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The Trade between Western Africa and the Atlantic World, 1600–90: Estimates of Trends in Composition and Value

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

Ernst Van Den Boogaart
Ernst Van Den Boogaart
Affiliation:
Algemene Hogeschool, Amsterdam*
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Extract

Extending the approach of D. Eltis and L. C. Jennings to the seventeenth century, the author takes estimates for the decades 1623–32 and 1680–90 as the starting points for his discussion of trends in the composition and value of the Atlantic imports and exports of Western Africa. Contrary to prevalent opinion, he argues that at least from 1600 onwards the value of slave exports was two to three times higher than that of commodity exports, as measured according to the prices in America and Europe. However, during most of the century more imports were bartered in the commodity trade than in the slave trade, since the trading margin in the latter sector was considerably higher than in the former. The different margins go some way to explaining why the Portuguese concentrated on the slave trade from Angola between 1600 and 1635, which they could carry on with fewer European imports and more effectively protect, while the more efficient Dutch merchants achieved primacy in the competitive commodity trade of West Africa. The different margins also meant a very uneven distribution of imports over coastal regions. Owing to the predominance of Akan gold in the commodity trade, the Gold Coast drew an estimated fifty per cent of all imports at the beginning of the century and still accounted for 34 per cent at the end. Owing to its predominance in the slave trade, West-Central Africa drew 25 per cent of all imports throughout the century. The few available data on the composition of imports suggest that there may have been a shift from metal goods to textiles and a marked increase of Asian textiles and cowries. From 1593 on the Dutch may have initiated a shift in the gross barter terms of trade in favour of the African merchants which spread from the Gold Coast to other areas when the North-west Europeans obtained the major share in the Atlantic slave trade.

Type
Trade, Economy and the Western African Coast
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 33 , Issue 3 , November 1992 , pp. 369 - 385
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

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References

1 Eltis, David and Jennings, Lawrence C., ‘Trade between Western Africa and the Atlantic world in the pre-colonial era’, Amer. Hist. Rev., xciii (1988), 936–59CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Eltis, David, ‘Trade between Western Africa and the Atlantic world before 1870: estimates of trends in value, composition and direction’, Research in Economic History, xii (1989), 197–239.Google Scholar

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5 de Laet, Joannes, Iaerlyck Verhael van de Verrichtingen van de Geoctroyeerde West-Indische Compagnie (Leiden, 1644)Google Scholar, appendix entitled ‘Kort Verhael uit de voorgaende boecken ghetrocken van de diensten ende nuttigheden die desen Staet heeft genooten by de West-Indische Compagnie… tot het eynde van de jaere 1636’, 26–30. In the modern edition of the Iaerlijck Verhael, ed. Naber, S. P. and Warnsinck, J. C. M. (4 vols.) (The Hague, 1930–1937)Google Scholar, many of the details in the appendix have been omitted.

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8 The peso and the English pound have been treated as unchanging units: £1 = 4 3 pesos. The Dutch guilder has been converted as follows: 1601–10 1 peso = fl. 2.32; £1 = fl. 9 98; 1611–20 1 peso = fl. 238; £1 = fl. 10–23; 1621–60 1 peso = fl. 2 49; £1 = fl. 10 70; 1661–80 1 peso = fl. 262; £1 = fl. 11 26; 1681–99 1 peso = fl. 2 66; £1 = fl. 11 44; see Niels Steensgaard, ‘The growth and composition of the long-distance trade of England and the Dutch Republic before 1750’, in Tracy, (ed.), The Rise of Merchant Empires, 107.Google Scholar The Portuguese cruzado (= 400 reis) has been converted up to 1640 at the rate of 1 cruzado = 1 25 peso = 2 90 guilders; £1 = 3 44 cruzado: see Michel Morineau, in Léon, Pierre (ed.), Histoire économique et sociale du monde (Paris, 1978), ii, 120–1.Google Scholar After 1640 the cruzado dropped sharply in value. For the 1680s the rate 1 cruzado = 0·63 peso has been used on the basis of the value of 1 mark silver in reis mentioned by Mauro: see Mauro, Frederic, Le Portugal, le Brésil et l'Atlantique au XVIIe siècle (1570–1670) (Paris, 1983), 489.Google Scholar For the beginning of the century 1 Spanish ducado has been considered the equivalent of 1 29 peso: see López, José Luis Cortés, La esclavitud negra en la España peninsular del siglo XVI (Salamanca, 1989), 134, note 33.Google Scholar

