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“Central and Eastern Wangara:” An Indigenous West African Perception of the Political and Economic Geography of the Slave Coast as Recorded by Joseph Dupuis in Kumasi, 1820

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 May 2014

Robin Law
Robin Law*
Affiliation:
University of Stirling
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Extract

The mission of Joseph Dupuis, sent as British Consul to Kumasi, the capital of Asante, in 1820, is well known, principally through his own journal of it, published in 1824. In addition to his negotiations with the Asante authorities, Dupuis collected information on Asante history, and on the geography not only of Asante itself but also of neighboring and remoter countries in the interior—the latter presented in Part II of his Journal, entitled “On the Geography of Western Africa” [I-CXV]. His principal informants on both Asante history and West African geography were African Muslims whom he met in Kumasi, and with whom he was able to converse in Arabic. The geographical information was transmitted in part in the form of Arabic manuscripts, some (or perhaps all) of which Dupuis presented, in transcription and translation, in an appendix of “geographical documents” [cxxiv-cxxxv]; but supplementary information was obtained orally in conversations, some passages from which Dupuis purports to reproduce verbatim [XLII-XLIV].

The information which Dupuis obtained can usefully be compared with similar (but, as regards the interior, generally less extensive) material collected by Edward Bowdich on an earlier mission to Kumasi in 1817. Dupuis himself was frequently critical of alleged inaccuracies and confusions in Bowdich's account, though not always with justification. It is noteworthy that he read over at least one section of Bowdich's account to his informants in Kumasi, to obtain their comments on it [XVIII]—an interesting illustration of the potential for interaction between written texts and oral information in Africa even in precolonial times, in a manner more complex than that of “feedback” from written into oral data most commonly discussed by historians.

Type
Research Article
Information
History in Africa , Volume 22 , January 1995 , pp. 281 - 305
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1995

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References

Notes

1. Dupuis, Joseph, Journal of a Residence in Ashanlee (London, 1824; reprinted, with an Introduction by W.E.F. Ward, 1966).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2. Page references given within square brackets in the text are to Dupuis, Journal. Upper-case Roman numerals relate to Part II of the main text, lower-case Roman numerals to the Appendix.

3. For the Muslim community in Asante see especially Wilks, Ivor, “The Position of Muslims in Metropolitan Ashanti in the Nineteenth Century,” in Lewis, I.M., ed., Islam in Tropical Africa (London, 1966), 318–41Google Scholar; Levtzion, Nehemia, Muslims and Chiefs in West Africa: A Study of Islam in the Middle Volta Basin in the Pre-Colonial Period (Oxford, 1968), 181–87.Google Scholar

4. Dupuis' wording [XVIn] implies that these represent all, rather than a selection, of the manuscripts he collected. They comprise six separate documents (though Dupuis, by subdividing two of them, creates the impression that there are eight). Some similar manuscript material from Kumasi was collected and published earlier by Bowdich, T. Edward, A Mission from Cape Coast Castle to Ashantee (London, 1819), 484–92.Google Scholar

5. Ibid., Part II, Chapter 1, 161-227, on “Geography.”

6. For example, Bowdich, , Mission, 208, 211Google Scholar, listed places on a route between Parakou and Kaiama (in Borgu) called “Goodoobirree,” “Gillimakafoo,” “Garagaroogee,” “Paangee”–which Dupuis claimed had “no existence” [XXIII]. But two at least of these names can be identified with villages in this region which still exist today (“Goodoobirree,” “Garagaroogee”=Godeberi, Bwaregurji); Dupuis himself, in fact, elsewhere alludes to the first of these, in a slightly different form (“Khodobari”), without realizing that this was a variant of the same name [XVIII, XLIII]. Dupuis evidently fell into this error through checking Bowdich's account with informants from Nupe [“if the natives of Nooffee or Noufy are to be believed,” XXIII], rather than from the relevant area, Borgu.

