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Willem Bosman's New and Accurate Description of the Coast of Guinea: How Accurate is It?*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 October 2013

Albert van Dantzig
Albert van Dantzig*
Affiliation:
University of Ghana
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Extract

When Willem Bosman wrote his Naauwkeurige Beschryving van de Guinese- Goud-Tand- en Slavekust in 1702 the Guinea coast was perhaps enjoying more public interest in Europe than ever before. The Gold Coast and its interior had long appealed to the imagination of the western world, because it was one of the few gold-producing areas open to traders of all nations. But around 1700 interest in the whole coast of west Africa, particularly the east-west stretch or ‘Lower Guinea,’ further increased because of the rapidly increasing demand in the West Indies and Latin America for slaves from that area. As a matter of fact the “Asiento question” was one of the major issues at stake at the beginning of the War of the Spanish Succession. Bosman, late Chief Merchant on behalf of the Dutch West India Company on the coast of Guinea, was in an excellent position to satisfy public curiosity.

Dutch contacts with the lower Guinea coast dated from 1595 when the then newly-emerging Republic of the Northern Netherlands or the United Provinces was badly in need of a regular supply of gold in order to finance its war efforts against the Spanish crown. Dutch trade expanded quickly in west Africa, at the expense of the Portuguese, who pretended to have a trade monopoly in the area. On the Gold Coast in particular the Portuguese were in a strong position, with fixed bases in the form of their castle at Sao Jorge da Mina (later Elmina) and supporting forts at Shama and Axim. But Portugal had been under the Spanish crown since 1580 and the Dutch considered their overseas possessions as legal prey and the undermining of their trade as a valid political aim. The Dutch were able to bring cheaper and better trade goods to the coast, and this prompted the ruler of the small state of Asebu near Elmina to defy openly the supposedly exclusive rights of the Portuguese, and, in 1612, to invite the Dutch to build a fort of their own at Mori. A Dutch attack in 1625 on the great castle of Elmina failed, but in 1637 they were successful and by 1641 they had expelled the Portuguese from their last possessions on the Guinea coast. But the Dutch were never able to enjoy the kind of monopolistic position the Portuguese had had; in 1631 the English built their first Gold Coast fort at Cormantin and other nations soon joined the rush to the profitable gold trade. By the end of the century no fewer than twenty-six fortified trade posts, belonging to the chartered companies of five nations, littered the coastline.

Type
Research Article
Information
History in Africa , Volume 1 , 1974 , pp. 101 - 108
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1974

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Footnotes

*

The present paper is designed as an introductory essay to a series of notes closely analyzing and comparing the English and Dutch versions of Bosnian's work. These notes will appear in subsequent volumes of History in Africa.

References

Notes

1. van Dantzig, A., Het Nederlands Aandeel in de Slavenhandel (Bussum, 1968), p. 83.Google Scholar The statement is believed to have been made by Governor Comelis Aersen van Sommelsdijk of Surinam.

2. This is a more correct rendering of the term Opperkoopman than Chief Factor, indicated on the title page of the English edition. Apart from the Chief Merchant, the W.I.C. had a number of chief and sub factors in its service on the Gold Coast, whose titles were, respectively, Oppercommies and Ondercommies.

3. Wright, I.A., “The Coymans Asiento, 1685-1689,” Bijdragen voor de Vaderlandsche Geschiedenis en Oudheidkunde, 6th ser., 1 (1924), pp. 23–62.Google Scholar

4. The chartered companies relied on brokers (makelaers in Dutch) for their relations with the local population and African diplomacy in general. These men were often, but by no means always, members of the royal houses. Some were powerful traders, others simply astute negotiators. At important stations like Elmina there usually were several brokers, some of them representing the interests of important interior states. It is not impossible that even slaves could become brokers, but in the case of Akim it is more likely that the term was used in a figurative sense, indicating that he was entirely in the pay of Van Sevenhuysen.

5. De la Palma to Assembly of Ten, 26 June 1702, W.I.C. 98, Algemeen Rijksarchief, The Hague. It is interesting that here Bosman was referred to as Chief Factor, not Chief Merchant (cf. note 2). Is this merely a slip of the pen, or had he been demoted?

6. To our knowledge this is the only time this title was used. Before his mission to Asante Van Nyendael was Sub Factor but in view of the importance of his extraordinary mission the title may have been created for the occasion in order to give him more diplomatic ‘weight’.

7. There is reference to such correspondence in the Elmina Journals and in the letters written by de la Palma to the Assembly of Ten. We do not know how these letters disappeared: it is not impossible that they were destroyed by de la Palma himself when he too was faced with the prospect of a public enquiry, but it is also known that a considerable quantity of the W.I.C.'s archives was sold as scrap or burned during the nineteenth century.

8. Municipal Archives, Amsterdam, Notarieel Archief Nr. 4472, Notaris Pelgrom, 26 October 1702.

9. Abstracts of letters received from Cape Coast Castle, Treasury Records, T70/5, f. llv., Public Record Office, London. On the face of it, it would seem most likely that the Agent at Cape Coast (probably Dalby Thomas, the Governor there) had seen a copy of the English version. However, he (or the abstractor?) noted that the work had been “dedicated to the Dutch West India Company” and was surprised that the W.I.C. “should countenance such a work.” This suggests that it might have been the original Dutch edition that was referred to. The letter was received in London on 29 July 1706.

10. Municipal Archives, Amsterdam, Notarieel Archief Nr. 4993, Notaris Servaas, 22 April 1705.

11. Bosman imposed himself on the Whydah scene in a stormy manner. Pearson, the English factor at Jacquin, had notified his superiors at Cape Coast that he wished to hand over the English factory at Whydah, of which he had temporarily been put in charge, to his colleague Clewett. But just as the transfer was about to be effected, Clewett had been seized and nearly killed by “Mina blacks” in the pay of Bosman, who had just arrived at Whydah. (Josiah Pearson to Cape Coast Castle, 15 April 1697, Rawlinson C745-7, Bodleian Library, letter 1957). It is not surprising that the ruler of Whydah regarded Bosman as a powerful man with whom he wanted to stay on amicable terms.

12. Claridge, W.W., History of the Gold Coast and Ashanti, 2 vols. (London, 1915), 1:24.Google Scholar