Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-g8jcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T15:52:26.707Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Calico Caravans: The Tripoli-Kano Trade after 1880*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

Marion Johnson
Marion Johnson
Affiliation:
University of Birmingham
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

It has often been thought that desert caravans could carry only luxury goods, and that the trans-Saharan caravans had declined rapidly in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, and had virtually disappeared by the turn of the century. This paper traces the caravan trade between Tripoli and Kano for the 30 years after 1881, when the main import into Hausaland was low-value unbleached and bleached calico from Manchester. It is suggested that calicoes formed the ‘return load’ for the more valuable exports northwards, and that the ‘family firm’ could compete with the more technically efficient, but more expensive installations of the European trading companies. The survival of the caravan traders ensured that there were merchants in Kano able to take advantage of the railway to develop a new export crop.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 17 , Issue 1 , January 1976 , pp. 95 - 117
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1976

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Robinson, C. A., Dictionary of the Hausa Language, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, 1906)Google Scholar, vol. 1 under akoko It is also known in the trade as ‘baft’.

2 Hopkins, A. G., An Economic History of West Africa (London, 1973), 81–2.Google Scholar

3 Bovill, E. W., Caravans of the old Sahara (London, 1933), 246.Google Scholar

4 Boahen, Adu, Britain, the Sahara and the Western Sudan, 1788–1861 (Oxford, 1964)Google Scholar, and ‘The Caravan Trade in the Nineteenth Century’, J. Afr. Hist, III (1962), 349–59.Google Scholar

5 Hopkins, op.cit. 131 and 81–2.

6 Hallett, R., Introduction to Bovill, E. W., The Golden Trade of the Moors, 2nd ed. (London, 1968), xi.Google Scholar

7 Ekundare, R. O., An Economic History of Nigeria (London, 1973), 24.Google Scholar

8 Boahen, , ‘The Caravan Trade…’.Google Scholar

9 Newbury, C. W., ‘North African and Western Sudan Trade in the Nineteenth Century: a Reevaluation’ J. Afr. Hist., vii (1966), 233–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10 Boahen, , ‘The Caravan Trade’, quoting (or misreading) Vischer.Google Scholar

11 Bovill, , Golden Trade, 2nd ed., 250Google Scholar. It is interesting to note that Hallett has also shifted the ‘circuitous but safer and cheaper sea route’ from the coast of Guinea to St Louis.

12 Bovill, , Caravans, 246.Google Scholar

13 Admiralty letter, 3 Jan. 1862, F.O./97/434, 7–12, P.R.O.

14 Hamilton, A., Comment on paper ready by Capt. Croft on 28 Feb. 1894Google Scholar, Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society (London) xviii (1874), 183–94Google Scholar. Hamilton noted that in 1861 sugar from Whitechapel had been reaching Bida via Tripoli; by 1874 it was sent by way of the mouth of the Niger.

15 Thomson, J., ‘Niger and Central Sudan sketches’, Scottish Geographical Magazine (1886), 595.Google Scholar

16 Consular report, Tripoli, 1897 (F.O. Annual series, Diplomatic and Consular 2125), 12.Google Scholar

17 Miscellaneous, F.O. series 527 (Tripoli, 1900), 25.Google Scholar

18 Capt. Moll, , ‘Situation economique de la région de Zinder’, Renseignements coloniaux (9 12. 1901), 197 ff.Google Scholar

19 Terrier, M. A., ‘Les deux rives françaises du Sahara’, Questions diplomatiques (07 1900)Google Scholar, quoted Bulletin du comité de l'Afrique française (1900), 273–4.Google Scholar

20 Anon, , ‘La prise de Kano est un désastre pour Tripoli et le transit transsaharien’, Annales de géographie (1903), 484.Google Scholar

21 Comment on draft of Northern Nigeria annual report, 1904Google Scholar, CO. file CO. 35592.

22 Nigeria, NorthernAnnual Report, 1906–1907, p. 489Google Scholar and for 1908–9, p. 680 (page references are to the bound volume of reports 1902–1911)Google Scholar, Newbury's statement (loc. cit.) that ‘by the end of partition the caravan routes were irrelevant to West African and North African trade’, while it is probably true of the Moroccan trade, is in need of revision so far as the Kano trade is concerned.