7. See especially Henige, David, “The Problem of Feedback in Oral Tradition: Four Examples From the Fante Coastlands,” JAH 14 (1973), 223–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8. Wilks, Ivor, “The Rise of Ashanti: A Nineteenth-Century Moslem View.” The Northern Factor in Ashanti History (Legon, 1961), Part III, 30-43.Google Scholar

9. Wilks, Ivor, Asante in the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge, 1973), 44-47, 54–58.Google Scholar Wilks also draws upon Dupuis in his analysis of the “great roads” radiating from Kumasi into neighboring countries: ibid., 1-18.

10. Wilks, Ivor, “Asante Policy Towards the Hausa Trade in the Nineteenth Century,” in Meillassoux, Claude, ed., The Development of Indigenous Trade and Markets in West Africa (London, 1971), 121–41Google Scholar; Lovejoy, Paul, Caravans of Kola: The Hausa Kola Trade, 1700-1900 (Zaria, 1980).Google Scholar

11. Levtzion, Muslims and Chiefs.

12. Dupuis' material relating specifically to the Yoruba kingdom of Oyo is included (with some attempt at critical commentary), in Law, Robin, ed., Contemporary Source Material for the History of the Old Oyo Empire, 1627-1824 (Ibadan, 1993), 82–85.Google Scholar

13. Cf. the observation of W.E.F. Ward, in his Preface to the 1966 reprint of Dupuis, 5, that he forebore to comment in detail on its geographical sections because “nobody would be interested except the few specialists who study the growth of geographical knowledge in Europe.”

14. Especially the missions of Denham, Oudney, and Clapperton to Borno and Hausaland in 1822-24; and of Clapperton and Lander to Oyo, Borgu, Nupe, and Hausaland in 1825-27.

15. Definitions of the “Slave Coast” varied, and sometimes excluded Benin to the east: for discussion, cf. Law, Robin, The Slave Coast of West Africa, 1550-1750 (Oxford, 1991), 13–14.Google Scholar

16. In another passage Dupuis [VI] speaks of informants from Salaga, Yendi, Nikki (in Borgu), and “Kook [unidentified, but also in Borgu].”

17. Bowdich, , Mission, 210.Google Scholar

18. For this person, see Wilks, , Northern Factor, 30–31Google Scholar; also Wilks, Ivor, Levtzion, Nehemia, and Haight, Bruce M., trans, and eds., Chronicles From Gonja: A Tradition of West African Muslim historiography (Cambridge, 1986), 203–04.Google Scholar

19. Wilks, , Northern Factor, 31.Google Scholar But Dupuis himself lists “Kambah” among the states of “Killinga,” i.e. Borgu [LXXXV]. It may be identical with a “Gamba” or “Khamba” mentioned by Bowdich earlier as situated on the route between Kaiama (in southern Borgu) and Yoruba (Oyo): Mission, 485 (cf. also Dupuis, , Journal, XVIIIGoogle Scholar).

20. For this person see Wilks, , “The Position of Muslims,” 323–24Google Scholar, and Levtzion, , Muslims and Chiefs, 183–84.Google Scholar

21. Bowdich, , Mission, 205, 490–92Google Scholar (on the route from Dagomba through Borno to Egypt). Ibrahim also claimed to have been at Bussa at the time of Mungo Park's death there in 1806, and supplied a written account in Arabic of this incident: ibid., 397, 478-81.

22. Ibid., 296.

23. Later, in 1845, there is record of an Asante ambassador at Abomey, the capital of Dahomey: Duncan, John, Travels in Western Africa (2 vols.: London, 1847), 1:234–38.Google Scholar For Asante-Dahomey relations, see further Wilks, , Asante in the Nineteenth Century, 322–24Google Scholar; also Boahen, Adu, “Asante-Dahomey Contacts in the Nineteenth Century,” Ghana Notes and Queries 7 (1965), 1–3Google Scholar; and, in a wider regional perspective, Law, Robin, “Dahomey and the North-West,” Cahiers du Centre de Recherches Africaines (Paris), 8 (1994), 149–67.Google Scholar

24. See generally Law, Robin, “Islam in Dahomey: a Case Study of the Introduction and Influence of Islam in a Peripheral Area of West Africa,” Scottish Journal of Religious Studies 7 (1986), 95–122.Google Scholar

