metcalf - a microcosm of why africans sold slave. . akan consumption patterns in the 1770s

8/6/2019 METCALF - A Microcosm of Why Africans Sold Slave. . Akan Consumption Patterns in the 1770s

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/metcalf-a-microcosm-of-why-africans-sold-slave-akan-consumption-patterns 1/19

http://www.jstor.org

A Microcosm of why Africans Sold Slaves: Akan Consumption Patterns in the 1770s

Author(s): George Metcalf

Source: The Journal of African History, Vol. 28, No. 3, (1987), pp. 377-394

Published by: Cambridge University Press

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/182191

Accessed: 13/05/2008 19:49

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless

you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you

may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup.

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed

page of such transmission.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1995 to build trusted digital archives for scholarship. We enable the

scholarly community to preserve their work and the materials they rely upon, and to build a common research platform that

promotes the discovery and use of these resources. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

http://www.jstor.org/stable/182191?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

http://www.jstor.org/stable/182191?origin=JSTOR-pdf



Journal of African History, 28 (1987), pp. 377-394 377

Printed in Great Britain

A MICROCOSM OF WHY AFRICANS SOLD SLAVES:

AKAN CONSUMPTION PATTERNS IN THE 1770s.

BY GEORGE METCALF

AFRICAN consumption patterns in the era of the slave trade are extremely

important, containing as they do the answer to the question of why Africans

sold slaves at all. Not to understand them is to be somewhat in the positionof an historian attempting to explain the European demand for slaves without

any knowledge of the history of sugar, coffee or cotton. Yet, despite the fact

that thesubject

has commanded much interest, it remains confusing and

frustrating. Sub-Saharan Africa contained a great diversity of societies in

different stages of political and economic development. However the histori-

cal evidence relating to these societies is remarkably uneven, while much

historiographic interest has concentrated on such broad questions as whether

the European impact on Africa contributed more to the modernization or

underdevelopment of the continent.1 The application of fragmentary evi-

dence to broad hypotheses has resulted in predictably contradictory results.

Were Africans gullible or knowledgeable as consumers?2 Did foreign

imports stifle or stimulate domestic industry ?3Was it elite or mass consump-tion that the

Europeancommodities satisfied ?4 Did the

exchangeof

goodspromote state monopolies or private competition amongst the African

merchants ?5Were firearms and gunpowder the items most in demand ? If so,

were they used primarily for slave-raiding, warfare, defence, hunting or

crop-protection?6 While all of these questions are of great importance to

1 For an overview of these historiographic trends, see A. G. Hopkins, Two Essays on

Underdevelopment (Geneva, 1979).2 K. G. Davies pointed out nearly thirty years ago that Africans were in no sense passive

consumers and that their tastes dictated the nature of the trade: The Royal African

Company (London, 1957), 235.But as

recentlyas

1971,Claude Meillassoux wrote of the

'shoddy trade goods and glass trinkets' of the slave trade era in The Development of

Indigenous Trade and Markets in West Africa (London, 1971), 50.3 A good sample of the controversy in this area may be seen in J. E. Inikori's

introduction to Forced Migration (London, 1982), 55-7.4 For the contention that the European trade goods consisted primarily of luxuries and

arms to furnish the needs of warrior aristocracies see Meillassoux, op. cit., 52.5 For a competitive model, see R. Thomas and R. Bean, 'The fishers of men: the

profits of the slave trade' in J. Econ. Hist., xxxiv (1974); for a restrictive one, see

P. E. Lovejoy and J. S. Hogendorn, 'Slave marketing in West Africa' in H. A. Gemeryand J. S. Hogendorn, The Uncommon Market (New York, I979). Regarding the Gold

Coast, however, Kwame Daaku has argued that traditionally almost everybody in Akan

society including commoners were encouraged to trade: 'Trade and trading patterns ofthe Akan in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries' in Meillassoux, op. cit. J. R.LaTorre has reiterated the point regarding the Asante: 'Wealth Surpasses Everything:An Economic History of Asante, 1750 to I824' (Ph.D. thesis, University of California,Berkeley, 1978), 345-6; so has the present author regarding the Fante: G. Metcalf, 'Gold,Assortments and the Trade Ounce: Fante Merchants and the Problem of Supply and

Demand', J. Afr. Hist., xxvIII (1987), 32-3.6 The historiography of firearms is discussed below.



