¹ See e.g. Marx, Karl, Capital, i (Moscow, 1970), 28Google Scholar (Afterword to the Second German Edition); for Marx's analysis of pre-capitalist forms of society, see esp. ‘Economic manuscripts of 1857–8’, in Marx, Karl and Engels, Frederick, Collected Works (50 vols., in progress) (London, 1975 onwards), xxviii, 399–438Google Scholar; also published separately, as Precapitalist Economic Formations, ed. Hobsbawm, E. J. (London, 1964).Google Scholar

² See esp. Bohannan, Paul and Dalton, George (eds.), Markets in Africa (Evanston, 1962)Google Scholar; cf. also Polanyi, Karl, Arensburg, Conrad M. and Pearson, Harry W. (eds.), Trade and Markets in the Early Empires (New York, 1957).Google Scholar For critical discussion, see e.g. Firth, Raymond (ed.), Themes in Economic Anthropology (London, 1967)Google Scholar; and for an opposing ‘formalist’ interpretation of pre-colonial West African economics, cf. Hopkins, A. G., An Economic History of West Africa (London, 1973).Google Scholar

³ Polanyi, Karl, with Rotstein, Abraham, Dahomey and the Slave Trade: An Analysis of an Archaic Economy (Seattle, 1966)Google Scholar; cf. also Arnold, Rosemary, ‘A port of trade: Whydah on the Guinea Coast’, and ‘Separation of trade and market: Great Market of Whydah’, in Polanyi, , Arensburg, and Pearson, (eds.), Trade and Markets in the Early Empires, 154–76 and 177–87.Google Scholar

⁴ For the history of Dahomey, see in general Akinjogbin, I. A., Dahomey and its Neighbours 1708–1818 (Cambridge, 1967)Google Scholar; Ross, D. A., ‘The autonomous kingdom of Dahomey, 1818–94’ (Ph.D. thesis, University of London, 1967).Google Scholar

⁵ For Allada and Whydah, see now Law, Robin, The Slave Coast of West Africa 1550–1750: The Impact of the Atlantic Slave Trade on an African Society (Oxford, 1991).Google Scholar

⁶ Polanyi, , Dahomey and the Slave Trade, 91Google Scholar; cf. also 187, where Polanyi even speaks of a ‘welfare state’.

⁷ Law, Robin, ‘Royal monopoly and private enterprise in the Atlantic trade: the case of Dahomey’, J. Afr. Hist., xviii (1977), 555–7;CrossRefGoogle ScholarPeukert, Werner, Der Atlantische Sklavenhandel von Dahomey 1740–1797 (Wiesbaden, 1977).Google Scholar

⁸ Coquery-Vidrovitch, Catherine, ‘De la traite des esclaves à l'exportation de l'huile de palme et des palmistes au Dahomey: XIXe siècle’, in Meillassoux, Claude (ed.), The Development of Indigenous Trade and Markets in West Africa (London, 1971), 107–23Google Scholar; for Allada and Whydah earlier, see also Law, The Slave Coast of West Africa, 219–20.

⁹ Law, Robin, ‘Computing domestic prices in precolonial West Africa: a methodological exercise from the Slave Coast’, History in Africa, xviii (1991), 239–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁰ Johnson, Marion, ‘The cowrie currencies of West Africa’ (2 parts), J. Afr. Hist., xi (1970), 17–49 and 331–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hogendorn, Jan and Johnson, Marion, The Shell Money of the Slave Trade (London, 1986).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹¹ See e.g. Labat, Jean-Baptiste, Voyage du Chevalier des Marchais en Guinée, Isles Voisines, et à Cayenne, fait en 1724, 1725 & 1726, 2nd ed. (4 vols.) (Amsterdam, 1731), ii, 92Google Scholar; Atkins, John, A Voyage to Guinea, Brasil, and the West Indies (London, 1735; repr. 1970), 113Google Scholar; Smith, William, A New Voyage to Guinea (London, 1744; repr. 1967), 178 n.Google Scholar; Dalzel, Archibald, The History of Dahomy, An Inland Kingdom of Africa (London, 1793; repr. 1967), 135 n.Google Scholar

¹² Instances of this calculation can be found e.g. in Public Record Office [hereafter, PRO]: T70/592–8, Journals, William's Fort, Whydah, 1718–27; T70/1158–63, Day Books, William's Fort, Whydah, 1751–1812.