25. For Oyo's northern trade, and northern Muslims in Oyo, see further Law, Robin, The Oyo Empire, c.1600-c.1836 (Oxford, 1977), esp. 213-14, 256–57.Google Scholar

26. Robertson, G.A., Notes on Africa (London, 1819), 287.Google Scholar

27. Landolphe, J. F., Mémoires du Capitaine Landolphe (2 vols.: Paris, 1823), 2:86.Google Scholar

28. Dupuis himself noted the correspondence between “Wangara” and “Guinea” [XLIV].

29. Law, Robin, “The Northern Factor in Yoruba History” in Proceedings of the Conference on Yoruba Civilization held at the University of Ife, Ile-Ife, Nigeria, from the 28th to 31st July, 1976 (2 vols.: Ife, 1977), 1:105.Google Scholar

30. For “Tonouma,” cf. Wilks, , Northern Factor, 42n1.Google Scholar

31. The “Wangara Moslems” seem here to be distinguished from those of “Haoussa, Killinga [Borgu], and Dagomba.”

32. For a general discussion see Bovill, E.W., The Golden Trade of the Moors (2nd ed.: London, 1968), 119–31Google Scholar; and for a recent contribution, cf. McIntosh, Susan Keech, “A Reconsideration of Wangara/Palolus, Island of Gold,” JAH 22 (1981), 145–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

33. Bowdich, , Mission, 206.Google Scholar He notes in a footnote, however, that William Hutchison, another member of the 1817 mission (who remained in Kumasi after Bowdich's departure) reported that “Wangara is the name of a region comprehending Mosee [Mossi], Kong, and other neighbouring countries south of the Niger”—suggesting an even more extensive area than Dupuis had attributed to it.

34. Bovill, , Golden Trade, 122.Google Scholar

35. Lovejoy, Paul, “The Role of Wangara in the Economic Transformation of the Central Sudan in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries,” JAH 19 (1978), 173–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

36. Levtzion, , Muslims and Chiefs, 21.Google Scholar

37. Lovejoy, , Caravans of Kola, 34.Google Scholar

38. Wilks, , Northern Factor, 35, 38n2.Google Scholar

39. Frobenius, Leo, The Voice of Africa (London, 1913), 2: 367-68, 619.Google Scholar

40. Dupuis later notes that “some” recognized a further “section,” the “kingdom of Melly [i.e. Mali]” [LXXXVI].

41. E.g., Clapperton, Hugh, Journal of a Second Expedition Into the Interior of Africa (London, 1829), 4.Google Scholar

42. Bowdich, , Mission, 209–10.Google Scholar Bowdich himself thought that the name “Yoruba” had been recorded earlier, in information collected by Simon Lucas in Tripoli in 1789; but the “Yarba” mentioned there was clearly Yagaba in northern Ghana: Proceedings of the Association for Promoting the Discovery of the Interior Parts of Africa (London, 1810), 1: 221.Google Scholar Note, however, another reference, in material recorded in Tunis around the same time, to a trade route running from North Africa via “Kassina [Katsina]” “Giauri [Yauri],” “Burgu [Borgu],” and “Gabba [?cf. Gamba, above, note 19]” to a place on the Atlantic coast called “Giorback,” which might well be a miscopying of “Giorbah,: i.e., Yoruba: Report of Robert Traill (1789),” in Hallett, Robin, ed., Records of the African Association, 1788-1831 (London, 1964), 83.Google Scholar

43. See further Law, Oyo Empire, 4-7.

44. See especially the journal of Friedrich Hornemann (1799-1800) in Bovill, E.W., ed., Missions to the Niger (2 vols.: London, 1964), 1:119Google Scholar; cf. also Lyon, G.F., A Narrative of Travels in Northern Africa (London, 1819), 148.Google Scholar

45. Bowdich, , Mission, 202–03Google Scholar; cf. also the Arabic manuscripts quoted ibid., 485, 489.

46. Described, e.g., by Denham, Dixon and Clapperton, Hugh, Narrative of Travels and Discoveries in North and Central Africa (London, 1826)Google Scholar, Clapperton's Narrative, 32.