'Africa' in general, the answers to them differ widely not only from societyto society, but even within the same societies during different time periods.

In 982 J. E. Inikori lamented the lack of a comprehensive study of the role

of African middlemen in the slave trade era, despite the fact that K. O. Dikepointed out the compelling need for such a work as long ago as I956.7 Not

only does a comprehensive analysis still lie in the future, but its completionis dependent upon that of many prior studies at the local level. An importantkey to one such local area is to be found in the papers of Richard Miles, an

Englishman involved in the trade on the Gold Coast in the latter half of the

eighteenth century.Miles was an officer of the Company of Merchants, the non-profit

organization which existed to facilitate an open British slave trade followingthe demise of the Royal African Company in I751. Miles conducted an

extensive, though quite legal, private trade, but owing to the fact that in hisofficial capacity he was charged with the misuse of public funds, his

correspondence ultimately found its way into the Treasury 70 Series of thePublic Record Office in London. It constitutes a unique source of information

about a particular microcosm- the commodity preferences of the Akan

peoples in the 177os. While much of the evidence and many of the conclusionswill be valid for a wider time-span than the mere decade in question, it would

be unwise to extend any of its generalizations to a larger area. Its chief

relevance therefore is limited to the peoples of the coastal area - a collection

of small states, dominated at the time by the Fante confederacy;8 and less

directly to the inland customers of these coastal middlemen - principally theinhabitants of the empire of Asante.

Although this article draws on the whole of the Miles correspondence, the

bulk of the evidence was obtained from a quantitative analysis of his slave

barters as well as from a much smaller number of barters he made for goldand ivory. Between December of 1772 and his departure for England in Aprilof 780, Miles (apart from a brief stay at Accra) commanded at three forts:

Tantumkweri (December 1772 to April I775), Anomabu (June 1775 to

December 1776), and Cape Coast Castle (January 1777 to April 1780).

Though he did not manage to keep an account of every transaction he made,the particulars of his purchase of 2,218 slaves, acquired in I,3o8 separate

barters, are minutely recorded, along with some 48 barters for gold and 76for ivory.9

Miles's barters therefore should tell us a good deal about Akan consump-tion patterns in the period they cover. Two of the three forts he commanded -

Anomabu and Cape Coast -were in the heart of the principal Akan

trading area. Here Miles competed with several other British fort chiefs, with

private traders, with dozens of ships' captains and with the Dutch at Elmina

and Kormantine. Indeed, this small stretch of waterside between Kommenda

and Kormantine exported the vast majority of slaves that left the Gold Coast.

The goods in demand, therefore, reflected not only what the Fante and theircoastal neighbours consumed themselves but also what they passed on to their

7Inikori, Forced Migration, 13-I4.

8 'Confederacy's a convenientword fordescribing he Fantepolityin theeighteenth

century.I use it witha small 'c' to distinguisht from the FanteConfederacy, politicalmovementcirca1865-72.

9 The barters are to be found in London, Public Record Office, T70/1264 and 1265.

378 GEORGE METCALF



AKAN CONSUMPTION PATTERNS

inland customers in their capacity as middlemen. There is little doubt

that the merchandise Miles bartered in this area comprised the goods most

in demand throughout the whole of the territory inhabited by the Akan

peoples. When we turn to the relevance of the barters in time, we find thatthe period under study was by no means typical but was one of exceptionalinterest. The early part of it, 1772-1777, marked the culmination of a majorslhift in trade patterns - one moreover that was causing much discomfort to

the Europeans. Over-competition for the high-quality slaves of the Gold

Coast and an increasing reluctance of the Akan to export precious metals had

reversed the flow of the gold trade and had rendered the cost of slaves

(compared with the prime cost of European goods) much higher than before.