¹³ See e.g. Forbes, Frederick E., Dahomey and the Dahomans (2 vols.) (London, 1851; repr. 1966), i, 36, 51, 122CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Burton, Richard, A Mission to Gelele, King of Dahome (2 vols.) (London, 1864), ii, 116 n.Google Scholar Later in the nineteenth century, the size of the string was increased to 50 shells, giving the head a value of 2,500: Skertchly, J. A., Dahomey As It Is (London, 1874), 28.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Polanyi, , Dahomey, 92, 159, 168.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Johnson, Marion, ‘The ounce in eighteenth-century West African trade’, J. Afr. Hist., vii (1966), 197–204CrossRefGoogle Scholar; cf. also Law, Robin, ‘The gold trade of Whydah in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries’, in Henige, David and McCaskie, T. C. (eds.), West African Economic and Social History: Studies in Memory of Marion Johnson (Madison, 1990), 105–18.Google Scholar

¹⁶ These changes can be traced in PRO: T70/592–8, Journals, William's Fort, Whydah, 1718–27; also T70/1254, Gold Book, William's Fort, Whydah, 1724–7; see also Law, ‘Gold trade of Whydah’, 114.

¹⁷ This revaluation of gold is documented in PRO: T70/1158–63, Day Books, William's Fort, Whydah, 1751–1812, in which the new value of £8 to the ounce first appears in 1765; cf. also Law, ‘Gold trade’, 113. Indigenous African merchants employed a similar, but not identical valuation of cowries against gold, Muslim merchants in Asante in 1820 reporting the value of a mithqal of gold (two-thirteenths of an ounce) in Dahomey as 4,500 cowries, giving 29,250 to the ounce: Dupuis, Joseph, Journal of a Residence in Ashantee (London, 1824; repr. 1966), cxiv.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁸ Dalzel, , History of Dahomy, 135 n.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Duncan, John, Travels in Western Africa in 1845 and 1846 (2 vols.) (London, 1847; repr. 1968), i, 176; ii, 68, 286Google Scholar; Forbes, , Dahomey and the Dahomans, i, 36, 51, 112.Google Scholar

²⁰ Johnson, ‘Cowrie currencies’, Part 2, 339–41; Hogendorn, and Johnson, , Shell Money, 138–9.Google Scholar

²¹ Burton, , Mission to Gelele, i, 143 n.; ii, 116.Google Scholar

²² Manning, Patrick, Slavery, Colonialism and Economic Growth in Dahomey, 1640–1960 (Cambridge, 1982), 75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²³ Polanyi, , Dahomey, 189Google Scholar; cf. also 187, where the cowry currency is described as ‘centrally issued’.

²⁴ PRO: T70/1475, William Baillie, Whydah, 30 Apr, 1718.

²⁵ Cf. Johnson, ‘Cowrie currencies’, Part 2, 348; Hogendorn, and Johnson, , Shell Money, 146.Google Scholar For the re-export of cowries into the interior, cf. also Law, The Slave Coast, 205.

²⁶ For statistics of cowry imports, see Hogendorn, and Johnson, , Shell Money, 58–63Google Scholar; these figures relate to West Africa as a whole, but the Slave Coast was always the principal consumer.

²⁷ Johnson, ‘Cowrie currencies’, Part 2, 339–41; Hogendorn, and Johnson, , Shell Money, 138–9.Google Scholar

²⁸ Labat, , Voyage du Chevalier des Marchais, ii, 163.Google Scholar The passage is quoted from the original manuscript of this work, whose wording differs from the published version: ‘Journal du voyage de Guinée et Cayenne, par le Chevalier des Marchais’ (Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris: fonds français, Ms 24223), f. 49V. Another account of this period, in fact, gives the value of the tocky as 36 rather than the usual 40 cowries, but without explanation: Archives Nationales, Paris [hereafter, AN]: C6/25, ‘Mémoire concernant la colonie de Juda’, 1722.

