1 Kea, R., Settlements, Trade, and Polities in the Seventeenth-Century Gold Coast (Baltimore, 1982), 105Google Scholar; Law, R., ‘On pawning and enslavement for debt in the precolonial Slave Coast’, in Lovejoy, P. E. and Falola, T. (eds.), Pawnship, Slavery, and Colonialism in Africa (Trenton, NJ, 2003), 62–5Google Scholar; and Sparks, R., ‘Gold Coast merchant families, pawning, and the eighteenth-century British slave trade’, William and Mary Quarterly, 70:2 (2013), 317–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Clarkson, T., The Substance of the Evidence of Sundry Persons on the Slave-Trade Collected in the Course of a Tour Made in the Autumn of the Year 1788 (London, 1789), 19Google Scholar.

2 Austen, R. A., ‘Slavery among coastal middlemen: the Duala of Cameroon’, in Miers, S. and Kopytoff, I. (eds.), Slavery in Africa: Historical and Anthropological Perspectives (Madison, WI, 1977), 317Google Scholar, referring to an incident that occurred in 1787. Also see Lovejoy, P. E. and Richardson, D., ‘Trust, pawnship, and Atlantic history: the institutional foundations of the Old Calabar slave trade’, American Historical Review, 104:2 (1999), 332–55CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Lovejoy, P. E. and Richardson, D., ‘The business of slaving: pawnship in Western Africa, c. 1600–1810’, The Journal of African History, 42:1 (2001), 67–89Google Scholar; Lovejoy, P. E. and Richardson, D., ‘Letters of the Old Calibar slave trade, 1760–1789’, in Carretta, V. and Gould, P. (eds.), Genius in Bondage: Literature of the Early Black Atlantic (Lexington, KY, 2001), 89–115Google Scholar; Lovejoy, P. E. and Richardson, D., ‘Anglo-Efik relations and protection against illegal enslavement at Old Calabar, 1740–1807’, in Diouf, S. A. (ed.), Fighting the Slave Trade: West African Strategies (Athens, OH, 2003), 101–18Google Scholar; and Lovejoy, P. E. and Richardson, D., ‘ “This horrid hole”: royal authority, commerce and credit at Bonny, 1690–1840’, The Journal of African History, 45:3 (2004), 363–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Also see the references collected in 1788 by Clarkson, Evidence of Sundry Persons, 72 (Elem Kalabari, Calabar, Gabon) and 133 (River Cameroons).

3 Miller, J. C., Way of Death: Merchant Capitalism and the Angolan Slave Trade, 1730–1830 (Madison, WI, 1988), 179Google Scholar.

4 Miller, J. C., ‘Credit, captives, collateral and currencies: debt, slavery, and the financing of the Atlantic world’, in Campbell, G. and Stanziani, A. (eds.), Debt and Slavery in the Mediterranean and Atlantic Worlds (London, 2013), 105–21Google Scholar. For doubts about Luanda and other parts of Angola, see below.

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6 For colonial Nigeria and Ghana, see Falola, T., ‘Money and informal credit institutions in colonial western Nigeria’, in Guyer, , Money Matters, 167–77Google Scholar; Mikell, G., ‘The state, the courts, and “value”: caught between matrilineages in Ghana’, in Guyer, , Money Matters, 225–8Google Scholar; Akurang-Parry, K. O., ‘ “I often shed my tears about this”: “freed” slave children and “apprenticeship” in colonial Ghana, ca. 1890 to ca. 1930’, in Landau, P. (ed.), The Power of Doubt: Essays in Honor of David Henige (Madison, WI, 2011), 147–69Google Scholar; and various essays in Lovejoy and Falola, Pawnship, Slavery.

7 Falola, T. and Lovejoy, P. E., ‘Pawnship in historical perspective’, in Lovejoy, and Falola, (eds.), Pawnship, Slavery, 1–26Google Scholar.

8 E. A. Oroge, ‘The institution of slavery in Yorubaland with particular reference to the nineteenth century’ (PhD thesis, University of Birmingham, 1971); Oroge, E. A., ‘Iwofa: an historical survey of the Yoruba institution of indenture’, African Economic History, 14 (1985), 75–106CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and reprinted in Lovejoy and Falola, Pawnship, Slavery, 325–56.

9 Lovejoy, P. E. and Hogendorn, J. S., Slow Death for Slavery: The Course of Abolition in Northern Nigeria, 1897–1936 (Cambridge, 1993), 264–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar and 271.

10 Dumett, R. and Johnson, M., ‘Britain and the suppression of slavery in the Gold Coast Colony, Ashanti, and the Northern Territories’, in Miers, S. and Roberts, R. (eds.), The End of Slavery in Africa (Madison, WI, 1988), 76Google Scholar.

