¹ For an overview of these historiographic trends, see Hopkins, A. G., Two Essays on Underdevelopment (Geneva, 1979).Google Scholar

² Davies, K. G. pointed Out nearly thirty years ago that Africans were in no sense passive consumers and that their tastes dictated the nature of the trade: The Royal African Company (London, 1957), 235.Google Scholar But as recently as 1971, Claude Meillassoux wrote of the ‘shoddy trade goods and glass trinkets’ of the slave trade era in The Development of Indigenous Trade and Markets in West Africa (London, 1971), 50.Google Scholar

³ A good sample of the controversy in this area may be seen in Inikori's, J. E. introduction to Forced Migration (London, 1982), 55–7.Google Scholar

⁴ For the contention that the European trade goods consisted primarily of luxuries and arms to furnish the needs of warrior aristocracies see Meillassoux, op. cit., 52.Google Scholar

⁵ For a competitive model, see Thomas, R. and Bean, R., ‘The fishers of men: the profits of the slave trade’ in J. Econ. Hist., xxxiv (1974);Google Scholar for a restrictive one, see Lovejoy, P. E. and Hogendorn, J. S., ‘Slave marketing in West Africa’ in Gemery, H. A. and Hogendorn, J. S., The Uncommon Market (New York, 1979).Google Scholar Regarding the Gold Coast, however, Kwame Daaku has argued that traditionally almost everybody in Akan society including commoners were encouraged to trade: ‘Trade and trading patterns of the Akan in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries’ in Meillassoux, op. cit. J. R. LaTorre has reiterated the point regarding the Asante: ‘Wealth Surpasses Everything: An Economic History of Asante, 1750 to 1824’ (Ph.D. thesis, University of California, Berkeley, 1978), 345–6;Google Scholar so has the present author regarding the Fante: Metcalf, G., ‘Gold, Assortments and the Trade Ounce: Fante Merchants and the Problem of Supply and Demand’, J. Afr. Hist., XXVIII (1987), 32–3.Google Scholar

⁶ The historiography of firearms is discussed below.Google Scholar

⁷ Inikori, Forced Migration, 13–14.Google Scholar

⁸ ‘Confederacy’ is a convenient word for describing the Fante polity in the eighteenth century. I use it with a small ‘c’ to distinguish it from the Fante Confederacy, a political movement circa 1865–72.Google Scholar

⁹ The barters are to be found in London, Public Record Office, T70/1264 and 1265.Google Scholar

¹⁰ For the hat, cow and dollars see T70/1264, barters with ‘Grant's boy’, 15 Dec. 1772, barters with ‘Sham, Joe and Adoe’, 7 Dec. 1775;Google ScholarT70/1265, barter with ‘Ammurro’, 9 July 1776.Google Scholar

¹¹ For a full list of these items and their normal prices in ounces of trade, see Metcalf, op. cit., 40–41.Google Scholar

¹² Miles also writes of woollen ‘halfsays’, but he appears to use says and halfsays interchangeably. It is clear however that half ells and ells are distinct, but in Miles's entries it is not always possible to distinguish between half ells and half a long ell.Google Scholar

¹³ Metcalf, op. cit.Google Scholar

¹⁴ LaTorre, ‘Wealth Surpasses Everything’, 180, 197–200, 435, 443–4.Google Scholar

¹⁵ See T70/1265, barters of Aug. 1777 with ‘T.T.'s Shantee Beauty’ (slave no. 279), and 23 March 1779 with Tom Young (slave no. 14). The former individual resided in Accra, the latter was a mulatto skipper who frequently coasted there. The iron bars and copper rods Miles bartered were also used as currencies in other parts of Guinea but on the Gold Coast they would appear to have been used simply as metals.Google Scholar

¹⁶ See Goucher, C. L., ‘Iron is iron ‘til it rust’, J. Afr. Hist., XXII (1981), 179–89,CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Pole, L. M., ‘Decline or Survival? Iron production in West Africa from the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries’, J. Afr. Hist., XXIII (1982), 503–13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁷ Dickson, Kwamina, A Historical Geography of Ghana (Cambridge, 1969), 90.Google Scholar

¹⁸ T70/1265, barter 25 May 1777, with John Kwamino (slave no. 230).Google Scholar