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15 The Portuguese share of ninety per cent in the slave trade is based on the figures for slave exports from Angola, where no other traders operated at this time. According to Miller, exports had reached a level of 10,000 a year. Miller, Joseph C., ‘The slave trade in Congo and Angola’, in Kilson, Martin L. and Rotberg, Robert I. (eds.), The African Diaspora (London, 1976), 87–90, 101.Google Scholar In the decade 1620–30 total slave exports are supposed to have been somewhat more than 10,000 per year. In addition to the slaves exported from Angola, a few thousand slaves were shipped from Guiné de Cabo Verde. The Portuguese had a share in this trade as well.

16 Vilar, , Hispano-América y el Comercio de Esclavos, 220–4.Google ScholarMiller, , ‘Slave prices’, 44–9.Google Scholar A Dutch source, not cited by these authors, gives 156 pesos as the price of an average slave in Brazil and 193 pesos in the Spanish Caribbean in 1618: Ruiters, Dierick, Toortse der Zeevaert, ed. Naber, S. P. ('s-Gravenhage, 1913), 12–13, 38, 44.Google Scholar

17 Miller, , ‘Slave prices’, 54–6, 63, 67.Google Scholar Manning, Slavery and African Life, 177–8.

18 Van den Boogaart, and Emmer, , ‘The Dutch participation in the Atlantic slave trade’, 359–61, 363–4, 370Google Scholar; Ratelband, K. (ed.), Vijf Dagregisters van het Kasteel Sӑo Jorge da Mina (Elmina) aan de Goudkust (1645–1647) ('s-Gravenhage, 1953), xcviii, cii–iv, cix.Google Scholar

19 Ruiters, Toortse der Zeevaert, 44. Samuel Brun mentioned that in 1614–16 slaves were sold at the Rio del Rey and the Cameroon for between 45 and 6 litres of Spanish wine or two to three handfuls of cowries. He did not give a monetary equivalent, but it cannot have been much. His price for slaves in Angola (100 ducados) must have been the currency lien-value. See the translation in Jones, Adam (ed.), German Sources for West African History 1599–1669 (Wiesbaden, 1983), 63, 69, 329.Google Scholar

20 Not all these goods came from Europe. Dierick Ruiters mentioned a direct trade between Brazil and Luanda in the 1610s in which manioc flour was bartered against slaves: Ruiters, , Toortse der Zeevaert, 13.Google Scholar The Portuguese in Angola obtained some slaves through war or as tribute, but most of them were acquired through trade: see Heintze, Beatrix, ‘Traite des “pièces” en Angola: ce qui n'est pas dit dans nos sources’, in Daget, Serge (ed.), De la Traite à l'Esclavage: Actes du Colloque international sur la traite des Noirs, Nantes 1985 (2 vols.) (Nantes, 1988), i, 162–4.Google Scholar

21 Eltis, , ‘Trade between Western Africa and the Atlantic world before 1870’, 200–2.Google Scholar

22 See the calculations of the margins per European article in Ratelband, , Vijf Dagregisters, xcvii–cix.Google Scholar

23 The WIC document published by Johannes Postma should contain a clue to the margins prevailing in the commodity trade in 1675–1731. However, there is a problem with the main product, gold. The African price for one mark of gold is given in the document as 320 guilders. This is more than double the African price calculated for the pre-1675 period. The difference between this and the Amsterdam price of one mark of gold in 1719–39 (369–380 guilders) leaves an incredibly small trading margin of about 17 per cent. The significance of this document clearly calls for further scrutiny. Postma, Johannes, ‘West African exports and the Dutch West India Company, 1675–1731’, Economisch- en Sociaal-historisch Jaarboek, xxxvi (1973), 58, Table 1.Google ScholarPosthumus, Compare N., Inquiry into the History of Prices in Holland (Leiden, 1946), i, 395.Google Scholar