11 Robin Law has suggested that iwofa, which is derived from the verb fa (to pledge) was not applied to non-human forms of collateral, such as farms, although fa was so used; see Law, ‘Pawning and enslavement’, 55. Also see Johnson, S., The History of the Yorubas: From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the British Protectorate, O. Johnson (ed.) (Lagos, 1956), 126Google Scholar.

12 On panyarring, see Kea, Settlements, Trade, and Polities; Law, ‘On pawning’, 62–5; and Ojo, O., ‘Èmú (Àmúyá): the Yoruba institution of panyarring or seizure for debt’, African Economic History, 35 (2007), 31–58Google Scholar.

13 Vansina, J., ‘Ambaca society and the slave trade, c. 1760–1845’, The Journal of African History, 46:1 (2005), 18CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 Document no. 525: Towgood, Charles, Allampo [sic] Road. 19 March 1681/2 [= 1682], in Law, Robin (ed.), The English in West Africa 1681–1683: The Local Correspondence of the Royal African Company of England, 1681–1699, Part 1 (Oxford, 1997), 272CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 Document no. 533: Hugh Shears, Allampa, 30 September 1682, in Law (ed.), The English in West Africa, 276.

16 For the pawning of gold, see Lovejoy and Richardson, ‘Business of slaving’, 67–89.

17 Kea, Settlements, Trade, and Polities, 227–8, 237–8, 241–2.

18 Metcalf, G., ‘Gold, assortments and the trade ounce: Fante merchants and the problem of supply and demand in the 1770s’, The Journal of African History, 28:1 (1987), 32CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Law, ‘Pawning and enslavement’, 62; Kea, Settlements, Trade, and Polities, 231, 235, and 241.

19 Newton-King, S., Masters and Servants on the Cape Eastern Frontier, 1760–1803 (Cambridge, 2009)Google Scholar.

20 Testimony of James Fraser in Lambert, S. (ed.), House of Commons Sessional Papers of the Eighteenth Century, George III, Report of the Lords of Trade on the Slave Trade, 1790, Part 1, Vol. 71 (Wilmington, DE, 1975), 15Google Scholar.

21 Ibid. 14.

22 ‘Mr. Parfitt's information respecting trade between Sierra Leone & Cape Lopaz, including the Islands St. Thomas &c.’, British Library, London (BL) Add. Mss 12131, folios 128–29. Also see ‘Extract of a diary kept by E. L. Parfitt on board the Sierra Leone Company's Ship Calypso, Wm Cole Master from the River Sierra Leone to the River Gaboon & back commencing the 17th June & terminating the 29th December 1796’, BL Add. Mss 12131, folios 1–44. I wish to thank Suzanne Schwarz for these references.

23 ‘Parfitt's information’, folio 87.

24 Testimony of James Arnold, in Lambert, House of Commons Sessional Papers of the Eighteenth Century, 1789, Part I, Vol. 69, 50.

25 Cited in Brooks, G. E. Jr, Yankee Traders, Old Coasters & African Middlemen: A History of American Legitimate Trade with West Africa in the Nineteenth Century (Boston, 1970), 338Google Scholar.

26 ‘Minutes of evidence taken on the second reading of the bill intituled, “An Act to prohibit the Trading for Slaves on the Coast of Africa, within certain Limits” ’, Torrington, F. W. (ed.), House of Lords Sessional Papers, Session 1798–99, Vol. III (Dobbs Ferry, NY, 1974), 99Google Scholar and 112.

27 Spilsbury, F. B., Account of a Voyage to the Western Coast of Africa; Performed by His Majesty's Sloop Favourite in the Year 1805 (London, 1807), 32Google Scholar.

28 Testimony of Richard Edwards, in Lambert, House of Commons Sessional Papers, Vol. 69, 44.

29 Ibid.

30 Spilsbury reported that the captain of the Trio had a female pawn on board when seized by a French squadron, but the girl was sent on shore so that she would not be taken, which assured that the captain could return to trade; ‘had he not, no Englishman would have been allowed to trade’ (Voyage to the Western Coast, 32).

31 Clarkson, Evidence of Sundry Persons, 133. Clarkson learned of another case in which pawns had been taken to St. Domingue and were brought back to Calabar, although in the end the pawns were not redeemed and subsequently were sent back to St. Domingue and sold.

32 Merseyside Maritime Museum Archives, Liverpool, Earle Papers, Letter book of William Earle, 1760–1.

33 Williams, G., History of the Liverpool Privateers and Letters of Marque, with an Account of the Liverpool Slave Trade (London, 1897), 541Google Scholar.