However, the latter part of the period, I777-80, was one of great, though

temporary, scarcity of European goods owing to the disruption of shipping

caused by the American Revolution.Like most merchants, Richard Miles was willing to sell anything he could

at a profit. One of his barters included a cow, another a hat, a third three

'dollars'.l? But such items were extremely unusual. Adding them to the fewoccasions he sold 'remnants' and the equally few where what he sold is

illegible, they account for only sixteen entries in the somewhat more than

I8,ooo that occur in Miles's list of barters. All other entries concern goodscarried to the Gold Coast specifically for the slave trade. They make a total

of seventy-five items." However this exaggerates the variety of goodsnormally in demand amongst the Akan, since a number of commodities

appear very occasionally. If we limit the items therefore to those which

appeared in at least ten per cent of the barters, we are left with a list of

twenty-eight which formed the staple of the Gold Coast trade in this period.These included seven East Indian textiles: chelloes, cuttanees, guinea stuffs,pulicats, mixed romauls, silk romauls and satin stripes, as well as seven

textiles manufactured in Europe: rolls of plain cotton, chintz, woollen ells,half ells, says,12 Irish linen, sheets and silesias. The remaining commodities

were pewter or brass basins, pots and tankards, guns, gunpowder, emptycases, iron bars, lead bars, rum, tobacco, gold, silver and unworked brass and

pewter.

We may now turn to a study of the commodities under such generalheadings as currency, textiles, hardware and luxury items. Table i shows the

categories and their relative values. Nevertheless one item or group of items

must be noticed because of its total absence. There was no 'pacotille'whatsoever - no gewgaws or cheap beads. The Akan were sophisticatedconsumers.

Two currency items are included in Miles's barter lists: gold and cowries.

Gold was the most important single item that Miles exchanged for slaves,but since it has been the subject of a previous article,13 it will be mentioned

10For the hat, cow and dollars see T70/I264, barterswith 'Grant'sboy', 15 Dec.

1772, barters with 'Sham, Joe and Adoe', 7 Dec. 1775; T70/1265, barter with

'Ammurro',9 July I776.11Fora full list of these items andtheir normalpricesin ounces of trade,see Metcalf,

op. cit., 40-41.12 Miles also writes of woollen 'halfsays', but he appearsto use says and halfsays

interchangeably.t is clearhowever hathalfells and ells aredistinct,but inMiles'sentriesit is not alwayspossibleto distinguishbetween half ells andhalfa long ell.

13 Metcalf, op. cit.

379



GEORGE METCALF

Table i. Major categories of Goods Bartered by Miles

Categories of goods bartered Percentages of total value offor slaves by Miles goods bartered

CurrenciesGold 15.8Cowries Negligible

Total I5-8

HardwareManufactured items 5'6Unworked metals 2'7

Total 8'3

LuxuriesLiquor (principally rum) 9-2

Tobacco 4'3Pipes (for smoking o'i

Total 13-6

Arms and AmmunitionGuns 2'7

Gunpowder 8-5Total I-2

Textiles

Cottons 30'6Woollens 10-4Silks 3'7Linens 4'6Cotton-silks i'7

Total 51 1

Source: PRO, T70/I264 and 1265.

here only briefly. Though gold formerly had been the principal commoditywhich brought Europeans to the Gold Coast, by 1770 that trade had

undergone a curious reversal. For reasons that remain obscure but were likelyconnected with the increasing monetarization of Asante,14 the Akan became

reluctant to sell gold and instead began to demand it in most barters for slaves

at the rate of one ounce gold to two ounces of trade, the trade ounce (dividedinto sixteen ackies) being the hypothetical currency used by Europeans and

