ranks of society, bearing in mind thatevery act of violence and every piece of chicanery perpetrated in the interestsof the slave trade oftenbrought on its own train of vengeance and retribution.
Butsuperimposed upon these personal struggles, and indeed upon the inter­tribal conflicts also, there was a definite pattern of class exploitation,with the ruling class as the offending party.

(1 ) Mateo de Anguiano:

Misiones Capuchinas. Vol. II, p.132

SLAVE TRADING

The "ruling class" must be taken
nobles, (l)to mean the kings, chiefs andAt times it appears possible to draw a dividing line Ibetween the

king and his nobles.

The slave ship offered a most convenient vehicle forthe disposal of rivals to the king's authority, and the noble was obviously
a profitable target for plots leading to the sale of his numerous family anddependants.

De Almada stated that the persons who died after submitted tothe ’red-water1 ordeal in Casanga territory were the rich ones whom the kingwished to kill. (2 )But the king of Casanga was unusually autocratic.

The

typical king or chief of the Upper Guinea Coast was simply -primus inter paresas far as the other nobles were concerned.The possibility did not exist
for the kings or chiefs to victimise their principal subjects at will.

Onlywith the substantial support of tbe nobles themselves can one envisage theking taking measures against one of their number.

In the latter sixteenthand the early seventeenth century, the ruling class in Sierra Leone was not
ethnically homogenous, and the Mane element was bent on the extermination of
the Sape nobility.

Elsewhere, how.ever, there is no evidence to suggest

divisions between king1 and noble or between noble and noble, leading to a n ysignificant export of the privileged class.
It is necessary to recall, firstly, the nature of most of thetribal societies of the Upper Guinea Coast, as discussed previously, and tore-emphasise that there was a definite cleavage between those who held

(1) See above, Ch. I ^ ^ l I(2 ) Alvares de Almada:"Rios de Guine", p.294*

12L
SLAVE TRADING

authority in the society and those who did not. (l)Secondly, it must heborne in mind that when the Europeans arrived they dealt with the Africans
through the ruling class.

Only the ruler of a given area could grant thelan^ados permission to reside and trade there, and only he could extend
protection to them subsequently. (2 )The responsibility for the slave trade,

as far as the Africans themselves bear part of this responsibility, lies
squarely upon the shoulders of the tribal rulers and elites.

They were inalliance with the European slave merchants, and it was upon the mass of thepeople that they jointly preyed.
The law of the land was the king's law.

It was a law administeredby the king and his judges, all of whom w ere drawn from the nobility.

Whenthis law was made into the handmaiden of the slave trade, this could only havecome about because the ruling class wished it to be.

It was only the kingand the nobles who stood to benefit from the perversion of justice.
examination of the question of adultery will illustrate this.

AnotherThough poly­

gamy was theoretically possible for all, it was wealth which determined how
many wives a man possessed.

Only the nobles had dozens of wives, and thus

plenty of opportunity to encourage "woman palavers".

Besides, the very

definition of adultery depended upon class considerations.

Actual copulatioh

constituted adultery when the wife of a Beafada commoner was involved;

when

the wife of a noble was concerned, physical attempt was sufficient for a(l)See above, Ch. I ) yO n t(2) See above, Ch. Ill, fl-il>^

217
SLAVE IRADIHG
charge;while an indelicate proposal to one of the king's wives was enough toconvict, (l)V
As with adultery, so with every other cyarge- the ruling class were

the ones who instituted them, and the common people w£re the victims.
Contemporary European observers had no difficulty in discerning this.

Ogilby,for example, affirmed that individuals became slaves either through war "orelse under tte pretext of some imperious and arbitrary laws by the kings andgreat men of the country". (2 )latter point.

The Capuchins were very explicit on this"The crimes for which innumerable men, women and children arecondemned to slavery usually consist of deceits, frauds and acts of violenceof the powerful men;these latter are the judges, plaintiffs and witnesses,

and in the end the unfortunate poor who cannot resist them are enslaved. (3 )The same observers added that "the rich and powerful enjoy the privilege ofmaking captives, because there is nobody to resist them.

They (the nobles)

look upon so many persons with dislike, and when they feel so inclined, theyeasily exercise their privilege, because their own interests are not harmed bytheir greed.

The king proceeds with the same licence." (4 )Apart from the unlikely possibility of being sold by the king, thenoble could be certain that the law offered him protection.

In Sierra Leone,

in the mid-eighteenth century, the rich still paid only fines if they were
(1) Alvares de Almada:(2) John Ogilby:

Africa: p .363

(3 ) Mateo de Anguiano:(4 ) Ibid, p.136.

"Rios de Guine", pp.524,555*

Misiones Capuchinas, Vol. II, p. 134

"2.2.

SSLAVE TRADING
guilty of crimes, except where the offender transgressed any basic rule of thePoro. (l)Where slave raiding was concerned, the noble remained to a large

extent invblate, because if captured, he was almost always returned to his own
people, on payment of a ransom.

Even the fearsome Bijagos were prepared tooffer captured nobles for ransom in return for two commoners or five oxen. (2 )Up to the end of the eighteenth century, the ruling class on the Upper Guinea
Coast continued to follow this practice of ransom for their own security. (3 )If the noble was actually sold to the Europeans, he still had an
excellent chance of recovering his freedom.

In June 1622, the residents ofCacheu complained to the Governor of Cape Verde and to the Conselho da Fazenda
in Portugal that the trade factor in Cacheu had been so foolhardy as to seize(amarrar)a noble, related to the king. (4 )The consequences of the factor'sactions were not stated, but other incidents of a similar nature indicate that
the Cacheu traders ahad good cause for complaint.

For instano©, in June 1680,

the chief factor of the Royal African Company in Sierra Leone reported that two
English private traders had stolen a noble from the Nunez, and the residents
had threatened to kill all the Englishmen who 'fell into their power.
Fortunately, the private traders carried the noble to the Company's factory at
Sherbro, and the chief factor thought it wise to purchase the individual in(1) Nicholas Owen:(2 ) J. Labat:

Journal of a Slave Dealer. p.4&

Nouvelle Relation. Vol. V, p.134(3 ) See below, Ch. X(4 ) Boletim do Arquivo Historico Colonial. Vol. I, Doc. No. 28.

SLAVE TRADING
question and make sure that he was returned to his homeland, (l)It therefore

seems to have been the convention that nobles were not to suffer servitude, andthat every effort should be made to secure the release of any noble who inad­vertently fell into the hands of the slave traders. (2 )The noble suffered a minimum of disadvantages because of thedegeneration of the customary law and the rise of slave raiding, and if he wassold he stood a very good chance of regaining his freedom;

the commoner was

the target of all the abuses of the law, he was the victim of the sLave raids,
and when he was sold his position was desperate.

In the early years of theseventeenth century, in the Cacheu-Ria Grande area, there was a tacit agreement
between the kings and the Portuguese buyers that when a king knew that one ofhis subjects captured in a raid was about to be sold to the Portuguese, heshould make no protest.

According to Barreira, this was "because they (thekings) prefer to see their subjects in the hands of the Portuguese, rather thanin the hands of the Bijagos, who would eat them if there were no buyers". (3)The cannibalism ascribed to the Bijagos is only a red herring, because Barreirahimself says that the agreement held good for the tribes other than the Bijagos,
bribes against which the spurious charge of cannibalism was not levelled.
The agreement really seems to point to a harmonisation of thecupidity of all who stood to gain.

In the first place, the 1anyados could

purchase any captive without enquiring after the ’title1 by which he had been
(1) P.R.O. T70/1 - Edmund Pierce, 5 Jan 1681, fIs.77,78(2 ) See below, Ch. X ^ f> -5 ^ 0 *(3 ).B.R.A.H.. Papeles de Jesuitas, tomo 185, No. 1346.

SLAVE TRADING

acquired, and with the assurances that they were not to he perpetually challeng

to return human purchases on the grounds that the individuals concerned had bee

3tolen.

Such an arrangement was obviously essential if thel anyados were to

trade simultaneously in the territories of the Casangas, Banhuns, Djolas,
Papels, Beafadas and Bijagos, all within a limited compass, and each one
sailing its neighbours.

When De Almada said that the river Cacheu was aslaver's delight, (l)it must have been made so, not only by 'Balkanisation*,but by the conjoint action of the ruling groups in each tribe to allow thelaneados to buy persons freely, irrespective of how they were acquired.

In

the second place, Barreira*s report that the kings of the Cacheu-Ria Grandearea did not challenge a sale when any of their subjects was involved implies
that the several tribal rulers on the coast had come to a reciprocal under­
standing to equalise their greed.

King 'A1 had no fear of turning a blind eyewhen he saw his subjects being sold by king 'B*, because perhaps tte very next
day the positions would be reversed.
There was another reciprocal agreement between the laneados and theAfrican ruling class of the Upper Guinea Coast, which militated against theordinary individual who sought to escape after being sold.

When a captive

escaped from a lanyado, the latter tarns d to the nearest chief or noble (witha ’gift1) and asked him to announce on his bomb ad on that such and such anindividual had fled. (2 )Such communications were the exclusive preserve ofths ruling class, and, without their co-operation the 1anyados could not have(1 ) See above, Ch.
(2) Alvares de Almada:"Rios de Guine", p.326.

25)

SLAVE TRADING
coped with the frequent escape of captives for whom they had already paid.
Later, the Royal African Company also found it necessary to pay neighbouring
fidalgos to return fugitive slaves, (l)It is an obvious and well recognised fact that the African chiefs
and kings were actively engaged in partnership with the European slavers allalong the coast. (2 )But the impression given of inter-tribal conflicts has

usually seemed to outweigh that of internal struggles. (3 )On the Upper

Guinea Coast at least, one is forced to give much more attention to the waythat victims were produced for the slave ships from within individual tribes.
As Basil Davidson points out, throughout the history of slaving all over theworld, the distinction between selling people of a given in-group (such as an
ethnic group or religious community) and those who were outsiders was not
rigidly maintained# (4 )The same applied on the Upper Guinea Coast, where

the kings were just as likely to rob their own people as to attack theirneighbours.
tion;

The isolated exceptions only serve to reinforce this generalisa­

because it could scarcely have been simple coincidence that the Djolas(1) P.R.O.tT70/560, Bence Island Accounts(2) See, e.g., Basil Davidson:

Black Mother# where the idea of partnershipis a constant theme.
(3) D. Mannix and M. Cowley:Black Cargoes, pp. 12,13(4 ) Basil Davidson: Black Mother,(p.107, however, suggests that the African

chiefs on the coast seldom obtained the slaves from their own ranks.
holds good only after the Atlantic slave trade was pushed further andfurther inland.)

This

^32.
SLAV.'] TRADING
and the Balantas, who produced the least slaves either by raiding or by preying
upon each other, were the very tribes with an amorphous state structure fromwhich a well-defined ruling class was absent, (l)Tribal divisions were not then the most important*

When the lineof demarcation is clearly drawn between the agents and the victims of slaving
as it was carried on among the littoral peoples, that line coincides with thedistinction between the privileged and the disprivileged in the society as awhole.

The Atlantic slave trade was deliberately selective in its impact on

the society of the Upper Guinea Coast, with the ruling class protecting itself,while helping the Europeans to exploit the common people.
the widespread pattern of m o d e m neo-colonisation;

This is of course

and, by the same token, theperiod of slave trading in W Qst Africa should be regarded as proto-colonial*
On the one hand, there was no semblance of European political control over the
African rulers;

but on the other hand, it was the Europeans who wereaccumulating capital*
In thd midst of lamenting the trials and tribulations of the lane ados
Barreira related that one day a Mandinga arrived at Cacheu, having journeyed
there to resolve a doubt which was besetting him.
of Cacheu:

He asked the Muslim imam

"Why is itthat the whites are free, and the blacks are their slaves'

The reply was that God made tte whites first and the blacks afterwards, and hedecreed that the latter should serve their elder brothers. (2 )imaginative portrayal of the colonial relationship.
(1) See above, Ch.

(2 ) Fernao Guerreiro:•
Relayao Anual. Vol. 3, P*283

This was an*2.53SLAVE T RAPING
Indirectly, via European testimony, the African rulers made it
manifest that they regarded the slave trade as an imposition, but were preparedto pay that price for European goods.

On this point, the Capuchins offeredevidence which they elicited by questioning the African rulers on theirattitude to the Atlantic Slave trade.

They found, as Barreira before them had

done, that the African slavers recognised their profession for the evil it was,(l) but contended that they indulged in man-stealing because the whites wouldpurchase no other goods. (2 )In the long run, the terrible logic of thissituation caused the African chiefs to cling to the Atlantic slave t rade as
their staple economic activity, even after it had become an anachronism within
the capitalist system.
The European assessment of the Atlantic slave trade is quite
unmediated as far as the historical sources are concerned, and thus it is all

the more surprising that this is usually hopelessly misrepresented.0.A. Sherrard
in treating the questionc£ "the slave and his emancipation", provides a typicalexample.

"It is a notable fact," he wrote, "that riddled as negro slavery waswith every form of wrong and oppression, no one ever proposed its abolition
until the trade had fallen into British hands.

It is the more notable, because

the Indian slavery, which went before it and out of which it sprang, had aroused
misgivings in many persons who could, had they wished, have crushed it in its

first beginnings ... Yet, as soon as Negroes had replaced the Indians, authority
both civil and ecclesiastical, dropped the subject and with it their(1) F e m a o Guerreiro:(2) M. Anguiano*

Relacao Anual. Vol.

p. 411*

Misiones Capuchinas. Vol. 2, p.141

SLAVE TRADING
hesitations#•. Almost overnight, negro slavery became, like the slavery of the
pre-Christian world, an accepted fact - a mere matter of trade, which was ofno interest to polite societies or to powerful hierarchies, or evenphilosophical academies... For rather mere than one hundred and fifty years
this state of indifference continued;

and then, as England entered the trade

and the facts of slavery began to seep through, the English conscience wasstirred;and with that stirring, hope for the slave was b o m . " (l)There is no need to quarrel with this author's chauvinism, only withhis purported facts.

Clarkson's history of the abolition movement, asdistinct from his observations on the contemporary scene, has been paid little
attention.

He gave a lengthy discourse on the early opposition to the Atlantic

slave trade, a discourse which wobbles somewhat when he introduces Elizabeth I
of England as an opponent of the slave trade, but which also highlighted thevery real debate between Dominicans and Franciscans, which Pope Leo X resolvedin f avour of the anti-slavery party, by declaring that "not only the Christianreligion, but that nature herself cried out against a state of slavery". (2 )The literature on the Upper Guinea Coast has numerous references to clericaldebate along these lines.
The Spanish, Portuguese and Italian Catholics who opposed theAtlantic slave trade couched their arguments mainly in theological terms.
(1) O.A. Sherrard*

Freedom from Fear, the Slave and His Emancipation(London) p.97
(2 ) Thomas Clarkson:
Vol. 1, p.38.

History of the African Slave Trade (London 1808)

23$
SLAVE TRADING
They agreed that by doctrinal writ it was possible for an individual to be'justly1 enslaved, and that capture in war, for example, provided a "justtitle" for enslavement, if the process was incidental.

But, they then proceede<

to demonstrate that the Atlantic slave trade bore no relationship to thistheoretical model, because the 'wars' themselves were products of the slave
trade, (l)Even Alonso de Sandoval, who adopted a pro-slavery stance, did notdeny that the captives from the Upper Guinea Cdast and elsewhere in Africa werevictims of "unjust wars", but he gave solace to those slave captains in
Cartagena, who were nauseated and morally discomfited by their participationin the trade, by telling them that when they purchased slaves in Santiago or
Cacheu, those Africans had already passed through the hands of two or threeintermediaries, and it would therefore have been impossible to ascertain bywhat 'title' a particular slave was acquired. (2 )A few Catholic observers did not share Sandoval's nimble conscience.
Mercado, for instance, felt that all who had anything to do with the slavespurchased in Santiago were morally contaminated and guilty.

He expressed

scepticism that the matter had really been thoroughly investigated by the(1) Manuel Alvares:
length,"Ethiopia Menor".

Here the question is discussed at^e cited Justinian law to the effect that one "just title" wasprovided when an individual over twenty years old voluntarily sold himself.
Leviticus, Ch. 25 gave him reason to believe that poor fathers could inextreme circumstances sell their children.

Crime was also anotherpossibility.
(2 ) Alonso de Sandoval:

Natureleza de todos Etiones. pp.65-72.

23 4
SLAVE TRADING
Mesa da Consciencia cf the Portuguese kirg, and he mentioned that a number ofletters on the subject had beendespatched to Lisbon, (l) In actual fact, theawareness of the methods of the trade and the protests against the slave
trade on legalistic grounds led imperceptibly to a position of total condem­
nation.

To contend that a 'just1 slave was a rarity on the Upper Guinea

Coast, as Manuel Alvares insisted, and to complement this by saying t hat theEuropean traders should accept only those persons who had been 'justly'
enslaved was in effect to call for the abolition of the slave trade.
Apart from citing the opinions of learned theologians,

andpointing

to the vicious discrepancies on the African coast, the Catholic priests
involved in this protest waged their campaigns around the question of baptism.
As Barreira had found, and as Sandoval admitted, the Spanish and Portuguese
slave traders seldom bothered to baptise the slaves, or alternatively they
were allowed mass baptism, a whole shipload being admitted to grace in one
fell swoop. (2)D. Frei Victoriano Portuense, bishop of Cape Verde in thelast years of the seventeenth century, was a vigorous campaigner against
the failure to baptise slaves.
forthright.

The statements of thn bishop were quite"Knowing the manifest injustices by which people are made slaves

in Guinea the only excuse (and even this is not sufficient of an excuse) is(1) Thomas de Mercado: Tratos y Contratos de Mercaderes. p.68
(2 ) F e m & o Guerreiro:

Relay aoAriual. Vol. 1, p.400.

In most of

the letters t>

his Padre Provincial. Barreira registered some protest against the slave
trade.

He also advocated that all Cape Verde slaves who served wellshould be manumitted.

See A.R.S.I., Lusitania 74*

237
SLAVE TRADING
to say that these gentiles are being taken out to receive the light of thechurch."But the slave trade as it was then conducted made no provision forthe salvation of the blacks, and was indeed the greatest danger to the soulsof white folk.

D. Victoriano Portuense claimed that B. Frei Pedro Brandao,

who held the see one hundred years earlier, was so disgusted with the injusticeof the Atlantic slave trade that, failing to put a stop to it, he relinquished
the bishopric of Cape Verde-Guinea, and returned to Portugal.

"My scruples

are not so great that Icondemn totally this trade, seeing that it istolerated by so many men af letters and great theologians", added D.
Victoriano - perhaps with a humble tongue in his cheek, (l)On the subject of the slave irade, only one letter of theredoubtable D. Frei Brandao appears to have survived, but it is enough to bearout the truth of Portuense*s report.

Written about 1598, it contains ascathing attack on the leading role of the Portuguese in the traffic of humanflesh, and he proposed to the king that all blacks should be baptised and thendeclared free by virtue of this baptism and reception into the Faith. (2 )(1) A.H.IT.. Cabo Verde, caixa VI - the remarks quoted were in a letter toConselho on the 13th June 1700.

theApparently, the correspondence on thisquestion was going on for at least a decade.

D.Frei Victoriano Portuense

received a directive from the Conselho on the 23 Jan I69O that no slaves
should be shipped without being baptised. Other letters of his survive
dated 4 June 1696 and 17 June 1697* His real name was da Costa.
(2) Av J * Brasio: Monumenta Missionaria Africana. Africa Ocidental 2nd series, Vol.
Ill - No. 110, Letter from the bishop of Cape Verde to the king, pp.442-445*
The editor notes that Brandao left Santiago in 1694 after spending six
years there.

He relinquished his mitre in 1606.

i.'S'S
SLAV] TRADING
Quite

obviously, civil and ecclesiastical authorities had not droppe<

the subject of the Atlantic slave trade, as Sherrard would have us believe.
The opposition of soms Catholics to the Atlantic slave trade (and also toslavery in the Americas) was not carried on in obscure places.

Such views

were consistently placed before tie highest civil and ecclesiasticalauthorities.

Even at a glance, without pretending to come to grips withthe views of all the priests in the New World or in parts of Arica otbr thanthe Upper Guinea Coast, it is clear that this subject was one of the mostimportant pre-occupations of those who saw themselves as the guardians of
the European conscience, and who came into contact with the harsh realitiesof the Atlantic slave trade.

The records of the Propaganda Fide, thecentral, co-ordinating b ody for Catholic missionary endeavour, show that thiswas the case, with letters ofprotest arriving from various parts of Africa
and AmerL ca;

but the reply of the Sacred Congregation of the Propaganda

Fide was that slavery was inevitable if the plantations were to survive, (l)The protests constitute a noteworthy epic in themselves, as well as(l) A.P.F.. Acta, Vol. 54, No. 19, fl* 19 - Report on the abuses of theslave trade in the Congo by the Procurator General of the Congregazione
dei Negri. 6 March 1684; Vol. 55, No. 26 , fl. 35, Capuchins in Americaand Africa complain about slaving in Africa, treatment of slaves on board
ship and in America where they were overworked and underfed.

(Dated 12

March 1685); and Vol. 56 , No. 15, fl.12, report on abuses of slave
trading and slavery, 11 Jan 1686, with comments by the Sacred
Congregation of the Propaganda Fide.

^3?
SLAVE TRADING
indicating (as one might reasonably have assumed) that Europeans were fully
cognisant of the monstrosities of tbe Atlantic slave trade.
know were those who did not want to know.

Those who did not

The question was posed "What priceprofits?", and the answer was that no moral price or human suffering was toohigh to pay for monetary gain from the trade in slaves and from the extensionof capitalist production into the Hew World.

A HISTORY OF THE UPPER GUINEA COAST, 1 5 4 5 -1 8 0 0

CHAPTER FIVEFREE TRADE -v- MONOPOLYFREE TRADE VS MONOPOLYPART I - "PORTUGAL AND HER EUROPEAN RIVALS"

Flourishing though the Atlantic slave trade may have "been,
the Portuguese crown faced serious problems in attempting to secure foritself the major profits of the trade of the Upper Guinea Coast, just as
the Spanish authorities struggled to cut down on the revenue

leakagesconnected with the import of slaves into the Americas, (l)In the firstplace, the Portuguese monarch had to take into account the interests of theCape Verde settlers, to whom some of the profits had to accrue.

In thesecond place, though the lan^ado at the end of the sixteenth century was not
the hunted outlaw he was at the beginning of that century, he still defied
the provisions of his sovereign in many respects, making it difficult
for the Portuguese treasury to collect revenues on the trade of the area.
The fiscal arrangements for the Cape Verde islands and theadjacent coasts involved the division of the mainland into districts or*trades1.

The Upper Guinea Coast itself was considered as two districts -that of '’Sierra Leone" and that of the "Rivers of Guinea". (2)Theboundary between the two was as far south as the river Searcies, which,because of its kola supplies, was an integral part of the Cacheu trade. (3 )The various •trades' between the CaP© Verde peninsula and Cape Mount were(1)

See above, Ch. IV, p •iqo

(2)

J.W. Blake;(3 )See below, Ch. VIII, p.

Europeans in West Africa, Vol. 1. p.37

2.42FREE TRADE v MONOPOLY

leased sometimes separately and sometimes conjointly#

At any rate, thesame merchant or group of merchants often leased more than one simultaneously;
and after 1521 it appears that one group of contractors generally enjoyedsole rights of trade on the coast between Beziguiche" (Goree) and Sierra
Leone, (l)In 1535 > the Cape Verde Guinea contract was worth 8,000 cruzados
per year; (2 ) a bid of 25>000 for a three-year period was offered in 1551?
(5 ) while in 1607* the value was 27,000 cruzados# (4 )Sometimes, thecontract was sold for six years, as in the case of Alvaro Mendes de Castro,
who leased it in 1586. (5)Frederic Mauro, in his study of "Portugal and theAtlantic in the seventeenth century” provides a list of the Cape Verde-Guinea
contract holders from 1589 to 1643 > indicating the prices at which theyobtained it#

The price of the contract shows a marked decline from 27*000(1)

J#V# Blake:(2)

Ibid: p.141(3)

Ibid: p#179

Europeans in West Africa, Vol. 1, pp.37>38(4 ) Luciano Cordeiro (Ed*):

Estabelecimentos e Restates Portugueses na Costa

Occidental de Africa em 1607. nor urn Anonymo. p*12 (At 5s to the cruzado,
the value of the contract in 1607 would have been £ 6 ,750*)(5)

A.G.I*, Casa de Contratacion, No. 2875> slave registers from1584 to
1599*
1592.

Mendes de Castro was followed by Simon Ferreira jimbrosio in2-43

FREE TRADE v s . MONOPOLY

cruzados in 1607 to 9 >4-00 cruzados in 1637) (l) though the records which
establish these figures are not perfectly clear.
There were three main clauses in the contract - apart from aminor stipulation that the contractors should discharge charitableobligations to churches and hospitals in Portugal and maintain the clergy in
Santiago,

Firstly, the lessee was obliged to send at least twelve ships

during his three years of control^ preferably, four each year#
proceed to the African coast via Santiago#

These were to

Secondly, he had to confirm to

the general commercial regulations, which prohibited the sale of certain items(chiefly weapons) to the Africans#

Finally, the contract protected therights of Cape Verde settlers, guaranteeing that they could trade freely on
the mainland in their own produce, and that they were able to import enoughslaves for their own use. (2 )While, in the early part of the sixteenth century, thePortuguese government lad at times considered it necessary to limit the role
which the Cape Verdeans played in the trade of the Upper Guinea Coast, (3 )when the Atlantic slave trade increased in volume and became a joint HispanoPortuguese concern, the crown sought to buttress Santiagofs position as theentrepot of all overseas trade with the UpperGuinea Coast.
(1)

All ships boundFrederic Mauro: Le Portugal et l^tlantique au XVII6 Siecle. 1570-1670.
Etude Enonomique (Paris i960) p,l6l(2 )A#H#U.T Cabo Verde, caixa I - Copy of the CV-Guinea contract signed with
Gaspar da Costa, Jan 1637*(3 )

See above, Ch# III, p, 1 1 +%.

X4-4FREE TRADE v s MONOPOLY

to and from the mainland had to stop and pay duties at Santiago, and thefiscal machinery for the recovery of duties was to be found in that island*On the mainland, the factors* were really agents of the holders of thecontracts.,(l) and it was only in I614 that a single official of the crown
was app ointed to serve on thd mainland. (2 )In theory, there was no needfor trade officials to be stationed at Cahheu and other points on the coast^
since Santiago was a compulsory transit point for all trade to and fromthe Upper Guinea Coast;but, not surprisingly, the registered vessels seizec

the opportunity to load on the coast and by-pass Santiago.
In the early seventeenth century, it can clearly be seenthat it was the rule rather than the exception for the registered vessels
to flout the commercial statutes.

In September 1608, the municipality ofSantiago petitioned for an end to the practice of ships proceeding directlyfrom Spain and the Canaries to the Upper Guinea Coast. (3 )(1)

J.W. Blake:

In June 1615,

Europeans in West Africa: p.38 and Bib, de Aluda. Ms.51*

VIII-25 , fl.87 - Description of Cape Verde and Cacheu by Sabastiao
Casao, 1607•(2) A.H.U.r Guine, caixa I No. 1, Letter of appointment given by Nicolhao
Castilho, governor of Cape Verde, to Joao Tavares de Sousa, who was tobecome "captain of infantry, factor and receiver of the royal revenues”
in Cacheu and the other rivers of Guinea. 29 Dec 1614* (Published in
Boletim do Arquivo Historico Colonial. Vol. 1, p.203)(3) Bib, de A.iuda Ms. 5I-VIII-48 , f 1.182, Consultas of the Conselho da
India, 1603-1609.

Petition of Sept. 1608.

2.^"
FEES TRADE v s MOHOPOLY
the governor of Cape-Verde - Guinea had cause to repeat the same request*(l)while, in the following year, he complained that more than 2,000

Negroes had been despatched from Cacheu to the Spanish Indies, but only
half of these had teen entered in the books of Cahceu, and hardly any had beeitranshipped via Santiago. (2 )In July 1619, the crown republished a decreeof 1608 by which all vessels were to trade with Guinea only through Santiago
or suffer penalties* (3 )Apparently, the effects of the second publication

were as null as the first and those which went before it, because in 1627
the Casa da India was informed that for many years they were defrauded andnothing was accruing to the royal revenues* (4 )In March 1634» there was areport that Alvares Gonsalves, a prominent 1anyado, had been imprisoned in
Cacheu for procuring slaves fof export to the detriment of the royalrevenues.

However, he escaped and was practising his profession as middle­

man trader at Joala in the Senegambia. (5 )The comphints of the Cape Verdeans against the violation of
their privileges received legislative support, while the counter-claims(1 )A.H.U.. Cabo Verde, caixa I - No. 31, Nicolhao Castilho to the Conselho,
2 June 1615*(2)

Ibid: No. 67 , Nicholhao Castilho, 30 June 1616.

(3)

Ibid: No. 45, Treslado of 10 July 1619*(A treslado was a copy of aroyal edict, which was transcribed into the books of the local
authorities and signed by the notary.)(4)

A.H.U,. Guine, caixa I - No. 5, Minute of the Conselho, 1627*

(5 )

Ibid:

No. 12, Minute of the Conselho, 22 March 1634*

FREE TRADE v s MONOPOLY

which were presented, asking for the freeing of the coastal trade from thenecessity of proceeding via the Cape Verde islands, met with no sympathy.

In

June 1610, Joao Soeiro, the then holder of the contract, petitioned theConselho da India in a vain attempt to reverse the restriction imposed on
the registered ships, (l)In reality, this trader was seeking official

sanction for what he was already doing, and failure to obtain it did not
deter him.

Subsequently, he and his agents were asked to answer charges ofbreaking the contract and defrauding the royal revenues, (2 ) but this did
not help to preserve the Portuguese monopoly on the Upper Guinea Coast.
Here, as one governor of Cape Verde lamented, nothing could b e done to stop
ships trading on points of the mainland because of the attitude adopted by
the resident Europeans and the African chiefs. (3 )Most of this period of intensive slaving, accompanied byinadequate revenue collection, was taken up by the union of
Portuguese crowns,

which lasted from 1580 to I64O.

theSpanish andSome historians -Portuguese scholars in particular - have judged harshly the consequences of
the Iberian union on Portuguese imperial fortunes.
interregnum of alien rule.

For them, this was an"The decline of Portuguese influence and commerceon the Upper Guinea Coast was a simple consequence of the incapacity anddisorientation of the Kings of Castille and their representatives in(1)

A.H.U., Cabo Verde, caixa I - No. 88, petition of 5 June 1610.

(2 )Ibid: No. 22,

Minute of the Conselho, 9 Sept 1614.

(3 )Ibid: No. 27,

Nicolhao de Castilho, 1 Jan I615.

2-47
FREE DRAPE vs MONOPOLY
Portugal", writes Joao Barreto, (l)This thesis has at its base theerroneous contention t hat 1580 was a significant turning point in thepattern of events on the West African coa3t - the date after which Portugal's
possessions became subject to attacks from Spain1s European enemies.
was no such sharp change on the Upper Guinea Coast.

There

Throughout the sixteenth

century, there had been breaches of the Portuguese monopoly of trade on the
Wast African coast by French, English and Dutch ships;

and it was around the

middle of the sixteenth century that English voyages to West Africa beganineimest, and if the Upper Guinea Coast was not touched during the wellknown voyages of Lok, Wyndham, Towerson etc., it was mainly because
navigational conditions induced the ships1 captains to make their firstlandfall at the river Cess on the Malaguetta Coast. (2 )On the Upper Guinea Coast itself there were a number of English
voyages in the two decades before 1580.

John Hawkins made three trips to

the Upper Guinea Coast in 1562, 1594 and 1587?

while Francis Drake made his

second voyage to those parts in 1578 , when he attacked and seized a ship in
the harbour of Ribeira Grande, Santiago. (3)Curiously enough, thePortuguese prince, Antonio, Prior of Crato, who was a rival of Philip II,
was himself responsible for encouraging commercial ventures on the Upper
Guinea Coast in the 1580* s, from his place of refuge at the English(1)

J. Barreto:

Historia da Guine. p .85(2)

J.W. Blake:

Europeans in West Africa,Vol. 2(3 )A. Brasio: Monuments Missionaria Africana, 2ndseries, Vol. Ill - No. 35,
Relayao of the pilot Nuno da Silva, 20 May 1579,

P*82.

24S
FREE TRADE v s MONOPOLY

court. (l)In so doing, he gave some fictional title of legality to theEnglish ships which Philip II and his Portuguese administration would haveregarded as 'interlopers*.

In any event, the issue was not fundamentally

one of international law.

Growing mercantile capitalist states in Europe,such as England, the Dutch provinces, and France, were prepared to challenge
the Iberian pretensions to a monopoly of world trade whether or not Spain
and Portugal were hanging together.

To the extent that there was anincrease in the frequency of arrival of Portugal's rivals on the Upper
Guinea Coast after 1580, this can scarcely be attributed to the union with
Spain.
The Spanish monarchs and their representatives in Portugal
were indeed incapable of putting an end to European infringements of thePortuguese monopoly of the commerce of West Africa.

In October 1591, thegovernor of Cape Verde-Guinea wrote to the Conselho da India urging that a
fleet should be sent to clear the rival European powers from the Upper
Guinea Coast. (2 )To this and similar pleas, the response was the

proclamation of empty edicts. (3 )But, such complaints were nothing new.

a) J.M. Gray: A History of the Gambia, pp. 17,18(2 )A. Brasio: Monumenta Missionaria Africana, 2nd series, Vol. Ill, No. 80
Memoranda by Bras Soares de Melo, Captain of Cape Verde,

7 Oct 1591*(Cited by J. Barreto: Historia da Guine- . p.85)(3 )Ibid: No. 83 , Royal letter to the Captain of Cape

Verde,(in this instance, two frigates were promised and may have

18 Octbeen

despatched, but even this gesture was an empty one, since hundreds ofmiles of coastline could not be blockaded.)

2.^9
FR S.i TRADE v s MONOPOLYIn June 1542, to cite one of many examples, Jorge Vas, clerk of Cape Verde,wrote to King L. Joao III as follows: "At the time when the ships were
captured in the island of Foguo, I wrote to Your Highness to tell you how
needful it was that the coast should "be guarded during the months; ofFebruary, March, April and up to May, and that the contractors should begiven authority to defend the coast, because otherwise Guinea would be lost,
and there would be no trade”, (l)No doubt, he would have been answered

eventually by a royal decree forbidding Portugal's European competitors fromsailing in African waters.
Another facet of the charge against the Spanish is that theabuses of the registered ships had created indiscipline and anarchy on theUpper Guinea Coast. (2)In this connection, an important point to recall

is that the first registros were issued at Seville in 15&2.

The Spanish did

not impose the system on the Portuguese after the union of the two crowns.
On the contrary, the latter had themselves issued licences in Lisboa.
Besides, in 1615, after the a?,egistro system had fallen into disuse, theCape Verde administration was pressing for its return, realising that its
replacement meant a decline in shipping. (3 )One particularly misleading suggestion from the ”anti-Spanish(1)

A. Brasio: Op.cit., Vol. II - No.103, Letter from Jorge Vaz to the king10 June 1542, p.345* See also J.W. Blake: Europeans in West Africa,
pp.170-174 (translation of the above letter)(2 )J. Barreto: Historia da Guine, pp.82-84 (Supporting a view firstexpressed by Sena Barcelos.

(3)

A.H.U.. Cabo Verde, caixa I - No. 54, Nicolhao Castilho, Dec. 1615.

FREE TRADE v s MONOPOLY

school” is that the problem of the lane ados and their encouragement of rival
Europeans was in any way a product of the period of joint monarchy, (l)Incarrying out his function as middleman, the 1anyado made no distinction withregard to the nationality of those with whom he traded.
been expected.

This was to have

The resident traders seldom started with much capital.

They

took trade goods on credit from European ships, and, with these, they obtainec
the slaves and other items from the Africans.

Their self-interest lay in

trading with as many ships as possible, regardless of whether or not a given
ship was considered by the Portuguese authorities as a threat to theirmonopoly.

This was the principal reason why the crown waged its legislative

war against the lanyados,

The legislation failed because there were nomeans of putting it into operation, and because it cut across the realitiesof the economic situation,

Portuguese prices were very often »ea?e competit­

ive, and their range of trade goods was limited.

The Portuguese from themetropolis and the Cape Verde islands were actually forced to desist fromtrading in the Srniegpambia because the 1anyados facilitated the trade withw

the English and French, which obviously offered them more profits.

As earlyas 1568, because of this commercial competition, and because of piracy,
Portuguese ships no longer thought it worthwhile to attempt trading north of
the Gambia river. (2 )(1)Leite de Magalhaes: "A Costa de Guine", in A Rpstaurayao e o Imperio
Colonial Portugues. (Agencia Geral das Colonias, Lisboa 1940)*(2)

See above Ch. Ill, p./37

zs")

FREB TRADE vs MONOPOLYSouth of the Gambia, the situation in the latter sixteenth
century and early seventeenth was somewhat different from that to the north.
The laneados did maintain contacts with European ships other than Portuguese
and Spanish, especially since they needed to purchase iron from the Dutch,
English and French, (l)house at Cacheu. (2 )greater;

The Dutch were more prominent, and had a trade ,In Sierra Leone, the European competition was muchbut, for the most part, the resident traders of Portuguese

extraction on the Upper Guinea Coast did not find it necessary to do extensive
business with Portugal1s rivals.
Portuguese partnership.

This was due largely to the Hispano-

The Spanish were able to provide the capital and thetrade goods which the Portuguese lacked, and a ready and profitable market
for slaves was provided in the Spanish Indies

at a time when plantation

slavery had not yet come of age.
As late as 1620, the Englishman, Richard Jobson, was in aposition to refuse to engage in the slave trade in the Gambia,"We were apeople," he said, "who did not deal in any such commodities, neither did webuy or sell one another, or any that had our owne shapes." (3)quoted statement is as inaccurate as it is pious.

This widely

The English had been

trading in slaves during the sixteenth century with the full sanction and(1)

Alvares de Almada: "Rios de Guin£, p.286; and see below, Ch,VIII, p.

(2 )A.H.U.. Guine, caixa I - No.27* Joao Pereira Corte Real to the Conselho,
Dec 1641*(3)

R* Jobson:

The Golden Trade, p.120,

FREE TRADE v s MONOPOLY

participation of their queen.

Yet, it does indicate that slaving had notassumed the priority for the English (and the French) in the sixteenth
century as it clearly had in the case of the Portuguese.

This was afurther reason why the Portuguese monopoly of the commerce of the Upper
Guinea Coast was not seriously challenged by rival powers in the sixteenth
century.
The real challenge to the Portuguese would come, not in theform of voyages by 1interlopers1, but when a rival European power ortrading company sought to set itself up on the mainland or even to visit
those shores on a regular basis.

This would have presented no difficulty,

because the Portuguese position on the Upper Guinea Coast was extremely weak.
Arguin, Goree, Sao Jorge de Mina and Luanda were either to the north or to
the south of the Upper Guinea Coast, where the only point of Portuguese
concentration was Cacheu, a site of negligible strength, which had been
fortified on the initiative of the local traders to resist the Africans,
not the artillery of European ships.

Sierra Leone, to the extreme south of

the Cape Verde trading zone, was the must vulnderable area.
with the fiscal centre at Santiago were tenuous indeed.

Its connections

It seems that when

Sierra Leone products were not sold to rival European ships, theyreached Portugal or the New World, as the case may have been, after being
shipped northwards to Cacheu in small coastal vessels,
European ships of all nations called at the Sierra Leone
estuary without hindrance, and their captains inscribed their names at theIR E S TRADE v s MONOPOLY

watering place of the bay of Sierra ^eone. (l)The patent grantSd by the

English crown to Thomas Gregory in 1592, authorising him to trade between the
Nunez and the Sherbro for ten years, (2 ) was a direct affront to thePortuguese, but nothing of consequence spring from this concession.

Aftera single voyage to Sierra Leone, Gregory seems to have lost interest. (3)Before another venture of this sort could be launched, the Portuguese sought
to strengthen their precarious hold on Sierra Leone*
The Portuguese crown had made a veiy early attempt to establish
itself in Sierra Leone, with the construction of a fort near the Sierra
Leone estuary some time during the reign of D. Joao II (1481-95)*

But,

this was abandoned and demolished before the reign was over. (4 )When interesin Sierra Leone was renewed in the sixteenth century, the idea proposed wasthat of white colonisation.

The initiative, as in so many matters relating

to the mainland, came from the Cape Verde settlers.

In 1580, the residents

of Santiago had elected Alvares de Almada as a delegate to treat with theadministration in Lisbon for permission to colonise Siera Leone.

Theenthusiasm behind this request can be gauged from thefearsexpressedcaptain major of Santiago that permission to settle in Sierra
to the depopulation of the Cape Verde islands; (5 )(1)by theLeonewould

lead

as it was, the project

E.R. Taylor (Ed.): The Troublesome Voyage of Captain Edward FPnton; andAndre Domelas:"Relayao sobre a Serra Leoa".

(2 )Richard Hakluyt: Voyages« Vol. 3> P*195(3)Peter Kup:

(4 )Pacheco Pereira:(5 )Alvares de Almada:A History of Sierra Leone, p.41*
Esmeraldo de Situ Orbis. p.80
"Rios de Guine", p.377

FREE TRADE v s MONOPOLY'

was shelved for more than twenty-five years#
The representations of de Almada must have had some effect perhaps more so after 1594 when he placed his observations on the Upper
Guinea Coast on record.

Besides, there were other advocates for the colonis­

ation of Sierra Leone.

The Jesuits were in favour of the idea, (l) and in

1606, Bartolemeu Andre, a Sierra Leone trader, wrote to the crown,
describing the prospects for European colonisation in glowing terms. (2 )In that same year, Pedro Alvares Pereira, a Councillor of State, was given
Sierra Leone as a doacao.

This grant was said to have been based on thatmade by D. Sebastiao to Pablo Dias de Novais in Angola in 1574* (5)Pedro

Alvares undertook to build up a white community on the coast between theriver Searcies and Cape Mount.

Emphasis was placed on settling artisans;and, over a period of fourteen years, two forts were built for the protec­
tion of the colonists. (4 )This plan wasto be carriedout inconjunction(1 )Fernao Guerreiro*(2 )Ibid, Vol. 2, pp.209-211(3 )James Duffy: Portugal in Africa. p#50 (Reference to the grant given to

Relayao Anual, Vol. 1, p.408

Novais) The comparison was made in what appears to be a memorandum of
the Conselho da India, written around 1610.

See B.R.A.H., Papeles deJesuitas, tomo 185, No. 1348#(4 )Luciano Cordeiro:

Estabelecimentos e Resgates Portuguezes na Costa

Occidental de A-prica em I607t p*12; and Sousa Viterbo:
e o Gentiou , 0 Institutor Vol. 43> No. 3> Uoimbra 1896.

Os Portugueses

2.S'S"
FREE TRADE v s MONOPOLY

with Jesuit missionary work among the Africans, and Father Baltezar
Barreira was appointed logal agent for Pedro Alvares. (l)Barreira carried on his proselytisation;

hut nothing cameof the colonisation scheme after the f irst ship bringing men, building
materials and munitions was ensnared by the French. (2)Within a few years 3

the crown became anxious to direct the activity itself, with Pedro Alvares
being willing to renounce his rights for a compensation.

The Hispano-Portuguese Conselho da India outlined an ambitious scheme which referred tosettlement, defence, trade, exploration and Christianisation.

The mainactivities were to have been sugar cultivation and the export of slaves.
Once the sugar plantations and factories had begun to show a profit, theattempt would then have been made to proceed inland in search of gold, etc.
(3 )Here again there was plenty of promise, but no performance.
With the failure of the Portuguese attempts to organise thesettlement of Sierra Leone, or even to set up forts or factories with
officials of the crown, Sierra Leone remained the home of the lanyados.
who collected slaves, ivory, camwood and wax for export overseas, while
doing a flourishing business by sending kola, dyes and slaves to the rivers
a)A.R.B.I., Lus.74> fl«64> letter from Barreira on 4 March 1607*(2)

An account of this incident was given by Lemos Coelho, who mistakenly
referred to Pedro Alvares Pereira as Pedro Alvares Cabral.
Descriyoes Seiscentistas da Guine. p.73> and Peter Kup:
Sierra Leone, p.65 .

(3)

B.R.A.H.. Papeles de Jesuitas, tomo 185, No. 1348*

See Duas

History ofFREE M E

vs MONOPOLY

further ncsfch.

It meant, too, that the coast waw clear for rival Europeans

to make their dehut, as soon as they felt so inclined.

When they took up

the option during the course of the seventeenth century, Portugal did not
bother to make even verbal pretensions to Sierra Leone.
It was the Dutch and the English who moved into the vacuum
created by Portuguese weakness in the southern portion of the Upper Guinea
Coast.

A roteiro of the coast of Guinea, prepared in 1635 for the benefit

of important Spanish officials, indicated that the English and the Dutch
had several trade factories in Sierra Leone, and they had installed themselve
comfortably in Europe an-style houses.

Between them, the Dutch and theEnglish despatched ten to twelve ships per year, loaded with ivory, camwood,
wax, gold and other goods, (l)In the opening years of the seventeenth century, the Dutch
built a fort at Cape Mount, which served to protect the terminus of a
substantial gold trade which had its origin in
Malaguetta Coast.

the hinterlandof the

They were so well entrenched that they b ^ n thecultivation of sugar cane.

The king of Sierra Leone, prompted by a

Portuguese 1any ado, counselled his Mane ’brother1, the king of Cape Mount,to be very careful, because the Dutch were taking away his land.

Thiswarning spurred the king of Cape Mount to expel the Dutch. (2)However, itappears from the account of Manuel Alvares in 1616 that the Dutch were still(1)

Documentayao Ultramarina Portuguesa. Vol. 2, "Relacion para el Rey, Noss
Senhor do Bispo de Malaca", 1635*(2 )Pernio Guerreiro:R^layao Anual. Vol.

2, pp.209-211.

2ST7
FREE TRADE v s MONOPOLY

in that area, (l)if not under the same conditions, and it

issignificant

that such scarce information as has been preserved about conditions

aroundCape Mount has come mainly from Dutch sources. (2 )In the Sherbro area, the English held sway.

Evidence in 162*.$

indicated that a London firm, Wood and Company, had been trading in the
Sherbro region for about twenty-five years.

They had obtained a grant fromthe local king, and wore mainly concerned with the export of camwood. (3 )Sherbo was one of the two nuclei, around which the English charteredcompanies trading to West Africa in the mid-seventeenth century were based,
as the following recommendation during the Commonwealth regime shows:"the council states their opinion that 20 leagues on each side of the twochief factories, or residences by the sea coast, the fort of Cormantin, andthe river Cerberro, near Sierra Leone, may be granted to the present
Adventurers". (4 )The ’Adventurers1 referred to were the Company ofMerchants Trading to Guinea.
The Sierra Leone estuary was the scene of both English andDutch activity.

Following upon the voyages made to Sierra Leone in thelate sixteenth century, by captains like Hawkins and Drake, the English
preserved their interest in this region.

They were said to have been

particularly favoured by the French, who were friendly with the Temnes to the(1)

Manuel Alvares:"Ethiopia Menor"(2)

See above, Ch. II, p.jr^(3 )See C. Fyfe:(4 )Peter Kup:

.Sierra.,Laflne

Inheritance., pp.59-62.

A History of Sierra Leone, p.66.

FREE TH..DE vs MONOPOLY
south*

When the Frenchman, Villault, of the French West India Company,

visited Sierra Leone in 1666, he had to pay deference to an Englishman,by the name of Abrahams, who for many years lived on one of the islands of
the Sierra Leone estuary, and who was "loved and protected" by the Bullom
king.

Abrahams was serving as factor of the Royal Adventurers, incorporated

in 1662, and the Bulloms thought enough of him to effect his ransom for nine
hundredweights of ivory, when he was captured by Villault. (l)The Portuguese trader, Lemos Coelho, wrote in 1669 that theDutch had two houses made of timber and two turrets for defence at a spotnear the confluence of the Port Loko Creek and the Rokelle. (2 )Both nations

were primarily concerned with the ivory trade, but it was European rather
than local trade rivalry which brought them into conflict.

The Dutch

Admirals, De Ruyter and Meppel carried out a successful attack on Tarso
island in I664, the main English factory being stationed there; (3 )andthat converted Sierra Leone into a minor theatre of the Anglo-Dutch wars.
The rapid decline of Dutch trade in Sierra Leone over the following decade
was probably a reflection of external conditions, related to the commitmentsof the Dutch in Europe and the East Indies.

(l)Nicholas de Villault:
Christopher Fyfe:

Relation des Costes d ’Afrique, p.62; andSierra Leone Inheritance, p.55*(3)

Lemos Coelho:(3)John Cgilby: Africa* p.376; and Sierra Leone Studies* (Old series)
No. 19.

Dnaa Descriyoes Seiscentiatas da Guine, pp.74,234*

2.C?
FREE TRADE v s MONOPOLY

When the Gambia Adventurers received a lease from the Royal
Adventurers in 1672, they had a relatively clear field in Sierra Leone as
far as competition from other Europeans was concerned.

They tradedprofitably in Sierra Leone, (l) but the company as a whole was never placedon a sound financial footing and gave way to the Royal African Company in
I678.

This latter continued to trade in Sierra Leone until 1728> and in theGambia until the middle of the eighteenth century.
While in Sierra Leone the English had ousted the Portuguese
almost without any opposition, to the north, Portugal had some semblanceof control over the Geba - Gambia area, and after the ’Restoration1 of I64O,
the Portuguese crown fought bitterly against rival European encroachments in
the region.

Indeed, for a brief while, using Cacheu as a base, thePortuguese mounted something of a commercial counter-attack on the English in
Sierra Leone.

The events in this northern sector of the Upper Guinea Coast

during the period I64O-I7OO offer an opportunity to analyse the trade
rivalries at greater depth.

The question of Free Trade vs Monopoly wasnever simply one of the confrontation of European powers.

On the Upper

Guinea Coast, the lane ados usually added another dimension to the problem;
while, the Africans, as everywhere else on the coast, were always actively
involved.

How did the issue of Free Trade vs Monopoly fit into the African

conception of the partnership with the 1anyados and visiting European tradorsl
To answer this, one must embark on a fairly close and detailed narrative of
events in the main centres of trade on the Upper Guinea Coast in the seven­teenth century:(l)namely Cacheu and Bissau.

P.R.O.T T70/10 - Edmund Pierce, 4 Aug 1679» fl.53*

2.^0
FREE TRABS v s MONOPOLYPART IX - FREE TRADE TRIUMPHS (CACHETO 1640-1684)
As soon as Portugal reverted to the status of an independent
monarchy, steps were taken to assert the national interest on the Upper
Guinea Coast - as elsewhere.

The national int.-rest was construed as being

essentially antagonistic to that of Spain, so that the first measures of
the new Portuguese a^ime aimed at terminating the partnership which had
been established between the Upper Guinea Coast and the Spanish Indies.
Shortly after his accession as monarch in his own right, D. Joao IV issued
a decree prohibiting Santiago and Cacheu from dealing with Spanish
registered vessels unless these deposited securities in Portugal.

At thesame time, all Spanish vessels in Guinea and Cape Verde ports were to beembargoed, (l)A few Spanish vessels were caught in the net, but thisoffensive was most ill-advised.

The Spanish were capable of providing thevaried imports to which Africans had become accustomed, while Portugal was notin that position;and the attempt to impose a monopoly without the ability

to supply the market was bound to bring the Portuguese authorities into
conflict with the Africans.
The authorities in Portugal, in Santiago and on the Upper
Guinea Coast had also to reckon with the opposition of the laneados to any
policy which would have limited trade and profits.

As middlemen, the1any ados had a vested interest in the arrival, of as many ships as possible
bringing goods at competitive prices.

As argued earlier, the lanyados had

not found it necessary to do extensive business with foreign traders on theCD

A.H.U.. Cabo Verde, caixa II - Royal decree of 20 Dec. I64O.

FREE! TRADE v s MONOPOLY

TJpper Guinea Coast, precisely because the Spanish were buttressing thePortuguese.

As a result, the 1anyados were firmly pro-Spanish, (l)Thentoo, there were a number of Spanish citizens who had settled on the Upper

Guinea Coast to help organise the export of slaves to the Spanish Indies. (2 )Their position in relation to the new stringency of the Portuguese would
have been in no doubt.
The residents of Bissau, Guinala, Geba and Cacheu sent
affirmations of their fealty to D. Joao IV in I64I, but Luis de Magalhaes,
the then captain-major of Cacheu, in an accompanying letter, also took theopportunity to register their grievances. (3)Hardly any ships were calling.

The Spanish were temporarily refraining from conducting any commerce becauseof the embargo, and no Portuguese ships had replaced the Seville registered
vessels, so that trade was virtually at a standstill.

The Portuguese

citizens on the Upper Guinea Coast apologised for sending their congratu­
lations to D. Joao IV in November I64I, nearly one year after the
auspicious event of independence fromSpain;

but in that time they had seenno Portuguese ship, and, they added, with a fine touch of irony, it would
hardly have been becomingto have
(1)

A.H.U..Guine,

caixa I

sent the message in a Spanish ship.

The- No. 150, this report of I648 stated that mostof the Portuguese residents were on the side of the Spanish patacas.
the silver coins of the Americas.
(2 )

A.H.U.,Guine,

caixa I

- No. 27> Joao Pereira Corte-Real, 23 Dec I64I.

(3)

A.H.U.TGuine,

caixa I

- No. 23» Luis de Magalhaes, 30 May I64I.

-2.L2.
FREE TRADE va MONOPOLY
Portuguese merchants emphasised that they had so far been obedient to royalprovisions, but they wondered whether the price of loyalty was to be
starvation.

For them this was no flippant abstraction, for famine had

actually prevailed upon the coast for two years, between 1639 and I64I,
because of locust attacks, (l)Nor did the sale of a limited amont ofrelief supplies from Cgjje Verde at black market rates make the Cape Verdeauthorities any mord popular.
It appears that after a brief hiatus in I64I, the Spanish
ships began to return along with other European ’interlopers*.

At Cacheu,

they were welcomed by both the 1 any ados and the Papel chiefs.

The Papelsof Cacheu, having control of a major port, were deeply involved in the
trade with the Europeans.
no perquisites.

No ships meant no imports, no customs duties,

This put the Papels into an ugly mood, because, according

to Joao Pereira Corte-Real, one of the two local advisers to the Conselho
Ultramarino, the Papels regarded the European articles as ’necessities’.
For this reason, he said, they were desperate enough to threaten to kill
the white inhabitants of Cacheu if the captain-major did not allow free
trade. (2 )This threat was almost certainly a bluff because the chiefs

desired the presence of the Europeans, but the Papels could gain their ends
by other means.

Since its construction by subterfuge in 1589» the fort ofCacheu had been deliberately refused its own water supplies.
(1)

Water had to

A.H.U.. Guine", caixa I - No. 27> Paulo Barradas da Silva, 18 Oct I64I;
and see above, Ch. IV, p.2.«o(2 )A.H.U.f Guine, caixa I - No. 27* Joao Pereira Corte-Real, 23 Dec I64I.

^63
FREE TRADE vs

MONOPOLY

be obtained from a stream and a fountain some small distance outside thestockade.

Ag soon as a ship was sighted, the Papels encamped around thesespots as a guarantee that trade would be permitted, (l)In one grim respect, the famine of l639**41 Lad been useful to
the Papels; namely, by decimating the numbers of Negro ’slaves* who were
kept by Cafaheu merchants, not only for purposes of trade, but also for
defence. (2 )Besides, the coercion of the captain-major into permitting

free trade was not something against which the traders within the stockade
were likely to take arms.

On the contrary, the Portuguese residents

instigated this course of actionby the Papel chiefs, so that the captainmajor had no option but to disobey the injunctions of his sovereign andpermit all comers to trade freely in the port of Cacheu. (3 )The term of office of captain-major Luis de Magalhaes was due
to expire in May 1642.

He did not actually leave until 1644*

Whether it

was because he had to spend the extra years on the fever-ridden coast, or
whether it was because he grew tired of the unequal battle against thelaneados and the African chiefs, Magalhaes compromised himself with the
Spanish.

Complaints reached the Conselho from the governor of Cape V erdethat when Juna Perez, a Spanish master boat builder of Cacheu had indulged
in seditious vituperation against the(1)

A.H.U..Guine", caixa I

king of Portugal, Magalhaes had simply- No. 124, Review of the history of Cacheu presen­

ted to the Conselho, 26 Sept. I67O.
(2 )A.H.U..Guine", caixa I- No. 23, Luis de Magalhaes, 30 May I 64I.

(3 )A.H.U..Guine, caixa I- No. 27>

Joao Pereira Corte-Real, 23 Dec I64I

FREE TRADE vs MONOPOLY
jailed him for a few days;

and that the captain-major was making no attempt

to stop trade which the Spanish slavers were openly carrying on in Bissau,
Geba and Cacheu* (l)Furthermore, Magalhaes was said to have been co-operatingwith Alfonso Villa Real, the most experienced Spanish trader in the region* (2)The governor of Cgpe Verde advised the recall of Magalhaes, and when thelatter did return to Portugal it was as a prisoner, accused of the crime oflese majeste. (3 )It had not been the intention of the Conselho to leave Magalhaes
in office for so long.

In I64I, the Conselho Ultramarino had nominated Paulo

Barradas da Silva as captain-major of Cacheu, a post in which he had alreadyserved twice. (4 )However, Da Silva wrote the Conselho intervening on behalfof one of the owners of a Spanish registered ship which had been sequestered,and recommending the resumption of trade to the Spanish Indies.

This washardly calculated to gain confidence in his willingness and ability to enforce
the policy of monopoly, and, to make matters worse, there came reports that
Da Silva, who was in Santiago at the time, was far too friendly with English
traders. (5 )As a result, the Conselho turned once more to Gonyalo de Gamboa(1) A.H.U., Cabo Verde, caixa II - governor Serrao da Cunha, 14 Oct 1643
and 4 April I 644(2 ) A.H.U.,Guine", caixa I - No. 36 , Minute of the Conselho, 22 Aug 1644
(3 ) A.H.U.,Cabo Verde, caixa II - Joao Serrao da Cunha, 28 Jan 1645
(4 ) A.H.U.,Guine'", caixa. I - No. 54* Letter patent of 26 Oct I64I
(5) A.H.U.,Consultas of the Conselho Ultramarino, Cod.30, fls.107 and 219-23

FREE TRADE VS MONOPOLY
de Ayala, who had been nominated in 1638, but for some reason had not taken
up the appointment, (l)Some time late in 1643* the Conselho received word from Jorge
Castilho, the second of its two advisers on the Upper Guinea Coast.(2 )Castilho made several recommendations.

Firstly, he urged that Ayala should

be sent out immediately, along with sixty soldiers.

Secondly, he returned tostress the need for a proper fort at Cacheu to replace the mangrove stockade
which was in existence. (3 )He advised that the fort should be built on thesite of the fountain, where (apart from the obvious advantage of a watersupply) there were stones which could help in the construction.
materials and artillery were to be brought out from Portugal.

Other building
The finances

for this scheme could, in his opinion, be met by utilising a sum of money which
had long been kept for erecting a cathedral in Santiago, and had never been
touched.

To this could be added tha. goods seized from two Spanish ships

consequent upon, the embargo order of D. Joao, and the securities deposited in
Santiago by a Dutch ship which was given

permission to load slaves forBahia,

but carried them to Pernambuco instead.

He also felt that Paulo Barradas da(1) A.H.IJ.. Guine, caixa I - No. 22, Letter patent of 16 Aug. 1638.
(2 ) Joao Pereira Corte-Real and Jorge Castilho, the two advisers to the Conselb
on the Upper Guinea Coast, were both former governors of Cape Verde.
(3) A.H.U.T Guine, caixa I - No. 28, information from Jorge Castilho
utilised by the Conselho on the 20th October 1643*

FREE TRADE vs MONOPOLY
Silva would be the best person to superintend the building of the fort,
because of his experience on the Upper Guinea Coast.
upon these recommendations.

The Conselho acted

The governor of Cape Verde was instructed

to make available from the Cape Verde treasury 10,000 cruzados towards the costof constructing a fort in Cacheu - that being the sum accruing from theseveral sources mentioned by Castilho, (l)At the same time, Paulo Barradas

was placed in charge of the funds, and the stage seemed set for a new era on
the Upper Guinea Coast.
The creation of a fort was regarded as an absolute priority forthe double purpose of defense against rival Europeans and against neighbouring
Africans*

This was explicitly stated in the letters of appointment of Da

Silva to the post of treasurer of the finances of the fort. (2 )had an obsession that they were to be deprived of Cacheu.

The Portuguese

On one occasion, it

was rumoured that the Dutch were planning to take Cacheu. (3 )More frequent,

however, were the fears expressed about an impending Spanish attack.

Reports

came from the adiisers on the Upper Guinea Coast, from the captain of Cacheu
and from the governor of Cape Verde, all preoccupied with the danger fromthe Spanish. (4 )In 1647» the Conselho itself discussed a supposed plot by(1) C. da Silva Texeira: "Companhia de Cacheu, Rios e Comercio da Guine"(Documentos para a sua Historia)" in Boletim do Arquivo Historico Colonial.
Vol. I, (Lisboa 1950) p.91
(2 ) A.H.U.. Guine", caixa I - No. 34>

Letter patent of the 30 July

1644*(3) A.H.U.. Guine, caixa I -No. 58 , Gamboa de Ayala, 29 June 1647
(4 ) E.g., A.H.U.. Guine,
52, Gamboa de Ayala,caixa I- No. 27* Jorge Castilho, 1 July
May

1647*

I 642 and No.

^4,7
FREE TRADE vs MONOPOLY
the Spanish*

Four or five frigates were said to have been preparing to sailfrom Cadiz for the Upper Guinea Coast, where they were to be supported by the
Soanish citizens and the disaffected Portuguese lanyados.
monarch had even appointeda

The Spanish

provisional captain-major of Cacheu inthepersonof Manuel da Costa

who had relatives who were important traders on theUpper

Guinea Coast, (l)Nothing came of the Spanish scare, but that and the everpresent Cacheu Papels provided the justification for the proposed construction,
Paulo Barradas da Silva proved an unfortunate choice as treasurerof the funds of the fort.

The greater portion of the finances was in the for*of goods which had to be disposed of to realise the money and building materia]
required.

Da Silva appeared to have been indulging in wholesale peculation,

especially with regard to the sale of cotton.

Ayala decided to withhold the6v/o duty on the goods, which should have been Da Silva’s due by way of salary,and force had to be used to recover goods in the latterfs possession. (2)Cacheu, therefore, remained largely dependant on the goodwill of the Africans,goodwill which had to be procured by making European manufactures available*
Captain-major Gamboa de Ayala brought new vigor and determination
to the job with his arrival late in l 644«

was quick to appreciate that itwas essential to win the co-operation of the African rulers*

One of his

earliest requests was that the king of Portugal should write letters to theimportant rulers of the area, since this had been done in the time of the(1) A.H.U*. Guine,

caixa I -No. 60, Minute of the 24 Dec 1647

(2 ) A.H.U.. Guine,

caixa I -No. 49* Barradas da Silva, 12 Oct 1646

(3) A.H.U*, Guine,

caixa I -No. 5$, Oamboa de Ayala, 29 June 1647

2.C&
FREE TRADE Vs MONOPOLY
Spanish monarchs, and had become part of the protocol, which was necessary
for the successful conduct of tra.de. (l)More important were the supplies ofwine, cotton and cruzados, which he requisitioned to woo the neighbouring
Papel leaders, namely, the king of Mata and the chief of Mompatas.

It would

appear that in slack periods of trefle, such as the one which would have resultsfrom the exclusion of Spanish ships from Cacheu, the Papel ruling class could
be temporarily mollified by compensatory payments made by the captain-major
and residents of Cacheu*

Magalhaes had already reported in I 64I that he had no

option but to increase the ’gifts* to the neighbouring rulers. (2 )In the eraof official Spanish trade, the tribute which was paid to the Cacheu rulers wasvery trifling.

The king of Mata received one pipe of wine (105 gallons), onebarrel of bread, four strings of garlic, a similar quantity of onions, and twoboxes of marmalade.

The king’s lieutenant was given one peruleira of wine

(about five and a half gallons);

while the chief of Mompatas received half apipe of wine, along with the same items listed for the king of Mata. (3 )This of course would have been supplemented by various irregular payments,
once trade was in progress.

With Cacheu trade on the decline, Ayala, like

Magalhaes, agreed to pay the Papel leaders seven and a half pipes of wine,(1) A.H.U., Guine", caixa I No. 38, Gamboa de Ayala, Oct 1644
(2 ) A.H.U.. Guine, caixa I - No. 23 > Luis de Magalhaes, 30 M ay I64I.
(3 ) Documentayao Ultramarina Portuguesa (Centro de Estudos Historicos Ultramarino, Lisboa) Vol. 2, MS 3015 of the Biblioteca Nacional de Madrid Roteiro of the coast of Guinea, 1635> prepared for the bishop ofMalaga.

2^
FREE TRADE vs MONOPOLY

forty hundredweights of cotton, and one hundred and eighty seven cruzados.
This subsequently became the standard fixed payment which the two Papel poten­tates of Cahheu expected, and which the Conselho Ultramarino was prepared topay. (l)This diplomatic policy must have worked, because Ayala excluded
the Spanish from Cacheu, and yet no violent encounters with the Cacheu Papels
were reported.

Ayala also claimed to have won over the chief of Baorilla, inspite of 1anyado competition for the favours of this ruler (2)When Ayala had

need to negotiate with the king of Bissau in 1647> he obtained the services of
the chief of Baorilla as a go-betbeen. (3)It was at this very juncture, how­ever, that Ayala must have become convinced that the policy of peacefulpersuasion was doomed to failure.
vessels, which fled to Bissau.

He had attempted to apprehend two Spanish

There, Ayala wrote, the king of Bissau gave theifull protection and all facilities, contrary to his former promises.

Ayala

suggested that this king should be severely punished, not only for his own lackof good faith, but as an example to others in Guinea. (4)As was to have been

expected, there were limits to the extent to which the African rulers could be
persuaded against their own best interests to co-operate in a policy of
Portuguese monopoly of the commerce of the Area.

In Cacheu, Portuguese bribes

appeared to have had some effect during Ayala’s term of office, but elsewhere i1(1) A.H.U.Z Cabo Verde, caixa IV -Antonio(2) A.H.U., Guine, caixa I - No. 52(3) A.H.U.. Guine, caixa X - Ibid
(4 ) A.H.Uf j Guine"",caixa I - Ibid.

Galvao,15 April 1665

Gamboa deAyala, 25

Feb. 1647

270
FREE TRADE v s MONOPOLY

is clear that the African chiefs were availing themselves of the opportunity
to trade freely with all-comers*

V/ith the 1anyados» Ayala followed the same policy of trying to win
support if possible.

°n the occasion on which he asked the Conselho to write

personal letters to the Papel ^rulers, he also asked that they should do the samwith regard to the lane ados on the Geba and Gambia*

This was the first stepof a very important policy designed to control the activities of the lanyados«

by concentrating them in areas where it was not too difficult to keep an eye on
them, and the substance of the letters must have been a request that thelanyados on the Upper Guinea Coast should live on the Cacheu river.

Since

Portuguese authority was strongest on the Cacheu, the lanyados had beenusing the rivers both th the north and to

the south, especially the Gambia andthe Geba, to do business with the Spanish and other European rivals to thePortuguese.

The settlement of the Geba was a notorious centre of disobedience

The question of its disobedience had been mooted before in Magalhaes1 time, but
he claimed that the task was beyond him. (l)North of the Cahheu, the traders

had set up a line of communications leading across the Casamance to the Gambia
by way of Buguendo and Bichangor, two villages in Banhun territory. (2)Infact the majority of the Spanish citizens had removed from Cacheu after the
restoration of the Portuguese king and had set themselves up on the Casamance.
(3)

Again, Magalhaes had confessed that he could do nothing although the(1) A.H.U.. Guine^, caixa I -No. 23, Luis de Magalhaes, 30 May I64I
(2) A.H.U*. Guine, caixa I -No. 58, Gamboa de Ayala, 29 June 1647
(3) A.H.U., Cabo Verde, caixa II - Serrao da Cunha, 14 Oct 1643

"2-llFREE TRADE v s MONOPOLY

Casamance was quite close to the Cacheu.

Ayala, therefore, inherited all these

problems.
It was proposed that the Geba settlers should be transferred to
Farim on the upper Cacheu, with the obvious advantage to the Portuguese
authorities that, with the captain-major controlling the estuary of the river,’illicit* commerce on the upper reaches of the river would be difficult.
Ayala, in return for a nominal annual tax of 8 or 9 slaves, offered the Geba
residents a monopoly of the trade of the upper Gacheu to compensate for theloss of their commerne on the Geba. (l)scored a success;In spite of strong opposition, Ayala

and he was doubly fortunate that his principal opponent on

this measure, the powerful Geba trader, Christovao de Melo Coelho, later
became Ayala’s most trusted lieutenant.

Several years afterwards, theConselho recognised the services of Christovao Coelho, noting that he had tohis credit a successful peace mission to the king of Bissau in I648 , and thearrest of some Portuguese dissidents in Sierra Leone. (2 )The trade outlet to the Gambia presented Ayala with a moredifficult problem.
estuary. (3 )In I 646, two frigates were requested to blockade the Gambij

Two ships did arrive in 1648, but it is doubtful whether they

achieved any effect, since a blockade would have meant stationing them on(1) A.H.U.,Guine7. caixa I - No. 52, Gamboa de Ayala, 25 Feb 1647*

(This

issue

is also discussed in Lemos Coelho: Duas Descriyoes da Guinea,pp.36,49-51)(2) A.H.U.. Guine, caixa

I - No. 108, Minute of 4 June 1668

(3) A.H.U.. Guine, caixaI - Ho. 47* Gamboa de Ayala, 12 Sept. 1646.

EBBE TRADE v s MONOPOLY

the lookout over a period of time, and Portugal lacked the resources todeploy naval forces on the Upper Guinea Coast.

The Portuguese officials on

the Upper Guinea Coast continued to keep the Conselho informed of developmentsin the Gambia.

They reported the struggle there in I65O between the Parliam­

entarians and the Royalists led by Prince Rupert, (l) they kept a close watch
on the activities of the Duke of Courland when he tried to build a fort in theGambia in 1652, (2) and they were most :nxious with regard to the formation of
the Company of English Adventurers Trading to the Gambia. (3)Goelho lamented

toat the exports of the G ambia went to the English, Dutch, Bench, Courlanders
and Spanish;and he urged the building of a fort. (4 )But the Conselho

S3emed to accept that the Gambia had passed out of the effective Portuguese
sphere of influence, and even an invitation by the Mandinga kings of Barra and
Fogny who controlled the Gambia trade failed to induce the Conselho in 1697
to re-assert its position there. (5 )The traders who remained in Cacheu kept in contact with ’contra­
bandists' elsewhere, especially in the Gambia.

Ayala told the Conselho -perhaps on a note of desperation - "his majesty does not have three loyal(1) A.H.U., Cabo Verde, caixa I - No. 108, Minute of 4 June 1668.
(2 ) A.H.U.r Cabo Verde, caixa II - Mesquita de Castel Branco, 15 June I 652.
(3) A.H.U.. Guine, caixa I - No. 90, Minute of 24 Dec 1660
(4 ) Lemos Coelho: Duas Descriyoes da Guine, pp.12;28(5) A.H.U. j Guind', caixa II - No. 249 > Letters from the kings of Fogny andBarra, forwarded by captain major Castanho* 9 Nov 1697*

xil
F R E j] TRADE v smonopoly

subjects here", (l)Like the African chiefs, the 1anyados were unlikely to

accept a monopolist policy whidh reduced trade, though they did try to remain
in good standing with the Portuguese crown if it were possible.