²⁹ Dalzel, , History, xii, 214–15Google Scholar; cf. also AN: C6/27, Gourg, ‘Mémoire pour servir d'instruction au Directeur qui me succédera au comptoir de Juda’, Sept. 1791, quoted in Peukert, , Der Atlantische Sklavenhandel, 324.Google Scholar

³⁰ Forbes, , Dahomey, ii, 183–4.Google Scholar Later in the nineteenth century, when the size of the standard ‘string’ was raised to 50, the royal string contained only 40 shells: Skertchly, Dahomey As It Is, 28. Another reported form of price differential in favour of the king (or perhaps an imprecise reference to the same practice) was the existence of ‘royal head’ containing only 40 rather than the standard 50 strings (i.e. 1,600 rather than 2,000 cowries): Burton, , Mission to Gelele, ii, 116 n.Google Scholar

³¹ ‘Journal du voyage du Sieur Delbée’, in de Clodoré, J. (ed.), Relation de ce qui s'est passé dans les Isles et Terre-ferme de l'Amérique, pendant la derniere guerre avec l'Angleterre, et depuis en execution du Traitté de Breda (2 vols.) (Paris, 1671), ii, 439Google Scholar; Bosman, William, A New and Accurate Description of the Coast of Guinea (London, 1705; repr. 1967), 364a.Google Scholar

³² Phillips, Thomas, ‘Journal of a voyage made in the Hannibal of London’, in Churchill, Awnsham and Churchill, John (eds.), Collection of Voyages and Travels (6 vols.) (London, 1732), vi, 217Google Scholar; van Dantzig, Albert (ed.), The Dutch and the Guinea Coast 1674–1742: A Collection of Documents from the General State Archive at The Hague (Accra, 1978), no. 128Google Scholar: van den Broucke, J., ‘Short information about the manner of the Slave Trade’, 10 Nov. 1705.Google Scholar

³³ Jean Barbot, ‘Description des Côtes d'Afrique’ (MS. of 1688, in PRO: ADM7/830), IIIe Partie, 135. Cf. also the published version of this work: Barbot, John, A Description of the Coasts of North and South Guinea (London, 1732), 326.Google Scholar

³⁴ De Chenevert and Abbé Bullet, ‘Réfléxions sur Juda’ (Ms of 1 June 1776, in Archives d'Outre-Mer, Aix-en-Provence: Dépôt des Fortifications des Colonies, Côtes d'Afrique, MS. iii), 48.

³⁵ Forbes, , Dahomey, i, iii.Google Scholar

³⁶ Polanyi, , Dahomey, 151.Google Scholar

³⁷ Polanyi probably follows Barbot, , Description of the Coasts, 360Google Scholar, which is paraphrased from Dapper, Olfert, Naukeurige Beschrijvinge der Afrikaensche Gewesten, 2nd ed. (Amsterdam, 1676), 2nd pagination, 126.Google Scholar

³⁸ Bodleian Library, Oxford: Rawlinson C.745, John Lowe, Whydah, 10 June 1683.

³⁹ Phillips, , ‘Journal’, 217.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Snelgrave, William, A New Account of Some Parts of Guinea (London, 1734; repr. 1971), 73.Google Scholar

⁴¹ van Dantzig, Albert, ‘English Bosman and Dutch Bosman: a comparison of texts, VI’, History in Africa, vii (1980), 286–7Google Scholar [passage omitted in the English edition of Bosman].

⁴² ‘Journal du Voyage du Sieur Delbée’, 410.

⁴³ Van Dantzig, The Dutch and the Guinea Coast, no. 33: Valentyn Gros, Offra, 7 Aug. 1691.

⁴⁴ Bodleian Library, Oxford: Rawlinson C.747, Josiah Pearson, Whydah, 1 Jan. 1699; PRO: T70/5, William Hicks, Whydah, 26 July/4 Nov. 1709; T70/6, William Baillie, Whydah, 25 June 1716.

⁴⁵ ‘Relation du voyage de Guynée fait en 1687 sur le frégate “La Tempeste” par le Sieur Du Casse’, in Roussier, Paul, L'Etablissement d'Issiny 1687–1702 (Paris, 1935), 15.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ PRO: T70/7, Baldwyn, Mabyn and Humphreys, Whydah, 27 Jan. 1724.

⁴⁷ PRO: T70/5, William Baillie, Whydah, 29 June 1716.

⁴⁸ For prices to the mid-eighteenth century, see Law, The Slave Coast, 168–82; and for the second half of the eighteenth century, Peukert, , Der Atlantische Sklavenhandel, 328–32Google Scholar, Cf. also Manning, , Slavery, Colonialism and Economic Growth, 332.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Polanyi, , Dahomey, 166–7.Google Scholar Polanyi links the increase with the introduction of the European convention of valuing goods in Africa at a ‘trade’ value twice their ‘prime’ or European cost, but this seems misconceived, since the increased prices reported were clearly themselves reckoned in prime cost.