34 ‘An extract from the depositions of William Floyd, of the City of Bristol, mariner, and Little Ephraim Robin-John, and Ancona Robin Robin-John, of Old Town, Old Calabar, on the coast of Africa’, Arminian Magazine (London), 6 (March 1783), 151–3. Also see Arminian Magazine 6 (February 1783), 98–9; and Arminian Magazine 6 (April 1783), 211–3.

35 Williams, Liverpool Privateers, 541–2.

36 The National Archives, Kew (TNA) C 107/12, letter from Duke Ephraim of ‘Old Callabar’ to James Rogers and James Laroach, Liverpool, 16 October 1789. There are three copies of this letter, the first marked Old Callabar 17 November 1789, the second 25 November 1789, and the third 16 October. There are minor variations in spelling and the odd word inserted or left out, but the names of those seized and shipped overseas are the same.

37 Spilsbury, Voyage to the Western Coast, 32, and appended plate.

38 TNA C 107/12, letter from Duke Ephraim to Rogers & LRoach [Laroche], 16 October 1789.

39 Behrendt, S. D., Latham, A. J. H., and Northrup, D. (eds.), The Diary of Antera Duke, an Eighteenth-Century African Slave Trader (Oxford, 2010)Google Scholar.

40 Clarkson, Evidence of Sundry Persons, 36.

41 Ibid. 72.

42 For a discussion of the 1767 massacre at Calabar, see Lovejoy and Richardson, ‘Trust, pawnship, and Atlantic history’, 346, and the sources cited therein; Sparks, R., The Two Princes of Calabar: An Eighteenth-Century Atlantic Odyssey (Cambridge, MA, 2004), 10–32Google Scholar; and Williams, Liverpool Privateers, 529–66.

43 Sparks, Two Princes, 132–4.

44 See the discussion in Lovejoy and Falola, ‘Pawnship in historical perspective’, in Lovejoy and Falola, Pawnship, Slavery, 1–26. Also see Oroge, ‘Slavery in Yorubaland’; Oroge, ‘Iwofa’, 75–106; and Falola, T., ‘Slavery and pawnship in the Yoruba economy of the nineteenth century’, in Lovejoy, P. E. and Rogers, N. (eds.), Unfree Labor in the Development of the Atlantic World (London, 1994), 221–45Google Scholar.

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46 See various publications of P. E. Lovejoy and D. Richardson, for example, ‘Trust, pawnship, and Atlantic history’, 332–55; ‘The business in slaving’, 67–89; ‘ “This horrid hole” ’, 363–92; ‘Letters’, 89–115; ‘Anglo-Efik relations’, 101–20; Lovejoy, and Richardson, , ‘From slaves to palm oil: Afro-European commercial relations in the Bight of Biafra, 1741–1841’, in Killingray, D., Lincoln, M., and Rigby, N. (eds.), Maritime Empires: British Maritime Trade in the Nineteenth Century (London, 2004), 13–29Google Scholar; and ‘The slave ports of the Bight of Biafra in the eighteenth century’, in Brown, C. A. and Lovejoy, P. E. (eds.), Repercussions of the Atlantic Slave Trade: The Interior of the Bight of Biafra and the African Diaspora (Trenton, NJ, 2010), 19–56Google Scholar. Also see Lovejoy, P. E., ‘Transformation of the Ékpè masquerade in the African diaspora’, in Innes, C., Rutherford, A., and Bogar, B. (eds.), Carnival: Theory and Practice (Trenton, NJ, 2013), 127–52Google Scholar.

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49 Ekpe is referred to in an account dating to 1761, in which an elderly slave was ritually sacrificed with the use of a ceremonial sword by ‘a person called Hagboo [Egbo or Ekpe]’; see Clarkson, Evidence of Sundry Persons, 72–3.

50 Lovejoy and Richardson, ‘Trust, pawnship, and Atlantic history’, 352–3.

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52 Evidence of John Ashley Hall, in Lambert, House of Commons Sessional Papers, 1790, Part 2 Vol. 72, 227.

53 Grandy King George [Robin John Ephraim] to Ambrose Lace, 13 January 1773, in Williams, Liverpool Privateers, 543.

54 Evidence of James Fraser, in Lambert, House of Commons Sessional Papers, 1790, Part 1, Vol. 71, 15.

55 Röschenthaler, Purchasing Culture, 158. For descriptions of the nsibidi (nsibiri) script and a discussion of its history and use, see Dayrell, E., ‘Some “Nsibidi” signs’, Man, 10 (1910), 113–14CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Dayrell, E., ‘Further notes on “Nsibidi” signs with their meanings from the Ikom District, Southern Nigeria’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, 41 (1911), 521–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar, plates lxv-lxvii; and MacGregor, J. K., ‘Some notes on Nsibidi’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, 39 (1909), 209–19CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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57 Ibid.