In 1647* a

number of Portuguese merchants of Cacheu despatched a strong complaint to theConselho directed against the captain-major. (2)They rejected the accusationthat they were traitors, and claimed that Ayala, instead of giving them credit
for the useful work that they had always done to preserve the praya of Cacheu,
was treating them worse than he treated the Spaniards.
absurd customs duties and killing trade.

He was enforcing

They cited one trader who had made ajourney which cost him 80 ’Negroes’ in taxes. (3 )Already, they informed theConselho, no Portuguese fidalgo would come to Cacheu, and now they had reached
the end of their tether, and were demanding the recall of Ayala.
However, the petitioners received little sympathy, and it is clearthat the Conselho supported Ayala’s "tough line?.

It was typical of thispolicy that when in ^anuary 1647* three Spanish Capuchins arrived in Cacheu
with the intention of conducting missionary work on the Upper Guinea Coast,
Ayala branded them as commercial agents of the Spanish and promptly shipped
them off to Santiago.

-^e claimed that they arrived on a Spanish vessel

trading illegally on the Gambia, and that they had made enquiries after
Sebastiao Rodrigues, formerly of Cartagena, and at that time resident at(1) A.H.U., Guine", caixa I - No. 58, Gamboa de Ayala, 29 June 1647
(2 ) A.H.U.. Guine, caixa I - No. 52, Petition of residents of Cacheu, June 1647
(3 ) 80 ’Negroes’ here means the value of 80 prime slaves. (See Below, Ch.VIII,

P#4/6)

X7+
FREE TRADE v s MONOPOLY

Bichangor. (l)In the same vein, Ayala recommended that eight of theprincipal merchants should he imprisoned.

The Conselho must have given him

authority, because these traders are next heard of in 1651, petitioning fortheir release from gaol in Santiago, where Ayala had sent them for sake-keeping
after sequestering their goods. (2 )They included Fernao Mesquita, the mostpowerful trader on the coast, said to have had substantial capital in Spain.
(3)
For his services in Cacheu, Ayala was rewarded with governorshipof Cape Verde-Guine. (4 )Yet, he had after all achieved very little, except tc

reveal the limits of Portuguese power and authority on the Upper Guinea Coast.
Spanish ships may have avoided Cacheu, but they still traded on the Upper
Guinea Coast, especially on the Gambia.

Besides, as early as I64I, Magalhaes

reported one Spanish ship which had by-passed Cacheu and went to Sierra Leone,(1) A.H.U., Guine', caixa I - No. 52, Gamboa de Ayala, 25 Feb I652.

Evidence

relating to this incident is to be found in A.P.F. Letters Antichi, Vol.
97> fls. 130,147-1505 Vol. 248, fIs.26-40 and in B.N.M. 3818, Misiones deCapuchinos en el Congo y Cumana, fls. 11-13* 29-33* 63-64 .
de Anguianoi

See Also Mateo

Misiones Caouchinas en Africa. Vol. 2, pp.62-67(2 ) A.H.U., Cabo Verde, caixa II - Mesquita de Castel Branco, 17 June I65I
(3) Ayala died in June I 65O, only four months after taking up his appointment
as governor of C ^ e Verde.
p. 262 .

See Joao Baneto:

Historia da Guine".

xi$r
FREE TRADE v s MONOPOLY

so there is a possibility of an increase in the number of slavers who tradeddirectly with Sierra Leone, (l)Most important of all, the volume of tradecarried on by the Europeans other than the Spanish was on the increase.

In1644> an English slave ship sailed tch the Geba, using three launches to speed
up the recovery of its cargo.

The governor of Cape Verde wrote that, to thebest of his knowledge, this was the first time that an English ship had tradedon the Geba. (2)The French too
for the first time, andwere entering the area south of the Gambia

in March 1645, the Conselho protested to the English

and French ambassadors in Lisbon against the activity of their nationals on theUpper Guinea Coast. (5 )This of course was to no avail.

In February 1647»

the Conselho examined a memorandum from the Visitor to Guinea, in which heasserted that the French, Englishnd Butch imported annually more than 12,000

quintals of iron and more than 80,000 cruzados worth of glass, atoer
various types of cloth, tin, bronze, copper, knives, etc.

With this theypurchased more than 10,000 hides and pelt3, more than 4*000 quintals of wax
and ivory, close to 20,000 quintals of camwood, some gold and some ambergris(1) A.H.U.r Guine, caixa I - No. 25, Luis de Magalhaes, 50 May I 64I.
(Lemos Coelho was with his uncle, Christovao de Melo Coelho in 1646,
when the latter apprehended a Spanish slave ship off the Baga coast:
Duas Descricoes. p.205.)(2 ) A.H.U.t Cabo

Verde, caixa II - Serrao da Cunha, 28 Jan 1645*(5) A.H.U.f Cabo

Verde, caixa II - Minutd of 24 March 1645*

2.74>
FREE TRADE v s MONOPOLY

apart from slaves, (l)As always, the attempt at monopoly was encouraging

the growth of Contraband1 trade.
It was impossible for the Portuguese to overcome growing commercial
competition by exchanging diplomatic notes in Lisbon;

and it was equally

impossible to convince the African rulers and the lanqados on the Upper Guinea
Coast to adopt a course of action which was contrary to their own economic
interests.

In the light of these considerations there were always those who

advocated brute force, in the form of forts

and armed patrols to keep the

Europeans at bay and to discipline the Africans and the lan^ados. (2)This wasa dream never to be realised as far as the Portguese were concerned, and inorder for them to survive on that section of the coast they had to evolve someserious commercial policy which was more in accord with reality.
The Conselho was urged in I64I to send an assurance in the royalname to prevent the Portuguese traders from embarking on any trading
opportunities that were offered them. (3)The only practical assurance would

havs been the substitution of Spanish enterprise by Portuguese.

^hePortuguese authorities did make some attempt to tackle the problem of a market
for the slaves of the Upper Guinea Coast.
(2) A.H.U.,
No. 45,(1) M 3 L ,During the period of joint monarchy

Guine, caixa I - No. 51, Joao de Almeida, 5 Feb 16475 andSerrao da Cunha, 15 April 1645*
Guine, caixa I - No. 51, Joao de Almeida, 5 Pah 1647*

The wordI

Quintal* was often used interchangeably with 1hundredweight1, but strictly
speaking a quintal was 100 lb#(5) A.H.U.. Guin/, caixa I - No. 23, Luis de Magalhaes, 30 ^ay 1641*

I

*77
FREE TRADE v s

JtoTOPOLY

it seems that the Portuguese in Lisbon were already dissatisfied that theslaves of the Upper Guinea Coast were destined for the Spanish Americas insteadof their own possessions in Brazil*

It was with reluctance that the Conselho

da Pazenda granted permission in 1635 bo a Lisbon trader who wanted to sail fo:
Guinea to procure slaves for the Indies, its reluctance being due to the factthat he was not carrying any slaves to Brazil, (l)The seizure of Luanda by

the Dutch in I 64I also made the Upper Guinea Coast trade to Brazil more
important as fan as the Portuguese were concerned, and at the same time itforced a modification of the procedure by which Upper Guinea Coast slaves
destined for Brazil went via Angola. (fi)The Conselho for a few years in theearly 1640*s tended to conceive of the Upper Guinea Coast as an instrument forthe preservation of Brazil*

It is certainly only within the context of theloss of Luanda and the tremendous importance attached to Brazil that it could
have made a statement to the effect that the loss of Cacheu would mean the endof the sugar plantations of Bahia and Rio de Janeiro. (3 )a ) A.H.U., Guine", caixa I - No* 17-18, Minute of the Conselho da Fazenda,
18 July 1635.
(2 ) A.H.U., Guine’, caixa I - No* 40, 24 Nov 1644* (The numbers of slavesfrom the Upper Guinea Coast to Brazil were probably small, and musthave been collected by ships bound for Angola and Brazil in much the same
way as some English ships in the late seventeenth century acquired a few
slaves at Sierra Leone before proceeding further south for their main
complement.

See below, Ch. VI, pp.

(3 ) See above, Ch. IV, p. 7 9 6.

0^ 7 1

*7^
j'R B E TRADE v s MONOPOLY

Some Upper Guinea Coast slaves probably did go to the Portuguese
possessions in Brazil during the period immediately after the restoration*
In I64I, Paulo Bar_adas reported that a ship had just left with 600 slaves for
Irazil. (l)Two years later, Fernao Mesquita petitioned to be allowed tocarry slaves to Portuguese Brazil.

The Conselho not only conceded permission,

but was also willing to allow the duties on the slaves to be paid at Cacheu
instead of at Santiago, making it unnecessary for ships to be delayed at thelatter port. (2)Legal provision to this effect came about in November 1644*

As a result, the administrative establishment in Cacheu was statutarily
increased in 1644 by the addition of a purveyor, a factor and a notary. (3)All these preparations were made with a view to encouraging trade with thePortuguese possessions in Brazil, and Ayala wrote that Cacheu would be able tosupply 2,000 to 3,000 slaves per year to this new destination. (4 )However,the possibility of a genuine diversion from the Spanish Indies to Brazil did
not materialise; because ships left the Upper Guinea Coast with Bahia or Riode Janeiro as their ostensible destination and went elsewhere, either to the
Spanish Indies, or to the Butch at Pernambuco. (5 )(1 ) i yyj.,

Guine, caixa I -(2 ) A.H.U., Guine", caixa I -For example, Fernao

No. 27, Barradas da Silva, 18 Oct I64I
No. 37, Minute of 27 Sept 1644

(3 ) In fact,this administrative decree was not fully implemented.

The captair

major of Cacheu was officially designated as "captain and factor", and it
was only in 1676 that the two posts were separated.
(4 ) A.H.U., Guine, caixa I -No. 52, Gamboa de Ayala, 25 Feb 1647

(5) A.H.U.. Cabo Verde, caixa II - Serrao da Cunha, 4 April 1644*

2-7?

FREE TRADE vs MONOPOLY
Mesquita, who claimed to have been willing to carry slaves to Brazil, was a
Spaniard and the leader of the laneados at the time.

His imprisonment by

Ayala suggests that any shipments made by him might have been diverted to adifferent destination.
Apart from the fact that the business connection between the Upper
Guinea Coast and the Spanish Indies was very strong and the probability ofhigher prices, Mexico and Cartagena could not have been ousted by Bahia and
Rio de Janeiro because of a lack of Portuguese shipping.

Magalhaes had urgedthat all ships proceeding from Lisbon to Brazil should call at the Upper Guinea
Coast, (l)advice.

Whether by design or inability^ the Conselho took no heed of thisIndeed, it must have been inability, because th© Portuguese wereconstrained to risk licensing Dutch ships to go to Bahia though it was known
that the cargo was likely to end up at Pernambuco.

It meant, thhrefore, thatthe question of substituting Brazil as the principal

or exclusive market forthe slaves of the Upper Guinea Coast remained largely theoretical*
Within the Portuguese camp, the advocates of trade with the Spanish
had not been silent*Some of them, like the lan<pados. were not of courseingood standing with the Conselho, and even officials like Magalhaes andda Silva
aroused suspicion when they sought the renewal and legalisation of the tradeas it had existed prior to I64O.

But Corte-Real, a trusted adviser, hadexpressed the belief as early as December I 64I that permission to trade should
be given to the Spanish registered vessels, because then they would at least
be liable to the payment of duties* (2 )His colleague, Jorge Castilho, suggests(1) A.H.U., Guine.

caixa I - No. 25. Luis de Magalhaes. 50 Mav l6ll

(2) A.H.U.. Guine,

caixa I - No. 27, Pereira Corte-Real, 23 Dec I 64I.

FREE TRADE vs MONOPOLY
another expedient*

Ne felt that permission should he given to the English

or the Dutch to trade in the area and carry slaves to the Indies#

Before theysailed, they would lodge securities in Cacheu, and on their return they would
pay duties out of the silver they obtained from the Spanish# (l)When the Conselho Ultramarino finally decided to reconsider thequestion of commercial relations with Spain, the decision was based primarilyon the need to- obtain gold and silver.

In December 1645, the Conselho

proposed to D. JoaJ> IV that his subjects in Africa should be free to carryslaves to the Spanish Indies, because there they would receive gold andsilver.

The American products brought to Europe via Lisbon, such as hides,

indigo, ginger, cochineal and dyewoods, paid 23*fo duty on entry into Lisbon as
well as duty when they were re-exported.

All this meant supplies of silver

and gold which could be used to trade with India and China.

In turn, theblack cloths from India would find a market in Angola and Guinea.

The king

saw the wisdom of this global imperalist strategy, and concurred in January
I646. (2 )Those persons who wished to ship slaves to Spanish America had tobe approved by the Conselho, and were obliged to carry at least one-third of
their slave cargo to Brazil*
With the encactment of the above regulations, the old rivalry(1) A.H.U., Guine", caixa I - No. 27, Jorge Castilho, 1 July 1642.
(2 ) A.H.U.. Guine", caixa I - No. 40, (The first proposal made along theselines was rejected.) No. 44 is a similar proposal of the 22 Dec 1645 Ly
the Conselho.

The kir£!s signature was appended to this document thefollowing January.

7Z\
FREE TRADE vs MONOPOLY
between the Cape Verde islands and the mainland broke out anew*

This rivalty

had been muted while both parties sought the resumption of Spanish trade*

In

Santiago, the Spanish trade was looked upon as being virtually indispensable,
because the island had a monetary economy based on the influx of Spanish coin,(l)

Now they successfully demanded that the resumed Spanish trade should be

conducted via Santiago, as was supposed to have been the case during theearlier phase of the trade.

But, as happened before, the Upper Guinea Coast

traders and the visiting slavers concentrated on by-passing Santiago inpractice, while striving to obtain legislative sanction for so doing.

In June1647, the Conselho considered a request by the principal traders in Cacheu
seeking the privilege of shipping directly to the Spanish Indies, having thesecurity lodged in Cacheu and the duties paid there (as Castilho had suggested
before).

The Conselho, however, was of the opinion that Cape Verde could not

maintain itself without the mainland, so that the Upper Guinea Coast had toremain "the Guinea of Cg^e Verde"* (2 )By the middle of the seventeenth century, the Portguese, having
reversed the logical commercial pattern of the period before I64O, decided totake a timid step towards re-establishing that same pattern.

Events in

Santiago show a marked similarity during the 1650*8 and l660*s to the opening
years of the century.

Ships from Cartagena started to return.

An occasional

Spanish vessel tried to do business without seeking the permission of the(1) A. Lereno:

Subsidios para a Historia da Moeda em Cabo Verde1640*1940(2 ) C. da Silva Texeira:"Companhia de Cacheu" (0p*cit.) p.96 .

*2^2FREE TRADE vs MONOPOLY
Conselho, and in 1652 one such ship had its good* seized, (l)But whether or

not they had the consent of the Portuguese Conselho Ultramarino to trs.de on theUpper Guinea Coast, the slave ships managed to avoid paying duties in Santiago#(2 )In I664, it was lamented that for nearly three years no Spanish ships had

traded at Santiago, and complaints about lack of specie substantiated this. (3)HowBver, though this might have been suggestive of a decline in the numbers of
Spanish ships on the Upper Guinea Coast, it did not mean that than were noships calling at the ports of the mainland, but simply that contraband trade
was the order of the day.
In 1655, the Visitor to Guinea indicated that there was one Spanis
ship which had lodged securities in Santiago as stipulated before trading at
Cacheu, but elsewhere trade was being carried on illegally*. (4 )Early in

1657, a Dutch ship chartered by four Spaniards, arrived at Cacheu with 8,000
bars of iron and a considerable amount of wine and spirits from the CanaryIslands.

When Portuguese ships turned up shortly afterwards their cargo wa3 adead loss, partly because the small market could easily be glutted, but also
because the Portuguese could not offer the goods such as iron and alcohol whichwere top priorities. (5 )Neither the lancades nor the Africans intended to(1) A.H.U.. Cabo Verde, caixa II- Mesquita de Castel

Branco,15 June

(2) A.H.U., Cabo Verde, caixa II- Mesquita de Castel

Branco,9 Aug1652.

(3 ) A.H.U., Cabo Verde, caixa III - Antonio

Galvao, June 1664

(4 ) A.H.U., Guine, caixa I - No. 76 , Minute of 20 Dec 1655
(5) A.H.U., Cabo Verde, caixa III - Pedro Barreto, 8 May 1657* (For a
discussion of iron bars, see below, Ch. VII, pp.430 )1652

-2/23
FREE TRADE vs MONOPOLY

wait upon the arrival of ships under the flag or sanction of Portugal.

Whena French ship carried 1,000 bars of iron to Bissau in 1661, the lan^ados did

not hesitate in purchasing this cargo - or, more correctly, in accepting it wit]
the intention of exchanging it for slaves at a commission, (l)The Conselho

continued seeing the answer to such situations in military terms.

Indeed,ev 3n with the benefit of hindsight, a m o d e m Portuguese historian still aversthat "the real remedy would have been to mobilise naval forces". (2 )The Cacheu merchants were dissatisfied with the legislation of
1647, which still left the trade to Spanish America in trammexls as far as they
were concerned.

With the Spanish slavers presumably in the same frame of mind,

the Portuguese officials continued to live in fear of a Spanish attack, which

would be welcomed by the disloyal Portuguese subjects on the Upper Guinea Coast,
The Conselho considered evidence in December 1649 that two Spaniards of conse­
quence D. Juan Morfeo and D. Francisco de Medina, at the instigation of several
residents of the Spanish Indies, and with the approval of the House of Trade in
Seville, had decided to take Cehheu and install a garrison of at least 200
soldiers.

As a result, the Conselho ordered the despatch of two caravels, eac]with fifty men and two or three pieces of cannon.

These ships were to carry oi

the new captain-major, Joao Carreiro Fidalgo, along with supplies of arms.
Fidalgo arrived in I65O, and, like Ayala, one of his principal tasks was to see
the construction of a strong fort at Cacheu - this time with the aid of Gaspar
Vogado, vicar of Santiago, who had been appointed treasurer of the funds after(1) A.H.U.T Guine, caixa I - No. 95> Fonseca Dornelas, 25 May 1661
(2 ) G. da Silva Texeira:"Companhia de Cacheu" (Op.cit.) p.98

FREE TRADE vs MONOPOLY

the death of Paulo Barradas da Silva in 1647* (l)Gaspar Vogado complained in June I656 that tbe Africans could not
he persuaded to work on the building of the fort.
was their ‘giftsf.

All that they turned up foi

It seemed to have come to him as a great discovery that the

Papels were "very self-interested people". (2 )Besides, he stated, to build aproper fort it was necessary to get materials from Papel territory and toacquire more land so as to enclose the water supplies. (3 )concede any of those things in Vogado*s time.

The Papels did not

They never did.

When captain-

major Manuel Dias Quatrim arrived in December 1657> he found the praya in astate of dilapidation, with the artillery lacking carriages and embedded in
the ground. (4 )In 1661, the Papels invested the water supplies andthreatened to set fire to the settlement. (5)In other words, the same oldthemes were being played out.
With the lancados and the Africans holding fast to their free
trade position, and with European ships willing to break Portugalfs fragile
monopoly, the balance between these two positions became to g great extent
dependent on the personal character of the captain-major of Caheu, and thequality of the other lesser officials like the factor and purveyor of Cacheu,
and the factors in places like Geba, Bissau, Farim, Zeguichor and Bolor.
(1) C. da Silva Texeira:"Companhia de Cacheu" (Op.cit)pp.*97,98(2) A.H.U.. Guine, caixa I - No. 78, Gaspar de Vogado,

24 June 1656

(3 ) A.H.U.t Guine, daixa I - No. 80, Gaspar de Vogado,

25 June 1656

(4 ) A.H.U.. Guine, caixa I - No. 87 , Manuel Dias '^uatrim, Dec 1657
(5 ) A.H.U.» Guin6, caixa III - Minute of 1 Sept 1655

x?REE TRADE vs MONOPOLY

A man like Ayala was an outstanding exception, and most of his successors
lacked either honesty or resourcefulness or both, as far as the service of
the Conseho was concerned.

Ayala was rewarded with the captaincy of Cape

Verde.

His successor, Joao Care^ira Fidalgo retired to prison in Santiago

in 1654*

Presumably, the sum of 650:080 reis which he remitted as the duty

he had collected during his four year term of office was judged inadequate.
CD-

Little was said of Fidalgo!s immediate successor, Manuel de Pa^os
Figueroa.

The next captain-major who projected a clear image was Manuel Dias

Quatrim, who served from December 1657 to about the beginning of 1662.

He waspre-occupied with the question of the state of fortifications, and with theneed to garrison Cacheu.

His own suggestion was that exiled couples should

be sent out to the Upper Guinea Coast. (2 )One my conclude from this that^uatrim was diligent in the service of the Conselho, and, conversely, heappears to have been over-zealous as far as the Africans were concerned.

In

February 1662, Antonio Fonseca Domelas arrived to find that relations betweer
the Papels and the captain-major had deteriorated to the point where the Pape]
were resorting to their old tricks with regard to the water, and the king ofMata was threatening to set fire to the settlement. (5 )involved in hostilities with the Djolas of Bolor.

Quatrim was also

Lemos Coelho reported in

I669 that these Djolas or Baiotes, as that section of the tribe was called,(1) A.H.U.» Cabo Verde, caixa III - Antonio Galvao, 5 July 1663
(2 ) A.H.U., Guine', caixa I - Ho. 89, Manuel Dias Qnatrim, 1659*(3 ) A.H.U.. Guine, caixa I. - No. 9$> Fonseca Domelas, 6 March 1662.

FRE3 TRADE vs MONOPOLY
killed all whites upon whom they could lay their hands subsequent to burningof some of their villages by Quatrim. (l)After settling the dispute with the Papels, which he found on his
arrival, Dornelas embarked on a term of office full of intrigue.

Within ashort while, reports were reaching the governor of Cape V erde and theConselho that Domelas was indulging in peculation and was consorting withinterlopers. (2)One specific charge was spelt out in great detail.

On the15th February 1662, a Spanish ship arrived in Cacheu with a cargo of 1,200
iron bars, 200 pipes of wine, a large quantity of silks and twills, some speci
and worked silver, and other small items.

All that Dornelas entered in thebooks of Cacheu were 4 bars of iron, 50 pipes of wine, 40 y&sof bombasine $a twill) and 1 lb of ribbon.

serge, 10 yds

When the ship sailed on the 20thJune 1662 it took 700 slaves, but only 170 were recorded and made liable for
duty.

There were also other charges that three ships were admitted by

Domelas without the permission of the Conselho and he had pocketed the
profits.

Not content with this, Domdas allowed his greed to arouse theanger of the Papel rulers.

He refused to pay them the agreed annual rent,

though he made up his accounts as though he had done so.

He also committed

the cardinal error of selling four Papel nobles, each for 130 pieces of silver(3 )Not surprisingly, a warrant was issued for his arrest in 1664. (4 )(1) Lemos Coelho:

Du as Describes, p. 33(2 ) A.H.IJ., Cabo Verde, caixa III - Antonio Galvao, 2 July I663
(3 ) A.H.U.t Cabo Verde, caixa IV - Antonio Galvao, 15 April I665.
were each sold for 130 patacas)(4 ) A.H.U., Cabo Verde, caixa III - Antonio Galvao, June 1664.

(The nobles

FREE TRADE vs MONOPOLY
A few years later, captain Manuel Roiz de Mendonpa surpassed
Dornelas in his disregard for the official policy of exclusivism.

Mendonqa

avowed frankly that he was in Cacheu to make money, that he could not careless about the royal restrictions, and that if the Turks came to Cacheu he wc
do business with them.

Seven foreign ships were admitted into port by

Mendonqa in I67O and 1671.

First there was an English ship with 10,000

bars of iron and 30,000 bars' worth of other items.

This should have paid

4,000 cruzados duty, but ^endon<pa only entered 'JOO cruzados in the books.
The ship said with 600 quintals of wax and ivory, less than a quarter ofwhich was recorded.

Next came a large English launch which took about 40

quintals of produce.

A French launch obtained 50 to 60 quintals of wax andivory late in I67O.

In January 1671, a French ship tock 180 slaves.

French ship carried 500 quintals of wax and ivory;

while yet another broughla cargo of specie, linen and utensils and took wax in return.
Dutch ship was allowed to enter,

Anothei

Finally, a^endonipa collaborated with two importantprivate traders, Vicente Roiz and Ambrosio Gomes.

When it was felt that th«

regulations whould not be flouted too blatantly, these traders madearrangements with the English factory on the Gambia for business to be
conducted in launches at a mid-way point off Cape Roxo.

In these enter­

prises, they had Mendonpa's full support, and the profits were shared.

The

Conselho ordered that Mendonqa be arrested, (l)Arresting defaulting captain-majors was hardly any use.

A(1 ) A.H.U., Cabo Verde, caixa IV - Manuel -^acheco, 26 April I67I; and Minuteof 1 Sept 1671.

(For 'bars1, see below, Ch. VII)

2 lS ^

FREE TRADE vs MONOPOLY
captain was given very little choice when faced with the demands of thelanc^ados and the threats of the Africans#

The fundamental reality of thecommaeial situation on the Upper Guinea Coast had remained the same since
I64O ; namely, Portuguese inability to compete with other European powers#
As can be seen from the above references, theSpanish were no longer the
problem#

Trade with the Spanish Indies was by no means over, but the

English?French and Dutch were now Portugal*s chief rivals for the trade of
the Upper Guinea Coast,

In the first instance, merchants on the Upper

Guinea Coast saw the English ships in the role of carriers of slaves to the
Spanish Indies# (l) but as early as 1645> an English ship called at Santiago
to procure slaves for Barbados# (2 )The English were also purchasing mules,

donkeys and horses for work on their own plantations#

The scope of this'line of trade must have been considerable, because in I67I, the Conselho
repeated an earlier prohibition against the sale of young livestock from the
Caj?e Verde islands to foreigners# (3)In 1657 > the residents of the Cape Vei

islands made a plea for trade with English nationals to be freed from restri(tions. (4 )The Conselho was willing to license the occasional English ship 1

it did with respect to two ships in I658, but complete freedom of trade wasnever legally conceded#

In 1663, the Conselho found it necessary to warn

(1) This was suggested by Jorge Castilho in July 1642#

See Guin£, caixa I- No. 27#
(2 ) A.H.U., Cabo Verde, caixa II - Minute of 2 Dec 1645
(3) C# da Silva Texeira:"Companhia de Cacheu" (Op.cit) p*103(4 ) A.H.U.. Cabo Verde, caixa III - Petition of May 1657*

2/s 7
FREE TRADE vs MONOPOLY
the Cape Verde officials that no English ship which called at any of theirports was to receive anything but water, (l)Apart from sending isolated ships, the English had for some time
been a ttmmpting to conduct settled trade on the Upper Guinea Coast.

The

Commonwealth party formed a Guinea Company to trade with the Gambia in I65I,
and the following year a trading factory was established on the Bintang.
However, Prince Rupert entered the river shortly afterwards and destroyed theundertaking.

After the Restoration, Prince Rupert encouraged the formation,of a company registered as the Royal Adventurers of England Trading in Africa
This company and the Gambia Adventurers of England^ to whom they sublet theirmonopoly in 1668, were not very successful, but their presence first of alldispelled any pretence that the Portuguese had control of the Gambia, and,secondly, made it much easier for the pretended Portuguese monopoly ofcommerce south of the Gambia to be broken.

Most of the Casamance trade wasdiverted through the Gambia outlet, Cacheu was in constant contact with theGambia, (2 ) and Bissau, which waff the emporium for the trade soutfe of theGeba, was a favourite port of call for the ships of these new companies*(3 )There was a succession of French companies from 1664 onwards,
allmakingclaims to a monopoly of commerce over most of the West African

coast, but invariably concentrating their attention on the Senegal.

Like the(1)

A.H.U., Cabo Verde, caixa III - Minute of July I663

(2)

A.H.U.. Cabo Verde, caixa IV - Reports on the activities of captain-$ajor
Mendon^a in 1671.

(3 ) For the importance of Bissau, see below, pp. 3 o 1 -ers

FR-3E TRADE vs MONOPOLY
English, the French first started trading on the Geba in 1644* (l)After themiddle of the century, they became more interested in the slave trade as far atheir own possessions were concerned.

Thus in January 1665, the governor of

Cayenne wrote the governor of Cape Verde attempting to establish regular tradein slaves, cattle and foodstuffs. (2 ) When the French took Goree from the Dut

in 1677> their operations took a shift southwards, and they were to be reckoner
with as competitors on the Gambia.

Setting themselves up at Albreda, near theGambia, the French also began exploratory moves on the Upper Guinea Coast.

InJ

1682, a Portuguese ship was seized by a French vessel^ off the Gambia, andcarried to Goree, where the cargo was unloaded and the captain detained.

The

rest of the crew were set free with the warning that "no one could trade onthat part of the coast without permission, because it was part of the dominionof the king of France1.*. (^)

A few years later, the officials of the French

Company of the Senegal forwarded to tbe captain-major of Cacheu a copy of thei:charter which conceded a monopoly of the commerce between Cape Blanc and Sierr
Leone. (4 )The Portuguese monopoly of trade on the Upper Guinea Coast, long athing of rags and tatters, was now being challenged in theory also.
The Dutch, too, were still trying to retain a foothold in theGambia during the second half of the seventeenth century, and at their settle­
ment of Goree, the Dutch produced the necessary trade goods, especially iron.
(l)A.H.U.. Cabo Verde, caixa II - Joao Serrao da Cunha, 28 Jan 1645
(2) A.H.U., Cabo Verde, caixa IV - La Febre de la Barre to Galvao, 12 Jan 1665
and minute of 31 Aug I 665(3) Joao Barretos

Hfstoria da Guine. p.Ill(4) A.H.U.,Guine. caixa II - No.166, Antonio de Barros, 24 June 1686.

FRE3 TRADE vs MOHOPOLYZThe Portuguese at Cacheu were themselves forced to go to Sierra Leone and theGambia to purchase iron from Portugal’s European rivals, (l) with Goree being
the chief resort of the lan<pado coastal vessels.

They were said to carry tothis Dutch trdding fort some 1500 to 2000 quintals of ivory and wax every year,(2 )Those goods which Portugal did supply were more expensive (3) and even theCape Verde cloths which were the single commodity which the Portuguese could s«
advantageously, had dropped in value by the early 1670’s.

The wax and ivory

trade was almost completely captured by the French and the English, (4 ) and thescarcity of references to slaves being exported from Cacheu suggests that thismainstay of African commerce of that time had also passed out of the hands ofthe official Portuguese administration.

In certain lines of exports, such as

kola, from Sierra Leone and dyes from the Nunez, which had always been thepreserve of the Portuguese, the problem was now one of shipping and capital.
"Formerly, fifteen to sixteen ships went to Sierra Leone and to the Nunez
every year now only three go to Sierra Leone and two to the Nunez", attested
a report in 1674*(9 )Overlooking the ad nausea repetition of the need for a fort andfor naval craft, there was one idea in the air which was proposed by Portuguese
intsrests as a solution for all the difficulties' of conducting trade on the(1) A.H.U., Guine, caixa I - No.l33» Antonio de Barros Bezerra, Aug 1673
(2 ) Lemos Coelhot Duas Describes, p.6(3) A.H.U.t Guine'’, caixa I - No.131, Sebastiao Vidigal Roiz, 24 April 1673
(4 ) A.H.U., Guine'’, caixa I - No. 133? Antonio de Barros Bezerra, Aug 1673
(5 )A.H.U.,

Guine, caixa I - No.131* Sebastiao Vidigal Roiz, 24 April 1673*

FREE TRADE vs MONOPOLY
Upper Guinea Coasts

the creation of a joint-stock company.

The idea of a

Portuguese joint-stock company trading to West Africa was first mooted as earlyas 1654 ty Duarte Nunez, a Portuguese representative in Hamburg, (l) In 1664,
an attempt was madd to create such a company to trade at Palmeirinho in the
Senegambia backed by two brothers, Louren90 and Manuel Martins.(2 )This

attempt was short lived, and it was until afterl670 that more serious attention
was given to the scheme.

The initiative came from certain individuals in

Santiago and Cacheu offering to provide the capital for a company which would
supply the necessary goods to compete on the Upper Guinea Coast, and which
would build a fort within six years. (3)For two or three years this proposal

was subjected to bureaucratic scrutiny.

Antonio de Barros Bezerra, one ofthe principals behind the scheme, wrote the Conseho in August 1673> urging thata trading company was the panacea for the ills of Cacheu and the Portuguese
trade on the Upper Guinea Coast as a whole.

As a result, it appeared that theConselho was ready to take definite action, but the matter was again deferred,and in January 1675> Manuel Preto Valdes, anothei? trader interested in thescheme, was still appealing for the urgent resolution of the question. (5 )The Conselho proceeded to work out the terms on which the company*s charter(1) A.H.U., Guine, caixa I - No. 69 , Minute of 10 Nov I 654(2 ) C. da Silva Texeira:Companhia deCacheu (Op.cit.) p.110(3) Ibid: p .109
(4) A.H.U., Guine, caixa I - No.l33> Antonio de Barros Bezerra, Aug 1673*(5 ) C. da Silva Texeira:"Companhia de Cacheu" p.119*

2^3
FREE TRADE vs MONOPOLY
would be granted, and finally in May 1676, the first Company of Cacheu was
launched, (l)The sixteen-clause contract of the Company of Cacheu attended tofour main subjects:

defence, revenues, the Cape Verde islands and emergencie

TheCompany was required to reinforce the old stockade, build new walls of bri

and lime, dig a trench around the circumference and a tunnel leading out of t
fort, and provide artillery.

Fifty soldiers were to be enlisted in Portugal

and we: e to be equipped and maintahed at the Company’s expense during the six
year duration of the contract.

The fiscal provisions stated that all duties

recoverable on the Nunez dye trade, on the Sierra Leone kola trade and fromthe trade of the river Casamance were to accrue to the Company of Cacheu, whi
a new impost of three barafulas was to be collected on every slave exported.
(2)0ne of the primary considerations of the Conselho was that Portuguese
goods and Portuguese shipping were to be utilised.

The importation of Spani

goods was prohibited, though the Company was free to ship slaves tp the Spani
Indies.

When it did so it was encouraged to use Portuguese shipping and if i

employed Spanish transport half the dutes collected on the export of slaves
were forfeited by the Company and went instead into the Portuguese treasury.
An allowance was also made for the ships of friendly European powers provided
they were freighted in Portugal.

No duties were payable on goods imported(X) A.H.U., Guine, caixa I - No. 134”137 discuss the contract of theCompany of Cacheu(2 ) A barafula was worth 200 reis.

See below, Ch. VII, $. 1 + 0 0

^?4
FREE TRADE vs MONOPOLY^nto Africa by the Company, and on African produce sent to Portugal only 50^of the normal import duties into Portugal were to be paid.

But goods exporte

to Cape Verde were to pay the full duties into the CaP© Verde treasury, and,as far as possible, the rights of the Cape Verde settlers were safeguarded,

owing to their powerful lobbying. (l)^Cape Verdeans were free to trade in all
ports of the Upper Guinea Coast, except that, like the 1anyados. they were
not supposed to do business with Europeans other than Portuguese.

The Companof Cacheu was obliged to reserve one-third ibf its cargo space for goods which
the Cape Verde residents wished to transport to and from the mainland.
two emergency provis63 were attached.

FinallIn time of war and short shipping, theships of friendly nations would be allowed to trade fieely, while heavy losses
at sea would free the company from the obligation to continue paying its
expenses for a reasonable period of time.
Within the Company’s charter, a captain-major of Cacheu was namedon the recommendation of the Company.

It was Antonio de Barros Bezerra,

himself a principal shareholder^who was selected.

He was a trader of 35 year

experience on the coast and had already served once as interim captain of
Cacheu. (2)It is difficult to trace in any detail how the Company of Cacheu

fared during its first four years of operation under Bezerra, and for the two(1) A.H.U., Guine, caixa I - No. 133» the governor of Cap® Verde forwarded amemorandum in May 1674> requesting that the rights of the Cape Verdesettlers be protected.

The Conselho constantly bore this considerationin mind.
(2) A.H.U., Guine'’, caixa I - No. 125, Minute of 16 Oct 1671.

2 <15^
FREE TRADE vs MONOPOLY
year .3 which remained of the contract after that.

The Conselho had reserved

the ultimate authority over Cacheu and all complaints against the Company
were to be sent to Portugal, but the routine reports did not reach theConselho.

However, it is quite clear that the Company of Cacheu was not the

panacea that it had been represented to be^ as far as rescuing the scraps ofPortuguese monopoly were concerned*

This can be ascertained in relation to

the two principal pronlems of disciplining the Africans and excluding all but
Portuguese shipping or shipping authorised by the Conselho.
Bezerra was convinced that nothing short of total conquest of tb
Africans could provide a sound b asis for the conduct of trade on the Upper
Guinea Coast, and he proposed to the Conselho since 1673 that such a conquest
should be € feeted. (l)Salvador de Sa e Benavides, the hero fof thePortuguese reconquest of Angola and Brazil, (2 ) was then a member of theConselho, and, not surprisingly, he advanced suggestions based on his
imperial experience.

He agreed that conquest of the Africans was necessary

if Portuguese authority was to be respected, and to this end he advised that
500 infantry and 200 cavalry should be despatched from the Cape Verde islands
to Cacheu.

In addition, the area was to be peopled by sending 100 married

couples in the first instance, and augmenting this number later.

The mainfunction of these settlers was to penetrate inland, because "experience inGuine, caixa I - No. 133 > Antonio de Barros Bezerra, Aug 1673
(2) See

C.R. Boxer:(London 1952)

Salvador de Sa. and the Struggle for Brazil and Angola

2U
FREE TRADE vs MONOPOLY

Angola has taught me that only when we hold the interior can we preserve ourposition"• (l) But the same importance was not attached to the Upper Guinea
Coast as to Angola, and no such bold steps were attempted.

In July 1679t the Conselho examined a request for help to Bezerri
in Cacheu, because of hostilities with the neighbouring Papels.

It wasargued that the king of Bissau was very friendly with the Portuguese at thattime, and that the rulers of Mata and Mompataz were the only ones who had to
be dealt with.

Indeed, some chiefs had offered to supply men to fight agains'the Papels of Mata and Mompataz.

This was therefore presented as the ideal

opportunity for the conquest of the area. (2)Santiago was asked to provide

100 men, 15 horses, 30 carabines and 30 pistols, but the defence of Santiago
had also gone togovernor of

seed, and help on

Cape V erde was willingthat scale was not forthcoming. The

to send 50 men and 4 horses, butbefore hcould intervene, hostilities came to an end, (3) and the conquest of the Pape]remained for the distant future.
With respect to commercial affairs, it was also clear that theCompany was not powerful enough to cope with the increasing English and Frencl
pressure.

Like most of the captain-majors befofe him, Bezerra was accused offinancial irregularities and the encouragement of rival European ships.

Thegovernor of Cape Verde sent a special magistrate to Cacheu in 1680 to conduct
an enquiry into the captaincy of Bezerra and the activities of the Company of(1) A.H.U., Guine, caixa I - No. 135» undated but around 18 June 1674*(2) AJLJL.,

Cabo Verde, caixa IV -Minute of 12 July 1679

(5) A.H.U.j

Cabo Verde, caixa V

Minute of the Conselho Sept 1682and 31

Jan I685.

-

FREE TRADE vs MONOPOLY
Cacheu.

As a result, both Bezerra and his son, Joao, were arrested.

The sonapparently remained in gaol in Santiago, (l) while the elder Bezerra was sent
to Lisbon, where he was released on a bail of 12,000 cruzados. (2 )short time, Bezerra*s fortunes revived.

Within a

After a petition from the residentsof the Upper Guinea Coast, (3 ) he was once more nominated captain of Cacheu andreturned there in 1685.(4 ) The Conselho must presumably have found that the
charges laid against Bezerra by the governor of Cape Verde, Manuel da Costa
Pessoa, could not be sustained.
It has been suggested that personal rivalry between Bezerra andPessoa was at the bottom of the allegations, (5 )Pessoa had originally beeninterested in trading on the Upper Guinea Coast, but he was not a party to theCompany of Cacheu, and he continued trading to the mainland on his own account.
As soon as Bezerra had been removed, Pessoa was said to have begun ruling
Cacheu in his own interest, and was taking out twice as many slaves- as theCompany. (6)Shortly afterwards, Pessoa tried to initiate a new company, so

he obviously had a large personal stake in discrediting Bezerra,
was more to the issue than simple personal rivalry.

But there

Pessoa was representing(1) A.H.U., Cabo Verde, caixa V - Minute of the Conselho, Sept 1682 and 31 Jan
1685(2 ) Joao Barreto:

Historia da Guine. p,110(3 ) A.H.U., Cabo Verde, caixa V - Ignacio de Franca Barbosa, 20 July 1684.
(4 ) A*H,U., Cabo V erde, caixa V - Ignacio de Franca Barbosa, 12 Sept 1685
(5 ) Joao Barreto:

Historia da Guine. p.110(6) A,H.U,, Cabo Verde, caixa V - Manuel de Sousa Mendon^a, Dec 1680.

Z9?

FREE TRADE vs MONOPOLY
the C ^ e Verde interests in opposition to Bezerra,(l) The Cape Verde intere

were not reconciled to the Company of Cacheu, in spite of large concessions
embodied in the charter of the Company,

They objected most of all to theduty of three barafulas placed on all slaves exported from the Upper Guinea
Coast, since this affected the Cape V erde import and re-export trade inslaves, (2 )It is significant that when Bezerra was re-appointed captain of

Cacheu he immediately pressed for the separation of the mainland from thejurisdiction of Santiago, and he was nearly successful, (3 )In short, theconflict between the continental and insular interests was again very much tothe fora during the era of Company rule.
Though Pessoa was not a disinterested person, and though Bezerra\as approved for a second term by the Conselho, it did not mean that Bezerra
did not trade freely with the Europeans.

There was scarcely any alternative

for the Company of Cacheu than to trade with Portugal’s European rivals.

Asshareholder, Bezerra stood to benefit personally from promoting as much tradeas possible.

That he was so much beloved by the resident traders that they

petitioned for his return further suggests that he was not exactly diligent
in carrying out the Conselho1s policy of excluding foreign shipping.

From an(1) The residents of Santiago petitioned the Conselho for Pessoa to have asecond term of office.
(2)

A.H.U., Cabo Verde, caixa V - Petition of July 1684

(3 ) A.H.U,, Cabo Verde, caixa V - Minutes of the Conselho, 19 Aug 1686
13 Oct 1686. (Bezerra in fact seemed to have won a great deal of
automomy.)

and

■M?
FREE TRADE vs MONOPOLY
entirely different source, one gets confirmation of this.

In March 1678,

agent Thurlow of the Gambia Adventurers wrote an account to his principals in
London, stressing that the Cacheu trade was more important than that of theGambia itself.

Haphazard trade was then going on, and Bezerra had just offer*

to make a contract with Thurlow to trade with the Gambia Adventurers and no 01
else, if the English company was prepared to pay certain prices.

Thurlow

judged the prices to be extremely high, and he was not prepared to commit his
own company because they were about to go into liquidation, (l)At the end of 1682, when the Company of Cacheu came to an end,
the Cacheu and Santiago merchants were more friendly than ever with theEnglish in Gambia. (2)Again, this is substantiated by English records,

John Castle, Thurlow*s successor, and the first chief factor in the Gambia
for the Royal African Company, carried through an agreement with the captainof Cacheu in 1681 and was trading regularly with the Portuguese. (3 )WhenCastle wrote in October 1682, he was able to report that he just hadconcluded a bargain for 20 tons of wax and ivory, and he was sending a ship
across to Cacheu.

He complained that on the previous venture he made little

profit because the Company of Cacheu took 10$ duty on all goods, but they hadpromised that the ship he was about to send would pay nothing.

The daptain-

major and all officials were resolved to trade with the English until they
were recalled, which would be at any moment since the charter of the Company(1) P.R.O., T70/10 - Thomas Thurlow, 15 March I 678, Fl.l
(2) Joao Barretoj

Historia da Guine, p.110(3 ) P.R.O.. T70/10 - John Castle, 2 March 1681, fl.56.

.~*0D
FREE TRADE vs MONOPOLY
had come to an end.

Besides, he said, the Africans were determined to have

trade. (i)When the idea of a Portuguese joint-stock company was first
airedj it had been the fervent wish of the Conselho that such a company would
be able to send at least six ships annually to the Upper Guinea Coast. (2)Instead the Company of Cacheu could only muster one. (3)As a result it was

reduced almost completely to the role of a trading intermediary.

Like thelingados, the Company of Cacheu worked on a system of credits, under which
they

received a certain amount of goods from a visitingEuropean ship, andhiked off into the sertao on the promise that an agreednumberof slaves andquantities of wax, ivory, etc. would be forthcoming.

Bad debts could

obviously be incurred by this form of credit trade.

But John Castle in theGambia was confident that he could trust the captain of Cacheu with large
quantities of trade goods, because the captain1s position was precarious in
relation to his own superiors.

Ee could not afford to give offence to theEnglish and risk the matter coming to light, because, as Castle put it, when
the Portuguese traded with any other Europeans it was "Inquisition business"
if they were found out. (4 )The Company of Cacheu concentrated on guarding its position as
middleman.

Shortly after the Company began operating)the English factor in(1) P.R.O.f T70/16 - John Castle, 14 Oot 1682, fl.44(2) C. da Silva Texeiras"Companhia de Cacheu", p.99

(3) P-R-Q- - T70/16 - John CsEtle, 20 Feb 1683,

fl.46 .

(4 ) P.R.O. T70/16 - John Castle, 20 Peb 1683,

fl.46 .

'h O

I

FREE TRADE vs MONOPOLY

Sierra Leone wrote that prices had gone up. (l)It appears that south of the

Nunez the Company of Cacheu was organising the 1any ados to demand more for
their services, as was happening simultaneously in the Cacheu-Gambia area.
Both in Sierra Leone and in the Gambia, the agents of the English c ompanies
were eager to break the stranglehold which the Company of Cacheu was applying
by virtue of its role as intermediary in all trade.

From the Gambia came tb

suggestion that a well-equipped launch could visit the rivers and trade
directly with the Africans. (2)adoption of this policy.

The shortage of river craft hampered theFrom Sierra Leone came the suggestion that the

principal trading establishment should be transferred from the Sierra Leone
estuary to a point near to present day Conakry, as this would put them in abetter position to negate the effects of the Cacheu Company. (3)This was no

judged feasible, and instead attempts were made to set up small factories or
trading houses in areas such as the Pongo and Nunez, again with the intentionof entering into direct contact with the Africans.

The Company of Cacheu

followed on aggressive policy of hindering the establishment of such factorie(4 )Their success must obviously have been based on the co-operation of the(1) P.R.O.. T 70/IO - Edmund Pierce, 29 Jan 1681, fl»57(2 ) P.R.O.. T70/10 Thomas Thurlow, 15 March 1678, fl. 1(3) P.R.O.? T70/l - Edmund Pierce, 4 Aug 1679> fl.33l

and T/70 10 Edmund

Pierce, 25 June 1678, fl. 3(4) B.R.O.T T70/10 - Edmund Pierce, 14 June 1680, fl.55> and T70/10 Thomas Thurlow, 10 June 1679> fl«53*

^02

FREH TRADE vs MONOPOLY
lanyados who were resident in the given areas#

The Company of Cacheu

therefore achieved a grip on local distribution, though this was far from themonopoly that the Conselho expected.

In the light of contemporary resort to the joint-stock company aa capital-raising venture, and especially because of its utilisation on theWest African Coast by th© French, the Dutch and the English, it is not
surprising that the Portuguese should have been attracted to the idea.

But acompany could have been more effective than direct national administration
only if it had boasted considerable capital.
Cacheu did not.

This the first Company of

It did not even have the support of financial interests in

Portugal, but was the property of a few Guinea traders who were in no positio
to compete with the companies and traders proceeding from European
countries, where capital and trade goods were in greater circulation.

Under

these circumstances, it could hardly have acted in any other capacity than thof middleman, co-operating with one and all.
Company of Cacheu encouraged free trade.

Instead of monopoly, the^02
FREE TRADE vs MONOPOLYPART III - "A QUESTION OF SOVEREIGNTY, BISSAU 1685-1701”

It was only in August 1915 that the Portuguese finally ‘pacified*the Papels of Bissau, and took complete de facto control over their colony inGuinea, (l)That was the c'limax to more than two centuries of sporadic

conflict between the Portuguese and the Papel inhabitants of the island of
Bissau.

Curiously enough, Bissau first appeared to the Portuguese in thenature of a haven.

De Almada singled out the king of Bissau as the best friethat the Portuguese had on the coast in the late sixteenth century, and his
ports w£re used as refuge when other Europeans attacked Portuguese ships on tb
nearby seas. (2)Possibly, it was the same king whom Barreira found as anold man, when he visited the island in 1605*

In any event, the ruler at thattime was also a great friend of the Portuguese. (3 )The king, 0 Equende',

reigning in I663, was equally friendly, (4 ) and Coelho was so impressed withthe treatment of 1anyados on Bidsau that he urged that the whole populationof Cacheu should be transferred there. (5 )A high point in the relations between the Portuguese and thePanels of Bissau was reached in 1680, when the latter sent forces to help the(1) Joao Barreto:

Historia da Guine". p.318(2) Alvaxes de Almada:(3 ) F e m a o Guerreiro:"Rios de Guine", p.308
Relayao Anual. Vol. 1, pp.410,411(4 ) Andre' de Faro: uRelayao do que obrarao os Religiozos Canuchos em a terra
firme de Guine", p. 38(5 ) Lemos Coelho:in Peregrinayao de Andre de Faro 'a Terra dos Gen tic

Duas Descricoes. p.41

FREE TRADE vs MONOPOLY
Portuguese merchants of Cacheu to free themselves from a threat posed by the
Panels of frtfif'fHi' - Cacheu. (l)Quite probably, this was linked with theinternal struggles for power within the Papel tribe, since the king of Bissau
at that time was said to have held sway over the Papels of the adjacentislands and coast. (2 )Bissau was advantageously sited to serve as an entrepot for
trade with the Bijagos, the rivers entering the Geba Channel, and the Ria
Grande de Buba;

and this was probably the factor which attracted settlers

from the Cape Verde islands in the sixteenth century. (3 )It was in Bissauthat the lanpado-grumete community came into greatest prominence, prosecuting
the slave trade to the point where they themselves undertook slaving
expeditions against neighbouring peoples. (4 )Bissau1s increasing

importance during the seventeenth century can be seen from the serious
consideration which the Conselho gave to a propos&l that the first Portuguese
company on the Upper Guinea Coast should operate from Bissau rather than CacL
(1) A.H.U., Guine*, Caixa II, No. 229» Manuel Cordeira Santos, Oct. 1694*(2 ) A.H.U.. Guine, caixa II - No. 229, Frei Francisco da Guarda, 8 Oct 1694
(3) That there was a sizeable number of Portuguese settlers on the island at
the beginning of the seventeenth century can be inferred from Barreira’s

distress concerning the number of souls who were in danger of perdition oi
the island because they were without a priest.

See Fernao Guerreiroi

Relayao Anual. Vol. 1, p.410(4 ) Mateo de Anguianoj

Misiones Capuchinas en Africa. Vol. 2, p.141(5) A.H.U.g Guine, caixa II - No. 134, Consulta of the Conselho Ultramarino
17 Aug 1674.

FREE TRADE vs MONOPOLY
Though the second Portuguese trading company on the Upper Guinea Ciast, which
was formed in 1690, was called the '’Company of Cacheu and Cabo V erde", thecentre of interest had really shifted to Bissau some years previously, and
the Portuguese crown was anxious to consolidate its position there*
The Portuguese Franciscan, Fr. Francisco de Pinhel, arrived in
Bissau early in 1687 bearing gifts for the king, Bacompolco. (l)In return,the king of Portugal was offered a man, a woman and a child by the king ofBissau. (2 )Over the next six or seven years, favourable reports reached theConselho concerning Bacompolco’s friendship with the Portuguese traders andpriests. (3)Yet, during that time, evidence was already forthcoming of theissues which were to cause Papel friendship to change to enmity.

Severalquestions, such as the construction of a fort, the policy towards other
European traders, the possibility of conversion to Christianity, and the legal
status of the Afro-Portuguese in Bissau were involved.

They can all be summed

up as "a question of sovereignty".
It should be recalled that during the captaincy of Gamboa de
Ayala the king of Bissau had ignored the Portuguese attitude and had welcomed
all ships to trade in his ports.

Nor was Bacompolco, friendly though he wasto the Portuguese, unmindful of the benefits of free trade.

The French were

(1) A.H.U.

Guine', caixa II, No. 186 9 Fr. Francisco de Pinhel, 26 March 1687

(2 ) A.H.U.

Guine, caixa II - No. 187, Verissimo Carvalho da Costa, special

commissioner

in Cacheu, 2 April 1687.

(3 ) A.H.U.. Cabo V9rde, caixa V, Verissimo Carvalho da Costa, 17 June 1687
(3) A.H.U.. Cabo Verde, caixa V - Bishop of CV, 28 June 1690,
Governor of Cape Verde, 26 April 1694

and caixa VI -

FRED TRADE vs MONOPOLY

particularly anxious to trade with his subjects.

During the 1680*s, theFrench had stepped up their activities on the Upper Guinea Coast, especiallyafter June 1685, when the French king renewed the concession of the French
company of the Senegal, extending its area of privilege to Sierra Leone, (l)Later that year, the Company sent an official overland from the Gambia to the
Cacheu, and then by ship among the offshore islands before returning to Goree
The official, De la Courbe, negotiated with several rulers, including the kinof Bissau. (2)Bacompolco refused the French permission to build a fort, buttrading factory was allowed, (3) and Bissau became the centre for French trad
south of tte Gambia.
The French factor resident in Bissau in 1685-86 was Jean de laFond, who shipped 1,800 slaves and nearly 400 quintals of wax during that
period.

&e returned in 1689, and acquired 300 slaves in three months;

while in the interval (1687-88) another Trench agent, Bourguignon, despatched(1) A.H.U. ■ Guine', caixa II - No. 166, Antonio de Barros Bezerra, 24 June I681
He was given a copy of the French charter by the Company’s agents on theUpper Guinea Coast.
(2 ) P. Cultrus Premier Voyage de Sieur de la Courbe fait a la Coste d fAfriqueen 1685. pp.211-214,220 for visit to Bissau.

(3) A.H.U., Guind', caixa II - No. 166, Antonio de Barros Bezerra, 24 June 168'
(Refers to French factory), and No. 187, Verisdimo de Carvalho, 2 April 1(Refers to failure of French to gain permission for fort.)

?>D7

FRdS TRADE vs MONOPOLY

700 slaves in eighteen months, (l)The Conselho Ultramarino was kept

informed of these developments not only hy its own officials but also by theclerical establishment on the Upper Guinea Coast.
Proselytising had always been a minor sub-theme as far as thePortuguese on the Upper Guinea Coast were concerned. (2)Such missionary

activity as was carried on was usually associated with the conduct of trade,but never more blatantly than on the island of Bissau.

From 1683 to 1686

three Spanish Capuchins maintained a church in Bissau.

They attempted tochristianise the Papels, but not to influence their commercial policies infavour of the Portuguese monopoly.

Indeed, they must have had good relation

with Jean de la Fond of the French Company of the Senegal, because in June
1686 when they wrote a letter to the king of Portugal on the state of Bissau(1) J. Labat: Nouvelle .Relation, Vol. V, p .85
L. Abdoulaye: Un Navftire de Commerce sur la C6te Senegambienne en 1685
(Dakar 1964)*This is based on the journal of the French ship, Amite7,

and indicates clearly that while the French were based in the Senegambia
they did a brisk trade with areas south of the Gambia.

See pp. 17, 19

for arrival at Goree of de la Font with slaves, and his despatch withiron and other trade goods(2) For a review of the missionary endeavour on the Upper Guinea Coast, see
Lemos Coelho: Duas Descricoes. pp.75-84*

For the Capuchins, see Mateo deAnguiano: Misiones Capuchinas en Africa. Vol. II, and P. Rosco Corrado:
MLe Missioni dei Cappuccini sulle coste della Guinea Superior© nel Secolo
XVII" - Unpublished thesis in the library of the Propaganda Fide. Rome.

*>&&

FREE TRADE vs MONOPOLY

Christianity, they forwarded a supporting testimonial from this French agent,(l)

The parish priest of Cacheu complained to the Conselho that the Spanish

missionaries in Bissau did no good to the Portuguese cause, because they did
nothing to stop the English and French from trading.

He cited, by way ofcontrast, the actions of the Portuguese priest, who in 1681 went to Bissau fl
Cacheu, and succeeded in keeping out the English agent, John Booker, as wellas preventing the French from obtaining the guides they needed to ta.de among
the Bijago islands.

It was imperative, he felt, that only Portuguese

priests should be given permission to go to the Upper Guinea Coast, and withthis judgment the Conselho was in full agreement. (2 )The Spaniards wererecalled in 1686, and, the following year, Portuguese Franciscans were sent
out. (3 )In the above context, there was nothing incongruous in the titleof a memorandum written by the notary of Cacheu in 1694 “ "Advice on thebest method of introducing the Catholic faith into Bissau and expelling theforeigner". (4 )The subject matter of the memorandum was mainly ofcommercial interest.

It pointed out that a French vessel had arrived at

Bissau seme months before, and in a short while was loaded with 200 quintals(1) Mateo de Anguianos Misiones Ca.puchinas en Africa. Vol.2, p. 278, Note II,
which refers to A.H.U.. Guiner, Caixa II, No. 165*
(2 ) A.H.U. t Guine caixa II - No. 174, Antonio Moreira, 22 July 1685 and No.
178, Minute of 9 Bee 1686
(3) Mateo de Anguiahos Misiones Capuchinas. p.203 (Editor’s notes)(4 ) A.H.U., Guine', caixa II - No. 229, Manuel Cordeira Santos, Oct 1694*

*2,09FREE TRADE vs MONOPOLYof ivory.

Another French ship took 300 slaves in less than two months, whileat that very moment, An English ship was loading at Cacheu.

Both thePortuguese residents and the Africans facilitated this ’illicit* trade, hut
hasically the Africans were pro-Portuguese} callingthem brancos ('whites1) as
opposed to estrangeiros ('foreigners' or *strangers') who were Europeansother than Portuguese.

Indeed, the Papels of Bissau had a special grudge

against the French, because a French frigate had attacked the island some tim
previously.

The rwo things which would be needed to win the complete favourof the Africans and the resident traders of Portuguese extfaction were goods
in sufficient quantity and at competitive prices, and at least two more ships
to take out exports from Bissau, because, as it was, the residents often had
slaves, wax and ivory left on their hands.
On hearing of the activities of the French and the English, theConselho Ultramarino had decided to temporise, laying their hopes for the
future in the construction of a fort on the island of Bissau, (l)The

Portuguese missionaries were soon able to report definite progress in thisdirection.

Fr. Francisco da Guarda wrote that Bacompolco had been converted

and that Bissau had a much better harbour than Cacheu and other mainland
ports.

Bacompolco was offering a site for a fort, and he was willing tokeep out 'foreigners1. (2 )The king of Bissau also wrote the king ofPortugal in April 1694, telling of his conversion.

He needed more churches,

weapons, missionaries, some footstools, a bed, a sun hat and a gown (since(1) A.H.U. T Guine^ caixa II - No. 171, Minute of 28 Sept. 1686
(2 ) A.H.U.f Guine, caixa II - No. 228, Minute of 27 Oct 1694*

^ \0FREE TRADE vs MONOPOLY

the one brought him by Fr. Francisco de Pinhel in 1687 was worn out); and he
was giving eight of his 1sons’ to the Bishop of Cape Verde as a guarantee ofgood faith, (l)Seven of them were to be given a Christian education in

Santiago, while the eldest, Batonto, was sent to Lisbon, where he was mademuch of, being baptised by a high ecclesiastic, with the king of Portugal as
his godfather, and ’Manuel* as his new name.

The events reached as far as

the Paris Gazette of October and November 1694* (2)Shortly afterwards

Bacompolco became the first Christian king of Bissau, and the Conselho gaveorders for the building of the fort of Our Lady of Conception on the island.

(3)
Hitherto, Bissau had only been semi-officially connected to theConselho through the intermediary of the missionaries and the bishop of Cape
Verde.

There was one official, known as a lieutenant-captain, who held acommission from the Portuguese crown, but the post seems to have been purely
honorary, being conferred on B a m a b e Lopez, an influential Afro-Portuguese,related to the ruling house of Bissau..(4 )In 1696, after the decision toestablish a nraya, Bissau was given the status of a captaincy, thoughsubordinate to the captain-major of Cacheu, and Jose Pinheiro, former captainof Cacheu, was entrusted with the job of organising Portuguese authority on
the island. (5 )(1) A jJLIL, Guine, caixa II - No. 229, Bacompolco, 26 April 1694
(2 ) Bertrand - Bocande. "Guinee Portugaise"(3) A.H.U..Guine, caixa II- No. 229, Minute of 21 Dec

1695(4 ) A.H.U..Guine', caixa II- No. 241, Jose Pinheiro, 16 June 1696

(5) A.H.U..Guine', caixa II- No. 240, Minute of 21 Jan

1696.

FREE TRIPE vs MONOPOLY

All seemed set for smooth relations between the Bissau Papels andthe Portuguese, when fate intervened.

Bacompolco died.

Pinheiro arrived in Bissau on May 5th, 1696, to find the island
in two hostile camps, with the succession being disputed by two fidalgos.
Incinhate and Toroco.

Pinheiro wisely refrained from committing himself

behind either conteatant,(]) though both he and the bishop of Cape Verde, Fr.
Victoriano Portuense, favoured Toroco.

Fears were entertained that life under

Incinhate would not be very pleasant;while, on the othar hand, Toroco wasalready a Christian convert, and it was felt that he would preserve thereligio-commercial ascendancy of the Portuguese in Bissau.

Nine points ofpolicy for the king of Bissau were detailed by the Bissau ecclesiastics and th
bishop of Cape Verde: (i) the king should allow the fort to .be built on thechosen site, (ii) he should treat the Christians with love and courtesy, (iii)he should himself be a Christian, and publish a proclamation that whoever
wanted to accept the new religion was free to do so, (iv) he must give
permission for the removal of all Xinas (images of the traditional religion)

from the area settled by Christians, (v) Christians were to be subjected not t
local laws but to those of Portugal, (vi) Christians and non-Christians were
not to live together, (vii) no non-Christians should inherit the goods of a
Christian, (viii) the king should have no commerce with 'foreigners', butshould defend the port against them, and (ix) he should favour no Christian
who had committed a crime, but should return all fugitives to the captain-(l) A.H.U., Guine', caixa II - No. 241, Jose Pinheiro, 16 June 1696

*\2.
FREE TRADE vs MONOPOLY
major, who would punish them according to Portuguese law. (l)Portuguese hopes for the implementation of these provisions lay
in Toroco, so the Conselho was given a lengthy justification of Toroco*s
claims to the throne, in the belief that they would intervene militarily.
In the process, the tenets upon which the Papel succession was based wereincidentally exposed.
The kingdom of Bissau was inherited by the king's maternal
sister's son, or by the nearest male relative descended through the king’s
maternal grandparents.
reasons.
king;

Torocofs claims were urged to be superior for threeFirstly, he was the maternal brother of Bacompolco, the former

while'Incinhate, though an older relative, was descended throughanother female line, and did not have a better claim than the mother ofBacompolco and Toroco.
thesis:

Toroco*s adherents advanced the following hypo­if Toroco’s mother had been a man she would have been king, and as

it was her rights were transferred directly to her sons.

Secondly, it waspointed out that when Bacompolco ascended the throne he did so without any
opposition from Incinhate, who had already inherited the goods of his elder
brothers, as was the custom.

Incinhate's late assertion of a claim was,therefore, just an ambitious act without legal foundation.

Thirdly,

Antoma, the noble to whom belonged the right of crowning the king, had crowne
Toroco, placing in his hands the insignia of the kingdom and on his head thecrown of his predecessors.

He was thus duly consecrated and took possession(l) A.H.U., Cabo Verde, caixa VI - Jesus Maria Joseph, 24 May 1696 and thebishop of Cape V^rde, D. Frei Victoriano Portuense, 15 June 1696.

*13
FREE TR.U)E vs MONOPOLYof the house of his brother, the former king.
However, the matter did not end there.

Apparently, the Beafada

king of Guinala had some rights over the throne of Bissau, and it had
previously been the custom for every Bissau king, after governing for two or
three years, to request a crown from the king of Guinala.

Bacompolco had

ruled for more than ten years using the crown of his predecessor, but
Incinhate decided to ask the king of Guinala for the crown, along with a few
forces to see that it was securely placed on his head.

The king of Guinala

acceded, and Incinhate found himself another noble to perform the actual
coronation.

Incinhate took control of the main port of Bissau, and placed a»nboycott on trade with Toroco^

i

n

3

t h e

H a j W i ngof the Afro-Portuguese community.-iii» k Aa * Bernagfbe Lopez and mostWithin a short while he was de facto king,and full constitutional sanction seems to have followed.

"This only goesto show what little respect they have for law in that kingdom" wrote the
Bishop of Cape Verdi'*'- in a spirit of righteousness which would have been
better applied to European monarchical intrigues.
With Incinhate as king, the Portuguese nine-point policy did
receive some slight support.

Most important of all, the Conselho*s plan for

a fort was put into operation, and there was a garrison of 30 degredados sentout since 1692. (2 )Incinhate also nominally accepted Christianity,

entitling him to refer to the Catholic monarch of Portugal as "my brother";(1) AJLIJ., Cabo Verde, caixa VI - Bishop of Cape Verde, 15 June 1696
(2) A.H.U., Guine, caixa II - Ho. _218, Minute of 11 Feb 1692; and No. 221,
Jose Pinheiro 13 June 1693

FREE TRADE vs MONOPOLY
while at tha same time this Bissau king saw nothing' incongruous in protesting
to the Catholic king of Portugal that Pinheiro was sacrilegious in his
conduct towards the Papel Xinas. (l)Differences of religious and commercial interests were serious
enough, and'the chances of an amicable compromise were jeopardised from theinception by the poor personal relations between Incinhate and the bishop ofCape Verde, between Pinheiro and the bishop, and later between Incinhate andthe bishop*
In the first pi ce, Incinhate was of the opinion that those of
his relatives who had been entrusted to the bishop by Bacompolco were sent to
Lisbon as slaves; (2 ) and in the second place, the bishop’s support of Toroco
could not hive endeared him to Incinhate.
bishop were also at loggerheads.

For some reason, Pinheiro and the

In November 1696, some slaves escaped fromthe pracpa of Bissau and fled to Balanta territory.
adjutant, four soldiers and several grumetes;

They were pursued by an

but the party met diaaater.

Two soldiers were drowned, and the rest captured by the Balantas.

Thebishop tried to effect a ransom, but to get to Balanta territory he had tocross the island, and on returning there was an attempt on his life, reputedly
inspired by both Pinheiro and Incinhate.

Incensed at this, the bishop had

five Papels seized and sent to Geba, including two relations of the king.
(1) Sena Barcelos:

Subsidios para a Historia de C3bo Verde e Guine, Vol. X

Ch. Ill, pp.IIO-I36 for the whole of the Bissau episode.
(2) Ibid.

FREE TRADE vs MONOPOLY

In the early hours of the next morning, the church and living quarters of thepriests were burned to the ground.

The bishop retired to a house within thepra^a, and twenty days later this too was burnt, (l)Several witnesses gave evidence that Pinheiro was deeply
implicated in all this; though he attempted to saddle the Papel king with all
the blame.

This partly accounted for the rift which developed between him­

self and Incinhate, though the most violent clash was tocome over matters of
trade.

In December 1696, Pinheiro turned away two English ships which

arrived at the main port of Bissau.

Incinhate despatched his alcalde andthree other fidalgos to ask Pinheiro "whether he thought he was the Senhor
da Terra, that he had dared to turn away shipping".

Pinheiro replied that 1

was doing his duty as required by the king of Portugal, and that the Papels
stood to benefit by the Portuguese presence.

But the Papel delegation

returned from Incinhate with the same query:"Are you the Senhor da Terra?",This time Pinheiro shouted that they would trade with foreigners only overhis dead body.

The Papel king took him literally, and he was sentenced todeath.

The fort was not yet finished, but Pinheiro decided to withstand asiege.

e and his small garrison were deprived of food and water, in muchthe same way as the Papels of Cacheu had held the settlement there ah theirmercy.

Fortunately for the Portuguese at Bissau, help was rapidly forth­coming from Cacheu and Geba, organised by Santos de Vidigal Castanho, the the(l) A .H.U.. Guine, caixa II, No. 244> Finheiro's version of events; and Cabo
Varde, Caixa VI - Affidavits on this matter seen by the Conselho on
4 Feb I698.

*) b

FRE? TTLHDE vs MONOPOLY
captain of Cacheu.

Castanho brought 92 lanc^ados. 200 grumetes and other

Africans, who brought the total force to more than 400. (l)These forces did

not need to go into action, since Castanho and Incinhate1s nobles came topeaceful terms, incorporating- the condition that Finheiro should be removed assoon
as possible. (2)Only four days aft r Castanho left Bissau, Pinheiro found himself
in lifficulties again.

A Butch ship arrived, and Pinheiro fired upon it.

The

pra3a was surrounded by Incinhate and 400 Papels, who warned that if thecaptain-major should continue in his contumacy, they would pull down the wallsof the fort and cut off the heads of all those inside.

Pinheiro was determined

to resist, but the priests prevailed upon him to at least v/ait until thefortifications were completed, if he was going to fight the Papels. (3)Rodrigo de Fonseca, Pinheirofs successor, wrote the Conselho that
linheiro had died in the service of his country on the 5th February 1698, after
having been imprisoned and beaten up by the king of Bissau. (4) The Conselho
was not particularly impressed by this martyrdom.

They had specifically urgedthat the Bissau situation should be handled with caution and prudence, (5) andPinneiro had displayed none of these qualities.
(1) A.H.U.. Guind', caixa II - No. 243, Jose Pinheiro, 7 March 1697; and No.
247) Vidigal Castanho, 24 March 1697
(2) Sena Barcelos:

Subsidios, loc.cit.

(3) A.H.U.. Guine", caixa II - No. 245) Jose Pinheiro, March 1697
(4) A.H.U.. Cabo Verde, caixa VI - Minute of 3 Oct I698
(5) A.H.U.. Guine, caixa II - No. 229, Minute of 27 Oct 1694*

*17

FREE TRADE vs MONOPOLY

Rodrigo de Fonseca was much more restrained than his predecessor.
He was unable to put an end to free trade, because the Papels let him know that
"the7 had to eat", and that "the land was theirs, and we (the Portuguese) could
not call it ours".

To offer resistance would have been suicidal, since thegarrison had been reduced by mortality to twelve soldiers, the artillery
carriages were destroyed by termites, and any altercation would lead to thestoppage of food and water.

Fonseca*s advice was to allow the other

Europeans to trade, collect duty from them, and temporise with the Africans
until the Portuguese commanded enough force.

To preserve Portuguese dignity

in tne meanwhile, he had managed to persuade the Bissau king that all European
ships should anchor outside the range of the fort!s guns, though even thissmalL concession had been costly.

Having made these compromises, Fonseca wasable to report in March 1699 > after nearly one year on the island, that so far
he hid managed to maintain peaceful relations with the Papels. (l)He wasalso fortunate in that the king of Guinala had been assassinated, andIncinhate, who had derived his authority from the king of Guinala, was said
to hive been most chastened by this event. (2)However, Incinhate had already made his position clear to theConselho, as far as matters of trade were concerned.