Africans on the Gold and Slave Coasts to facilitate their transactions. Overall,

gold appeared in 64'8 per cent of Miles's slave barters and constituted I5'8

per cent of the value in trade ounces of the goods he bartered. From 1776

on, however, the situation altered owing to the scarcity of shipping, and henceof European goods, caused by the American Revolution. Thus in his last yearson the coast, Miles was able to buy more gold than he sold and to remit the

balance home to England. Cowries, the only other currency Miles traded,

were insignificant in his barter lists. Though important as a currency from

Accra eastwards, cowries were not in demand amongst the Akan. Miles14 LaTorre, 'Wealth Surpasses Everything', I80, 197-200, 435, 443-4.

380




bartered them on three occasions only and on two of them the purchaser canbe identified as an individual who frequented Accra.15

Among consumer commodities, there were some thirteen items from

Miles's barter lists that may conveniently be lumped together as hardware.Eight were manufactured goods: basins, pans, tankards, chains, padlocks,knives, empty packing cases and kegs of tallow. In addition, Miles sold iron

bars, lead bars, copper rods, quantities of unworked brass and pewter andsmall amounts of silver. Hardware as thus defined was a popular and indeed

necessary category of trade. It appeared in over 95 per cent of Miles's barters.On the other hand, its relative value was low, and collectively the above itemsaccounted for only 8-3 per cent of the total value of Miles's sales. Of the

manufactured products, pans of brass and pewter were the most popularitems, appearing in 62'6 per cent of the barters, while kegs of tallow registered

a close second being found in 57'8 per cent of the exchanges. Pewter or brassbasins and tankards were also popular as were empty packing cases. On theother hand, such apparently useful items as chains and padlocks had virtuallyno sale on the Gold Coast. The former appears in only four of Miles's 308barters, the latter in only five. Knives (usually of Dutch origin owing to Akan

preference), trading at one ackey per dozen, also had a surprisingly slightdcemand.

Of the unworked metals that Miles dealt in, copper, in the form of rods,had the least demand, appearing in only twenty-seven of the barters. Silverhad a modest but steady sale, while lead bars, iron bars and unworked brass

and pewter were quite common. Definite variations existed in the quantitiesof these metals sold at the different forts. Iron bars were found in 20 per centof the barters at Tantumkweri but in less than 8 per cent of those at CapeCoast. Brass and pewter were in less than 7 per cent of the transactions in

Anomabu, but in over 34 per cent of those at Cape Coast. Silver appearedin I4 per cent of the barters at both Tantumkweri and Anomabu and in onlyi-6 per cent of those at Cape Coast. In most instances, it is difficult to know'what to make of these regional differences. However the case of iron should'warnus against making assumptions which may be too facile. Indigenous iron

production on the Gold Coast declined throughout the eighteenth century.

Nevertheless recent scholarship has indicated that the reasons for this wereecological rather than a case of the European product stifling a local

industry.'6 Moreover Kwamina Dickson has noted the Tantumkweri region;asbeing one where indigenous iron production was most developed and

longest-lived.17 Therefore Miles's large iron sales in this area were probablynot, as one might imagine, the result of a dearth of the native product butrather of a prevalence of foundries and blacksmiths there.

To all intents and purposes, the British trade in luxury goods to the Gold

15 See T70/I265, barters of Aug. 1777 with 'T.T.'s Shantee Beauty' (slave no. 279),

and 23 March 1779 with Tom Young (slave no. I4). The former individual resided in

Accra, the latter was a mulatto skipper who frequently coasted there. The iron bars and

copper rods Miles bartered were also used as currencies in other parts of Guinea but on

the Gold Coast they would appear to have been used simply as metals.16 See C. L. Goucher, 'Iron is iron 'til it rust', J. Afr. Hist., xxii (198I), 179-89,

and L. M. Pole, 'Decline or Survival? Iron production in West Africa from the

seventeenth to the twentieth centuries', J. Afr. Hist., xxiii (1982), 503-13.17 Kwamina Dickson, A Historical Geography of Ghana (Cambridge, I969), 90.

