¹ Cited in Bovill, E. W., The Golden Trade of the Moors (London, 1958), 194.Google Scholar

² See, for example, the works by de Grammont, H. D., Relations entre la France et l'Algérie au XVIIe siécle (Paris, 1884–1885);Google ScholarCorrespondance des consuls d'Alger (Paris, 1887–1889);Google Scholar the editions by Plantet of correspondence with the Deys of Algiers, and commercial information in Heeringa, K., Bronnen tot de geschiedenis van den Levantschen Handel (La Haye, 1910–1917);Google Scholar and Masson's, P. monumental Le commerce et la navigation de l'Algérie avant la conquête francaise (Paris, 1861).Google Scholar

³ See Bovill, chap. XX, 246: ‘The principal cause of the decay of the caravan routes was, of course, the competition of the sea route to the Mediterranean.’Google Scholar

⁴ Boahen, A. Adu, Britain, the Sahara and the Western Sudan (Oxford, 1964), 131. No source is given for this value of £125,000 maximum.Google Scholar

⁵ Boahen, 105, 106, 115, 116, 119, 126.Google Scholar

⁶ Miège, Jean-Louis, Le Maroc et l'Europe (1830–94), tome II, L'ouverture; tome III, Les difficultés (Paris, 1961–1962).Google Scholar

⁷ Archives Nationales (A.N.), Paris: F¹²Commerce et industrie; F¹⁴ Travaux publics; F⁸⁰ Algérie. Archives des Colonies (A.C.), Paris: Sénégal, Soudan, A.O.F., Afrique. The consulate records are also partly duplicated in the Correspondance commerciale series at the Ministére des Affaires Etrangéres. There is no satisfactory economic history of Algeria of the Regencies of Tunis and Tripoli.Google Scholar

⁸ This is not to deny the political importance of the plans for the transsaharien in the late 1870's and early 1880's and the connexion of the project with French expansion from Senegal into the Western Sudan. Even the railway scheme produced some remarkable cartography, geology and archaeology. See A.N. F¹⁴ 8594 for notebooks and journals by Flatters, Béringer and others; and ‘Note sur l'établissement de la carte au 1/200,000 de la région comprise entre le Touat et Timbouktou’ (Alger, 1883) for a history of Sahara maps of this period of exploration.Google Scholar

⁹ Carette, E. and Renou, E., Recherches sur la géographie et le commerce de l'Algérie méridionale (Paris, 1844).Google Scholar

¹⁰ Carette and Renou, 115, 149–055.Google Scholar

¹¹ For detailed discussion of these routes from other sources, see Bovill, 233–47; Boahen, 103–31.Google Scholar

¹² Annales du commerce extérieur, ‘Etats barbaresques. Commerce de Tripoli avec l'Afrique intérieure’ (1864–1866), 24.Google Scholar

¹³ Moniteur, 10 June 1961. The caravan brought ivory, tanned hides, leather goods, incense, alum and kolas (? ‘noix médicales’).Google Scholar

¹⁴ From 3 June 1860. Annales du commerce extérieur, no. 1261 (1860).Google Scholar

¹⁵ A.N. F¹² 7211. Governor-General to Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce, 22 March 1861, encl., ‘Tableau des marchandises recherchées sur la place d'Alger par lea Touareg et les Touati’. Prohibited items were powder, knives, cotton goods.Google Scholar

¹⁶ A.N. F¹² 7211, ‘Note sur les relations commerciales entre l'Algerie Ct les Regences et les contrées au Sud de nos possessions d'Afrique’, 20 November 1859, for the origins of the Ghadames Mission; Governor-General to Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce, 30 December 1862; Marseille Chamber of Commerce to Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce, 18 November 1862.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Miége, III, 78 and n.Google Scholar

¹⁸ A.N. ^F12 7211, Mircher to the Duc de Malakoff (Governor-General of Algeria), Algiers, 28 January 1863 (MSS., n.p.); the tables are also enclosed in Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce to the Paris Chamber of Commerce, 28 February 1863. There is printed version (which I have not seen): Mission de Ghadames, 1862. Rapports officiels documents á l'appui (? Alger, 1863).Google Scholar

¹⁹ A.N. F¹² 7211: i.e.Google Scholar

²⁰ One mitkal would buy 2,000 cowries in the Upper Niger markets Ca. 1816. C.O. 2/5, Campbell ‘21 memorandums’, 1816; and 6,000 cowries by the 1880's. Devaluation was worse in the Niger–Benue, where the Royal Niger Company imported large quantities. See Capt. Binger, , ‘Transactions, objets du commerce, monnaie des contrées d'entre le Niger et Ia Côte d'Or’, Bulletin de Ia Société de Paris, XII (1889–1890), 77–90;Google ScholarMonteil, Charles, Une cité soudanaise: Djenné, meacute;tropole du delta central du Niger (Paris, 1932), 280.Google Scholar

²¹ Miége, III, 361 and n.Google Scholar

²² Or, more exactly: packing = 3 mahboub; Tripoli—Ghadames = 6 mahboub; Ghadames—Ghat = 7½ mahboub, thus increasing the cost of the fabric to 19½ mahboub.Google Scholar