After thanking thePortuguese king, D. Pedro, for past favours, and after averring that he had
no wish to incur the enmity of any king - least of all "his brother", the kingof Portugal - Incinhate proceeded as follows:"On the subject of the(1) A.H.U. , Guine", caixa II - No. 266, Rodrigo de Fonseca, 16 March 1699
(2) Eena Barcelos:

Subsidios, loc. cit.

1>iS
FREE TRADE V3 MONOPOLY
foreigners whom the captain-majors do not wash to allow to do business inthis country, Your Majesty should know that I am a poor king, and that mycountry requires foreign goods, such as iron, alchohol and swords.

Your

Majesty’s Company which is here does not sell me alchohol or iron, nor doesit have sufficient goods for my country.. .nor are the goods of the same
quality as those brought by foreigners.

Your Majesty should be well awarethat the price paid by the foreigners for my slaves suits me better than thatof the Company."(l)It was perhaps with Incinhate1s letter in mind that a member of
the Conselho noted a few years later that "the Negroes are not so barbarousthat they do not know the advantage of having free trade with all nations".
(2) Were it not for the jaundiced attitude of which this remark is typical,
the Portuguese might have been able t o appreciate fully that more thanelementary mercantile considerations were at stake.

When the Papels asked

Pinheiro if he was setting himself up as the Lord of the Land, they reachedto the heart of the matter,
service of his king,Pinheiro had rightly insisted that he was in the

What was at issue, therefore, was a clash of sovereignty.

In the welter of claims and counter-claims which the European
nations made among themselves, they found it easy to overlook the basic fact

1
I

that any claim to sovereignty over any part of Africa immediately introduced
Vthe potential clash with the African rulers concerned.

iDuring the pre­(1 ) A.H.U.. Cabo Verde, caixa VI - Incinhate to the governor of Cape Verde andto the king of Portugal, 2§ May I698.
(2 ) A.H.U., Guine, ma^o I - Minute of 28 Nov 1707-

Si?
FREE TRADE vs MONOPOLY
colonial era of trr.de, this question seldom came to a head, because theEuropean powers did not embark on conquest or try to wrest political authority
from the African rulers#

But an area of overlapping authority did exist.

Though Portugal and the other European powers trading to West Africa legis­
lated primarily for their own citizens and functionaries, the action of thelaw inevitably fell on the Africans also.

Thus, when the chiefs and thekings of the Upper Guinea Coast espoused free trade, in opposition to
the regulations of the king of Portugal, the question of whose authority andcompetence it was to determine such matters was never far from the surface.
Bissau was no exception, though on that island several facets of the question
were fully exposed.
Since Fonseca was much more tactful than Pinheiro, hisdifficulties with the Papel king were particularly meaningful in revealing
the essential points of difference of policy rather than personalities.

When

Fonseca tried to collect taxes for his own sovereigh, he did not find it aneasy matter.

He reported in April 1699 that Maria Soares, an Afro-Portuguese

trader, was en route from Sierra Leone to Bissau with a cargo of kola, andshe stopped at Bissau.

On being asked to pay duties to the Portuguese she

immediately protested to Incinhate, who intervened in her favour, (l)An

incident of this sort should have forewarned the Portuguese authorities that
it was unlikely that, having granted free trade, they could collect revenues
from foreign ships?

but this was the plan adopted late in 1699* (2)(1) A.H.U.. caixa II - No. 271 > Rodrigo de Fonseca, 23 April 1699
(2) A.H.U.T caixa II - No. 279> Minuteof Nov 1699«

FREE TRADE vs MONOPOLY
Predictably, Fonseca had a tale of woe to tell in his subsequent correspon­
dence.

Two Dutch ships had not paid the IQffo duty required by the Portuguese,and when Fonseca tried to stop them they had recourse to the king of Bissau.
Incinhate ordered that his bombalon be sounded, saying that whoever wanted tosell could do so without fear, because he was the Senhor da Terra who couldorder as he pleased, (l)When the king of Portugal styled himself Senhor da Guine, what
then did it mean?

The Conselho had made specific reference to this issue ina memorandum on Cacheu in 1670 - "Your Majesty carries the title Senhor daGuin£, though having out of all that coast only a small parcel of land; andwhat is worse, Your Majesty conserves that at the cost of your reputation,...
because you pay a tribute or feu-duty to the Negro king."(2 )The Conselho

was, therefore, regarding payments made to African rulers on the Upper Guinea
Coast as an affront to and a derogation from Portuguese sovereignty.

Theirprescribed remedy for this situation was a fort.
As wiih the lane ados in the sixteenth century, so with thePortuguese crown in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries - the most
crucial issue was always that of fort-building.

The commercial regulations

made by the Portuguese crown could normally be ignored by the African rulers,
but the construction of a fort provided a physical sanction.

The Papel rulers

recognised this as a threat to their authority, but (apart from the instances(1) A.H.U.. Guine", maco I - Rodrigo de Fonseca, letter seen by the Conselho
on 26 March 1701
(2) A.H.U.. Guine", caixa I - No. 124> 26 Sept I67O.

*2.

FREE TRADE vs MONOPOLY

of building by subterfuge) the rulers were often prepared to grant permissioi
as a calculated risk, and in the light of their own conception that land andthe rights that went with it could not be permanently alienated, (l)Consequently, one finds in the fort-building episodes of Bissau and Cacheu aphase of seemingly contradictory behaviour on the part of the Papel leaders,
first conceded the Portuguese the right to construct fortifications on a give
site, and then did their best to make this concession invalid.

On® very practical problem in building a fort was the shortage clabour.

The Papels of Bissau refused to provide labour and raw materials tc

facilitate the Portuguese, and sometimes went so far as to withhold the watei
which went into the building operations. (2)This was not the first experierof its kind which the Portuguese had had on the Upper Guinea Coast, for in
Cacheu in the l650fs work on the muchdiscussed fort had been held up becausof the negative attitude of the Papels, who were not prepared to supply laboi
even for wages. (3)Their motive could scarcely have been any different froc

the one advanced for the behaviour of the Bissau Papels:they did not want to lose their freedom". (4 )namely, "because

Barbot was well informed aboul

this situation in Bissau, and gave an independent judgement which confirmed
the official Portuguese reports,^e noted that in 1686 the Portuguese had(1) This question was much more important on the Gold Coast; where there wasa network of European trading forts,(2 )A.H.U.. Guine, caixa II - No. 269, Rodrigo de Fonseca.

(3)

A.H.U.. Guine, caixa I - No. JQ, Gaspar Yogado, 24 June 1656.

(4 )

A.H.U.,Guine, caixa II - No. 269, Rodrigo de Fonseca, 28 Nov 1699*

*zr

FREE TRADE vs MONOPOLY

obtained permission to construct a fort by offering the Papel king a consider­able present#

However, after two pieces of cannon had been mounted, the re­action set in, "for the Blacks in general are not pleased with this grant madeto the Portuguese, which excludes all other Europeans from trading with theirnation;and it is likely things will not continue so long, those Blacks being

great sticklers for liberty"# (l)As predicted, things did not continue so for very long.

The

Conselho itself came to realise that the fort of Bissau was not serving its
purpose of protecting their monopoly, and thus represented unnecessary
expense.

The members of the Conselho were advised that even when functioning

perfectly, the fort of Bissau could not stop ’contraband* trade from being
carried on at other points which were relatively close.

In fact, this argu­

ment would have applied to any other site on the Upper Guinea Coast, with its
many-channelled estuaries, rias, bays and off-shore.islands.

The Conselho

did not draw the conclusion that all fortifications were likely to prove
futile, but when they reviewed the position of the Portuguese crown on theUpper Guinea Coast at the end of the seventeenth century, they decided that it
was better to concentrate what limited funds they had for such purposes on thefort of Cacheu. (2 )The fortress of Our Lady of Conception on the island of

Bissau was abandoned in 1701, so that when Incinhate died later that year, thesovereignty of the Bissau monarch was untrammelled by European cannon, and his
ports were open to the trade of all nations.
(1) John Barbot: The Coasts of North and South Guinea, p .87(2 ) A.H.U., Guine, caixa II - No. 271> Minute of Nov 1699*

2>Z3

A HISTORY OF THE UPPER frUI^'SA COAST. 1545-1800

CHAPTER SIXPRODUCTS CF THEFOHEST

Products of the Forest
Resident lane ados* European governments, joint-stockcompanies and individual ships from Europe were all concerned
primarily with the Atlantic slave trade; and it was in the interestsof this trade that the Portuguese strove so desperately to maintaina monopoly of the commerce of the Upper Guinea Coast.

But, although

the Atlantic slave trade so obviously dominated Afro-European
relations in the pre-colonial period, slaves were never the exclusive
export of West Africa.

The slave trader, Captain Canot, made acomment on this subject.

He wrote: nAs it may be interesting tolearn the nature of trade on this coast - which is commonly misunder­stood as consisting in slaves alone - I thought it well to set down
the inventory I made out of the daravan’s stock.

3,500 hides$ 1,750

19 large and prime teeth of ivory

1,560

2,500

gold
600 pounds small ivory

320

15 tons rice600

40 slaves

1,600

36 bullocks

360

sheep, goats, butter, vegetables

900 pounds beeswax

100

95

§ 8,885

Products of the Forest

The above list relates to a Fula trading caravan
proceeding from the Futa Djalon in the early nineteenth century,(l)It by no moans includes all of the varied products of the forestsof the Upper Guinea Coast, which, in greater or lesser quantities,
were exported to Europe,

A comprehensive list of those exports

x/ould comprise gold, ivory, beeswax, camwood, malaguetta pepper,
hides and pelts, civet, ambergris, indigo, orchilla (a violet dye),
cotton, gums, resin, soap and raphia mats; apart from palm oil,
rice, millet and citrus fruit, which served as provisions for slaves
and sailors.

Several of these forest products provided valuablesupplements and even alternatives to the trade in slaves, and thus
clearly warrant consideration in their own right.
It is convenient to begin this discussion by singling out
gold, because this metal was “tbs principal factor motivating thenavigational achievements of the Iberians in Africa,

Though boththe Senegambian shores and the Upper Guinea Coast proved disappoint­ments as far as extensive gold supplies were concerned, the possi­
bility of find'ng gold was a great incentive, seldom absent fromthe minds of the Europeans on the Upper Guinea Coast, as elsewhere.
Because of the xenophobia of the Balantas, and because of the factthat this tribe paid its tribute to the king of Casanga in gold,(l) Captain Canot: Adventures of an African Slavey (London 1923)
po, 39> 90.

32 6

Products of the Forest

the Portuguese were misled into t h ’.nking that gold mines werelocated in Balanta territory.

In 1695, the Portuguese of Bissau,

along with three hundred Papels, invaded Balanta territory, partly
motivated by the expectation of gold.
failure.(l)This foray proved a costly

Apart from this instance, the Portuguese realised thatmost of the gold in circulation on the Upper Ssid Coast had to beimported from the deep hinterland, though there were small depositsof alluvial gold on the coast.

The English and French we^e not aswell informed, and continued to believe for a long while that there
was an El Dorado on the river Gambia.

There was some substance forthis belief, but the gold mines of Galam and Boundou were a longway from the coast, as the French were to discover.(n)1/hen the Portuguese reached the Gambia in the middle ofthe fifteenth century, they were able to purchase a gfnall amountof gold at the estuary.(2) However, they had to proceed to thefurthest navigable point on the river before they came into contact
with the interior gold trade. (3)in the district of Cantor.

The terminus of this trade was

There the Mandinga merchants brought

their gold to exchange for cloths, hats, beads and, above all,(n) P. Labgrthe: Voyage au Senegal, pp. 56-60.
(1) J. Labat: Nouvelle Relation. Vo.IV, pp. 191-193*(2) Valentim Fernandes: La C-ote Occidentale d*Afrioue. p. 34*(3) Ibid: p.36.

Products of the Forest

This was obviously the same expertise in measurement as displayedon the Gold Coast, and the comparison with this latter region is
apt for another reason*

From Pereira1s account, it would appear

that the Mande merchants on the Gambia came from the hinterland of
the Gold Coast, (l)It was a long and dangerous journey, requiring

the protection of well-armed soldiers,(2) and such difficult conditions

would explain why the Gambia never became an outlet comparable to theGold Coast.
South of theGambia, it was even more difficult to makeeCbntact with the IJestcrn Sudan, since thefar enough.

rivers did not penetrate

Supplies on the Gcba represented a trickle from theGambia; while in Sierra Leone the gold arrived on the coast, in thesixteenth century, by way of the Susus and Fulas. (3)Although thetraders on the coast believed that the mineral came from within Fula
domains, later sources show that the Fulas too were a link in the
chain of trade which started in the tfectern Sudan.

The merchants ofSangara, east of the Niger, purchased £gold at Sego and sold it to thea ) Pacheco Pereira: Lsmrraldo de Situ Qrbis. p. 64*(2) Albares De Almada:"Kios de Guine1’P p. 27C. (See also the discus­
sion of the Manes, Ch. II, p.fcg.)^(3)

Alvares De Almada”Pdos de Guine%pp. 353y 355*

P r o d u c ts o f t h e F o r e s t

copper bracelets.

By the beginning of the sixteenth century, when

war did not interrupt this trade, the Portuguese could count oncarrying away some "5 , 0 0 0 to 6 , 0 0 0 doubloons of good gold" every
year, according to Pacheco Pereira, (l)throughout the sixteenth century.

This commerce continued

In 1551* the captain of Santiago

acknowledged receipt of fifty-seven marks, three and two-eighths
ounces, and twenty-four grains of gold brought from Cantor; (2 ) while
another report of 15S1 indicated that the Porguguese obtained on anaverage 10,000 to 12,000 cruzados of g old from the Gambia every year.
(3)
What the Porguguese encountered on the middle Gambia (andperhaps stimulated) was a branch of the well-developed Sudanese
network.

The Cantor markets were dominated by long-distance mefchants,

who were professional gold dealers.

De Almada was impressed that"these merchants are extremely skilful, in weighing and in every
other respect; they carry very delicate scales inlaid with silver". (4 )(1 ) Pacheco Pereira: Esmeraldo de Situ Orbis. pp. 62, 6 4 .
(2 ) A. Brasio: MonumeirtaJMissianaria,4fccicana>2nd series, Vol. II No. 12S, Letter of J0 S 0 Afonso Cedofeita to the king, 20 Nov.,
1551, p. 422.
(3 ) A. Brasio: Op.cit., Vol. Ill - No. 42, Relayao of Francisco deAndrade, 26 Jan.,15S2, p.104. (The most worthwhile comparison
between these .three estimates of gold supplies from the Gambia
would be on the basis of weight, but I have been unable to ascer­tain the weight of the gold doubloon and cruzado f or the relevant
dates.) For a rough idea of the value and fluctuating gold content
of the Portuguese cruzado,see Frederic Mauro: Lo Portugal et1.1At 1 ant iq.ua, p p .413,414 *(4 ;') Alvares De Almada: "Rios de Guinn", p.276.

Kornnkos and Fulas in the hinterland of Sierre Leone,(l) Such tenuous
connections with the source of supply did not encourage any substantial
trade.
According to Pacheco Pereira, the Ternnes called gold tebon.qo.
(2) a word which actually means 1jewe Iry1. (3) Up to the beginning of
the seventeenth century, most of the gold purchased by the Portuguesein Sierre Leone was in the form of rings and bracelets, U ) and this
could mean that this was theform in which gold reached the coast fromthe interior, after passing through thehands of Mande craftsmen.(5 )But, whether the jewelry was fashioned on the coast or in the interior,
the fact that so high a percentage of gold on the coast was in theformof jewelry further reduced the prospects, as far as the Europeans wereconcerned, especially when certain social customs are taken into account.
The Sapes hoarded gold ornaments to bury with the dead.

This practice

led the Mane invaders to disturb the Sape graves,(6) but in turn the(1) A.G. Laings Travels in the Timmanee. Kooranko and Soolima Countries,
pp. 356, 372.
(2 ) Pacheco Pereira: Esmeraldo de Situ Orbis, p. £2.
(3) Pet er Kup: A History of Sierra Leone, p. 6.
(4 ) Fernao Guerreiro: Rela^ao Anual. Vo. 2, p. 211.
(3) Peter ICup: A History of Sierra Leone, p. 7.
(6) Hakluyt Society, Ud. LVII, Thg Hawkins Voyagesr p. 1$; Alvarcc
Alvares de Almada: "Rios de Guinl", pp. 353> 3&2.

330

Products of the Forest

Manes too adopted the same burial customs.

In 1606, a Portuguese

trader lamented that far more ^old would have been available for salein Sierre Leone if the kings and nobles had not considered it such ahigh honour to be interred with this precious metal.

The lan^ados

were frustrated by not generally knowing the burial places, (1) andeven when they did, fear of the consequences kept them from desecrating
the graves. (2)It is at first sight somewhat surprising that, in spite of
their constant verbal preoccupation with &old, the Portuguese did
not exploit the gold trade to its full potential on the Upper Guinea
Coast.

De Almada attested tha* he was himself present in 1573 at

Cantor when, at the conclusion of the trade, an immense quantity ofgold was not taken up by the Portuguese because they had brought
insufficient merchandise.(3)

1 report from Santiago in 1531 also

claimed that the year!s return of gold from the Gambia was below theusual quantity, because the small Portuguese trading vessel failed tocarry enough goods. U)

De Almada went on to add that since 1536 noPortuguese ships at all had travelled up the Gambia to the annual gold

(1) Fernao Guerreiro: Helacao m u a l . VoL2, p. 211.
(2) A.R.S.I.. Lus.74 (Epistolae Lusitaniae 1599-1655) FIs. 63-73,
Baltezar Barreira to the P. Provincial, 9 Sept.,.1607.
(3) Alvares De Almada: "Rios de Guine”, p. 279.

(4) A. Brasio: Monuments Missionarla A^ricana, Vol.Ill, p.104-.

Products of the Forest

fair, and the trade had passed into the hands of the Moors, whooffered items such as glazed pottery and red cloth. (i)The explanation is that the Portuguese did not find theGambia gold trade profitable.

During the course of the seventeenth

century, they continued to take some interest in it,(2) but Lemos
Goelho, who personally participated in that activity for three years,
did not give a favourable account.

Only six to seven pounds of gold

were purchased every year, because it was far more profitable to use
one's trade goods to purchase slaves, ivory and cloth.(3) The French
traders learnt the same lesson before the end of the seventeenth
century, finding that gold in the Gambia was almost as dear as inFrance.(4)Similarly, at Cope Mount the Portuguese did not take a greatinterest in the gold trade.

In the early sixteenth century, thePortuguese knew that the Bulloms were exchanging salt for gold fromthe Coyas in the near hinterland of Cape Mount.(5) let it was the
Dutch who constructed the first fort at this point on the coast.

One

Portuguese lanyado was incredulous when told that the Dutch were netting(1) Alvares De Almada: "Rios de Guine", p. 279.
(2) R. Jobson: The Golden Trade of the Moors, p. 33*(3) Lemos Goelho: Duas Descrlcoes da Guine. pp.23,24.
(4)P. Cultru: Premier Voyage de Sieur de la C.mrbe fait a la Coste
Occidentals d'Afrlqne en 1635. p.194*(5) Pacheco Pereira: Bsmeraldo de Situ Qrbis. p. 32.

^3-8
Products Q.f the Forest

huge quantiti’s of gold from the area between Mina and Cape Mount,
This langudo knew that gold was not available on the Malaguetta Coastin any appreciable amounts, but the explanation of his ,ftrustworthy
Dutchman" was that the Africans knew that the Dutch wanted gold, andwere thus encouraged to seek and guard it for sale.(l)Since European goods constituted such an attraction to thepeoples of the coast, it is obvious that they could have been prevailed
upon to increase the amount of gold made available for sale, if theEuropean merchants had seriously pressed the issue.

But the latter

were interested in discovering gold mines or in regular and substantial
supplies of this commodity, and they did not consider the pickings of
the Upper Guinea Coast as worth their while.

As the seventeenth andeighteenth centuries wore on, one seldom heard of the acquisition ofgold direct from the littoral peoples.

As Barbot was aware, the goldpurchased in Sierre Leone in the late seventeenth century was brought
from"Mandinga and other remote countries, towards the Niger11.(2)The trade thus became tied to the arrival of Mande and Fula merchantsfrom the interior; and though, as in Canot's inventory, gold ranked
high in Value, it should still be considered as incidental to the slave
coffle, which was wending its way towards the coast.
Ivory, too, was a product which the Europeans were unlikely
to overlook once it was readily available.

The Upper Guinea Coast,(1) Ferriao Guerreiro: Rnlapao Anual, Vol.2, p.211. After the state ofLiberia had been established, some gold was known to be obtainablefrom the native Africans, both in the Interior and on the coast* See
Ct.U. Brown, An Economic Hist try of Liberia.
(2) J.Barbot: Description of North and South Guinea, p.102

Products of the Forest

though a comparatively poor African region was far as fauna is concerned,a ) was never lacking in elephants, even on the islands fringing theshore.

Along the Gambia, it was a common sight to see herds of theseanimals on the banks•(2)

The reputation of the Gambia was shared by

the Nunez (3) - not surprisingly, since the belt of highland stretchinginland from Gape Verga is a more suitable savannah habitat than the
thick coastal forests.

The Gocolis and the Landumas of the upper Nunez

were particularly well known for their ivory, and coastal lore had itthat these tribes used ivory tusks for delimiting the boundaries of
their fields.(4)English ships calling at Sierre Leone in the sixteenth andearly seventeenth centuries usually availed themselves of the oppor­
tunity to pick up the occasional tusk.

In 1532, Captain Fenton acquireda monkey and a large tusk for one and a half yards of broad red cloth,
two ells of coarse narrow linen cloth and ten pounds of gunpowder.(5 )Several years later, Captain Keeling called at Sierre Leone in the same(1) J. Machat: Les Rivieres du Sud et le Fouta-Diallon. p. 202.
(2) Alvares De Almada: "Rios de Guine", p. 272.
(3) Ibid: p. 340.

Pacheco Pereira: Esmeraldo de Situ Orbis. p. 74*(4 ) Lemos Coelho: Duas Descricoes da Guine. p. 49.
(5 ) E.G.R. Taylor: The Troublesome Vovarre of Captain WilJiam Fenton.
Hakluyt Society, No. CXIII, p. 103.

3
Products of the Forest

way for wood and water, and bought a tusk of sixty-eight pounds forfive yards of blue calico and a few bars of iron.(l)1
long before the above incidents, the Portuguese of Cape Verdeand the mainland had put the ivory trade on a much more regular basis,
and at the beginning of the sixteenth century, they were exporting
considerable quantities of ivory from the Upper Guinea Coast.(2)Ina brief statement on the finances of Santiago in November 1551,
prominence was given to the revenues derived from handling ivory.

At

the time, eighty quintals were in stock on the island, and further
supplies from Sierra Leone were anxiously being awaited. (3) Yet it
was after the Dutch and English had established their factories in
Sierra Leone that ivory was most intensively exploited.
The European factories on the Port Loko Creek and the Rokellewere concerned primarily with the expert of ivory.

When the Dutch

admiral, Dc Euiter, took Tar so Island from the English in I664, he foundsome four hundred to five frmdred 1teeth', as the Europeans always
called the tusks. U )The previous year, Tarso had been visited by a

Portuguese missionary, Andre de Faro, who was struck by the scale ofoperations.

He wrote: "The thing which caused me greatest astonishment

was to witness with my own eyes the arrival of an English ship to load

(1) Purchas his Pil?rimes. Vol.II, Ch VI, p. 506.
(2) Pacheco Pereira: EsneralLdo de Situ Qrbis. p. 90*(3) A. Brasio: Monument a Mlwoicnaria africana, 2nd ser., Vol.II, !Io.l2C,
p . 422 .

(4) John Ogilby: xlfrtoa, p. 376.

33

Produces of the Forest

a cargo of ivory, at tho factory which they have in the Sierra.
Before my eyes, it loaded 23,000 teeth, many of which weighed four
arrobas, some weighed six arrobas. and there were numerous smaller
ones.

Every year, a ship comes to lake a similar cargo.

Judge fromthis how many elephants are killed here every year, because each one
has only two teeth, and thus 14,000 elephants must be slain annually.
This does not take account of the ivory that is purchased in theother rivers of Guinea, where there are similar factories, which
despatch other ships; and the Dutch are also buyers in the ports ofthese rivers.

There are, therefore, more elephants in Guinea thanthere are cattle in the whole of Europe. (1;Andre de Faro must have allowed his imagination and hisarithmetic to run wild; but the intensity of operations was undeniable,
being reflected some years later in the depletion of the elephantpopulation at Gape Mount.

Barbot wrote that it was formerly a great

centre for ivory, but that the trade had fallen off considerably due
to exhaustion of supplies. (2) Perhaps the same may have been partiallytrue of the rivers leading into the Sierra Leone channel, because thefactorj . of the Poyal African Company on Bence

Island informed London

in June 1670 that no ivory came from upriver, and to the best of his(1) Andre de Faro: Pererrina^ao. pp*35,36. 1 arroba = 3k pounds.
(2) J. Barbot: Description of the Coasts of Forth and South Guinea,
p.109.

Products of the Forest

knowledge that had been the state of affairs for several years
previously.(l)However, since the Sierra Leone factories had

previously received most of its ivory supplies from the Susus and
Limbas of the interior, (2) the cessation could have been due todisturbed conditions in the Interior. (3)As far as the more northerly

sections of the Upper Guinea Coast were concerned, Labat reported
that the elephants on the island of Bulama were indiscriminately
slaughtered.

He thought, however, that around the Geba, whore fivetons of ivory per year were extracted, there was no apparent impact
on the elephant herds. (4)In the 1660s the English began concentrating on the r ivers
north of the Sierra Leone estuary, with the Nunez and Pongo being
the most favoured.
for the Nunez trade.

The Gambia factories were at first responsible
They set up a factory there in 1664* Prom which

they took out 300 quintals of ivory every year.(5)After 1601, Bence

Island and James Island (the Gambia headquarters) duplicated efforts
in the Nunes, until a directive to the Gambia factory arrived from

(1) P.Ii.Q.. T70/10 - Edmund Pierce, 25 June, 1673* fl.3*(2) Lemos Coelho: Duas Describes da Guine. p. 74*(3) See below, Ch.IX, p.
(4) J. Labat: Nouvelle delation. Vol. V, pp.151,152,165.
(5) Lemos Coelho: Duas Descriyoes da Guine. p.59*

Products of the Forest

London in 1636, stipulating that Bence Island should conduct the
Nunez trade, (i)There was also a Bence Island outpost at Tassily, obtaining
its ivory from the Pongo.

It will be recalled that the first Company

of Cacheu proved a strong competitor to :he English on a local level, (2)and the collection of ivory was one of the major issues in dispute.
Unlike ivory, beeswax (to take another item on Canot’s list)
is not a well-known supplementary to slaving in West Africa.

Neither

Pacheco Pereira nor Valentim Fernandes included wax as one of theexports of the Upper Guinea Coast at the beginning of the sixteenth
century; but a century later, each of the three or more registeredships which left Cacheu every year carried over 400 quintals of wax.
With three quintals valued as the equivalent of one slave, this was
obviously a lucrative sideline.(3)Beeswax was obtainable at most points between the Gambia
and Sierra Leone, apart from other sections of the West African coast.
Most of the accounts of the commerce in the rivers of Sierra Leone in
the seventeenth century show that some wax was exported; but it was
procured in greatest quantities from the Geba and from the Casamance
district, whose product was said to have been of the highest quality.

(1) P.11.0.. T 7 0 / 5 O - To Alexander Cleeve, 6 June, I606. fl.13.

(2) See above, Ch•#, p. 3 o!
(3) Sena Barcelos: Subsidios nara a Historia de Cabo Verde e Guine'.
Part I, Ch.VII, p.221.

Products of the Forest

During the era of the registered ships, the Gasamance alone accounted
for 500 quintals of the total exports, (1)Many of the issues generated by the Atlantic slave tradewere played out in a lower key with respect to wax and ivory.

The

Portuguese were anxious that European rivals should not breach theirmonopoly, whether or not slaves were involved.

Indeed, since theEuropean interest in slaves from the Upper Guinea Coast was not fully
aroused until the second half of the seventeenth century (and then onlyin the Gambia-Geba area), their penetration into the commerce of thearea was initially on the basis of products such as ivory and wax*
Furthermore, such products did not necessarily lose all of theirappeal as the slave trade intensified.

From the time of Captain-

Major Gamboa de Ayala to the formation of the first Company of Cacheu,
the English, French and Dutch appeared at Cacheu and la the otherrivers of Guinea in search of whatever appeared to offer profit inaddition to slaves.(2)Coelho noted in 1669 that when the Afro-Portuguese'travelled from Cacheu to Goree to do business with theDutch, they carried ivory and wax amounting to between 1,500 and 2,000
quintals.(3)A few years later, the Portuguese Conselho Ultramarino

was informed that the ’foreigners1 were shipping 3,000 quintals of(1) Alonso de Sandoval: Natureleza de Todos Etioues. p. 30.
(2) See above, Ch.V, part lL(3) Lemos Coelho: Duas Descrlcoes da Guine. p.6.

Products of the Forest

wax and ivory every year from the whole region between the Gambia andSierra Leone.(l)In the last quarter of the seventeenth century, the English,
as represented by the Royal African Company, were taking a definite
interest in the beeswax trade.

In 1673, the Bence Island factory

recorded the purchase of 569 pounds.(2) This was a small purchase, as
can be seen from a reprimand given to the chief factor in 1699* after
the trade had begun to fall off.

The directors stated that "It has

been usual for our ships to receive quick dispatches with 20 or 30 tonsof beeswax and 20 to 30 tons of elephants* teeth per each ship, but oflate we have found the contrary practice, that for some humour of our
Factory our ships have been detained without reason untill their bottoms
are eaten with worms". (3) it was in the Gambia, hoever, that the English
could best prosecute trade in commodities like ivory and wax, relying
upon the Portuguese free-lance traders as well as upon the official
establishment at Cacheu.
Reference has already been made to the way most captainmajors of Cacheu co-operated with the English and the French in Gambia,
and it has also been stressed that this was to the benefit not of theCompany or of the state but to that of the lan<^ados and the officials(1) A.H.U.. Guine, caixa I - Eo.l33> Antonio Bezerra, Aug.1673*(2) P.R.O., T70/360 - Bence Island Accounts.
(3) P.R.O.. T70/51 - To Robert Loadman, 5 Sept.,l699*fl*4^,and toThomas Corker, 3 0ct.,l699> fl.4-3.

Products of the Forestof Cacheu* a )One cargo sent by agemt Castle from the Gambia to

Cacheu in 1632 did indeed pay the 10/£ duty on all goods demanded by
the Company of Cacheu, but this appears to have been the only instance.
Besides, Castle was aware that the v & v y inadequate servicing of Cacheu
by the metropolitan Portuguese meant that the market was open to othercompetitors.

Only one ship per year was being sent out by the Company

of Cacheu and its cargo fell far short of the import requirements of
the area. (2)As was the case with slaves;, the Portuguese merchants on the
coast protested to the authorities ini Lisbon that the prices paid by
the Portuguese ships f or local produc-e were far too low, and that they
had ever^ intention of selling to the French and English who paid more.
The Cape Verde traders were worse off, having to buy goods from thelane ados* transport them to the islands and resell to European ships.
In 1639, the Cape Verde traders protested that one quintal of wax
bought from the Guinea traders cost eight barafulas or sixteen cruzados:
freight to Santiago added another cruzado: they were being asked to
pay a duty of 2.375 cruzados; and yet the price which the Portuguese
ships were offering was only fourteen cruzados. (3)(1) See above, Ch.V, part II(2) P.R.O.. T70/l6 - John Castle, H

Oct.,1632, tl.U-.

(3) A*H .U. * Cabo Verde, caixa V - Petition from the municipality ofSantiago, 4kug.,l6S9.

Products of the Forest

Because of these commercial considerations, both the French
and the English gained a firm hold on the ivory and woo: trade northof the Geba.

The French, for example, during the period of slaving

which began in 1635 with-Bissau as the headquarters, also showed aninterest in wax, and in that very year, De La Fond took four hundred
quintals,a) most of which must have come from the Geba area, for which

Bissau was the clearing house.
For the ruling class of the Casamance, beeswax was animportant b basis for their partnership with the Europeans as wereslaves.

At the beginning of the eighteenth century, there was aserious rift between the Banhun king of Zeguichor and the Portuguese,which led to a lengthy interruption of the wax trade with Cachcu.
Friendly relations were re-established by Joao Baptista, a locally-born
son of a former captain-major of Gacheu, who was sent to take commandof Zeguichor in 1707.(2)At that tine, wax was of special importanceto the Portuguese because French competition had for a while virtually
driven the Portuguese out of the slave trade.

In June 1707, thecaptain of Gacheu prognosticated pessimistically that soon the Portuguese
ships would be reduced to taking cargoes comprised exclusively of
beeswax, because, as it was, they could scarcely muster one shipload ofslaves per year. (3)(1) J. Labat: Nouvelle Relation. Vol.V, p.05.
(2) A.H.U.. Guine, ma<jo I - Testimonial of Paulo de Lima, June 1703;
referred to by the Gonselho on 29 Jan.,1729.
(3) A.II.U.. Guine, ma^o I - Paulo de Lima, 30 June,1707.

3-^-2
Products of the Forest

Even the wax trade, however, was slipping out of the handsof the metropolitan Portuguese,

The Africans (Banhuns, Gasangas andDjolas) of the Gasamance found it more pro fitable to market their wax
in the Gambia, with the help of the Afro -Portuguese#Captain-major Jo£o
Carvalho (1734- 36) was particularly concernedwith this development.

He began writing/the Conselho in August 1734-* relating that Zeguichor
was trading with the Europeans on the Gambia, and stressing the importance

The Conselho repliedof wax as a principal item in this commerce, /sifter its traditionalmanner by having the captain-major promulgate an edict in the name of thecrown, banning such activities. (1 )On a more practicalblem

note, the next captain-major

posedthe pro­in terms of which rulers needed to be won over by thePortuguese

authorities if the Casamance trade was to flow through Cacheu.

The Djolachief of the river Jame (a tributary of the Casamance)'wasthe foremost,because his domains produced the greatest quantity of wax;

but there

were others like the king of Sao Domingo and the fidalgo of Bagargole(Banhuns), who controlled the routes, and had to be given ’presents’ topermit free passage. (2)Similarly a Portuguese assessment of thecommerce of the Upper Guinea Coast in 1778 suggested that friendshipshould be maintained with the Banhun, Djola and Casanga peoples of thearea. (3)

1) A

H.U..

Guine, ma^o

VI - Joao Carvalho, 20 June 1736

2) A.H.U#,

Guine, ma 90

VI -3) A.H.U..

Guine, mapo

V - Bernardo

Damiaode Bast os, 15 August

1734-

de Azevedo Coutinho, 2 November 1778

3^3
Products of the forest

While slaves, ivory and beeswax were the principal commodi­
ties which Europeans sought and wrangled over in the region north of
the Geba channel, to the south, camwood was given a much higher
priority than wax, so that ivory and camwood were the two products
which featured most often as the exports of sierra Leone in theseventeenth century. Camwood (Baphia n i t i d a ) is a species of dyeing
wood, which was well-known in Brazil, and was consequently often
termed ‘Brazil-wood1. it yields both yellow and red dye, but isgenerally associated with the latter colour, and hence its otherpopular name, that of ‘redwood1. The Sherbro variety had an excellent
reputation, being capable of yielding colour up to the seventh timethat it was put through the extractive process.(1)The Portuguese knew of the existence of camwood in sierra
Leone, and the Lisbon authorities were told of its quality;(2) but
they never made use of the product. Only in the middle of the eight­
eenth century was it rediscovered by the Portuguese, when the captainmajor of joissau despatched a specimen to iJisbon.(3<) In 1776, a Portu­
guese captain,

sailing under the orders of the Company of Grao Para{!) Alvares de almada: 'Rios de Guine", p.354 and John Ogilby: .Africa,
p.373.

(Camwood was also used for manufacturing furniture, violinbows and a number of other items.)(2) Fernao Guerreiro: Rela<pao A n u a l , Vol.2, p.211(3) A.H.U., Guine, ma^o VIII - Francisco Sottomayor,

25 May 1753.

3 ^Products of the Forestand Maranhao, approached a ruler in Sierra Leone, who controlled t h e #river giving acess to certain camwood supplies, and paid him seventyfive cruzados for the right to use the waterway.(1) Very little seems
to have stemmed from this - no doubt for the same reason that thePortuguese had never displayed serious interests namely,that they

had a regular trade with brazil in this item,(2 ) even though the
Sierra Leone dye was held to be of finer quality.
As mentioned earlier, the first English establishment in the
Sherbro was that of Wood and Company, who began trading about theyear 1 6 2 3 ^ 3 )They obtained permission from the king of Sherbro, andorganised along lines designed to meet the requirements of extracting
camwood* All the rivers leading into the Sherbro estuary were usedas feeders into the coastal forest where the camwood grew in com­
mercial quantities; while an island in the Sherbro estuary was
selected as a point of despatch for ocean-going ships. Wood andCompany used Limberman on sherbro Island, while subsequently, themain clearing-house for camwood was shifted to another smaller islandin the Sherbro estuary, which was given the name "York Island", whentaken over by the Royal African Company in 1678.

(1) A.H.U., Guine, ma 90 vIII - Germano de Matta, 17 Peb I 767 .
(2) For a description of the commerce in "Brazil-wood",
Le Portugal et 1 1Atlantique, pp.115-145.
(3) See above, Ch. V,

see p. Mauros

Products of the Forest

Prom the days of Wood and Company until the termination ofEnglish company trade in Sierra Leone in 1723, commerce on this sectionof the coast was dominated by forest products, particularly camwood andivory.

The overriding importance of the forest products is mirroredin the struggles which took place over them.
When the rights which Wood and Company, derived both from theEritish crown and the Bullom king of Sherbrcj were challenged, the com­pany^ competitors were also interested in camwood.

This competition

was of a violent nature, and Wood’s chief factor, James Holder, wasmurdered;
164.3)

leading to proceedings in the High Court of Admiralty in

In many rd spects, this affair is a prototype of the situation

for the next eight decades.

On the.one hand, there was

the struggle inEngland to establish the legal position' of trading rights in Sierra Leone(and on other sections of the West African coast);

while on the other

hand, keen competition always took place on the coast itself, occasionallyerupting into violence.
The charter of the Royal African Company,,granted on the 27th
September 1672, gave it a monopoly of trade between Cape Blanco and theCape of Good Hope for a thousand years.

No Englishman was to visit thisarea without the Company’s permission, and certain goods might be carried
to or from Africa only with the Company’s special licence.

Those

who

broke these provisions were deemed ’interlopers’, and were actionable,at law.

The charter sanctioned the erection of a court of judicature to

sit on the African coast to hear and determine cases of seizure of inter—
loppers and other mercantile suits.

The court was to comprise two rnor-v>oi’ftti-lo-ettits;— The court was -to-eomprioe two merchants and a civil lawyer,

Products of the Forest

all to be nominated, by the Royal African Company, (l)In 1673, thedirectors of the Royal African Company sought to have commisions
up,

drawn

empowering the factors in Sierra Leone and the Gambia to seize in­terlopers and send the vessels

to Cape Coast Castle to be condemmed.

At the same time, they were agitating to set up an Admiralty Court at
James Island in the Gambia(2)

bhips of the Royal Navy were occasionally placed at the serviceof the monopoly of the Royal African Company, but, like the Portuguese
before them, the English had no success in avoiding serious infringe­
ments of their mercantile policies of exclusivism - infrigements whichamounted tode facto free trade, at times,

One such period of free

trade was that between 1639 and 1693, at the end of which the situation
was reviewed by an act of Parliament* (3)trade toThis act opened

the African

all private trad ers, provided that a payment of ten per centof the value <£ all goods exported from England to Africa was paid to
the Company.

Thus began the ara of the "ten per cent ships”.

The Royal African Company campaigned to have the Gambia andSierra Leone specially treated under the Act of 1693,.

Nhen trading in

the area between Cape Blanco and the Sherbro, which the Company called"Our North Parts", English private raders had to pay a further ten per
duty on the'goods imported from Africa, except camwood, which paid five
per cent.

In effect, the Company had lost the battle of the Lobbies,(1)

K. G. Daviess The Royal African Company , pp. 97-99(2)

T70/73 - Minutes of the Court of Assistants

Cf)

K.G.Daviess The Royal African Company, p.100

^7

Products of the forest

which Had been waged over camwood, after the clothing industry had
claimed that under conditions of monopoly the price of camwood wasincreased from £20 per ton to as much as £70 or £ 9 0 .(1 )On the coast, the Royal African Company had to devise practicalmeasures to meet the threat posed by the interlopers or trie ten percent men, as tne case may have been, because the enactments of Parli­ament never eliminated the competitors of the Royal African Company they simply defined that competition to be legal or illegal, or
placed greater or lesser revenue duties on competitors.
One of tne constant objectives of the Royal African Company
was to outmanoeuvre their rivals where the purchasing of camwood in
Sierra Leone was concerned. ijJor instance, in October 1694, there wasa surfeit of camwood on the London market,

and trie order went out toSierra Leone to cut back on production, nevertheless, it was equallyimportant that this should not have provided an opening fob the inter­
lopers, The instructions to their factors covered both these points,"Tne quantity of wood makes us not desirous of any further supply...
¥et, our desires are that you exercise such foresight and diligence
as to prevent interlopers procuring any, by buying up such quantities
as may be necessary.,, We recommend to you a thing highly necessary
for our interest, and meriting your greatest care, and to prevent
interlopers breaking in upon your parts, wherein we perceive nothing
will be a greater discourgigement than a disappointment in that
commodity.M(2 )(1) J.M. Grays A History of the Gambia, p.121(2J P.K.Q.» 'i'70/50 - To Corker,

16 Oct I 694 , f 1.156,

Produots of the korest

ay August of the next year, camwood was once more in demand,and the market continued to improve steadily after that. The import­
ance of tne camwood operatic ns resulted in the growth of the Sherbro
factory, ay 1698> there was on York island a storehouse and a dwellinghouse, surrounded by a fortified wall. There were four projections on
this wall, enclosing three further storehouses and a kitchen. Two new‘forts* were said to have been built since the time of agent Gibson(1687-1692), along with a substantial granary. (1} jrrom barbot* s des­cription,

this refers to two large round flankers with five guns each.

All the buildings were of stone and lime; and defended by about
twenty-five whi.te men and between fifty and sixty grumetes.12) Apartfrom defence, the consideration which had always to be borne in mind
in the construction of the forts was storage space. Storage was an
essential part of the Companyfs plans to combat competition, in 1698,
the bondon headquarters had repeated its earlier instructions urging
their agent at sherbro to try and corner the camwood trade by buying
up all supplies,

Hit being out interest as well as our desire to havewhat camwood can be procured to prevent the interlopers from getting
i t M.(3) Presumably

as a result of this directive,

they authorisedthebuilding of a shed on York island to store four or five hundred tonsof camwood.(4)John i>arbot, writing in the early eighteenth century, gave theclearest account of the organisation of the camwood trade. Apart from
P . R . O .. T70/590 - bence island Accounts(2^ John joarbots Description of north and South Guinea, p.99
f 3) P.jU.O.» T70/51- to Thomas Corker, 5 April 1698, f l ,1(4) P . J U U .. T70/51- to Kobert ho adman, 6 July 1699, fl.28—

Products of the Forcjst
the fact/ th..t much of the information which he used was acquired at an earlier
date, his description holds good because it reveals the conduct of the
trade as beingc! it ions,tied closely to the topography and the climactic con-

The main waterway into camwood country was the river now

known as the Bum or Sewa, which was then called the Sherbro.

It wasnavigable for sixty miles upt to the town or Baja, as :kr as the aver­age coastal vessels were concerned, while sloops of seven and half feetdraught could proceed upstream for over two hundred miles.

It wasdifficult to sail on the upper reaches of the river when journeying in­land, because the trip had to be made between April and May, t the very
end of the dry season.

At that time,thereof water in some places.

However, forwas scarcely nine or ten feetthe return journey in Septemberor later, after the rains had fallen,, the water level rose si: or sevenfeet, overflowing the bunks.

X few small vessels also made their way up- the other main Sherbro river, the Jung, though this was shallow andchokedwith small islands and shoals, (l)Apart from the Sherbro, it was the rivers of the Sierra Leone

estuary where most timber was foiled.

In May 1721, when the Bence Is­

land agent wrote indicating that the camwood supplies on the river had bee
exhausted, he was asked to go further upstream in search of more. (2)A much later account, thvb of Major Laing in 1321, suggests that theheart of the camwood forests lay in the area where the Bum and theRokelle (leading to the Sherbro and Sierra Leon^channels respectively)
came quite close to each other, permitting a choice of

which rivera ) John Barbot* Description of North and South Guinea.p.107(2) P.R.O. T70/60 - To Plunkett, 16 May 1721,fl.6

SCO
Prodvrlin nf the Fnrep^
would be used to transport

this bulky and heavy product.

coast, the Bulloms and Temnes were the tribes involved

Near thein the cam­wood trade, especially the Bulloms, but, further inland, the searchfor camwood led into Koranko territory.

Indeed, by the end of theeighteenth century, the staple article of trade in Koranko country wascamwood.

Seeraera was the general place of barter;

it was carried fromthere to Ma Bung, and floated down the Rokelle to Rokon, where it was
exchanged for a variety of articles, among which salt featured prominently.
The camwood which was cut further to the south was sent down the Bum (l),On all the rivers, the pattern of camwood operations must havebeen the same.

It would have been impossible to sail upstream after therains had fallen and there was a constant downstream current, so that theprocedure was to travel up at the end of the dry season or at the very
beginning of the rains, and to return several months later (2) When
Edmund Pierce of Sherbro wrote his London officials in August 1678, heassured them that trade would improve at the end of that month (3)Another agent in November 1681 reported that he had just shipped seven­teen tons, two hundredweights of camwood.
a further eighty tons

Besides, he had brought downof camwood to York Island, and hoped to make it one

hundred and thirty tons before the season ended in December (when thelevel of water would have begun to diminish rapidly)

As it turned out,

he was able to ship downstream one hundred and ninety five tons of camwood
because of the particularly heavy rainfall that yeai?. (4 )(1) A.G.Laingx Travels.

p.78(2) William Smith: A New Voyage to Guinea, p.92
(3) P.R.O.

T70/10 - Edmund Pierce,5 Aug 1678,fl.4*(A)P.R.O.. T70/16 - Joshua Platt, 24 Nov l681.fl.2A5

and 8 Feb.l682,f1.47

3^:/
Products of the Forest
From the organisation of the camwood trade, it is obvious that ’inter­
lopers1 or H e n per cent men” had to find someone in a coastal harbour
with stocks of wood, since they could not possibly seek it at its sourcein the bush.

Barbot left the information that a ship could arrive at

the Sherbro to load a cargo of 5^0 hundredweights, and he back in
England within two months of setting out. (l)This quick turnaround

was what the Company expected not only in the case of camwood, but withrespect to all other cargoes;

and that is precisely why they incurred theoverheads of forts and factories.

At the same time, the Company hoped thatno one would provide similar services for its rivals, and above all, it
did

not expect that its own servants would despatch the ’interlopers1

and H e n per cent men*1.

let, this was common practice.

To defend their men and trade goods the chartered companies not
only had to meet the expense of constructing and maintaining forts, but
frequent attacks from several quarters multiplied their problems.

In

the first place, those chartered companies were identified with the nation­
al interest and image.

Anglo-Dutch wars in the third quarter of theseventeenth century caused losses and disruptions stemming from attacks
on sea and on sea and on the factories in Sierra Leone.
Dutch amity was sealed on the accession

After Anglo-of William of Orange to theEnglish throne in 1688, France became England’s main rival on a global
scale, and once more the Upper Guinea(l)Coast was a minor theatre.

(a)John Barbot: Description of North and South Guinea.p.107(a) Bence Island was attacked by the French in 1695 and 1704, while
York Island was pillaged in 1705.

Products of the Forest
Attacks by Europeans (including pirates) constituted a menace
theto the factories from/seaward wide, and this was only one facet of theissue.

When the Royal African Company gave their approval in 1686 forYork Island to be considerably strengthened, the main intention was tosecure it from "the insolence of the natives”.

a) Apart from more modern

evocations, this phrase recalls the posture of the Portuguese in Cacheu
and Bissau.

Like the Portuguese before them, the English, (both local

factors and London officials) were quite clear that the primary purposeof their strongholds was to make themselves capable of resisting theAfricans•
After the Dutch took Tarso island in 1664* the English shifted
their headquarters to another island in the Sierra Leone channel, sub­sequently called Bence Island because Squire Bence was the principal share­
holder in the Gambia Adventurers.

Before th t date, attacks from theAfricans had similarly caused the English to flee from one place to another.

According to Lemos Coelho, the English
subject

on T^rso Island, who wereto the Bullom king of Carecole on the right hand of the river,

had to leave the island after a dispute with that king.
Tumba on the

They moved to

Sierra Leone peninsula, and it was several years before

they returned to Tarso (2) It would seem from the account of Andre de
Faro

that the return of the English to Tarso Island was also precicitatedby violence.

This odourred in-1659 when the factory at Tumba was attacked(l)P.R-O.. T70/50 - To Joshua Platt, 24 Aug 1686, fl.22(2 )Lemos Coelho: Duas Descri^oes da Guinef p.74

j

^ra>

Products of the Forest
by a force of four hundred Africans, who robbed them of their goods,
and set fire to the buildings#
Dutch factory;

In 1663, the same fate overtook theand, with these experiences in mind, the English had

res olved to rebuild in lime and stone and to mount sufficient artillery. (l)A fairly substantial fort was built on Bence Island by the.Gambia Adventurers, and strengthened by the Koyal African Company#It

was described by Barbot as being of lime and stone; the walls low;andhaving a round flanker with five guns, a curtin with embrazures forlarge<rguns, and a platform before it with six guns - all of them well-mounted#(2 )Such a fort, well-manned and with its vails and cannon kept in good

repair, could hold the Africans at bay in a crisis, but the optimum con­ditions were seldom met, and the forts of Bence and Ibrk usually proved
nearly as ineffective against the arms of the Africans as they wereagainst the ordnance of attacking ships#

Bence Island fell in 1705 with­out a struggle when the French attacked,

and it fell in the same way in

1729, when assaulted by the Africans led by certain Afro-Portuguese
elements#In the relations between the English and the African rulingclass in the Sherbro, the first crisis of any magnitude during the eraof the Royal African Company occurred around 1678-81#

Disturbances,which called a halt to camwood felling, were reported by agent Zachary
Rogers in September 1679. (3)cal structure compli cated

Rogers1 own personal involvement in the lo­matters (4 ) but most of the points of dis­

(1) Andre de Faro; Peregrinat^ao. p #86(2 ) John Barbot: Description of North and South Guinea.p. 106(3) P.R.O.# T70/10 - Zachary Rogers, 29 Sept l679>fl»53(A) B#R.O,# T70/1 - Joshua Platt, 3 March 1681,fl*91

Products of the forestpute involved the commercial policy of the Company as opposed tothat of the Shexbro-nullom ruling class* In 1.681, agent Platt leftbence Island and went to niddam in the Sherbro to hold a Vpalaver •to allow a resumption of the camwood trade* The agenda foir discussion
included the king's customs duties* the supply of brandy, and theprice of goods- the last item being the most important* The king of
Sherbro insisted that the price* of goods should be reduced to what
they were in Mr* v/ood*stime, placing special emphasis on b»ass utensils*
platt promised to consult his superiors on the matter, and trade wasresumed* (1)Continuing attempts were made to discuss problems peaceably,in august 1682, there was a debit entry of 14 I'bars ' 4 shillings i*
the Sherbro accounts, representing the value of brandy, old hats, rice
and a goat, which were made available to the king and a his. fidalgos
when they v/ent to the factory to talk about trade* (2) but, sporadic
clashes between the Sherbro ruling class and the servants of theRoyal African Company continued to disrupt the camwood and ivory'trade*
On August 24th* 1686, the London office wrote agent Platt acknowledging
efforts which he had just made to secure peace at Ki.ddam and to re­settle the factory tnere,(3J so that the discussions of 1681 and 1

1682 did not yield any lasting result*

T70/16 - Joshua Platt,2 4 'Nov. 1681

(2) P .R.O.* T70/587 - fork Island Accounts(3) F . R . O *, T70/50 - To Joshua Platt, 24 Ajrg* 1686, fl*22

Products of the Forest
One of the most persistent and explosive issues was that of thepayment of the k i n g fs customs or cole, as it was called* The Sherbro
account book for the years 1681-86 indicates that the king of Sherbro
was given goods amounting to 49 ‘bars* and 2 shillings, as customs
due to him at the time of Rogers1 death* The same source shows thatrulers in the Sherbra, in the Gallinas and at Cape Mount were being
paid cole, (1) That this was not always promptly paid is hinted at ina remark made by the fork Island factor in 1714: namely, that he gave
the king of Sangra his cole to prevent him joining with the Bullomsof Shebar to stop commerce on the Sherbro riversu (2)Non-payment of customs to the uulloms of the Sherbro, like non—payment of rent to the Papel rulers of Mata, Mompataz and Bissau,
was almost certain to leau to violence if the situation persisted forany length of time. In July 172^*
factors in sierra Leones

the London officials wrote their"We are sorry to find there are misunderstand­ings between you and the Africans. We find it arose frdm the not pay*—ing them the small rent due to them* We must recommend to you to takecare not to give such occasions of quarrel"* (3) William Smith, aspecial envoy of the Royal African Company to West Africa in 1726,
reported that there had been a recent clash between the king of Sher­bro and the agent Rolditcn, over the refusal off

the latter to pay

cole* The king of Sherbro seized a. quantity of uompany goods, as a

P*R*0** T70/587 — York Island Accounts(2)

P. R . Q .% T70/591 — York Island Accounts[3)

P .R.Q*, T70/60 - To Archibald and Scott,10 July 1723

i'S’fc
Products of the korest
consequence, but in the ensuing skirmish the English gained the upper
hand, inevitably, one feature df this episode was the reminder givenby the king of Sherbro that the country was his* (1)The king had threatened at one point during the dispute of 1679-81
to drive out the English and allow the butch to take overjtand, infact, though the fort of the Royal African Company remained, both be­fore and after that period butch traders as well as English rivals to
the Company were able to trade freely. The Royal African Company con—ystantly attempted to persuade the SKerbro rulers against this open-door
policy,, and sometimes obtained verbal agreements, but, in practice,monopoly stood no chance* in 1699* the Company bestowed upon the kingof Sherbro a present of a gown and a cap. in the covering letter totheir agent,

the London officials stated that the gifts were to induce

the king to ‘palaver* with the Company tp put an end to the encouragement given the interlopers.

(2)

seen from another London letter

How successful thebribe proved canthree years later* The complaint

be

then

was that the king of Sherbro had not kept the promises made in a letter
he sent to the directors* The latter said to their York Island factor:"Pray put him in mind that it is below his kingly dignity to act contrary
to the palavras he makes with us, and that it is also to his disadvant­age $ that he cannot expect wee should continue to give him presents anddo him all acts of friendship, when he has so little regard to perfnrnn
his good offices to our factors

and servants"* ( 3)(l) William -omith: A Hew Voyage

to (juinea* pp.59,60

P_*_R*U»* 170/51 - To Robert Loadman,

6 July 1699 , f l .30

T 70/51 - To Uharles uaker, 21

1702 , f l .239

5*7
rroducts of the rorest
it may have been beneath M abutkingly dignity,/it was pointless

for the Royal African Company to suggest to the king of Sherbrothat it was not to his advantage to have free trade, when the company^
rivals were adding to the quantity of European goods made available
to the peolpe of the area, as well as bringing those goods at cheaper
prices.
±n so £ar as the question of monopoly was concerned, the pro*-,ducts of the forest quite clearly provided the same basis for theAfro-European relationship as did slaves, nowever,there was anotherdimension to the commerce in flora and fauna, which placed it ina different category altogether from the Atlantia slave trade. Thisdifference is to be observed by measuring the effects of the tradein each commodity on the societies of the Upper Guinea Coast.
To greater or lesser extent, each forest product which wassold to the Europeans, required a new scale of organisation on thepart of the Africans, depending upon the role played by the given
item within African society on the Upper Guinea Coast prior to theadvent of the European. Several European observers had cause tocomment that the elephant in Africa was not domesticated and put
to labour, as in India*. (1) let, its value as game was enough tomake the elephant important; and the overall significance of thisanimal is hinted at in the Susu tradition, which states that membersof the tribe moved west in pursuit of the herds of elephants* (2)^1) Valentim R o m a n i e s : La uote Occidentale d ‘Afri^aue* p*82
(2) M.baint-Pere: "retit nistorique des oossoe du Rio Rongas"
bulletin au Comity des Etudes nis tori cues et scientif ignew
1930, Tome Alii

.products of the Forest‘
l'he Africans of the Upper Guinea Coast hunted the elephants partly
as a source of food,^1) and partly because their tusks could be

used as ornaments. The skill of the flppes in ivory work in the six­teenth century attests to long familiarity with this material, while
the use of ivory trumptts was also probably of considerable antiquity,
up until recent times, there was a demand among the Africans for thebest tucks, which were used for making carved trumpets, used by thw
paramount chiefs, and regarded as valuable heirlooms, {2)At the beginning of the sixteenth century,

the Sapes used,poisinad harpoons, which the hunter plunged into the elephant fromabove, after having secured a perch in a tree near a likely feeding
place. The wounded animal usually fled several miles before it died,(3)As far north as the uasangas,

the method was the same, with the excep*

tion of the Nalus, who attached the elephant at close quarters,
stabbing it from below. (4) I11 the Gambia, the ^andingas were said
to use poisoned spears, which they threw either from a standing posit­
ion or occasionally from horseback. (5)(1) Valentim i'eraandes: La Cote Occidentale d«Afrique, p.82
(2) W£B. Stanley:"Game Preservation in Sierra Leone", Sierra Leone
Studies. (Old Series) No. XI, March 1928
(3)

Valentim Fernandes: La Cote Occidentale d fAfri^aue. p . 96

(4) Alvares de Almada: ‘Rios de Guine'", p*340.
(5) Valentim Fernandes: La Cote Occidentale d*Afri^cue. p.50
Alvares de Almada:"Rios de Guine", p.p. 305,300

tProducts of tne Forest^t was only at the end of the eighteenth century that European guns
were used in elephant hunting* The weapon preferred by the nijagos
and the neafadas was the long bane gun, which was loaded not withshot but with a small iron rod. (It) In Sierra Leone too, the longbane gun came to be thestaniard weapon of the elephant hunter in

the nineteenth century;(2 ) but for most of the period of pre-colonialtrade, though the demand for ivory within the indigenous context was
obviousljt insignificant in comparison with the demand created by
the European advent, the traditional methods of elephant hunting
did not change. This is not surprising, because

while it is truethat the traditional methods do not appear to be particularly effect­ive for large scale hunting,the firearms first exported by theEuropeans to Africa were very flimsy, (3)Lieutenant Beaver's explanation for the disparity between theamount of ivory produced for sale and the limitations of the methodsof hunting was that many of the tusks were not procured by hunting
at all, but were found on the ground,(4 ) Nearly two centuries earlier,Jobson had suggested the same thing; pointing out that those whichwere found lying around were often broken or cracked* ( 5)(1) Philip beavers African Memorandum, p.p 318,319(2) W.B.Stanleys^Op.cit.)(3) See below Ch.Vll., p.3{?£.
(4) Philip i3eavers

African Memorandum, p.227{3) R.Jobson: The Golden Trade, p.193

5^x0
Products of the Forest
Another obvious ^but seldom noted) point is that ivory canbe obtained from animals other than the elephant, notably the hippo­
potamus, 'i'ne nippopatamus was one of the most common sights in therivers of the Upper Guinea. Coast, It was a source of food,(1) anaa pest to be killed because it came ashore and destroyed the rice
fields, ^2) its teeth were nailed escravelhas by the Portuguese
lancados, and were often marketed under the name scrivelios by
European traders on the coast. These scrivelios weighed between
four to fifteen pounds each, they averaged about sixteen inches inlength, and they were very white and brittle. In 1721,

the English

trader, John Atkins, noted that the scrivelios were offered for salein much greater numbers than the heavier elephant tusks.(3) Thiswas probably the case from the very inception of the ivory trade.
There was a reference in 1666 to 100 tusks weighing 900 lbs.;(4) in
1678, the x>ence island factory of the Royal African Company shipped
80 tusks weighing 1,717 lbs., and thus averaging about 22 lbs, each,(5)^1) Pacheco Pereira: Esmeraldo de situ O r b i s . p.66 and Andre'
Domelas:"RelayAo sobre a Serra Leoa"{2) Alvares de Almada:"Rios de Guine", p . 283(3) John Atkins: A Voyage to Guinea. p,181 ^ In commercial circles,
every tusk or tooth below 7 lbs. came to be regarded as a*scrivello*. See A. Maskell:"Ivory in Commerce and the Arts",

Cantor Lecture, 1906, in Cantor Lectures.

1898-1930.

$4) .Nicholas de villault: Relation des Costes d*Afrique(5) _P.R .0., T 7O / 36O - hence Island Accounts

Products of the j?orest

while the shipment of 1681 comprised 287 tusks weighing 32 hundred­weights, which gives an average of about 12 lbs. per tusk.^l) It
was only in 1722 that the scrivelios are mentioned by that namein the records of the sierra Leone factories of the Royal African
Company, but the low average weight per tusk clearly indicatesthat the total included only a small number of the first-rateivory tusks, which weighed between 80 to 100 lbs., and which werereputedly the best on the V/est African coast.^2)
In spite of the hippopotamus teeth and discarded
elephant tusks, it is clear that there must have been a great
intensification of elephant hunting, ue almada witnessed aiviandinga chief in the Gambia bag twelve elephants in one month; (3)while Andre de j?aro claimed that not a day passed without anelephant being slain on the i m n e z ,(4) ho doubt,

this required

an increase in the number of professional hunters licensed by
the king, whose most potent weapons ^in their own estimation)^1)

P. R . U ., T'70/16 - Joshua platt, 2ifisov

1681, fl.24^2)

John Barbot: description of North andSouth Guinea, p.102.

^ however, more knowledgeable authorities consider the ivoryof the cameroons and the uongo to be superior to that from
Sierra Leone and the Gambia, bee A. Maskell:and the Arts" (Op. cit.)(3)

Alvares de Almada: "Rios de Guine;(4)

Andre de Faro: Peregrinacgfo. P.46", p.306.

"Ivory in Commerce3<b-£
products of the Forest

were the amulets or 'greegrees' of their priests, rather than theirspears or harpoons.(1) The organised nature of this activity canbe seen from Mungo p a r k ’s evidence tnat there were groups ofbambara hunters, who lived for several months in the bush in the
pursuit of e l ephants;^) and from the fact that in the nineteenth
century the Pula kings had villages of ivory hunters wno operated
in the Geba area, (3)Whenever and however the ivory was obtained by theAfricans, it remains clear that they had organised to meet
European demands, which were far greater than local requirements*
Ivory was one of several products where this was the case. Some­times,

the effort involved was small, such as the collection ofambergris from the sea-shore, after the inhabitants of theislands and the coast came to realise that the Europeans placedsome value on this commodity.(4) Pore often, however,

the arrange­ments were quite comprehensive. An example of this is provided
by the trade in beeswax.
Valentim Fernandes reported that bees thrived in theGambia, and that the Mandingas there practised a form of apiculture,
constructing hives of wattle and clay, and hanging large numbersof them in the trees,^5) Considerable quantities of honey were

(1) Andre'" de p a r o : Peregrina^ao, p .46(2) Mungo Parks Travels*, in the years 1795,1796 and 1797, pp.78-80(3) J. Machat: Les Rivieres du bud et le Pouta-biallon, p.196
14) Alvares de Almadas’’Rios de Guine*', p.318(5) Valentim Fernandes: ha Gote Occidentale d tAfriquer p .54

3><b3
Products of theForestconsumed by theAfricans in the form of fermented drinks, whichwere on sale atthe market places,(l) "but there is no evidence

that the wax was locally utilised.

The lanpados would have beenable to appreciate that there was great potential for the trade inwax,

bearing in mind the European demand for candles. The legis­

lation directed against the Sierra Leone laneados in 1517
specified that wax was one of the commodities which they handled.$2)
During the course of the sixteenth ce ntury, wax cameto assume a relatively prominent place in the exports of the Upper
Guinea Coast,

being invariably bracketed alongside slaves andivory by the latter part of the century.(5) Certainly, beeswax
was one of the items, apart from slaves, which the Africans of theUpper Guinea Coast for the first time made available for sale,in response to European demand, he Almada described seeing six
hundred hives hung in a single tree in Casanga territory,( 4 ) This
was the sort of effort on the part of theAfricans which lay behindthe export figures, resides, the hives of

the wild bees were alsoraided. This was so on the Gambia in the sixteenth century,(3) andamong the Djolas of the Gasamance today, honey is still obtained
partly through apiculture and partly from the wild bees.(6)(1) See above, Gh.l, "pp.cS LI.

(,2) A. b r a s io : jvionumenta M is s i o n a r i a A f r i c a n a . 2nds e rie s ,H 6 .4 3 , i n s t r u c t i o n s to the Accountant o f S a n tia g o ,{3)

v o l.II -16 jjec 1517

A. jorasioj V o l . I l l - H 6 .4 2 , F ra n c is c o de Andrade, 26 Jan 1582

5 4 ) A lv a re s de Almadas *‘Kios de Guine'?, p. 297[3J V ale n tim Fernandes: La u8te O c c id e n ta le d ’ A f r ia u e{6) L . v . Thomas: Les b i o l a , v o l . I , p. 82

^6^
Products of the Forest
The activity involved in exporting the products of theforest had to be integrated into the pattern of existence of thepeoples who were affected.

The camwood operations, for example,

fitted neatly into the agricultural cycle of African life.

If

the first sloop-loads of timber were ferried downstream late inAugust, this meant that the Africans of the area were relatively
free to help, because their crops were planted some months
previously and would not be reaped for at least another month.
It would appear that much of the actual felling of timber was per-formed by the Africans during the dry season;, they broke off t#
attend to their cultivation at the end of the dry season when thefields had to be burnt; and then they returned to the labour of
cutting camwood.

This, at any rate, is what occured in 1726, when

the facts emerged.

Early in May of that year, the king of Baga(on the hokelle) brought a limited quantity of camwood to the agentof the RAC, explaining that his people were busy in their lugars
and that until all the rice had been planted it was not possible
for them to do any other business.

He intended to have his people

go upriver and cut camwood as soon as the rice was sown.^ 1)
Probably more so than ivory and wax, camwood was the basis
not only of trade but of industry.

The directors of the Royal

C1) P»!» 0 »»T70/1465 - Diary of Walter Charles, 1728

Products of the Forest
African Company were not impressed by the way that the camwood was'barked* or cleaned, and suggested more than once that if the Bullom
king of Sherbro could not get his people to do it any better, heshould be prevailed upon to let the slaves and hired hands of thefactory do the job*(l)But, the fact remained that spurred by thelure of European goods, the Africans had undertaken the regular andstrenous task of cutting down certain trees, rough-hewing the logs andhelping to transport them to the ships.

Major Laing made a usefulcomment on the camwood trade as it was pursued on the Rokelle.
"It is well known,"...he wrote, "that during the time the timber trade
was in activity, several native towns were formed on the banks of
the river* and many natives came from a distance in the country toengage in itw *(2)In terms of effects on the local societies, therefore, thecommerce in the natural products of the forest stood in sharp contrast
to the Atlantic slave trade.

Absolute destruction in the latter in­

stance is to be set against the potential for constructive innova­
tion which the society showed as ‘it was brought within the folds of a
global system of production.

Of course, no matter how willing the(1) P_.R.O. ♦ T70/51 - To Corker, 8 Nov 1698, fl.15; T 70/52 - To
John Freeman, 7 Nov I 704 fl.71 and T 70/ 6O - to Plunkett, 19 feb 1721,'

fl.4^2) A.G. Laing: Travels,p78

itProducts of the Forest
Africans may have been to make available local forest produce,
extent to which trade was conducted in alternatives
depended almost entirely on European choice.

theto slaves

The period 1623 to 1728

in Sierra Leone is rather exceptional, when one bears in mind thatby the latter seventeenth century,

the Atlantic slave trade was in ful

cry; and that Companies like the Gambia Adventurers and the Royal
African Company,,as well as the rival private traders were dedicatedto tne slave trade elsewhere in West Africa,(l)Indeed, to draw aparallel from the West Indian alave plantations, this period wasessentially a “Dead Season" - the time when slaves were least in
demand.

This was the context in which other alternatives wereseriously considered and put into practice*
When the Royal African Company was lobbying to influence the
Act which was to regulate the trade to Africa,(1698) they sought

to have Sierra Leone and the Gambia placed in a special category on
the grounds that those areas were not producing great quantities ofslaves, and were thus of little concern to the American and West
Indian planters who were among the chief opponents of the Company*smonopoly.

Indeed, the Royal African Company argued that the Negroes

from their "worth Parts" were not only few in number but "the worst
in esteem".(2) This seems odd in the light of the reputation of the(1) K.G. Davies:

The Royal African Company. p 41 points out thatwhen the Royal Adventurers received a new charter in 1663, the slave
trade was mentioned for the first time as one of the principal objectsof the Company.
(2)j*M. Gray: A history of the GambiaT p.120

Products of the Forest
escravos de ley but, several years earlier the directors did advise
their Sierra Leon*and Gambia agents not to send slaves to Barbados,
because the planters there did not favour that brand.(l)To have been

disliked by the narbadian planters could scarcely have been to thediscredit of the inhabitants of Sierra Leonj.and since Sierra Leonpwas
a popular area for slaves during the era of the Mane invasions, andsince it entered another flourishing phase of slaving after the middleof the eighteenth century, neither its potential for producing
captives nor the acceptibility of those captives should be doubted.
What happened in Sierra Leone was that, after the easy pickingsof the period of active warfare and exploitation of the Sapes, thesupply of slaves readily available dropped off; while simultaneously,
the English and the Dutch established themselves in the area - and theEnglish in particular were at that date relatively unconcerned with theslave trade, even as carriers for the Spanish.

Thus, when these nations

breached the Portuguese monopoly in Sierra Leont in the first half of theseventeenth century,
camwood*they did so to conduct commerce in ivory, wax and

There followed a sort of commercial inertia, with no effort

being made to change the nature of the.exports, which had provenprofitable.

There was scarcely a break of any kind as one English

Company followed another, handing over stock, employees and trading
procedures*(1) P.it.u.. T70/50 - To John Case, 24 aug 1686, fl,24

Products of the Forest
Non-indulgence in the slave trade in turn caused a 'further
falling away in the supply and a break in the chain of events by which
the Africans would otherwise have reached the holds of the European
ships.