¹⁹ T70/1479, Miles to Shoolbred, 15 May 1777.Google Scholar

²⁰ T70/1479, Miles to Shoolbred, 7 June 1777;Google ScholarT70/1483, Miles to Shoolbred, 1 May 1778.Google Scholar

²¹ See T70/1533, Westgate to Miles, 9 Aug. 1775.Google Scholar

²² T70/1533, Mill to Miles, 3 Aug. 1775.Google Scholar

²³ T70/1479, Miles to Petrie, 30 Jan., 14 May and 30 Nov. 1777.Google Scholar

²⁴ T70/1482, Miles to Shoolbred, 10 Aug. 1775.Google Scholar

²⁵ Gavin White, ‘Firearms in Africa: an introduction’, R. A. Kea, ‘Firearms and warfare on the Gold and Slave Coasts from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries’, Fisher, H. J. and Rowland, V., ‘Firearms in the Central Sudan’, J. Afr. Hist., XII, (1971).Google Scholar

²⁶ Inikori, J. E., ‘The import of firearms into West Africa, 1750–1807’, in Forced Migration, op. cit.;Google ScholarRichards, W. A., ‘The import of firearms into West Africa in the eighteenth century’, J. Afr. Hist., XXI (1980), 43–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²⁷ Richards, op. cit., 7;Google ScholarBecker, C. and Martin, V., ‘Kayor and Baol’in Inikori, Forced Migration, 116.Google Scholar

²⁸ Inikori, op. cit., 139.Google Scholar

²⁹ Richards, op. cit., 52.Google Scholar

³⁰ T70/1479, Miles to Shoolbred, 15 May 1777;Google ScholarT70/1483, Miles to Norris, 21 Feb. Miles to Shoolbred, 22 Feb. 1779, Miles to John & Thos. Hodgson, 22 Sept. 1779.Google Scholar

³¹ Metcalf, op. cit., 36–8.Google Scholar

³² LaTorre, ‘Wealth Surpasses Everything’, 219, 407–8.Google Scholar

³³ Ryan, T. C., ‘The Economics of Trading in Slaves’ (Ph.D. thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1975), 30–31.Google Scholar

³⁴ The most convenient summary of the Mumford dispute is found in PRO, BT 6/1 and 2.Google Scholar

³⁵ Quoted in Richards, ‘Import of Firearms’, 46.Google Scholar

³⁶ T70/73, Miles to Lords of Treasury, 24 April 1813.Google Scholar

³⁷ Arhin, K., ‘The Structure of Greater Ashanti (1700–1824)’, J. Afr. Hist., VIII (1967), 65–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³⁸ See Hopkins, A. G., An Economic History of West Africa (New York, 1973), 110.Google Scholar

³⁹ LaTorre, ‘Wealth Surpasses Everything’, 55, 387–90.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Metcalf, op. cit., 37–8.Google Scholar

⁴¹ The main question about these barters is why Miles purchased such inferior merchandise. However he occasionally presented slaves to his African wife and concubines; they were probably procured in these ‘cheap’ transactions.Google Scholar

⁴² T70/1265, barters 25 May 1777 with ‘Assuah’ (slave nos. 225–6), and with John Kwamino (slave no. 230).Google Scholar

⁴³ Romauls were small pieces of East Indian cotton goods that varied bewilderingly in quality as well as in colour and pattern. Thus ‘mixed’ romauls constituted a mini-assortment in themselves. For instance a box of 3000 mixed romauls shipped from England in 1795 comprised: 200 blue soot romauls, 200 brown Barragore romauls, 100 red Ashantee romauls, 700 hair romauls, 800 blue romauls, 800 fine blue romauls and 100 deep mixed romauls. See T70/1571, (?) to Richard Miles, ‘packed for the African Committee by Serjeant Chambers’, 2 Nov. 1795. ‘Mixed patches’, manufactured in England, varied in a similar fashion, but were more prosaically named: ‘type no. 3’, ‘type no. 7’ etc. See T70/1479, Miles to Captain Windsor Brown, 21 May 1774.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ The origin of the chelloes and chintz in Miles's barters present something of a problem. Both products were manufactured in England as well as in India and when Miles entered them in his barter lists he rarely distinguished them in terms of origin. It would appear however from extant order lists that the pieces of chintz he ordered were mainly English and the chelloes mainly Indian. See, for instance, T70/1479, indent by R. Miles for the King George, Capt. Smith, 15 Sept. 1773.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ David Richardson ‘West African consumption patterns and their influence on the eighteenth century slave trade’, in Gemery and Hogendorn, The Uncommon Market.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ This is not to claim that they dictated prices.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ T70/1482 and 1483 are filled with such correspondence.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Great Britain, Parliamentary Papers, 1777, vol. 59 ‘Return of the Committee for Trade and Plantations on the African Trade’, 5.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Metcalf, op. cit. 34–5.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ T70/1482, Miles to John Bourke, 31 Jan. 1773.Google Scholar