38I



Coast was confined to two items: rum and tobacco. The other goods that

Miles sold that fall into this category - brandy, unspecified 'liquor' and

boxes of pipes for smoking tobacco - were of negligible significance. Together

rum and tobacco appeared in 66 per cent of the total barters and accountedfor 13'4 per cent of the value of Miles's total sales. Rum was sometimes

re-exported from Britain but often came directly in colonial bottoms from

the American colonies. During the War of Independence, Miles himself

pioneered a direct trade between the Gold Coast and the West Indies.

Tobacco, because of Akan preference, was always Brazilian tobacco and was

brought to the coast in Portuguese shipping. (The Portuguese, besides

fulfilling their own needs, generally carried a surplus of this product for sale

to the British, French, Dutch and Danes.)Of the two commodities, tobacco was very definitely junior partner. It

appeared in 27 per cent of Miles's barters and accounted for 5-4 per cent ofthe total value of goods traded. This is odd considering the very high profiletobacco carries in the business correspondence of the coast during this period.The latter makes it seem that the commodity was absolutely necessary if any

trading were to be done at all, and it is therefore a surprise to find it in only

slightly more than one-quarter of Miles's barters. The likely answer is that

the demand was steady but the supply erratic - dependant as it was on the

arrival of Portuguese vessels from South America. The Fante presumablyovercame this problem to some extent by stockpiling, since the price of a roll

of tobacco was normally stable at two ounces of trade. Nevertheless the

complete dearth of the product that occurred in I776 demonstrated thepotential volatility of tobacco. In late I776 and early in I777 no Portuguese

ships arrived on the coast and tobacco vanished almost entirely. When Miles

did lay his hands on some in May of I777 he was able to market it at the

astonishing price of nine ounces of trade a roll.18 Miles was soon writing to

his London correspondents that they could make a fortune if they could finda way to ship Brazilian tobacco themselves.19 This advice was both ill-timedand misbegotten. Within a month a procession of Portuguese ships arrivedon the coast and the bottom fell out of the tobacco boom. Soon the commoditywas trading at slightly less than its normal value of two ounces a roll.

Moreover, at least one British vessel that did manage somehow to load withBrazilian tobacco was seized and condemned under the Acts of Trade.20

Rum, appearing in over 70 per cent of Miles's barters and accounting for

9 per cent of the value of his sales, was an important item of trade. It was

mass-consumed and sometimes used as currency in small-scale transactions.

It generally sold at a steady rate and it remained at its 'normal' value of one

ackey per gallon throughout the whole of the period under study. From about

1773 on, however, the British were overstocked with the commodity and were

having difficulty moving it.21 The outbreak of the American Revolution

changed all that. In mid-1775, David Mill, the then governor, urged Miles

to hoard his rum, advising him that not only would he be richer but he couldwater it as much as he liked.22 In later months Miles was able to secure a

18 T7o/I265, barter25 May 1777, withJohnKwamino slaveno. 230).19 T7o/I479, Miles to Shoolbred, 15 May 1777.20 T7o/I479, Miles to Shoolbred, 7 June 1777; T7o/I483, Miles to Shoolbred, I May

1778. 21 See T7o/I533, Westgate to Miles, 9 Aug. 1775.22

T7o/I533, Mill to Miles, 3 Aug. I775.