In June 1680, chief factor Edmund Pierce informed the

directors that he had had to turn away slaves for lack of food.(l)Shortly afterwards, he made them to understand that "your long dis­continuance in sending for slaves is the reason that we cannot procurethem"*(2)The flow of slaves from Sierra Leone never dried up completely*
but it was certainly reduced to a trickle. When Edmund Pierce considered
the prospects in August 1679* he estimated that it would take him until
the following July to round up 120 slaves between the rivers Sierra
Leoiw and Nunez, and indeed,success would only be assured if could go theGeba or the Bijagos; that is to say, into the flourishing zone of the
Cacneu-Bissau network.(3)John Case was able to send 118 captives

across the Atlantic in 1682, but he stressed that they had beenprocured at great difficulty for want of trade goods*(4 )Since he had enough goods to by ivory and camwood, this again reflects
the Company's lack of interest in slaves and their failure to
the necessary goods for their purchase.

provideThis casual attitude to(1)

P»R»0.» T70/10- Edmund Pierce,

14 June J.680, fl.55( 2)

P_.R.0 .t T70/1- Edmund Pierce,

29 Jan 1681. fl.97(3J

P.R.O.. T70/1- Edmund Pierce,

4 Aug I 679 , fl*33(4)

P±R±0.» T70/10- Jojm Case, 5 feb 1683, fl. 6 l

i t**

Products of the Forest
the Atlantic slave trade is again in evidence in 1700 when adirective that 120 or 130 captives should he assembled in six months
was qualified by the addition of two alternatives*cargo was not ready wnen the ship arrived,

If the slavethen no harm would be done €as rice and country cloth would be sent to Cape Coast Castle, or elsethe usual products could be returned directly to England*(l)The almost complete divorce of Sierra Leone from theAtlantic slave trade can be seen at a glance when one is presented witl
the charts of the Royal African Company illustrating how theirchartered vessels were deployed*

Under the heading "Where to Dis­

charge1'^ ships bound for Sierra Leone almost invariably had 'London*
filled in; and it follows that under the heading "Number of Negroes"
there was usually a blank space opposite the ships which went toSierra Leone - in clear contrast to those which sere sent to otherpoints on the West African coast, and which discharged in the West
Indies* (2)These two patterns of trade were not compatible*Whenin 1694 'fche Royal African Company advised that a ship should loadslaves, ivory and camwood at Sierra Leone; unload the slaves in theWest Indies; and return with the ivory and camwood to Englandthey themselves implied it was a most unusual procedure.(3)wanted products for the English market, thpy
regard slaves.

If they

obviously had to dis­Conversely, the slave ships were not normally(1) P»R»0».

T70/51 - To Robert Iioadman, 16 April 1700, f 1,116(2) P.R.0*.

T70/62 - Ships in the service of the Royal African

Company in 1701(3) £.«Rf.0jL»

T 70/50 - To Thomas Corker, 4 Dec I 694 , fl.160

Products of the Forest
prepared to devote cargo space to other items.

Thus, in 1692, thedirectors of the Royal African Company advised the Sierra Leone
establishments to take over the trade on the malaguetta Coast in
earnest, so as to send cargoes of Malaguetta pepper to England* because
the slave ships which passed along that section of the coast could
not be bothered with the pepper.( 1)
There was a device by which the Royal African Company tried
to capitalise on the small numbers of Sierra Leone slaves which werereadily available without attempting to increase the volume of slave
exports.

When a ship was seeking a large cargo of slaves on the coastof West Africa, it was arranged that Sierra Leone should add its miteto the collection.

At first Sierra Leone was asked to make up thecomplement of vessels which went to the Gambia, and perhaps failed toroach their target.(2)Later, it became customary for ships proceeding

to Gape Coast Castle to make a landfall at Sierra Leone, where theyobtained provisions for the projected cargo of slaves which were to
be taken up on the Gold coast, and if Sierra Leone had any slaves tospare then they too were grist for the sugar-mill.

Salt, palm-oil,country cloth and rice were supplied to the passing vessels, together
with slaves in lots as small a® 24 or 6 5*(3)Even this process,(1) F .R . Q . .' T70/50 - To henry Gibson, 9 i*eb I 692 fl.133(2) P.R.U.. T70/50 - To Thomas Corker, 16 Oct 1694 f 1.157(3j P.K.O., 'i'70/14 - To Greenaway, 4 June 1704; T70/18 - John Clark,
Lov 1710; and T70/3 - John Clark, 10 July 1713

VII
Products of the Forest
however, was not profitable, and was to be avoided if possible,
because calling at tiherbro or .oence island meant an increase mthetotal length of the trading voyage, &nd the Hoyal African Company,,
which chartered most of its ships, had to pay high charges fordemurrage)
The Royal African Company eventually accepted the logicof the situation, and decided to discourage the slave trade in
Sierra Leone,

so as to be better able to conduct commerce inarticles that had proven extremely profitable*on this point in 1721 were explicit.

Their instructions

They wrote:"Being sensiblethat a very great profit will arise to the Company by returns toEngland of gold, elephants teeth, redwood and beeswax, we do giveit to you as standing instruction that you promote the trade for thes«commodities or any other proper to send for England, and by every
opportunity make us as large returns in such goods as possibly you
can.**.If you should have one of the Company's own ships with you toslave, and at the same time have an opportunity of disposing of slaves
for gold, teeth, etc at advanced prices, we direct you to do i t "*(2)Their agent at the time, Plunkett, insisted that he could provide
200 to 300 slaves, but the Company made it clear that this was not
worth their wjrile, and indicated that what they required of the(1)

Peter Kup:

A History of Sierra L e o n e . p85(2)

P_._R.0*. T70/60 - To Robert Plunkett, 6 May 1721, fl.6

V7
Products of the Forest
Sierra Leone factories was a regular cargo (every six weeks to twomonths) of camwood, pepper, ivory, gold, indigo and cotton.(1) Two
years later, the London office dismissed the river Pongo as being an
unimportant trading zone, because it yielded “only negroes and a few
teeth, the former of which you will perceive we would have you deal
in as little as possible",(2)Not only did the Royal African Company discourage slaves
so as to concentrate on forest products, but they initiated as earlyas 1691 a substantial experiment in the cultivation and manufactureof indigo* The Company sought the permission of the king of Sherbro
for the purpose, since the cultivation was to take place in thelatter1s domains; and at the same time they made a plea that no other
Europeans should share in the benefits of the Companyfs endeavour.(3)A shipload of machinery for indigo manufacture was sent out to York
Island in 1691* indicating the seriousness of the Company's committment;but, while expressing the hope that indigo from Sierra Leone would
prove more profitable than that from the West Indies, the Company
officials naively expected that the Jamaican planters would release
specimens and skilled men to start the industry in Sierra Leone.(4 )When this expectation was not realised, they turned to the planters of(1)

P.R.O., T70/60 - To Robert Plunkett, 6 May 1721, fl.6

(2;

P.R.O*, T76/60 - To Archebald and Scott, 10 July 1723, fl.3

(3)

P.R.O.t T70/50 - To Henry Gibson, 22 Sept 1691, f1.127(4)

P.R.U., T.70/50 - To Henry Gibson, 28 Oct 1691, f 1.129 (In fact,
the Jamaican planters lobbied against the plans of the Company,)

SsTl ^

Products of the Forest

Mountserrat, with a bribe of a few slaves, and were rewarded with fourslave-hands, whom the planters on that island had been unable to tame,and who were later leaders of an escape plot of "factory slaves" atBence island.(1)Meanwhile, the indigo cultivation was being superintended by
Richard Jbridgeman. This individual had spent some time in Jamaica, andwas a self-proclaimed indigo expert, about whom the Company harboured
some doubts, but who appeared to have been the only candidate for thepost of overseer, and he was sent to York Island in 1691.(2) As early*as April 1692, having failed to produce results, he was consoling tne
Company with the offer that if they sent him the necessary equipment
he would manufacture rum and sugar.(3) Within a few years, Bridgeman
had joined the ranks of the private traders, and it was left to thechief factor to see to the cultivation of indigo among his other duties.
Some indigo continued to be grown at Tarso Island up until the lastyears of the Royal African Company's stay in Sierra. Leone,(4) but boththe agricultural and manufacturing ventures proved failures.
In 1700, the suggestion of purchasing indigo from theAfricans was put forward.(5) But it was only in 1723 that the Royal(1) P.R.O. , T70/1465 " Diary of Walter Charles, 1728
^2) P.R.O** T70/50 - To Henry Gibson, 28 Oct 1691, f 1*129(.3) P.R.o.. T.70/11(4) William Smith: A New Voyage to Guinea, p.44
(5) P.R.O., T70/51 - To William Lewis, 2 Jan 1700, f l .76

Products of the Forest

African Company hit upon tne idea of making the best of the local
African processes for manufacturing dye - a rather tardy development,
since the Portuguese had been stimulating the production of and commercein local indigo since the sixteenth century.(1) besides,

this idea was

not followed up by the agents, who at no time displayed the same en­thusiasm for the scheme as did the directors.

let neither the short­sightedness of the directors, nor the lethargy of tne agents, nor the
eventual failure of the indigo experiment should detract from thesignificance of the attempts, here, in the midst of the slave tradingera on the West African coast, one found a policy advocating settled
industry and other commercial alternatives to the slave trade. That theindigo scheme was part of a conscious policy can be verified by citing
the C o m p a n y ^ instructions in relation to a number of other possibili­ties along the same lines as the indigo venture. This was what theywrote in 1723* "You are in the garden of the Island of Bence or at the
Island of Torsus as a nursery to sett sow and plant all things that
may be found out in those parts that they may be improvable for trade,as cotton, indigo, ginger, sugar canes, pepper,

spice, gumm trees,

druggs, etc. You are to put a stock of cattle on the Island of Torsus,
clear the island of wood trees and make plantacions thereon... and tocarry on the indigo and pottash works'*.^)(1) See below, Gh.VIII,(2) P .R.O*» T70/60 - To Archebald and Scott, 10 July 1723, fl.36 andto Archebald, 27 Nov 1723, fl.45

Products of tne Forest

For West Africa as a whole,the question of substitutes forslaves was seldom posed before the debate on the Atlantic slave trade
and the nineteenth century attempts to refashion the Afro-European
connection. In Sierra Leone, this issue had been taken, up in theseventeenth century - not for reasons of humanity, of course - but
because the directors of the Royal African Company, for commercial
reasons, saw the desirability of transforming Sierra Leone into a zone
where the slave trade was not conducted* With the demise of the Royal
African Company in Sierra. Leone, the situation did not change
dramatically, but it did mean the end of an articulated policy in thisdirection* By the middle of the eighteenth century* the Atlantic slave
trade had once more risen to dominance.

"Dead Season” is, after all,followed by “Crop Time", the busiest period of the plantation routine*

A E iS T U R i OF THE UPPER G UINEA COAST,

1 5 4 3 -1 8 0 0

CHAPTER SEVEN

THE NATURE OF AFRO-EUROPEAN COMMERCE

^77
THE NATURE OF AFRO-EUROPSAN COMMBRCBPART I - IMPORTS AND PRICES.

The list of imports from Europe into West Africa was an extremely
lengthy one, which

tendedto grow as the era of pre-colonial trade

wore on.

Bosman,of theseventeenth century, tabulated 150 items

importedat the end

into the Gold Coast; (l)African littoral.
appearance.

And they were merchantable along most of the WestIn any complete list, many oddities would maletheirSome of them are of interest only to the antiquarian, hut a few

rather unusual imports were considered as valuable both by the Europeans andthe Africans.

Horses and cattle, for instance, would not normally feature in

the literature of the early European trade in West Africa, but for a limited
periodthey were both important in the trade of the Upper Guinea Coast and the

Senegambia.

The peoples of the Senegambia, who were already familiar withhorses, showed a particularly great interest in acquiring them from thePortuguese;

but horses were also saleable as far south as Cape Mount.

Among

the Sapes in the fifteenth century, one Portuguese horse initially fetched 14
slaves, but the rate of exchangedropped to between 6 to 8 slaves per horse by
the beginning of the sixteenth century. (2)In the Senegambia, there was asimilar reduction in price, and perhaps it was this declining value whichcaused horses to disappear from the inventories of Portuguese imports into
(1) W. Bosnian:

A New and Accuate Description of the Coast of Guinea.

p.79.
(2) Valentim Fernandes: La CSte Occidentale d ’Afriaue. pp.36,74>76} andPacheco Pereira: Esmeraldo de Situ Orbis. p.72

^77ouAFRO-EUROPEAR CO.l-fCRCE

the Upper Guinea Coast.
Cattle were of much less significance than horses.

The

Portuguese carried two-year old steers from the Cgpe Verde islands in thesixteenth century to the Bijagos islands.

The reason given for thecontinuous demand for cattle in the Bijagos islands was the custom of sacri­ficing large numbers of animals at funeral ’cries* and other ceremonies, (l)This custom was common to all the societies on the Upper Guinea Coast northof Sierra Leone, but most of them, like the Djolas and the Balantas, reared
thair own herb specifically for ’cries* (2), so that th=s Bijagos seemed tohave been the only customers whom the Portuguese found.
Something of a curiosity is presented by the demand for leadwhich existed among the Ralus in the sixteenth century^ (3) and a few leadbars were still being carried to the Upper Guinea Coast up until the end of
the eighteenth century. (4) though the European traders did not reveal towhat use this metal was put.

Even more unusual was a significant import of

Spanish and other silver coins by the peoples of the Gambia, Cacheu and Geba,
especially the Mandingas.

These coins were not regarded as currency, but

simply as material for making ornaments such as bracelets.

Lemos Coelho

wrote that in one trading season 8,000 patacas were exchanged at Farim,
mainly for cloth, which would increase its value when bartered elsewhere for(1) Alvares de Almada: MRios de Guine",(2) A. Texeira da Mota: Guin^ Portuguese..
(3) Alvares de Almada: "Rios de Guine",

p.318
Vol. I, pp.247,286,288
p.340(4) B.M.. Add.Ms.12131 - Papers relatingto £§erra Leone, 1792-96.

Z18
AFRO-EURQPEAN CAMERCE
slaves, ivory and camwood* (l)It was also the custom of the Rayal African

Company to import coins into the Gambia, said to have been approximately equa
in value to one Dutch rix-dollar, (2 ) while the French Senegal Company sent"pieces of eight" to Bissau. (3 ) How relevant these were to the local market
it is difficult to say, but it is quite possible that they were mainly used b
the Europeans when they conducted trade among themselves on the coast, as
often happened.
The staple goods which were brought by the Portuguese and other
Europeans to the Upper Guinea Coast, and which were of lasting importanceduring the centuries under discussion, can be conveniently divided into fivecategories, though the edges of the divisions are sometimes blurred.

The

first includes metal; the second cloth; the third alchoholic beverages; thefourth weapons; and the fifth comprises a miscellany of baubles, bangles
and beads.

These will be dealt with in reverse order.
For both the Europeans and the Africans, the numerous items of

trumphery were placed at the bottom of the scale of values.
after trading in Sierra
including beads,

William Finch,

Leone in 1607, listed a number of articles of trade

bells, garlick, French bottles and "other trifles"; but(1) Lemos Coelho: Duas Describes da Guine. p.159(2 ) These coins were known as 1zealots1 or "Pieces of eight".

See P.R.O*

T 70/ 5O - To Alexander Cleeve, 31 Aug 1686, fl.18, and T 70/14 - Thomas
feaver; 10 June 1704
See also J.M. Gray: A History of the Gambia* pp.140,141(3 ) John Barbot: Description of North ah: South Guinea, p .87

37?
AFRO-EUROPSAU COMMERCE
admitted that by themselves these 1toyes* were capable of purchasing nothing
but foodstuffs, (l)This continued to be the case for the next two centuries.

A hen could be purchased on the Upper Guinea Coast for three strings of little
beads, and the same applied to one gallon of palm wine, causing Ogilby toremark that "they do not set a high rate upon the best of their commodities".
(2)

According to Beaver, the herds of the Mandingas were utilised for the

making of "small trade" with the Europeans; through which the men procured
tobacco, powder, knives, etc, and the women obtained articles such as beads
and small looking glasses. (3 )But it is also true tint trinkets formed a

proportion of almost every payment made to the Africans, and they were usefulas gifts.

Besides, the low and restricted purchasing power of these items did

not mean that they could be excluded from the cargoes or quantitatively
reduced.
Of the several trinkets, beads featured most prominently.

These

were usually of glass, and the Portuguese in particular laid down specifica­
tions about the colour and size of the beads which were popular among theAfricans on tin Upper Guinea Coast.

Yellow and green glass beads were said

to have been favoured by the Sapes in the early sixteenth century, and at thattime red cornelian beads were also in demand on the whole of the Upper Guinea
Coast.

Indian beads, so well-known in the commerce of East Africa, also

(1) S. Purchas: Purchas his Pil^rimes. Vol.Ill, Ch.IIII, p. 9*(2 ) John Ogilby:

Africa, p .364'

(3 ) Valentim Fernandes: La cSte Occidentale dtAfrique. pp.42 ,76 and Pacheco
Pereira: Esmeraldo de Situ Orbis. pp.64 ,72,76 ,84 .

Z%0>

AFRO-EOROPfiAN COT»WKRnB
found their way to West Africa through the agency of the Portuguese, (l)Alongside of heads are to be enumerated goods such as glass
buttons, crystal, amber, combs, small items of haberdashery, imitation pearls^
and medals, bracelets and armlets of copper, tin and pewter.

Individually^each one of these counted very little, ;?nd there were some goods of this sortwhich were carried to the Upper Guinea Coast and found to have no purchasing
power whatever.

This was partly attributable to the regional differences

along the West African littoral, but occasionally blunders were obviously
made because of the assumption that every bit of trumpery was veddible in
Africa.

For instance, in 1697» the second Company of Cacheu sent considerable

stocks of threads, bells, combs, buttons, children’s socks and small shoes much to the chagrin of the local representatives on the Upper Guinea Coast andin the Cape Verde Islands. (2)The Royal African Company found that evenbeads were a slow-selling line in Sierra Leone.

Consequently, the string

rotted, and it cost half their value to have the beads restrung. (3)Weapons stood at the other extreme from the trinkets, being
viewed by the Portuguese authorities as articles that should not pass into
African hands or even be acquired by private Portuguese traders if this madethem independent of the protection of the Portuguese crown.
(1) Alvares de Almada:"Rios de Guini*,

The greatest

pp.276,277>347(2) A.H.U. Cabo Verde, caixa VI - Antonio Salgado, 15 May I 698(3) P»R»0* T 70/ 5O - To Thomas Corker, 24 Oct 1693» f1*475 andT70/2 - John Clark, 24 Oct 1709, fl.12.
(4 ) A.H.U.

Guine, caixa I - No. 27, Jorge Castilho, 1 July 1642

^>9 \
AFRO-EUROPEAN COMMERCE
fear arose over the ownership of cannon, but most private traders managed toacquire cannon, swivel guns and other ship’s ©rdnanoe. This was basically for

defence against the Africans, and such armament was to be found in centres whei

the lantpados were no longer amenable to the authority of the African rulers. (Iand wherever white or mulatto traders had their towns and slave baracoons. (2 )Yet, heavy weapons were occasionally obtained by the African rulers through theagency of the private traders, who to all appearances did $ot draw as strict aline between profit and security as did the established companies and adminis­
trations. (3)Not surprisingly, the idea of banning the export of European fire­arms to Africa was mooted in several quarters.

Labat, in 1728, listed ordinaryguns, buccaneers, gun-flints and powder among the imports sold by the Europeanson the Upper Guinea Coast; and he advocated that 'Hihis trade should be dis­couraged by stiff penalties because of the terrible consequences of teachingthese barbarous people the use of firearms".

(4 ) Not only firearms, but swords

and other similar weapons of iron were deemed "prohibited goods" by thePortuguese crown, along with iron, from which the Africans themselves(1) See above, Ch. Ill, p . /78(2 ) See below, Ch. VIII, p.
(3 ) P.R.O.

T70/ 5I - To Corker or Bowman, 13 Sept 1698, fl.10.

(Here theLondon officials wrote that "We believe interlopers care not what commo­
tions they make to carry on their own designs".) .
(4 ) J* Labat: Nouvelle Relation. Vol. V, p.181

z%z.
AFRO-EUROPEAN COMMERCE
manufactured weapons, (l)In the sixteenth century, such manufactures did nc

constitute any significant portion of the goods imported into the Upper Guine
Coast by the Portuguese, but this was probably due more to Portugal’s
inability to supply these goods than to the efficacy of legislative edict.

Among the major Portuguese commentators on the Upper Guinea Coas
Lemos Coelho was the first to mention, swords, muskets?
joods sold by the Portuguese and the Afro-Portuguese.

powders and shot as(2 )His remarks weremeant for the eyes of the Portuguese authorities, and hisfrank inclusion ofthis category of goods could be interpreted as advice to the Portuguese
administration to dismiss their fears and scruples on this subject.
theless, the ban against weapons remained in force.

Never­In August 1679? "thebishop of Cape Verde wrote the Conselho warning' them that the residents ofJacheu sold swords, muskets and other weapons to the Africans. (3 )The loophole which permitted the Portuguese traders to importarms with equanimity was provided by the pretext that they w£re to be used fo
the defence of the official prayas 6n the coast.
this justification, such goods were duty-free.

Furthermore, because of
In 1752, the captain-majorof Cacheu pointed out that this was a ridiculous situation from t&e point ofview of the treasury, because when the Cape Verde cloths were taken into
account, the greater part of the trade in the area was conducted in items(1) A. Brasio: Monumenta Missionaria Africana. 2nd series, Vol. II - No. 26,
Legislation on the commerce of Guinea, 24 March 1514, P*72.
(2) Lemos Coelho: Duas Descriyoes da Guine. p.12
(3) A.H.U.. Guine, ma<jo III - Francisco Roque Sottomayor, 12 March 1752.

"3S3
AFRO-Europe an COMMERCE
which paid, no duty.

However, his only remedy was to reiterate for the

benefit of the local traders and the soldiers of Cacheu that it was illegal

to allow such articles as firearms and gunpowder to pass into the hands of tl
Africans, and the penalty for so doing was confiscation of goods and three
years exile to Sao Thome.

The Conselho was at the same time urged to sendalternative goods such as beads and iron, without which the soldiers of thepra^a of Cacheu could not even obtain food from the Papels. (l)At no point did the Portuguese rescind their sanctions against
weapons, but by the end of the eighteenth century, weapons were named by theservants of the Portuguese crown on the Upper Guinea Coast as imports whichwere being handled by them, and this situation obviously had the tacit
approval of the authorities in Portugal. (2)Understandably, it was the trac

in swords rather than firearms, which was first tolerated by the Conselho
Ultramarino; and by the latter part of the seventeenth century, the importof this commodity was openly advocated by responsible individuals on the Uppe
Guinea Coast.

Advice in 1697 pertained to the despatch of broad well-

riveted swords, each three feet in length. (3 )The Eis^lish companies found i1

equally useful to introduce some of these weapons.

When the stock of theGambia Adventurers ih Sierra Leone was inventoried on the liquidation of theCompany, it included a number of swords.

These, along with cutlasses,(1 ) A.H.U., Guine'', maco III - Erancisco Roque Sottomayor, 12 March 1752
(2 ) See, for example, A.H.U., Guine", maco XI - The table of the regular
prices of goods submitted by the captain-major in 1801 included several
types of European weapons.
(3) A.H.U., Cabo Verde, caixa VI - Antonio Salgado, 15 May I698

AFRO-EUROPEAN COMMERCE,—— ■v*x\ -

continued, to feature in the invoices of the Royal African Company in the
Ga.nbia and Sierra Leone.

An entry in the Sherbro Accounts of I698 indicatedthat 550 swords and large cutlasses were then in stock, (l) Much earlier, in1683, swords to the value of 1,113 ’bars* were received at the ^ence factory.
(2 ) (l sword being valued at 1 'bar1) and at that time, the Gambia agent wasadvising that trade southwards to the Cacheu was not possible without ironand "good swords". (3)Perhaps the demand for swords on the Upper Guinea Coast was inpart induced by the presence of the Portuguese lane ados and their descendants)
because these traders attempted to live like Portuguese gentlemen, andsword was thus an essential accoutrement. (4 )aHowever, the swords on the Uppe

Guinea Coast did not originate in metropolitan Portugal.

Prom the fourteentl

century, the Portuguese had obtained their swords from Germany, and in thefifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the commerce of Arguin had allowed a supplyof blades to pass into the hands of the Taureg, who provided their own
hafts. (5)At the end of the eighteenth century, Beaver noticed that the

cutlasses and swords of the Bijagos warriors carried the mark of Solingen, th«(1) P.R.O.. T70/590 - York Island Accounts(2 ) P.R.O.. T70/648 - Bence Island Accounts(3) P.R.O.. T70/16 - John Castle, 20 Peb 1683, fl. 46(4) See below, Ch. VIII,(5) L.C. Briggs:"European Blades in Taureg Swords and Daggers", in

The Journal of the Arms and Armour Society. Vol.V, No. 2, June 1965 >pp.36-65

v s s'
AFR0-3UR0PEA1T COMMERCE
famous German sword-manufacturing town, (l)The Portuguese authorities them­selves confirmed that up to that time most of the weapons which they carried
to Africa were re-exports from Germany - muskets, blunderbusses, pistols,
cutlasses and flints being specifically listed. (2 )The Portuguese could notafford to re-export these manufactures on any considerable scale, so that whenfirearms became important on the Upper Guinea Coast in the seventeenth andeighteenth centuries, they were introduced directly by the Dutch, English andFrench for the most part.

English traders were at first dependent on Dutch

industry for firearms, as for so many other goods for the African trade, but aprocess of substitution was carried to completion by the early eighteenth
century, permitting the Royal African Company to depend exclusively on
Eng-lish firearms during the later phases of their commerce with V/est Africa.
(3 )The early records of the Royal African Company in Sierra Leone mention"Jpanish locks" as distinct from "English locks", the former being themore expensive.

Pistols, muskets and fowling pieces were also named. (4 )Between 1703 andl717> the Committee of Goods of the Royal African Company
requisitioned a large variety of firearms for the African trade - buccaneers,
carabines, brass blunderbusses, 'fusees1, fowling guns, muskets and roundlocks (5 )All of course were muzzle loading^ and often the differences in(l) Philip Beaver: African Memoranda, p.335(?) Rooort of the Lords of the Committee of Council. 1789 - Part VI, 'Portugal(3 ) K.G. Davies:

The Royal African Company, p.177(4) P.R.O*. T70/ 36O - Bence Island Accounts(5 ) P.R.O.< T70/128 - Memoranda of the Committee of Goods.

AFRO-EUROPEAN CCK'IERCE
models was slight.
In sending out a ship from London in December 1721, the officialof the Royal African Company at Africa House advised the Sierra Leone agentsthat "in this cargo you will find some trading' and some buccaneer gunns withbeech stocks, hollowed in the butt, which are of a new pattern.

We desire

you will send us word how they take with the residents, and if they are liked
better than those we used to send", (l)There is no record of a reply, but

the implication that the Africans of the Upper Guinea Coast were calling for

improved firearms was borne out by John Atkins who was on the coast of Sierra
Leone at that time, and found that the marked required "a better sort offirearms". (2 )With guns ranging in prices from 20s to 10s.6d., it is not

surprising1 that they were of shoddy manufacture, being likely to explode at .
the first discharge.
the situation.

V arious recommendations were made towards remedying

In 1728, for instance, the chief factor of the Royal African

Company in Sierra Leone urged that two armourers should be sent out to repair
screws and locks on the guns since these were constantly defective.

A-fc theend of the eighteenth century, traders oh the Windward Coast (as the Malaguesta Coast was then called) were advised to supply "decent sham Dane guns",
which had lohg barrels and ramrods of wood, and short French guns with ironramrods.

These two makes were to be the leaven of quality among the cheap"Bonny guns".

It was piously hoped that the locks would strike well and the(1) P.R.O., T70/60 - To Robert Plunkett, 21 Dec 1721, fl.20(2 ) John Atkins, A Voyage to Guinea, p.162

S'S7
AFRO-EOROPMAN COM 'BRCE

barrels be free from flaws, while it was remarked that strong or weak powder,
good or bad guns, the Africans rammed the same charge down the barrels, so
the European trader would do no harm to sell cheap cannon powder instead of
gunpowder, (l)The Bijagos, being dedicated warriors, had their own solution.

Well into the nineteenth century, they carefully tempered and tested each
European firearm which they bought.

The breach and muzzle were pegged withwood, the barrel filled with palm oil and then placed in fire.

If no

explosion occurred, the operation was considered successful. (2)However, the advantages of these new weapons clearly outweighed
their disadvantages, and the Africans of the Upper Guinea Coast became moreand nore avid in pursuit of guns and powder during the latter part of theeighteenth century.

In fact, some coastal communities were substantially re­armed with these European weapons at an early date.

For example, the Mandin-

gas and Banhuns of Hereges (south of the Gambia), who had conducted
flourishing trade with the Europeans from the fifteenth century, not only owned
guns, but were adept at using them by the end of the seventeenth century. (3 )The Papels acquired muskets, swords and cutlasses as a result of thePortuguese resident traders and tie commerce which was attracted to Cacheu andBissau, while the Bijagos islanders obtained their arms via the Bissau
factories.

The European arms reportedly in their possession at the end of(1) B.M., Add%Ms.12131, Papers relating to Sierra Leone, 1792-96(2 ) Edward Stallibrass:"The Bijouga or ^issagos Islands, West Africa",

Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society, 1889*(3) P. Cultrus Premier Voyage de Sieur de 1a. Courbe.. p.207*

AFRO EUROPEAN COMMERCE
the eighteenth century must have been in circulation among these tribes lor along time.

In Sierra Leone, too, firearms were by then widely distributed am

expertly used; (i) and when there was any disputd among the Africans of Sierrj
Leone, the European traders offered both parties ammunition, and prepared towelcome the captives. (2 )Firearms were slow in penetrating into the hinterland of the Upp;
Guine 1 Coast.

The great Jihad or Holy W r of the Futa Djalon was evidently

begun in the early eighteenth century with weapons of local manufacture. (3 )The first clear-cut instance of European arms being sought in a determinedmanner by the tribes of the interior occurred in 1757, when a Mandinga chief
allied to the Fulas cut his way to the coast at the Searcies estuary, selling
all who came into his hands for powder and guns. (4)From that point onwards

the Mande and the Fulas of the interior evinced a constant interest in
obtaining- arms from the coast.

Reports of civil disturbances in the nearhinterland of the Upper Guinea Coast in the 1780!s and 1790*s suggested that
European firearms were utilised. (5 )Yet the paucity of firearms in theinterior is brought out by comparisons with the littoral.

John Matthews(1) Evidence at the end of the eighteenth century was provided by Philip Beav<and Joshua Montefiore, writing on the attempts at colonisation on Bulama
and in Sierra Leone. See Philip Beaver: African Memoranda, pp.40,527,335*(2 ) C.B. Wadstrom: An Essay on Colonisation. Part 2, p.77
(3 ) See below, Ch. IX* 9 .
(4 ) Nicholas Owen: Journal of a Slave Dealer, p.96, and see below, Ch. IX. pf(5) T. Winterbottom: An Account of the Native Africans of Sierra Leone, p. 154

3*?
AFRO-iflJROPEAlSr COMMERCE

related that ’the inhabitants of the sea coast have almost totally laid aside
their national weapons for the sabre and the gun; but the natives of the inland
countries still use the spear, dart and poisoned arrow", (l) Winterbottom also
confirmed that on the coast and for some distance inland the blacks were very
dextrous in the use of firearms, and it was rare to meet one at any distancefrom home without his musket, but that the Fulas often used poisoned arrows.

(2 )Careful consideration is required so as to place the import offirearms into its true perspective.

It would be attractive to set thiscategory of goods apart as the main stimulus to the slave trade)because guns
were used to capture slaves to buy more guns to capture more slaves.

If they

added a new dimension to military techniques, then they would also have been
decisive in relations among the Africans themselves.

But in reality, theirimportance was narrowly circumscribed in the period under discussion,
iur'opean firearms made their presence felt at a very late date.

The first

period of Hispano-Portuguese slave trading, for instance, had little ornothing to do with the import of firearms.

Furthermore, while it is true thatthe coastal residents had by the end of the eighteenth century re-armed them­selves with European weapons, the same did not apply to the inhabitants of theinterior; and yet it was the Mande and Fulas from the hinterland who extended
their dominion over the coastal tribes, (3) demonstrating clearly that
(1) j . Matthews: A Visit to the River Sierra Leone, p.88
(2 ) T. Winterbottom: Op.Cit., p.155(3) See below, Ch. IX,

2»?D
AFRO-EPROPBAH COMMERCE
European firearms did not automatically influence the tribal balance of power.

It is equally imperative to be circumspect in evaluating the inf­

luence of alchohol upon the Africans, and its role in the Atlantic slave tradeThis question has been posed in terms of the volume of alchohol imported into
Africa, and the possibility of its exerting a degenerative effect on the
Africans;

and within such a context it has been pointed out that it was not

until after the slave tiade had ended that alchohol was brought to Africa ingreat quantities, (l)Certainly, it was only in modern times that the importof alchohol into Africa assumed dangerous proportions, with thd purchase of
31,000 hectolitres of pure alchohol by French West Africa in 1951, represent­
ing an increase of fifteen times the volume in 1938. (2) As with so manyother commodities brought to Africa in the pre-colonial period, it isextremely difficult to estimate the quantities involved, but a number offactors suggest that the amount of alchohol was indeed small in relation to alater period, and probably had little effect on the Africans*, but forreasons quite unconnected with the total volume this import was neverthelessa decisive factor in Afro-European commercial relations.
Reviewing the centuries of slave trading, remarks on theindispensability of liquor as an import axe very common.

De Almada asserted

that the residents of the Gambia would die without the wine brought by thePortuguese and Spanish ships; (3) while the servants of the Royal African(1) The Transatlantic Slave Trade from West Africa (Centre of African Studies,
Edinburgh, 1965) pp.92,91(2) Rene Dumont: Afrique Noire est Mai Partie (Paris 1962) p.34
(3) Alvares de Almada: "Rios de Guin£", p .276

^1
AFRO- EUROPEAN COI'-MERCE

Company found that their own peace was endangered if the thirst of the Sherbro
rulers was not assuaged, (l)In the latter part of the eighteenth century, suecomments became more frequent.

John Newton, for example, reported in 1750 thal

he lost the option to purchase ten slaves in the Sherbro for lack of "thecommanding articles of beer and cider".

Shortly afterwards, he bartered with i

French ship on the coast to obtain four anchors of brandy,'. (2)Several years

later, recalling his expe riences of slave trading in Sierra Leone, Newton
stressed that "strong’ liquor" was so much in demand that without it scarcely asingle slave could be purchased; (3)and this was a view shared by ether

experienced Europeans at the end of the eighteenth century. (4)The wine mentioned by De Almada, along with the beer and cider
mentioned by ^ewton, should be considered separately from the "strong liquor"
to which Newton also referred.

Local fermented beverages of low alchoholic

content, such as wine and beer, were extremely popular on the Upper Guinea
Coast. (5) The Portuguese and the- Spanish catered to this taste by intro­(1)P.R.O. . T70/1 - Joshua Platt, 7 Aug 1681, f1.120(2) John Newton: Journal of a Slave Trader. p.l6(3) Ibid: p.20 (l anchor = 10 old wine gallons or &J- imperial gallons)(4) Joshua Montefiore: An Authentic Account of the late Expedition to Bulam(5) See above, Ch. I, p. (&%(For the alchoholic content of African

fermented drinks, see Rene Dumont: Afrique Noire est Mai Partie. p.34*
Palm wine has 4^ alchohol, beer from millet or maize contains 3«55& on anaverage, while most fermented fruit juices scarcely had more than 1fo)

AFRO EUROPEAN--COMMERCE
ducing grape wines.

This was one of the principal constituents of the cargoeiof the Spanish registered ships; and it was brought not only f rom Spain but
also ffom the Canary Islands.

There was in fact an enduring connection betwei

the Upper Guinea Coast and the Canary islands which began in the years when
Spanish ships were considered as 'interlopers1 on the West African coast, (l)matured during the era of joint monarchy, when Teneriffe was an office for
issuing registros. (2 ) and persisted during the later seventeenth century andthe eighteenth century. (3 )Madeira.

With the Canary islands, one can also bracket

They both sought slaves ffom the Upper Guinea Coast, (4 ) and in

return they offered alchoholic beverages, - primarily wine, but also brandy ai
rum.
(1) 1. Brasios Monumenta Missionaria Africana, 2nd series, Vol. II - No. I4 6 ,Letter from the ambassador of Spain to the Regent of Portugal, 22 Jan 1555
P.473
(2 ) For references to wines from the Canaries during this epoch, see A.H.U.,

Cabo Verde, caixa I - Treslado of 11 July 1619 that ships from Seville anc
the Canaries should trade with the Upper Guinea Coast only via Santiago.
See also Guine, caixa I - No. 27, Joao Pereira Corte-Real, 23 Dec I6 4 I(3) A.H.U., Cabo Verde, caixa III - Governor of Cabo Verde, 8 June 1657; and-caixa IV - Antonio Galvao, 15 April I6 6 5 .
(4 ) For slaves to Madeira in the sixteenth century, see A. Brasio: Monumenta
Missionaria Africans. 2nd series, Vol. II - No. 149,150* Declarations tothe sugar planters of Madeira, 16 Oct and 30 Oct 1562; and for theeighteenth century, see Ch. Xj f- € ^ ^7.^3
AFRO-EOROPEAN COMMERCE

Aguardente, a word referring to both brandy and rum, only began

to oust wine from the Portuguese inventories of sale goods in the late seven- 1
teenth century, (l) so that irrespective of volume, the spirits imported up tothat point could not have constituted a great departure from the indigenous
pattern.

Indeed, for several decades of the eighteenth century, beer andcider were the fermented beverages brought by the English traders, especiallyships from Bristol. (2) However, supplies of cheap West Indian rum had become
popular by the end of the seventeenth century, and couldbe ferried directlyfrom the West Indies to Africa.

In 1700, the London officials of the Royal

African Company wrote to their agents in the Gambia and Sierra Leone advisingthem that a small ship was bringing rum from Barbados, and if the venture was
successful that would be the standard practice in the future. (3) Between 1703
and 1709, thirty-one ships were despatched from the West Indies to West Africa
by tbe Company. (4) Private traders apparently continued to import rum in thismanner after the demise of the Royal African Company in Sierra Leone, for
Newton made passing reference to "rum sloops" on that section of th coast.(5)(1) A.H.U., Cabo Verde, caixa V - Inventory of the goods of the first Company
of Cacheu, on 6 April 1686; and advice to the second Company of Cacheu by
Antonio Salgado, 15 May 1698.
(2) Charles Johnston: A General History of the Pirates {Ed. Arthur Hayward,
London 1926) p.198(3) P.R.O.. T70/51 - To George Coates, 9 July 1700,f1.127; to
9 July 1700, f1.131} and to Thomas Corker, 3 Oct1699, fl*50.
(4) Peter Kup: A Historyof Sierra Leone, p.70

(5) John Newton: Journal of a Slave Trader.

Robert Lewis,

AFRO EUROPEAN' COMMERCE

A second and even morevital distinction can be drawn between thealchohol brought to the Upper Guinea Coast as a vendible product and those
supplies which were considered as revenue payments to the local rulers or werere ;arded as "entertainment allowances".

The annual rent paid by thePortuguese of Cacheu to the Papel king of Mata and the chief of Mompataz was
dominated by wine, (l)Throughout the era of the Atlantic slave trade,alchohol of one sort of another played a principal role as a constituent of
the fixed revenues of the African rulers*

As one captain-major of Cacheu put

it, the rents were paid to the African rulers in "goods most appropriate totheir appetities". (2)The Royal African Company in Sierra Leone reckoned themost appropriate goods to be brandy, old clothes and swords; (3) and theEnglish private traders continued to offer alchohol in this context*

When theanti-slavery party launched the Sierra Leone Company in 1787, they found thatsix or seven chiefs in the vicinity applied to them for quantities of alchohol
which they had until then received from the slave traders, apparently on aregular and agreed basis. (4)There is in fact one surviving example of asigned treatyy between the Europeans and an African ruler in which liquor was
specifically mentioned*

This was a contract between the Portuguese and a

Beafada fidako on the Geba, in which it was stated that whenever the fidalgo(1) See above, Ch. V, p.2L£ff(2 ) A.H.U.. Guin/,ma<po IV - Antonio Bezerra (Jnr), 10 June 1721

(3) P.R.O., T70/36O - Bence Island Accounts, and T70/587 - Sherbro Accounts,
1681-86(4 ) C.B. Wadstrom: An Essay on Colonisation. Part 2, p.81

sqr
AFRO-EUROPBAH COMMERCE

returned, a slave who escaped, from the P o r t u g u e s e he would he paid one bar ofiron and one bottle of aguardente;

while he and his successors were to betreated with 'gifts1 ofliquor from time to time, (l)Apart from the fixed payments, there were a large number ofoccasions on which the Europeans had to give 'presents1 or remuneration to theAfrican rulers with whom they dealt.

Writing to the holder of the Cape Verde-Cuinea contract in 1617, the local Portuguese trade factor in Cacheu argued
against attempting to use force in dealing with the Africans, because he feltthat wine effectively smoothed the way.

^e had just despatched a ship to the

Canaries for supplies, for it was his policy to keep 7 pipes of wine in thefactory solely for treating African guests, and this was quite distinct fromthe amounts expended when there were disputes. (2 )It is no accident that alo

the whole of the West African coast, the word 'dash* though used initially torefer to a gift of any kind, came to mean a small quantity of liquor offered aa preliminary to trade, for, as John Atkins realised, the African trader 'hever
cares to treat with dry lips". (3) This was the substance which the traders
found best fitted to lubricate the wheels of Afro-European commerce.
It is not difficult to imagine how the imports of alchohol wereconsumed.

The social life of the peoples of the Upper Guinea Coast wasstudded with events such as funeral'cries1, initiation ceremonies, harvest(1 ) A.H.U., Guine, ma<jo V - Copy of agreement JO June 1751
(2) A.H.U.

Cabo Verde, caixa I - No. 99, Baltezar Castel ^ranco to the contra

holder, 15 April 1617*(3) John Adkins:

A Voyage to Guinea, p.171

AFRO-EUROPEANCOMMERCEcelebrations, etc., where the emphasis was on the maximum consumption of foodan I drink, (l) In the midstof the hostilities with the Portuguese

king of Bissau called a truce to obtain supplies ofin1753, theliquor, because arelativeof his had been killed, and they had to begin the 'cry1. (2) The mulatto chiefsof the late Eighteenth century also observed this "country practice", and where
the 'cry* of chief James Cleveland was solemnised in 1793, 20 puncheons ofalchohol were consumed. (3) For that matter, the resident European officials
and traders were themselves

obliged to hold similar wakes when one

number died, and this meantthat intoxicants should flow freely. When De la

Courbe visited the Portuguese trading centre

oftheirof Geba in 1686, a 'cry* was inprocess for the recently deceased Afro-Portuguese sergeant, who represented theauthority of the Portuguese crown in this remote area. (4)Several years later

when the chief factor of the Royal African Company in Sierra Leone died at thisjob, his colleagues failed to invite the king of Sherbro to the 'cry1, which
was a serious breach of protocol, endangering the relations between the Company
and the ruler in question. (5)When alchohol was made out to be the most important item of trade(1) See above, Ch. IJ p *tiq.
(2) Antonio daCosta Araujos Rela^ao da Viagem da Fragata"Nossa Senhora da

Estrella a Bissau em 1753 (Ed. Damiao Peres, Lisboa 1942^ p.22.
(3) T. Winterbottom: An Account of the Native Africans of(4) P. Cultru: Premier Voyage de Sieur de la Courbe. p.246(5) P.RO., T70/3 - Richard Smith, 29 June 1715

Sierra Leone,p.250

m i
AFRO-EiJROPEA.N COI'iMERBE.

by contemporary observers, it is almost certain that they had in mind its
strategic value.

Placed in this narrow and specific context, the alchoholtransported to the Upper Guinea Coast was of undeniableimportance not becauseof absolute volume nor any inducement to alchoholism on the part of substantial
numbers of people, but because it .was one of the most decisive factors affect­
ing’ the Afro-European partnership.
Cloth, the next category of imports, was not as dashing as
alchohol, but was probably of greater general appeal.

The story must begin

with the crafts of spinning, weaving and dyeing which were practised on theUpper Guinea Coast.

Cotton manufacturing in the Senegambia and on parts of theUpper Guinea Coast drew the attention of most visitors to the area from thetime of Valentim Fernandes to that of Mungo Park.

The cotton was woven on avery narrow frame, requiring at least six strips to be sewn together to produce
one "country cloth" or pano; but the neat craftsmanship made the stitchingvirtually indiscernible, (l) The quality of the blue dyes (indigofera andLonchocarpus cyanescens) also drew European admiration. (2) According to
Ogilby, the best cloths on the Gambia were panos sakes. which were two and ahalf ells long and one and a half broad, bleached white and having eight
strips sewn together; barafulas, which were great blue cloths; and, bontans,which were two ells long and one and a half broad, comprising six strips of(1) T. Winterbottom: An Account of the Native Africans of Sierra Leone, p.96
(2) Alvares de Almada: "Rios de Guine", p.248; and Mungo Park: Travels ...inthe Years 1795. 1796 and 1797. p.181, and The Journal of a Mission ... inAT?ftO-EDROfEAH COMMERCE

blue and white, (l)•,The Portuguese performed three distinct services inrelation to the "country cloth" of the Senegambia and the Upper Guinea Coast,Ithey distributed it locally, they exported it, and they manufactured it on theUpper Guinea Coast and in the Cape Verde islands.
Being extremely knowledgeable about the local requirements, thelaacados and the Afro-Portuguese were aware of precisely what areas needed cloth
and what kind of cloth sold best in the given districts.

I

Generally speaking

the movement was from north to south, because the Wolofs, Mandingas, Fulas,Banhuns, Casangas and Beafadas were the manufacturing tribes.

Thus, of the

Nunez, Coelho remarked that to trade there one needed cloth and more cloth, mostof which was “country cloth11, while on the Searcies, cloth from Farim wasparticularly fancied. (2)On the other hand, the manufacturing peoples needed

further supplies of dye, and indigo could be obtained from the Nunez in large
quantities.

Consequently, there was established a regular coastal trade

between the Nunez and the Cacheu, transporting processed indigo in the form ofdried sticks called tintas by the Portuguese. (3)I

To a limi ed extent, the Afro-Portuguese on the mainland also
tried to enter into the production of "country cloth".

At Hereges, Be la Gourde’•

found a mulatto mistress who superintended the production of cloth, (4) while
the Afro-Portuguese at Farim and Bissau were also manufacturing theirown cloth- 111■ ■■■■■■■■■■■■■—

1^

I
<

_________________________________________________

_

»

;

* 4..

(1) John Ogilbyi Africa. P.356(2) Lemos Coelhoi Duas Deacriyoes da Guine". pp.60,227(3) Alvares de Almada* f,Rios de Guine", p.342

I(4) P. Ouitrui Premier Voyage de Sieur de la Courbe. p.292

J*99
APRO-BUROP'^Jffl COH-E3RCE.
in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries* (l)However, it w as in the CapeV erde islands that the Portuguese settlers, African slaves and their common
descendants came to specialise in the manufacture of "country cloth"*From

the fifteenth century, cotton was the commodity which bound the Cape Verdeislands most closely to the mainland*

The dry conditions on the island madethem suitable for cotton cultivation;and some of the raw cotton found a marlon the Gambia, Geba, Cacheu and Casamance among the Banhuns, Casangas, Beafadf
and Mandingas, in exchange for cloths which were already woven and dyed* (2)By the end of the sixteenth century, however, the islands had ceased to e:<por1
raw cotton, and had become instead manufacturers, using basically the same
African techniques*

Apart from cotton, the Cape Verde islanders utilised

blends of European fabrics such as silk, worsted and wool, and they werecapable of producing attractive quilts and counterpanes, the best of whichwere exported to Brazil* (3)The Cape Verde cloths held a commanding positicon the mainland, especially among the Papels, Bjolas and Bulloms, while seme
went as far south as the Gold Coast*"Country cloths" not only held their ovjn against European
manufactures in this era, but the English, Butch and French were forced topurchase these cloths from the Cape Verde islands or from those sections of
the coast where they were available (those being the Senegambia, the Upper(1) A*H*U,. Guine, MafO 1 - Paulo de Lima, 30 ^une 1707
(2) See p. 4.37
(3 ) A.W. Lawrence (ed.)j A Series of Uncommon Events which befell Cantain
George Roberts (London 1930) pp*2183220

400
AFxIO-EUROPEAN COMMERCE
Guinea Coast as far south as the Nunez, and the Malaguetta Coast around Cape
Me3urado) in order to conduct their trade in areas where the cloth was indemand.

This was the article which allowed the Cape V erdeanscontinue toplay a role in the slave trade on the Upper Guinea Coast until the end of theeighteenth century, because they could either purchase slaves directly on themainland with theiz; cloths, or obtain them from other Europeans by paying in"country cloth".

Prom the viewpoint of the Portuguese crown, this selling oj<

cloth to the ships of other European nations was prejudicial to the national
interest, because it facilitated the commerce of Portugal*s rivals.

But when

the Conselho Ultramarino tried to clamp down on the practice, the Cape Verdesettlers raised strong protests, and in fact disregarded the prohibitive
legislation, (l)In reality, cloth was not only one of their most valuable exchan?
commodities, but was the basis of their currency.

The effort to maintain atruly monetary economy in the Cape Verde islands based largely on Spanish
coin was beyond the Cape Verdeans, and instead they utilised the strips ofcloth as a conventional medium, following the practice in vogue on the
African mainland.

It was, to be precise, the barafula which was used as thebasis for most Cape Verde accounts, as well as those of the lan^ados on the(l) For the banning1 of the sale of Cape Verde cloths by the Lisbon
administration in 1688, see Sena Barcelos:

Subsidios para a Historia

de Cabo Verde e Guine. Vol. I, Ch. VII, pp.86 ,87 .

4°i
AFRO -EUROPEAN' COMMERCE

mainland, (l)Meanwhile, traders of other nationalities were exploiting the
local trade in "country cloths".

In September 1679> the London office of theRoyal African Company was informed that £100 worth of Santiago (Cape Verde)cloths would be of the greatest value in Sierra Leone, especially the barafula
and another type known as golozans. (2) Two years later, the chief factor at
Sherbro gratefully acknowledged receipt of 1,413 cloths from the Gambia. (3)Of course, the interlopers too were aware ofthe profitable interchange of"country cloths" for commodities which they wished to carry to Europe or theAmericas*

Because the Sierra Leone factories of the Royal African Company

were ill-equipped with boats in 1682, the interlopers had the market at Cape
Mesurado to themselves, buying cloth and shirts, which they transferred to the
Sherbro to barter for ivory. (4)To meet competition of this sort, the Royal

African Company ceased to rely exclusively on their factories in the Gambia
and Bence island for supplies of "country cloth" for the Sherbro and the Gold(1 ) Sena Barcelos and Jo&o Barreto take 200 reis to be the value of the bar -fu
but this value fluctuated.

For instance, in 1673» it was said that becaisof the competition from other Europeans and the decline of Portuguese trad
even Cape Verde cloths had fallen off in price, and the barafula was thenworth 200 reis instead of a previous figure of 300 reis.
Guine, caixa I - No. 133> Antonio Bezerra, Aug 1673*(2 ) P.R.O., T70/l - Edmund Pierce, 4 Aug 1679 > fl#34(3) B«R.Q.t T70/16 - Joshua Platt, 7 Aug 1681, fl.10(4 ) P . R . O . t T70/16 - Joshua Platt, 6 Feb 1682, fl.27.

See A.H.U.,•402 -

AFKO-EUROPEAN COMMERCE
Coast.

Instead, they sought to have imitations manufactured in England.

The

Committee of Goods had two specimens made up in 1702, and they chose the moreconvincing copy to be produced in greater quantities, (l)Imitation and substitution was a process which the English
manufacturers followed with great skill and success, and this was nowheremore marked than in the case of textiles.

In the sixteenth and early seven­teenth century, Indian and Dutch cloths were frequently mentioned as being themost useful of the imported types, and the Portuguese were in the fortunate
position in the sixteenth century of being able to supply Indian cottons. (2)Indeed, the Conselho Ultramarino remained conscious of the possibility of the
profitable interchange of goods from one sector of the Portuguese empire toanother, and with the Spanish Indies.

The global strategy for re-opening theslave trade from the Upper Guinea Coast to the Spanish Indies in 1647 involved
the sale of slaves to the New World for gold and silver, and the use of thelatterin India to procure floths, especially black cloths which were in
demand in Angola and the Upper Guinea Coast.

(3 )The English went a stepfurther, and produced the Indian cottons and Dutch linens. (4 )Two of themost frequently encountered cloths on the Upper Guinea Coast and on the West
(1) P.R.O., T 70/ 5I - to Charles Barker, 21 July 1702, f1.242;
and T70/130 - Memoranda of the Committee of Goods.
(2) Alvares de. Almada: "Rios de Guine", pp.276,374 (Mentioned both black andwhite cloth from India.)(3) See above, Ch. V, p.
(4 ) E.G. Daviess The Royal African Company, p.175

^fO

q.

AFRO-EUROPEAN COIi-ERCE
African coast were nicoanees and annabasses.

The former was originally

Indian and the latter Du\;ch, but they were produced more cheaply in England.
There was obviously a constantly expanding market for cloth on
the Upper Guinea Coast during the era of pre-colonial trade.

Nothing’ else

could account for the absorbtion not only of local supplies and of the CapeV erde manufactures, but also the amountsof cloth imported from outside.
Recalling that at the moment when the Portuguese made their appearance on theUpper Guinea Coast, the littoral peoples were adopting cotton clothing under tinfluence of the Senegambia and the Viestern Sudan, (l) one realises that there
was ample scope for such expansion. (2 )In addition to cotton, the Europeans

supplied silks, linens, woollens, baizes and serges, the last two being
particularly popular because they were both cheap and durable.

By mid­eighteenth century, when Nicholas Owen reflected on what changes had occurredamong the Africans on the coast of Sierra Leone owing to contact with theEuropeans, he thought the most significant was the alteration in theirappearance brought about by European clothes and swords. (3)Cloth, metals and metal utensils accounted for most of the tradeaarried on by the Portuguese in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

One ofthe earliest reports on Portuguese commerce in Sierra Leone, that of the Frenc'
Interloper1, Eustache de la Fosse in 1479>

mentioned tin

basins as oneof the(1) See above, Ch. IJ p./x/ and Ch. II, p .

(2 ) Cloths were not only used for clothing but were also stored up as burial
wealth.
(3) Nicholas Owen:

Journal of a Slave Dealer, p.70.

4oS
AFRO-EJROPEAN COMMERCE
main articles of the commerce, (l)A large wide basin known as a barber's bas:

was invariably enumerated among the imports of the Upper Guinea Coast in thesixteenth and seventeenth centuries; (2) and to these must be added a wide

collection of pots, plates, pans, kettles and cauldrons, made of brass, copper,
tin and pewter.

The agents of the Royal African Company in Sierra Leone foundit necessary to remind the officials in London that such utensils wereindispensable for the trade of their factories. (3)In 1703» "the Committee ofGoods in London ordered 380 pewter basins of assorted sizes for the Sherbro
factory, while 440 were requisitioned for Bence island. (4 )"Dutch knives"

were also in great demand in Sierra Leone, and the large wooden-hafted
Birmingham knives which were despatched instead did not seem to satisfy theresidents of the area*

When pressed to supply "Dutch knives" to Sierra Leone

in 1721, the Committee of Goods at first declared that it was inconvenient toplace a small order in Holland to supply Sierra Leone but they later conceded,and obtained the knives required. (5)Most of the above articles were for use in the household, but
the salt-making industry on the Upper Guinea Coast occasioned the import of a(a) "Voyage a la Cote Occidentale d'Afrique", Revue Hjgpanique II, pp.175-201(2 ) Pacheco Pereira: Eameraldo de Situ Orbis. pp.76 ,84 5
Alvares de Almadas "Rios de Guine", p.318(3) See, e.g., P.330., T70/10 - Zachary Rogers, 5 Aug 1678, fl*4(4 ) P.R.O., T70/130 - Memoranda of tine Committee of Goods(5) P.R.O.♦ T70/60 - To Plunkett,.31 Oct 1721, fl.18; and<4D&
A F B O - E D R O P M CCTMERCE

wide brass pan called a *neptune*j in which the salt was evaporated to dryness(l) This wa3 a rare instance of a European import that could he put toproductive use by the Africans, and indirectly the import of iron also fell
into this category, since it was utilised by the Africans not only for theforging of weapons, but also for agricultural implements. (2)Before the arrival of the Portuguese caravels and for some timeafter, the littoral peoples of the Senegambia and the Upper Guinea Coastobtained their supplies of iron from the Puta Djalon and the hinterland of theSenegambia. (3)Probably the first step taken by the Portuguese with regard

to this important mineral was to enter the local trade.

The 1anyados

purchased iron in the Senegambia and resold it in the coastal regions to thesouth.

This conformed to a standard pattern by which the 1any ados and later

their Afro-Portuguese descendants transferred African goods from one locality
to another, enhancing their profit at each stage, and ultimately securing
slaves and other forest products for export to Europe and the Americas. (4 )In this instance, the Portuguese 1any ados took slaves from the Upper Guinea
Coast and exchanged them for iron among the Wolofs.

The latter handed onmost of their slaves to the Moors, while the Portuguese took the iron and(1) See above, Ch. I, p. 44 .
(2 ) Andre de Fa^o: Peregrinacao. p*86, and P.R.O.. T 70/1465 - Diary of
Walter Charles.
(3) Valentim Fernandes: La C6te iSccidentale d'Afrique. pp.4®>76> Pacheco
Pereira: Esmeraldo de Situ Orbis. p.84; and Alvares de Almada: "Riosde Guine", p.354•(4 ) See below, Ch. VIII.

4 0 7
AFRQ-EUROPEAN m#IERCE
disposed of it for further captives on the Upper Guinea Coast, making a surplus
which was designed far the Spanish Americas, (l)However, some imports of iron must have reached the Upper Guinea
Coast from Europe at an early date, evq&igg a prohibitive edict from thePortuguese crown. (2)Yet, when associated with the Spanish, who had suppliesof iron ore, the Portuguese administration partially negatived this law byconceding,to the lessee of the Cape Verde-Guinea contract the right to ship
iron to the Upper Guinea Coast, provided he paid an additional sum equivalent
to 1/4 of the contract. (3 )Bids entered for the Cape Verde-Guinea 'trades1

up to I 64O all showed that the privilege of transporting iron to the Upper
Guinea Coast was sold separately from the overall lease, though to the same
merchant.

(4 )Portugal's inability to supply iron to the Upper Guinea Coast wasdemonstrated by the sharp change which came about after the 'Restoration' of
I64O.

By August 1642, the Conselho Ultramarino was advising the newPortuguese monarch to place a complete ban on the exports of iron to Guinea(1) Alvares de Almada: "Rios de Guine", p.301(2 ) A. Brasio:

Monument a

Missionaria

Africana. 2ndseries,Vol.

II - No.26 ,Manueline legislation on trade, 24 March 1514> PP>72,73(3) A. Brasio:

Monumenta

Missionaria

Africana, 2ndseries,Vol.

Ill -No.42

Relayao of Francisco de Andrade. 26 Jan 1582, p.105(4 ) A.H.U., Cabo Verde, caixa I - No. 57> bids for the contract considered by
the Conselho, 23 Jan 1616, and copy of contract awarded to Gaspar da Costa,
Jan I638.

4 £>*
AFRO-EUROPEAW COMMERCE
because Portugal lts&lf was badly in need of this metal for its own defence.
(1) Of course, the trade of the Upper Guinea Coast was never the completemonopoly of the Portuguese and the Spanish, and during the latter portion of
the sixteenth century, the English and Dutch had been welcomed by theresident

traders when they arrived with cargoes of iron.

This was pointed

out by an English ship’s captain callingat the Gambia in 1591) and two or
three decades later, the amount of iron brought by these 'strangers1 hadincreased a great deal - so much so that the governor of Cape Verde expressedfear that the market would be saturated to the detriment of slave exports.
His reasoning was that iron was the article which the Africans of the Upper
Guinea Coast most desired, and that if this demand was satisfied by the
Spaniards and the Portuguese lanyados, the numbers of slaves supplied would
then fall. (2)Subsequent events showed that the demand for iron on the Upper

Guinea Coast and in the Cacheu-Gambia area in particular, never slackened andmay wellhave increased as the seventeenth centuryprogressed.
Time and timeagain, the Conselho was informed of the fact that

the English, Dutch and French were bringing iron as one of the key goods for
successful trade on the Upper Guinea Coast, and this information was usuallycomplemented by pleas for more iron to be brought by the Portuguese merchai^.
(1) A.H.U., Cohsultas of the Conselho, Cod.30 - Minute of 14 Aug l642,fls.219~
223.
(2) A.H.U. Cabo Verde, caixa I - No.54) Memorandum on the trade of CaP© Verde,
Dec 1615.
(5 ) See, e.g., A.H.U.. Guine, caixa I - No. 51) Joao D 1Almeida, 5 EeB 1647)
p.229) and Manuel Cordeira S^tos, 1694-

4 0 ^
AFRO-EUROPEAN COMMERCE

Similarly, the agents of the Royal African Company in the Gambia found it
necessary to remind the officials in London that to trade in the Cacheu area,
they had to pay half the purchase price in iron, (l)Of the thirty-five ships despatched by the Royal African Company
to West Africa during the year 1685, all but six carried cargoes of iron,much of which was destined for the "North Parts". (2 ) 90 tons of iron weresent to the Gambia factory the following year, (3) a quantity which still
fell short of the 122 tons (10,000 bars) which agent Castle had estimated in
1683 as the annual capacity of the Cacheu market. (4 )In December 1687) the

London officials seemed to have made a special effort to increase the tonnageof iron sent to the Gambia, for they decided that the ships which usually
carried supplies to this factory were too small, and that iron should bedischarged at the Gambia by a ship bound for the Gold Coast. (5 )A few years

later, they also sent an extra tdn tons to the Sherbro factory to enable it tohandle the trade in malaguetta pepper on the adjacent coasts beyond Cape
Mount. (6)The quantity of iron brought by the Europeans to the Upper Guinea
Coast must have levelled off by the early eighteenth century.
(1

P.R.O.. T70/16 - James Castle, 20 Feb 1683, fl .46(2

K.G. Davies, The Roval African Company, p.171(3

P.R.O.. T 70/ 5O - To Alexander Cleeve, 4 June 1686, fl.10(4

P.R.O.. T70/16 - James Castle, 20 Feb 1683, fl .46(5

P.R.O.. - To Alexander Cleeve, 20 Dec 1687, fl*54(6 P.R.O., T70/50 - To Henry Gibson, 9 Feb 1691, fl.133

As the activity

AFRO-EUROPEAN COMMERCE

required to supply the European ships was pushed further and further inland, ■(l) the demand for iron lessened.

On the middle Gamhia, there had never been

any overwhelming1 desire for European iron, because the residents there could
obtain the mineral in the vicinity. (2 )When Mungo Park proceeded up thisriver, he found that at a certain point the movement of iron was still towards
the estuary, indicating quite clearly that European imports of this metal had
captured only the coastal market. (3 )On the upper reaches of the river, theinhabitants were so interested in the European article only in so far as it ws
brought in the form of useful items, for in the Futa Djalon, the mining,smelting and forging of iron continued to the end of the eighteenth century;(4 ) and this local iron was said to have been preferred by the people of Sieri
Leone for its malleability, and considered second to the European product(which was usually Swedish) only for the making of edge tools. (5)Engugh iron was brought from Europe to this region during the
centuries under discussion to warrant this mineral along with other metallic
products being placed first in order of value among th imports of the Upper
Guinea Coast; followed by cloth, and then by alchohol and weapons.

In thefinal analysis, however, what mattered was not one article as opposed toanother, but the combination in which the several categories were presented tc
the African merchants.
(1) See below, Ch. IX

fO-Z'Co(2 ) Richard Jobsons The Golden Trade, p.l65(3) Mungo Park: Travels...in the Years 1795.1796 and 1797. p.26
(4 ) C.B. Wadstrom: An Essay on Colonisation, Part I, p .41(5 ) John Matthews:

A Voyage to the River Sierra Leone, p.52

PURCHASE OF A SLAVE IN THE GEBA SERTAO
Prices in Portuguese reis
Trade Goods

In Lisbon

In Bissau

In Geba

1 . Ordinary gun

1:200

4:000

8:000

2

Ordinary swords

1 :000

3:000

8:000

2

Iron bare

2:400

4:000

S : 00Q-,

1

Case of aguardente con­taining 12 fiveinint flasks

3:600

12:000

24:000

5:760

15:000

30:0001

Barrel of gunpowder with
2 arrobas or 64 lbs.

s2

Boxes of beads

400

2:000

4:000

100

Flints300

1 :000

1 :500100

Balls (lead shot)

2
.1
11

300

1:000

3:000

4:000

Ordinary hat

200

2:000

4:000

Carafe of aguardente

220

500

• 1:000

Agulha Caoe Verde cloths

•

1:500
8:000

1
To tal

18:380'96:000 (sic)

48:500

PURCHASE OF A QUINTAL OF WAX IN GEBA
Prices in Portuguese reis

Trade Goods

In Lisbon

In Bissau

In Geba

1:500

3:000

6:000

560

1:400 •

2:800

14

Five-pint flasks ofaguardente
Ordinary Dutch knives

1

Exercise book

20

500

1:000

5

Flints

500

1:000

1

Box of beads

25
200• 2:000

4:000

Soans of bar iron (4 .5 ')360

1 :200

2: 400Large beads

20

200

3

6
2000
'■

400 ‘

Small bells (1/2 box)

150

1 :0001

Box of imitation coral200

1 :0001

Glass (1 oint)

100

1:000

1

Ordinary hat

300

1:000

2:000

1

Linen handkerchief

150

1:000

2:000

3 :535(slc)

14:80029!600

Total

i

2:000
•

4:000
2:000

I,

PURCHASE IN GEBA OF AN IVORY TUSK WEIGHING MORE THAN A QUINTAL
Prices in Portuguese reis

Trade Goods

In Lisbon

In Bissau

In Geba

1 :200

4:000

8:000

3:000

6:000

3:000

4:000

500

2:000

4:000

240

600

1 :200

4:640

12:600

23:200*1

Ordinary gun?
1

Flasks of aguardente

1:200

Agulha Cape Verde cloth

1:500

1

Flask of gunpowder
Knives

6

Total

.

The above tables are taken from Bernardino de Andrade: Planta da
Praga de Bissau (Ed. Damiao Peres) pp.65-67* Towards the end of the
18th century, when they were drawn up, 48;Q00 reis were equivalent
to 27 shillings.

./,

PURCHASE OP A SLAVE IN THE GEBA SERTAO
Prices in Portuguese reis
Trade Goods

In Lisbon

In Bissau

In Geba

1 . Ordinary gun

1 :200

4:000

8:000

2

Ordinary swords

1:000

3:000

8:000

2

Iron bars

2:400

4:000

8:000-,

1Case of aguardente con­taining 12 five-pint flasks

12:000

24:0001

Barrel of gunpowder with
2 arrobas or 64 lbs.

5:760
400

15:000

30:000

2:000

4:000

%,

2

Boxes of beads

100
100

Flints

300

1:000

0
0
LT\

Balls (lead shot)

300

1:000

1: 5002Agulha Cape Verde cloths

3:000

4:000

8:000

!
\1

Ordinary hat

200

2:000

\ 1

Carafe of aguardente
I
Total

220

500

4:000
1:000

18:38048:50096:000 (sic)

PURCHASE OF A QUINTAL OF WAX IN GEBA
Brices in Portuguese Peis

Trade Goods
3
14
1
5
1
6
2000

Five-pint flasks ofaguardente
Ordinary Dutch knives
Exercise book
FlintsBox of beads
Spans of bar iron (4.3')
Large beads

In Lisbon

In Bissau

In Geba

1:500
560
20

3:000

6:000

1:400
500

2:800

25
200

500
• 2:000

4:000

3 60
20

1 :200

2:400

200

400

1:000
1:000

150

1:000

2:000

1

Small bells (1/2 box)
Box of imitation coral

200

1Glass (1 pint)

100

1:000
1:000

2:000

1

Ordinary hat

300

1:000

2:000

1

Linen handkerchief

150

1:000

2:000

Total

3;535(sic)4:000

29 i600

1 .4 :8 p 0 (sie)PURCHASE IN GEBA OF AN IVORY TUSK WEIGHING MORE THAN A QUINTAL
Prices in Portuguese reis

Trade Goods

In Lisbon*1

Ordinary gun

1 :200

3
1

Flasks of aguardente

1:200

Agulha Cape Verde cloth1

Flask of gunpowder

6

KnivesTotal

In Bissau

In Geba

4:000

8:000

3:000

6:000

1:500

3:000

4:000

500

2:000

4:000

240

600

1 :200

12:600

23:200

.

4:640
J

♦

The above tables are taken from Bernardino de Andrade: Planta da
Praca de Bissau (Ed. Damiao Peres) pp.65-67* Towards the end of the
18th century, when they were drawn up, 48;Q00 reis were equivalent
to 27 shillings.
J4 liAPRO-EUROPEAU com m erce

For every slave, every quintal of wax, every ton of camwood, theAfricans expected a variety of goods which could range from pins to firearms,
and which were often demanded in a fixed combination.

The accompanying

tablesrepresent the assortments which ould be tendered to Africans in the GebaCorubal area in the latter part of the eighteenth century.

They were drawn

up by Bernardino de Andrade, who had many years of experience in the region,
Considering for the moment the left hand columns only, it is clear that all
five categories of goods were involved?
cloth and metal.

namely, trinkets, weapons, alchohol,

In a sense, each category counted equally, because its

absence from the stock of the trader wishing to make the purchase would makehim 1ill-assorted*, and incapable of concluding a deal, if there werecompetitors who had all of th goods demanded.

This explains why no concept

so pre-occupied the European traders on the coast as that of the ,lproper:.
as3ortmentH of trade goods.
The price of each European article in the assortment wascalculated in a straightforward manner.

The basic factor was its cost in

Europe, and the Committee of Goods of the Royal African Company, for instance,
which had buyers in England and several European countries, purchased its
goods for the West African trade at the lowest possible prices, (l)It isto be notiod that Be Andrade cited each product as having one price in Lisbon,
a second and higher price in Bissau where the goods were unloaded, and in the
Geba hinterland a third price which was higher still.

With an average 100^

mark-up at each stage, this obviously represented not only the costs of(l) P.R.O.« T70/128 - Memoranda of the Committee of Goods, and T70/130,
1703-1719.

AFRO -EUROPEAN COMMERCE

distribution and services, but included a built-in profit margin.

Equally

obviously the price of African goods to tbs European buyer was wrapped up ineach bundle of trade goods, though the computation of the cost of slaves andother African produce was more devious than it appears at first glance.
ResidentEuropean traders approached the business of buying andselling on the Upper Guinea Coast by ascertaining the model assortments.

Eachitem in those assortments was given a valuation in European currency, and one
arrived at the price of the African article.

At Geba in the latter eighteenth

century, according to De Andrade*s arithmetic, one slave cost 18?380 reis, or
48:500 reis or 96?000 reis, depending on whether one used the price list of
Lisbon, Bissau or the sertao respectively.

4 s800 reis was then equivalent to

27 shillings, (l) so that the slave was supposedly obtained for an assortmentof trade goods bought in Portugal for £ 5 .6s. or thereabouts.

That assortment

was valusd at £13.10s on the island of Bissau, and it doubled in value when
carried into the bush.

The prices of the assortments advanced for thepurchase of 1 quintal of wax and one quintal of prime ivory also underwent
similar mutations. However, the results obtained from these culculations weresometimes^meant to be taken as the ceiling prices, but they were certainly not averages.
Such an understanding would considerably deflate the price of slaves and otherproducts on the African coast.
There was a certain elasticity in every prescribed assortment,
allowing both the African seller and the European buyer to suggest that one or
the other of the items on the list should be replaced by another - a process(1 ) C.B. Wadstrom: An Essay on Colonisation. Part I, p.141

4WAERO-EUROPSAU CCS-MERCE

known as •rooming'1•

It was the job of the European trader as he saw it topractice such •rooming1 as would reduce his payments; that is to say, by
replacing' the more expensive items by the cheaper.