⁵⁰ For European proposals for fixed prices in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, see Law, The Slave Coast, 216–17.

⁵¹ Correspondence… relating to the Slave Trade, 1850–1, Part I (House of Commons, London, 1851)Google Scholar: inclosure 3 in no. 198, Lieutenant Forbes to Commodore Fanshawe, 6 Apr. 1850.

⁵² For details of palm oil prices in the nineteenth century, see Reid, John, ‘Warrior aristocrats in crisis: the political effects of the transition from the slave trade to palm oil commerce in the nineteenth century kingdom of Dahomey’ (Ph.D. thesis, University of Stirling, 1986), 160Google Scholar; cf. also Manning, , Slavery, Colonialism and Economic Growth, 332.Google Scholar

⁵³ Law, Robin (ed.), Correspondence from the Royal African Company's Factories at Offra and Whydah on the Slave Coast of West Africa in the Public Record Office, London, 1678–93 (Centre of African Studies, University of Edinburgh, Occasional Paper No. 24, 1990), no. 2Google Scholar: Thomas Clarke and Hugh Elliott, Offra, 20 Nov. 1678.

⁵⁴ AN: C6/25, Pruneau & Guestard, ‘Mémoire pour servir à l'intelligence du commerce de Juda’, 18 March 1750; the material in this document is also repeated in Pruneau, Joseph, Mémoire sur le commerce de la concession du Sénégal (1752), ed. Becker, Charles (Kaolack, 1983), 91–108.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ Polanyi, , Dahomey, 154–69Google Scholar; also his, ‘Sortings and “ounce trade” in the West African slave trade’, J. Afr. Hist., v (1964), 154–69.Google Scholar For criticism and revision of Polanyi's account, see esp. Johnson, ‘The ounce in eighteenth-century West African trade’. For the operation of the ‘ounce trade’ on the Gold Coast to the west, where ounce values appear to have been more variable, cf. Metcalfe, George, ‘Gold, assortments and the trade ounce: Fante merchants and the problem of supply and demand in the 1770s’, J. Afr. Hist., xxviii (1987), 27–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁵⁶ Cf. Peukert, , Der Atlantische Sklavenhandel, 108–19Google Scholar, who suggests that fixed ounce values were introduced for the convenience of Europeans, in contrast to Polanyi's assumption that they represented a European concession to African traditions of fixed prices.

⁵⁷ PRO: T70/1545, Lionel Abson, Whydah, 26 Sept. 1783.

⁵⁸ AN: C6/25, Gourg, ‘Mémoire pour servir d'instruction au Directeur’, Sept. 1791, quoted in Peukert, , Der Atlantische Sklavenhandel, 324.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ AN: C6/27bis, ‘Extrait d'un mémoire relatif à une expédition fait pour la traite des nègres à le Côte d'or’, n.d. quoted Ibid. 325.

⁶⁰ Doublet, Jean, Journal du Corsaire Jean Doublet de Honfleur, ed. Bréard, Charles (Paris, 1883), 258.Google Scholar

⁶¹ N, , Voyages aux côtes de Guinée et en Amérique (Amsterdam, 1719), 127–8.Google Scholar

⁶² Dalzel, , History, 213.Google Scholar

⁶³ Pires, Vicente Ferreira, Viagem de Africa em o Reino de Dahomé, ed. de Lessa, Clado Ribeiro (São Paulo, 1957), 67.Google Scholar

⁶⁴ Duncan, , Travels in Western Africa, ii, 48.Google Scholar Elsewhere Duncan reports that in the interior beyond Mahi (and beyond Dahomian rule) he was asked to pay 12 or even 20 strings for a chicken, although the local price was only 1½ strings: ibid, ii, 82, 98. Duncan's claim to have travelled beyond Dahomian territory appears to be spurious, but some of the details of his alleged experiences there may be based on his real travels in Mahi: see Johnson, Marion, ‘News from nowhere: Duncan and “Adofoodia”’, History in Africa, i (1974), 55–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁶⁵ Forbes, , Dahomey, i, 89–90.Google Scholar

⁶⁶ Herskovits, Melville J., Dahomey: An Ancient West African Kingdom (2 vols.) (New York, 1938), i, 60–2.Google Scholar Another account of ‘traditional’ markets in the Dahomey region, based on fieldwork in the 1950s, differs from Herskovits in several respects, including its treatment of prices, but is mainly based on a place (Mitro, north of Porto-Novo) which was outside the historical kingdom of Dahomey: Claudine and Claude Tardits, ‘Traditional market economy in South Dahomey’, in Bohannan, and Dalton, , Markets in Africa, 89–102.Google Scholar

⁶⁷ Polanyi, , Dahomey, 49.Google Scholar

⁶⁸ Ibid. 50.