⁵¹ T70/1482, Miles to Shoolbred, 10 Aug. 1775.Google Scholar

⁵² T70/1482, Miles to Shoolbred, 6 March 1777.Google Scholar

⁵³ T70/1483, Miles to Shoolbred, 25 July 1779.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Great Britain, Parliamentary Papers, House of Commons Accounts and Papers, 1789, ‘Minutes of the Evidence’, vol. 83, 60–62.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ It should be stressed, however, that these recommendations were not mere ‘guesstimates’ of Miles. Although his first-hand knowledge was limited to the Gold Coast and to Little Popo, the documents make it clear that he had collected much intelligence regarding the other areas from captains who frequented them. Moreover he was making these suggestions to close business associates and would have been acutely embarrassed had he given inaccurate advice.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ Inikori, Forced Migration, 136.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ T70/1479 ‘Memorandum’, n.d. but follows in letterbook immediately after Miles to J. Brooks, 20 Nov. 1780.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ C.O. 267/18, ‘Treaty Between the Braffoe and Curranteers, the Priests and People of Fantee, and the President and Council of Cape Coast, 6 Feb. 1753’.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ Likely because the neighbouring militaristic state of Ahanta was a tough nut that was not economically worth the cracking.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ McCaskie, T. C., ‘Accumulation, wealth and belief in Asante history’, Africa, LIII (1983), 23–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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⁶² Studies specifically or mainly on the Fante are not overwhelming in number. Besides works already cited see Sarbah, J. M., Fanti Law Report, (London 1904), Fante Customary Laws (3rd ed., London, 1968), and The Fanti National Constitution (2nd ed. London 1968);Google ScholarChristaller, J. G., Dictionary of the Asante-Fante Language (Basle, 1881);Google ScholarChristensen, J., Double Descent Among the Fante (New Haven, 1954);Google ScholarMcCarthy, Mary, Social Change and the Growth of British Power in the Gold Coast: The Fante States, 1807–1841 (N.Y. and London, 1963);Google ScholarSanders, I., ‘The expansion of the Fante and the emergence of the Asante in the eighteenth century’, J. Afr. Hist, xx (1979);Google ScholarArhin, K., ‘Diffuse authority among the coastal Fante’, Ghana Notes and Queries, 9 (11 1966), 66–70;Google ScholarChukwukere, I., ’The Akan theory of conception — are the Fante really aberrant?’, Africa, XLVIII, 1978.Google Scholar

⁶³ ‘Minutes of the Evidence’, op. cit., 41.Google Scholar

⁶⁴ LaTorre, ’Wealth Surpasses Everything’, 422–3.Google Scholar

⁶⁵ ‘Minutes of the Evidence’, op. cit., 63.Google Scholar

⁶⁶ T70/1482, Miles to Cockburn, 5 Feb. 1773.Google Scholar

⁶⁷ ‘Minutes of the Evidence’, op. cit., 50.Google Scholar

⁶⁸ Ibid., 50, 53–4.

⁶⁹ For the remarkable survival of indigenous handicraft industries amongst the Akan, even in the face of European imports, see Dickson, Historical Geography, 25, 43–4, 92–5;Google ScholarReynolds, E., Trade and Economic Change on the Gold Coast 1807–1814 (London, 1974), 22–4.Google Scholar

⁷⁰ Daaku, Kwame, ‘Trade and trading patterns of the Akan’, in Meillassoux, C. (ed.), The Development of Indigenous Trade and Markets in Africa (London, 1971).Google Scholar

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⁷² ‘Minutes of the Evidence’, op. cit., 58.Google Scholar