Often this was not difficu.'

because the .Africans themselves were neither knowledgeable about the price ofeach European product nor concerned about that factor.

At any given time, theAfrican seller may simply have preferred two more carafes of aguardente\

instead of two swords, as indicated in De Andradefs table of the cost of aslave.

Our informant makes this explicits"very often a slave turns out tobe much cheaper, because those who sell them ask for certain goods, which areless expensive, and the purchasd is made at virtually half of the exemplar
cited", (l)toOf course, the European trader was also alive/the possibilityof prevailing upon the African to accept a substitution, even if this was not
the original intention of the African seller.

Around Cape Mount at the end of

the eighteenth century, the European traders were always anxious to replaceguns and fneptunes* with cheaper articles.

If ivory was bought in quantities

requiring the payment of ten guns among the assorted goods, then the European
buyer might persuade the African seller to accept six guns, and •room* theother four.

Gunpowder, however, was one item that could not be •roomed1.

Understandably enough, there was no substitute far gunpowder, and the tradein this product grew so great that keg-making became a subsidiary industry
in Sierra Leone, supervised apparently by the white and mulatto residents.

(i) Bernardino de Andrade:

Planta da Praca de Bissau. P*65

4>r
AFRO-SDBOP.KAH COMM?rh?C!'Fi

The kegs they produced were considered as good as those from England, and they
were cheaper. (i)Newton's Journal gave a typical picture of the intricacies of the
trade system based on the assortment.

In 1750, he was assembling his slavecargo by making' several purchases at various points on the coast of Sierra
Leone;

and among his competitors following the same procedurewas one Captain

Ellis, who had come down from the Gold Coast with an excellent assortment.
Newton wrote on the 29th October, "But believe shall be forced to go from
Captain Ellis wherever we meet, his large gold-coast cargoe enabling him tobear away all the trade here from a vessel that has only a common assortment".
An entry for the 14th December showed that Newtonvas bargaining astutely,
forcing the local traders to take "a more equal assortment than they have
hitherto done".

Ngwton was still on the coast the following May;

time his trade goods were depleted and ill-balanced.

by which

The net price at which

he procured his slaves increased, "because I have many things on board
which will not sell any where and in generall poorly assorted".

In particular

he was short of both beads and kettles so that when he obtained six slaves
on the 4th May, he gave only seven kettles and 21 lb of beads, which were not
only below the usual amount offered, but such a low proportion was dis­advantageous to Newton himself, since these were relatively cheaper items.(2)Because of the process of adjusting the assortment, the priceof any African good was a variable which could fluctuate between wide limits.
(1) B.M., Add.Ms.12131, Papers relating to Sierra Leone, 1794-96(2) John Newtons

Journal of a Slave Trader, pp.13,24,50*

AFRJ-EtJROPEAN COMMERCE

Canot evaluated a group of forty slaves purchased from the Fulas in the"Rivers of the South" in the early nineteenth century at 1,600 dollars,that is at 40 dollars each.

let when large amounts of tobacco (an importantnineteenth century import) were put into the assortment, the price was as
low as 18 dollars, while the cost of a slave calculated in gunpowder was
only 20 dollars (l) - half of the original quotation, as De Andrade hadsuggested.

Furthermore, the prices cited by the Europeans were invariably

related to prime products, and in the case of slaves this made a very great
difference indeed.
Slaves were appraised after the manner of livestock.

Age andheight were the elementary considerations, the two being in any case physio­
logically related.
about 4*«The dividing line between a man and a boy was round

When Newton arrived in Sierra Leone on his second slaving voyage

in 1752, his instructionswere to secure a cargo of slaves who were all above
the height of 4 f2u. (2 )In giying evidence later to the Lords* Committee on

the Slave Trade, the vital statistics of Sierra Leone slaves, with which hesupplied them, were height 4 *6" and age 16-30 years. (3)let Newton himself

had several entries in his diary where both age and height were considerablyles3 than this norm.
Both the records of the Royal African Company and the Report of
the Lores* Committee yield further evidence

on this point.

The Englisji(1) Captain Canot: Adventures of an African Slaver,p.90(2) John Newton: Journal of a Slave Trader, p.72
(3) Report of

he Lords of the Committee. 1789 - Part I, ’Slaves1

4>7
AFRO -EUROPEAN COMMERCE

trading Company usually suggested a range of about 25 to 35 or 40 years, (l)Similarly, John Matthews indicated that no old people or children below theheight of 3*9" were purchased if it could be avoided, and that the bulk of the
cargo ranged between 15-40 years of age.

But James Penny, who served in a

Sierra Leone slave factory in 1768 gave a lower estimate of 9-50 years; (2 ) and
it is clear that while the slavers would have preferred older youths and young
adults, they veiy often fell back upon children, especially since old people
were definitely taboo.

Besides, there are occasional references to traders

who arrived specifically to obtain a very young- cargo. (3)As far as theintrinsic importance of age selection is concerned, it appears that a muchlarger number of children and very young persons were taken into the holds ofthe slave ships, and this had a definite bearing on prices.
The Royal African Company was prepared to pay £6 for its adultslaves m d £4 for children between 8 and 16 years, according to a memorandumof 1700.

(4 )Matthews informed the Lords* Committee that the price paid forchildren of 3*9” was about half that for the adults. (5)as a rider to age and height.

Then sex was added

Canot explained that "if the woman offered in(1) P»R.Q*« T 70/ 5I - To Thomas Corker, 3'Oct 1699, fl.50, and to Pinder, 7March 1700, f1.110.
(2 ) Report of the Lords of the Committee. 1789. - Part I, ’Slaves*(3) P.R.O.. T 70/1465 - Diary of Walter Charles, 1728, and Captain Canot:
Adventures of an African Slaver, p.
(4) P»R»0»« T70/51 - To Pinder, 7 March 1700
(5) Report of the Lords of the Committee. 1789 - Part I, ’Slaves*.

4

AFRO-EUROPEAN COMMERCE*the market exceeded 25 years of age, we made a deduction of 20fo, b^jft ifthey were stanchly built, and gave promising tokens for the future, we tookthem up at the price of an able-bodied man", (l)Much earlier, reports from

Barbados suggested that women from 13 to 22'fetched £8 or £10 more per headthan those in the age group 26-32, so that obviously the slave traders madean attempt to procure only girls and young women." (2 )The proportion of

females taken by slavers visiting Sierra Leone seemed to have been fairly
constant at l/3rd of the cargoes. (3 )Having made allowances for the main physical characteristicsof the slaves, deductions to the price were forthcoming if any blemishes
were discovered.

Some were obvious - like 'fallen-breasted* women, fromwhom the traders shied away if possible.

But for smaller defects, thedetailed examination of skin and orifices Was necessary.
trader put its

As one slave"they are sold in open market on shore, and examined by us

in like manner as our Brother Trade do beasts in Smithfield". (4 )they set their final price.

And then"If the slave does not measure 3 f> or if it has

any defect, however slight it may be, (and whether hereditary or acquired)(1) Captain Canot:

Adventures of an African Slaver, p.91

(2 ) P.R.O., T 70/ 5I - To John Brown (Gold Coast) 29, July 1703, f1*360.
(3) This was the proportion the Royal African Company expected.
T70/51 - To Thomas Corker, 3 Oct 1699, fl*50.

See P.R.O.,

According to Matthews

and Norris, this was the proportion realised in the ei^teenth century.
See Report of the Lords of the Committee. 1789 - Part I, 'Slaves*(4 ) John Atkins:

A Voyage to Guinea, p. 178

41 1
AFRO-EUROPEAN COMMERCE
we do not pay more than 20:000 reis as the price in the sertao."

(l)

This

20:000 reis represented the down-scaling of the original 96:000 reis; thatis to say, from about £27 for a prime adult male slave in the bush whenthe most expensive goods were placed in the notional assortment to lessthan £5 for the actual purchase of a child or slave with defects.
also represented the down-scaling of humanity - white and black.

(l) Bernardino de Andrade:

Planta da Prapa de Bissau, p.66.

It

AFRO EUROPEAN COMMERCE

PART II - "THE CLASH OF CULTURES"

Uh bargaining over each individual purchase, the Africans and theEuropeans were seeking some common ground between their two contrasting
conceptions of the economic process.

It has been recognised that the two

economies did differ fundamentally, and that over the centuries of trade
there was some approximation of the one to the other,

K.G. Davies, forexample, made the general observation that ,!when one civilisation tradeswith another, their values become roughly assimilated"jand he added thatas far as the West African trade was concerned, the impression left by therecords of the Royal African Company was that the pattern of trade wasdominated by the needs and methods of the Africans, (l)This theme wassubsequently taken up by Karl Polanyi, using the Gold Coast as his model.
He refers to the African trading system as one of "gainless barter", where
the principle of the exchange of equivalents was fundamentaL;

while theEuropeans wished to conduct "market trading", aimed at making a monetary
profit on price differentials.

In Polanyi*s opinion also, it was theEuropean syst&n which adjusted to the African. (2) Evidence taken from theUpper Guinea Coast helps to substantiate as well as to modify this inter­
pretation.
(1) K.G. Daviess

The Royal African Company, p.255*(2) K* Polanyi:"Sortings and *ounce trade* in the West African Slave Trade"in The Journal of African History. Yol. Y, No. 3, 19^4> pp.381-393*

AH
AERO-EUROPEAN COMMERCE.
When the Eulas exchanged their salt for rice from the people of Port Loko,
the operation went very smoothly, because they bartered equal amounts of theone for the other, (l) 11 It has been discerned that the Djolas not only refrainfrom the exploitation of exchanges for profit, but they regard this as ignoble.
contenlng that an honest man ought to live on the proceeds of his labour.

What

the Djolas regard as just is the exchange of measure for measure - a basket ofif,.

rice for a basket of groundnuts, a pot ofwine for a pot of oil. (2)This was,of course, typical pre-capitalist ethics, and it was the fundamental principleof the barter economy, though one in exchange for one could become two in
exchange for one, or any other simple fixed equivalent.

L.Y. Thomas, who

made the above observations on Djola economic behaviour, also noted that among
the Dftolas of Eogny, a cloth was measured against a number of hens, and anumber of cloths against a cow;
recent innovation.

and he suspected that this was a relatively(3) The use of cloth as a fixed measure represents the"incipient monetisation" that is usually found in a barter economy, allowing
one convenient item to ^serve as a common denominator in exchanges.

Its

introduction among the Djolas of Eogny is probably to be attributed to thegreat influence of the Mandingas in

the region, for even when theDjolas ofthe

Casamance became involved in the trade generated bytheEuropeans by the end of

the eighteenth century, the Mandingas acted as intermediaries. (4)(1) T. Winterbottom:

An Account ofthe Native A-pricans of Sierra Leone.

(2) L.V. Thomas: Les Diola. Yol. 1, p.283(3) Ibid: loc.cit.,(4) Mungo Park:

Travels ..in the Years 1795.1796 and 1797.

4^2.
AFRO-EUROPEAM COMMERCE.
The grasp of the commercial process which the Mandingas displayed on theGambia, and which they utilised to make a profit from the Djolas was no doubt
partly acquired in their centuries of trade with the Europeans, but to someextent it must have preceded the European advent.

Certainly, the economic

activity in the Western Sudan was not "gainless barter", and the Mande on theUpper Guinea Coast brought with them the commecial spirit of their homeland.
The differences among tribes even on this relatively small section of thecoast go towards indicating that one should tread extremely delicately whengeneralising about 1African1 economic behaviour.

Nevertheless, it is tolerab]

accurate to circumscribe the littoral non-Mande peoples of this region within
Polanyi's terminology, bearing in mind that the features displayed by the
Djolas until modern times provide a useful indication of the nature of theeconomies of the other tribes of the Upper Guinea Coast in the fifteenth andsixteenth centuries, since the Djolas retain much of what is 'traditional* and*indigenous *•The extent that the commercial world of the Africans of the Upper
Guinea Coast differed from that of the Europeans was mirrored primarily in thelack of sophisticated measurement among the former, since all that mattered wasa simple unit which could serve as the standard of barter;and it is by nomeans surprising that the Africans should have utilised their own measures on
first meeting the Europeans, and those measures carried with them a conceptionof the process of exchange.

A striking example is provided by the trade inmalaguetta peppers along the coast of what is now Liberia.

The toponym•Cess', which makes its appearance in more than one place on that coast, is a

4 2 . 3

AFRO-KIJROPEAN COMMERCE
distortion of the Portuguese word cesto, meaning a *pannier* or "large
basket";for that was the manner in which the malaguetta peppers were b r o u g h t

for sale, (l)They were not only c ontainers but also units valued equallyirrespective of contents.

As L.V. Thomas realised in the case of the Djolas*the insistence on the exchange of a basket of rice for a basket of groundnuts

was really lop-sided if judged by the European understanding of price, (2) andthis serves to emphasise the wide gulf between the two systems.
On the Upper Guinea Coast, the employment of the basket in thekola tr .de provided a counterpart to the malaguetta of Liberia.

It was De

Almada who first referred to the long baskets in which the Africans measured
and sold the kola nuts as cokquas. (3 )As described by Lemos Coelho, they

were long narrow wicker containers, holding several thousand nuts, while
there was a smaller basket called a molla. which was also in use and which
had a capacity of about 500 kola nuts. (4 )Both ivory and camwood were heavy products, which were usuallymentioned only in quintals or hundredweights.
purchased by weight.
the tusk.

In reality, they were not

Ivory was measured by placing a stick in the hollow of

The distance between the tip of the tusk and the furthermost pointof the hollow was then spanned.
on the lenth of solid ivory.

In effect, therefore, each tusk was assessed

Whether this was a prior African practice, orwhether the lanpados made this arrangement with the Africans is not clear, but(1) A. Texeira da Motas Toponimos de Origem Portuguesa na Costa Ocidental deAfrica (Bissau 1950) PP*233-238(2) L.V. Thomas: Les Diola. Vol. 1, p.283(3) Alvares de Almada: "Rios de Guine", p.284(4 ) Lemos Coelho: Duas Describes da Guine, p.62

the length of tusk so estimated appeared to have had a fairly constant relatioi
ship to the weight, facilitating the eventual transfer to European measures.
According to tiemos Coelho, the tusks selected varied in weight between 52 lb.
and 192 lb* with the maximum weight corresponding to a length of 5 spans or
45".
The measurement of camwood was even more rough and ready*Asmall rectangular stockade was erected and camwood logs deposited within it
until it was filled*

It was thenemptied, the wood handed over to theEuropean buyer, and the stockade refilled.

In this instance, the specifica­

tions were European, the space being intended to hold one quintal of camwood,(l) The camwood was cut into sections of four to five feet in length, (2) sothat the number of logs would also have provided a rough guide to weight.
Having measured the camwood and ivory, it was customary for the resident
Portuguese traders to quote its price in ’’country cloths” or sometimes in salt
since the Portuguese themselves carried salt inland from the coast. (5)Forevery 9" of solid tusk, for instance, the residents on the middle Gambia would
accept two cloths or the equivalent in salt, which was about two bushels. (4 )Undoubtedly, however, the most outstanding measure used on theUpper Guinea Coast was the iron bar*That this resulted from the African

cultural bias towards the use of this metal has been recognised, but the iron(1) Ibid: For ivory, see p. 24 and camwood p.65.

(2) J. Labat: Voyages duChevalier des Marchais en Guinee, p.106(3) See above, Ch. I, p , ^ (Jt(4) Lemos Coelho:t U l^JL

Duas Descricoes da Guine, p.24^

AFRO-EUROPEAN COMMERCE
bar itself has been wrongly considered as a European introduction, (l) Whenthe Portuguese 1anyados entered the local trade in iron in tie Senegambia andthe Upper Guinea Coast, they found that the Africans forged the metal in a very
distinctive shape.

It was a narrow bar about 9” long, two fingers thick at

one end and three fingers at the other. (2)This was the original "country bar

which must have been not simply raw material for weapons and implements, but avery convenient circulating- standard in exchanges^not only among the Mandingas

and the Susus who manufactured it, but also among the Wolofs and those tribes o:the Upper Guinea Coast who were in closest contact with the Mande.

It issignificant that even cloths were ultimately evaluated on the basis of the iron\bar.

Panos sakes sold at one iron bar each, three bontans were exchanged fortwo bars, and barafulas for three bars. (5)It must have been the local

practice which provided the Europeans with the idea of using the iron bar as aunit of currency in coastal profit-and-loss accounts.
Iron was shipped to the Upper Guinea Coast in narrow flattenedbars, each ton comprising between 80 to 84 such pieces, so that each weighed
between 26 and 28 lb.

This at any rate was the practice of the Royal African

Company, (4) and it appears to have been followed by all other traders on the
coast.

Thus, the Portuguese reckoned 58 bars to ten quintals or 1,000 lb.,

(1) K. Polanyi: Op.cit.,(2) Alvares de Almadas"Rios de Guine", p.281(5) John Ogilbys Africa, p.556(4 ) F.R.O., T70/78 - Minutes of the Court of Assistants, 1678-81 andT70/150 - Memoranda of the Committee of Goods, 1705**1719*

4^>
AFR 0-EUROPEAN COMMERCE
giving 26.5 lb. per "ship’s bar", (l)According to a Portuguese source, thelength was 18 palmos or 13.5*> (2) though sarbot estimated it at 16 to 18*, (3)This was then cut up into several sections on the coast by African blacksmiths.
Jobson specified that the length of each was 12" at the Gambia estuary, butthat further upriver the African traders accepted 8". (4) At the end of theeighteenth century, Labarthe also gave two estimates of the length of the smallbar - one of 8-9" and the other of 12".

He claimed that it weighed 27-28 lb.

(5) but here he was obviously referring to the longer "ship’s bar".

These

discrepancies can be ironed out to yield a single figure for the weight of thesmall bar.

In the case of the Portuguese, the "ship’s bar" would have produced

18 sections, each 9" long; while the English and French would have had 18 sec­
tions, each 12" long;
1.5 lb.

but the sections would in both cases weigh approximately

This was the nearest approximation to the article already familiar to

the Africans of the Senegambia and the Upper Guinea Coast, the only difference
being that the European product was mass-produced, and so had to be symmetricalas distinct from the iron rods forged individually by African blacksmiths.
Thus, when the small iron bar was described as a "country bar", this is to betaken in the same sense as "country cloth" or "country lavft namely, as some­thing which originated in Africa.
(1) A.H.TJ., Guine, mayo X - Table of the regular prices of goods in Bissau 1799
(2) A.H.U., Cabo Verde, caixa VI - Antonio Salgado, 15 May 1698.
(3) John Barbot: Description of Uorth and South Guinea. 15 May 1698.
(4) Richard Jobson:

The Golden Trade, p.l65(5) P* Labarthe: Voyage au Senegal, p.236

4^~AFRO-BUP.OPijAJT COi-jlWCE
All the points raised so far authenticate tie claim that AfroEuropean commerce in West Africa involved a considerable adaptation on thepart of the Europeans; but there was more to it than that.

In the firstplace, one must examine the tensions which preceded assimilation, and which
in many instances remained unr. solved.

In the second place, to assert thatthe process of adjustment was entirely one-sided is to overstate the case anddistort the true situation.
Since the Afro-European connection represented a meeting of twosocieties at two completely different stages of production, this incorporated
certain fundamental tensions into the partnership which was formed between
the Europeans and the African rulers.

The attitudes and expectations of theone were alien to those of the other.

As contended earlier, the initial

response of the African ’hosts* was in terms of hospitality;(l) but theEuropean trader in search of profit could not reciprocate in the same spirit.
At the end of the eighteenth century, Smeathman, an official of the Sierra
Leone Company, wrote a stringent criticism of customary hospitality as hefound it in that area.

"The law of hospitality is obstructive of industry.

If there is provision in the country, a man who wants it has only to find out
who has got any, and he must have his share.

If he enters any man’s houseduring his repast, and gives him the usual salutation, the man must invite
him to partake.

Thus, whatever abundance a man may feet by assiduity, will beshared by the lazy;and thus they seldom calculate for more than necessaries.

But the laws of hospitality are not restrained to diet.
(i) See above, Ch. Ill, p«/£if-

A common man cannot

4-rg
AFRO-EDROPEAIT COMMENCE
quietly enjoy a spare shirt or a pair of trousers.

Those who are too lazy toplant or hunt are also too lazy to trade, and begging is not disgraceful, so ti

if an industrious man gets a spare shirt or utensils he will be teased to deatl
for it, and he must not refuse or he must talk the palaver."(l)The above is a beautiful set-piece of the moral terminology ofcapitalist accumulation - the fassiduous* and the ’industrious* will inherit

the earth, while those who do not share grace are the ones who were too lazy tc
plant or tr.-:de.

^ts value here is that it supports the hypothesis that fromthe outset certain tensions would have been inherent in the 1anyado-chief
relationship.

For one thing, the European traders took great exception to

the constant demands for trifling items.

Taken as a whole, they could

represent a frittering away of profits; but even where they had minimal
financial significance, the very haphazard nature of the requests frustrated
the Europeans who had to make profit-and-loss accounts* and foresee theircommitments. (2) Like Smeathman, most Europeans who visited or were familiar
with the Upper Guinea Coast invariably felt constrained to mention that theAfricans "seldom calculate for more than necessaries": namely, the material
needs of the present and tbs immediate future. (3 )This was clearly one of(1) C.B. Wadstrom: An Essay on Colonisation, p.202 (Letters from Dr. Smeathman
to Dr. Knowles 1785)(2) This is what frustrated Nicholas Ownn, especially since he had otherexpenses.

Lee, The Journal of a Slave Dealer. p.4&.

(3) See, E.g., John Atkins: A Voyage to Guinea, p.50; Nicholas Owen: Journalof a Slave Dealer, pp. 31,32 and T. Winterbottom: An Account of the Native
Africans of Sierra Leone, p.45*

4^9
AFR0-EUR0P3AN C a M C E
the issues on which the two cultures were at odds*

Linked with this was thefact that they had two differing conceptions of time.

The European traders

were most impatient of the palavers1 which could arise for an infinite varietyof reasons, apart from the one given hy Smeathman.

It must have been difficult

indeed to reconcile the leisurely and exhaustive •palavers1 with the frenzied
regard for the clock, which is the hall-mark of capitalist discipline, (l)To say that the fundamental contradictions b etween the two
cultures resolved themselves into European compliance with African ways andneeds is to select only certain mechanical features of the trade.

The African

subsistence and barter economy was different from theEuropean capitalist
economy not simply in its mechanics, but in ethos and concept.

Calculated

activity oriented towards the accumulation of profits on price differentials- this the Europeans on the West African coast quite obviously never relinquished for "gainless barter" a la Africana. If at times they appeared tobend before the opposed African value system it was only so as to pick up
their profits.
The very example of the iron bar can be pursued further to demon­
strate that, having selected this article because of its use value, and its
conventional utility among the Africans of the Upper Guinea Coast, theEuropean traders transformed it into a tool of their own commercial system.
As far as the records of the Royal African Company indicate, one ton of iron.
(l) Evidence of irritation with the leisurely pace at which the Africans
conducted commerce comes from John Newtons Journal of a Slave Trader, p.37
and T. Wintcrbottom: An Account of the Native Africans' of Sierra Leone.

AFRO-EUROPEAN C O E R C E
fluctuated in price around £13 to £15. (l)When divided into 80 or more

"ship's bars" each section thus cost between 3s and 3s 9d.

This was then cu$

up into 18-20 "country bars", but at no time was the latter the basis for
European profit-and-loss accounts, being too small in value.

It was the"ship's bar" which was marked-up automatically on the coast*
Polanyi cited
his iron(2)

the example of Captain Thomas Phillips, who boughtbars in London at 3s. 6d., andsold them on theGold Coast at 7s.6d*

According to De Andrade, the 27* bar of iron

was worth 6s.3d. in Lisbon,

and it was quoted at 11s.3d. in Bissau, and 22s.6d. in the bush. (3)Thoughthe Royal African Company imported its iron from Sweden, its prices were rathei
more conservative.

Davies pointed to an example in the Gambia ledger of aconsignment of 2,000 bars of iron rated in the invoices as £398*4s«, andrendered as 1,327 bars of account. (4) Each bar of iron was thus marked-up
to about 6s., and considered a "bar of account".

This was in effect thetransition from iron bar as object to 'bar1 as an accounting unit.

Becauseiron predominated in the ships' cargoes in the seventeenth century, itwas
feasibleto give the whole value of thethe marked-up price of the

cargo in nominal'bars', derived fromiron bars. Consequently, the accounts of thefactories of the Royal African Company in Sierra Leone and the Gambia were
(1) P.R.O.. T70/78 - Minut s of the Court of Assistants, 1678-81, and T70/128,
T70/l30 - Memoranda of the Committee of Goods.
(2) K. Polanyi: Op.cit.
(3) See Accompanying tables.
(4) K.G. Davies: The Ro.yal African Company, p.238

A
APRO-EUROPBAN COMMERCE
kept in‘bars’, shillings and pence, (l)The 'bar1 asa unit in profit-and-loss accounts was vaiable. It

was inherited by the Royal African Company from the Gambia Adventurers at
5s.6d., (2) but rose to 6s. shortly afterwards. (3)In 1714, an entry of ”22bars 5s.4d.” disclosed that the 'bar1 was greater than 5s.4&. (4)Eight years

later, however, the 'bar1was down to 5s. (5) Ihese fluctuations were partly
induced from the Europeanside by the rise and fall of prices in Europe,

especially the price of iron; but another factor leading to inconstancy was theAfrican evaluation of European products.

One string1 of white beads may havebeen accepted by the Bijagos as the equivalent of a"country bar"ofiron; (but in reality those beads cost the Europeans less than the iron, and the samekind of comparison could be made for all the objects of the assortment.

Indrawing up his accounts, Nicholas Owen stuck to the system of entering thevalue of the 'bar* for each separate manufacture.

This baffled the editor of

his Journal, who thought it inconsistent that the 'bar* counted in beads shouldbe 3s.4d., while in relation to knives it was 4s.6d. (7) For Owen and other(1) There was some discrepancy caused by the accounts being kept in both
Sterling and 'bars'.

The accountants in London had to insist on the uni­

form practice of using 'bars' only.

See, e.g.,P.R.0.1 T70/5O - To Joshua

Platt, 3 Oct 1688, fl.85(2) P.R.O.. T70/36O - Bence Island Accounts(3) P»R.O.. T70/108 - Inside front cover, dated around1683.
(4 ) P.R.O.. T70/590 - York Island Accounts.

(5) P.R.O.,T70/60 - To Archebald and Scott,25 July1722,

fl.30(6) P. Labarthej Voyage au Senegal, p.236(7) Nicholas 0wnn: Journal of a Slave Dealer, p.4& and editor's note.

4 3X
AFRO-EURQPEAN COMMER C3

European traders, what mattered was not the intelligibility of accounts to an
outside party, but the knowledge that it was cheaper to pay 'bars1 of beads
rather than 'bars1 of knives.

This what lay behind a statement such as "thebars came excessive dear", which was Newton's comment when he was asked tomake up his assortment with trade goods which were realtively highly priced*(i)

For the sake of accuracy, it seems to have been necessary that ths

bar of account, which was initially quoted in European currency on the basis oJ
the cost of iron, should be modified to constitute a more realistic represen­tation of the African market situation on the Upper Guinea Coast.

The

directors of the Royal African Company required of their resident agents in
Sierra Leone that "they must put a value (the current price of the country) on
every thing they either buy or sell". (2)At the same time, the London

accountants of the Royal African Company and the agents on the Upper Guinea
Coast engaged in debate over the fixing of the "bar rate".

The former wrote hJuly 1722 that "as to the rate of bars, we desire they may be continued at 5s..
and for the Accounts being sent home regularly we must insist upon it, sinceotherwise we shall never be able to know in what posture our affairs are".(3)That they should never be able to know the posture of their affairs was thefervent hope of most of the employees in Africa, who tried their best to
confuse the London accountants.

In 1724? there was a directive to reduce the(1) John Newton: Journal of a Slave Trader, p.13
(2) P.R.O.. T70/51 - Accountants memorandum, Aug 1702, fl.251(3) P.R.O.« T70/60 - To Archebald and Scott, 25 July 1722, fl,30.

AERO-SPROPEAtT COtf-IBRCE

value of the nominal bars from 5s* to 5s., but the Sierra Leone agents countart
by arguing that this feat of conversion would require trained accountants* (l)The implication was that the higher the rate at which the ’bar* was fixed, thegreater was the margin of profits which remained in the pockets of enterprising
employees*

Ultimately, the ’bar* was devalued, probably because of trade goods

being manufactured much more cheaply in Europe.

Vadstrom, who recognised theshifting nature of this fictitious currency, attributed to it a notional valueof about 5s. in 1795> (2) while on the Gambia it was then currently valued atonly 2s. (5)As it finally emerged out of the invoices anl profit-and-loss
accounts of traders and trading companies on the Upper Guinea Coast, the ’bar1
was an accounting tool, devised to overcome the limitations of the barterto
process. The need for such a device was a testimony both/the clash of
cultures, as well as to the fact that European adjustment did not signify anacceptance of economic standards on tb Upper Guinea Coast.
Rather surprisingly, Polanyi seems tohave inferred that profits
from the Afro-European trade awaited the coming of more sophisticated account­ing devices. (4)In a complex industrial and commercial context, ’slick1

accounting techniques can obscure taxable earnings, but they never create(1) P.R.O,r T70/4 - Archebald, 20 April 1724
(2 )C.B. Wadstromi An Essay on Colonisation* Part2, p.56

(5) Mungo Parks Travels...in the Years 1795* 1796/\"

and 1797*p.28(4) K. Polanyi: Sortings and ’ounce trade* in theWest African Slave Trade",in Journal of African History. Vol. V, Wo. 5

4-2>^
AFRO-EOROPB'JCT COMMERCE
profits, and on the West African coast the most primitive of accounting tech­niques must not detract from the fact that profits were "being realised on ascale which those who were engaged in the trade found highly satisfactory,
from Valentim Fernandes and Pacheco Pereira, through De Almada, Villault andCoelho to Nicholas Owen, there were frank avowals of the profitability of the
trade on tte Upper Guinea Coast, with profits running at levels of 200^ andmore.

Nicholas Owen made the boldest statement in this respects"I havefound no place in all these several countries of England, Ireland, America,
Portugal, the Caribes, the Cape de Verd, the Azores and all the places I havebeen in, I say I have found no place where I can enlarge my fortune so soon as
where I now live". (i)As indicated in discussing the affairs of the Royal African
Company in Sierra Leone in the seventeenth century, the commerce in products
such as camwood and ivory was considered more remunerative than the slave
trade under certain circumstances. (2)However, for the most part West Africa

trade in this epoch was synonymous with the Atlantic slave trade; and by theirchoice of slaves above all other commodities, the European traders indicatedquite clearly where the greatest profits lay.

Newton, when questioned by the

Parliament-ry Committee on the Atlantic slave trade, replied that "it was
generally considered as a sort of lottery in which every adventurer hoped togain a prize". (5) To this one must add that there were a remarkable number(1) Nicholas Owen: Journal of a Slave Dealer, pp.9719®
(2) See above, Ch. VI^(3) John Newton: Journal of a Slave Trader, p.81 (Note)AFRB-SQR0E5.AN COH-BRCEof winning tickets.

Besides, in estimating the profits made by the Europeansfrom theslave trade on the Upper Guinea Coast it is essential to bear in mind
always that this area and the West African coast as a whole was not the sector
in which the most profits were accumulated.

As K.G. Davies remarked, "even at

its height in the eighteenth century, the African trade derived its importance
not from its absolute volume but from its connection with the commerce of theWest Indies and America", (l)In pursuit of the desired level of profits, the Europeans did notregard themselves as bound by such humdrum considerations as honesty and fairplay, and the Africans reacted adversely to this attitude.

De Almada admitted

that familiarity with the Portuguese bred contempt on the part of the Africans(2) and subsequently other European observers confirmed this, with John Newton
examining the process at some length.

The Africans, he explained, were viewed

as persons to be robbed with impunity. Eveiy art was employed to deceive themachieved mostand the European trader who hxdxmsdx^xxiiEasdsrxxf in this respect had most to
boast of.

No article was delivered without t ampering - the alchohol was

adulterated with water, false heads were placed in the kegs that contained the
gunpowder, and lengths were cut from the middle of the cloths where themissing portions were not readily noticed.

"The natives are cheated, in thenumber, weight, measure, or quality of what they purchase, in every possible
wayj

and by habit and emulation, a marvellous dexterity i^ acquired in these(1) K.G. Davies: The Royal African Company, p.38
(2) See above, Ch. Ill, p. n £4^6
AFRO-HOROPBAN COMMERCE.

practices.

And thus the natives in their turn, in proportion to their commercewith the Europeans,... become jealous, insidious, and revengeful."

To complete

the vicious circle, the unpleasantness and dishonesty of the African rulers thegoaded the European traders to commit further acts of chicanery, (l)In no sphere, therefore, was the Afro-European commercial connec­

tion static, and the process of mutual adjustment on the Upper Guinea Coast cai
be illustrated in numerous instances.

Yet a knowledge of the minutiae of

trade on the Upper Guinea Coast and in West Africa as a whole is not enough tolay bare the essence of the Afro-European relationship.
initiative and the momentum came from Europe.

Historically, theIt was the European commercial

system which had been expanded to embrace the African barter economy, and toassign to it certain specific roles in global production.

This meant theaccumulation of capital from trading in Africa, and above all from thepurchase of slaves and their employment in the New World.

It is essential tostress that all changes on the coast occurred without prejudice to this overal]
conception.

Indeed, as the following chapters will reveal, the most signifi­

cant social changes on the Upper Guinea Coast demonstrated how African society
became geared to sertfe the capitalist system.

(l) John Newtons Journal of a Slave Trader. "Thoughts upon the African Slave
Trade", pp.106,107.

47>7
A PRO-ECTROPBAH COMMERCE

Page 399. note 2.
Valentim Fernandes: La Cote Occidentale d ’Afriaue. pp.42,58*68. (The editors1
translation into French in inconsistent.

F emandes gave one list of exports

from the Gambia in which he included finished cloth and another list of imports
into the Gambia in which he included raw cotton.
tne Casamance in similar terms:

He described the commerce of"Os morad#res deste regno comumente todos somta^elaes e faze panos de muytas maneyras e de coores. E aqui vem os christaos erasgatar seu algodom por panos." This is translated "Les habitants de ce pays
sont communement tous tissevands et font des pagnes de tres nombreuses fa^ons
et couleurs. Et la les Chretiens viennent echanger leur coton pour des tissus".
That is to say, it was barter of cotton on the Portuguese side for finishedcloths from the Africans.

Later, Fernandes wrote of the Geba area, "Per aqui

vem os navios das ilhas do Cabo Verde pera fazer ho regate do seu algodom pera
panos assi como em Casa Mansa".

This is rendered "Les bateaux des lies du Cap

Vert viennent echanger ici du coton pour fail* des pagnes", which means that thePortuguese were buying cotton to make cloth.
The first rather than the second interpretation finds support from othersources, which indicate that cotton was exported from the Cape Verde islands tc
Cacheu and Geba in the first half of the sixteenth century.

The Cape Verdeislands were probably manufacturing cloths of their own, but the object seemed
to be to obtain as many as possible to send to Mina, where they were extremely
valuable.

See A. Brasio: Monument a Missionaria Africana. 2nd series, Vol. II -No. 89, Certificate from the Casa da Mina to Jorge Correia, the Comptroller ofcottons of Fogo, 10 Sept 1535* p •275 5 and No. 143 > Voyage from Santiago to
Guinea, 19 May 1558, p.446.)

A H ISTO R Y OF THE UPPER G U IflE A COAST,

charter

1 5 4 5 -1 8 0 0

eight

THE RISE UR THE MULATTO TT?A t)~FlT?F>4
CHAPTER VIII
THE RISE OF THE MULATTO TRADERS

For a period of eighteen months over the years 1684 ^nd 1685,
the Portuguese captain-major was held captive by a private trader, Senhora
Bibiana Vaz - An Afro-Portuguese;in 1728, the aoyal African Company was sent

packing by Senhor Lopez - another Afro-Portuguese;while by the end of theeighteenth century, the most powerful ruling families in Sierra Leone were the
Caulkers, Clevelands and Rogers - all of mixed English and African blood.
These were not isolated individuals.

They were the most salient representa­

tives of a powerful social formation, which was the product of the physicaland commercial contact between Europe and the Upper Guinea Coast and which
served the interests of European mercantilism.

%

The extent, composition, attitudes and functions of the AfroPortuguese community at the end of the eighteenth century are all succinctly
summed up in an observation by a French captain, Lajaille, who visited theUpper Guinea Coast in 1784*"fifteen thousand Portuguese half .-castes,mulattoes, and blacks are spread throughout this immense country, preserving
amidst poverty their national pride.
benefits of agriculture;

They have made no attempt to seek thetheir greatest occupation is to serve as the middle­

men of the commerce which the other European nations come to conduct in thesecountries where the Portuguese formerly held dominion",a) Attention had

been drawn to these individuals more than one hundred and sixty years
previously, when Jobson wrote about the Gambiai"They call themselves

Portingales, and some few of them seeme the same;others of them are(l) P, Labarthe:

Voyage au Senegal, p.143

44 C
MULATTO TRADERS
Molatoes, between blacke and white, but the most part as blacke as thenatural inhabitants:

they are scattered some two or three dwellers in a place,and are all married, or rather keepe with them the countrey blackewomen, ofwhom they beget children".

Those children "become in a manner naturalised,and as they grow up, apply themselves to buy and sell one thing for anotheras the whole country doth, still reserving carefully the use of the Portingall
tongue, and with a kind of affectionate zeal, the name of Christians", (l)Recalling the hospitality extended to the lanpado on his arrival,
and the arrangements which were made for him to co-habit with African women,(2) it is to be expected that children of mixed blood would have been born inconsiderable numbers in the areas where the lancados were 'guests*.

Those

children were commonly known as filhos da terra or brancos da terra ("childrenof the soil" or "local Portuguese") as distinct from brancos da Portugal. (3)By a slow process, these filhos da terra came to replace the metropolitan
1anyados as the dominant element in the coastal community, which comprised
them both, along with the African grumetes and helpers.
Here, incidentally, a point of contemporary controversy is
involved.

It is made out in certainquarters(1) R. Jobsons

The Golden Trade,p.39(2 ) See above,

Ch. Ill(3 ) Fr. Francisco de Santiago:"Cronicathat the relationships

daProvincia Franciscana

betweende Nossa

Senhora da Solddade" (Ms.) Extracts in A.J. Dias "Crenyas e Costumes dos
Indigenas da Ilha de Bissau no Seculo XVIII, Portugal em Africa, vol. 2,
Ho. 9, 1945, pp.159-169.

441
m u l a t t o t r a d in g

Portuguese males and African females have always been exceptionally good - parof a peculiar Iberian approach to tropical people.

Gilberto Freyre, forinstance, speaks in the highest terms of the Portuguese and Spanish, "whobegan to take tropical women as companions and even as wives:companions of

their adventures of settlement and procreation in those same areas", (l)This

passes from innocuous self-indulgence to dangerous cant when it is used tojustify colonial oppression, by suggesting that; this has always been one ofthe positive aspects of the Portuguese civilising mission*and effectively dismisses this line of argument.

James Duffy briefl;"It is true that the African

women, in the absence of Portuguese ones, offered an outlet for sexual impulse,
Miscegenation in Portuguese Africa, however, though often admirably freefrom the sense of shame which sometimes accompanied it elsewhere in Africa,
must still be considered as erotic expediency;

it has become colonial policy

only in retrospect." (2 )It is indeed apposite to remark that in so far as any policy
operated in these matters it was policy laid down by the Africans#

On theGold Coast, for example, the attitude of the society to Europeans cohabiting
with their women was hostile.

The Portuguese reported that women aroundtheir fortress of Mina who became pregnant by white men often resorted to(1) Gilberto Freyre:Portuguese Integration in the Tropics (Lisboa 1961)

p.22(2 ) J. Duffy:

Portugal in Africa, p.71

442.
MULATTO TRADERS

abortionor infanticide# (l)On the Upper Guinea. Coast the welcome wascomplete, though relations between African women and the Portuguese 1anyados
were surrounded by stringent rules#

Lemos Coelho stressed that thePortuguese could not flirt with the women, that being the worst crime that awhite could commit and would always cost loss of goods and often loss of life.

He further singled out the Corubal as an area where it was advisable to keep ai
a very respectable distance from married women. (2)lanyados

In effect, the Portuguese

had to marry African women, as illustrated earlier, and the Afro-Portuguese certainly considered themselves as married after they had gone
through African rites, a fact which threw the Catholic missionaries into
consternation.

The Spanish Capuchins wrote in a letter to the king of Portugs

in 1686 that "they (the Afro-Portuguese) celebrate their concubinage as though
it were true marriage", while in their opinion it was "illicit commerce
between Christians and heathen women". (3 )So much for the peculiar

enlightenment of the Iberians.
Numerically, the mulattoes came to outstrip their white fathers
not only by natu. al increase, but because during- the seventeenth century theflow of Portuguese to the mainland was not heavy.

Voluntary immigrants seemed(1) A. Brasio: Monumenta Missionaria Africana - Africa Occidental, vol. Ill,

1570-99 - "Informayao da Mina"; quoted in C*R. Boxer: Rpce R 0lations in thePortuguese Colonial Empire. 14-15-1825 (Oxford 1963)(2) Lemos Coelho:

Duas Descricoes da Guine. pp.92,201(3) Mateo de Anguiano:

Missiones Capuchinas en Africa, vol.II, pp. 277>278

443>

MULATTO TRADERS
to have been few, and the whitd population could only be augmented by thesending out of degredados, convicted in the Portuguese courts.

Barbot suggestithat by this process forty or fifty Portuguese were exiled every year to
Cacheu, (l) but a his is not borne out by the Cahheu records, which indicatethat the deportation was irregular, giving rise to complaints from several
captains about the paucity of Portuguese-bom citizens in Cacheu and otherofficial centres on the Upper Guinea Coast. (2 )Thus, the districts whichwere well-known lanyado resorts in the sixteenth century were almost entirely
taken over by their descendants by the middle of the following century,
beafada women had a reputation for being the most beautiful on the Upper Guinea
Coast;

there were many whites resident there in Dornelas* time, (3 ) and evenmore filhos da terra living there in Coelho*s time,On the rivers leading

into the Sierra Leone estuary, there were two very important lanyado towns,
Port Loko and Tumba (Rotumba), which came under the dominance of the childrenof the Portuguese by midOseventeenth century, if not before. (4 )Prom a purely genetic viewpoint, it is obvious
there wasthat,evenifa high degree of in-breeding among themulattopopulation,they woul<

eventually have been swallowed up by the preponderant Africans, given the small(1) J. Barbot: Description of North and South Guinea, p.83
(2) See e.g., A.H.U., Guine, mayo I -Antonio Bezerra (Jnr) 30 Jan 1719;

mayo III - Francisco Sottomayor, 12 March 1732; and mayo I - Manuel Pinto
de Gouveia, 15 April 1800
(3)

Andrd" Domelas: "Relayao sobre a Serra Leoa"(4 )Lemos Coelho: Duas Descripoes da Guine, p.74

44^MULATTO TLlADIHO
numbers of Portuguese who continued to arrive.

In 1685j for instance, Sieurde la Courbe found that at Cacheu there were fewwhites, while most of themulattoes were very dark, (l)A little later, another French commentator wrotethat "nearly all the Portuguese in Africa are of mixed blood, that is, imlattoes;
but they are b o black that it requires a good knowledge of colours to
distinguish them from negroes. (2 )A knowledge of the facts would also make it

clear that many of the blacks who were considered ’Portuguese' had no
Portuguese blood whatsoever, so that as Jobson and Lajaille indicated, colour
was by no means the onlycriterion which helped to set the successors to thePortuguese 1anyados apart from the mass of Africans.
It is very significant that the Africans extended the category
brancos da terra to include all Africans who were closely as., ociated with thePortuguese. (3)Thus, the grumetes were regarded as 'Portuguese' and ’white1,

and rhis applied to other Africans who became 'Portuguese’ by adoption.

Whena Portuguese trader wished to take an African child with him on his travels
around the coast and to the Cape Verde islands, he had to seek the permissionof the father or paternal uncle. (4 )By the mid-eighteenth century, if not

before, it had become customary among the white and mulatto merchants to foster(1) P. Cultru:

Premier Voyage du Sieur de la Courfbe, p.230(2 ) J. Labat:

Nouvelle Relation, Vol. V., pp.66,67(3 ) A.H* Bias:"Crenyas e Costumes dos Indigenas daIlha de Bissau no Seculo

XVIII"
A.H.U., Guine, mapo III - Jose da Costa Ribeira, May 1731
(4) 11v ares de Almada:"Rios de Guine", p.326

MULATTO TR.DERS
African babies.

In such cases, after permission had been obtained^ the childwas baptised or at least given a Saint's name, though it could only be taken
avray from its mother after two to three years, this being the lengthy period
during which it was suckled. (i)On passing into the home of its adopted

parents, the child automatically became part of a 'Christian1, 'white','Portuguese' trading- community.
While the ^.fTo-'PoTt'agv.ese community right until the end of theeighteenth century comprised a few whites and many blacks, the mulattoes gave
leadership and character to the social grouping.

Some lanyados and theirdescendants completely adopted the customs of the Africans, down to the detailsof tribal tatoos; (2 ) but

generally the racial admixture of the mulattoes

was matched by cultural hybridisation and ambivalence.

Language, dress andreligion were the features to which the Afro-Portuguese clung^ so as to out­
wardly identify themselves as a community with a different heritage and adifferent social purpose from the mass of the Africans;and, in every instancethe basis for the distinction was that the Afro-Portuguese represented an extei
sion of the European commercial system on African soil, serving to facilitate
the exploitation of the Upper Guinea Coast along colonial lines.
The language was "Creole Portuguese", which was vital, not simply(1) A.J. Dias: (Op.cit.)
For the lengthy period before weaning, see M.McCulloch: Peoples ofSierra Leone, p.44
(2 ) See above, Ch.Illj f

I*+0

A 41
MULATTO TRADE PS
as a link with the Portuguese patrimony, but because of its functional value
in matters of trade*

The Afro-Portuguese could thus act as interpreters, andcarry out all the issks required of middlemen in the coastal trade, from acting
as pilots on the rivers to serving as commercial advisers to the local rulingclass.

The Afro-Portuguese tried as far as possible to maintain themselvein European clothes, including shoes, hats, swords and muskets.

The wealthieslmerchants lived in large rectangular houses with white-washed walls andverandahs, where they relaxed, (l)However, few could affort to maintain theiipretensions, and even the richer ones, in attempting to live up to the ideal of
the Portuguese cavaleiro, merely achieved a sort of shabby gentility.

As

Lajaille's pen-picture suggested, the Afro-Portuguese were "preserving amidst
poverty their national pride".
Metropolitan Portuguese and other Europeans did not consider
the brancos da terra as true representatives of Portugal, and were in fact
often disdainful in their attitude to the "so-called Portuguese".

An officialof the Company of Grao Para and Maranhao contemptuously referred to the AfroPortuguese as 'monkeys'. (2 )On the other hand, the Portuguese were quite

willing to grant the mulattoes titles and to appoint them to lesser posts inthe administration;

placing them in charge of places like Zeguichor and Geba,or making them sergeants at Bissau and Cacheu.

Labat was not quite sure of the(1) P. Cultru: (Op.cit.) pp.192,193*196(2 ) A.H.U., Guin^, mayo VIII - Antonio Francisco Martinez, 27 July 1777*

4-47
MULATTO TRADERS

motivation of this brotherly treatment,(l)

Was it genuine or just politicue?

In part it must have been genuine brotherly appreciation between white andmulatto, because they were blood relations;but their employment in the adminis

tration was also motivated by the fact that the important filhos da terra were
often related to the local ruling class, and thus their appointment hadpolitical value. (2)For a deeper understanding of tie mulattoes, one must turn to theaccounts of Lemos =Coelho, himself born at Balola on the Ria Grande de Buba.
De Almada illumined the activities of the Afro-Portuguese.

As

Coelho himself had

adopted two Bijago boys, who remained with him for many years, serving as inter­
preters on the occasions when he returned to those islands. (3)The same writer

gives information about the mulattoes of Recife in the Senegambia, who for sometime followed the religion of their Jewish fathers, (4 ) but generally
Christianity was part of the definition of the Afro-Portuguese community, themembers of which Coelho very often calls filhos da terra christaos.

The other

attributes of this social formation are seen in simple asides, such as themention of "a negro on the island of Ponta who spoke Portuguese, was brought up
with the whites, and was called Christovao"; (5 )and the reference to a very

(1) J. Labat: Voyage du Chevalier de Marchais en Guinee fait en 1725, 1726 and1727.

(Amsterdam 1731)(2 ) A.H.U., Guine', mayo I - Santos de Vidigal Castanho, 27 Oct 1704
(3 ) Lemos Coelho:(4 ) Ibid, p.7(5) Ibid, p.181

Duas Descriyoes da Guine. p.43-

44S
MULATTO TR.'J?SRS

large house at Port Loko, which was owned by "a filho da terra of the Bullom
nation, but a Christian, who was treated as a white"; (l) and yet again toanother Negro senhor, who had a Christian son, master of a very small boat.
(2)

An outstanding example of this type is provided by Captain Francisco

Correia, whom Beaver met in 1792.

was a Mandinga of Geba, who had been to

Lisbon, visisted Santiago several times, and for many years commanded a tradi:
vessel on the coast.

Correia spoke Portuguese very well, dressed as aF£iropean, had considerable property, was literate, and could ascertain
latitude by the sun's altitude. (3)It is not surprising that the Africans

should have called a black man like Correia a "white man" and a 'Portuguese'.
With few exceptions, the Afro-Portuguese made commerce a full­time occupation.

All of the main centres whore they conglomerated, suchas Bissau, Cacheu and Farim, were dependent upon the Africans for their dood
supplies, a factor of considerable importance whenever any conflict broke out
They were castigated by de la Courbe for "having neither foresight nor couragi
to procure themselves vegetables in such a fertile country, industry to breed
domestic animals, nor strength to hunt game".

Some profered the excuse thatthey had their sights set on returning to Portugal, (4 ) but this applied only
to the few metropolitan Portuguese.

On the whole, it would seem that theirremoval from the land was not a matter of choice but of African policy.
(1) Lemos Coelho: Duas Descriyoes da Guine, pp. 75*234(2) Ibid: p.182(3 ) Philip Beaver: African Memoranda, p.275(4 ) P. Cultru: Premier Voyage de Sieur de la Courbe, p.250

The

4 V)
I'UJLATTO TliABiSS

African ruling- class never granted the Portuguese more land than was absolutely
necessary for houses and trading centres and occasionally a fort, (l)Thefact that the Afro-Portuguese were divorced from the land set them apart fromthe traditional economic order of subsistence agriculture.
As a rule, trade on the Upper Guinea, Coast was a seasonal andsecondary endeavour.

Even the relatively highly developed market system ofsome of the tribes of the area was not an economic institution which was

generally associated with the professional t rader, and the most important trade
fairs were annual rather than weekly events.
agricultural activities permitted;

Trade achieved peak points when

namely, during the dry season.

For instanc

it was after the harvest in November that the Djolas of the Casamance made therelatively short trip to the Gambia to exchange their rice for fiattle. (2)Conversely, the beginning of the rains meant a return to the farms.

The

Beafadas clearly establish the priority of agriculture in their maxim that at
crop time those who are on journeys must return home. (3) This procedure bywhich trade was sandwiched between agricultural operations was extended tocommsrce with the Europeans.
Coincidentally, the best season of the year for sailing ships tovoyage to the Upper Guinea Coast was between September and May. (4) 3n Sierra(1) A.H.U., Guine, ma^o I Jose das Neves Leao, 25 May 1800 (The Africans would
not concede land even to grow fodder for cattle)(2) L.V. Thomas: Les Diola, p.284(3) Landerset Simoes: Babel Negra(4) A.H.U., Guine, caixa II - No. 267, Andre de Fonseca, captain of Bissau,
27 March 1699*

4 STD
MULATTO TRADBRS
Leone the rains began in May and lasted for three or four months.

Wadstrom

observed at the end of the eighteenth century that "in the beginning of theseason, the earth being softened with rain, the Negroes till and plant their
grounds;

and after the return of dry weatlsr, they gather in their cuops;

occupations which they seldom abandon, even though allured-by the most advan­
tageous commerce.’*, (l)North of Sierra Leone, the rainy season set inprogressively later, which accounts for Labat’s assertion with respect to theGeba-Gambia area that ’’all commerce ceases with the Negroes during the monthsof August, September, October and November;they withdraw then to theirvillages and work in their fields”. (2) Precisely because of the later rainyseason and the accompanying wind conditions it was advisable for ships to
avoid the latitudes around Cape Verde in September and October, (3) so thatboth parties were ready to trade in December.

By a further coincidence, thedry season was also the best trading season for pastoral people like the Fulas
who brought their cattld down to the Gambia river in December; (4) while thelong-distance inland trade was also facilitated at this time of year byfavourable travelling conditions. fed(1) C.B. Wadstrom: An Essay oh Colonisation, p.25
(2) J. Labat: Nouvelle Relation. Vol. V . p.323(3) C.B. Wadstrom: (Op.cit) p.325> citing Tillemanfs Description of Guinea,I69(4) R. Jobson:

The Golden Trade, p.46(■5) Ssg-Above, -Qh. I,

4 S'|MULATTO TRADERS
As the lineal descendants of thslantpados. the Afro-Portuguese had as theirprincipal function that of purveyors of goods to European ships.

But thelaneados had been quick to provide their services for the transfer from riverto river of commodities which were of interest mainly to the Africans, and her*
too the Afro-Portuguese followed and probably went further than theirpredecessors.

They handled salt, cloth, dyes, kola, palm oil and rice, withgreat profit to themselves and to the appreciation of the Africans.

The Afro*Portuguese purchased their commodities by the system of barter, but they infus<
a new spirit into the operations, which was essentially European,

For onething, they traded on a scale which was clearly unprecedented in this area,and for another thing, they oriented all their activity ultimately towards the
Atlantic.

This is well-illustrated by taking the example of the kola trade*

The value of kola in West Africa can scarcely be overstressed.

The kola

nut is associated with religious rites, initiation ceremonies and property
rights;it is used as a stimulant, as a yellow dye, fof medicinal purposes,

as a symbol of hospitality, and in diplomatic relations between tribes; and it
was particularly highly regarded among Islamicised peoples.

The best known

kola trade routes ran north and north-west from the forests of the Gulf ofGuinea, where the kola trees grew in great numberq to markets in the Western
Sudan.

Sierra Leone was on the periphery of the important kola route which

stretched from the upper valley of the St. Paul river through Beyla to Kankan
and Kissidougou. (l)It is almost certain that from early times some kola(l) M. Le Long: ,rLa, Route du Kola”, R0vue de Geographie Humaine et d fEthnologic
No. 4 , pp.35-40

MULATTO TRADERS
would have been sent across the Niger from the area now held by the Koranko
and Kono in the hinterland of Sierra Leone, since they both adjoin Kissidougou.
Possibly, too, kola from the Sierra Leone littoral made its way inland, as was
known to be the case at the end of the eighteenth century; (l)but the coastal

kola was only fully exploited after the arrival of the Portuguese, who initiatea shipping link between Sierra Leone and the rivers north of the Geba.
The kola trees were found in greatest concentration between the Rokelleand the Searcies;

as far north as the Nunez they grew rather less profusely;

while further north they became rare, (2)Attempts by the Portuguese in thesixteenth century to cultivate this species in the Geba-Gambia area were
unsuccessful. (3 ) Consequently, the coastal trade in kola was based on thetransport of that commodity from the coast south of the Pongo to the rivers
Geba, Cacheu, Casamance and Gambia.
Like most other trading projects on the Upper Guinea Coast, the kola trade
was organised on an annual basis, involving shipswhich traded exclusively inthat product and embarked in a fleet.

In the mid-seventeenth century, from

Farim alone at least twelve ships went annually on the kola run, and Coelho
attests that up to eighteen were despatched in some years. (4 )and Bissau traded on their own account.

Besides, G@ba

At the producing end, the Bagas,

Temnes and Bulloms were the tribes who sold kola, especially the l e ^ e s and(1) John Matthews: Voyage to the River Sierra Leone, p.59
(2 ) J. Machat: Les Rivieres du Sud et le Fouta-Diallon, pp.181,182(p) Alvares de Almada: "Rios de Guine", p.284(4 ) Lemos Coelho: Luas Descricoes da Guine, p.38

MULATTO TRASiiftS
the Bulloms between the Rokelle and the Great Searcies.

On one occasion in

the late seventeenth century, the Portuguese complained of reduced yields
because of lack of attention to the trees, (l)Whether this was the exception

or the rule was not stated, but the likelihood is that the Bulloms and Tgmnes

simply interested themselves in the gathering of the fruit from the trees whic]
grew in profusion without being planted or cared.

They separated the nutsroi

the husks, and sold the former in a measure made of wicker which held 500 to 6(
nuts which were deposited into a much larger hamper.

These wes?e checked for

insects before being sealed with the broad leaves of the cabopa. On thevoyage northwards, the hampers were opened on three occasions to check forthe development of larvae, the infected nuts being thrown overboard, and it
was a good year when more than one-third of the cargo did not have to bediscarded.

Net the amount of vendible kola was great.

Among themselves, thePortuguese and Afro-Portuguese measured the kola in barrels holding 5,000
nuts, and on an average over 100,000 barrels made up the annual haul. (2)All exchanges in which the Afro-Portuguese had a hand ultima.tely
facilitated trade with the Europeans, which too often meant the trade inslaves.

Cloth, dyes and kola were part of & process of permutation designed

to get cargoes for export to Europe.

De Almada had put forward that without

the laneados. the products of the Upper Guinea Coast would never have reachedthe holds of European ships in the quantities and in the manner desired, (3)(1) A.H.U., Guine, caixa I - No. 131 - Sebastiao Roiz, 24 April 1674
(2)

Demos Coelho: Unas Describees da. Guine^ p.38,62(3) See above, Ch. Ill, p •i^o

4^4
MULATTO TRADERS
and the Afro-Portuguese were playing the same role as the lanpados. Inevitabl
however, someEuropean buyers on the coast came to believe that the profits ofthe middlemen should and could be cut out by alternative arrangements.

This

attitude was particularly evident on the part of the established companies,
whether Portuguese, English or French.
The Gambia Adventurers traded on the river Gambia largely throughthe Apro-Portuguese intermediaries, (l)When the Royal African Company

inherited this situation, their first chief factor at James Island, who had
already been serving the Gambia Adventurers, reported unfavourably concerning
the profits lost by employing the Afro-Portuguese.

On the river Gambia itself

the prices current in 1678, as paid to the Afro-Portuguese, were 30 ’bars’ perslave, 18 per hundredweight of ivory and 16 per hundredweight of wax.

These

were far higher than the prices paid if the goods were purchased directly fromthe Africans, and yet the bulk of the trade lay in the hands cf the AfroPortuguese.

Thurlow considered that the trading zone south of the Gambia

was more important than the Gambia itself, and the prices of goods originating
there were steeper still.

On wax and ivory, four to five ’bars’ more perhundredweight were often demanded, while it was impossible to compete with the
Spanish for slaves, since they were offering 'JO to 80 ’bars* in comparison

with the 30 'bars’ per captive which the Royal African Company expended in theGambia. (2)(1) P.R.O.. T70/544 - Ledger of the Gambia Adventurers.
dominate.

Small bills are paid out to them.)(2) P>R.Q., T70/10 - Thomas Thurlow, 15 March 1678, fl.l.

(Portuguese names

4^5

MULATTO TRADERS
Thurlow suggested that the Company should send a small vessel of 60 tons

on trading voyages direct to the Nunez, Grande and Casamance, which would prove
half as expensive as purchasing through the Afro-Portuguese, especially sinceat that time the first Company of Cacheu was also collecting a 10^ duty on
trade,

advocated that for the Gambia the policy should he to deal judiciouswith the Agro-Portuguese, commissioning them with small quantities of Company
goods in such a way that they would not accumulate capital of their own.

Those

who grew rich were too independent and encouraged trade with the interlopers.

a)
In practice, there weretwo types of Afro-Portuguese - those with
sufficient capital to trade with the Africans on their own account, and thensell to whatever European ship arrived; and those who had to he Mgrub-stakedM
hy the visiting European ships or hy officials of one European company oranother.

The latter type were in the vast majority, (2) though the richtraders naturally exercised far greater influence.

"Whenthe English went toCacheu, for example, they dealt with Mthe great tracers" as Thurlow(s successor
John Castle, wrote in February 1683.

Castle made a deal with these principal

merchants at Cacheu to purchase a combined total of 20 tons of ivory and wax(apparently, ten tons of each).

At that moment, the merchants were short ofstock, which they did not expect to arrive before July of that year, so Castle
loaned them trade goods to the value of ten tons ofwax. (3) The(1) P.R.O.« T70/10 - Thomas Thurlow, 15 March I6 7 8 ,fl.l.

(2 ) g. Cultru: Premier Voyage de Sieur de la Courbe, p.193(3) b.R.Q., T70/16 - John Castle, 20 Eeb 1683, fl.46.

fact that such

4^6
MULATTO TRADERS
arrangements were still necessary after Thurlow1s advice is ample evidence
that it was not at all easy to cut out the Afro-Portuguese middlemen.
In 1678, Thurlow had reported on an offer made him by the governoof Cacheu to conclude a long-term agreement, by which the English would be kep
supplied with ivory and camwood at 24 'bars1 and 20 'bars* respectively, (l)Thurlow baulked at the high prices, especially since the Gambia Adventurers
were about to go into liquidation, and he could not be sure of the policy of
his new employers, the Royal African Company.

However, John Castle did givehis approval to a similar proposal, and he was apparently able to hold theprices down to 22 'bars* and 16 'bars1 per hundredweight of ivory and wax
respectively. (2) The value of this treaty was that it meant stability andregularity in every respect.

There was constancy of price and supply andthere was no need to haggle over individual purchases.

Hence, the accounting

would become less complicated, and the estimate of future commitments would be
more reliable.

Besides, the quantities were also important.

Instead of ten

tons of ivory and ten tons of wax being accumulated piece-meal, they would be
supplied in bulk.
In Sierra Leone, a situation existed parallel to that in the Gamband the chief factor in I678, Edmund Pierce, was chafing at the AfroPortuguese control over trade.

His proposed solution was that forty to fifty

blacks should be brought from the W est Indies, where they had learnt to speak
English, and they would be used to replace

the Afro Portuguese. (3) Ho actio:(1)

P.K.O.,T70/10 - Thomas Thurlow, 15 March 1678, fl.l

(2)

P.R.O.tT70/16 - Castle, 20 Feb 1683, fl.46(3)

P.R.O., T70/52 - To Freeman, Jan 1705, fl.79

MULATTO TRADERS

S' 7

followed this request, and it took a much longer time before attempts were mac
to regularise the situation in the same fashion as in the Gambia.

The

directors themselves specifically drew attention to the experience in theGambia, when in 1705 they urged their factors in Sierra Leone to come toarrangement with the middlemen of trade, for the Gambia
opinion of the directors, had proven beneficial,pattern,anin the(l)

If it was not possible for the European companies or administra­tions to come to a compromise with the Apro-Europeans, then the latter werelikely to react violently.

They had been called into existence by theEuropean trade, and had no function in the society if deprived of theirposition as intermediaries.

It was in Cacheu that the Afro-Portuguese

launched their first major counter-attack on those who challenged theirposition.
The months immediately after the first Company of Cacheu hadceased operations witnessed one of those temporary aberrations caused by theefforts of a captain-major to stick to the letter of the law.
captain-major Jose Gonsalves Doliveira.

He wasLoliveira arrived in Cacheu sometime around June 1682, succeeding Manuel Quaresma. (2)For several months

after his arrival Doliveira had been party to the customary encouragement
given to the English and French; (3 )and at least up to May 1683 John Castle

was trading extensively with Cacheu. (4 )(1)

But for some reason,Doliveira

T 70/52 - ToFreeman, Jan 1705, fl*79(2) A.H.U., Cabo Verde, caixa V - Minute cf the Conselho, 2 Sept.
(3 ) A.H.U., Cabo Verde, caixa V - Lopes de Barros, 18 Aug I 69 I

(4) P.R.O.1 T70/16 - Castle, 20 Feb 1683, fl.46.

1682

4^$
MULATTO TRADERS
decided to take a firm line, and absolutely refused permission for foreign
ships to trade, even if they were prepared to pay duties.

The merchants tried

petitions, such as the one to the governor of Cape Verde in January 1684, (l)and when those brought no results, they sided with the Papels when the latter
massed forces against the praya. and thus induced Doliveira to allow theEnglish agent, John Booker, to do business. (2)Apart from upholding the policy of monopoly, Doliveira had also
been guilty of trying to curtail the freedom of movement of the principal'
traders of Cacheu, thus limiting their role as the middlemen of all thecommerce on the Upper Guinea Coast. (3) Leading the opposition to Doliveira
was a female mulatto trader, Bibiana Vaz.
the coast who were all well-off.

She had a number of relations on

Her brother Ambrosio lived at Cacheu, andhelped to run her business;

her nephew, Francisco, was the most outstanding

trader on the river Nunez;

while the most powerful Afro-Portuguese on theGambia in the 1730!s was one Antonio Vaz, who must have been a relation, since
they all bore thefamily name "Vaz de Franca". (4) When Moore was on the(1) A.H.U., Cabo Verde, caixa V - Barbosa, ^ a*^* 1^84
(2 ) A.H.U., Cabo Verde, caixa V - Lopes de Barros, 18 Aug I69I
(3) A.H.U., Guine, b'aixa II -No. 212, Copy of a document signed by thetraders on 20 March 1684
(4 ) A.H.U., C-uine", caixa II -No. 230, for reference to Francisco’Vaz deFFranca;and Cabo Verde, mayo III - Governor of Cape Verde, 7 Nov 1732

for mention of Antonio Vaz de Franca.

4S-9
MTJL ATTO TRADERS
Gambia in 1731 be reported that Antonio Vaz was worth £10,000. (l) But it was
Bibiana herself who was the most outstanding member of the family.

She hadaugmented her capital by marrying a former captain-major of Cacheu, Ambrosio
Gomez, who was one of the richest men on the coast in his time - at theexpense1of the revenues of the Portuguese crown. (2) Bibiana herself was notover-scrupulous, since she took possession of all her husband's goods on his
death in 1679, to the exclusion of a son of his, Lourenyo. (3)Bibiana Vaz traded on every part of the Upper Guinea Coast.

SenhoraShe was estab­lished at Cacheu among the Papels, she had a trading house at Quimquim among
the Banhuns, another at Farim among the Mandingas;

and the English at Bench

Island were donducting business with her. (4) With her own two-masted vessel
and her own rivercraft, she was able to exploit the coastal and riverain(1) Francis Moore: "Travels into the Inland Parts of Africa" in Thomas Astley:
A New and General Collection of Voyages. Vol. 2, p.212.
son in Cacheu and traded there regularly.

Antonio Vaz had i

See P.R.O.t T70/1451*

It ismost probable that the whole family were the direct descendants of Manoel
Vaz de Franca, who lived at Bintang and in 1662 claimed to hold acommission from the king as commander of the river.

See J.M. Gray:

A History of the Gambia, pp.26,78.
(2) Ambrosio Gomez was named as an accomplice of Captain-major Mendonya (Seeabove Ch. V, p.xtfland A.H.U., Cabo Verde, caixa IV - Manuel Pacheco,
26 May I67I)(3) A.H.U., caixa II - No. 157, Minute of 2 Sept 1682
(4) P.R.O., T70/36I - Bence Island Accounts, 1678.

4kD
MULATTO TRADERS
trade to the full*
It was around Bibiana Vaz that the opposition to Doliveira centred.
A-fc a meeting at her house in Cacheu, several Afro-Portuguese traders as well as
the factor of Cacheu (who was the second in command of the pra^a) decided thatthey should engineer Doliveira*s death.

The attempt was made in February 1684,

but Doliveira was forewarned against the plot and managed to evcde it.

Early

in March, the Spanish Capuchin, Fr, Antonio de Trozido, who was said to haveborne personal animosity against Doliveira, advised that the captain should be
imprisoned.

It was this Capuchin who produced the written denunciation of

Doliveira, (l) accusing him of fraud and malversation.

These charges wererecorded in the official books of the praya by the factor, Manuel de Sousa
Mendjdonija, after having’ been signed by all the traders in the vicinity*

Doliveira was seized and sent off the house of Bibiana Vaz in Farim, where he
was kept for fourteen months before he managed to escape.
The revolt coinc:with the attempted formation of a new Company

of Cacheu, but the "Republic of Cacheu", set up by the Apro-Portuguese, washostile to any external controls, and when two attorneys of the Company
arrived, they were refused permission to land.

The three fundamental decreesof the 'Republic1 emphasised the Afro-Portuguese conception of independence.
Firstly, they stated, they would not accept any captain-major from Cape Verdeor Portugal until such time as they had communicated with the king of Portugal
and had had his resolution on the matter;secondly, they would have nothing to

do with the new company; and thirdly, it was stated that no Portuguese was to(i)

A.H.U.t Cabo Verde, Caixa V - Lopes de Barros, 18 Aug 1691

MULATTO TRADERS
trade with the Africans except through the agency of the resident traders of
Cacheu, on penalty of confiscation of goods. (i)Only the person of Antonio

de Barros Bezerra was acceptable both as a captain-major and as the head of tfc

new company, (2) Meanwhile, Cacheu was governed by a triumvirate elected by t
traders, the three being Ambrosio Vaz, Santos de Vidigal Castanho and Manuelde Andrade.
A few months after Doliveira*s deposition, the governor of Cape
Verde sent a magistrate to Cacheu to conduct an enquiry, (3) On the basis of

this, the Conselho urged that action be taken against the leaders, and Bezerra
was entrusted with this task,^e returned to Cacheu in May 1685 with two shipfrom Portugal and a smack and one hundred men from Cape Verde.

He waa not

opposed on his arrival, and came to an understanding with the traders that
their co-operation would make punishment lighter. (4) Bezerra sent Ambrosio
Vaz and Manuel de Andrade to Santiago, along with the factor, Manuel de Sousa
iVlendonca.

Left to Bezerra, Bibiana Vaz would have come off lightly, but theConselho sent a commissioner to che ck on the measures taken by Bezerra, and it
was specified that Bibiana Vaz should be arrested because her presence in therivers of Guinea was most undesirable.

Bibiana Vaz was therefore secured andsent to Santiago in 1687 to join her brother. (5)(1) A.H.U.t

CaboVerde, caixa

V - Lopes de Barros, 18 Aug, I69I

(2) A.H.U.,

CaboVerde, caixa

V - Governor Barbosa, 20 July 1684

(3) A.H.U.,

CaboVerde, caixa

V - Magistrate Luiz Bello, 22 July 1684

(4) A.H.U.,

CaboVerde, caixa

V - Barbosa, 12 Sept 1685

(5) A.H.U.,

CaboVerde, caixa

V - Governor Verissimo de Carvalho, 17 July 1687

4 ^ 2 .

MULATTO TIIADilKS
During the next few years, the matter dra ;ged on, with thePortuguese administration showing no clear purpose.

By June 1688, Bibiana Yaz

had been returned to the mainland, and was living at Quimquim in Banhun
territory, having promised that she would build a fortress on the nearby
Macanha river, as well as one at Bolor among the Djolas. (l)But Doliveira wa

clamouring for justice, and the Conselho thought it necessary to appoint two
further commissioners. (2) The second of these two remained on the Upper
Guinea Coast for nearly three years between I69I and 1693*

advised thatthose traders who had played a minor role should be excused, but that stringenmeasures should be taken to ensure that the prominent personalities earned the:pardons.

