This chapter explores the connections between the French port of La Rochelle and Atlantic Africa during the era of the Atlantic slave trade. La Rochelle’s slave-trading activities had multiple dimensions. The city’s merchants loaded their vessels traveling to the Atlantic coasts of Africa with a variety of commodities and luxury products. The chapter shows how these material items shaped the commercial, social, and cultural exchanges between La Rochelle’s merchants and Loango coast local. Through this broad picture, the chapter seeks to examine the positions of La Rochelle’s agents Jean-Amable Lessenne, Le Montyon’s ship captain, as well as Daniel Garesché, the rich owner of the ship Le Montyon who gave Mfuka Andris Pukuta the silver kimpaba as a gift following the Cabinda conflict in 1775. An examination of these wealthy men’s activities allows us to situate La Rochelle’s position in relation to other ports involved in the trade of enslaved Africans, as well as to envision the links between the French port and the Loango coast, and even more specifically its connections with the West Central African ports of Malembo and Cabinda, where the Mfuka Andris Pukuta was established.

This chapter examines the eighteenth-century silver ceremonial sword fabricated in La Rochelle and given as a gift to Cabindas Mfuka Andris Pukuta following the conflict of 1775. The chapter argues that the object stands for a rich example of the complex interactions between French trades and Cabinda’s local authorities. The chapter explores the work and trajectory of the silversmith, who likely created the sword, and its connections to the shipowner Daniel Garesché and ship captain Jean Amable Lessenne. Like a large cutlass, the sword follows the format of a kimpaba, a Woyo insignia. The chapter explores the uses and meanings of this kimpaba, and its connections to other existing similar West Central African swords. The chapter argues that the sword symbolizes the increasing power acquired by coastal Woyo agents in detriment of the Ngoyo’s ruler whose powers were decreasing with the intensification of the slave trade.

Nicholas Kelly was born a slave on a plantation just north of Charleston in 1823. His enslaver, William Kelly, purchased him from Thomas N. Gadsden, one of the most successful slave traders in Charleston. William, a general building contractor who specialized in masonry work, trained Nicholas as a plasterer, a skill he soon mastered. Banks and slave brokers issued short-term mortgages on slave purchases, thus encouraging speculation in slaves. In 1845, William participated directly in the Gulf Coast slave trade, when he brought Nicholas and eleven more slaves to New Orleans. William hired Nicholas out to a New Orleans plasterer. A year later, he left Nicholas in New Orleans to continue working in New Orleans because he commanded such high wages. Nicholas negotiated with William that he could purchase his freedom for $1,000. The deal soured when his slave broker in New Orleans reported Nicholas had not been paying his wages. Nicholas argued he had paid $200 above his normal wages. Regardless, William went to New Orleans to retrieve Nicholas and he literally whipped Nicholas in to the cargo hold.