58 Ibid. 188.

59 See the discussion of pawnship at Calabar in Lovejoy and Richardson, ‘Trust, pawnship, and Atlantic history’, 332–55; Lovejoy and Richardson, ‘The business in slaving’, 67–89; Lovejoy and Richardson, ‘Letters’, 89–115; and Lovejoy and Richardson, ‘Anglo-Efik relations’, 101–20. Also see the following entries in the diary of Antera Duke, in Behrendt, Latham and Northrup, Diary of Antera Duke, 24, 72, 79, 90, 92, 112, 156–7, 159, 179, 203, and 207.

60 Account of P. Mateo de Anguiano, in de Carrocera, B. (ed.), Misiones Capuchinas en Africa, Volume 2: Misiones al Reino de la Zinga, Benín, Arda, Guinea y Sierra Leona (Madrid, 1957), 145Google Scholar, as cited in Rodney, W., A History of the Upper Guinea Coast, 1545 to 1800 (Oxford, 1970), 109Google Scholar. Anguiano's account refers to the period before 1688.

61 Lambert, House of Commons Sessional Papers, 1788 and 1789, Vol. 68, 37–8 and 40.

62 Ibid. 37.

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64 Clarkson, Evidence of Sundry Persons, 19.

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68 The decree of February 1771 denied the right of a father, mother, uncle, or kinsperson to ‘pawn any child or kinsperson, girlfriend [wife], or any other free person’; see Amado Neves, M. T., D. Francisco, Innocêncio de Sousa Coutinho: aspecto moral da sua acção em Angola (Lisboa, 1938 [orig. pub. 1768])Google Scholar, as cited in Vansina, ‘Ambaca society’, 18–19. Vansina also refers to Luis António de Oliveira Mendes's ‘Memoría’, as published in Carreira, A., As Companhias Pombalinas de Navegação, Comércio e Tráfico de Escravos entre a Costa Africana e o Nordeste Brasileiro (Bissau, 1969), 419–21Google Scholar. Mendes reported that if someone was condemned to slavery, he could substitute a child, wife, or nephew.

69 Vansina, ‘Ambaca society’, 18.

70 M. Alves de Castro Francina, ‘Itinérario de uma jornada de Loanda ao distrito de Ambaca na provincia de Angola’, Annaes, 1^st series (February 1854), as cited in Vansina, ‘Ambaca society’, 18.

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72 Ferreira, R., Cross-Cultural Exchange in the Atlantic World: Angola and Brazil during the Era of the Slave Trade (New York, 2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ferreira, R., ‘The suppression of the slave trade and slave departures from Angola, 1830s–1860s’, in Eltis, D. and Richardson, D. (eds.), Extending the Frontiers: Essays on the New Transatlantic Slave Trade Database (New Haven, CT, 2008), 313–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Candido, M. P., An African Slaving Port and the Atlantic World: Benguela and its Hinterland (New York, 2013)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Candido, M. P., Fronteras de Esclavización: Esclavitud, Comercio e Identidad en Benguela, 1780–1850 (México, D. F., 2011)Google Scholar.

73 Candido refers to Silva Porto, who traveled in the interior of Benguela in the 1850s and witnessed instances of panyarring, or seizure for debt or alleged crimes; see M. P. Candido, ‘Enslaving frontiers: slavery, trade and identity in Benguela, 1780–1850’ (PhD thesis, York University, 2006). According to Candido, similar cases of panyarring were common in the states of Mbailundu, Bie, and Wambu in the Benguela highlands. Also see Curto, J. C., ‘Struggling against enslavement: the case of José Manuel in Benguela, 1816–20’, Canadian Journal of African Studies, 39:1 (2005), 96–122Google Scholar, who recounts the story of enslavement for debt. Also see Curto, ‘Experiences of enslavement’, 381–415.

74 The reference is to ‘[a escrava] lhe foi penhorada por divida’, Arquivo Histórico Nacional de Angola, Avulsos, Caixi 2825. The use of penhora, is confusing, since it could mean ‘pawn’ or simply ‘security’. It appears that the magistrate required Macedo to provide security for a debt that had been incurred with the threat of foreclosure, which is not pawnship. For a discussion, see Oliveira, ‘Donas of Luanda’.

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78 For further discussion of the distinctions among these terms, see Lovejoy, ‘Pawnship and seizure for debt’, 63–75.

79 Hence the argument here builds on the studies in Lovejoy and Falola, Pawnship, Slavery.