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Credit in early nineteenth century West African trade

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

C. W. Newbury
C. W. Newbury
Affiliation:
Institute of Commonwealth Studies, Oxford
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Extract

Little attention has been paid to the great growth of trade in West Africa in the nineteenth century prior to the ‘economic revolution’ which began towards its close. As far as the export-import trade at the coast is concerned, British statistics show that between c. 1810 and c. 1850 the import of various manufactured staples increased by factors from at least 3 to as much as 50. The question arises as to how such a large increase in the volume of trade on the coast was financed in the absence of banking procedures. On the Senegal and Gambia and in the Niger delta, the traditional eighteenth-century practice by which visiting European merchants advanced credit to African brokers in goods continued. On the Gold Coast and at Sierra Leone and Lagos, however, a new class of local importers, of African as well as European origin, emerged and were able to secure credit from European exporters. But, though, less flexible than the newer system, the old system, with its tendency to monopoly on the part of both European traders and African brokers, seems to have permitted the greater expansion of credit. However, by the second half of the century, both systems were under strain and leading to conflicts over debts and jurisdiction, which are examined. Ultimately both were replaced by the European trading houses entering the interior trade through the use of paid agents, many of whom were recruited from among the new merchant class of Sierra Leone, the Gold Coast and Lagos.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 13 , Issue 1 , January 1972 , pp. 81 - 95
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1972

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References

1 Newbury, C., ‘Trade and Authority in West Africa from 1850 to 1880’, chap. 2 in Gann, L. H. and Duignan, Peter (eds.), Colonialism in Africa, 1870–1960, I, The History and Politics of Colonialism, 1870–1914 (Cambridge, 1969), 77–9;Google Scholar‘North African and Western Sudan Trade in the Nineteenth Century: A Re-evaluation’, Journal of African History, vii (1966), 233–46.Google Scholar

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3 See Table below: Staple Exports from the United Kingdom to West Africa, 1810–50. Sources for this Table are P.R.O. Customs 8 and Customs 10. Exports of foreign and colonial goods are given official values till 1849 and cannot be simply added to the declared values of British manufactures.

4 ‘Western Africa’ in Board of Trade statistics covers the coast from Senegal to South West Africa, divided into the following sectors:

5 Parl. Papers, 1842, xi (551)Google Scholar, Q. 3347. Cf. William Bosman's complaint of ‘Inconvenience’ at Benin, where, ‘we are obliged to trust them with Goods to make Panes or Cloaths of; for the Payment of which we frequently stay so long that…we are obliged to depart without our Money: But on the other hand the next time we come hither, we are sure to be honestly paid the whole…’; New and Accurate Description of the Coast of Guinea divided into the Gold, Slave and the Ivory Coast (1967), 433.

6 See, for example, Laffon-Ladébat, Lieut, ‘Rivière et pays de Mellacoury’, Revue Coloniale, vii (1845), 374–7.Google Scholar

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12 Fyfe, Christopher, A History of Sierra Leone (Oxford, 1962), 142.Google Scholar

13 Parl. Papers, 1842, xi (551), 252.Google Scholar

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15 C.O. Reports of Her Majesty's Colonial Possessions…1851 (Sierra Leone), 179.

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17 C.O., Reports… 1849 (Gold Coast), 95.Google Scholar The same report stated that African merchants were importing heavily from Europe—as much as £20,000 to £30,000 a year in some cases.

18 See, Burton to Russell (Private), 15 Apr. 1864, F.O. 84/1221. The major firms were: Horsfall, Askinall, Dill & Co., Hatton & Cookson (Liverpool), Cameroon and Bonny; Mr Lilley (Bristol), King & Co. (Bristol), Cameroon; Thos. Harrison & Co., Grant Murdoch, Bonny; Stuart & Douglas (Liverpool), Walker Scott & Co., Taylor Laughland, Hamilton & Co. (Glasgow), Old Calabar; Tyson, Richmond & Jones (Liverpool), Company of African Merchants, Old Calabar; Thomson Perry & Co., New Calabar. The African ‘houses’ and brokerages were Bell, Akwa, Charley Dido (Cameroon); John Archibong, Tom Honesty (Calabar); Pepple, Ja Ja, Jack Manilla (Bonny); Amakiri, Barboys (New Calabar); Chiefs of Brass.

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20 C.O., Reports… 1848 (Gambia), 323.Google Scholar

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23 A.N. Section Outre-Mer, Sénégal XIII/25 b, Montbrun, ‘Observations sur le commerce du Sénégal’, 1840.

24 A.N. Section Outre-Mer, Sénégal XIII/31 b, petition from Wolof traders, 1878 (n.d.).

25 A.N. ibid. Bordeaux merchants to the Governor of Senegal, 2 June 1876.

26 Beecroft to Palmerston, 27 Oct. 1851, F.O. 84/858. See also, Dike, K. O., Trade and Politics in the Niger Delta 1830–1885 (Oxford, 1956), p. 18.Google Scholar

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29 F.O. 84/1508; and Hopkins to F.O., 18 Nov. 1878 and mins.

30 F.O. 84/1541. See especially Arts. 4 (against compulsory trust, but making chiefs responsible for debts); 5 (limiting the time for settling debts by private contract); 6 (on the liquidation of debts); end, in Easton to F.O., 18 Dec. 1879.

31 More especially by the settlement between merchants and Opobo in 1893, by which Europeans retired from the inland markets. F.O. 2/51 encl, in Cairns to MacDonald, 10 July 1893.

32 Birtwistle, C. A., ‘Report concerning Manilla Currency’, 1913. Rhodes House Library.Google Scholar

33 Fyfe, p. 143.

34 Parl. Papers, 1865, v (412), Q. 4673.Google Scholar

35 ibid. Q. 5370.

36 Encl, in Campbell to Clarendon, 25 Oct. 1856, Newbury, Western Slave Coast, 61.

37 F.O. 87/976, Campbell to Clarendon, 2 Aug. 1855.

38 Parl. Papers, 1865, xxxvii (170), Traders to Ord, 27 Dec. 1864, 49.Google Scholar

39 C.O., Reports… 1873 (Lagos), 140.Google Scholar

40 C.O. 147/30. Mayne to C.O., 16 May 1874.

41 Ibid. Mayne to C.O., 16 May 1874. Mayne also reminded the Colonial Office that local revenues depended on trade and that ‘a bankruptcy law might affect, or even convulse the existing system of trade’.