Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T09:09:57.396Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Change and Continuity in the British palm oil trade with West Africa, 1830–55

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

Martin Lynn
Martin Lynn
Affiliation:
The Queen's University, Belfast
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The utilization of a relatively unused source, the Customs Bills of Entry, enables the structure of the British side of the West African palm oil trade to be studied in detail. Three main developments emerged in the period from 1830 to 1855 when the introduction of regular steamer services radically altered the trade. Firstly, Liverpool's pre-eminence as the main British palm oil port began to be challenged by Bristol and London; secondly, Britain's reliance on the Niger Delta as a source of supply appears to have proportionately declined, and thirdly, new traders entered the trade, especially after 1840, and challenged the hegemony of the older, established merchants. These structural changes suggest that the organization of the British side of the oil trade, hitherto controlled by a few large Liverpool traders, was breaking down from the 1840s and that this contributed to increased tension and rivalry among British traders in West Africa. This in turn helps to explain the development of the aggressive behaviour between British traders and African middlemen, noted in the Niger Delta in the 1860s, which led to the subsequent appeals for British imperial intervention.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 22 , Issue 3 , July 1981 , pp. 331 - 348
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1981

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1 Stilliard, N., ‘The Rise and Development of Legitimate Trade in Palm Oil with West Africa’ (unpublished M.A. thesis, University of Birmingham, 1938)Google Scholar; Dike, K. O., Trade and Politics in the Niger Delta 1830–85 (Oxford, 1956)Google Scholar; Gertzel, C., ‘John Holt: a British Merchant in West Africa in the era of Imperialism’ (unpublished D.Phil, thesis, University of Oxford, 1959Google Scholar); Gertzel, C., ‘Commercial Organization on the Niger Coast 1852–91’, Proceedings of the Leverhulme Intercollegiate History Conference (Salisbury, 1960)Google Scholar; Newbury, C. W., ‘Prices and Profitability in Early 19th Century West African Trade’, in Meillassoux, C. (ed.), The Development of Indigenous Trade and Markets in West Africa (London, 1971)Google Scholar; Hopkins, A. G., An Economic History of West Africa (London, 1973)Google Scholar; Latham, A. J. H., Old Calabar 1600–1891 (Oxford, 1973)Google Scholar; Pedler, F., The Lion and the Unicorn in Africa (London, 1974)Google Scholar; Northrup, D., ‘The Compatibility of the Slave and Palm Oil Trades in the Bight of Biafra’, J. Afr. Hist., xvii (1976), 353–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Northrup, D., Trade without Rulers (Oxford, 1978).Google Scholar

2 Among the few exceptions are Drake, B.K., ‘Liverpool's Trade with Africa’ (unpublished M.A. thesis, University of Liverpool, 1974)Google Scholar; Drake, B. K., ‘Continuity and Flexibility in Liverpool's Trade’, Business History, xviii (1976)Google Scholar; Latham, A.J.H., ‘A Trading Alliance: Sir John Tobin and Duke Ephraim’, History Today, xxiv (1974)Google Scholar; Davies, P. N., Trading in West Africa 1840–1920, (London, 1976)Google Scholar; Clough, R. G., Oil Rivers Trader (London, 1972)Google Scholar.

3 The author is extremely grateful to Mr R. Craig of University College, London, for telling him of the existence of the Customs Bills of Entry. He is also indebted to Dr A. Porter of Kings College, London, for help with this paper, and to Mr A. Parsons, and Mrs I. Ogunsulire for help with the statistics.

4 Carson, E., ‘The Customs Bills of Entry’, Journal of Maritime History, i (1971).Google Scholar

5 Stilliard, thesis, 6–12, 185.

6 And 400 tons from elsewhere. For these developments: Stilliard, thesis, 13–42.

7 For the later part of the century: Gertzel, thesis, 203–6; Pedler, op.cit., 148–57; Hopkins, , Economic History, 198–200.Google Scholar

8 Newbury, ‘Prices and Profitability…’, 91–4, 100–1; Latham, , Old Calabar, 69–73Google Scholar, feels it is a myth that profits were excessive. John Clarke, a Baptist Missionary on Fernando Po in the 1840s, gives an interesting breakdown of the finances of a palm oil voyage in his Journal: First Journey to Africa, vol. II: 22 February 1842, Baptist Missionary Society. He interviewed the master of the ‘Mary’ in 1842 who had brought 50 tons of gunpowder, 1,000 muskets and 1,600 pieces of cloth to Bonny and had received in return 480 tons of palm oil. At £30 a ton, the master estimated a return of £14,400 on the oil. From this £2,000 ‘sailing expenses’ had to be deducted, £700 insurance, and £12,000 for the original goods. This totalled £14,700 and thus would give a loss of £300 on the voyage. The master, however, expected a much higher price than £30 a ton due to the hard winter in Russia disrupting tallow supplies, and thus estimated a £800 profit on the voyage: he had personally, he said, made a profit of £1,050 on the previous voyage when the price stood at £42.