Bibiana Vaz was supposed to look after the stockade of Bolor and tha'of Cacheu, while her nephew, Antonio, was fined 1,300 barafulas. Bibiana

petitioned for her brotherfs release from prison in Cape Verde, on the :promisethat she would pay 9*500 barafulas, but the commissioners felt that Ambrosio’s
imprisonment would hasten Bibiana1s payments.

Santos de Vidigal Castanho, theonly principal who does not appear to have been apprehended, was offered apardon on the payment of 4>00r barafulas and the continued maintenance of twoof the bastions of Cacheu. (3) Very shortly afterwards, Castanho was actually(l) A.H.U., Guine, caixa II - Ho. 201, Antonio Bezerra, 7 June 1608_(_2) A.H.U. t Cabo Verde, caixa V - Minutes of Jan and Feb 1688
(3) The second commissioner was Manuel Lopes de Barros, who prepared a compre­
hensive report forwarded to the Conselho in Aug I69I (Cabo Verde, caixa V)
In a second report of Dec 1693? He repeated much the same material. (Cabo
Verde, caixa Vi).

4^ 3>h'JLATgQ gSt^DaStS

appointed captain-major of Cacheu.
The only historian to have taken note of the above episode, Joao
Barreto, dismisses it within a few lines.

"The Revolt of Bibiana Vaz", as heterms it, was simply the work of a few seditious individuals, (l) From time totime a number of petty local feuds broke out in Cacheu, but tie banishment of
captain-major Doliveira was not one of those.

It was an event which had

implications for the whole of the Upper Guinea Coast, and which serves toemphasise the unity of that region.

When the triumvirate passed their decrees"in the name of the people", and when they created the post of "the people1s
purveyor", they were speaking’ on behalf of the vast majority of the AfroPortuguese.

The denunciation of Doliveira was widely circulated, and it was

signed by all into whose hands it passed..

It was suggested that some people

signed under duress, but at the same time, it was conceded that so many
traders had been behind the move that it was only feasible to punish about adozen of the organisers. (2) Antonio Duarte, a delegate of the AfroPortuguese on the Jame (a tributary of the Casamance) and Manuel de Andrade
a representative of Farim, had both arrived in Cacheu to settle certain
financial matters, and joined in the revolt.

That De Andrade should havebeen elected to become one of the ruling junta points to the broad-based
nature of the participation.

In effect, therefore, the Portuguese adminis­

tration had to deal with a whole new class* articulating a well-defined setof commercial interests.
(1) Joao Barreto:

Some forty years later, when the chief factor ofHistoria da Guine. p.Ill(2) A.H.U., Cabo Verde, caixa V - Lopes de Barros, 18 Aug 1691*

4^4
MULATTO TRADERS
the Royal African Company was to he summarily ejected, from Sierra Leone hy theAfro-Portuguese, the same class solidarity was demonstrated hy the arrival of
Afro-Portuguese support from Cacheu.
In keeping with the mixed heritage of the mulattoes, Bibiana Vaz
also had powerful connections on the African side.

Antonio Vaz was related

to the Mandinga king of Fogny, so it was from this tribe that the Vazes musthave derived much of their strength.

In addition, Bibiana could count on the

support of the Papel and Banhun rulers, and probably others among whom she
dwelt and traded, because of the identity of interest on the question of free
trade.

This applied to the whole Afro-Portuguese group.

For instance, thegovernor of Cape Verde was not prepared to shoulder the responsibility ofarresting the leaders of the revolt because those individuals had the friend­ship and protection of the neighbouring Africans, (l) The special commissioners
also found that large numers of persons who were implicated could not beapprehended because they were under the protection of the African rulers.
They explained that it was impossible to levy on the property of Senhora Vaz,because it was in the sertao within African dominions.

Apparently, Bibiana Va:

was only arrested after she had been lured to Cacheu, (2) and it is significant
that after she had been returned to her home from Cape Vprde, Bezerra wrotethat "the kings are now satisfied". (3)(1) A.H.U., Cabo Verde, caixa V - Verissimo Carvalho, 17 July 1687, andLopes de Barros, 18 Aug I69I
(2) A.H.U., caixa V - Verissimo Carvalho, 17 July 1687.
(3) A.H.U., Guine, caixa II - Ho. 201, Bezerra, 7 June 1688.

-4 6 S T

MULA-TO TRADERS
Bibiana1s counterpart in Sierra Leone was one Senhor Lopez, whoplayed a dominant role throughout the first half of the eighteenth century*
Lopez (Jose Lopez de Koura being his full name) was the grandson of a Maneemperor.

As late as 1752, as an extremely old man, he considered it within hi

power to give Sierra Leone as a doaeao to the Portuguese crown (l) - and he
was not presuming overmuch.

The following item from Newton's Journal on

Thursday 13th August 1752 speaks for itself:"In the morning King Peter ofWhiteman’s bay sent for his duty, but having heard yesterday that he had beenvery lately deposed, I put then off -till the morrow, and at noon an embassy
arrived from his new majesty Seignor Don Pedro de Case upon the same errand,with a written testimonial from Seignor Don de Lopez, the undoubted king-makerof Sierra Leon.

Upon consideration I found reason to recognise his title

preferably to the former, ard paid his demand of 16 bars, which by the bye, is
4 more than was required by any of his predecessors." (2)Literate, firmly given to counting the beads of his rosary, andequally devoted to his 'greegrees1, Senhor Lopez wasan outstanding example ofthe cultural phenomenon under discussion.

In 1727? he was already an old mana shadow of his fofmer energetic self; and even with the help of liatenants, hi
was afraid to embark on projects, which he himself would have managed singlehandedly before.

As it was, he had plenty of support, both from members offamilies established in Sierra Leone, such as Jerome, Tomaa and Matheus, as(1),iDocumentos acerca de Sierra Leone" in Arauivo das Colonies. Vol. I. pp.
97-114-(2) John Newton: Journal of a Slave Trader, p.66

4-U
MULATTO TRADE’S

well as from Afro-Portuguese drawn from the Searcies, Pongo, Nunez, Geba andCacheu.

The clans had found it necessary to gather at that date because ofa serious propaganda offensive launched against them by a Sassenach, Walter ,Charles, chief factor of the Royal African Company, (l)Charles made his position very clear:

MI will take effectualcare while I stay in the country that no white black man shall make any
figure here, above what the meanest natives do".

To achieve his aim, Charles

tried to impress upon the African ruling class that it was in their interest
to dismiss the Afro-Portuguese.

By the time that he had arrived in Sierra

Leone, the latter had come to wield a great preponderance of power, treating
the African masses 1tyranically*, and even insulting the persons of theirkings.

The Afro-Portuguese achieved this position "by having it in theirpower, either to supply or not supply the black natives with such necessaries
as they chiefly stood in need of, but at their own terms".

Charles felt that

if the Africans themselves monopolised the camwood trade and applied themselveto the cultivation of grain, Sierra Leone would become a 'rendezvous1 forcommerce, without there being any necessity for the "black white Portuguese",
who would have to return to Cacheu and Gebaj while the African leaders would
secure "the blessing of liberty".
About twanty-five years before Charles wrote, an incident had
occurred which showed that the Afro-Portuguese could possibly be by-passed(l) P«R«0«* T70/1465 “ hiary of Walter Charles, 1728-29* (Except where noted!
to the contrary, all information on the events of these years are takenfrom this source.)

4£7
MULATTO T R .jaM S

if the Africans took the initiative.

That was in 1703, when an important Susi

king made a journey of some 300 miles to the coast to discuss trade with thechief factor of the Royal African Company.

He brought with him a huge train

of attendants, and offered 100 men to agent Freeman to conduct him to Susu
territory on a return trip whenever the latter was able.

Apparently, theking’s main suggestion was that his own people, as apt as the Mandingas inmatters of trade, should do business directly with the Company.

This set theAfro-Portuguese community in a stir, and they approached the chief factor wit!
a counter offer to stabilise the prices of slaves, ivory and wax, while
guaranteeing certain quantities per year.

The prices of those articles werethen variable, though the Afro-Portuguese struggled to maintain a price of atleast 24 ’bars' per hundredweight of ivory and 24 'bars' per slave.

The

agents of the Royal African Company at the time were preoccupied with aproposal of their own, namely, that the directors should set a standard priceand then allow the agents to retain the difference whenever they succeededin making apurchase below the standard rate, (l)All these proposals seemto have come to nought; but Charles was in effect advocating the same policy
as the Susu king, and on an even larger scale, so that the Afro-Portuguese
could not help but take anxious notice.

Lopez was singled out for attack, or

the grounds that his services were indispensable to previous agents of theRoyal African Company only because most of them were dishonest, and wanted thehelp of Lopez and his men to conduct private trade.

In fact, the Company

servants who had turned private traders were either lieutenants or allies of
Lopea.______________________________________________________________________(l) P.R. 0., T70/14 - Greenaway, 18 March’MULATTO TRADERS

The year 1727-28 was one of great confusion in Jierra Leone.,: with theRoyal African Company in thecentre of a maelstrom of combined forces.

The

most serious dispute was between the Company and the majority of the Bulloms ofbherbro, caused by the actions of previous agents.

All Company employees had

to be withdrawn from the Sherbro area, with the exception of one Simon Wild, who
was stationed on the Jong.

To maintain contact with himfrom -^ence Island, it

was necessary to take an inconvenient circuitious route to avoid entering the
Sherbro estuary, and Simon Wild actually fell into the hands of hostile
Africans at one stage.

Other employees of the Royal African Company were being

held by the private traders of the Banana Islands, and Charles had also laid
hold of some of their men, so that armed conflict between these two forces
was looming.

But it was the Afro-Portuguese who took the lead against theRoyal African Company, driven (on their own admission) by the need to preserve
themselves since Charles was going to great lengths to drive a wedge between
them and the Africans.
Without the assistance of the trading community, and in the face of
hostility from a large section of the Africans, Charles was reduced to what
he called "trade for the belly"- scrounging around for rice to maintain himself
and other loyal Company servants, though he had trade goods retting in his stores
At the same time, since the Royal African Company handled a high proportion of
the volume of goods in the area under normal circumstances, trade was generally
slow, especially on the Rokelle and Port Loko Creek, so that the Africans
themselves were worried;

and they were by no means all in agreement with Lopez

and other white and mulatto traders that the Royal African Company should be

46?
MULATTO TRALBRS

made to leave,

Lopez1 own sister, Maria, was a staunch ally of the Company,

holding the view that Company trade was far more dependable than that of theinterlopers,

Another important personage on Charles* side was Suphulo, theBullom king of Ba ;a on the Rokelle,

For some years, his personal relations

with Lopez had been poor, and in the general malaise that had overcome commerc
in Sierra Leone, he and his people saw Lopez as the prime mover,

Theyclaimed

that Charles had placed a ’fetish* on the river because of Lopez, and thus nogoods were re ching them.

They grumbled, and they were contemplating making

common cause with the Bulloms below Tagrin Point to engage in a struggle again
Lopez and the Bulloms further south, the latter camp being reinforced by theprivate traders of the Banana Islands, (l)Charles’ tactical decisions were not of the same standard as his incisive
analysis of the situation in Sierra Leone and his strategy of dividing theAfro-Portuguese from the Africans,

A 'palaver* was held in the Sherbro

around April 1727 > where the Yongree (Yoni) Bulloms were opposed to those of
the Sherbro estuary on questions concerning the Royal African Company,

Theking of the Sherbro estuary, Sangrafare, was hostile to the Company at theoutset, but later even he was ready to seek conciliation.

Charles, though

repeatedly invited, did not attend any of these vital discussions among the
Bullom ruling class, giving the lame excuse that he had no boat to carry himfrom Bence to Sherbro,

In spite of his brave words, Charles appeared to have(l) King Lewis, ruler of the Bulloms below Tagrin Point, was said to havebeen poisoned at the instigation of King Sangrafare of the Sherbro,

4 7 0

MULATTO TRADERS
been personally timid; (l) concentrating on strengthening the defences ofBence fort, and introducing a half-hourly watch.

These were of no avail when

Lopez struck in November 1728.
An obituary notice appeared on a tree at th: watering place of the Sierra
Leone estuary.

Written by Lopez on a large sheet of paper, it was addressedto all captains and commanders, indicating "that the ships of all nations,
English, French, Dutch, etc. shall have free liberty of trade in the river andthe utmost safety, except those belonging to the Royal African Company ofEngland"•
Having’ dealt with the Royal African Company, Lopez turned his
attention on the Company*s principal ally, the king of Baga, forcing thelatter, with savage contempt, to eat food placed at the feet of D. Jose Lopezde Moura.

This symbolic act highlighted the fact that the Afro-Portuguese

social formation was not simply a "middle class", but that some of its members
had achieved clear dominance over the African ruling class.

This must havebeen a development in Lopez* time, because as late as 1654? the Afro-Portuguesein their principal township of Port Loko were suppliants before the Maneemperor, who was given to making arbitrary levies on their goods.

Fortunately,

visiting Capuchins converted the emperor, Bolofare, who became D. Felipe,
the second king in Sierra Leone to bear that name.

He was persuaded torespect the rights of the Afro-Portuguese of Port Loko who seemed to have had(l) Peter Kup:
same view.)

A History of Sierra Leone, p.107 (The author expresses theAH
MULATTO TRADERSa settlement of their own. (l) As late as 1821, one of the villages on Port
Loko was ruled over hy Pa Antonio, described as "having a brazen crucifix
suspended from his neck", and claiming descent from the Portuguese. (2)Geographically, Pa Antonio’s power was narrowly circumscribed, but he was achief in his own right.

It was Lopez, "the king-maker", who foreshadowed

the oevelopment by which a number of Afro-Portuguese took over the reins of
power in various places on the Upper Guinea Coast#
The developments over the Upper Guinea Coast were not even.

In the Gambia

during the earlier part of the eighteenth century, there were prominent
mulattoes like Antonio Vaz and Tomba Mendez, a son of the king1 of Barra by a
'Portuguese' woman; (3) but later generations lost wealth and prestige.

Theii

children either emigrated to the banks of the Geba or !.hrew in their lot with
the neighbouring tribes, ceasing to make any pretensions to European
nationality. (4) Indeed, in the whole Geba-Gambia area, the Afro-Portuguesein spite of their numbers did not achieve social prominence and politicalpower, they have survived to the present day as elements owing loyalty tono particular tribe.

Invariably, French commentators like Lajaille, whowere taking stock of the area south of the Gambia in the late eighteenth(1) A.B.F., Letters Antichi, Vol. 248, Declaration of king Farma, Emperor of
the Gapes, 15 Sept 1654
(2) Christopher Fyfe: Sierra Leone Inheritance, p|l69(3) Francis Moore: "Travels into the inland parts of Africa" in T. Astley,Vol. 2, p.217(4 ) J.xi. Gray:

A History of the Gambia, p. 15

4/z
MULATTO TRADERS

century referred to the impoverished state of the Afro-Portuguese. (l)However, in the vicinity of the Pongo there was a noticeablerise to power of mestizo elements.

Lieutenant Matthews found that "theprincipal people call themselves Portuguese, claiming’ their descent from thecolonists of that nation who were formerly settled here, though they do not
retain the slightest trace of European extraction. (2) It is interesting tonote that the tribe within which these Afro-Portuguese held power was not theBagas, who had been on the Pongo when the Portuguese arrived, but the Susus,
who had displaced them during the course of the eighteenth century. (3)Susu

tradition not only records incidents relating to the white' and black’Portuguese*, but they recall the name of Sittel Fernando as the first
Portuguese to settle among’ them; (4) an event which is probably dateable tothe middle of the eighteenth century when the Portuguese were taking- a renewedinterest in this area on account of the extension of the slave trade.

This

Fernando was married to the daughter of the king of Bramayah or Konkoure, andhis son became ruler of the country.

The name of the first king of Koba,(1) J. Machat: Documents sur les Establissements Franpais de l*Afrique
Occidentale au XYIIIe Siecle (Paris 1906) p.106 - Description of the Casamance by Le Brasseur in 177©* (Governor of Goree)(2) J. Matthews: Voyage to the River Sierra Leone, p.13
(3) See below, Ch. IX, p.
(4) M. Saint Pere:"Petit Historique des Sosoe du Rio Pongas", Bulletin duComite des Etudes Historiques et Scientifiques, tome XIII, pp.26-47> 1930

473
MULATTO TRADERS
Manque Sousra (Suares) also suggests a mixture of Portuguese and Susu blood.

(1 )The Afro-Portuguese were not present on the Sherbro at all (2) for the simple reason that the lan^ados did not settle in that area, although
they traded there.

Thus, when a number of mulatto children of English fathers

were born in that area during the seventeenth century, they quickly came toplay exactly the same role there as the Afro-Portuguese played elsewhere.
With a growing white community of English traders and pirates, all subject to"erotic expediency", the Afro-English half-castes increased rapidly, and they
too were augmented by black grumetes sharing their values.

There is no needto elaborate on the activities of the mass of these mulattoes, since they soclosely followed the pattern set by the Afro-Portuguese and in fact mergedwith the latter.

Of the 12,000 of them said to have been in Sierra Leone at

the end of the eighteenth century, (P) it is useful to follow the careers of
only a few outstanding individuals who rose to power within the African
polities.
It was of course the Bulloms, lying along the coast between the
Gallinas and the Ribbi, who were the most involved with the English traders or, more precisely, it was their integrated Mane ruling class*, while Vai(1) Andre* Arcin: Histoire de la Guinee Fran^aise, pp.141,207(2) J. Labat: Voyages du;; Chevalier des Marchais. p.80 (He claims that there
were Portuguese mulattoes on the Sherbro, but he must have been mistaken.)(3) J. Machat: Documents sur les E&ablissements Franpais, p.129.

MULATTO TRADERS

elements were also to t>e considered at Cape Mount and in the Gallinas.

Local

traditions in those areas take special notice of three mulatto families, thoseof the Tuckers, Rogers and Caulkers.

According to one version, recorded in

1929> there.arrived, ahout 150 to 200 years before, three cousins Hho camefrom England:

namely, Cleveland Caulker, who stopped at Shaingay (shenge),

Abraham Tucker, who stopped at Bar Hall (Shebar), and Charles Rogers, who went
to Sulima (Gallinas). (l)As Peter Kup points

out, these three were not thereal founders of their respective families, the confusion in the traditions
being due to the fact that several of these individuals went to Europe foreducation and travel before returning to Africa. (2 )related.

Nor were the three

This was the liberal interpretation of their common English

ancestry.
Two of the above mulatto families were cradled by the Gambia
Adventurers and the third by the Royal African Company.

Both Zachary Rogers

and John Tucker were in the service of the former company in 1665, (5) while
Thomas Corker (from whom the name Caulker was derived) was sent out to Sierra
Leone by the Royal African Company in 1684*

Like the Portuguese lan^ados

and all other resident traders, the employees of the Royal African Company on
the Upper Guinea Coast took African wives.

Very often, these wives seemed tohave been carried within the factory, and their maintenance placed on the(1) J. Roques and M. Luseni:"The Origins of the Kpakas or Rogers", Sierra

Leone Studies. No. XV, Dec 1929
(2 ) Peter Kup:

A History of Sierra Leone, p.149(3 ) P.R.O., T70/544 - Gambia Ledger,

i"75
MULATTO TRADERS

Company1s expense account - a feature about which the directors were not very
happy.

The accountants in London were even more perturbed by the fact thatthe local agents overloaded the payroll by employing all their children.

Anorder was sent out in 1692 that "the children of Mr. Rogers and all others 1
that doe the Company noe service be discharged", (l)were prepared to stand up for their kith and kin.

However, the local agents
Agent Corker, who in 1697

had two sons in the Company*s employ, stressed the need for mulatto labour,and the London officials temporarily deferred to his judgement; (2 )though

within another three years they returned to the subject, submitting a list of*molattoes’, who were receiving wages while performing no specific function.
Peter and Joseph Tucker and Zachary and L a m e Rogers featured on this black­list. (3)In reality, there was a genuine need for personnel in the forts
and factories of the Royal African Company on the Upper Guinea Coast, whichwere chronically understaffed as far as attracting white men from Europe wasconcerned. (4 )The mulattoes joined the free Africans and "factory slaves"

who worked for the Company, filling' -jobs like that of storekeepers, carpenters,
blacksmiths

and hunters.

Peter Tucker, for example, wasemployed

as aninter­

preter at Kiddam in 1684, while Simon Rogers was named as a sailor in 1688. (3)(1) P.R.O.. T70/163 - The Book of Advices, 1685-94(2) P.R.O.. T70/50 - To Corker, 28 Jan 1697, fl.172(3) P.R.O., T70/51 - To William Lewis,31 O g Ji 1700, f1.142.
(4 ) Peter Kup: A History of Sierra Leone, pp.71-73(5) P.R.O.. T70/ 144I - Lists of the Living and the Dead.

MULATTO

TRADERS^°As far as the more important positions were concerned, the view put forward byagent Greenaway in 1703 was that even the factories in outlying districts shoul

be superintended by white men, irrespective of qualifications other than colour(1)This contrasted with the Portuguese belief that a mulatto related to theAfrican rulers of the area would be their best representative.
however, expediency provided a common denominator;

Once more,

and, for instance, theRoyal African Company consigned goods directly to Samuel and Zachary Rogers at
Cape Mount, indicating that these mulattoes were in charge of that area. (2)Around Sierra Leone, the mulattoes ultimately distinguished them­selves not as hired servants of the Royal African Company but as free agents,
sometimes for but more often against the Company.

This was true of all threeof the principal families under consideration, though Corker*s children had
least to do with the Royal African Company.

By the middle of the l690fs the

Tuckers were a power in the Sherbro area.

They were commended in 1697 for thehelp which they gave the Company; (3) though not long afterwards, the directors
noted with annoyance that the "mollotoe Tucker to whom we pay a salary" wasamong those who sided with the interlopers not only in matters of trade but
also in helping them to bring the Company1s name i^to disrepute.

1'his promptedthe London officials to suggest that all their mulatto workers should also sign
bonds, just as those whites who were recruited in England. (4)(2) P.R.O.. T70/52 - To John Clarke, 11 Nov 1714, fl.427(2) P.R.O., T70/14 - Greenaway, 18 March 1703

(3) P.R.O.. T70/5O - To Corker, 21 Dec.1697, fl.17^(4) p »R«0»« T70/51 - To William Lewis, 2 Jan 1700, fl.80

MULATTO TRADERS

There were several Tucker brothers who achieved no distinction,
but in the middle of the eighteenth century, the name of Henry Tucker was apassword in Sierra Leone.

John Newton mentions Henry Tucker regularly in

his well-known Journal and in the Letters to his wife; and commends him as"the man with whom I had the largest connection in business and by whom I wasnever deceived", (l)Nicholas Owen was also impressed by Henry Tucker, andprovides a vivid pensketch of this individual.

"He has been in England, Spain

and Portugall and is master of the English tongue;
a numerous off-spring of suns and daughters;

he has 6 or 7 wives andhis strength consists ofhis

own slaves and their children, who has built a town about him and serves as
his gremetos upon all occasions.

This manbears the charectar of a fairtrader among the Europeans, but to the contrary among the blacks.

His riches

set him above the king's and his numerous people above being surprised by war;
almost all the blacks owes him money, which bring a dread of being stopt uponthat account, so that he is esteemed and feared by all who has the misfortune
to be in his power.

He's a fat man and fair spoken, and lives after themanner of the English, haveing his house well furnish'd with English goods andhis table tolarably well furnish'd with the country produce. He

dresses gayle

and commonly makes use of silver at his table, haveing a goodside board ofplate." (2) This genial king Hal presided over the expatriation and sale intoslavery of thousands of his younger half-brothers, the blacks.
(1) John Newton:(2) Nicholas Owen:

Letters to a Wife (Cited in Journal of a Slave Trader,p.15)
Journal of a Slave Dealer, p.76

478
MULATTO TRADERS

In essentials, the above description fitted all the mulatto slave
trading chiefs in Sierra Leone in the second half of the eighteenth century.
They are, for instance, wholly applicable to James Cleveland, who reigned
supreme for nearly thirty years until his death in 1791*

Many people walked idread of "being stopt" by this mulatto - that is to say, in fear of being
seized and sold to the slave ships because of debts they owed him.

Debts wereby then among the most commonly used pretexts for ensnaring victims for the
Atlantic slave trade.

It was the manner of the trade that most of the petty

chiefs who were involved sought advances of European goods from the slave
traders.

Cleveland lent goods to every chief who requested them, and if any

chief was slow in repaying, Cleveland would arm 200 or 300 of his grumetes,
sending them under white officers to tattack the debtor's town.

In this way

he depopulated all the country between Cape Sierra Leone and the Sherbro. (l)Cleveland's depredations inevitably intensified violence, chaos
and fear in Sierra Leone.

One chief gave evidence that his town was attacked

by Cleveland, some other chiefs and an American vessel then waiting for slaves
His town was taken and destroyed, but he escaped with most of his people, andlater carried out reprisals against Cleveland. (2) This sort of incident was
typical, with a long train of hostilities springing from every act of violence
Besides, a vendetta had broken out between the Caulkers and Clevelands, after
James Cleveland organised an attack on the Plantain Islands in 1785, killing
chief Caulker, and usurping the position of that branch of the family.
(1) C.B. Wadstrom: An Essay on Colonisation. Part I, p.75
(2) Ibid: p.76.

This4 7 ?

MULATTO TRADERS
family feud was pursued for several decades, (l)Chronic fear was reflected in the arrangements by which whole
villagers were shifted from exposed positions to ward off slaving attacks.
Servants of the Sierra Leone Company reported as follows:"Wa saw a number ofcreeks along the river, too narrow to admit above a canoe at once.

At the headof most of these creeks are towns which were placed there in the time of thismulatto chief, because such situations favoured an escape before an attack
could be made.

A subordinate chief, at whose townsuch had been his

motive for choosing so difficult

we landed, confessed tha
a spot." (2)From time to time, there were attempts at a more active form of
resistance to the mulatto traders.

One of the most powerful and feared slave

traders on the coast in the latter part of the eighteenth century was John
Ormond, an Englishman, who owned barracoons on the Konkoure.

About the year

1780, he went to the Idolos for the sake of his health, leaving his mulatto sor
in charge of his factory.

The Bagas descended upon his settlement, and withthe help of Ormond's slaves they destroyed or carried away everything, after
killing young Ormond and his adherents. (3)Caulkers, Tuckers

But to the south, where theand Rogers operated, the balanceof forces was on thethe slave trading chiefs, who vsrent so far as to take control of thecitadel of power within the local society.

sidPoro, theJames Cleveland was in a position

to call out the Poro, (4) while a member of the Tucker family as late as 1826
(1) Christopher Fyfe: A History of Sierra Leone, (See Index, "Caulker")(2) C.B. Wadstrom: An Essay on Colonisation, Part I, p.76
(3) Ibid: p.87
(4) Ibid: p.76.

O

MULATTO TRADERS
invoked the Poro to ensure the continuation of the slave trade, (l)How did individuals like Henry Tucker and James Cleveland come towield such power within African society so as ultimately to have been in aposition to make the Poro (the. 'Law God' society, as it has been termed) into
an instrument of their own policies?

That they had some kinship relationshipwith the hereditary ruling class is well-known, and this could in some cases
lead to the inheritance of land, prestige and authority.
The origins of the Rogers one is the best documented in thisrespect.

Agent Zachary Rogers married a relation of the king of Sherbro(possibly his sister), who obviously had some authority in her own right, beingreferred to as "the great woman" by agent Platt.

On Rogers' death in February

1681, she demanded the salary due to him, this being one of the complicationsof the dispute of 1679-81? and the camwood trade gas renewed only after her
demands were met.

The Sherbro ruler was conceivably a Quoja, ruling over

Bulloms; (3) and in any case descendants of Zachary Rogers strengthened theirposition by marrying into the local ruling family of the Massaquoia at Cape
Mount.
By 1723, the Rogers must have been well entrenched, because when
the directors had a dispute with Zachary Rogers (Jnr), they were forced tohandle him with great caution. (4) Some years later, Walter Charles, in his(1) Christopher Fyfe: A History of Sierra Leone, p.157(2) F. W. Butt-Thompson: West African secret societies, p.17
(3) See above, Ch.
(4) P*R*0». T70/60 - To Archibald and David Scott, 10 July 1723, fl.35*

4*1
MULATTO TRAB-'ilRS
usual disparaging manner, mentioned Zachary Rogers as "a mulatto sprout froma former Company chief", hut he conceded that Zachary monopolised the camwood
trade at Cape Mount, (l)Charles Rogers, mentioned in tradition as comingfrom England, must have been a grandson of the first Zachary Rogers.

He

married the daughter of the king, Kajou, and the son of this marriage, James
Rogers, was one of the factors causing the division of the Massaquoia rulingfamily of the Vais into Kpakas (Rogers) and Gallinas. (2) By this time, camwoo'
had ,iven place to slaves; and in the nineteenth century, the Rogers family,by then completely Africanised, played a major role in the slave trade in anarea made notorious by the barracoons of the Spanish trader, Pedro Blanco. (3)The development of the Caulker family was parallel to that of theRogers.

Thomas Corker, the Englishman, had several sons, one of whom bore hisfather's name, and was in the employ of the Royal African Company in 1713* (4)Robin and Stephen were two other sons.

The mother of some, if not all ofCorker's children was known to the English as Senhora Doll, Duchess of Sherbro.
Whe was a Bullom; and their tradition places her as a member of the Ya Kumba
family who ruled on the shores of Yawry Bay between the Sierra Leone peninuula
and the Sherbro estuary.

When she died in 1722, her children kept their(1) P.R.O., T70/1465 - Diary of Walter Charles.
(2) S.M. Despicht: "A Short History of the Gallinas Chiefdoms", Sierra'Leone
Studies, No.XXI, Jan 1939
(3 ) See, e.g., Captain Canoti

Adventures of an African Slaver, p.300 et seq.

(4) P.R.0., T70/591 - York Island Accounts 1710-1720

^-82.
MULATTO TRADERS
father's name, while supposedly inheriting her claims to authority, (l)Newtonrecorded in his journal that when he crossed the bar of the river Bum on the
14th November 1750, a message was sent to James Corker, implying1 that Corker
was the senhor of that area. (2)This coincides with the seat of power of theYa Kumba family.
However, careful scrutiny suggests that the blood ties on thefemale side were the least of the qualifications of the mulattoes.

After all,they were operating within a patri-lineal framework among the Mane descendants
in the Sherbro and the Sierra Leone peninsula, as well as mong the patri­lineal Susus of the Pongo and Nunez.

Furthermore, it appears that James

Cleveland, the most successful of the mulatto chiefs, was not descended from an
African ruling family,

Cle&veland the slave trader, said to have been a memberof a respectable Devonshire family and the brother of a Secretary to theAdmiralty, arrived at the Banana Islands towards the middle of the eighteenth
century, and married the daughter of chief Caulker, who was already establishedthere.

But their son, John, did not long survive the father who died in 1758;

and the James Cleveland who became notorious was reputedly the sonof a Kissi woman named N'Damba. (3)As far as the situation on the Nunes, Konkoure and Pongo wasconcerned, a very pertinent parallel is suggested by the careers of mulatto(1) Christopher Fyfe: A History of Sierra Leone, p.10(2) John Newton; Journal of a Slave Trader, p.17 (Newton sometimes calls him^Corker' and sometimes 'Calker'.)(3) Claude George; The Rise of British West Africa (London 1903) PP*65”67*4^ ^MULATTO TRADERS~~\

slave trading1 chiefs in the nineteenth century.

Most of them were offspringof Americans, and boasted names like Curtis, Lightbourne and Wilkinson.
According to tradition, when these mulattoes first made their bid for power
they were scoffed at and told that their fathers had been duped into thinking
they had married the daughters of kings, but that they had only been provided
with slave women, (l)Ultimately, they did achieve the status of rulers, but

their political power, far from resting on a

traditional kinship base, could

only have been achieved in spite of previous social prescriptions.

The same

appeared to have been true of the eighteenth century mulatto chiefs.

At every juncture in their rise to social and political prominence
the progress of the mulattoes must be seen in relation to the trade with theEuropeans.

In the first instance, they inherited wealth from their whitefathers, which tie latter had acquired from trading and from fobbing theiremployers.

Little is known of the original John Tucker, who was in the employof the Gambia Adventurers, but both Zachary Rogers and Thomas Corker had grownrich by defrauding the Royal African Company,(2)

their primary capital

accumulation following the general rule of being based on outright robbery.
Judging from a report of 1705, the "biggest villains", such as Rogers andCorker undoubtedly were, had started plantations and used the Company's slaves
to work them. (3) Such plantations were the nucleus of the chiefly estate.
(1) Andre Arcins Histoire de 3La Guinee Eranpaise, p.142(2)**

Rogers died in the Sherbro in 1681. Corker died shortly after he had been
carried back to England in 1700 to answer charges of peculation.

(3) P.R«0«, T70/14 - Greenaway, 18 March 1703.

4 §4MULATTO TRADERS

At the end of the eighteenth century, the largest plantations on the coast of
Sierra Leone belonged to the Caulkers and their cousins, the Clevelands, (l)With the goods, slaves and boats transferred from the Royal
African Company and made to yield increase by trade, the white resident traders
and their mulatto progeny were- able to-build-their -own -towns -in- many instances. Henry Tucker had his town, and so did Lopez and other individuals in thiscategory.

Since the Manes indulged in the breaking up of the patrimony, andthe setting up of several village chiefdoms of approximately equal power, (2)when the mulattoes built their towns they automatically had as much power as
the average chief in the area.

Indeed, the mulatto towns were usuallystronger,v being protected by European cannon in some instances, as was "Jamaica
Town", the home of Zachary Cumberbatch. (3)Owen mentioned that Henry Tucker's

strength consisted in the slaves, grumetes and relations who comprised his
town.

Their functions we., e not only the relatively peaceful ones of trade,but, as with the Caulkers and Clevelands, they would have been used as thebailiffs who collected debtors bodily for the slave ships.
Perhaps what was even more decisive than the inherited wealth ofthe mulattoes was their commercial expertise.

Walter Charles had realisedthat for some reason the mulattoes were performing services for the European
buyers which the Africans did not.

He considered that this was an easily(1) B . M . , Add. Ms. 12131 - Mr. James Strand Journal of Occurrences, 1792,
and Mr. Gray's Journal 1795*(2) Fernao Guerreiro: Relapao Anual, Vol.3, p-267(3) P«R«<C«« i'70/1465 - Diary of 'Walter Charles, 1728

4^
MULATTO TRADERS
reversible process, which only needed African initiative to oust the 'blackwhites1. How.ver, the understanding of European trade possessed by themulattoes was the product of their training in this sphere and their constantpre-occupation with trade as a profession, and not simply as an additive toagricultural endeavouis; and this understanding placed the African rulers
perpetually in the debt of the mulattoes.
Apart from the knowledge of European techniques which themulattoes obtained informally on the coast, quite a sprinkling of them went
to Europe from Sierra Leone in the eighteenth century, along with the sons ofAfrican chiefs.

John Matthews informed the Lords1 Committee on the /-Atlantic

slave trade that in 1788 there were fifty African children in Liverpool, andthat in some years the figure had been as high as seventy, apart from those in
London and Bristol.

The purpose, according to Matthews, was that they should"receive such an education such as will fit them for trading with greater
advantage", (l)Anna Maria Falconbridge purported to be quoting the African

explanation that it was to "read book to learn and be rogue sa well as whiteman". (2) From all reports, the mulattoes succeeded only too well.
There were two other ingredients which went into the success ofthe mulattoes, apart from their knowledge of the European system of commercE.
(1) Renorts of the Lords of the Committee. 1789 - Part I "Detached Pieces of
Evidence relating to the Trade to Africa generally" No. 4 , Delegates ofLiverpool 1788, and No. 5, John Matthews.
(2) A.M. Falconbridge:

Narrative of Two Voyages to the River Sierra Leone, p.'^•*5L
MULATTO TRADERS

The first was the consciousness of the fact that they straddled two worlds,
and that there was advantage to be gained by identifying themselves to greateror lesser degree with one or the other, as circumstances dictated.

Of James

Cleveland, Matthews had this to say, "To sum up his character in a few words:
with a White Man he is a White Man, with a Black Man a Black Man".

Similarly,

it was said of Prince George, an educated son of a Sierra Leone chief, that
his European education had no other effect than to enable him to impose upon
both his own countrymen and whites with greater facility, (l)In the second

place, the mulatto chiefs displayed a ruthlessness which must have stemmed fromthe fact that for the first generation or two at any rate they were not
restrained by any rules or loyalties.

Nicholas Ownn perceived this.

His

assessment of the mulattoes was that "they are in a general way worse than theblacks and as they are given to trade, which leads them into the fashons of the
English and shews them insight in the manner we trade with the black people, ourproffit is not sufficient to satisfy them, but they make new extortions of theirown, which renders the poor blacks miserable a both sides". (2) This then was
the efficient comprador class of the Upper Guinea Coast in the proto-colonialsituation.

They squeezed the Africans to make as much personal profit as

possible, but essentially they served the wider interests of European
commercial capitalism.

(1) Report oP(2) Nicholas Owen:

Lords of the Committee, 1789, Loc.cit.,
Journal of the Slave Dealer, p.102.

A H ISTO R Y OF T h E UPPER G UINEA COAST.

1 5 4 5 -1 8 0 0

CHAPTER NINE

T h e INFLUENCE OF T n S INTERIOR ON TnS COAST

4??
CHAPTER IX

THE INFLUENCE OF THE INTERIOR ON THE COAST

Throughout the period under discussion, the littoral strip ofUpper Guinea remained in close contact with its hinterland, so that theEuropeans did not represent the only external influence which acted uponthat society.

The impact of the interior can he seen in part as acontinuation of the process which had heen going on for centuries, andwhich was responsible for the peopling of the coast;hut it is discernible

that by the eighteenth century, the hinterland, too, had immensely
strengthened the ties which had earlier been established with the Atlantic
slave trade, so that the paradox arose that even the influences of theinterior in the eighteenth century were reflections of contacts with theEuropeans.

Both the old and the new themes in this coast - hinterland

relationship must be considered.
In certain respects, the Sudanic presence on the Upper Guinea Coast,
so powerful in the sixteenth century, was on the wane in the seventeenth
century, and virtually non-existent in the eighteenth.

For instance, overthis period, references to the Farim Cabo and Farim Bra^o are rare.

These

kingdoms were no longer part of a centralised empire ruled over by the
Mandimansa.

Ogilby was well aware of the process of disintegratioh.

Hewrote (in 1670) that "the king of Mandinga some years since was so puissantthat almost all the kings and people of Upper Guinea abeyed and paid him

4-V9
IHTjiRIOR

tribute;especially the Cassangas, and other kingdoms lying at the river

Gambia.

Heretofore he held the seat of his empire in the inland, and gave thelower countreys lying on the west sea, to one Chabos and Faim Brasop placing
moreover many other viceroys under £im;... but now these have taken thetitle of kings, and regard this Mandimansa little or nothing;

every onegoverning his countrey with full power, without acknowledging him or any otherfor their superior", (l)Besides, some of the subjected littoral peoples

were no longer prepared to tolerate Mandinga dominance.

The Djolas inparticular dealt some serious blows at the Mandinga king of Fogny in theearly eighteenth century, when he attempted to assert his authority over them.

(2 )The Mane system of viceroys or dondaghs had broken down even more
completely than its Mandinga equivalent, leaving Sierra Leone isolated fromthe former centre of the empire at Cape Mount, as well as leading to thedivisionism within Sierra Leone itself.

F.A. Utting, in The Story of Sierra

Leone, provides a chronology based on what was in effect a number of Manedynasties.

He mentions Bai Farima (died 1606); Farama Borea (I6O6-I63O);

Borea the Great (1630-64); Philip II (1665-) etc. (3) But, no viable

centralised Sierra Leone kingdom persisted over this long interval.

Thearea ruled by "Farama Borea", who is the same Farma Boure christened Philip(1)

John Ogilbys Africa, pp.367*368 (Also p«353)(2)

J.M. Gray:(3)

F.A. Utting:

A History of the Gambia, p*179
The S+ory of Sierra Leone (London 1931)

'O

INTERIOR"bythe Portuguese, was divided up

second king in Sierra, Leone to be

betweenfour brothers; (l) while thebaptised 'Philip*, like the first Parma

Parima, ruled over the Port Loko area rather than the peninsula. (2)It isobvious that with time each of the original four kingdoms reported at the
beginning of the seventeenth century wan disintegrating into several smaller
units.■
Yet, to concentrate on the decline of the formal political structuresofthe Mande is misleading.

In numerous other spheres, ranging from house­building to language, the peoples of the Upper Guinea Coast have been
profoundly influenced by the Mande, sometimes to the point of adopting theidentity of the latter. (3)(1)

One of the most important sub-divisions of the

See above, Ch. II, p. fol. At lease one of these brothers, Dorn Thomas, wasalive in the l660*s.

He was seen by the Portuguese missionary, Andre'de Faro in 1663, and by the French trader, Nicholas de Villault in I667.

Andre' de Paroj Peregrina^ao, p.52; and Nicholas de Villault: Relation de;
Costes d'Afrique, p.62.

See also C. Pyfe: Sierra Leone Inheritance, p.5!

(2) Andre' de Faro: Peregina^ao, p.60. (However, the king whom Utting’ calls
Borea the Great (I63O-I66O) was apparently regarded as 'Philip II* by
European traders who knew that his predecessor was baptised and given
the name Philip.

See Alonso de Sanderval: Natureleza de Todos Etiopes(Second edition under the title De Instaurandum Aethiopum SadLute,
Seville, 1641).

(3)

A. Carreira: 0 Fundamento dos Etnonimos na Guine Portuguesa; andA. Texeira da Mota and M.G. Ventim Neves: A Habitapao Indigena na Guine
Portuguese,, p.46.

Naturally enough, the process was not one sided.

Mandinga construction, e.g., was influenced by the littoral people P. 458.

>f?/

INTERIOR
Balanta tribe, for example, is called the ^alanta-Mane1. They modelledthemselves after the Mandingas of the Casamance and assumed the Mande familyname 'Mane*.

It

was

in the late nineteenth century that aEuropean firstdrew attention

to

the

1Balanta-Mane*, (l) hut such acculturation must haveheen proceeding slowly over centuries, ever since the first contacts weremade between the Balantas and the Mandingas.
Bo doubt, political conquest stimulated cultural change, but the
Miandinguisation* (2) of the West Atlantic peoples continued during theeighteenth century when the Mande political empires were crumbling.

Besides,even politically there was an up-trend, discernible in the weight of Mandeopinion within the councils of the coastal chiefdoms.
AlongsideoftheMande, one must take into account thesecond ethnic

group of the Upper Niger Circle:

namely, the Fulas.

They did not always

act in concert with the Mande by any means, but it is a tolerable approxima­tion to consider the Upper Niger Circle as a single entity in so far as it
acted upon the West Atlantic Circle.

The Islamic state of the Futa Djalon

which was created by the Mande and Pulas in the eighteenth century was of
the greatest significance in the lives of the people of the littoral.

(1)

Bertrand-Bocande: "Notes sur la Guinee Portugaise ou Senegambie
Meridionale", Bull. Soc. Geog. Paris, Vol. XI, pp.265-550> &nd Vol. XII,
PP.57-9%(2)This somewhat heavy-handed term is already in use in the literatureon the subject.

+ 1Z
INTERIOR
On regarding the several spheres in which the influence of the interior
was manifest, trade emerges as an outstanding aspect;and it is one that

underwent appreciable changes during the centuries of pre-colonial AfroEuropean contacts.

All these changes ultimately tended to reinforce theconnection between the coast and the interior, though this development was
not inevitable.
The arrival of the Portuguese caravels automatically meant that thecoastal peoples no longer had to maintain exclusive commercial relations with
the interior.

Under certain circumstances, the interior could conceivably

have been relegated into an unimportant position as far as the coastal
peoples were concerned.

When commodities such as cloth and ironware

obtainable from both directions, Europe had the advantages to supplant theinterior, as indeed ultimately happened with these two manufactures. (i)Alternatively, European imports could have replaced African products at thecoastal end.

In Sierra Leone there was a real threat of this occurring if

the Europeans imported salt;

and it was observed at the end of the eighteenth

century that the peoples of the swamps had a ban

on European importsof salt

since that was the only coastal African commodity which rated highwith theinterior peoples at that time. (2)But the element of competition was notpronounced, because European goods were usually novel, and because theEuropeans were requesting goods which the Africans had not been exchanging
among themselves.
(1)

See above, Ch. VII# ^(2) John Matthews: A Voyage to the River Sierra

Leone, p. 144*

^-93
IHTlHIOR
Given that the inhabitants of the interior were as desirous ofEuropean goods as were the coastal residents, and given that they were both
capable of supplying the same African products, and given further that theEuropean demand (especially for slaves) could easily absorb the supplies fromboth coast and hinterland, the overall impart of the European advent was toinduce a greater movement of goods between the littoral and the hinterland.
A nucleus of the old trade remained;

cloth, cattle and shea-butter (l) fromthe interior being exchanged for salt, kola and rice from the coast;

but

proportionately what mattered was that black men were purchased with weapons,alchohol, utensils, glass beads and the like.
In the sixteenth century, the Susus and the Djalonk^s travelled in large
annual caravans from the Futa Djalon to the Pongo, Nunez and Konkoure; (2)while in the seventeenth century, the position seems to have been the same.
Coelho calls the traders who arrived atithe Nunez the 1Jagancazes*, but inall probability they came from the Futa Djalon or Njalonkadoo, as it would
then have been called.

Anxious to secure supplies of salt both for themselves

and their cattle, they despatched every year three large caravans to thecoast - one to the Senegal, one to the Gambia and one to the Nunes. (3)(1)

Shea-butter is a vegetable product.

Its importance among' the peoples of

the Gambia was discerned by Mungo Park, and hence the tree from which it
is obtained is called Bassia Parkii (Sap.). See Mungo Park: Travels ...
1795-97. pp.26,35 and J. Machat: Les Rivieres du Sud, p.180.
(2)

See above, Ch. II, p./f7(3) Lemos Coelho: Duas Describes da Guine". pp. 7>8>6l

1 - H

INT .HIOR
It is significant that the caravans travelled to the coast rather thanthe littoral residents taking the initiative to proceed inland;

and it was

ecrually significant that the Portuguese lan^ados undertook the responsibilityof tapping the resources of the sertao, with the Afro-Portuguese following intheir footsteps.

The Mande and Fulaidisplayed a flair for commerce which wasabsent from the coastal tribes.

Coelho pinpointed a Mandinga town on the

Corubal as the only place where markets were held every day of the week,organised by professional Mandinga traders, (l)Ubiquitious in West Africa inthis capacity (usually under the name Dioula), it was the Mandinga merchants
who kept the Upper Guinea Coast in contact with the deep hinterland.

At

Cantor, Geba and Farim, the boats of the Afro-Portuguese handed over theirproduce to the Mandingas, who s^t off inland.
Long-distance tra.de always had its intervening hindrances and hazards.
Almost without exception, peoples on or near the coast in Africa werereluctant to allow direct contact to be made between the Europeans on the coastand the sources of trade in the interior.

First-hand information on the

trading policies of the coastal residents of Sierra Leone comes through an
unusual set of circumstances.

One Charles Franklin was fleeing from thepirate, Charles Roberts in 1718> and was given sanctuary by king Thom at the
Sierra Leone estuary.

During his residence, he found that the inhabitants on

the sea front used every means of propaganda to keep the inland people awayfrom the Europeans.

On the one hand, they discouraged the whites fromventuring into the bush by painting a picture of a barren and hostile(l)Lemos Coelho:

Duas Describes da Guine. p.54

49s
INTERIOR
interior, while they had the visitors from the hinterland believe that there
was always the danger of being carried off in the slave ships if they turned
up to sell their commodities.

When Franklin had to be sent to another kingninety miles inland, his journey was conducted in such a way as to prevent
him making any useful observations, and particular care was taken to seethat he made no written notes, (l)Caravans and coffles were open to attack along the route.

Naturally

enough, the travellers made arrangements for their own defence, and thelarger the party the better.

The Fulas in the late seventeenth century

were said to have been foremost among the caravan parties, and travelled withadequate protection and hunters to procure food; though at the same timebands of Fulas were notorious highway robbers.

The Fulas were also strong

enough to brush aside imperiously the demands for tolls, paying only a trifle
which they themselves determined upon. (2)The administration of such a Fula caravan was an affair of state - an"administered trade", as Karl Polanyi categorises this pre-capitalist formof commerce. (3) The king*s permission was necessary and he was to receive
naif the profit.
(1)

The privilege of leading1 the caravan was usually given to a

A *W, Lawrence:(Ed.): A Series of Uncommon Events which Befell Captain
George Roberts (London 1930) pp.l60-l67» 176-178.

(2) Mateo de Anguiano: Misiones Capuchinas en Africa. Vol. II, p.132(3) K. Polanyi: "The Economy as an Instituted Process", in K. Polanyi,
C.M. Arensberg and H.W. Pearson (eds.): Trade and Markets in the Early
Empires (Glencoe 1957) p*263.

iht :/:r i o r

son or an important personage who had the power of life and death over his
followers.

set out for the coast at the beginning of the dry seasoh,taking up a position on a well-frequented path, while despatching small bandsof retainers to other trails throughout t he neighbourhood so as to blockade
access to the sea.

This would be kept up for a month or more until sufficient

traders were trapped to constitute a valuable caravan.

For this unsolicitedprotection, each trader had to hand over a small percentage of his profits tothe caravan leader, (l)When the caravan reached the end of its journey at some place where theEuropeans had a factory, such as Port Loko or Kambia on the Gt. Searcies,
they applied to the African inhabitants of the given settlement to serve as
brokers and interpreters, the latter being a ceremonial rather than afunctional role.

Small huts or boughs were built to shelter them from theheat of the sun, though the leader of the caravan was usually accommodated
by the European factor.

Before the two sides embarked on business the factor

had to give the leader his present or boonyar, comprising usually kola,malaguetta pepper, tobacco, rice and palm oil.

The first two articles wereof the greatest consequence, and once the kola was chewed a bargain could becompleted.

The trade for rice was soon settled as an equal measure of salt

was offered to the Fulas.

Other goods were bartered for individually, eachrequiring a fresh palaver* andall its attendant formality.

Not surprisingly,

the Europeans complained that the Fulas had no idea of time, since they would
spend all day to gain an extra shilling or two in value.
(i)Captain Canot: Adventures of an African Slaver, p.92

Eventually, the deal

4? 7
INTERIOR
wa3 completed, and the caravan leader requested his second boonvar, propor­

tionate to the amount of business transacted.

The articles involved in thisbarter were slaves, ivory, rice, soap and cattle on the one hand, and salt,
kola, guns, gunpowder, cloth, tobacco, beads, etc. on the other, (l)A marked increase in the number of caravans was noticeable by the latterpart of the eighteenth century, with all the rivers between the Sierra Leone

estuary and the Nunez discharging slaves into the hulls of the European ships.
But this was not all.

Long before this, the Mande and Fulas had been drawn

closer to the coast by the European presence.

The movement across the plainsand down to the littoral plains was two-pronged, consisting of peacefulpenetration and aggressive domination.
Invasions such as those of the Fulas in the fifteenth century and thoseof the Manes in the sixteenth century obviously affected the ethnographic
picture on the Upper Guinea Coast in a dramatic manner, but, on balance, they
were not the most important means by which population changes came about.
The Mande and the Fula appeared among’ the coastal tribes in small groups,
perhaps at times even individually.

They were allowed to have their own

quarter in a village or a village to themselves, and the result was a cunda
or home. (2)The Fulas had their Fulacundas. the Soninke their Tienecundas,

and the Islamicised Mandingas their Morocundas. (3) As these cundas grewlarge and more numerous, the contradictions between themselves and the host(1)

T. Winterbottom: An Account of the Native A-rricans of Sierra Leone.

(2)

Cunda is really a suffix, though it is used here as a substantive.

(3)

A, Texeira da Mota: Guine Portuguese. Vol. I, p.158.

412
INTERIOR
community intensified, and eventually the Mande or Fula aliens took controlof the region, with the main body of the tribe usually supporting theirirridentist members.
As would be expected, the above process was a long drawn out one.
Though the Fulas had been in the Senegambia centuries before Jobson wrote in
1621, they were at that time still slowly building up their position on theriver Gambia, transforming themselves from a nomadic to a sendentary existence"Their profession is keeping of cattle, some goats they have, but the herds
they tend are beefes, whereof they are abundantly stored:

In some places thehave settled towns, but for the most part they are still wand:.ring, uniting
themselves in kindred and families, and so drive their heards together; where
they find the ground and soil most fit for their cattle, there with the
king’s allowance of the country, they sit downe building themsehres houses, as
the season of the yeare serves." (l)Later in the century, they were mostly

resident in their own towns, still subject to the Mandingas. (2)Eventually, the Fulas rose from the position of vassalage in which they
were held by the Mandingas on the Gambia to one of equality rather than hege­
mony .

In other places, the complete inversion of power did occur, though noalways within the period under discussion.

In Cabo and the Badjar, forexample, it was not until the nineteenth century that the Fulacundas among
the Mandingas and Beafadas proved Trojan horses for Fula imperialism. (3)(1)

R. Jobson:

The Golden Trade, p.46

(2)

Lemos Coelho: Duas Descripoes da Guine, p.8.

(3) Velez Caroco: Monjur o Gabu, e a Sua Historia, p.106; andJ. Mendes Moreira: Fulas do Gabu (Bissau 194®) pp.80,82.

4
L'l^RIOR
But the eighteenth century witnessed the establishment of Fulacundas not
only in Cabo and on the Bad jar, but also much closer t'o the coast among the
Djolas and the Banhuns, and among the Beafadas and Malus in the Geba-Nunez
area.

This latter district also harboured several Morocundas and Tienecundag

as did the whole of Sierra Leone as farsoufch as the rivers leading intothe
Sherbro estuary.

In two instances, theprocess had been carried tocompletion, resulting in Susu domination of the coast between the Pongo andthe Ilelakoure, and in Pula rule in the Futa Djalon.
The map produced by Mungo Park after his first journey inland shows theleft bank of the Gambia studded with Fulacundas.
"the Fulas are pastoral people who
kingdoms of the Windward Coast,

He himself commented thathave introduced

themselves into all theas herdsmen and husbandmen, paying

atribute

to the sovereign of the country for thelands which they hold". (i)Fortunately, a brief account of the Fulacundas in the Geba-Corubal region in
the late eighteenth century is available, demonstrating what they were likein this embryonic stage.

The isolated Fula communities were tightly organised

mutual interdependence and economy were stressed; and the harvest was neversold until the following one was reaped.
the land.

Hot that many of the Fulas worked

Their main concern was their large herds of cattle, whose milk the;yexchanged for grain, as well as manufacturing butter and cheese.

They weremonogamous, in contrast to all their neighbours, and the men married strictly
within the ethnic group. (2)(1)

Mungo Park: Travels...1795-97. P-17

(2) Damaio Peres (ed.): Planta

da Praya de Bissau

e Suas Ad.iacentesnor

Bernardino Antonio Alvaresde Andrade (Lisboa

1952) pp.56-58.

soo

Pula traditions speak of a dispersal from the Futa Boundou, tracing theroute of travel and pinpointing the positions in the Geba-Corubal area where
the immigrants set up their Fulacundas and Fulas os (another word meaning Fula
family hamlets).

Led by one Kunta Meta, they brought their cattle across the

Badjar to Cabo (Gabu), founding the settlement of Cuntanto in what is now
Tumana de Cima in Portuguese Guinea.

Later they tried to form another colony

in Chanha to thesouth, but were discouraged, end returned to Tumana to build
a stronghold at Gabu-Sara.

From there a number of other settlements wereformed, mainly in the chao or territory of the Mandingas, but also among the
Beafadas;tribute being paid to the respective sovereign tribe. (i)Meanwhile, south of the Geba, the Mande had long been advancing towards
the coast.

Both the Susus end the Mandingas were involved, though becauseof the reputations of the Mandingas, Susus were often called Mandingas by
the European traders. (2)Up to the mid-seventeenth century, the Susus werestill a land-bound ttrib$-.r but they were approaching much closer to the sea.
Goelho remarked that the Susus had no kings:

only villages like the Bijagos,

each under the command of a headman. (3) This is clearly erroneous if applied
to the Susus of the interior, who lived under a more developed state systemthan the inhabitants of the littoral.

The isolated villages were the out­

posts of the Susus, the cundas in the territory of the Nalus and Bagas.
(1)

Velez Carofo: Mon.jur o Gabu. e a Sua Historia, pp«133»134
J. Mendss Moreira: Fulas do Gabu, pp.76-79(2)

A.G. Laing: Travels, p.69

(p)Lemos Goelho: Duas Descricoes da Guine\ pp.59,210

&0f
int .:
r ior

Almost a century later, Nicholas ©wen echoed the comment about the Susus
living only under headmen.

He was referring to the co-jst, so that some of

the Susus had made their way to the waterside by that date, (l)Several lateeighteenth century accounts show that between the Pongo and the Searcies thecoastwards thrust of the Susus had reduced the Bagas to a few straggling
villages along the coast, and had forced some to take refuge in the Isles deLos. (2)The process of Mande penetration was well exemplified by the development;
at Port Loko Creek.

A Temne town called Old Port Loko was the earliest

settlement in that area; while at a later date the Temnes built anothercalled Romarung.
Robatt.

Susu incursion was represented by two towns, Sandegu andAfter a period as guests, the Susus seized power in Port Loko,apparently at the end of the eighteenth century.

Tradition names the Susu

leader as a member of the Sankong family which held sway in the Scarcies-

Melakourd district, (3) Divisions'within the Temne ranks aided the achievemeiof hegemony by the Susus; (4) though there was to be a reversal of policy andfortunes in 1816 when the Susu king of Port Loko was expelled by a Temne(1)

Nicholas Owen: Journal of a Slave Dealer, p.69

(2)

J. Matthews: Voyage to the River Sierra Leone. p.l6; and T.Winterbottom
An Account of the Native Africans of Sierra Leone, p.5*

(3 ) Christopher Fyfe: Sierra Leone Inheritance, Section 9> extracts 1 and 2,
pp.166-170(4)A.G., Laing: Travels, p.73

&0Z,
INTERIOR

alliance. (i)Unlike the Mane invasions, the eighteenth century Mande offensive wasstimulated and accompanied by Islam.

Towns like *Mori Kunda1 and fMori Funde*sited in Koranko territory in the early nineteenth century could mean only one
thing - the presence of Muslims. (2)They were built up by Mande traders

professing Islam, who had complete freedom of movement over the whole of theUpper Guinea Coast and were the most vzealthy individuals in the region,
Families such as the Sankong were Muslims, and their rise to power was
followed by the establishment of mosques and inducements to the Temne chiefs
to send their sons for an Islamic education.
Islam made its appearance on the Upper Guinea Coast at an early date,tahen in the context of ¥est Africa.

This fact has received little considera­tion, largely because the coast seemed to fall outside the radius of lightcast by the Sudanic empires. (3) In the sixteenth century, if not earlier,
Islam had reached a stage of development in the Mande dominated sections of
the Upper Guinea Coast comparable to that in the Western and Central Sudan inessentials;

that is to say, a body of Muslim clerics was in existence, aprogramme of instruction in Arabic was available, and the ruling class was(1)

Christopher Fyfe: Sierra Leone Inheritance, loc.cit., (Peter Kup places’ these traditions in a late sixteenth and early seventeenth century
context - A History of Sierra Leone, p.142.)(2) A.G. Laings

Travels, pp.188,189(3) A standard work such as J*S. Trimingham; A History of Islam in West Africmakes scarcely any reference to the Upper Guinea Coast.

INTERIOR
heavily influenced by Muslim advice.

There were three important Islamic

centres on the Gambia - one at the estuary; a second at Malor, 200 miles
inland; and a third at Sutuco a further 150 miles distant in the territoryof the Farim Cabo. In these the imams (called !bisserins! and lmaraboutsl
by the Europeans) were trained, and the important mosques were to be found,(l) The authority of the Almami at Sutuco extended to the south over theSusus as well as the Mandingas, and the region was divided into units which
the Portuguese equated with bishoprics. (2)The imams lived separately from the mass of the people, and their wayof life was distinctive.

The practices of their religion were adhered to.

They were described by De Almada as being thin and debilitated, because ofabstinence and fasting;they did not eat pork, nor drink wine, nor eat

flesh killed by any handsbther than theirs;

and they performed theirablutions and their prayers. (3) What their religion was like in aqualitative sense it is difficult to say*

Lemos Coelho noted that certain

Moorish devotees who visited the Senegambia commented that the religion
practised there was filled with a thousand deviations from the law ofMohammed. (4) Conceivably, however, the Moors might have been speaking froma sectarian position.

The great emphasis on education along with thepossibility of regenerative influence from outside must have helped to keep(1) Alvares de Almada:"Rios da Guine", p.275*(2) Fernao Guerreiro: Relayao Anual. Vol. Ill, p.242(3) Alvares de Almada:(4) Lemos Coelho:"Riosde Guine", pp.275»276

Duas Descricoes da Guine, p.107

INTERIOR
the religion of the Upper Guinea Coast relatively orthodox, at least by

Sudanic standards; though at the same time, somewhat paradoxically, it was theflexibility of religious practice which helped to maintain the Muslims high inthe favour of the mass of Africans.
It is obvious that the Muslims were extremely tolerant of the African
religion and way of life, and as such they were not regarded as aliens.

This

was in a sense a survival technique of a tiny minority, but their forebearance
is in distinct contrast to the attitude of the Portuguese priests who went
about breaking ancestral images and demanding the limitation of the number ofwives of the polygamous peoples they were trying to convert. a )On afundamental issue such as initiation and circumcision^ the imam quickly became
the individual in charge of the ceremony, as Valentim Fernandes observed. (2 )Very probably this involvement was possible because the African Muslims stillshared most of the fundamental conceptions of their society, especially withregard to metaphysical force.

Neither party found it incongrous that the

Muslims inexorably usurped the power and authority of the "medicine man" orpriest.
All over the Upper Guinea Coast even when there was no suggestion thatthe people in a given area embraced Islam, both the imams and the Muslim(1)

Andre de Faro: Peregrinacao.

(This missionary nearly lost his life

as a result of his conviction that it was necessary to destroy all
African 1idols1•)(2)

Valentim Fernandes: La Cote Occidentale d*Afrique, p .44 (referringto thd Mandingas and the Wolofs.)

INT RIOR

traders wore welcomed and revered as the dispensers of fgreegrees* or amulets.

Any object or collection of objects could constitute a'greegree1, provided it
we.s recognised as having1 power;

but the Muslims standardised their prescrip­

tions by writing on a piece of paper end sewing it up within a decorated
leather bag, the work of Mande craftsmen.

There was more than a hint of the!greegrees* being perverted into a pardoners1 trade.

When Barreira tried toeffect the conversion of the Susu king of Bena, he was opposed by a Muslim
whose principal fear seemed to Barreira to have been the loss of ^reegree*
revenues, (l)Writing ;at the end of the eighteenth century, Beaver voiced his

suspicion that a number of illiterate frauds had entered the profession, but
whoever could win the reputation for producing "strong greegrees" had his
fortune made.

Even the Bijagos welcomed the Muslims and purchased theirdispensations. (2)The above phenomenon stimulated the demand for paper on the Upper Guinea
Coast.

Paper was one of the items prohibited by Manueline legislation frombeing sold to the Africans; (3 ) but the Portuguese and other Europeans did
ask, carry small supplies to the Upper Guinea Coast, and particularly to theGambia, where, in Coelho*s time, four quires of paper had the same purchasing
power as an eighth of an ounce of gold. (4 )Paper was also needed for thebooks and manuscripts upon which the Muslims placed the greatest value, as(2)

P. Beaver: African Memoranda,pp.201,(3)

See above, Ch. VII } f(4 )Lemos Coelho: Duas Descripoes da Guine'', p.24

(l)Fernao Guerreiro: Relayao anual,Vol.

^

323

1-

3> p.245

3-C( dINTERIOR

the basis of their programme of education,

A-fc the beginning of theseventeenth century, there was a large Islamic school to be found at Benaamong the Susus.

Every day, the young men would write on their parchments

and read aloud, no doubt memorising the Ojur’an. (l)Richard Jobson describes

a similar schoolf the Gambia in 1621; (2) and indeed, up to the end of thei—eighteenth century, this was the kind of tuition which was to be found on theUpper Guinea Coast, ($) increasing in extent slowly as Islsm spread.
With their monopoly of literacy and their ability to prescribe powerfulspiritual 'medecine’ added to their role as traders, the Muslims formed aclose alliance with the coastal ruling class, though the latter invariably
remained committed to the beliefs of their ancestors, (4 )Even among theMande and Fulas of the Upper Guinea Coast and its hinterland, the Islamic
community remained a very small minority until the eighteenth century, but
members o f these tribes were nevertheless the ones who were extending thefaith.

Consequently, the direction in which Islam spread on tbe Upper

Guinea Coast was southwards from the Gambia and westwards from the Futa
Djalon.

In the sixteenth century, the Beafadas and the Casangas were the(1)

Fernao Guerreiros

Relacao Anual. Vol. 3> P*245(2)

R. Jobson:(3)

T. Winterbibttom:(4 )it is quite possible that one section of the ruling class, namely,

The Golden Trade, p.92
An Account of the Native Africans of Sierra Leone.

the priests, opposed the Muslims, but there is no evidence forthcomingon this point.

^roy
INTERIOR
most exposed to the influence of Muslim traders and priests, (l) no doubt
partly because they were the littoral peoples over whom the Mandingas
exercised some degree of direct political control.

Further south the Sapes

were as yet relatively freeof Muslim peregrinations;but Islam was widely

enough propagated for the Jesuits to view the question of proselytisation on
the Upper Guinea Coast not simply as Christianity vs Paganism, but also as
Christianity vs Islam. (2)There were no Muslims among the Manes, and all Islaric influences appeare
to have reached the southern section of Sierra Leone from the north and north­east.

By the mid-eighteenth century, the Muslim "greegree" men were privi­

leged individuals among the Bulloms of the Sherbro-Cape Mount area; (3 ) andby 1785 John Matthews could write of Sierra Leone:"I have never visited atown in this part of Africa where I did not find a Mandinga man as prime

minister, by the name of bookman, without whose advice nothing was transacted",(4 )This was the end-product of a lengthy process, which had been speeded up

in its later stages by the Jihad of the Futa Djalon.
There is a concensus of opinion on the general outlines of the develop­
ments leading to the proclamation of the eighteenth century Jihad of the Futa
Djalon and the rise of the Fulas to power in that region.
went toThe earliest Fulas

be mountain massif before Coli Tenguela's time, and were re-inforced(1)

Alvares de Almada:(2 )Fernao Guerreiro: Relacao Anual, Vol. 3> p.284(3)

Nicholas Owen:

Journal of a Slave Dealer. pp.58,$l(4 )John Matthews:

Voyage to the River Sierra Leone, p.69.

"Rios de Guin£", pp.291-93> 327

sog
INT RIOR
by hiS arrival.

Much later, there was an influx of new Fula immigrants frombeyond the Gambia and the Niger - from the Futa Toro, Futa Boundou, Macina
and even the Sahel and Tichit.

At first they were welcomed by the Djalonkes

and their own kinsmen, but, as outlined earlier, peaceful penetration by
Mande and Fula aliens invariably gave way at some stage to violent struggles.
Squabbles arose primarily over the division of land between the pastoralist
newcomers and the indigenous agriculturalists, and a further line of
distinction was drawn because the later Fula.settlers were Muslims in contras
to their forerunners and the Djalonkes.

After the contradictions between the

Muslims and the non-Muslims had matured, a Jihad was proclaimed, ultimately
producing a state that wos both Islamic and dominated by the Fulas.
The history of the Jihad of the Futa Djalon as such, which h^.s been
discussed at length by Louis Tauxier, is outside the scope of this study,
but a few cardinal points are of interest in relation to the coast.

The

first is that the Fula presence in the Futa Djalon did not become significant
only after 1694? when, according to Tauxier, the first Muslims arrived, (l)A. Texeira da Mota has drawn attention to the contemporary Portuguese
evidence in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries showing that the Fulas
were very well entrenched in the Futa Djalon ever since the sixteenth century(2)

From that time, the Fulas were the principal trading partners of thelittoral peoples, and it is significant that the Susus and Limbas sought(1)

L, Tauxier: Moeurs et Histoire des Peuhls (Paris 1937) P*219(2)

A. Texeira da Mota: Note, sobrea Historia dos Fulas: Coli Tongue la e
Chegada dos Primeiros Filas ao Futa-Jalon.

a‘S o yIHT'-RIOR
their support against the Manes, even though the Fula forces in the encounter
were a handful, (l)Descriptions such as those of Andre' Dornelas, Alvaresde Almada, Baltezar Barreira, Lemos Goelho and the Spanish Capuchins allrefer to the Fulas as constituting a centre of power behind the Susus.
byIndeedCoelho*s time, the Fula-Susu alliance was broken, and these two groups

were engaged in conflict. (2)Furthermore, the Muslim Fulas must have arrived in the Futa Djalon muchearlier than 1694? as Tauxier suggests, (3 ) and had been indulging; in peacefulproselytisation, especially among their animist Fula brethren.

Thus, by

1726, when the "Holy War" was proclaimed, peaceful penetration had proceeded

long' find successfully enough to allow the struggle to proceed on to a newlevel - that of military combat, while the size and aggressiveness of the
Muslim forces was sufficient to bring about a considerable displacement of
Djalonkes towards the coast.
cousins, the Susus.

Some of the Djalonkes took refuge among their

The Susus of the Pongo recall that "there arrived fromthe Futa Jallon district people whom the Peuhls call Yalunkas ... They told
them that the yellow Peuhls of Futa Jallon had made war on them and that they
had wanted to convert them to their fetish called Allah". (4 )Other Djalonkes(1)

See above, Ch. II, p.

(2 )Lemos Coelho: Duas Describes da, Guineg, p.59

(3 )Tauxier places four generations of the founding family of Muslim Fulas

between the years- 1694 and 1726. This is clearly untenable, and the error
does not lie with the latter date (1726) nor with the number ofgenerations.
Jr(4 ) M. Saint-Pere: 'Petit Histori ues des Sossoe du Rio Pongas", in Bulletin
Au Comite'' des Etudes Historiques et Scientifioues, 1930, tome XIII,
pp.26-47.

*10settled among the Bagas, Nalus, Landumas, Temnes and Limbas, stimulating theprocess of Mande interpenetration which was observed by the Europeans on the
coast, and which, as already mentioned, reached a very advanced stage by theend of the eighteenth century.
Each river and each locality offered its own variation on the same theme,
For instance, Pula successes in the Futa Djalon caused a Mande family, theMikhifore, to move on to the left bank of the Nunez, with the permission of
the Bagas and Landumas:
wars.

a welcome that soon gave vray to disagreements end

The Bagas between the Konkoure and the Searcies (known as the Baga-

Mandenyi) had previously been exposed to the Mande, having been in contact
with the Susus and the Manes, and they were ethnically mixed.

Consequently, tt

their attitude to the new Mande immigrants of the eighteenth century was morefavourable.

Then in the second half of the eighteenth century, a Mande chief

named Soumba Toumane descended to the coast, he found two Baga-Mandenyi
states, led by Manga Gnienie and Manga Tomboli.

He had the help of the firstand conciliated the second by marrying his daughter.