23 Consular report, Tripoli, 1891 (F.O. Annual series Diplomatic and Consular 1022), 5.

24 Méry, M. G., ‘Renseignements commerciaux sur le mouvement des échanges entre la Tripolitanie et le Soudan central’, Bulletin du comité de l'Afrique française (Sept. 1893), 2Google Scholar. A very similar account appeared in Bulletin du Société de géographie commercial de Paris, xv (1892–3), 551 ffGoogle Scholar; and, more surprisingly, under the name Ferd. Laurens, , in the same journal in 1900, 353–7Google Scholar, with some alterations which may be up-dating.

25 ibid.

26 Consular report, Tripoli, 1897Google Scholar (F.O. Annual series, Diplomatic and Consular 2125), 14.

27 Staudinger, P., Im Herzen der Haussalānder (Berlin, 1891), 616.Google Scholar

28 Robinson, C. A., DictionaryGoogle Scholar under zawwati, samasadowa and mulufi.

29 Hiskett, M., ‘Materials relating to the cowry currency of the Western Sudan’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, xxix (London, 1966), part 1, 122 ff.Google Scholar

30 Mockler-Ferryman, A. F., Up the Niger… (London, 1892), 132.Google Scholar

31 Nigerian, NorthernAnnual Report, 1904, 297.Google Scholar

32 Anon, , ‘Le commerce des caravannes tripolitaines…’, Bulletin du comité de l'Afrique française (1898), 208–11.Google Scholar

33 Moll, loc. cit.

34 Barth, H., Travels and discoveries in North and Central Africa, three-volume ed. (London, 1965), 1, 517.Google Scholar

35 Consular report, Tripoli, 1891, p. 5.Google Scholar

36 ibid. 1897, 14.

37 Based on estimates in Consular reports, and British export figures for unbleached and white cotton piece goods.

38 Based on British export figures for all cotton piece goods entered by the yard.

39 Brenner, L., ‘The North African trading community in the nineteenth century Central Sudan’, Boston University Papers on Africa, v, Aspects of African Islam (Boston, 1971), 148Google Scholar (quoting el-Hashishi).

40 Barth, op. cit. 1, 517 ff; Barth reckons the dollar at 4s., whereas its local value, in terms of gold, was nearer 8s.

41 Newbury, loc. cit. 239.

42 Miscellaneous, F.O. series, Tripoli, 1902, 7.Google Scholar

43 Nigeria, NorthernAnnual Reports, 1904, p. 301Google Scholar; 1905–6, p. 431; 1906–7, p. 489; 1907–8, p. 649; 1908–9, p. 680.

44 British export figures.

45 British import figures.

46 Consular estimates in Consular reports, Tripoli, 1886–1902Google Scholar; I have not been able to locate later estimates for British cloth imports to Tripoli.

47 Méry, loc. cit.

48 Consular reports, Benghazi, 1896, 1897.Google Scholar

49 Consular reports, Tripoli, 1903.Google Scholar

50 Méry, loc. cit.

51 Nigeria, NorthernAnnual Report, 1905–1906, 429.Google Scholar

52 Watts, letter to Directors of the Niger Company, dated 28/3/08, Royal Niger Co. papers, Rhodes House MSS Afr. s. 97, vol. 13, pp. 115 ff.Google Scholar

53 Nigeria, NorthernAnnual Report, 1905–1906, 429.Google Scholar

54 ibid.

55 Staudinger, op. cit. 616.

56 Robinson, C. A., Hausaland (London, 1896), 133.Google Scholar

57 Consular report, Tripoli, 1897, p. 16.Google Scholar

58 Consular correspondence, Tripoli F.O/160/191, P.R.O., 1903 and 1905.Google Scholar

59 Consular report, Tripoli, 1872Google Scholar F.O/160/89.

60 Miscellaneous, F.O. series, Tripoli, 1902, p. 7.Google Scholar

61 Barth, op. cit. iii, 366.

62 Caillié, R., Journal d'un voyage à Timbouctou et à fenne, ii (Paris, 1965), 317.Google Scholar

63 F.O. Miscellaneous series, Tripoli, 1902, p. 7.Google Scholar

64 Consular report, Tripoli, 1891, p. 6.Google Scholar

65 Staudinger, op. cit. 616.

66 Vischer, H., Across the Sahara (London, 1910), 148.Google Scholar

67 Méry, loc. cit; this list, as republished in 1900 over the name Ferd. Laurens(see note 15) omits Wardel Riley and one of the Nahoums; it is this later version which describes Nahoum as a Jew and Ricardo Cassar as a Levantine.