9 Hopkins, , Economic History, 132–3.Google Scholar Prices varied from area to area with the quality of the oil, but the pattern of a plateau in the 1850s is fairly general. See also Latham, A. J. H., ‘Price Fluctuations in the Early Palm Oil Trade’, J. Afr. Hist., xix (1978), 213–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10 The Benin River evolved an agent system at an early date; Harrison was the trader involved: Beecroft to Palmerston: 24 Feb 51, FO 84/858; Pedler, op. cit., 68–9; Lloyd, P. C., ‘The Itsekiri in the Nineteenth Century’, J. Afr. Hist., iv (1963), 215–17.Google Scholar

11 Ross, D.A., ‘The Autonomous Kingdom of Dahomey 1818–94’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of London, 1967)Google Scholar, gives a date of 1838 for Hutton's arrival at Whydah, though he was trading from the Gold Coast from a much earlier date; Hargreaves, J. D., West Africa Partitioned (London, 1974), i, 26–7Google Scholar. For trade on the Gold Coast: Reynolds, E., Trade and Economic Change on the Gold Coast 1807–74 (London, 1974).Google Scholar For the Slave Coast: Newbury, C. W., The Western Slave Coast and its Rulers (Oxford, 1961).Google Scholar

12 Pedler, op. cit., 71.

13 Gertzel, thesis, 44.

14 Stilliard, thesis, 91; Pedler, op. cit., 52–56.

15 Kingsley, M., West African Studies (London, 1899), 443Google Scholar; Geary, W. M. N., Nigeria Under British Rule (London, 1927), 82Google Scholar; Stilliard, thesis, 94–5; H. Cotterell, ‘Reminiscences’, in Davies, , Trading…, 66.Google Scholar

16 Newbury, C. W., ‘Trade and Authority in West Africa 1850–80’, in Gann, L. H. and Duignan, P., Colonialism in Africa, i (Cambridge, 1969) 81–2Google Scholar; Latham, , Old Calabar, 79–80.Google Scholar

17 For these questions, see Dike, passim; Latham, , Old Calabar, 55–148Google Scholar; Agiri, B. A., ‘Aspects of Socio-Economic Change among the Awori Egba and Ijebu Remo during the 19th Century’, J. Hist. Soc. Nigeria, vii (1974), 465–83Google Scholar; Martin, A., The Oil Palm Economy of the Ibibio Farmer (Ibadan, 1956)Google Scholar; Northrup, D., Trade Without Rulers (Oxford, 1978).Google Scholar

18 Clough, op. cit., 50; C. W. Newbury, personal communication, 20 Oct. 1976; and R. Craig, personal communication, 17 July 1976.

19 Poole, B., The Commerce of Liverpool (London, 1854), 114Google Scholar; Billows, H. C. and Beckwith, H., Palm Oil and Kernels (Liverpool, 1913), 29–30Google Scholar; Babington, W., ‘Remarks on the General Description of the Trade on the West Coast of Africa’, Journal of the Society of Arts, xxiii (1873) 249–51Google Scholar; Smith, J., Trade and Travels in Guinea (London, 1851), 193Google Scholar. Reference to the dictionaries of weights and measures has been of little use. Curtin, P. D., Economic Change in Pre-Colonial Africa: Supplementary Evidence (Madison, 1975), 57–60Google Scholar, says that the French in the Senegal trade standardized their unit – barrels – at an early date, 1826.

20 Since it is also impossible to establish the relationship between puncheons, pipes etc. with a cask, the former units have been removed from the tables. They were, however, rarely used and indeed their usage declines over this period, and the omitted total seems of little significance when compared with the total number of casks per annum: often around 200 puncheons to 50,000 casks.

21 Newbury, , Western Slave Coast, 42–4, 47–8, 54.Google Scholar

22 Waddell's Journal, 7, 10 Jan 1850, National Library of Scotland; G. Watkin to Beecroft, 27 June 1850, in Beecroft to Palmerston, 13 August 1850, FO 84/816; Beecroft to Palmerston, 24 February 1851, FO 84/858.

23 In general these traders using the steamers to send oil to London were traders who were based in West Africa itself – some of them were Africans. This aspect of the oil trade has received very little study.

24 Stilliard, thesis, 38–40, 71–77; Latham, , Old Calabar, 55Google Scholar; Anstey, R. T., ‘British Trade and Policy in West Central Africa 1816–80’, Trans. Hist. Soc. Ghana, iii, (1957), 47–71.Google Scholar

25 This was certainly the case for the Sierra Leonian Johnson: Gollmer to Venn, 4 September 1846, and to Straith, 26 November 1850, CA2/043, C.M.S. In the second letter he speaks of Cape Coast traders shipping oil from Badagry. For Whydah see Ross, thesis, 74–7, and ‘The Career of Domingo Martinez in the Bight of Benin 1833’64’, J. Aft. Hist., vi (1965), 79–90.Google Scholar

26 Also of importance for the Slave Coast was the seizure of Lagos by Britain in 1851: it rapidly became a centre for the oil trade, particularly for small traders, many of them Africans, shipping 10 or 20 casks at a time. Gertzel, thesis, 501–54.