24 For the Amsterdam price see Binder, Franz, ‘Die Goldeinfuhr von der Goldküste in die Vereinigten Provinzen 1655–75’, in Kellenbenz, Hermann (ed.), Precious Metals in the Age of Expansion (Stuttgart 1981), 143.Google Scholar

25 At what period in the sixteenth century did the value of slave exports surpass that of the gold exports? A probable decade is the 1560s; see da Mota, A. Teixeira and Hair, P. E. H., East of Mina. Afro-European Relations on the Gold Coast in the 1550s and 1560s (Madison, Wisconsin, 1988), 33–4.Google Scholar

26 De Laet, Iaerlyck Verhael, appendix.

27 Van den Boogaart, and Emmer, , ‘The Dutch participation in the Atlantic slave trade’, 370, n. 47.Google Scholar

28 Bean, , ‘A note on the relative importance of slaves and gold’, 354.Google Scholar

29 Ratelband, , Vijf Dagregisters, xcvii–cix.Google Scholar

30 Van Gelder, , ‘Scheepsrekeningen’, 248–50.Google Scholar

31 de Jonge, J. K. J., De Oorsprong van Neerland's Bezittingen op de Kust van Guinea ('s-Gravenhage, 1871), 34CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Klein, P. W., De Trippen in de Zeventiende Eeuw: Een Studie over het Ondernemersgedrag op de Hollandse Stapelmarkt (Assen, 1965), 138.Google Scholar

32 Israel, Jonathan I., Dutch Primacy in World Trade 1585–1740 (Oxford, 1989), 107–8Google Scholar; ‘Deductie vervaetende den oorspronck ende progres van de vaert ende handel op Brasil’, in IJzerman, J. W. (ed.), Journael van de reis naar Zuid-Amerika door Hendrik Ottsen 1598–1601 ('s-Gravenhage, 1918), 98–106.Google Scholar

33 Postma, Johannes M., The Dutch in the Atlantic Slave Trade 1600–1815 (Cambridge, 1990), 109–11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

34 See Table 4 for the shares in imports bartered for gold and slaves. The Angolan share in slave exports is estimated at go per cent in 1623–32 and the West-Central African share at 13,000 slaves or 44 per cent in 1680–90, when total annual slave exports can be put at 29,600. See Miller, , ‘The slave trade in Congo and Angola’, 94–5.Google Scholar

35 Van Gelder, , ‘Scheepsrekeningen’, 248–50.Google Scholar

36 Ratelband, , Vijf Dagregisters, xcviii–xcix, 388–91.Google Scholar

37 van Brakel, S., ‘Bescheiden over den Slavenhandel der West-Indische Compagnie’, Economisch-Historisch Jaarboek, iv (1918), 77–9.Google Scholar The sources of the Swedish African Company contain some detailed cargo lists for the 1650s. See Novàky, Gyorgy, Handels-kompanier och kompanihandel. Svenska Afrikakompaniet 1640–1663: en studie i feodal handel (Uppsala, 1990).Google Scholar

38 Eltis, , ‘Trade between Western Africa and the Atlantic world before 1870’, 213–15.Google Scholar The coastal cowrie area was limited to the Niger delta in the seventeenth century: Hogendorn, Jan and Johnson, Marion, The Shell Money of the Slave Trade (Cambridge, 1986), 106.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

39 Dapper mentioned cowries in connection with Ardra and Benin in his lists of trading articles. His textiles are, however, almost exclusively European: Dapper, Olfert, Naukeurige Beschrijvinge der Afrikaensche Gewesten (Amsterdam, 1668), 351–2, 360, 379–80, 430, 480–1, 491, 500, 510, 532–3, 609.Google Scholar It may be doubted whether his information was up to date. Many of his texts refer to situations in the 1630s or 1640s rather than to the 1660s: see Jones, Adam, ‘Decompiling Dapper: a preliminary search for evidence’, History in Africa, xvii (1990), 176–7, 182.Google Scholar

40 See the articles by Eltis and Jennings cited in note 1 above.

41 Vogt, John, Portuguese Rule on the Gold Coast 1469–1682 (Athens, Georgia, 1979), 168–9.Google Scholar See also his comments on the sources for the Portuguese gold trade in the late sixteenth century, Ibid. 152.