This allowed thechildren of Toumane to take power in the country, founding a number ofsettlements, the most important of which was Dubreka, not fan from modern
Conakry. (i)Although the Mande pressure on the coastlands' in the second half of theeighteenth century was partly due to refugees from the Jihad, Islamgreat inroads within the coastal ruling class at this period.

made

By the earlynineteenth century, even when the T emnes turned against the Muslim family of(i)Andre''’Arcin:

Histoire de la Guinee Francaise, p. 134

ft 1 1P UL/\ O U N 1>ASV V V 1/ P h U .Ojl C t ^ d l T t C S

Juuu

M u SUrf

TQUHS

It
,/

CAP/L MOON'Xjr/Z

INT JRIQR
Sankong at Fort Loko, the Temne leaders were already adherents to Islam, (l)The main contribution was made by the educational opportunities in the Puta
Djalon, which were offered not only t o Muslims but also to the children ofanimist chiefs.

Eere again, one must turn to the course of events within the

Puta Djalon itself.
Under the first leader of the Muslim state of Puta Djalon, Karamoko Alfa
(1726-51), emphasis was placed on conversion of the animists and on education.
The converted Djalonkes were authorised according to the importance of theirvillages to establish missikoun (little mosques) or tipourou (substituteplaces of worship); while the large mosques cr missidi were preserved for theFulas, with one in each of the nine diwals or provinces of the state. (2 )Labe, the largest of the diwals, gained a reputation for learning.

HamaduSellou, its prince^ at the outbreak of the Jihad was sand to have studied in
the Puta Boundou, and to have founded on his return a school which attracted
students from great distances. (3)Major Laing made mention of one Salem

Gherladoo, a teacher of Labe, who was reputed to h.-vetrained some of the best
’bookmen* in the eighteenth century. (4 )On the rare occasions when the Jihad of the sword was carried directly
on to the coast in the eighteenth century, it was led by individuals who camefrom an educational and religious environment such as was provided, by the(1)

Christopher Fyfe: Sierra Leone Inheritance,pp.166-170(2)

Andre Arcin: Histoire de la Quinse Prangaise, pp.94,95(5)

J. Mendes Moreira; Fulas do Gabu, p.266(4)

A.G-. Laing j

Travels, p. 375

$ T '3

INTERIOR
schools and mosques of Labe and Fugumba (the religious capital).

The first

such occasion seems to have been in the 1750*s, after one Mara, supposedly
a Mandinga, secured the chieftainship among the Susus in the Melakoure-Sc-rciee
district*

M a r a had received his education in the Puta Djalon, where he wasconsidered one of the best Koranic scholars in the country.

Presuming on his

reputation and his good understanding with the Pulas, which he assiduously
cultivated, he commenced his reign with a system of oppression, (l)NicholasOwen knew of a Muslim king in the Searcies at this time, who was attempting
to bring the country under subjection;
kingdoms near the coast by 1757* (2)and had in fact conquered two petty
The coincidence of time, place andactivity suggests that he was referring to Mara.
Amara*s attempts to serve his Fyla mentors eventually alienated all but
one of the Susu chiefs.

Political hegemony bred its own reaction and theSusus formed an alliance against Amarafs brand of the Jihad imported from the
Puta Djalon.

The same sequen.e of events was repeated with the appearance

in 1790 in the Melakoure-Scarcies district of a self-styled Mahdi, anemissary of the Prophet.

From traditional sources, this individual appears

to have been one Laye-Salou, who came from. as far afield, as the Bambouk in the
Senegal. ($)

For a while, he was very successful, until a coalition of Susu

(1)A.G-. Laing:

Travels. pp.126,127(2)

Nicholas Owen: Journal of a Slave Dealer, pp.96,100,101. (Owen calls him
Musolum or Furry Do (’’bastard son”). Peter Kup mistakenly attributes these
events to the Sherbro area.

(3)

Andre Arcin:

See A History of Sierra Leone, p.l55»)

Histoire de la Guin£e Francaise, pp.135>136.

IMi'iaiOR
effected his death in 1793* (l)However, Islam and tie influence of the Fulas continued to make headway
on the coast along non-military channels.

In this eighteenth century

situition, Islam was beamed only at the ruling class on the Upper Guinea Coast,
The latter either imbibed the new ideology or were in danger of being replacedby those who were its advocates.

Thomas Wirterbottom, whose brother travelled

to Timbo, the capital of the Futa Djalon, in 1794> gave some useful insightstinto the role of the Futa Djalon in this respect.

"Not more than seventy

years ago,” he wrote in 1800, "a small number of Mahomedans established them­selves in a country about forty miles to the northward of Sierra Leone. (2)As is the practice of the professors of that religion, they formed schools in
the laws of
which the Arabic language and/Mahomed were taught... The whole power <£>£ thatpart of the country in which they have settled has gradually fallen into theirhand3.

Those who have been taught in their schools are succeeding to wealth ar

power in the neighbouring countries, and carry with them a considerable propor­
tion of their religion and laws.” (3)(1)

C.B. Wadstrom:

An Sssay on Colonisation p.85; andChristopher Fyfe:

Sierra Leone Inheritance, pp.87,88(2) "About forty miles to the northward” is a serious under-estimation.

It isabout 60 miles from Freetown to Port Loko, a convenient pai#t of
departure for the Futa Djalon, and from Port Loko to Timbo is about
150 miles.
(3)

T. Winterbottoms

An Account of the Native Africans of Sierra Leone.

s /s
INTERIOR
Linked to the question of education was the political and military
power of the Futa Djalon.

This could generate jealousy and fear in the mindsof neighbours, as happened both in the interior and on the coast.

Sulimatraditions relating to their wars with the Fulas in the second half of theeighteenth century show that fear of the power of the Futa Djalon was theprincipal factor which caused them to turn against the Fulas who were formerly
allies;and the same attitude was adopted by the Korankos. (l)On the other

hand, some Sulima chiefs sought to associate themselves with the Fulas*ascendancy.

For instance, the large town of Berria, which stood at the sourceof the Rokelle, was deliberately destroyed by its Sulima sovereign, because
certain prominent elements there wished to switch their allegiance to theFulas. (2 )On the coast, there was similar ambivalence.

When Watt and Winterbottom

were making their journey to Timbo, they found that the Landuma chief of
Kakundi on the Nunez was extremely reluctant to allow passage through to theAlmami, because he felt that Watt*s party $ight bring* down the Fulas to drive
him out of the country. (3)On the other hand, most of the chiefs on theUpper Guinea Coast appeared to have been mindful of the prestigeand advan­
tages of trade which would accrue from an alliance with the Fulas, eventhough this meant the payment of tribute.

The extent to which the Futa Djalon(l)A.G. Laing: Travels. pp.405-408(2Ibid, pp.318,412(3)"Journal of James Watt in an expedition to and from Timbo in 1794**?
Rhodes House Library. Ms. Africa, S.7» fl.6

sf/£
IN CHRIOR

had become an external point of reference for the Upper Guinea Coast was
dramatised by the de :ision of a Bullom chief in 17&9 to send one of his sonsto be educated in England and the other to be trained in the Puta Djalon. (l)In their traditions, nearly all the important limba ruling families trace
their origins to the country north of them.

Some of them claim to have comefrom the Puta Djalon and others from Sankaran (further east^;

and they after­wards kept their connection with the north, sending their sons to be educatedthere.

Several of the chiefs were Muslims or were much influenced by Islam;and there were also many Pula and Mandinga Muslims settled or travellingthroughout Limba country, who kept up their communications with the north.

(2 )Laing was an eye-witness to this movement of Mande and Pula traders maintain­
ing the influence of the Muslims in the early nineteenth century in Temne, Loko
and Limba territory; (3 ) and before him Golberry had observed that the Fula andSusu colonies on the coast maintained close contact with their Metropolis* at
Timbo. (4 )It is a curious coincidence

that he should have used thesame word'metropolis* which nearly two centuries

before Manuel Alvares had applied toCape Mount, where the Poro 'University*

was sited. (5 ) The Jihad of the(1)

Report of the Lords of the Committee, 1789 - Part I, "Government,
religion, manners and customs", evidence of James Penny.

(2 )Ruth Finnegan:

Survey of the Limba People of Northern Leone (London 196 5)

pp.14,15(3)

A.G. Lainj: Travels, pp.6 9 ,76,129(4 )S.M. Golberry:(5)

See above, Ch. il, p./T-8

Voyage en Afrique, Vol. 2, p.241

*'7
IffT :RIOR

Puta Djalon went even further than the invasions of the Manes towards creaking
throughout Sierra Leone and other sections of the Upper Guinea Coast a rulingclass which was unified in interests and ideology.
It was the Atlantic slave trade which provided tie most attractive
material prospects linking the members of the ruling class on the Upper Guinea
Coast, whether they were parvenus like Cleveland or direct descendants of thelianes, whether they came from the cosst or from the hinterland;

and therelationship between the Jihad and the Atlantic slave trade was of the greatest
Importance.
No one challenged the fact that the Jihad was the greatest recruiter ofslaves for the European ships on the Upper Guinea Coast in the latter part ofthe eighteenth century.

The only point at issue was the light in which theconnection was projected.

John Matthews, a slave trader in Bierra Leone anda spokesman for Liverpool k.lave trading interests, stressed that the captives
which were purchased by the European ships were mainly the result of Muslim
wars of religion, (l)Beyond this superficial observation he was not prepared

to go, because it was the orthodox pro-slavery propaganda that the crptives
who reached the coast were victims of African wars whose origin and develop­
ment were quite unconnected with the slave trade.

However, not long after

Matthews wrote, Thomas Watt penetrated to Timbo in the Futa Djalon, andreported that he was told by the Almami's deputy "with a shocking degree ofopeness, til >t the sole object of their wars was to procure slaves, as they
could not obtain European goods without slaves, and they could not get slaves
il)John Hat thews:

Voyage to the .River Sierra Leone, p. 94

INTERIOR
without fighting for them".

Watt added that '’their religion affords them anapology for this horrible injustice, hy permitting them to destroy all
infidels, a term which seems to include all their neighbours", (l)A closeanalysis of the activities of theFulas and their cohorts leaves no doubt that
Watt was correct both in reporting his informant and in his conclusions.
It is we11 to recall that the Mande and Fulas were the vectors of theAtlantic slave trade before they spearheaded the advance of Islam, and Muslim
traders were in the forefrontcf slave trading long before the Jihad began. (2)Sulima traditions, as collected by Laing in 1822, take their starting’pointabout

he year 1690 when their king, Geema Fonda came to the throne, and they

admit that his principal occupation was raiding the Limbas and Kissis for
captives, all of whom were sold to the Mandingas and Susus who came up fromthe coast with European goods. (3)Fulas, fighting for Islam

When the Sulimas joined forces with theagainst the same Limbas, Kissis and other non-Islamicised peoples, their activities did not change appreciably incharacter.

The real change was one of intensity.

In the case of the Fulas themselves, it is possible to discert. many
forms of activity in the eighteenth century which were qualitatively different
from the slave hunts of their animist predecessors of the seventeenth century,(1)

GkB. Wadstrom: An Sssay on Colonisation, Part 2, p.Ill(2) See above, Ch. IV,(For the leading role of the Muslims in the

Mandinga slave trade, see R. Jobson: The Golden Trade, pp.108,109; andLemos Coelhoj IXias Describes da Guine, p. 15(3) A.ii. Laingj Travels, p.400

1

f'tf

INTERIOR
In tha process of subjugating the Futa Djalon during the regime of Karainoko
Alfa, Djalonkes and animist Fulas must have been despatched to the coast, but
at least a theocracy was brought into being, schools and mosques built and thefaith spread as far as it was possible to spread an ideology by force.
Subsequently, however, the annual campaigns did not seek to widen theboundaries of the Futa state, nor to extend the faith outside the mountainmassif, except among ruling elites.
In 1751» a commission appointed to investigate the forts and factories of
the Royal African Company reported that in Sierra Leone there was a'prodigious1 trade in slaves, (l)This was a startling- change from the "deadseason", and coincides suspiciously with the extension of the Jihad outside of
andth6 Futa Djalon,/with the rise to power of Ibrahim Sori, who took charge of
the Fula armies in 1750, became supreme ruler of the state in the following
year, end pursued a militarist policy until his death in 1784*

At one stage

during the 1760*s, Sori rebuilt his army by enlisting the support of the Fula
chiefs of the bowal to the west.

(2)

This was an ominous link-up because thebowal chiefs were singled out j*ince the l680*s a,s the principal agents of theAtlantic slave tr de on the Upper Guinea Coast. (3 )The fact is that the Fula

campaigns in the second half of the eighteenth century showed a pre-occupation(1)

P.R.O., T70/176 - Inspection of George Island, Sierra Leone by Captain ■dye, 1751(2 )L. Tauxier: M oeurs et Hidoire des Peuhls. p.232(3)Ilateo de Anguiano: Misiones Capuchinas en Africa. Vol. 2 , pp.132,133;.and see above, Ch. IV, p. 1*1.1•

IN'.M.RIOR

with the acquisition of captives and other booty, and the wars between theFulas and the Sulimas-Oussoulunkes, which were essentially motivated byconsiderations of state pow r, boosted slave production considerably.

On

one occasion, the Sulimas were beal/ back by the Fulas (1767) but as a fringeV'benefit they collected 3>500 captives from the weaker Limbas and sold them on
the Pongo. (1) Thus, though these wars failed to increase the numbers ofbelievers they certainly reduced the numbers of unbelievers.
The genuine religious convictions of the imams and other Muslims of theFuta Djalon would be sufficient to allow their wars to be categorised as’religious1, just as many European wars have been so described, sometimes withless justification.
and exacting.

But the Jihad in Muslim theology is rather more rssecise

It is an obligation imposed by Islamic writ as an integral partof the faith, and whether it is peacefully conducted or fought with the sword
its objective is to spread the Islamic doctrine.

In this strict sense, the

Jihad had virtually to be abandoned in the context of the Atlantic slave trade,
Without a substitute which could earn them European goods, the Fulas were
not prepared to cease export of slaves.

This priority accorded to slaving wasasserted not only at the end of the eighteenth century, when Watt and Winterbottom visited the Futa Djalon, but several times in the nineteenth century.
The slave trader, Theodore Canot, had an interchange with the son of theAlmami on the subject of the Jihad and the Atlantic slave trade.

He wrote as

follows: "My inquisiti eness prompted me to demand whether these holy wars
spoken of in the Koran were not somewhat stimulated, in our time at least, by(l)A.G. Laing: Travels, p«409

INT.TRIOR
the profits that ensued; and I even ventured to hiht that it wasquestionable

whether the mighty chief of the Futa Jallon would willingly storm a Kaffir
fortification, were he not prompted by the booty of slaves.

He replied thatin truth Mahometans were no worse than Christians, so that it was quite
likely - if the white elect of heaven, who knew how to make powder and guns,
did not tempt the black man with their weapons - the commands of Allah would
be followed with le<:s zeal and with implements not quite so dangerous", (l)This subtle reply is an rdmission of the role of the Atlantic slave tradein stimulating the Jihad, but at a more fundamental level it can be shownthat the latter was conducted with less and not greater zeal because of theformer;the crux of the matter being that believers were protected fromsale into the hands of the Europeans, (2) so that the definition ’Kaffir*
had to be made as wide as possible and had. to remain as wide as possible.
As Watt observed, virtually all the neighbours of the Fulas wereconveniently categorised as enemies of the faith - only in this way could theobligations of the faith and the demands of the Europeans be reconciled.

For

those coastal chiefs who attached themselves to Islam and the Fulas, religion
was both a cloak and a shield.

It was the practice of the Pula caravan

leaders to utilise the annual trip to the coast an an opportunity forcollecting tributefrom the littoral kings and debts from traders.

Those

who could not pay were liable to be sold as slaves - unless they were(1)

Captain Canoti Adventures of an African Slaver, p.96

(2)

C.B. Wadstroms An Essay on Colonisation, Part I, p.Ill

IN'iTJRIOR

Muslims. (l) lhus, as was the case with the littoral ruling class in theera of Hispano-Portuguese slaving before I64O, the Muslim elite of theeighteenth century was protecting its own persons and interests:

this time

under the cover of Islam, while the mass of the people could be enslaved
for want of well-pronouncing 'Shibboleth1.

(l)Captain Canot:

Adventures of an African Slaver, p.92

sr.2. 3

A

HISTORY Oil' THE UPPER GUIHEA COAST, 1545-1800

CHAPTER TEJNSLAVE TRADlfllG . 1690-1800

oT-2^S la v e

Part 1g r a d in g ,1 6 9 0 -1 8 0 0- H3?ne Zenith of the Atlantic slave trade on theUpper guinea CoastM*
Tne activities of the mulatto, and the Muslim chiefs,

in the second half of the eighteenth century serve to indicatethat the Atlantic slave trade had reached, during that period,a level which surpassed anything that had gone before in
its own annals,*et, it would of course be completely

fallacious to portray the mulatto chiefs and the Muslim Jihadas the primary causes in that increase in slaving.
successors,

Like theifc
Ii
the colonial elites, the African agents of theAtlantic slave trade must be seen in a global perspective,
Specifically, in this instance,

the increased slaving was prompted,

by the expanding markets created by Europe in the Americas,
since the first phase of nispano-Portuguese slaving
partnership had ended in 1640, the plantation system had
become firmly established in America and the Caribbean, occasioning
English, Prench, oAitch, Lanish and iNorth American interest in
the Atlantic slave trade,
forgotten.

resides, old acquaintances were not

The Spanish ±ndies and Portuguese .orazil continued

to make use of the labour power of Africans brought by force exploiting them so absolutely, as was characteristic 'of planta­tion slavery,

that the labour force had constantly to be renewedby the thousands,
by I 69O, it seemed as though the former flourishing slave
trade between the Upper Euinea Coast and the Spanish Indies wasSlave Trading, 1690-1800
about to be renewed.

It was in that year, on the 1st January,that the second Company of Cacheu and Cape Verde was incorporated,in the hope of reviving the commerce of the commerce of theares.^1)

It was in that year, too, that the Spanish consul in

Lisbon pursued the negotiation of an agreement by wnicn Gape VerdeGuinea was once more to be the fount of Slaves for the Spanish
Indies*A Spanish agent was to be appointed to serve in Santiago,

and a blueprint was drawn up for the employment of captains, crews,
pilots, etc*

The Conselho signified its agreement.^2)

Aftersome delay, the second company of Cacheu did receive a contract
in 1694 to supply 4,000 slaves per annum to the Spanish Indies*(3)At this juncture, nrazil was also crying out for more slaves,at the rate of 10,000 per year; and as James Duffy points

out,

A ngola could n o t meet t h is q u o ta , e s p e c ia lly s in c e i t was su p p ly in gs la v e s to o th e r p a rts o f th e flew W orld, so t h a t the Upper Guinea
Coast nad the o p tio n to make good th e d e f i c i t f o r th e P o rtu g u e se .(4 )However, demand in th e Am ericas was c l e a r l y n o t th e o n ly e x te r n a l
f a c t o r which in flu e n c e d the A t l a n t ic
was concerned.

(1 )Of e q u a l, i f n o t g r e a te r im p ortan ce wasthe

The second Company o f Cacheu and Cape Verde re c e iv e d as ix -y e a r c o n tra c t in 1690, but t h is was renewed, and i tla s te d u n t i l 1703.

(2 )
(3)

^4)

s la v e t r a d e , as f a r as A f r ic a

See Joao B a r re to : H i s t o r i a da G uin e, p.141

A .h . I)*, Cabo verde, caixa V - Minute of 10 flov*l690*. U . * G uine, C aixa II - flo . 225, m in u tes o o f th e Conselho,Fee, and May 1694
James D u ffy : P o rtu g a l i n A f r i c a * p .
P . 1 37.

36 and Portuguese A f r i c a ,STJlf*
S la v e

T r a d in g

1 6 9 0 -1 8 0 0

capital resources of the various European powers, and tneir
capacity to deploy such capital into tne African trade in tne
form of consumer goods.

It nas been pointed out that the mostsuccessful phases of tne history of the Royal African Company
coincided with those when the Company was equipped to despatch
considerable amounts of trade goods to Africa;
applied to other European companies,(1) and the same

because of its own

socio-economic backwardness in the late seventeenth century andin the early eighteenth century, Portugal was not in a position
to respond fully to the increased demand for slaves in brazil
and other parts of the ivew World; and the Upper Guinea Coastwas certainly not one of the areas to which the Portuguese
allocated their meagre resources.
The second Company of Cacheu was incapable of reviving
Portuguese fortunes in that part of the world.

Instead of thefour ships annually that were promised in the contract, one small
vessel was all that was foihcoming, with grossly inadequate
supplies at high prices, as several complaints attested,^2 )Bissau had been hailed as the slave entrepot which would be
associated with more prosperous times for the Portuguese,^3)
andit was from there that the Portuguese directed theiroperations on the Upper Guinea Coast in the 1 6 9 0 ‘s; but the

^1)
(2)
{3)

K.G. Davies: The Royal African company
A.M.U,, Guin^, caixa II - ho, 219, Jose Pinheiro, 1 July 1692;
and minute of the Conselho, 28 jan 1694.
Salvador Correia da ba had shared this view,
bee above,
Ch. V, p.303.

Slave T r a d i n g ,1 6 9 0 *1 8 0 0

Conselho Ultra-marino, after consulting the governor ofCape verde and the captain-major of Cacheu, came to theconclusion in 1700 that with Portugal's limited finances uissau
had to go. (1 )jj'or a very brief while after the decision to retrench at
Bissau, there were signs of business activity/centred round
Cacheu.

The captain-major of Cacheu went so far as to purchaseslaves from the Royal African Company in the Gambia,
reversing the customary roles.

^2)

This was facilitated by thecoincidence of the lack of enthusiasm on the part of theRoyal African company for the slave trade in the Gambia at thatpoint,^3)

Nevertheless,the Portuguese effort was not sustained

for long,

uy 1707* the captain-major of Cacheu was lamentingthat the Portuguese could scarcely muster one shipload of slaves
annually,
When the occasional ship arrived from Portugal, i tcarriedvery few Poiuguese goods.

Indeed, ever since the sixteenth

century this was the case.

A t that time, it was the Spanish

who supplied most of the more attractive trade goods which thePortuguese used for securing slaves for the Spanish indies*

A.n.U,. Guin£, caixa ll - no. 271,2 72, Castanho, 12 March 1699
^in favour of the demolition of the fort of Bissau) andSalgado, governor of GV, 18 June I 699 ^against the demolition),^2)

A.n.U., Gabo verde, caixa v'l - Minute of the Conselho, 10
nov 1700(3)

K .G . b a v ie s : Op. c i t . ,(4 )A .n.U., u u in e , mapo 1 - ra u lo de Abreu e Lim a,p . 23630 June I707

S la v e

T r a d in g ,1 6 9 0 -1 8 0 0

M e tr o p o lita n Spain fu rn is h e d a v a r i e t y o f c lo th s ,la c e s , th read s

and c lo t h in g , a p a rt from ir o n - th e in d is p e n s a b le im p o rt on theUpper Guinea u o a s t,

r e s id e s , wine was brought from the^Spanish) Canary is la n d s , and s i l v e r c o in from Mexico andC a rta g e n a .^ 1 ) ,subsequent to th e breakdown in th e clo se

nisp an o -P o rtu g u ese r e la t io n s h ip ,th e goods re q u ire d f o r the

A fr ic a n tra d e came from th e v e ry “N a tio n s o f the north*' whom theconselho u ltra n & r in o u s u a lly p o rtra y e d as P o r tu g a l's r i v a l s andenem ies.

The l i s t o f e s s e n tia l commodities recommended by lo c a lmerchants on the Upper Guinea Coast to the second Company o f
Cacheu comprised t i n and c lo th from England, ir o n from Germany
and Sweden, and brandy from P ra n c e *^2)were a lso m entioned r e g u la r ly .
im p o rts ,^3)

Dutch k n iv e s and lin e n s

A p art from these European

the most s u c c e s s fu l lin e s were c lo th s from ceba andfrom the Cape verde is la n d s ,so t h a t P o r tu g a l's c o n tr ib u tio n

was r e a l l y m in im a l.
Most o f the slaves were c a r r ie d from the upper Guinea coastin th e s ix te e n th c e n tu ry in Spanish f b o tto m sf as a t te s t e d to
by R ich ard R ain o ld s in 1 5 9 1 ; and once more the s h ip p in g powers
o f ‘.W estern Europe succeeded th e Spanish in t h is
P o rtu g u ese,s e rv ic e to the

The r e la t io n s h ip between th e Portuguese and th e i/utch^1)

See above, Ch, V I I }( 2)

A H .U , G uine, c a ix a I I
O c t. 1694

^3)

See above, Ch, Vllj ff- ^03,4-0 6^4)Richard nakluyt: Voyages,- No. 229, Manuel C o rd e ira Santos,

Vol. 3, p*188

Slave T r a d i n g ,1 6 9 0 -1 8 0 0

is particularly revealing,

The l/utch placed a high priority on

Portuguese salt, while the Portuguese were dependent upon initch
ships, ships’ stores and munitions, apart from other manufacturer,
as U.K. J30xer points out, these commercial ties in Europe were incurious contrast to the hostility in colonial affairsi\l) but evenoverseas there was a measure of cooperation,
uoast,

un the upper Guinea

the Portuguese authorities were never as anti-Dutch as they

were anti-Spanish after the ’Restoration1 in I 64O, and a few Dutch
vessels were given permission to carry slaves from the Upper Guinea,
Coast to prazil in an effort to replace the Spanish.(2)The E n g lis h had t h e i r tu r n as c a r r ie r s in th e e ig h te e n thc e n tu ry , N ic h o la s Owen m entioned th a t i n 1751 the c a p ta in -m a jo r o f
Cacheu had s e n t f o r t y s la v e s and a few tons o f wax to Lisbon on an
E n g lis h v e s s e l, and on i t s

r e tu r n i t

brought o u t f o r t y degredados

to serve as s o l d i e r s , (3 )Two y e a rs l a t e r ,evidence was fo rth c o m in gfrom th e Portuguese th em selves, as th e Conselho c h a rte re d an E n g lis hs h ip to ta k e out b u ild in g s u p p lie s to n is s a u .

The agreement was

drawn up on a p r in t e d form w ith the r e le v a n t d e t a i l s ,such as thename o f c a p ta in and s h ip , n a tu re o f c a rg o , and d e s t in a t io n , f i l l e d
i n ; ( 4 ) so t h a t th e procedure appeared to have been a common one.

(1)

C •R. Boxers Portuguese and Dutch Colonial Rivalry,1641-1661(Lisboa 1958) p.l(2)

See a b o v e , C h . 7(3)Nicholas Owens Journal of a Slave healer, pp. 33> 34(4)Guine,
ma^o III - April 1753 i copy of contract withcaptain Samuel Kittridge,

S30
Slave Trading, 1690-1800
In 1755, tne captain-major of cacheu reported aggrievedly
that an English ship from Barbados nad gone straight up to
Zeguichor on the river Casamance without a pilot,
no Portuguses ship had ever done.(l)something which

This was truly symbolic^because it was in the sphere of navigation that Portugal had led
the world in the fifteenth century.

The truth is that thefinancial and commercial infra-structure of European mercantilism
and nascent industrial capitalism was never developed within the
Iberian peninsula, so that the profits of Iberian expansion
ultimately flowed to banking, commercial and manufacturing centres
outside of Portugal and Spain.

With the pretensions to a monopolyof world trade completely shattered by the seventeenth century,
Portugal became a depressed area of the Western European economy.
Of course, capitalism, even in the days of chauvinist
mercantilism, was already an international phenomenon; and all theadvanced Western European powers displayed a great degree ofinterpendence in the buying,selling and transporting of goods
intended for the African trade.

however,* Portugal1s relationshipwas one of dependency rather than equality.

Joao x>arreto, in

his history of the Portuguese colony on the Upper Guinea Coast,
stresses Portugal’s weakness by way of an apologia for thatcountry’s responsibility in the Atlantic slave trade,

his argumentin effect is that Portugal's moral blameworthiness should beU)

A . n . U Guine, ma^o ill - Prancisco Roque Sottomayor, 28
April 1755.

Slave Trading, I69Q - 1800
directly proportionate to the profits they reaped - and thesev/ere small.

"It is curious to note", he writes, ’’that theeconomy of Portugal was the one which profited least from theslave trade.

In the first place, the national mercantile

fleet was very limited; the majority of the ships, which, since
the sixteenth century were used to carry slaves from the African
coast being foreign, and no gain accrued to Portugal ..... In thesecond place, Portugal did not produce the articles which theslavers made use of in their transactions with the peoples ofAfrica; cotton cloths, trumpery, beads, mirrors, iron etc.” (l)Moral sophistry aside, he is substantially correct.(2)The above considerations explain why the suggestion that it was(1)

Joao Barreto: Historia da Guine, p. 285(2)This view that Portugal declined after the period of
expansion overseas is widely held, but has not goneunchallenged.
Frederic Llauro finds the picture ofa decadent Portugal inconsistent with the creation ofan empire in Brazil, and demonstrates that profits fromthe Atlantic trade flowed into Portugal.
V/hat issurprising, however, is that in a study avowedly devoted to’’commercial capitalism”, a supra-national phenomenon, theauthor does not establish Portugal's role as a sector ofEuropean commercial capitalism.
The Iberian peninsula wasoften the direct point of entry for much of Europe's gains frommining, trade and plantations overseas, but how much remained
within Spain and Portugal is an issue which cannot be
overlooked.
See Frederic LUaurosLe Portugal et L'Atlantique
au XVIIe Sieole, 1570-1670(He formulates the problem in his introduction)

Slave Trading,1690-1600
from the latter part of the seventeenth century that
■Portuguese uuinea entered a new period of prosperity".is somewhat
premature,^1)

The heavy demand for slaves in the Americas

was not automatically reflected inincreased exports from theupper Guinea uoast through Portuguese agency, in spite of thefact that Angola alone could not fulfill the Brazilian
requiremats ,The period of prosperity for Cape Verde-uuinea wasto come in the second half of the eighteenth century, when thePortuguese demonstrated both the ability and the willingness toinject capital into the commerce of the area.

In the meanwhile,other European powers were more favourably placed; and the Frenchin particular kept the slave trade in the ueba-uambia region fromever falling to as low an ebb in the seventeenth century and theearly eighteenth century a3 it did in sierra Leone.
a lth o u g h no rre n c h company was e v e r formed to o p e ra te w ith
itsh e a d q u a rte rs in the " R iv e r> o f th e s o u th % most o f th e companies

in th e Senegal took a s p o rad ic i n t e r e s t i n t h a t d i s t r i c t . In f a c t ,th e coafct between Cape Blanco and th e B ija g o s is la n d s was th e
most p r o f i t a b l e p a r t o f th e t r a d in g zone o f th e French Senegal
Company in th e l a t t e r s e ven teen th c e n t u r y ,( 2 )Between 1685 and

1689, th e agents o f the Benegal Company managed to secure
2 ,8 0 0 s la v e s through t h e i r f a c t o r y a t B is s a u .( 3 )S u b se q u e n tly,th e French con tin ued to pay a t t e n t io n to B is s a u , and s e r io u s ly
con tem plated e r e c tin g a f o r t e it h e r on B issau o r the n e ig h b o u rin g
is la n d o f Bulama a t the tu rn o f the se ven teen th c e n tu ry , d u rin g
the regim e o f an e n e rg e tic d i r e c t o r , Andre B rue, who fo llo w e d thep re c e d e n t s e t by 3)e l a Courbe in v i s i t i n g th e d i s t r i c t southo f th e G am bia.(4 )A p p a re n tly , an a tte m p t a t the c o n s tru c tio n

U)James D u ffy : P o rtu g a l in Africa,p . 36(2 )J . iviachatj Documents, p . 78

(3 )See above Ch. V j^ - 3 oC.

(4 )J . L a b a t: N o u v e lle R e la t io n , Y o l . v ,p p .8 7 -1 1 4 (D e a lin g w ith
tn e v i s i t to n is s a ii and th e a tte m p ts to b u ild a f o r t )S la v e T r a d in g 1 6 9 0 -1 8 0 0

of a fort at or near Bissau in 1723 was abandoned onlyafter the shipwreck of supplies. (1)In spite of the lack of a fort, which was probably nogreat disadvantage, the French dominated the scene at Bissau
for most of the first half of the eighteenth century, causing
the prices of slaves to rise, and making it virtually impossible
for the Portuguese to compete.(2 )The most intensive Frenchslaving on the Upper Guinea Coast took place between 1736 and
1744*

Every year during that period, a ship was despatchedfrom Gor6e along v/ith a sloop, which plied the rivers between
November and Hay.

Between 1744 and 1752 > the coast was relatively

free of the French because of their involvement in v/ars in Europe.(3)These observations, which were made by the Portuguese on theUpper Guinea Coast, are in accordance with the evidence generated inEurope.

The period 1714 to 1744 was a flourishing one for thepremier French slave trading city of Nantes, and the Upper Guinea
Coast

did have some share in this,indirectly through the Senegal,

as well as directly in the form of ships to the Banana Islands
and Cape Mount.

Of the 126 ships which left Nantes with their African

destinations named, 24 went to Senegal and 12 to Cape Mount. (4 )(1)

J, Barreto: Hist or ia da Guine, p.1445 and A.H.U., Guine'ma^o I - Antonio de Barros Bezerra, 30 July 1724*(2)

A.H.U, Guine, ma^o I - Antonio de Barros Bezerra, 10 May 1727

(3)

A.H.U.,Guine', raa^o III - Francisco Roque Sottomayor, 12 March 1752

(4)

Gaston-Martin: L ’Ere des ITegriers (1714 - 1744) (Paris 1931)
p .188

S la v e T r a d in g , I 69O - I 8OO

In spite of general prosperity, the trade of the port was
virtually stagnant during some years, such as 1725 ” 1726 and
1747 - 1748#

Above all, the Seven Years War proved a disasteras far as the French merchants trading to Africa and the West Indies
were concerned#(l)Intervals provided by French and English confrontation in Europe
gave Portugal much needed breathing space on the Upper Guinea Coastand allowed for a recuperation in the latter half of the eighteenth
century.

Once more, it was envisaged that Bissau would be the focal

point for the revival, and this set in motion a series of events witha very familiar ring.

The campaign was opened on the religious front

on the basis of the news in 174& that the king of Bissau wished tobe converted,that he needed new clothes, and that he would allow afort to be built.

Indeed, it v/as emphasised that the Portuguese were

the only nation to v/hom permission to build a fort had ever been
conceded, and that agreement was still valid.(2)However, theparallel with the previous fort-building episode at Bissau v/as
stretched further by the fact that Papel cooperation was not readily
forthcoming, in spite of the permission to start building.(3)In fact, on this occasion, force had to be used to gain thePortuguese objectives.

(1 )Ibid:pp.l73, 201, 266(2)

A .H.U, Guine,ma^o II - Minute of the Conselho, 25 Sept 1748

(7)

Roo p.bove, Ch.V^ ^ 3 1 /S la v e

Trading,

1 ^ 0 -1 8 0 0

Apparently, same preliminary construction got underway
on the island of Bissau in 1732 under the guidance of theAfro-Portuguese official who represented the Portuguese crownon the island during the many years since 1702 when the captainmajor was witndrawn.

nut, when the frigate, xiossa Sennora

da Estrella, anchored off the island in peoruary 1753 with heavyequipment and men for the fort, it was not welcomed.

The Papels,

under General Palanca, decided to oppose landing and disembarkationin the teeth of the ship’s guns.

unfortunately, it was withgood reason the mandinga muslirns never sold 1greegrees1 against“great guns' .(1)The papels simply provided fodder for thePortuguese cannon.; and within two days of the commencement of
hostilities on the 17th February 1753 > the papels were suingfor peace.

Several merchant ships in the Bissau harbour at thetime had sided with the Portuguese frigate, and their casualties
totalled a mere nine men dead and a few wounded.(2)Tne whole o p e ra tio n was handled by th e captarn-m ajor o f
Uacheu, F ra n c is c o Roque Sottom ayor, who had accompanied the f r i g a t efrom Uacneu in a y a c h t.

ne had fo rm e rly been in A n go la, andboasted th a t h is f ir m hand th e re had e x c e lle n t r e s u lt s ,since hehad taken a le a d in g r o le in th e m i l i t a r y sup pression o f th e Gingas andthe peoples o f j&atamba. ^3)

ne was in Angola between 1734 and 1742,(lj

P . Beavers A fr ic a n memoranda, p . 210; and see above U h .lX\2)

JJ. peress hossa senhora da E s t r e l l a , p p .1 6 -2 5

OJ

A.n.U., uuine, ma^o ill - prancisco Bottoraayor,2 9 April 1755

£3<oSlave Trading.

1 6 9 0 -1 8 0 0

and thus served under the Angolan g o v ern o r, Joacquim Jacques de*,agalhaes ( 1 7 3 8 - 1 7 4 8 ) .( 1 ) From S o tto m ayo r’ s r e p o r ts in 1755, i temerged t h a t he b e lie v e d i n a "tough l i n e " ,and was a p p a lld d a t theway th a t the r u le r s on the upper Guinea Coast were pampered w ith
g i f t s . (2) I t

is n o t s u r p r is in g ,t h e r e f o r e , t h a t th e new e ra o f thePortuguese i n Bissau should have begun w ith v io le n c e . F u rth erm o re,d u rin g a l u l l in the f ig h t i n g o f Feb ru ary 1753, an im p o rta n t B issau
f id a lg o was shot dead by a Portuguese s o ld ie r , w h ile engaged in an
a l t e r c a t i o n w ith aottom ayor. The k in g o f B is sa u , Anhanheta Co, though
fo rc e d to accept the f o r t , was not p rep ared to acknowledge ssottom ayor's a u t h o r it y ,and w ro te the k in g o f P o rtu g a l i n A p r il 1753,

re q u e s tin g t h a t t h is o f f i c i a l be r e c a l l e d . (3 )Sottom ayor, as go vernoro f Cacheu, v/as in any case o n ly on a tem porary m issio n to B is s a u ,and the Guinea t r a d e r , JMicolhao de P in a A r a ja u , was g iv e n an
ho no rary appointm ent to a d m in is te r the is la n d .
Personal antipathy was the least of the complicating factors
in this new Portuguese attempt to restrict the freedom of the papel
rulers by building a fort. In spite of being regularly supplied with
Portuguese ships for the next year or two, the fort of Bissau
literally never got off the ground.
(1) J, Ribeiro da Cruz: Resumo da historia de Angola (lisboa 1940)
P.133(2) A.H.U., Guine, ma^o III - Francisco Sottomayor, 28 April 1755
(3) A.H.U., Guine, ma^o Y - Anhanheta Co, 13 April 1753* (Anotherversion of this incident, more favourable to Bottomayor, is to befound in I). Peres: flossa Senhora da Estrella, p.18

5^7
slave Trading, 1690-1800
One o f th e main problems w a s la b o u r.

The p ris o n s o f P o rtu g a l

w ere scraped to p ro v id e degredados to send to B issau and uacheu
as la b o u re rs and s o ld ie r s .^ 1 )The m o r t a lit y r a t e was e x tre m e ly

h ig h , and a f t e r a few y e a rs th e Conselho had to r e l y p r im a r ily
on la b o u r brought from th e Cape verde is la n d s , s in c e the Cape
Verdeans found i t
u is s a u ;v 2 J

r e l a t i v e l y easy to a c c lim a tis e them selves inand y e t the death t o l l c o n tin u e d .

The second m ajor

d i f f i c u l t y was th e la c k o f te c h n ic a l s k i l l .

The e n g in e e r brought

o u t by th e f r i g a t e , flossa Senhora da E s t r e l l a ,i n 1753 d ie dw it h in two weeks o f l a n d i n g , ^ )p la c e .

an<i th e re was no one to ta k e h isThus in 1755» the c a p ta in -m a jo r o f B is s a u , iNicolhao

de P in a A r a ja u ,s tre s s e d t h a t the work could no t proceed w ith o u t

an e n g in e e r to draw up plan s f o r th e f o r t . ( 4 ) .

asittu rn e d o u t,

i t was n o t u n t i l 1765 th a t an e n g in e e r was despatched from theuape Verde is la n d o f uogo to x>issau, and o n ly a f t e r th a t was sucha fun dam en tal m a tte r as a r c h it e c t u r a l drawings a tte n d e d t o .

^1)1). reress "hnotapoes nistoricas11, in planta da
PP. 8 4 ,8 5

^2)

A.H.U., Cuine, ma^o lV - minute of uonselho, 20 Oct 1758

{3)

u. jreress hossa aenhora da Estrella,(4;-U. Jreress "jmota^oes ^istorioas", in plant a. da-ois.qau, pp.80,81

rraga de jissau
*

p. 25

i-rana. da

Slave Trading, 1690-1800

In the meanwhile,

there had occurred one of the mo3t

decisive events in the history of Portuguese slaving on theUpper Guinea Coast - the formation of the Company of Grao Paraand llaranhao in 1755.

It took over responsibility for theconstruction of the fort of nissau, and for maintaining Cacheu
and other points on the mainland; and for two decades it conducted
the Portuguese slave trade on the Upper Guinea Coast.
implies,

As the namethe Company was designed to serve the interests of thePortuguese in the Brazilian states of Para and ITaranhao.

At thattime, those states were the most underdeveloped on the Atlantic
coast of notthern hrazil with a small European settler population.(1)Portuguese were still attempting up to the mid- eighteenth century
to harness the labour of the indigenous Indian population; but
this system was not functioning well, as far as agricultural
productivity was concerned, and there were famines in 1 7 5 4 an<i1755.(2)It was against this background that the Company ofGrao Para and Ivlarannao was conceived to solve the problem ofmao de obra.
While the first company of Cacheu was proposed and backed by

Francisco Varnhagens nistoria Geral do Brasil (3rd edition,
Bio de Janeiro, 1926) Vol.4*Section XLI, p.108(2)

Report of tne Lords of the Committee, 1789 - Part VI,'Portugal*

Slave Trading, 1690-1800
traders from the Upper Guinea Coast, who were relatively
undistinguished private citizens and who had to petition forseveral years before they gained recognition in Lisbon,(1) the
idea of the creation of the slave trading Company of Grao Paraand Maranhao was first mooted by Francisco Xavier Mendon<jaPurtado, governor of Para and brother of the Marquis of Pombal,
the first secretary and de facto ruler of Portugal.(2)Pombal*s

sponsorship of tne suggestion made by his brother ensured that
the Company had wide privileges and that its charter was readily
granted; while, in contrast to the previous Portuguese companies
operating on tne Upper Guinea Coast, the company of Grao Para
was well endowed,

being floated at a time wnen Pombal was

streamlining tne administration and finances of the Portuguese
state.

It boasted a share capital of 1,200,000 cruzados, wasgrai.ted land in urazil and was equipped with two frigates by
the Portuguese crown.

it was registered on the 7th July 1755

witha twenty-year concession - tobegin when the firstcompany

ship

left Lisbon, which was on the 26th April 1756.(3)(1)

See above, Ch.Vj f-"LfX.

(2)

Furtado became a minister and Secretary of State sometime
during the 1760*8,(3)

J. Lucio d'Azevedo: 0 Marquez de Pombal e a bua Epoca
Lisboa 1909) pp. I 63 -I 65

oS la v e T r a d in g ,1 6 9 0 -1 8 0 0

Apparently, the statistics of slave exports from theUpper Guinea Coast in the twenty years spanned by the Companyof Grao Para are not available, but the volume of the trade isindicated by three factors: firstly, the strenuous efforts
which the Company made to protect their interests on the Upper
Guinea Coast; secondly, the extreme profitability to the shareholders,which was a most unusual feature for these joint-stock endeavours
trading to Africa;(l) and thirdly, the influx of slaves into Paraand Maranhao, most of them being acknowledged as originating from
Bissau and Cacheu#(2)Bissau's most prolific period of slave trading during which it
sometimes surpassed Luanda,(3) was presaged a year or two before
the Company of Grao Para and Maranhao went into operation#

The

Conselho was reliably informed in April 1755 that since the previous
year Bissau had handled more slaves then ever before#

SeveralPortuguese ships had left loaded with captives; one French ship
took more than 25O, while another was in the process of loading andhad accumulated 240; and there was yet another Portuguese vessel
which had close to 200#(4 )(1)

See above,Ch.VII(2)Grande Enciclopedia Portuguesa e Brasileira# Entry under"Companhia Geral do Grao Para e Maranhao"#(3 )J. Duffy: Portugal in Africa, p. 36(4)

A.H.U.. Guine", majo III - Francisco Sottomayor, 29 April 1755

54/

S la v e T r a d in g , 1 6 9 0 -1 8 0 0

T.7ith this report added, firstly, to the information in 1751 that
the English slave traders in Sierra Leone were despatching large
quantities of slaves, and secondly to the evidence of increased
fighting and raiding in the hinterland at that point, it can he cleaily
established that the aenith of the Atlantic slave trade on the Upper
Guinea Coast dated from the mid-eighteenth centur#.

Supply, demandand capital investment were all complementary.
In dealing with the Africans, the Company!s approach v/as
quite similar to that of the Portuguese crown, in that they utilised
the services of priests and missionaries to intercede on their behalf
with the Bissau king and nobility.

After getting renewed permissionin 1765 to carry on with the fort, the Company promised that they would
not hinder the trade of other Europeans, though the Papels by no means
fully accepted this blatant piece of dissimulation.

Even though the

Bissau king v/as bought over by bribes, his council remained divided,
and the majority of his fidalgos were sceptical of the Portuguese
entrenching themselves in such a manner as to be able to pursue
their policy of monopoly.

Later, it v/as affirmed that the king ofBissau had met his death by Witchcraft1, because of this unpopulardecision, (l)In the meanwhile, the Company of Grao Para and iilaranhao

had unloaded men, munitions and materials; and began construction
in a tense atmosphere.
By 1785* the efforts put into the second fort of Bissau
had resulted in nothing more than a badly laid foundation, which wasabandoned and a third venture initiated.
(l)

The sum total of human

A.H.U., Guine, maco V - Sebastiao da Cunha Sottomayor,5 Aug 1766

S la v e T r a d in g ,1 6 9 0 -1 8 0 0

Endeavour that went into this fort - called the Sao Jose" de Bissau would have been heroic in most contexts other than that of theAtlantic slave trade.

It was not completed until the 20th August 1775

and the last decade alone of its erection cost

2,602 lives*(l)The soldiers mutinied because of inadequate rations; the rate ofwork at best was very slow; the rain undid what had been done in
the dry season; and the Papels resisted passively by witholding
foodstuffs*

But the determination of the Conselho and the Companyof Gr&o Para and Maranhao was demonstrated by the Conselho*s
willingness to provide a well armed frigate to support Portuguese
forces on the mainland, and by the fact that the Company expended
the enormous amount of 147*690,763 reis* (2)The outlay in Bissau and to a lesser extent in Cacheu andCabo Verde did not stop the Company of Grao Para and Maranhao fromrealising great profits for its stock-holders, including Pombal himself,
to whom considerable sums were disbursed in the name of his wife* (3)(1)

Bernardino de. Andrade: Planta da Prapa de Bissau* p. 51(2) J. Mendes da Cunha Saraiva:HA Porteleza de Bissau e a Companhia
do Grao Para e Maranhao", in Congresso Comemorativo do Quinto
Centenario do Descobrimento da Guine (Lisboa 1946) Vol. 1
p 190(He is of the opinion that the fort was completed

by the end of 1773; but this was an inference as opposedto the direct evidence of De Andrade who was in Bissau*
See p. 188)
(3)

J . Lucio d'Azevedo: 0 Marquez de Pombal* p. I65

S la v e T r a d in g ,1 6 9 0 -1 8 0 0

Above all, the Company justified its existence in terms of importinga labour force for the provinces of Para and Maranhao*

At least,

while there is some doubt as to its efficacy in Para, all historiansof Maranhao are in agreement that the agricultural prosperity of thatarea dated from the era cof the Company*

Prom a position where it wason the verge of ruin, Maranhao began to produce rice and cotton, on ascale which brought it into line with the richer provinces.(l)Thus

it was that the Company of Grao Para and Maranhao epitomised thetri-continental implications of the Atlantic slave trade.(2)V/hen the contract of the Company of Grao Para and Maranhao v/asabout to expire, great efforts were made to have this profitablemonopoly renewed, but to no avail, and it went into liquidation in
February 1778*(3)This meant that the basic tasks of revenue

collection and the maintenance of officials, forts and factories
devolved’ once more upon the Conselho Ultramarino*

In 1780, theConselho decided to reorganise the fiscal system for Cape Verde andthe Upper Guinea Coast establishing Santiago, Bissau and Cacheu as theirrevenue posts.

This plan yielded little results, and the revenues(1)

Francisco Varnhagen: Historia Geral do Brasil, Vol.4,pp*307,308(2)

The Company was also a crucial issue in the conflict between
Pombal and the Jesuits, both in Portugal and in Brazil. One
Jesuit priest declared that those who joined the Company ofGrao Para would not enter into the Company of Heaven. See
J. Lucio d fAzevedo: Op* cit.

(3) Francisco Varnhagen: Op. cit., Vol. 4, P* 307

S la v e T r a d in g ,I 69O -

1800

were farmed three years later to a private company, the Commercial
Society of the Islands of Cape Verde.(l)However, it is again to

he stressed that the inability of the Portuguese administration todevelop techniques to secure revenues was no indication of the volumeof trade.
After the demise of the Company of Grao Para and Maranhao, thePortuguese on the Upper Guinea Coast maintained their connection with
Brazil, and continued to send a regular flow of slaves to that country.
Very occasionally, this emerges from their own records.

For instance,

Companyan administrator of the Caixay of Grao Para and Maranhao who was
stationed at Bissau, wrote in 1778 that Cacheu exports had registered an
immediate decline after the Company came to an end, but it neverthelessexported 800 slaves, while Bissau despatched 1,200.(2)In May 1793the captain-major of Bissau reported that during the season justconcluded he had despatched more than 1,000 slaves to Brazil, (3)Then, in the second decade of the nineteenth century, the attempts to
put an end to the Atlantic slave trade by legislation and treaty
provoked responses from Brazil and the Upper Guinea Coast, v/hichshowed that a substantial trade persisted between two regions.

On the5th October l8l8, the governor of Rio de Janeiro wrote the governor ofCape Verde, expressing his concern over the suppression of the slave trade(1)

J. Barreto; Historia da Guine, p. 154(2)

A.H.U.,Guin^, mayo III - Jaao da Costa, 1778(3). A.H.U., Guine, mayo X - Jose Antonio Pinto, 10 May 1793*o* 4 * 'S la v e T r a d in g ,I 69O - I 8OO"which the factories of Guinea have conducted, until now* with suchwell-known profits, hoth with those very islands (the Cape Verde Islands)
and with some Brazilian ports*’• (l)Other observers commented in the late eighteenth century on thepattern of trade mentioned above, whereby some captives from the Upper
Guinea Coast went to the Cape Verde Islands (and to the Madeiras), while
the majority were despatched to Brazil.

Indeed, Para was still thedestination of 2,000 of these Africans every year, according to Golberry,
while 1,000 went to Cape Verde and the Madeiras.

Goldberry and anotherFrench informant, Labarthe, also provided the useful information thatin 1786 the ’Portuguese1 trade on the Upper Guinea Coast was controlled
by Englishmen resident in Lisbon; (2) indicating that Pombal*s reforms
had not succeeded in ousting English capital. (3)The British

Parliamentary enquiry into the Atlantic slave trade in 1789 revealed
the same dependence of the Portuguese on foreign imports, which thenhad to be re-ezported to Africa.
trade were also provided.

Figures of the Portuguese slave

They transferred a total of 20,000 slaves

annually from West Africa, three-quarters of whom were from Angola.

(1)

Joao Barreto; Historia da Guine, p. 180(2)

S.M. Golberry: Voyage en Afrique. Vol. 2, pp 231>232; andP. Labarthe; Voyages au Senegal, p. 144(3)

Pombal*s attempts were aimed primarily at English holdingsin the wine industry of northern Portugal.

S la v e T r a d in g ,I 69O -

1800

Roughly one-seventh of the remaining 5>000 came from Juda on the
Slave Coast> with the Upper Guinea Coast accounting for over
4>000. (l)Not only was this figure quite distinct from theexport of slaves by other Europeans ard by the North Americans,
but in fact the main impetus behind the Atlantic slave trade on
this section of the V/est African littoral was not Portuguese but English.
After the Royal African Company had been driven from Sierra
Leone in 1728, the English private traders were the only ones withwhom Lopez could trade, and they came to dominate completely thecommerce of the region. (2)Pence Island was occupied by three

London merchants - Alexander Grant, John Sargeant, and Richard Oswald and in 1744 their title to this island was upheld by the British Crown,
so that in 175^> Bence Island, unlike the other possessions of theRoyal African Company did not pass into the hands of the Companyof Merchants trading to Africa.
act

Of equal importance with theof George III which gave these London traders title to Bence Island,

wasthe agreement with the local sovereign,

who considered the landas being rented to Grant, Sargent and Oswald.

In fact, a number of

separate contracts with the neighbouring African rulers allowed most(1)

Report of the Lords of the Committee, 1789, Part VI, 'Portugal*(2)

Arquivo Colonial, Vol. 1, "Locumentos acerca a Serra Leoa"sr^7
S la v e T r a d in g ,I 69O -

o f th einis l a n d s

l8 0 0t h e S i e r r a Leo n e e s t u a r y t o he u s e d b y t h e t r a d e r s ,and they were, renewed when the assets of these three merchants wereacquired by John and Alexander Anderson.in 17&5 (l)«Meanwhile, the Banana and Plantain islands, which had long
been the haunt of private traders, had risen to great prominence, alongwith the islands off modern day Conakry, the Idolos.

The Bananas andPlantains became the home of the mulattoes, while the Idolos weretaken over by a Liverpool firm, headed by one Barber, and known on the
coast as the Liverpool Company.

In 1755 materials were brought out toconstruct a solid factory on one of these tiny islands where the Bulloms
had strewn their Xinas, (2) and the land-based structures were
supplemented by an 800-ton ship, permanently moored in the port.

It

carried 24 guns for defence, and on it was stored the most valuable
merchandise (3).

The factory at Bence Island was even more impressive.

Well furnished quarters of residence and ample storerooms were protectedby a strong fort; while the island also boasted a golf course of two holes*(1)

Claude George: The Rise of British West Africa (London 1903

pp.285, 286.
(2) Arquivo Colonial, Vol. 1, "Informapoes da Guine em 177711•(3)

S.M.Golberry: Voyage en Afrique, Vol. 2, p. 237> and J. Montefiore:
An Authentic Account of the late expedition to Bulama (London 1794)

S la v e T r a d in g ,1690 -

1800

Bence, the Idolos, the Bananas and the Plantains were all strongly
manned by whites, mulattoes and blacks; and adequately supplied withboats which they built and conditioned themselves.

a)

The impressive infra-structure of the English slaving industry in
Sierra Leone during the second half of the eighteenth century was notwasted.

It showed results in increased productivity.

The scope of theAtlantic slave trade as conducted on the Upper Guinea Coast at thisperiod and more specifically in Sierra Leone, has not been fully
appreciated.

It is held that the exports of slaves only reachedsignificant proportions during and immediately after the American war of
Independence (1776 -85)j (2) but while this short period v/as undoubtedly
a peak, the general level throughout the second half of the eighteenth
century was high.
As cited earlier, one apparently reliable opinion of slave tradingin Sierra Leone in 1751 was that it v/as ’prodigious1.(3)Translated

into statistical terms, this would have meant at least a few thousands
per year.

Judging from the accounts of Nicholas Owen, who was familiar

with the coast betv/een 1750 an<t 1757, a*id thatof John

(1) S.II. Golberry; Voyage en Afrique, Vol. 2, pp. 239,
J. Llachat: Documents, pp. 116, 124

Newton, who made240; and(2) Peter Kup: A History of Sierra Leone, pp. 60, 61;and Christopher
Fyfe: A History of Sierra Leone; p. 7(3) See above, Ch. IX ^•SK*?

S la v e T r a d i n g1690 -

1800

three voyages to Sierra Leone between 1750 an^ 1754? it would appear
that Sierra Leone was capable of filling the holds of several small
vessels over a trading season through a process of accumulating a few
at a time at every port and cove, with the resident whites and mulattoes
acting as agents.

Besides, the extension of the Sierra Leone trade-net

to the north was responsible for a great many more slaves.

It wassaid that the English from Sierra Leone took 1,000 slaves from Bissau
during the first five months of 1748; (l)and when it came into being
faced with the fact
in 1755? the Company of Grao Para and Llaranh^fo was inSxrousad that English
competition 7/as the greatest threat in the area. (2)Important European wars did have disruptive effects, as discussed
earlier in the case of the French, and the evidence of Nicholas Owen
clearly pointed to the difficulty of obtaining European goods and hence
slaves after the outbreak of the Seven Years War. (3)However, peacein Europe allowed the exploitation of Africa to be fully resumed.
The French closely watching their rival*s progress noted that, as far
as the slave trade was concerned, English commerce flourished after
1763; and this v/as maintained until after the outbreak of the
Y/ar of Independence.

(1)

AmericanIn 1778? information reaching the French Minister

A.H.U., Guine, ma^o V - Report c. 1749 advocating a new
Company to Brazil.
ip(2)N* Owen: Journal of a Slave Dealer, pp. 75?80(2) J .1.1. da Cunha aaraiva: "A Forteleza de .Bissau e a Compannia do
Grao Para e Marannao*' (Op. cit.)Tra.fllnfl»T 1630-1800

of Marine gave English exports as 3*000 from the 0amM a .
2.000 from the ('asamance, Cacheu and. the Dijagos, and4.000 from Sierra Leone. ^1)

Wherever these figures can bechecked against alternative sources of evidence, they are moreor less corroborated.

Witnesses before the Lord's Committee on

the Slave Trade in 1789 indicated that the Gambia trade thenstood at between 1,200 and 1,4Q0 slaves per annum, but that it
had been declining steadily for nearly two decades, and nad infact been 2,500 some 17 years previously, that is, in 177?* { 2 )Another English slave trader who had served at the Liverpool
Company's factory in Idolos between 1768 and 1770 stated thatthey handled 2,500 slaves per year in Sierra Leone.^3)

Possibly

he was excluding the hence Island figures and certainly the
Sherbro-Cape Mount trade.

The governor of Goree gave the total

figure for Sierra Leone as 4*500 in June 1778 (^4) wnile theprevious year a Portuguese official of the .Bissau Port

wrote

that the English factories in Sierra Leone collected moreu;

J. Macnat: Documents, p. 116

V)

Report of the Lords of the Committee, 1789 - Part 1,•Slaves *, evidence of Mr. heatley.

(3)

Report of the Lords of theCommittee , 1789 - Part 1,
1Slaves1 Evidence of Mr, James Pennyw

J . Machat: Documents, p. 116

S £7

S la v e

T r a d in g ,1690-1800

than 5,000 slaves every year. ^1)

When these minor

discrepancies are ironed out, they substantiate the viewthat the slave trade on the Upper Guinea Coast as conductedby the English had got into full stride after the interruptionof the Seven tears V/ar, and had not been immediately affectedby the outbreak of the American War of lndpendence in 1776,
It was no t u n t i l1779 t h a t the E n g lis h f a c t o r ie s on theUpper Guinea Coast s u ffe re d a tta c k s as a d ir e c t consequenceo f e x te r n a l w ars, as had o ccu rred d u rin g e a r l i e r phases o f
A n g lo -u u tch and A n g lo -p ren ch m i l i t a r y c o n f r o n t a t io n ,(2 )Thejrrench welcomed the p o s s i b i l i t y o f b e in g a b le to d e a l a few
blows a t th e E n g lis h in the Senegambia andon th e Upper Guinea
C o ast,They were c o n fid e n t th a t w ith com plete c o n tr o l o f theco a s t th e y would secure a n n u a lly 3*000 sla v e s from the Gambia;
300 from the Casamance and the uijagos and 6,000 from Sierra Leone
O)

1,1)

Arquivo Colonial, vol. 1, **mforma<joes da Guine em 1777”
This was supplied by x»ernardino de Andrade. When hepublished his description of the upper Guinea Coastin 1796, he revised this to "between 8,000 and
10,000”.
bee planta da Prapa de nissau, p, 53(2)

See above, Ch. vI ^ p .

(3)

J. Mac hats Documents. p. 135 { ■)

if I

S'S*

Slave Trading, 1690-1800
The Lostonians struck first at the Liverpool Company
factory at the Idolos and deprived the .french of this plum;
but the French commander Ponteves, made a thorough job of
demolishing the ^ence settlement in march of 1779*

The spoils

taken from the slave barracoons and storerooms allowed two
ships to be sent to Saint uomingue with slaves, while ivory
and camwood were fowarded to jrrance. (1)let, even thesewere temporary setbacks from which the English slave traders
recovered within five years.
A most ironical situation arose in 178 5 when the French
resprted to the came factories which they and the Americans
had bombarded, and the English, without bothering to rebuild
to the previous standards of luxury or solidity, were only too
happy to supply the .french Y»est Indian market.

In January

1785» "the Liverpool society concluded an agreement with acompany of ne ^.avre bachelor, rorbison and carmichel), underwhich the English were to deliver in the course of a year
3,000 slaves to one captain Rousseau, an accredited agent of
the trench company.

The slaves were to be of both sexes andof all ages and were to be chosen by the captain and paid forat a rate of 600 francs per head.
in the river^lj

Captain Rousseau arrived

Sierra Leone on the 25th September 1785 and by

J. Machatj Documents, p. 124

S l a v e Trading,

1690-1800

the 1st May he had packed and despatched 2*000 slavesto the French sugar colonies in shps commissioned byhis company.

he then awaited the arrival of more vessels

to take the remaining 1,000 who were already assembled.

Similar orders were captured by the Liverpool Company in1787 and 1788 on behalf of commercial houses in ivantes. (1)Certain influential Frenchmen who were cognisant of
this state of affairs, felt that it was intolerable that the
French colonies should be dependent upon an English sourceof supply, and that the English should reap profits in theprocess.

naving failed to secure any of the uritish

possessions in the Gambia or bierra Leone by war or byP

treaty, the French hoped to gain an entree into the bierra
Leone trade by occupying the small island of Gambia inthe bierra Leone estuary.

Their choice of this site wasbased on the fact that a Frenchman named uannibal had been
residing there since 1772, earning his livelihood byhandling some 30 to 40 slaves per year.

Another French

citizen, Ancel, joined him in 1780 and took over thefollowing year when Hannibal died,season, he handled 140 slaves.

in the 1785-86 trading

The French administration

therefore hoped to displace these petty adventurers with acapitalised enterprise.

^1)

b.1,1. Golberry: Voyage en Africue. vol. 2, pp.274-281

Slave Trading, 1690-1800
Having obtained permisLion in 1786 from king Haimbana
to settle on Gambia island, the French for a brief wnile
demonstrated a serious purpose in the Sierra Leone area.

They

introduced a garrison, as well as experienced Alrican tradersfrom the Senegal; ^1)

but the effort was overpowered by theunhealthiness of Gambia island, as well as by the determinationof the English

at Hence island to brook no competitors,(2)hence island, which was under the Andersons of Philpot
Lane ^London) since 1785, had enjoyed even greater prosperity
than the Idolos after the American War of Independence.

In

1785 and during the first five months of 1785, the hence traders
had delivered to the Danes more than 3,000 slaves, besides which
they sent to the English colonies nearly 4,000 (3)*Most of the above information was provided by the Frenchcaptain, Lajaille, who went to Sierra Leone to negotiate theestablishment of the factory on Gambia island.

The figures

given for tne exports of the English factories of the Idolos andhence alone totalled 10,000 for tne year 1785-86 (4)^1)

A, Y/urie: "The uundukas of Sierra Leone", in Sierra Leone
Studies ^hew SeriesJ Ho. 1, Dec, 1953.

(,2)

P. Labarthej Vhyages au Senegal, pp.151,155,240
s .m . Golberryj^4J

voyage en Afriaue. vol. 2, p.282

Ibid - That is to say, 3,000 to the Danes, 3,000 to the
French and 4,000 to the English.

Slave Trading, 1690-1B00
This contrasts with the estimates of 3,500 given by matthews
and Horris, two Liverpool representatives before the Lords*
Committee•^1)

nowever, for the purposes of this analysis,

it is enough to know that the slave trade of the English in
Sierra Leone was reckoned in thousands, and that the same wastrue of the Portuguese,

The scale of the trade can then beassessed in relative rather than absolute terms.

On the one hand,the upper Guinea coast was one of the least afflicted sectionsof the West African coast.

As stated earlier, 4,000 slavesexported annually by the Portuguese from the Upper

Guinea Coast

measured up against 15,000 from Angola; while, according toRorris, the 3,500 captives taken by the English from Sierra
Leone supplemented by J00 from the Gambia, were to be seen
against 10,000 per annum taken from the Gold Coast, 14,500
from honny and new Calabar, and 13,500 from the Congo andAngola.

On the other hand, within the context of the historyof slaving on the upper Guinea coast, the latter part of theeighteenth century was a period of frightening activity.

^lj

Report of the Lords of the committee, 1789 1Slaves *.

Part 1,SLAVE TRADING 1690-1800
Part II - "The Scars of the Atlantic slave trade"
Recently, there has been an attempt to revise the portrayalof the Atlantic slave trade as a purely destructive force in West
Africa.

It is contended that "the Portuguese slave trade beganwith violence and destruction, but soon became orderly";

it broughtrulers manufactured goods and revenue; and in many cases therelationship between African and European was one of equal trading
partners.

(1)

The weakness of this line of argument is that it

calls attention to certain aspects but not to the totality of theAfro-European connection in which the Atlantic slave trade playedso giant a role.

For the most part, therefore, these propositions

cannot be sustained, and have in fact been implicitly refuted in
the earlier account of the Hispano-Portuguese slave trade and thediscussion of the nature of Afro-European commerce on this sectionof the West African littoral.
Order, for instance, was introduced into the conduct of theAtlantic slave trade only in the sense that Europeans ceased direct
raiding and turned to trade.

But, the rapine and plunder, theorganised manhunts, the kidnapping that bred more kidnapping, the(1) The Transatlantic Slave Trade from West Africa (Centre of
African Studies, University of Edinburgh, Mimeographed Reportof Conference held in June 1965)

See "The Impact of the Slave

Trade on West Africa" by Christopher Fyfe, pp.8l-88 andsubsequent discussion.

SLAVE TRADING 1690-1800
deterioration in the customary law - all these lay behind the facadeof the relatively orderly and peaceful agreements between Europeanslavers and coastal chiefs.

Once the alliance was established, it

is important to underline that the African rulers managed to maintainnot simply equality but sovereignty, in their personal contacts with
the Europeans.

However, the commercial nexus was an entirely

different matter.

Here there could be no equality, because thedemands of a developed system of production were imposed upon asociety which scarcely rose above subsistence agriculture.

The

Africans displayed a weakness for and indeed an obsession with
European commodities, and given this fatal flaw, the tragedy unfolded
inexorably.

The impression that the African society was being over­whelmed by the involvement with the European economy was moststrongly conveyed at points when the Africans conceded that theirslaving activities were the consequence of the fact that nothing but
slaves would purchase European goods. (1)In a limited sense, the African ruling class benefited byobtaining European goods.

On the Upper Guinea Coast, the traditionalruling class was partially replaced by the mulattoes and by membersof the Mande and Fula groups, but at all times it wan the members(1)

See above, Ch.IV, p. 2.33

SLAVE TRADING 1690-1800
of the ruling stratum who received the best cloth, (1) drank themost alcohol,(2) and preserved the widest collection of durable

items for prestige purposes. (3)*

It is this factor of realised

self-interest which goes some way towards explaining the otherwise
incomprehensible actions of Africans towards Africans.
While empathy with the African rulers is a difficult
exercise, this is not the cnse with the Europeans.

As individuals

and as part of an economic system, they sought profits in a strictly
definable sense, and they calculate*^ threw aside all restrictions.(k)In m o d e m society, rules are drawn up to protect the members ofpossessing class from devouring each other, and even to prevent
them from eating the workers raw;

but on the Upper Guinea Coastand the West African littoral

as a whole, capitalism

even a loin-cloth to hide its

nakedness. With no restraints on(1) See, e.g., Manuel Alvares: "Ethiopia Menor"(He describes the

Papel chiefs as having rich silks and brocades)
Davies:The Royal African Company, p.176

paraded without

Also K.G.

(The point is madethat woollens were normally too expensive to use as slave
goods, but were given to the coastal rulers as ’gifts')*(2) See above, Ch.VII, p.
(3) P* Cultru: Premier Voyagede Sieur de la Courbe,

p.232.

(He lists a large number of articles in the possession of
the Farim Cabo, which were virtually useless except for
purposes of ornament and display.)(4) See above, Ch.IV, p . x ^ 7

SLAVE TRADING l690-l800
either side, the confrontation between the two cultures, which
produced the Atlantic slave trade, was neither peaceful nor
orderly, contrary to the exploratory revision, and it proved
entirely detrimental to African society, which was the weaker party.
The methods by which the Atlantic slave trade were conducted
on African soil could lead to none other than destructive con­sequences.

On the basis of observations made in the Senegambia

in 1787 and 1788 (and later confirmed in Sierra Leone) the anti­slave trade advocate, C.5. Wadstrom, categorised the methods ofthe trade as warfare, pillage (under which he included attacks bykings against their subjects ) } robbery(by which he meant kidnap­

ping by the Europeans), and treachery or stratagems.

Of the wars

he had this to say: "these predatory incursions depend so muchon the demand for slaves that if in any one year there be greaterconcourse of European ships than usual, it is observed that a muchgreater number of captives from the interior parts of the country
is brought to market the next."

He also noted the sale ofindividuals for "acts of petty larceny which scarcely deserved thename of crimes";

the professionalism associated with slave raiding;and the protection extended by the ruling class to their own kin.(l)(1) C.B. Wadstrom: Observations on the Slave Trade and a
Description of Some Part of the Coast of Guinea during
Voyage made in 178? and 1788 (London 1789) pp.1-17» 27* 28.

£~<boSLAVE TRADING l690-l800
Thus, the methods
no different in 1787 fromof the slave trade were In essentials
what they werein 1686 when the Capuchins

wrote;

and by 1800, given the cumulative effect of nearly three anda halfcenturies of slave trading on the U.G.C. the destruction was

proportionately more marked.

For one thing, the disquietude anddisruption had been spread further inland, and for another, upon
the coast itself conditions had deteriorated to a state of nearanarchy.
In the 16th and early 17th centuries, the Portuguese andSpanish appeared to have secured most of their slaves below thelimit of the tides on the river, but subsequently the effects of
the Atlantic slave trade were felt further and further inland.
On the Gambia, for example, in places where Jobson had found thatthe people had had little to do with the coastal trade and werethus unmindful of tolls and customs, Mungo Park found them grasping
for the petty profits which this European-generated trade allowed
the Africans.

(1)

Some sixty years before Park, Hiehard Moore hadcommented on the great distance inland that the slave trade waspursued, with the majority of captives proceeding from the deep
hinterland; (2) while six decades prior to that, Coelho had observed(1)

Mungo Park: Journal..1805, PP»69»73(2)

Richard Moore: "Travels into the Interior Parts of Africa",
in Thomas Astley: A New and General Collection of Voyages

Vol.2.

S'6/

SLAVE TRADING l690-l800
that the Basserels on the middle Gambia were the chief victimsof the Mandinga slave trade; (1) so that the progressive
intensification and extension of trade along this main waterway
is well illustrated.
South of the Gambia, the situation was quite similar.
In the latter years of the 17th century, the greatest businessally of the Europeans on the U.G.C. was the Farim Cabo. (2)Below the province of Cabo or Gabu, that is, to the south of the
Corubal, the Portuguese and Afro-Portuguese made the territoryof the Susus into their principal purchasing zone.

The Bence

Island factor of the RAC claimed in 1703 that the Susu country
was the "Portuguse Arcana", which was supplying most of the
products for the coast by that date. (3 )Besides, the Fulas had

already joined the Mande as the foremost suppliers of slaves on
the U.G.C. in the late seventeenth century, and this was evenmore marked during the Jihad.
It follows from the locale of the Fula campaigns that asignificant proportion of captives were taken from beyond theFuta Djalon watershed.