27 Anstey, loc. cit., 50; Burton to FO, 15 April 1864, FO 84/1221. Horsfall, Tobin and Hatton had factories at Ambriz in 1845 – ivory and timber being their main exports. In 1856 these three moved south to Kinsembo, having begun on the Congo itself in 1854. The steamer services made a big difference – hence the appearance of, say, Monrovia as an oil port in 1855. They also called at Cameroons, Fernando Po, Old Calabar, Bonny, Lagos, Whydah, Accra, Freetown and Bathurst. See Davies, P. N., The Trade Makers (London, 1973), 35–69Google Scholar, and Hopkins, , Economic History, 148–9.Google Scholar

28 Old Calabar has been included under the term ‘Niger Delta’ throughout this paper.

29 This change from 50 to 60 % may not be significant, and may merely be due to a decline in the use of ‘Africa’ to describe port of origin.

30 Of the 27 Delta ships in 1850, 19 brought only palm oil cargoes.

31 It is interesting that Fernando Po is the Delta port which appears nearly every year. By 1855 it has 9% of total casks, nearly as much as Old Calabar. Since it is known from other sources that the island could not produce such totals, this suggests the continuation of its role as a bulking centre for the Delta long after it had been said to have ended. Dike, op. cit., 56; Gertzel, thesis, 106. Horsfalls in particular used the island in the 1850s.

32 A few cargoes arrive with no consignee, instead ‘to order’ is entered as the consignee; there is no way of establishing the traders to whom these cargoes are consigned.

33 Tobin's trade to the West Indies can be seen as being integrated with his African trade: rum, for instance, was an important commodity for buying palm oil in West Africa. Tobin also owned a gunpowder factory in Ireland, the products of which would also have been useful in oil trade.

34 Horsfalls were usually associated with Tobins, as ‘Tobin and Horsfall’. However, apart from 1830, these two traders import oil under separate names in this period and thus have been treated as separate firms in this paper.

35 Dike, K. O., ‘John Beecroft’, J. Hist. Soc. Nigeria, i, (1956), 9.Google Scholar

36 The King family of Bristol had been West Indian traders since 1695, turning to the African trade in the 1780s. From this developed Richard and William King, Africa merchants, in 1829: Pedler, op. cit., 8–26. Lucas, Gwyer and Lucas (later two separate firms) was the other main Bristol firm trading to Africa.

37 For a while the Ivory Coast was known as the ‘Bristol Coast’, Kings also tried to open on the Slave Coast until strong-arm tactics by Hutton drove them out: Gollmer to Venn, i March 1850, CA2/043, C.M.S.

38 The other two were Kings and Forster. Horsfall was clearly the most successful, in terms of cask imports, over our period. Charles Horsfall became President of the Liverpool Chamber of Trade in 1851: Report of the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce (Liverpool, 1851).Google Scholar

39 Little work has been done on these newcomers to the trade: Gertzel, thesis, 56–63. Thomas Harrison, who began trading to the Benin River in 1837 is covered in Pedler, op. cit., 66–78; Stuart and Douglas, a partnership of a one-time cooper and a doctor in the service of Maxwell and Rotherham, formed in 1843, in Davies, , Trading…, 173–82.Google Scholar A useful study is Gertzel, ‘Commercial Organisation…, passim.

40 Gertzel, thesis, 62 uses the word ‘monopoly’ to describe their trade.

41 The big traders now began to use violence against the small traders, particularly if the latter were African. See the well-known case of Wilson's attack on Fyfe, Nicholls: C., ‘Peter Nicholls, Old Calabar and Freetown’, J. Hist. Soc. Nigeria, ii (1960), 105–14.Google Scholar

42 Nair, K. K., ‘Trade in Southern Nigeria from 1860 to 1870 – Expansion or Stagnation?’, J. Hist. Soc. Nigeria, vi (1973), 425–33.Google Scholar

43 It was incidents between English traders as much as between English and African traders that led to the appointment of John Beecroft as the first British Consul in the Delta area in 1849 and thus began the move to British political control. Even in this period 1840–54, Beecroft faced numerous incidents between English traders: as examples: Beecroft to Malmesbury, 30 June 1852, FO 84/886; Beecroft to Palmerston, 24 February 1851, 13 March 1851, FO 84/858. For further details see Lynn, M., ‘John Beecroft and West Africa 1829–54’ (unpublished Ph.D., University of London, 1979), 377Google Scholar ff.