²³ This is confirmed by a separate report from the French explorer, Duveyrier, who in 1860 priced Kano ivory at 105 fr. for 51 kg., which fetched 375 fr. in Tunis and 431 fr. Tripoli—a gross increase of over 300%. A.N. F¹² 7211.Google Scholar

²⁴ A.N. F¹² 7212, Consul Wiet to Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 3 November 1872; i.e. ivory = 790,000 fr., plumes = 1,052,500 fr. No other items are listed, nor are European imports into the Sudan evaluated.Google Scholar

²⁵ A.N. F¹⁸ 7198, reports of the Tripoli Consuls-general, 1874–1894;Google ScholarSoleillet, Paul, Avenir de la France en Afrique (Paris, 1876), 48.Google Scholar

²⁶ A.N. F¹⁸ 7198, reports of the Tri A.N. F¹² 7198, Fléraud to Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 19 April 1879. The consul also noted that there were still commercial links between Ghadames and southern Algeria – ‘assez de relations pour inonder le sud de l'Algérie de marchandises provenant dc fabriques anglaises ou italiennes et y faire Ia contrabande de Ia poudre’. There is no way of evaluating this illicit traffic.Google Scholar

²⁷ A.N. F²¹ 7298, Fléraud, 10 April 1879.Google Scholar

²⁸ Soleillet, 48; i.e. gold dust = 619,000; ivory = 6,018,000; plumes = 5,752,000; wax = 230,000; various = 280,000; t0tal = 12,799,500 frs.Google Scholar

²⁹ A.N. F¹² 7148–7149.Google Scholar

³⁰ Miége, III, 92.Google Scholar

³¹ Miége, III, 358 (consular report by J. D. Hay).Google Scholar

³² Fonferrier, Capt, ‘Etudes historiques sur le mouvement caravanier dans le cercle d'Agadez’, Bulletin commercial, historique et scientifique de l'A.O.F., no. 2 (1923), 302–8.Google Scholar

³³ Miége, III, 94 and n.Google Scholar

³⁴ A.C., Sénégal 1, 61–65; IV, 73–75; iii, 10 bis; Soleillet, Paul, Voyage à Ségou, 1878–1879 (Paris, 1887), 79–222;Google ScholarZweifel, J. and Moustier, M., Expédition C. A. Verminck. Voyage aux sources dii Niger (Marseille, 1880), 132–56;Google ScholarBulletin de la Société de Géographie Commerciale de Paris, V (1882–1883), 416–17 (unsigned articles on Niger caravans), 159–80;Google ScholarSociété Normande de Geographie, I (1879), 161–4 (‘Tombouctou’);Google ScholarBulletin de Ia Société de Géographie de Marseille (1880), 5–7 (article by Dr Ollive on Mogador—Timbuctu trade) Bulletin de la Société de Geographie Commerciale de Paris, X (1887–8), 288–94 (Gallieni's commercial instructions to Sudan missions); 280–7 (article by Ch. Soller, ‘Les caravans du Soudan occidental et les pêcheries d'Arguin’).

³⁵ A.N., F¹² 7211, Consul Pellissier to Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 9 October 1850, reporting a rumour of two steam vessels in the lower Niger in 1849 and the importation of trade goods which ‘auraient été cause d'une perte de % sur celles qu'avaient transportées dans l'Afrique Centrale les caravanes du Sahara’. The rumour came from Overweg, who must have heard it at Murzuk or Ghat; as far as I know it has no possible foundation in fact before 1854.Google Scholar

³⁶ See n. 34 above: and Whitford, John, Trading Life in Western and Central Africa (Liverpool, 1877), 238, 249.Google Scholar

³⁷ C.O., 267/335, Lawson to Rowe, 4 July 1878 (visits by Moroccan merchants); 267/341, Streeten to Kimberley, 3 October 1880 (relations with Segu).Google Scholar

³⁸ Miège, III, 361.Google Scholar

³⁹ A.C., Sénégal, xiii, 56 (b): Ministry of Public Works to Ministry of Marine and Colonies, 24 April 1882, end, analysis and report by the Ecole des Mines of thirty-five samples brought back by Bayol from the Bambuk-Buré area. Some of the alluvial sands showed 0·120 g. of gold per 1,000 kg. and 0·640 g. in the case of sands from Kohako (near Farakunda). Two concessions granted to Europeans to prospect the area were a failure. ‘Extrait des Registres du Bureau d'Essai’, 3 April 1882. See, too, 'SirGlover, John, ‘Geographical notes on the country traversed between the River Volta and the Niger’, Proceedings of the R.G.S. XVIII (1874), 286–99;Google ScholarLabouret, H., ‘L'or du Lobi’, Renseignements coloniaux, no. 3 (1925), 69–73.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ C.O. 879/7, no. 77 (Confidential Print), Rowe, Memorandum, 1 March 1875; Miège, III, 361. Rowe's estimate may have been exaggerated, as he was arguing the case for exchange of territory, though it is supported by Verdier's customs returns for the early 1880's (Assinie and Bassum) in Sénégal, Ix, 22 (e).Google Scholar

⁴¹ Miège, III, 375–459.Google Scholar