⁶⁹ Burton, , Mission, i, 77; ii, 242.Google Scholar

⁷⁰ Polanyi, , Dahomey, 49–40.Google Scholar

⁷¹ Burton, , Mission, ii, 242.Google Scholar

⁷² Doublet, , Journal, 258.Google Scholar

⁷³ Bosman, , New and Accurate Description, 297–8.Google Scholar In Senegambia also, corn prices fluctuated ‘depending on the rainfall’: Curtin, Philip D., Economic Change in Precolonial Africa: Senegambia in the Era of the Atlantic Slave Trade (2 vols.) (Madison, 1975), i, 169.Google Scholar

⁷⁴ PRO: T70/66, Instruction to Ambrose Baldwyn, Whydah, 1 Nov. 1720.

⁷⁵ Polanyi, , Dahomey, 91.Google Scholar Polanyi, indeed, claims that because of the effectiveness of Dahomian economic administration, food shortages seldom occurred, and in particular that ‘there is scarcely any record of famine throughout Dahomey's history’: Ibid. 37–8. This ignores the account of ‘a great scarcity of provisions’ in the early 1780s by Dalzel, , History, 178.Google Scholar Dahomey was again reported to be ‘in a state of starvation’ in 1809: PRO, T70/1163, Day Book, William's Fort, Whydah, 10 July 1809.

⁷⁶ Bosman, , Description, 382.Google Scholar

⁷⁷ Law, Robin (ed.), Correspondence of the Royal African Company's Chief Merchants at Cabo Corso Castle with William's Fort, Whydah, and the Little Popo Factory, 1727–8 (African Studies Program, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1991), no. 22Google Scholar: Thomas Wilson, Whydah, 12 July 1728.

⁷⁸ AN: C6/25, Dayrie, Jakin, 12 Aug. 1728.

⁷⁹ De Chenevert and Bullet, ‘Réfléxions sur Juda’, 32.

⁸⁰ Polanyi, , Dahomey, 91.Google Scholar

⁸¹ Duncan, , Travels, ii, 68.Google Scholar Duncan also says that the ‘head’ of cowries in Mahi contained only 47 strings, and the string only 33 shells, giving a head of only 1,551 cowries, as opposed to the 2,000-shell head (of 50 strings of 40 cowries each) standard in metropolitan Dahomey. This may suggest that price differentials were in part accommodated by manipulating the unit of payment, so that nominal prices remained the same: for parallel instances elsewhere in West Africa, cf. Johnson, ‘Cowrie currencies’, Part 1, 45–6; Hogendorn, and Johnson, , Shell Money, 122–3.Google Scholar However, the price of 1½ strings for a chicken in the interior reported by Duncan (cf. note 64 above) was also well below the price in Dahomey itself at this period.

⁸² Forbes, , Dahomey, i, 58, 110.Google Scholar

⁸³ Alternatively, however, it may be that the price of 250 cowries at Allada was a conventional or ‘normal’ figure, and that actual prices were currently significantly higher. Forbes himself in 1850 reported complaints that poultry had become ‘dear’: ibid, ii, 102.

⁸⁴ The tendency of cowry values to appreciate from the coast towards the interior is well attested, although normally discussed in terms of the exchange value of cowries against gold or silver rather than of local prices: see esp. Johnson, , ‘Cowrie currencies’, Part 2, 331–45Google Scholar; Hogendorn, and Johnson, , Shell Money, 129–43.Google Scholar

⁸⁵ Burton, , Mission, ii, 243.Google Scholar

⁸⁶ A possible explanation is that levels of taxation of the palm oil trade in Dahomey were reportedly increasing in the years before 1864: cf. e.g. Vallon, F., ‘Le Royaume de Dahomey’, 2 parts, Revue Maritime et Coloniale, iii (1861), Part 1, 357.Google Scholar This involved a transfer of wealth from Whydah, where oil production was mainly concentrated, to the capital Abomey; and if taxes were levied in cowries and disbursed in royal largesse and expenditure rather than hoarded this might account for the inflation reported by Burton.