47. Dupuis also mentions “Rakka,” but seems to displace it eastward, towards Lake Chad.

48. The name also appears in earlier reports, which, however, regarded it as an alternative name for the Niger itself: Hornemann, in Bovill, , Missions to the Niger, 1:119 (“Julbi”)Google Scholar; Lyon, , Narrative, 142, 148 (“Goulbi”).Google Scholar

49. Dupuis himself elsewhere refers explicitly to this lagoon route—but probably on the basis of information collected at the coast rather than in Kumasi: “There is, moreover, an open navigation, by means of these rivers and lakes, extending from the city of Benin westward to the Volta, crossing the Cradoo [Ikorodu] lake, the Lagos, passing Porto Nova, Whydah, Popo, and Cape St Paul” [LV].

50. Bowdich, , Mission, 485.Google Scholar

51. Dupuis' informants, however, may possibly have conflated the Moshi, a tributary of the Niger which flowed between Wawa/Kaiama to the north and Godeberi/Oyo to the south, with the Ogun.

52. The term bahr kebir, “great water,” was commonly applied to the Niger; cf. “the great waters,” “the great sea” in Dupuis, evidently translating this term [109, XCIII. Cf. also the parallel uncertainty over whether Chad was the name of a river or a lake, reflected, e.g., in Lyon, , Narrative, 125.Google Scholar

53. Bowdich, , Mission, 172.Google Scholar

54. Public Record Office, London, CO2/11: G.A. Robertson, Cape Coast Castle, 2 September 1820.

55. At the equivalence of 13 mithqals to 2 ounces of gold given by Dupuis [XCIII], this gives 29,250 cowries to the ounce of gold, as against 32,000 to the ounce reported in European sources: see further 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: Essays in Memory of Marion Johnson (Madison, 1990), 105–18.Google Scholar

56. Wilks, , Northern Factor, 24–25Google Scholar, interprets this passage as referring to Asante itself rather than Dahomey, but this is acknowledged to be an error in his more recent work, Asante in the Nineteenth Century, 256n84.

57. See further Law, “Islam in Dahomey,” 102-03.

58. Forbes, Frederick E., Dahomey and the Dahomans (2 vols.: London, 1851), 1:15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

59. E.g., ibid., 1:14 et passim.

60. See especially Smith, Robert, “Yoruba armament,” JAH, 8 (1967), 87–106CrossRefGoogle Scholar; also, for horses/cavalry in Oyo, Law, Robin, “A West African cavalry state: the kingdom of Oyo,” JAH, 16 (1975), 1–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

61. Referring to Dalzel, Archibald, The History of Dahomy (London, 1793).Google Scholar

62. Bowdich, , Mission, 208–10.Google Scholar

63. Ibid., 223-26.

64. Ibid., 491-92. Itineraries in Dupuis also include “Ghado” in Borgu, but place it east rather than west of Nikki, on the road between Nikki and Yauri [CV, cxxv].

65. Johnson, Samuel, The History of the Yorubas (London, 1921), 217.Google Scholar “Ogodo” may have been the Yoruba name of Raka, mentioned earlier: for discussion see Law, , Oyo Empire, 211–12.Google Scholar

66. Dupuis further asserts that the northern Muslims had, in fact, taken the Dahomian capital “on former occasions.” This may involve confusion with Oyo, whose forces had invaded Dahomey on several occasions in the first half of the eighteenth century, but Dahomian tradition does also recall a war against the “Baribas,” i.e. Borgu, during the reign of Tegbesu (1740-74), which may be alluded to here: Herissé, A. Le, L'ancien royaume du Dahomey (Paris, 1911), 302–03.Google Scholar

67. For a summary see Cornevin, Robert, Histoire du Dahomey (Paris, 1962), 191–95.Google Scholar

68. For details and documentation see Law, , Oyo Empire, 261–65.Google Scholar