After 1730, the Fula and Sulima armies

fought in Sangara and beyond, that is to say, considerable
distances to the east of the Niger.

Non-Islamicieed Mande and(1)

See above, C h . I V ^ / 5(2)

P. Cultru: Premier Voyage de Sieur de la Courbe, pp.252,253(3)

P.R.O.. T?0/l*f - Greenaway, 18th March 1703*

SLAVE TRADING l690-l800
the Kissis seem to have been the main victims of these assults.(l)In the latter eighteenth century, the word 'Kissi1 made its
appearance as the name of a small river north of the Searcies.
Certainly the Kissi tribe lived nowhere in that vicinity, but it
is conceivable that the name arose bacause of the large number ofKissis who were brought to the coast at that point.

The factoryon the Idolos was well positioned, precisely because the main
flow of slaves from the hinterland reached the coast on the rivers
north of the Searcies. (2)A report of 1778, relating that thevictims secured at the Idolos were in poor physical shape after
travelling great distances in a slave coffle, (3) suggests that
this was a pattern identical with that described by Mungo Park,
who personally journeyed with such a coffle from beyond the Niger
to the Gambia estuary. (4)Although three-quarters of the slaves exported from the
U.G.C. in the eighteenth century were said to have come from the(1) See above, Ch. IX, f> iTJt
(2) Captives reached the coast on all the main rivers between theGambia and the Searcies, butsometimes

for onereason or

another, a particular river had thegreatesttraffic.

WhenJohn Matthews was on the coast in 1785-87 * the Pongo had
replaced the Nunez as the most important slave route.
A Voyage to the River Sierra Leone, p.1 1 .
(3)J* Machat: Documents, p.128.

(4)

M. Park:

Travels..1785-87

SeeSLAVE TRADING 1690-1800
interior, (1 ) it was on the narrow coastal strip that the impactof the trade was most marked.

For one thing, in the hustling yearsof the eighteenth century, the frequency of direct European attacks
on the Africans was much greater - often in alliance with a resident
trader or a chief.

Several such incidents involved North Americanships, (2 ) possibly because of their relative inexperience in the
trade.

Besides, greater trade meant more slaving captains making

their last voyages, and these individuals were always prone to'panyarring' a few extra victims. (3) Obviously, these depredations
took place close to the waterside.
However, as was true in the era of the Spanish registros,
what mattered moat was the setting of tribe against tribe and the
exploitation practised by the African ruling class on its own
subjects.

By the latter part of the eighteenth century, thecumulative effects of both these practices threatened

to tear apartthe littoral societies in which they obtained - which meantvirtually the whole of theU.G.C.
(1)

Report ofActs of opposition

the Lords of the Committee, 1789 - Partto the Atlantic
I, 'Slaves'

Evidence of Mr. James Penny.
(2) C.B. Wadstrom:

An Essay on Colonisation, p p .76

and M. Winterbottom: An Account of the Native Africans ofSierra Leone, and A.M. Falconbridge: A Narrative of Two Voyages
to the River Sierra Leone, p. 35 .
(3) J. Newton:

Journal of a Slave Trader, p.109

SLAVE TRADING 1690-1800
slave trade on the part of the Africans were as unsuccessful as
they were rare.

In 1720, for example, Tomba, a Baga chief, tried

to organise opposition to the slave trade in the Pongo area.

His

alliance of a few villages inevitably failed, and he himself wasplaced on a slave ship.

Obviously an indomitable individual, Tomba

led a revolt on board ship, killing three of the crew, but paid forhis courage with his life. (1)It is also true that the Balantas

and the Djolas remained largely indifferent to the slave trade; andwhen raided, the Balantas retaliated with great ferocity. Theynot

only beat off attacks on their homes led by Afro-Portuguese from
Bissau, but they retaliated by raiding the island of Bissau for
cattle. (2)But to greater or lesser extent, all were involved andall were consumed.
Labat, writing in 1728, after having gained his impressionof the U.G.C. in the early years of that century, was struck by thecontinual round of wars, piratical expeditions and skirmishes in thearea where the Portuguese had so long been present: namely, theGambia-Geba district.

He commented that"the Europeans who trade inthis country are careful not to preach peace and union;

this would

be contrary to their interests, because their wars are solely for(1)

J. Atkins:

A Voyage to Guinea, pp.42,72

A.H.U., Guin£, ma^o V - Relajaoof the 2nd Nov 1778.

SLAVE TRADING 1690-1800
the capture of slaves11. (1)While it would be impossible to provethat every instance of hostilities was directly motivated by the
Atlantic slave trade, it is at least clear that all other motives
had been subsumed by the slave trade.

John Newton, on the basisof his experiences as a slave trader in Sierra Leone around the
middle of the eighteenth century, was very guarded in his statementson this matter.

He thought that it was quite unnecessary for theEuropeans to arrive on the shore and provoke a specific casus belli,
but he was convinced that with the cessation of the Atlantic slave
trade the incidence of violence on the coast would decline dramat­
ically. (2)In effect, what had happened was that once the original

impulse had been given by the European demand for slaves, thetragedy played itself out.
On the Malaguetta Coast, where the Manes had once trod, thepicture in the eighteenth century was one of conflict that probably
retained some of the elements of tribal imperialism, but these were
submerged under the Atlantic slave trade.

The coastal peoples

raided inland to procure slaves, and then the interior peoples
retaliated, starting a cycle of wars.

The slave trader, John Atkins,

relating the situation around 1720, attested to the fact that theinland nations of the Malaguetta Coast had suffered from the(1) J. Labat: Nouvelle Relation, Vol.V, p.133(2) J. Newton: Journal of a Slave Trader, pp.108,109*SLAVE TRADING 1690-1800•panyarring1 forays of the littoral inhabitants, and in consequence
had moved down and destroyed several towns and villages.
while, trade was at a standstill,(1) but by 1728 the
R.A.C. in Sierra Leone wrote thatFor aagent of thertthere is at present a great

number of slaves in this place, the people being at war with thoseof Bassoe where the malaguetta used formerly to be bought in plenty,
but the people of Cetera Crew make daily

inroads upon them and bring

off many slaves.” (2)Several years later, violence from the direction of the
Malaguetta Coast again reached Sierra Leone.

It was said in 1730

that the whole country between Mana and Sierra Leone was in a flameof wax. (3)The Mendes must have been involved in these hostilities.

Nicholas Owen reported that the Konos and Bantas were among thevictims of the slave trade as pursued in the Gallinas. (4)The

BantsS are in fact a sub-group of the Mendes, left by the first Manepassage, (3) while the Kono3 were closely related to the Vais.

By

the early 19th century, both the Mendes and the Vais advanced
towards the coast to take up the leading roles intheAtlantic slave(1)

J# Atkins:

A Voyage to Guinea, p.73

(2)

P.R.O., T70/1465 - Diary of Walter Charles 1728.

(3)

J* Newton: Op. cit., p.23

(4)

N. Owen: Journal of a Slave Dealer, p.54

(3)

V* Person: ”Les Kissi et les Statuettes dePierre” ,inBulletin de 1*I.F.A.N., Tome XXIII; and see above, Ch.II.

7
SLAVE TRADINj I69O-I 8OO
trade of the Gallinas and Cape Mount. (1)There was a point at which even the slave traders had toput a brake on the coastal wars.

Wadstrom’s diligent enquiries

into the nature of the slave trade in Sierra Leone about the year
1793 elicited the information that formerly the whites often
encouraged •palavers1, promising presents of liquor if theprisoners were sold to them, and they gave ammunition to bothparties in any war.

However, by that time, f,the inhabitants being

much diminished, and their wars interrupting remoter trade, thefactors have endeavoured to preserve peace to secure the people
inland a free passage down.” (2)The notorious John Ormond wasnamed as one who used his influence to put a stop to hostilities
on the coast so as to ensure the flow of the much more lucrativeinterior trade. (3)This was a tacit admission on

thepartoftheslave traders themselves of the chaos that the Atlantic slavetrade
had brought to the coast.
To the tribal feuds there must be added the innumerable
personal vendettas fed by the many sharp practices which Mercado
in 1569 termed enganos (deceits) and Wadstrom in 1787 called(1)

For the Vais, see Captain Canot: Adventures of an African
Slaver, p.302; and for the Mendes in the 19th century, see
C. Fyfe: Sierra Leone Inheritance, section 12.

(2)

C.B. Wadstrom: An Essay on Colonisation, p.77

(3)

Captain Canot: Op. cit.

<T6P
SLAVE TRADING l690-l800"treachery or stratagems” .

In the opinion of Bernardo de Andrade,these acts to ensnare private individuals had multiplied to suchan extent as to 'engulf* the Africans.

Though he had served formany years as an official of the slave trading company of Grao
Para and Maranhao, De Andrade wrote the Portuguese Secretary ofState for Foreign Affairs in 1798 urging that if the slave tradewere replaced by other forms of enterprise, it would mean that thepeople of the Upper Guinea Coast would "put an end to theircontinuous dissensions and return to agriculture." (1)Above all, any analysis of the impact of the Atlantic
slave trade must take into account the fact that the coastalsociety had always been differentiated and stratified.

This waswhat primarily determined the way in which external forces werereceived and internalised.

When one traces the exploitation of

the majority of the society by the dominant layer then the full
extent of the destruction wrecked by the Atlantic slave trade on
the society of the Upper Guinea Coast is revealed.
By the eighteenth century, the African ruling class inrelation to its own subjects was no longer carrying out its
functions of maintaining order and policing the state.

These wereincompatible with the mode of production which they had adopted
in response to the lure of European goods.

Their responsibilities(1) Bernardino de Andrade: Planta da Prapa de Bissau, p.50

S~6 ?

SLAVE TRADING 1690-1800
for the security of the persons of their subjects had been almost
entirely jettisoned during the centuries of supplying the Europeanslave ships.

Even the Poro, the greatest pillar of Sape and laterof Mane society, was no longer a cementing force in the society,but simply an instrument in the hands of the slave trading chiefs;( 1 )and the same seems to have been true of the womans' organisation, theBundu. (2)The active assaults of the ruling class on theirsubjects moved from the plane of perverted justice to outright manstealing.

In the Gambia, kings raided their own outlying villages

under cover of darkness; (3 ) the sort of incident referred to by
Clarkson, probably the best informed protagonist of his day. (4)In reality, even the coastal ruling class had been over­whelmed in the gross trade that they had helped to conduct.

Many ofthem had been replaced by chiefs of Mande origin, often professing
Islam, as noted earlier. (5)This was particularly true of the

Nalus, Bagas and Temnes; while elsewhere the mulattoes had stepped
into the breach.

Where the old coastal ruling class persisted,

usually as the headmen of petty settlements, they were as debt(1)See above, Ch. VIII /'/’■‘Pf,(2)

T. Winterbottom:(3)

C.B. Wadstrom: Observations on the Slave Trade, pp.7*8.

(4)

Thomas Clarkson:

An Account ofLeone.

the Native Africans of Sierra

History of the Abolition
Slave Trade.(London l8o8)(5)

See above, Ch.IX^ jQ.f'iC.

of the African
Vol 1, p.13

Sy o

SLAVE TRADING 1690-1800
ridden as the West Indian planters who ultimately received a large
proportion of the slaves; and because of their indebtedness to themulatto and white factors they were forced to sell their subjects
or be sold themselves. (1 )Matters had clearly reached an extremely low ebb, when oneof the principal means of becoming a slave was to be found guilty
in a "sauce palaver", that is to say, to be adjudged to have been
rude to a member of the ruling class. (2)This meant that even theinformal rules of behaviour in relation to constituted authority
had assumed the form of law, and were contributing to the Atlantic
slave trade.*
Of course, the African rulers continued to protect them­selves, even to the point where they sought the return of any noble
who had inadvertently been shipped to the Americans.

In 1792, forexample, the king of Bissau wrote the king of Portugal demanding
the return of the fidalgo Ijala, who had been carried in Maranhao,
and also the recall of the official who had permitted this. (3)Besides, by this time, many of the rulers on the coast were Muslims,(1)

See above, Ch. VIII

(2)

T. Winterbottom: An Account of the Native Africans ofSierre Leone, p.127(3 )A.H.U., Guine', maqo X - King of Bissau, 20 June 1792; andPetition of Bissau residents, 1793•

*7*

SLAVE TRADING l690-l800
and this provided further protection. (1)Conversely, the mass ofthe people were still exposed both to capture and to recapture if
they managed to escape.

In 1731* when the Portuguese signed acontract with a Beafada noble for the setting up of a trading
settlement at La, on the river Geba, it included a "fugitive slaveclause" in which the noble undertook to return all escapees. (2 )It was, therefore, the common citizens or plebeus, whose
vulnerability was at its maximum.

The Lords' Committee on the

Atlantic slave trade had good reason to ask their witnesses whether
the Africans "enjoy any protection from any Civil Eights they have'U3)
For the vast majority of the people on the U.G.C. the answer was in
the negative.

Their civil rights had evaporated as the laws of

their society had become deformed to facilitate a trade which wasa constant threat to their existence.

Under these circumstances,individuals had to seek their own means of security.

"They nevercare to walk even a mile from home without firearms;

each knows

it is their villainies and robberies upon one another that enables
them to carry on a slave trade with Europeans", wrote John Atkins
in 1721. (4)Overlooking this informant's brazen inversion of(1)

See above, Ch. IX^(2)

A.H.U., Guin£, raaqo V - Copy of doagao by Tamba Ocho

Nanquim,

30 June 1751(3)Report of the Lords of the Committee, 1789 - Part I,"Government,

Religion, Manners and Customs", question put to Robert Norriswith respect to the Gold Coast.
(4)

J. Atkins:

A Voyage to Guinea, p.151

SLAVE TRADING 1690-1800
cause and effect, his testimony clearly points to a state ofinsecurity bordering on anarchy.

Another graphic illustrationof this was to be seen in the dislocation of villages in Sierra
Leone, and their re-siting in almost inaccessible hide-outs, awayfrom the main waterways and the slave raiding chiefs. (1 )In the face of the above information, it is totally mis­leading to refer to the society of the U.G.C. at the end of theslave trade as 'traditional*•Indeed, it is no exaggeration tomaintain that "the social, political and economic life of West
Africa became reorganised to produce one result, a steady flow ofslaves for ships anchored along the coast". (2)Yet, far too often,

there has been a ready acceptance of reports on West Africa in theeighteenth and nineteenth centuries as representing certain time­less institutions, and it is even assumed that the field studies of'indigenous' African societies in the twentieth century constitutea fundamentally unchanged pattern.

In many instances, this is far

from the truth, and the regime of law and punishment is the firstcase in point.
When a modern ethnographic survey of Sierra Leone indicatesthat "punishments formerly included" enslavement for a wide varietyof crimes, (3 ) this itself needs to be placed in historical(1)

See above, Ch. VIII ^9(2)

D. Mannix and M. Cowley: Black Cargoes, p*32

(3)

M. Mc.Culloch: Peoples of Sierra Leone, pp.24,25

£~J3

SLAVE TRADING 1690-1800
perspective rather than constituting historical evidence valid foran earlier period.

In the nineteenth and early twentieth century,

most of the tribal societies between Sierra Leone and the Gambia
enslaved individuals locally on the basis of the same petty crimes
which they had used to stock the slave ships.

No doubt, theEnglish administration of the Gambia thought it was bringing
enlightenment to the backward natives by refusing to return slaves
who had escaped from the Mandingas of Combo, on the left bank of
the Gambia estuary; while the Mandinga chiefs accused the Englishof "abetting their criminals and... receiving offenders flying frompunishment brought upon them by their own conduct". (1)However,one Portuguese official was able to perceive the relationshipbetween the patterns of legal punishment and the Atlantic slave
trade, drawing attention to the fact that the Djolas provided an
exception.

He wrote as follows: "The Felupes (Djolas) never madeslaves, nor did they sell their own kind, as did their neighbours,
and, from this fact there resulted a great difference between the
penal morality of the one from the others:on the one hand, theFelupes punish murderers and feticeiros by seizing their goods,
demolishing their houses and exiling them; and for thefts, casesof wounding and adultery, they exact fines and compensation; - theCassangas, the Banhuns and nearly all the people of the coast,punish everything with captivity, which in many instances embraces(1)

J.M. Gray: A History of the Gambia, PP-319,320 (Citing Lt.
Gov. Huntley of Bathurst, 23 July 1840)«0'7*SLAVE TRADING 1690-1800
the whole family"• (1)Having placed this in the context of themild penalties requested before the Atlantic slave trade had madeits impact, nothing more need be said. (2 )The captivity referred to above was an entirely local
matter, persisting long after the Atlantic slave trade had ended.
One of the most widely held generalisations about 'indigenous 1
African society which stands in greatest need of a close re-appraisalis the contention that slavery and other forms of social subjection
prevailed on the African continent before the arrival of theEuropeans, and facilitated the rise and progress of the Atlantic
slave trade.

Daniel M a n nix has been cited earlier in this study as

espousing this view. (3)He spelt it out as follows: "many of the

Negroes transported to America had been slaves in Africa, born tocaptivity.

Slavery in Africa was an ancient and widespread institu­

tion, but it was especially prevalent in the Sudan". (4) According
to P.D. Rinchon, "from the earliest days of the trade, the majorityof the Negroes were

living in a state ofservitude,

and the native

chiefs did not have

far to seek for thehumanmerchandise".

(3 )

(1)

H.A. Dias de Carvalho: Guin^, Apontamentos Ineditos, pp 72,73(2)

See above, Ch.

IV7

(3)

See above, Ch.

IV^ f

(*f)

D. Mannix and M. Cowley: Black Cargoes, p.43

(3)

D. Rinchon:

197 , I92 •La Traite et l'Esclavage des Congolais par lesEurop^ens(Brussels 1929) P-1&9

SLAVE TRADING 1690-1800
A third and more judicious expression of this view comes from
J.D. Fage.

After stating that African "domestic slavery" involved

relatively small numbers, and after making it clear that thisinstitution was in no way comparable to slavery in the Americas,
he adds that "nevertheless, the existence of domestic slavery has
an important bearing on the development of the slave trade in West
Africa... The presence of a slave class among the coastal peoples
meant that there was already a class of human beings who could besold to Europeans if there was am incentive to do so... So thecoastal merchants began by selling the domestic slaves in their own
tribes." (1)From a chronological assessment of the society of the

U.G.C. it can be demonstrated not only that these tenets areinapplicable but that, on the contrary, it was the Atlantic slave
trade which spawned a variety of forms of slavery, serfdom andsubjection in this particular area.
Not only did the Upper Guinea Coast have a lengthy associa­
tion with the Atlantic slave trade, beginning in the 14-60's andextending over four centuries, but it is also a very usefulexemplar as far as the present problem is concerned, because theso-called African 'slavery' was known to be widespread in thisregion during the colonial period, and emancipation was eventually
brought about by the intervention of the metropolitan powers(1) J.D. Fage: Introduction to the History of West Africa(London 1959) P»78.

SLAVE TRADING l690-l800
involved.

Sometimes, what obtained was a quasi-feudal exploitationof labour by a ruling elite, who received the greater portion of
the harvest as in the use of the rounde or "slave towns" of theFuta Djalon. (1)At other times, the "domestic slaves", as they

have been categorised, were members of their masters' households.
They could not be sold, except for serious offences; they had theirown plots of land and or rights to a proportion of the fruits of
their labour; they could marry;

their children had rights ofinheritance, and if born of one free parent often acquired a new
status.

Such individuals could rise to positions of great trust,

including that of chief. (2)Quite obviously, R.S. Rattray's well-known description of
the Ashante 'slave', (3) which is cited in most discussions on thissubject, (k) is fully applicable to the Upper Guinea Coast.

Rattray

was primarily concerned with the "slave child" (Odonko ba). whose
privileges were quite different from those of their parents andforeparents.

On the Upper Guinea Coast too the servants born inthe household were distinguished from the individuals who were
(1) P. Marty:

Islam en Guinee(2) M. Mc.Culloch: Peoples of Sierra Leone, pp.28,29*68(3) R.S• Rattray: Ashanti (London 1923) pp.4-0-*f3» 222,230(4-) E.g., Stanley Elkins: Slavery, A Problem in American Institu­
tional and Social Life (New York 1963) P*96; andBasil Davidson: Black Mother, p.4-0 (For a full discussionof African 'slavery' and 'serfdom' see pp.33*^0)

*77
SLAVE TRADING 1690-1800
recruited from captives of war or from those pledged and notredeemed.

These latter were vulnerable to sale, being exchanged

for goods as well as serving as currency in a number of transactions
such as marriage payments.

During the latter part of the nineteenth

century, after the Atlantic slave trade was no longer conductedfrom the Upper Guinea Coast, one of the major problems facing theadministration of the colony of Sierra Leone was the persistenceof the internal slave trade, mainly supplying victims to the Mandeand the Fulas. (1) Thus, an examination of the society of the Upper
Guinea Coast at a relatively recent date does reveal the presenceof a category of slaves, as well as agricultural serfdom andpersonal service.
In seeking the roots of the indigenous slavery and serfdomof the Upper Guinea Coast, and in attempting to juxtapose these
phenomena with the Atlantic slave trade, one is struck by theabsence of references to local African slavery in the sixteenth oreven the seventeenth century, when such evidence could reasonably
be construed to mean that the institution preceded the advent of
the Atlantic slave trade.

Sometimes, the word 'slave' was indeed

used, but so loosely as to apply to all the common people.

For

instance, the Jesuit, Alonso de Sandoval, reported that while in
Cartagena in the early seventeenth century, a priest who came over

(1) C. Fyfe: A History of Sierra Leone, See Index, under "Slave
Trade, internal".

XT ?

SLAVE TRADING l69A-l800
on a slave ship told him that all the talk about the injustice ofslavery was nonsense, because all the Negroes were slaves ofabsolute kings.

Sabdoval then went on to pin-point the king of

Casanga on the river Casamance as one such absolute monarch, whose
subjects were his slaves. (1) In this arbitrary and figurative sense,
the word 'slave 1 is equally applicable, not only to the common
people of Europe at that time, but also to the proletariat of theworld today.
There is only one clear instance where labour services on
the Upper Guinea Coast were associated with the limitation of theprivileges of free men.

In Sierra Leone, at the beginning of theseventeenth century, when a subject was in danger in one kingdom,
he could flee to the court of another king and place himself at themercy of the latter.

He became the 'slave' of that king, either

remaining in his service or liable for sale (to the Europeans). (2)At that time, local customs were already influenced by the presenceof slave-buying Europeans, as well as by the arrival of the Manes
as an alien ruling element some decades previously; but theessentials of the practice almost certainly preceded these two
external factors.

In 1507* the Fortuguese chronicler, Valentin

Fernandes made a statement which could refer to nothing else:(1)

Alonso de Sandoval: Natureleza de Todos Etiopes(2)

B.R.A.H., Papeles de Jesuitas, tomo 185* No.13^6* Barreira,

l6o6.

srf

SLAVE TRADING 1690-1800’’The king has no servants other than his slaves.

Sometimes ayoung stranger arrives and seeks the protection of the king, wholooks upon the young man as his own". (1)The interlude of the Manes is itself quite instructive.
When Hawkins arrived at Sherbro island, he found that the Sapes werebeing used as the 'slaves' of the Manes to produce a wide variety
of agricultural crops.

(2)

This points to the subjection which

automatically followed conquest, but no institutionalised slavery
or serfdom resulted in this instance, because the invaders wererapidly integrated and had essentially the same relations with theirsubjects as the previous rulers. What did matter was that within thesocial structure there was much greater antipathy between the rulers
and their subjects.

Sales of Sapes by the Manes are thus adequately

explained, firstly, in terms of warfare and, secondly, in terms ofclass exploitation. (3)In any event, the Atlantic slave trade had

started long before the Manes arrived.

In so far as the society of

the Upper Guinea Coast can be reconstructed at the moment of contact
with the Portuguese, one can discern, at the very most, the presenceof a small number of political clients in the households of the kingsand chiefs of the area.

If they were to have constituted the padfor launching the Atlantic slave trade, it would never have left the
ground•(1)

Valentim Fernandes: La C&te Occidentale d'Afrique, p.82

(2)

Hakluyt Society, No.LVII, The Hawkins Voyages(3)

See above, Ch.II, p.//£and Ch.IVj ^. 7-0 /£j?o

SLAVE TRADING 1690-1800
It is difficult to believe that any observer could possibly
have overlooked features such as chattel slaves, agricultural serfs
or even household servants if these were numerous and disprivileged
enough.

Several of the sixteenth and seventeenth century Portuguese

descriptions of the Upper Guinea Coast are replete with details of
the structure of African society on that section of the West African
littoral; and the only distinction that they consistently emphasised
was the one between rulers and subjects - the fidalgos and plebeus.(1 )For the neighbouring Senegambia, Valentim Fernandes left testimonythat the Wolof nobles had several households, each comprising awife, children and 'slaves', the latter working six days for the
mistress and one day every week for themselves.

(2)

Alvares de

Almada in 159^ also referred to Fula 'slaves' ruling the Wolofs.

(3)

Both these writers dealt with the area between the Gambia and Cape
Mount at great length, without mentioning any similar phenomena.
On matters of

trade, even more than on matters of ethno­graphic interest, theearly Portuguse chroniclers werein recording details.

scrupulous

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,

they knew of the trade routes between the Futa Djalon and the coast,linking the littoral peoples with the Mande and Fula of the interior.

/(1)

See above, Ch.I^(2)

Valentim Fernandes: La C 6 te Occidentale d'Afrique,p.10(3) Alvares de Almada: "Rios de Guine", pp.23**, 233-

SLAVE TRADING l690-l800
Yet, in enumerating the products exchanged, they never once
mentioned or hinted that slaves were involved in this commerce
although it was specified that the Moors purchased slaves in the
Senegambia. (1)Cloths, pieces of dried indigo and iron bars werenoted as being the circulating media in the barter economy of theUpper Guinea Coast, but never slaves in the early period.

Non­mention in such circumstances is presumptive of non-existence.
Though one can identify no African slavery, serfdom or the
like on the Upper Guinea Coast during the first phase of European
contact that region was one of the first sections of the West
African coast from which slaves were exported;and the transfer ofAfricans from the Upper Guinea Cost to the Spanish Indies in thesixteenth century was already a significant undertaking.

In part,this was based on inter-tribal raiding, but if any internal division
was necessary for the initiation of the Atlantic slave trade, it
was available not in the relationship of free vs slave, but in thecontradiction between the nobility and the commoners.
While the view that African slavery and "domestic slavery"
preceded and stimulated the Atlantic slave trade has been given widecurrency, no thought has been spared for any other possible connec­
tion between the two-Was it merely coincidence that it was only

after two and a half centuries of slave trading that the vast
majority of the peoples of the Upper Guinea Coast were said to have.
(1)

See above, Ch.VII^<4c ^ <-*tO

SLAVE TRADIM3 1690-1800
been living in a state of subjection? Curiously enough, Mungo Park,
though he added his authority to the pro-slavery arguments, had
posed this question, while absolving himself from answering it.
After describing what amounted to both chattel slavery and household
service in the Senegambia and the western Sudan, he wrote: "How far
it is maintained and supported by the Slave Traffic which, for two
hundred years, the nations of Europe have carried on with thenatives of the coast, it is neither within my province, nor in ny
power to explain." (1 )It is a striking fact that the greatest agents of theAtlantic slave trade on the Upper Guinea Coast, the Mande and theFulas, were the very tribes who subsequently continued to handle
the internal slave trade, and whose society came to include signifi­
cant numbers of disprivileged individuals labouring under coercion.
The sequence of events pointed in that very direction in which Mungo
Park had not cared to look too closely.

In the first place, thepolitical and religious dominance of the Mande and the Fulas overthe littoral peoples of the Upper Guinea Coast in the eighteenth
century was based on a mixture of motives, among which the desire
to sell more slaves to the Europeans featured prominently.

Thus

the Atlantic slave trade can immediately be tagged as being partly
responsible for the vassalage to which the coastal tribes werereduced.

In the second place, the raiding of individuals for sale(1) M. Park: Travels, pp 297*298

513

SLAVE TRADING 1690-1800
to the Europeans encouraged the marauding tribes to retain numbersof their captives to serve their own needs.

When, for example,

the Mandinga Farim Cabo raided his neighbours to obtain captives
for the slave ships he retained a small proportion for his own
needs. (1 )One of the most direct connections between the Atlantic
slave trade and the nineteenth century pattern of social stratifica­tion and oppression on the Upper Guinea Coast lay in the fact that
numbers of Africans were captured with a view to being sold to theEuropean slavers, but they remained for greater or lesser periods(or sometimes for ever) in the service of their African captors.
To begin with, there was usually a time lag between capture and themoment when a buyer presented himself.

Then, there were always

individuals whom the Europeans rejected for one reason or another;while the African merchants also decided against carrying throughthe sale under certain circumstances.
De Almada related that on one occasion on which thePortuguese refused to buy some 'pieces' who had been kidnapped by
Fulas, the latter killed their captives. (2)This may have occurredin isolated instances, but, in general, persons who were offered for(1) P. Mateo de Anguiano: Misiones Capuchinas en Africa, Vol.2
p.136? and P. Cultru: Premier Voyage de Sieur de la Courbe
pp. 250-52(2) Alvares de Almada: "Rios de Guine", p p *274*275

\

SLAVE TRADING l690-l800
sale and who were not purchased by the Europeans were utilised forthe economic benefit of their African captors.

C.B. Wadstrom, an

activist in the movement for the colonisation of Sierra Leone,addressed himself to interviewing those engaged in the Atlantic
slave trade in the area on this specific point,

Firstly, there was

the testimony of the chief of Port Loko, who affirmed that thosecaptives whom the Europeans did not buy were always put to work on
the coast.

Secondly, "two other intelligent native traders

mentioned the great number of slaves now confined on the coast forpurchasers: one trader had no fewer than 200.•• They said that theslaves would certainly not be put to death; for nobody was ever put
to death, except in war or for crimes".

Further questioning by

Wadstrom revealed that when the average price of slaves fell from160 bars to 120 bars, the king of the Fulas, to bring the Europeanslave traders to terms, forbade his subjects to carry any slaves
down to the coast.

As a consequence of this manoeuvre, the Fula,

Mandinga and Susu territories had become full of slaves who were
set to cultivate rice. (1 )For the sake of safety, the captives were put to work insmall groups. (2)Ever since the seventeenth century (and perhaps

earlier), it had been the habit of the Mandingo Farim Cabo to(1) C.B. Wadstrom: An Essay on Colonisation, pp.113-117* Seealso J. Matthews: Voyage to the River Sierra Leone, P. 14-7
(2) C.B. Wadstrom: Op. cit., p.117-

SLAVE TRADING l690-l800
disperse his captives among his subjects, expecting to have them
returned when a buyer was available. (1)Those captives thus

became for a while literally "household slaves" of the Mandingas.
At any given moment, therefore, two of the components of thedomestic slave population of the Upper Guinea Coast as viewed byobservers at the end of the eighteenth century would have been,
firstly, captives drafted into alien tribes in servile disprivileged
positions, as by-products of the Atlantic slaving industry; andsecondly, the real products, who were stock-piled in bond for export.
The majority of the tribes of the Upper Guinea Coast wereactive participants in the Atlantic slave trade, and most of themmust have retained supplies of slaves for domestic consumption.
But the Mandingas, Susus and Fulas stood well to the fore - partly
because of their own key role in the slaving operations on the Upper
Guinea Coast, and partly because they succeeded in reducing many ofthe littoral peoples and the inhabitants of the Futa Djalon to astate of vassalage, under the banner of Islam.

Military conquest

and political ascendancy involved in most cases nothing more thanthe payment of tribute, but in some instances the Mande or Fula
ruling class was directly super-imposed on the subjugated peoples.
The latter were not dispersed within individual households, but weregrouped together in the roundes or "slave villages", which were
(1) P. Cultru: Premier Voyage de Sieur de la Courbe, p.252

5?6

SLAVE TRADING l690-l800
economic units producing for the benefit of the master class.
During the latter part of the eighteenth century, some of
the Mandinga chiefs on the Upper Guinea Coast had "slave towns"
with as many as 1,000 inhabitants.

Travelling in Sierra Leone in

1823* Major Laing found that Falaba, the capital of the Sulima Susus,
had its own "slave town", Konkodoogor^e.

Intense agriculturalactivities were carried on there, and the fields in that area were
the best tilled and best laid out that Laing had seen in his
travels. (1)Several other European observers, both before andafter Laing, commented on these roundes.

Matthews, for example,

in the 17809s, noted that it was not unusual for the headmen of
Sierra Leone to have 200 to 300 'slaves', while some of theMandinga rulers had between 700 and 1,000 inhabitants in their"slave towns".

He estimated that at least three-quarters of theSusus, Bagas, Bulloms and Temnes were already enslaved in their
homelands, while the percentage was higher among the Mandingas. (2)In the late 1820's, Canot also attested to this high proportion of
inhabitants of the Fula and Susa countries who lived in a state ofsubjection. (3)In some instances, their status was far removed

from slavery, but the fact remains that the social relations in the(1) A.G. Laing: Travels, p.221(2) J. Matthews: A Voyage to the River Sierra Leone, p.1^9(3) Captain Canot: Adventures of an African Slaver, p.128

SLAVE TRADING 1690-1800
society of the Upper Guinea Coast had been profoundly altered in
the direction of disprivilege and unfreedom during the period ofcontact with the Europeans, and the Atlantic slave trade bears the
major share of the responsibility.
It was also at the tail-end of the Atlantic slave tradethat evidence was forthcoming about the existence of an internal
trade in slaves, and there is every reason to believe that this wasan accurate reflection on the date that it came into being.

Captain

Canot, who was familiar with the Upper Guinea Coast in the 1820's
and 1830's, wrote vividly on both the Atlantic slave trade and theinternal slave trade, implicitly linking the two.

With the Atlantic

slave trade as the main preoccupation of the Susus and the Fulas,"a man, therefore, becomes the standard of prices.
note of hand that may be discounted or pawned;

A slave is a

he is a bill of

exchange that carries himself to his destination and pays a debt
bodily;he is a tax that walks corporately into the chieftain's

treasury".

As far as the home market was concerned, the victims not

only became agricultural labourers, but men were required as personal
attendants and women as wives or concubines. (1 )While one major contribution to the rise of "domestic
slavery" on the Upper Guinea Coast was made by the coastwards thrustof the interior peoples and their involvement in the slave trade,an equally great contribution was being made by the European forces(1) Captain Canot: Op. cit., P.128

<r£<pSLAVE TRADING 1690-1800
acting on the littoral from the seaward side.
In the forts and factories of the Royal African Company,a distinction was made between "sale slaves" and "castle slaves"or "factory slaves".

Both were acquired in the same way, but while

the former were destined to face the Middle Passage, the latter werepermanently retained around the forts and factories to help in the
conduct of trade. (1)For that matter, the "sale slaves" too, had

to work around the factories.

As was the case with the African

captors, whenever captives were kept over a period of time, it was
imperative to ensure that they were not an intolerable economic
burden, and as a result the attempt was made by the Boyal African
Company to exploit them for profit even before they set sail for
the Americas.

In 1702, the Sierra Leone factor was told that, solong as it was compatible with security, he should use the "saleslaves" in useful pursuits such as clearing Tarso Island which was
being used for agricultural purposes by the Company.

(2)

It would

be surprising if they had not been doing just that previously, fortheir own benefit at least, if not for the Company.

Two years later,

the Company was informed that it was customary in the past for thefactors to employ the Company's slaves on their private plantations.(3)These may well have included both "sale slaves" and "castle slaves".
(1)

P.R.O. T70/1465 - Diary of Walter Charles, 1728.

This mentions"Cayoba, a castle slave, who had been made such from a saleslave.
(2)

P.R.O. T70/51 - To John Freeman, 4 Aug. 1702, f1.275

(3)

P.R.Q

T70/14 - Agent Greenaway, 18 March 1703

SLAVE TRADING 1690-1800
The Directors took some interest in the "castle slaves” •In 1702, they issued instructions that a Negro overseer should be
appointed over them.

They were to be converted to Christianity,

given names, taught to speak English, and be allowed to have one
wife (another flcastle slave” ). Perhaps the most important provisionfrom the Company's point of view was that the "castle slaves” should
be taught skills to enchance their value and utility.

Such workers

were not to be sold or transported overseas except for great
crimes. (1 )Apparently, no record remains of the number of "castle
slaves” in the forts of York and Bence Island and their subsidiaryfactories, but in 1702 , it was felt that there were too many in
Sierra Leone, and that some should be transferred to Cape Coast
Castle. (2)However, some years later, there was talk of shortage.

At least, the Directors had been made to understand that it wascheaper to use their own slaves than to hire African servants, andthey gave their factors authority to purchase slaves for thefactories. (3) Walter Charles, the last of the chief factors of
the Royal African Company in Sierra Leone, was certainly convincedthat if the Company used their own slaves, it would be cheaper andmore convenient; and he urged that some "castle slaves” should besent to Sierra Leone from the Gambia establishments. (4)The same(1)

P.R.O. T70/51 - To John Freeman, 4 Aug 1702, f1.268(2)

P.R.O. T70/31 - To John Freeman, 1 Dec.1702(3)P . R .0. T70/60 - To Alexander Archibald, 3 Oct 1723» fl.45(4)

P.R.O.T70/1465 - Diary of Walter Charles, 1728.

fl-310CSfO

SLAVE TRADING 1690-1800
situation was to be found in the Portuguese trading centre of
Cacheu, where the captain-major argued in 169^ that it cost too
much to get the help of the Africans.

(1)

Apart from the trading companies, private European traders
also owned slaves on the coast, so that altogether the number ofAfricans bought by Europeans and remaining in servitude on theUpper Guinea Coast was considerable.

The practice probably beganwith the arrival of Portuguese ships in the fifteenth century,
giving rise to the term grumete, Ofeailor's slave” ) .

As statedearlier, the grumete was usually a wage earner, and in many cases,
African rulers on the Upper Guinea Coast voluntarily sent theirchildren to live with the Europeans and to serve as auxiliaries in
the coastal trade. (2)There was a somewhat similar practice inthe nineteenth century, involving the sending of children from thehinterland to the colony of Sierra Leone to learn ”white man fashion” .
However, these children were usually unpaid servants, and when they
grew old enough to realise that they were free, they were then soldto the Mande and Fula traders. (3)Some of the Africans purchased by and remaining in theservice of the resident Europeans were little better off than slavesin the New World.

The ”castle slaves” , like their American counter-/K2) See above, Ch. VIII^ f*f^t(+(1) A.H.U.. Guine', caixa II - No.230, Minute of the Conselho,
30 Oct 169^.
(3) C. Fyfe: A History of Sierra Leone, p.270

sr9/
SLAVE TRADINS 1690-1800
parts, were branded witb their owners' marks. (1)When a "castle

slave11 committed a crime, his punishment was often brutal. In
February 1682, the Bence Island factor reported that some of the"castle slaves" had stolen, and he had executed one as an example.(2)Escape and rebellion led to the same fate.

If the "castle slave"

was not sold, executed, or did not die an early natural death, thenhe could look forward to being freed when he was "old and useless".(3)With the private traders, it was equally obvious that unmitigatedchattel slavery prevailed at times.

Occasionally, the owners

displayed those fits of sadism which afflict those who have absolute
power over human life.

When in 169^* Francisco Vaz, member of theprominent Afro-Portuguse trading family, cruelly disposed of his
slaves in his Nunez emporium, the matter reached the ears of theConselho Ultramarino.

(4)

In the latter years of the eighteenth

century, John Ormond, thirty five years a slave trader in Baga
territory, was notorious for amusing himself at the expense of the
lives and limbs of his servants, in much the same way as his
contemporaries in Saint Domingue.

(5)(1) P.R.O. T70/53 - Instructions to agent Plunkett, 9 Feb 1721
(He was sent a new branding iron.)(2) P.R.O. T70/16 - Edmund Pierce, 21 Feb 1682, fl.27(3) P.R.O. T70/361 - Bence Island Accounts, 1682(if) A.H.U., Cabo Verde, caixa VI - Bishop of Cape Verde to theConselho, 27 July 169^
(5) C.B. Wadstrom:

An Essay on Colonisation, pp. 8^, 85*87

cT?-2_SLAVE TRADING 1690-1800
The servitude directly introduced on the Upper Guinea
Coast by the Europeans slowly assumed an African character.

Theslave owners were originally white and foreigners, but the lateeighteenth century saw the emergence of powerful mulatto slave
trading chiefs, who were said to own large numbers of "domestic
slaves".

Wadstrom explained that "if an African slave is impertin­ent he is sold.

The children of such are occasionally sold also.

But with the rich traders this is not common." (1)The rich traders

to whom he referred were the mulattoes, who kept 'slaves* not only
to serve as crews on the coastal and riverain vessels and to act
as porters, but also to provide labour for the production of foodand manufactures, which indirectly facilitated the Atlantic slave
trade.

These categories of labour were the basis of the towns

owned by the Tuckers, Clevelands and Caulkers.
In the above respect, the mulatto chiefs and more so the
Mande and Fula rulers derived concrete benefits from the Atlantic
slave trade - not the ephemerality of consumer goods, but theincorporation of large supplies of labour into their hierarachy
of production.

The extensive Susu rice fields were capable ofproviding the food for the numerous slaves shipped from the Upper
Guinea Coast in the late eighteenth century, the annual amount of(1)

Ibid: p. 117.

#93

SLAVE TRADING l690-l800
rice purchased by the European traders being several hundred tons. (1)It is not surprising that the Mande and Fulas continued to expand
during the nineteenth and twentieth century at the expense of thefragments of the coastal society left by the Atlantic slave trade.
This, incidentally confirms to a pattern discernible elsewhere on
the West African coast whereby the coastal peoples suffered becauseof their direct exposure to the Atlantic slave trade, while thetribes of the hinterland grew strong from the benefits of the same
trade. (2)Even so, however, on the Upper Guinea Coast the advant­ages accured to a minority ruling element in the near hinterland,
and this barely modifies the assessment of the Atlantic slave tradeas a totally degrading force.
Furthermore, like the colonial powers in a later era, theMande and Fula ruling class found that they had to use force tocement their authority over those they sought to dominate.

The

agricultural serfs of the Upper Guinea Coast and its hinterland
signalled their oppression by rebelling or escaping when theopportunity presented itself.

The uprisings of the rimaibe of theFuta Djalon have already been instanced, and these were not unique.
One of the most explosive situations in the near hinterland was(1)

Report of the Lords of the Committee, 1789* - Part I,'Produce1, Evidence of John Matthews.

(2)

The Transatlan tic Slave Trade from West Africa, C. Fyfes"The Impact of the Slave Trade on West Africa", pp. 8 l-88

SLAVE TRADING 1690-1800
caused by a revolt against the Mandingas in 1785* (1)Availing

themselves of a war between the Mandingas and the Susus, a large
body of rimaibe revolted and escaped from Mandinga control,
establishing themselves in Susu territory.

When peace was restored

between the Susus and the Mandingas, the latter resorted to sporadic
attacks against their former vassals, who in turn retaliated byplundering Mandinga towns, with the tacit approval of the Susus who
allowed them to receive supplies of arms and ammunition from thecoast.

However, after this affair had dragged on for nearly ten

years, a disturbance arose among the serfs of the Susus, and it wasfeared that they would join forces with the deserters from theMandingas, so the two ruling groups joined forces to crush theformer Mandinga vassals after the rainy season of 1795- (2)The local slaves, serfs and the like had every reason for
revolting, because having been spawned by the Atlantic slave trade,they in turn constituted the section of the society most liable to
be exported.

Again it is from Captain Canot's account that theinter-relationship between the two phenomena most clearly emerges.
When, on one occasion, Canot visited Timbo, the capital of the Futa
Djalon, the inhabitants of Findo and Furto, two slave settlementson the outskirts of the city, fled in consternation on hearing that
Canot wanted slaves.

They knew that they were earmarked as the(1)

John Matthews:

A Voyage to the Biver Sierra Leone, p.15^(2)

T. Winterbottom:

An Account of the Native Africans ofSierra Leone, p.15^

cT9 3 “SLAVE TRADING l690-l800
first to be exported; and as it turned out, flight did them nogood, because they were hunted by Fulas on horseback, and Canot
was provided with his coffle to return to the water side. (1)The village of local slaves and serfs thus became awarren supplying the Europeans.

This was the ultimate degradation

to which the Atlantic slave trade had brought the African societyof the Upper Guinea Coast.

Without doubt, as far as this region

is concerned, to speak of African slavery as ancient, and tosuggest that this provided the initial stimulus and early recruit­
ing ground for slaves exported to Europe and the Americas is toturn history on its head.

?/hen the European powers involved in

the area (namely: Britain, France and Portugal), intervened to end
slavery and serfdom in their respective colonies, they were simply
undoing their own handiwork.
Much of the disruption caused by the Atlantic slave trade
was slowly put to rights in the colonial period, often with theactive help of the metropolitan powers, who were forced to remedy
some of the chaos they had formerly encouraged, and to promote
instead the peaceful production of primary products such as cocoa,
palm oil and groundnuts.

(1)

Captain Canot:

But the significance of the examples

Adventurers of an African Slaver, pp.l68, 169*

SLAVE TRADING 1690-1800
above, relating to the code of punishment and the creation of
new diaprivileged classes on the Upper Guinea Coast, is that they
indicate that long after the encounter with the European slave
traders the coastal society bore the scars to prove it.

In thewider sphere of race relations, some of the wounds inflicted
during that epoch are still festering.

£T?7
BTBLIOSRAPBYManuscript Sources
Portugal - Since tne Portuguese were the first Europeans toventure along the West African coast, and since they werealso the Ifirst to establish the rudiments of settlement andcolonisation in the Cape Verde Islands and Upper Guinea, tne
records generated by their activity are by far the mostvoluminous and useful for the pre-colonial period. All oftne early cnronicles of tne fifteenth and sixteenth Cen­turies have supposedly been published,but much seventeenth

and eighteenth century material is still available only inmanuscript form.
A#H»U# - Arquivo ilistbrico ultramarino, Lisbon.
This repository contains the records of the activities
which came within the jurisdiction of tne Portuguese Conselho
Ultramarino. Reports from the officials in Cape Verde-Guinea
are supplemented by letters from private traders, priests,
and, occasionally, African rulers. These were all considered
by tne Conselho, which advised the Portuguese crown on theBematters•
Six caixas or boxes of papeis avulsos (miscellaneous
papers) are available for the Cape Verde Islands, covering theperiod 1602-1700. These are followed by seventy-eight mapos
or bundles of similar material up to 1846; out the eighteenth
century records of the Cape Verde islands contain very few
references to the mainland# por the mainland, the corres­
pondence begins fitfully in 1614 and increases in volume

BIBLIOGRAPHY
after 1640* Two caixas are available until 1700, and elevenmayos contain the eighteenth century records, often witn con­siderable duplication# There are separate codices of consultas
or minutes of the Conselho*s deliberations, but their decisions
were usually included in the Cape Verde and the Guinea caixas
and mayos. along with the relevant letters and reports received
by the Conselho# Unless specifically stated to the contrary,
all letters to the conselho were written by the governor, inthe case of the Cape Verde correspondence, and by the captainmajor of Cacheu, in the case of the Guinea correspondence.
On matters of ethnographic interest, tne records of
A.H.U# are of extremely limited value, and they containa considerable proportion of administrative correspondence
relating to applications for appointments, salaries, pensions,etc. However, they provide a basis for an understanding of
the relations between the Portuguese and the African chiefs on
the Upper Guinea coast, especially those around Cacheu andBissau.
Bib, de Ajuda - hiblioteca de Ajuda, Lisbon
The archives of this Library contain, among othermaterial relevant to the history of West Africa, an important
iocument of the early seventeenth century, entitled MRelayoes
do Descobrimento da Costa de Guine", and catalogued 51-VIII-25*
This has been published in part by Luciano Cordeiros Estabelecimentos e Restates Portuguezes na costa Occidental de Africa#

jilBLIOGRAFHl

The manuscript is also referred to by A.F.C. Eider: Materials fofc
West African History in Portuguese Archives (1965); but no mention
has been made of a description of the Upper G-uinea Coast under thisentry* It is called "Outra rela^ao em 14 capitulos que fez Andre
Donellas ao Uovernador e Capitao G-eral Fr, de Vaz Concellos da Cunha;
sobre a Serra Leoa, Keys e Senhores que a habitao, e secunvezinhos,
ritos, costumes de todas variedades de rios, portos, arvores, animais,aves, pexes com os proveitos que dela se tirao”. (The author’s
preface was written on the 27 Nov 1625, apparently on the completionof the work.) The title speaks for itself, except that the area
which Donellas covers is not simply modern Sierra Leone, but thewhole coast as far north as Cape Verde. He was born in the Cape
Verde Islands, and traded on the mainland during the third quarterof the sixteenth century.
A few smaller items of interest to the history of Upper G-uinea
also appear in this Library, including consultas of the Conselho da
India in the early seventeenth century, arid a description of theCacheu-G-eba area, which is an unsigned copy but can be ascribed to
Sebastiao Casao, & lanyado who wrote several other letters and reports
around 1607-160b*
Biblioteca da Sociedade de G-eographia de Lisboa
This Library possesses another lengthy manuscript on Upper
G-uinea in the early seventeenth century* It is in fact an eighteenth
century copy of the work of a Portuguese Jesuit, Manuel Alvares:’’Ethiopia lienor o Descripyao G-eografica da Provincia da Serra Leoa".

BIBLIOGRAPHY

This again deals with the coast from the Gambia southwards to Cape
Mount, and,in spite of a tendency to interpolate lengthy theologicaldiscussions, the author manages to pay considerable attention to thesocial and religious customs of the country where he remained forseven years until his death in 1616.
A.T.T. - Arftuivo Torre do Tombo. Lisbon
This, the best known of the Portuguese archives, yielded very
little unpublished material of relevance to this study. The Cartorio
dos Jesuita3« 304:36 contains correspondence on the question of
establishing a seminary for Africans. Father Baltezar Barreira wrote
from the Upper G-uinea Coast, strongly urging Santiago as the site;"but there is little reference to the actual missionary endeavours on
the Upper G-uinea Coast.

Spain - Because of the close cooperation between Portugal and Spainin conducting the Atlantic slave trade, and because of the unificationof the two monarchies during the period 1560-1640, records concerning
the Upper G-uinea Coast were created in Spain. Besides, there wasconsiderable Spanish missionary interest in the area during thesecond half of the seventeenth century. It is in fact quite probablethat much more material on the Upper Guinea Coast and West Africa asa whole is extant in Spain, but is unprocessed, especially in the
Biblioteca Nacional. in whose catalogues ’Africa* means the Mahgreb*.
B.R.A.H.- Biblioteca de la Real Academia de la Historia. Madrid
This Library houses a large collection of Jesuit records,
including a section relevant to Cape Verde-Guinea in Papeles Jesuitas%

60(
BIBLIOGRAPHY

Tomo 165* My attention was drawn to this by Padre Buenaventura deCarrocera. Apart from reports from Baltesar Barreira, who v^as on theUpper Guinea Coast from 1603 to 1612, there is a memorandum, whichapparently proceeded from the Conselho da India, when they were con­sidering the possibility of colonising Sierra Leone around 1610.
A.G.I. - Archivo General de las Indias, Seville
The organisation of the Hispano-Portuguese slave trade isbrought out by the records of this well-known archive, but noreferences to the African costst as such were encountered* A small
amount of information on the entry of slaves into Spanish Aaerica
is buried amongst the records of the viceroyalties.

Italy - The potential contribution of Italian sources to the re­construction of the past of the Upper Guinea Coast is based, not on
direct contact, but on the centrality of Rome in the Catholic world.
In this connection, the Italian archives are thoroughly surveyed by
J.R. Gray: Materials for ivest African History in Italian Archives(1965).
A.R.S.I. - Arquivum Romanum Societatis Iesu. Rome
Here, the activities of the Jesuit missionaries on the Upper
Guinea Coast are well documented. The Jesuits collected informationon the region before they arrived in 1605, and one description
forwarded to them was written by Antonio Velho Tinoco, who visited
Sierra Leone in 1576, and was later governor of Cape Verde. The Jesuit
acquaintance with this area was broken off in 1627 with an assessment

BIBLIOGRAPHY

entitled "Reasons why it is not worthwhile that the Company should
remain in Cape Verdeu. Letters from the langado, Sebastiao Casao,
form part of this Jesuit collection, along with a short letter fromeach of the three beafada kings of the Ria Grande de buoa in theearly seventeenth century.
A.P.F. -frgKXYirc Archivio di Propaganda Fide. RomeUith the Jesuit missions under a different jurisdiction,
the Sacred Congregation of the Propaganda Fide dealt primarily with
Capuchins and Franciscans. Their records indicate that prominent
individuals in Spain and the Spanish Capuchin order were pre-occupied
with the Upper Guinea Coast throughout the second half of the seven­teenth century* However, the information is most relevant not to thehistory of the African peoples of the mission field but to themissionary effort itself, and it has been utilised in this mannerby Rosci Corrado: **Le Kissioni dei Cappuccini sulle Coste della
Guinea Superiors nel Secolo XVTI", an unpublished thesis of 1937, a
copy of which is retained in the Library of the Propaganda Fide.
A.S.V. - Archivio Begredo Vaticano. Rome
Only a few trifling items were recovered here. The main con­nection between the Vatican and the Upper Guinea Coast lay in theappointment of bishops to thes. see of Cape Verde-Guinea (d. Jacobi
Capitis Viridi), and the subsequent reports of those bishops. The
former were simply formal instruments, while the latter were
irregular and said little or nothing about the mainland.

£03
BIBLIOGRAPHY

Great Britain - The Main body of British records on Sierra Leone and
the Gambia relates to the period subsequent to the one with which
this study deals. The earliest reports of the Sierra Leone colonycolony established in 1767 were of some slight help, but for the mostpart, the records of the private trading companies of the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries were utilised.
B.H. - British Museum. London
The only unpublished manuscript of interest was Add.Ms, 1'213t,"Papers relating to Sierra. Leone, 1692-1696.?..
F.R.Q. - Public Record Office. London
The records of the joint-stock companies trading to Africa
have been utilised and described by several scholars. Letters fromthe London officials to the agents in Sierra Leone and the Gambia arecited in the footnotes as ’To* a given individual. All other referencesin the series "l/70" are to letters or abstracts of letters writtenby the factors on the African coast. Like the Portuguese records,
this material seldom relates to the African scene outside of thecontext of European trade on the coast, but they are invaluable for
the Afro-European commerce, especially for the period 1678-1726 on
the Upper Guinea Coast.

Published Documents
ARQUIVO das COLOMIAS, Vol.I (Coimbra 1917) - This contains two sections
relevant to the Upper Guinea Coast, both of which are documents now
in the A.H.li. Bee "Documentos acerca de Berra Leoa" and "Informa^oesda Guine' em 1777rt* The former relates to Sierra Leone in the middle of6 d 4BIBLIOGRAPHT

the eighteenth century.
BARCELQS, C.J. de Sena - Subsidies para a Historia de Cabo Verde e Guine(1899-1913). This is a curious work, for while undoubtedly a vast
collection of manuscript material, the author seldom identifies the
document cited or even the archive in which it was to be found.
BLAKE, J.W. - Europeans in West Africa. Hakluyt Society, 2nd series, No.
LXXXVI (1942) A number of documents relevant to the Upper Guinea
Coast in the sixteenth century are presented here in translation,with a valuable introduction.
BQLETIM do ARQUIVO HISIfOKICO COLONIAL. Vol. 1, 1950. After a lapse ofthirty-three years, this was another attempt to publish material
kept in the A.IMU. (at that time still known as the Arquivo iiistorico
Colonial. See pp. 185-222 for Cape Verde and Cacheu in the earlyseventeenth century.
BRASIO, Antonio - Monumenta Missionaria Africana. Africa Ocidental. 2ndseries. Vol. II (1500-1569) and Vol. Ill (l569-l600) (1965). The
editor makes it clear that he only included such material of social,administrative and political interest as was necessaiy to makemeaningful the Catholic endeavours in the Cape Verde Islands andGuinea, but this background is amply painted in. He points out that
there are a considerable number of errors in Barcelos* work.
DOCUMEiiTAQAO ULTRAfORIiiA PORTUGUESA. Vol. 2 (1962). This contains a few
references to Cacheu and Cape Verde, recovered from the Biblioteca
Nacional in Madrid by the Microfilm Library of the Centro de Estudos
Historicos Ultramarinos, Lisbon.

£0^
BIBLIOGRAPHY
jilACIIAT, J. - Documents sur lea Btablissements Franpais de l'Afrique
Oocidentale au XVIIIe Sieole (1906).

In the pre-colonial era,

France showed little interest in the area that subsequently became
the French colony of Guinea. The above collection documents those
activities of the French in the Senegambia which spilled over intothe "Rivers of the South".

Contemporary Accounts
The following are listed according to the period of events which
each describes. The editions cited are the ones used in the text, withthe well-known works being set down without comment.
MAUNY, Raymond (ed.) - Esmeraldo de Situ Qrbis, C6te occidentale d'Afriquedu Sud Karocain au Gabon, par Duarte Pacheco Pereira, vers 1506-1506(Bissau 1956). This is cited in the text as Pacheco Pereira: Esmeraldo
de Situ Qrbis.
&GH0D, Th., da MOTA, A. Texeira and MAUNY, R. - Description de la C6te
Occidentale d ’Afrique (Senegal au Cap de Monte. Archipels) par
Valentim Fernandes, 1506-1510 (Bissau 1951)* This is cited in the
text as Valentim Fernandes: La C5te Occidentale d ’Afrique.
BAIAO, Antonio (ed.) - Asia de Joam de Barros, Primeira Decada (Coimbra
1932). This is cited in the text as Joao de Barros: Asia.
THE HAt/KIHB V01AGE5, Ilakluyt Society, Mo.LVII,MERCADO, Thomas - Tratos e Contratos de Mercaderes (Salamanca 1569)*
TAYLOR, 3.R. - The Troublesome Voyage of Captain Edward Fenton. Hakluyt
Society, Wo.CXIII (2nd series, 1957)*

6b

6

BIBLIOGRAPHY

LS BLANC, Vinoent - Les Voyages Fameux du Sieur V.L.3. (164b)* Part III,
"Voyage de Guinee", relates to the Upper Guinea Coast around 1592*
de ALMADA, Alvares - "Tratado Breve dos Rios de Guine", Monumenta Hissionaria Africana* Africa Ocidental, 1569-1700 (2nd series, Vol.Ill,
ed. A. Brasio). This Cape Verde mulatto trader actually wrote two
manuscripts, one in 1f}94 and another in 1596. The editor follows
that of 1594, indicating where the second version has alternativeor additional material. This work is cited in the text as Alvaresde Almada: "Rios de Guine".
PURCHAS, Samuel - Purchas his Pilgrims* Vol. II, Ch. VI (william Reelingin Sierra Leone, 1606) and Vol. Ill, Ch. IIII (William Finch in
Steura Leone, 1607).
VILGAS, Artur - Relacao Anual das Coisas que Fizeram os Padres da Companhia de Jesus nas suas missoes nos anos de 1600 a 1609r pelo
Padre Fernao Guerreiro (3 Vols, Lisbon and Coimbra, 1930-1942).
This is cited in the text as Fernao Guerreiro: Relacao Anual*
J0BS0N, Richard - The Golden Trade (1933)*
de SANDOVAL, Alonso - La Natureleza.. de Todos Btiopes (Seville 1623)*
de SILVSIRA, Luis - Peregrinapao de Andr^ de Faro a Terra dos Gentios(1945)*. This is the account of a Franciscan missionary who was on
the Upper Guinea Coast in 1663-1665* It is cited in the text as
Andre^ de Faro: Peregrinacao♦
VILLAULT, Nicholas (Sieur de la Beliefond) - Relation des Costes d ’Afriqueappellees Guinee (166$).
QGILBY, John - Africa (1670).

6 0 7

BIBLIOGRAPHYPERES, Damiab - Duas Descriyoes Seiscentistas da Guine de Lemos Azevedo
Coelho (1953)* Coelho wrote two separate descriptions; one in 1669
and a second in 1684. They are both published in full in this edition,
for the most part, the first version was used in this study, thework being cited as Leaos Coelho: Duas Descricoes da Guine.
de CARROCERA, Buenaventura - Misiones Capuchinas en Africa. Vol.2(Madrid 1956)* This work is that of Mateo de Anguiano, who chroni­cled the missionary endeavours of the Capuchins in the seventeenth
century in much the same way that Fernao G-uerreiro made public theactivities of the Jesuits; but all of Anguiano's writings were notpublished. The material on the Sierra Leone missions is introduced
and annotated by P. Buenaventura de Carrocera, on the basis of his
knowledge of the Portuguese, Spanish and Italian archives.
CULTRU, P. - Premier Voyage de Sieur de la Courbe fait a la Coste d lAfriqueen f685 (1906).
BAA30T, John - A Description of the Coasts of North and South Guinea (174.6)*
LABAT, J.B. - Eouvelle Relation de l'Afrique Occidentale (1728). As Gultru
pointed out, much of the material in Vol.IV of this work was wrongly
attributed to Andre Brue, governor of Senegal in the early eighteenth
century, when it was in fact written by de la Courbe after hisvoyage in 1685-1686. However, Labat adds new material relating to thelast years of the seventeenth century and the turn of the eighteenth*- Voyages du Chevalier des Marchais en G-uinee*. fait en 1725*
1726 and 1727, Vol. I (1730).
LibvIiEiiCE, A.W. - A Series of Uncommon Events which befell Captain George
Roberts (1930)* The editor's introduction to this work, first^0?
bibliography

published in 1726, queries the assumption that the name Roberts
was a pseudonyms, for Daniel Defoe,is alledged, and he shows quite

clearly that tne account was factual and based on a personal visit tothose parts.
JOHNSON, Charles - A General History of the Pirates (Ed. Arthur HaywardL, 1926) This is also attributed to Defoe, but it is factually
reliable with respect to Sierra Leone around 1720.
ATKINS, John - A Voyage to Guinea, Brasil and the West Indies (1735).
The author visited Sierra Leone in 1721.
HOTJSTOTJN, James - Some New and Accurate Observations., of the Coast ofGuinea (1725). This was written for the benefit of the Royal
African Company after Houston visited the Guinea Coast in 1722.
SMITH, William - A New Voyage to Guinea (1734). The author, a surveyor
in the employ of the Royal African Company, was sent to Africa
in 1726.
m OORE,

1

Francis - “Travels into the Inland Parts of Africa11, in Thomas
Astley: A New and General Collection of Voyages (1745).Vol.2,Ch.VI

OWEN, Nicholas - Journal of a Slave Dealer., on tne Coast of Africa andAmerica from the year 1746 to the year 1757 (Ed, Eveline Martin).
MARTIN, H. and SPURRELL, M. - Journal of a Slave Trader, John Newton,
1750-1754. This edition also contains Newton*s Thoughts Upon the
African slave Trade.
PERES, Damiao - Relagao da Viagem da Fragata “Nossa Senhora da Estrella”
a nissau em 1753 nor Antonio jose da Costa Arauao(1952).

£0?
BIBLIQ&RAPHl

LABARTBH, P. - Voyage au Senegal pendant les annees 1784- et 1785. d'apres
les Memoires de Lajaille (1802).
GOLBEREjf, S.M.X. - Fragmens d'uri Voyage en Afrique. 2 Vols (1802). He, too,draws on Lajaille, but his account is much fuller than that ofLabarthe.
MATTHEWS, John - A Voyage to the Hiver sierra Leone (1788).
V/AD3TA0M, C.B. - Observations on the Slave Trade and a Description of somePart of the Coast of G-uinea during a Voyage made in 1787 and 1788
(1789).
- An Essay on Colonisation (1795).
REPORT OP THE LORDS OP THIS COMMITTEE OF COUNCIL, 1789* (hoard of Trade
Report Relating to Trade and Foreign Plantations, 1789).

HOnTETTORE, Joshua - An Authentic Account of the late Expedition to Bulamon the Coast of Africa: with a Description of Sierra fieone and theadjacent country.(1794).
BEAVER, Philip - African Memoranda relative to an attempt to establish ajritish settlement on the Island of Bolama in the year 1792 (1805) *FERES, Daraiao - Planta da Praca de Bissau e Suas Adjacentes por Bernardino
Antonio Alvares de Andrade (1952).
PARR, Mungo ~ Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa in the Tears
1795, 1796 and 1797 (1799).
- The Journal of a Mission to the Interior of Africa in theYear 1805 $Ed* John Murray, 1815).

JIKTERBOTTOM, Thomas - An Account of the Native Africans rfxftiwraatxfcBgHg
in the Neighbourhood of Sierra Leone (1803)•

6 ) D

BIBLlOCKAPHf

LAIii'G, A.G-. - Travels in the Timanaee, Kooranko and Soolima countries (1S25)»
CABOT (Captain) - Adventures of an African Slaver (1926)«
HJ.S, Christopher - Sierra Leone Inheritance (196A)* This is an excellent
selection of extracts from primary materials illustrating the historyof Sierra Leone.

C\\

BIBLIOGRAPHf
Secondary Material
ARCIN, Andre - Histoire de la Guinee ffran^aise (1911)•
A RESTAURACAO E 0 IMFERIO COLONIAL PORTUGUES (Agenda Geral das Golonias,

1940).
de AZEVEDO, J.L. - 0 Marquez de Pombal e a sua Bpoca (1909)*
BAERETO, Joao - Historia da Guine (1933)*
BALltANN, II. and WESTSRMANN, D. - Les Peuples et les Civilisations del'Afrique (1962).
BESTRATID-BOCAiNDB, M. - “Notes sur la Guinee Portugaise ou Senegambie
Meridional©H, Bulletin, de la Societe de Geogr^gie de Parisa
Tone H ,£11 (1649)»

BUTT-Thompson, F*W* - West African Secret Societies (1929)*
GARREIRA, Antonio - Vida Social dos Manjacos (Bissau 1949).
- 0 Fundaraento dos Btnonimos na Guine" Portuguesa (19^2).
CHAUNU, K* and P. - Seville et l*Atlantique,(Tome III, 1999).

da COSTA, J.C. - Fisiografia e Geologia da Provincia da Guine (Porto 1946)*
de CARVALHO, H.A. Dias - Guine, Apontamentos Ineditos (1944)*
DAVIDSON, Basil - Black Mother (19&1)
DAVIES, K.G. - The Royal African Company (1937).
DINIZ, A.J. Dias - “As Tribos da Guine Portuguesa na Historiatt, Congresso
Comemorativo do Quinto Centenario do Descobrimento da Guine, Vol. 1,
pp. 241-271 (1947).
- "Cren^as e Costumes dos Indigenes da Ilha de Bissau no
Seculo XVIII1*, Portugal em Africa, Vol, 2, No.9> pp.150-163
DUFBI, James - Portugal in Africa (Penguin 19&2).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

PAGE, J.D. - An Introduction to the History of West Africa (1959)- Ghana» a Historical Interpretation (Madison
PTFE, Christopher - A History of Sierra Leone (1962).
&AST0H-K4BIIH,- Kantea au XVIII 6 Sieole: l'Ere Aea Megriers. 1714-1744(1931).
GEORGE, Claude - The Rise of British West Africa (1903)*
GHAT, J.M. - A History of the Gambia (1940).
KUP, Peter - A History of Sierra Leone, 1400-1767 (1961)*
LITTLE, K.L* - The Mende of Sierra Leone: A West African People inTransition C1951)*
MAGHAT, J. - Les Rivieres du Sud et le Fouta-Diallon« Geogranhie Physiqueet Cj-gilisations Indigenes (1906).
MAih^IX, D.P, in collaboration with CQWLST, M. - Black Cargoes, a Historyof the Atlantic Slave Trade (1963)*

MARTi', P. - Islam en Guinee (1921)
MAHRO, Frederic - Le Portugal et l rAtlantique au X7IIe Siecle, 1570-1670(1960).
da KOTA, A* Texeira - Toponimos de Qrigeni Portuguese na Costa Ocidental
de Africa (Bissau 1950).
- hotas Sobre 0 Povoamento e a Agriculture Indigena
na Guine Portuguese (Bissau 1951)•- hotas Sobre a Historia dos Pula3S Coli Tenguelae a Chegada dos Priraeiroa ffulas ao ffuta-Jalom (1952).
- Guine Portuguesa. 2 Vols. (195A)*

£13
BIBLIOGRAPHY

da MQTA, A. Texeira (ed*) - Inquerito Etnografico (Bissau 1947)*da MOTA, A. Texeira and NEVES, M.G-* Ventim - A Habitacao Indigena na G-uine
Portuguesa (Bissau 1948).
&*o. CULLOCH, M. - Peoples of Sierra Leone 11964)

PERSON, Tves - "Les Ki&si et leurs statuettes de Pierre % Bulletin de
1*I.F.A.N.. Tome XXIII, Ser. B, No. 1, p.20 (1961).
- "En quete d*une Ghronologie Ivoirienne", The Historian in
Tropical Africa» pp.322-338*
FOLAiJTI, Karl - "Sortings and *ounce trade* in the West African Slave
Trade11, Journal of African History. Yol.V, No*3> pp*38l-393*
RICI3ARD-M0LARD, J. - Afrique Occidentale Franpaise (1949)*
SAIn T-PERE, M. - "Petit Historique des Sossoe du Rio Pongas”, Bulletin duComite des Etudes Historiques et Scientifiques, tome XIII, pp.26-47(1930).
SANTOS LILIA, A.J. - Qrganizacao Economica e Social dos Bijagos (1947)*

SARAIVA, J. Kendes da Gunha - "A Fortaleza de Bissau e a Companhia do
G-rao Para e Maranhao", Congresso Comemorativo do Quinto Centenario
do Descobrimento da Guine. Vol. 1, pp.157-191 (194&)*
SIKQE3, Landerset - Babel Negra (Porto 1935)*
STALLIBRASS, Edward - "The Bijouga or Bissagos Islands, West Africa",
Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society (1869).
STANLEf (Lord) - "Narrative of the Journey of Mr* W.C. Thompson to Timbo
capital of Futah Jallo in West Africa", Journal of the Royal Geo­graphical Society. Vol.XVT, pp.106-138 (1846)*

Clf
BIBLIOGRAPHYTAUXIKE, L. - Moeurs et Histoire des Peuhls (1937)*
TEXEIRA, C. da Silva - "Companhia de Cacheu, Rios e Comercio

da Guine -Documentos para a sua Historia", Boleftim. do Arquivo Historico
Colonial, Vol.

f, pp.$5-132 (1950)*

THOMAS, Louis-Vincent - Les Diola, 2 Vbls (Dakar 1939)*
THOMAS, iiorthcote - "Who were the Manes?", Journal of the African Society,Nos* XIX,XX (1919,1920)*
THE TRAN6ATLAUTIC SLAVE TRADE FROM JEST AFRICA (Papers and report of a
Seminar held at the Centre of African Studies, Edinburgh,

inJune 1965)

TRIMInGHAM, J.S. - A History of Islam in West Africa (19&3)*
UiTING. F.A. - The Story of Sierra Leone (1931 )•VALDES, F. Travassos - Six 4 a r s of a Traveller*s Life in Western Africa,
2 Vols (l861).
VANSINA, HAUNf and THOMAS - The Historian in Tropical Africa. Studies
presented and discussed at the Fourth International African Seminarat the University of Dakar. Senegal.. 1961 (1964)*
VARitlLAGSN, Francisco - Historia Geral do Brasil, 4 Vols (Brazil 1926).
TELLEZ CAROfO,- Mon.jur, o Gabu e a sua Historia (Bissau 1948)*

VITERBO, Sousa - "Os Portugueses e o Gentio", 0 In3tituto, Vol.43, no*3

( 1896).