⁸⁷ Polanyi, , Dahomey, 81.Google Scholar

⁸⁸ Ibid. 85.

⁸⁹ For supporting documentation and argument, see Law, ‘Computing domestic prices’ 248–50.

⁹⁰ Polanyi, , Dahomey, 50.Google Scholar

⁹¹ Johnson, , ‘Cowrie currencies’, Part 2, 347–81Google Scholar; Hogendorn, and Johnson, , Shell Money, 145.Google Scholar

⁹² Leers, Arnout, Pertinente Beschryvinnge van Afrika (Rotterdam, 1665), 311Google Scholar; for the exchange rate between manillas and cowries, cf. Ibid. 308. The value given for manillas is surprisingly low; but for defence of its accuracy, cf. Law,‘Computing domestic prices’.

⁹³ Phillips, , ‘Journal’, 221.Google Scholar

⁹⁴ Bosman, , Description, 390Google Scholar (translating six stuivers inaccurately into six pence).

⁹⁵ AN: C6/25, ‘Estat ou mémoire de la dépense nécessaire pour relever ce fort de Juda et pour l'entretien de ses directeurs et employés’, encl. to Du Colombier, Whydah, 10 Aug. 1714.

⁹⁶ Atkins, , Voyage to Guinea, 112.Google Scholar

⁹⁷ AN: C6/25, Levet, Whydah, 25 Feb. 1744; Conseil de Direction, Whydah, 18 Dec. 1752.

⁹⁸ Forbes, , Dahomey, i, 58; ii, 110.Google Scholar At Whydah, Forbes confusingly gives two prices, 280 cowries for a ‘fowl’ and 200 for a ‘chicken’: while this may possibly allude to different varieties of poultry, it is more likely that Forbes misunderstood a reference to the obsolete currency unit of the ‘galina’ or ‘hen’ of 200 cowries as referring to the actual price of hens.

⁹⁹ Burton, , Mission, ii, 243.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁰ Bosman, , New and Accurate Descriptions, 389.Google Scholar

¹⁰¹ Phillips, , ‘Journal’, 221.Google Scholar

¹⁰² PRO: T70/1243. Accounts, Whydah Factory, 1698–1700. The equivalencies proposed in the text give a single rangoe a value of 80 cowries. A few years later, rangoes were somewhat dearer than this, selling for 100 cowries each: T70/592, Journal, William's Fort, Whydah, 26 Aug. 1719.

¹⁰³ AN: C6/25, ‘Estat ou mémoire de la dépense nécessaire pour relever ce fort de Juda’, 1714; Atkins, , Voyage to Guinea, 112.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁴ AN: C6/25, Levet, Whydah, 25 Feb. 1744.

¹⁰⁵ Forbes, , Dahomey, i, 110.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁶ Burton, , Mission, ii, 243.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁷ Van Dantzig, The Dutch, no. 15: Instruction for Willem de la Palma, 8 Dec. 1685; no. 17: Isaac van Hoolwerff, Offra, 8 Dec. 1686.

¹⁰⁸ For argument in favour of the more indirect method of computation (which is adopted in the remainder of this article), see Law, ‘Computing domestic prices’, 251–2.

¹⁰⁹ Phillips, , ‘Journal’, 221.Google Scholar

¹¹⁰ PRO: T70/1243, Accounts, Whydah Factory, 1698–1700.

¹¹¹ Atkins, , Voyage to Guinea, 112.Google Scholar Valuations of pigs in terms of gold in English factory accounts of the 1720s give much higher figures than Atkins, e.g. 5 pigs at 1 oz. 6 ackies (1⅜oz.), worth £5. 10s, suggesting an average of £1. 2s (22 shillings) per pig: PRO, T70/595, Journal, William's Fort, Whydah, Apr. 1725. The precise relationship between such valuations against gold and prices in cowries in the local market is unclear, however.

¹¹² Prices for pork cited later tend to be given per pound rather than per animal: e.g. Forbes, , Dahomey, i, 10.Google Scholar

¹¹³ Burton in 1864, perhaps by an error, aberrantly says that sheep were half the price of goats: Mission, ii, 243.