68 See Levtzion, N., ‘Ibn Hawqal, the cheque and Awdaghost’ J. Afr. Hist., ix (1968), 227.Google Scholar

69 Commandant Chailley, , ‘La mission du haut-Soudan et le drame de Zinder’, Bulletin de I'IFAN 17B, 11 (1955), p. 54.Google Scholar

70 L. Brenner, loc. cit. 143.

71 ibid. The Nahoum business in Tripoli may also have had international ramifications—Effraim Nahum was a Manchester exporter associated with the large Jewish firm of Sherri, Nahum in Tunis (F.O./403/254, P.R.O.).

72 Watts, loc. cit.

73 Nigeria, NorthernAnnual Report, 1905–1906, 431 ffGoogle Scholar. Nasruf may have been a relative of the caravan leader Mohamed b Nasouf, involved in an ‘incident’ with French troops in 1909; his caravan consisted of 20 Tripoli merchants with their domestic servants, nearly 100 Kel Oui (of whom nearly half were described as ‘black’), and about 750 camels, carrying nearly 100 tons of merchandise, in addition to foodstuffs. Marty, P., Islam et les tribus dans la colonie du Niger, 142 f.Google Scholar

74 F.O. Miscellaneous series, Tripoli, 1902, p. 7 ffGoogle Scholar. Usually profits were equally divided between merchant and caravan chief, after all expenses had been met. An alternative system was to credit the caravan leader with trade goods at 100 per cent mark-up; profits beyond this went to the caravan leader.

75 Consular report, Tripoli, 1891, pp. 6–7.Google Scholar

76 Consular report, Tripoli, 1894Google Scholar and 1895 (F.O. Annual series, Diplomatic and Consular, 1521, 1713).

77 Consular report, Tripoli, 1898Google Scholar (F.O. Annual series Diplomatic and Consular 2273), 4–5.

78 F.O. Miscellaneous series, Tripoli, 1902Google Scholar; Northern Nigeria Annual Report, 1902.Google Scholar

79 d'Attonoux, J. B., ‘Tripoli et les voies commerciales du Soudan’, Annales de Géographic v (Paris, 1895–1896), 193 ff.Google Scholar

80 Chailley, loc. cit. Malam Yaro, the most important trader in Zinder, was of part Tuareg, part Tripoli origin: he had establishments at Tripoli, Agades, Kano, Katsina, Hadeija, and Solenti (Moll, loc. cit.); Nigeria, NorthernAnnual Report, 1902.Google Scholar

81 Northern Nigeria Annual Reports, 1905–1906Google Scholar, 1906–7.

82 Watts, loc. cit.

83 44T (F.O./368), 9644, 1909 P.R.O.

84 Nigeria, NorthernAnnual Reports, 1905–1906, 432 ffGoogle Scholar. Imports recorded at Kano remained steady at about £8,000 per annum; much undoubtedly remained unrecorded. The resident anticipated an increase in 1908. (Kano Province report no 36, year ending 31 Dec. 1907Google Scholar, Dr F. Cargill); I am grateful to Mr Allan Leary for letting me see a copy of this report.

85 Staudinger, op. cit. 617–18.

86 Laing, A. G., quoted in Hopkins, An economic history of West Africa (London, 1973), 86Google Scholar. They also kept accounts, in Tripoli currency and cowries, in a form which could ignore the shifting rate of exchange between the two—see the accounts of El Hadj Ahmed Mecrouren quoted from Col. Mircher's MSS (AN F 12 7211 1865) in Newbury, loc. cit. Using Mircher's figure of 500 cowries = 1 franc, there would have been no profit on El Hadj's ivory trade; at 1,000 cowries = 1 franc, the calico trade would have been profitless; El Hadj himself was interested in the overall profit of the venture.