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Technology, Trade and ‘A Race of Native Capitalists’: The Krio Diaspora of West Africa and the Steamship, 1852–95

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

Martin Lynn
Martin Lynn
Affiliation:
The Queen's University of Belfast
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Extract

This article examines the impact of the introduction of the new technology of steam power into the West African trade in the second half of the nineteenth century. One of the changes that the introduction of steampower was expected to lead to was the opening up of the trade to small-scale African traders such as the Krios. Many Krios did make use of the steamships to extend their trading activities and entered areas previously ignored. Many used the steamship services to develop a coastwise trade; others, particularly in the Niger Delta, used them to enter the export trade to Britain. Yet others pioneered the use of steam launches, particularly on the River Niger and along the Slave Coast. In time however, such Krios found their ability to utilize the opportunities provided by the steamships under assault, partly from the European traders' counter-attack and partly from the general depression in the West African trade – itself indirectly caused by the introduction of the steamship – that set in by the 1870s. By the end of the century the position of Krios in the export-import trade of West Africa was being severely squeezed, just as it was in other areas of West African life. For them, steam power did not prove to be the boon it had been anticipated as being.

Type
Trade, Economy and the Western African Coast
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 33 , Issue 3 , November 1992 , pp. 421 - 440
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

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105 AT, 30 Oct. 1874, 43.

106 AT, 30 Nov. 1874, 51.

107 Regulation 9, Article ii, 30 July 1886, National African Co., United Africa Co. Archives.

108 Lagos Observer, 3 and 17 Dec. 1885.

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113 AT, 23 Jan. 1869, 82.

114 AT, 30 Oct. 1874, 38.

115 AT, 23 Aug. 1866, 15.

116 AT, 1 Oct. 1882, 114.

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