¹¹⁴ ‘Relation du Royaume de Judas en Guinée’ (Ms of c. 1714, in Archives d'Outre-Mer, Aix-en-Provence: Dépôt des Fortifications des Colonies, ms. 104), 51; Burton, , Mission, i, 136.Google Scholar

¹¹⁵ For the capacity of the ‘chest’, see Phillips, , ‘Journal’, 208.Google Scholar The capacity of the pot is inferred from comparative prices given in gallons and pots in PRO: T70/593, Journal, William's Fort, Whydah, Sept.–Oct. 1724. A pot of five gallons was still used for palm oil within Dahomey in the nineteenth century, although it was then more normally exported in measures of 18 gallons: cf. Burton, , Mission, i, 143 n.Google Scholar; Skertchly, , Dahomey, 33.Google Scholar

¹¹⁶ Leers, , Pertinente Beschrijvinge, 310.Google Scholar

¹¹⁷ In purchasing slaves an iron bar was at this time equivalent to 10 lbs of cowries, or 4,000 (a slave costing 10 bars or 100 lbs of cowries), but it is probable that (as was certainly the case in the later seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries) the relative purchasing power of the bar in domestic markets was less than in slave purchases: see further Law, ‘Computing domestic prices’, 248–50.

¹¹⁸ Law, Correspondence from the Royal African Company's Factories at Offra and Whydah, no. 5: ‘Invoyce of goods most in demand at Arda factory’, 15 Jan. 1681; Van Dantzig, The Dutch, no. 15: Instruction for Willem de la Palma, 8 Dec. 1685.

¹¹⁹ PRO: T70/1243, Accounts, Whydah Factory, 1698–1700.

¹²⁰ AN: C6/25, Dayrie, Jakin, 12 Aug. 1728.

¹²¹ Law, Correspondence from the Royal African Company's Factories at Offra and Whydah, no. 5: ‘Invoyce of goods’, 15 Jan. 1681.

¹²² PRO: T70/1243, Accounts, Whydah Factory, 1698–1700.

¹²³ Van Dantzig, The Dutch, no. 15: Instruction for Willem de la Palma, 8 Dec. 1685; no. 17: Isaac van Hoolwerff, Offra, 8 Dec. 1686. For the famine at this time, cf. Ibid. nos. 18–19: Isaac van Hoolwerff, Offra, 31 Jan. & 2 Apr. 1687, reporting ‘great scarcity of wheat’. The cause of the famine is not indicated, but if it was drought this would have affected palm oil yields also.

¹²⁴ PRO: T70/593, Journals, William's Fort, Whydah, Nov. 1722, Jan. 1723.

¹²⁵ PRO: T70/1158, Day Books, William's Fort, Whydah, 1752–4. In 1754 the price of oil was recorded as 2 pots for 30 lbs of cowries, the latter figure presumably also standing for 3 grand cabess.

¹²⁶ Leers, , Pertinente Beschrijvinge, 308.Google Scholar

¹²⁷ Cf. e.g. Phillips, , ‘Journal’, 215.Google Scholar

¹²⁸ Law, Correspondence from the Royal African Company's Factories at Offra and Whydah, no. 5: ‘Invoyce of goods’, 15 Jan. 1681; Bosman, , New and Accurate Description, 364aGoogle Scholar (translating as six to eight pence).

¹²⁹ Phillips, , ‘Journal’, 222–3.Google Scholar

¹³⁰ AN: C6/25, ‘Estat ou mémoire de la dépense nécessaire pour relever de fort de Juda’, 1714; ‘Mémoire de l'estat du pays de Juda et de son négoce’, 1716; ‘Mémoire concernant la colonie de Juda’, 1722.

¹³¹ PRO: T70/1158–9, Day Books, William's Fort, Whydah, 1751–62. These sums were normally paid in cowries, at the ‘trade’ rate of 2s. to the lb. (400), or £1 to 11 lbs (4,000).

¹³² AN: C6/25, Pruneau and Guestard, ‘Mémoire pour servir à l'intelligence du commerce de Juda’, 18 March 1750.

¹³³ PRO: T70/1159–63, Day Books, William's Fort, Whydah, 1763–1812. For a brief period in 1775–8, when the factory adopted the practice of valuing the cowries paid in wages at prime cost (1s 3d per lb.) rather than at their ‘trade’ price, male labourers' pay was reckoned at 11s 3d per month, i.e. 9 lbs of cowries (3,600), or 120 per day (while women received 7s 6d per month, or 80 per day); but from 1779 they reverted to the earlier rates of 15s trade for men and 10s for women at zs to the lb. of cowries, i.e. 80 and 67 cowries per day.

¹³⁴ Donnan, Elizabeth, Documents Illustrative of the History of the Slave Trade to America (4 vols.) (New York, 1930–1935), ii, no. 252Google Scholar: Customs imposed at Whydah, 1767; Accounts of the ship he Dahomet, 1773, in Berbain, Simone, Le comptoir français de Juda (Ouidah) au XVIIe siècle (Paris, 1942; repr. Amsterdam, 1968), 124.Google Scholar These accounts, however, do not distinguish as clearly as that of 1750 between wages and subsistence rates.

¹³⁵ Dalzel, , History, xxi.Google Scholar At 10s to the grand cabess, two tockies was actually equivalent to 22/5 pence.

¹³⁶ Forbes, , Dahomey, i, 52, 122.Google Scholar

¹³⁷ Ibid, i, 122; ii, 80.

¹³⁸ Burton, , Mission, ii, 244.Google Scholar

¹³⁹ Forbes, , Dahomey, ii, 81.Google Scholar

¹⁴⁰ Burton, , Mission, i, 120.Google Scholar

¹⁴¹ Ibid, ii, 242, 244.

¹⁴² Ibid, i, 136 n.; ii, 4 n.

¹⁴³ Ibid, ii, 221.

¹⁴⁴ Bosman, , Description, 215Google Scholar; ‘Relation du Royaume de Judas’, 48; Burton, , Mission, ii, 221.Google Scholar

¹⁴⁵ Burton, , Mission, ii, 221.Google Scholar

¹⁴⁶ Leers, , Pertinente Beschrijvinge, 311Google Scholar; Labat, , Voyage du Chevalier des Marchais, ii, 95.Google Scholar

¹⁴⁷ AN: C6/25, Pruneau and Guestard, ‘Mémoire pour servir à l'intelligence du commerce de Juda’, 18 March 1750; Donnan, , Documents, ii, no. 252Google Scholar: Customs imposed at Whydah, 1767; Accounts of he Dahomet, 1773, in Berbain, , Le comptoir français de Juda, 124.Google Scholar

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¹⁴⁹ Leers, , Pertinente Beschrijvinge, 310Google Scholar; ‘Journal du voyage du Sieur Delbée’, 404.

¹⁵⁰ Bosman, , Description, 343Google Scholar (mistranslating as 8 to 12 pence).

¹⁵¹ Labat, , Voyage du Chevalier des Marchais, ii, 95.Google Scholar

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¹⁵⁴ Manning, Patrick, ‘Merchants, porters, and canoemen in the Bight of Benin: links in the West African trade network’, in Coquery-Vidrovitch, Catherine and Lovejoy, Paul E. (eds.), The Workers of West African Trade (London, 1985), 61.Google Scholar One franc was equivalent to about 9 English pence, or three-quarters of a shilling, while the head (2,000 cowries) of cowries (as noted earlier) was now valued at one shilling. If, however, the head was reckoned at 2,500 rather than 2,000 cowries (cf. above, note 13), a franc would be equivalent to 1,875 rather than 1,500 cowries.

¹⁵⁵ Labat, , Voyage de Chevalier des Marchais, ii, 95Google Scholar; AN: C6/25, Pruneau & Guestard, ‘Mémoire pour servir a l'intelligence du commerce de Juda’, 18 March 1750; Donnan, Documents, ii, no. 252: Customs imposed at Whydah, 1767; Accounts of Le Dahomet, 1773 in Berbain, , Le comptoir français de Juda, 124.Google Scholar

¹⁵⁶ PRO: T70/1159–61, Day Books, William's Fort, Whydah, 1762–76. This increase in wages may have been temporary only, as was the corresponding increase in payments to factory slaves (cf. above, note 133), but since no details of free labourers' pay are recorded after 1776 this is uncertain.

¹⁵⁷ Forbes, , Dahomey, i, 122.Google Scholar

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¹⁵⁹ AN: C6/25, Delisle, Dahomey, 13 Sept. 1728.

¹⁶⁰ PRO: CO2/15, Journal of Hugh Clapperton, 3 Dec. 1825.

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¹⁷⁰ Miller, Joseph C., Way of Death: Merchant Capitalism and the Angolan Slave Trade 1730–1830 (London, 1988).Google Scholar