382 GEORGE METCALF




supply of rum from Tobago, working with Gilbert Petrie, a former governor,who had settled in that island.23 Little West Indian rum had been sold on

the coast in the past since the Akan preferred the New England product.24

Now, perforce, they had to accustom their palates or give up rum entirely.The statistics regarding guns and gunpowder in Miles's barters are of great

interest owing to the historiographical debate on this subject. The old pictureof a sickening spiral whereby Africans imported ever more guns to procuremore slaves and exported ever more slaves in order to procure more guns has

been discarded as simplistic. One group of historians has suggested that the

prevalence of guns and ammunition in the trade has probably been over-

stressed, and has also pointed out that the 'useful' attributes of thesecommodities - hunting and protecting crops from foraging animals - has

largely been neglected.25 Nevertheless, more recent quantitative studies by

J. E. Inikori and W. A. Richards have restated the importance of guns in thetrade and reiterated that their prime use was for such purposes as war,

slave-raiding and defence.26 Implicit in their arguments is the suggestion that

the apparent inanity of the gun-slave cycle may be explained by the

assumption that the external trade buttressed the power of warrior aristoc-

racies whose class interests lay precisely in perpetuating wars and slave raids.

Once more, the evidence, conflicting when surveying the macrocosm, likelyreflects differences in time and space. Regarding the Gold Coast, Inikori's

conclusions are probably valid for the first half of the eighteenth century.

During Miles's period, however, quite a different situation prevailed.

Guns and gunpowder were undoubtedly important to Miles. Guns ap-peared in 4 I*2 per cent of his barters and totalled 2'7 per cent of the total value

of the goods bartered. Powder was listed in just over 70 per cent of his deals

and comprised 8'5 per cent of the value of his total sales. Together they

appeared in 78'5 per cent of the barters and comprised i I2 per cent of total

value. This, however, is very different from the lurid picture provided in such

other contexts as the Aowin traders of I716 or the Senegalese damel of I753

who demanded only guns and powder in exchange for slaves.27 From research

associated with Bonny in the early I790's, J. E. Inikori states: 'All the

evidence available shows that for every slave purchased some quantities of

guns and gunpowder were always included in the assortment of goodsemployed in payment.'28 He also shows that the ratio of guns per slave variedfrom 5-7 to 6'2. But Miles on the Gold Coast in the I770's sold guns in less

than half his barters, and the overall ratio was less than 0-7 guns per slave.It is also interesting in this context to note the differences in the volume

of Miles's sales of guns and powder from fort to fort. At Tantumkweri these

commodities comprised i2'8 per cent of the total value of all goods traded,23 T70/1479, Miles to Petrie,30 Jan., 14 Mayand30 Nov. 1777.24 T70/I482, Miles to Shoolbred,IOAug. 1775.25 Gavin White, 'Firearms in Africa: an introduction',R. A. Kea, 'Firearms and

warfareon the Gold and Slave Coasts from the sixteenthto the nineteenthcenturies',H. J. Fisher and V. Rowland, Firearms n the CentralSudan',J. Afr. Hist., XII I971).

26J. E. Inikori, 'The import of firearms nto West Africa, 1750-I807', in ForcedMigration,op. cit.; W. A. Richards,'The importof firearms nto West Africa in theeighteenthcentury',J. Afr. Hist., xxi (I980), 43-59.

27Richards,op.cit., 47; C. Beckerand V. Martin, KayorandBaol' in Inikori,ForcedMigration, I16.

28 Inikori,op. cit., i39.

383



at Anomabu IO05 per cent and at Cape Coast 8-I per cent. The immediatereasons for these variations can be discerned. The sales at Tantumkweri were

unusually high because of a local crisis. They were lower at Anomabu and

Cape Coast because, though the trade in powder maintained a relativelysteady volume in this period, the demand for guns collapsed almost com-

pletely after June of I776. Indeed between that date and the end of Miles's

records in I780, guns appeared in less than I5 per cent of the barters and

comprised only 0o7 per cent of the value of his sales. Since this latter

phenomenon is coincident with the American War of Independence, the

initial assumption might be that Miles sold no guns because he had no gunsto sell. Richards has noted how badly the disastrous decline of shippingassociated with the war hit the British gun manufacturers.29 But, in fact,

throughout this period Miles wrote again and again to his correspondents in

London that guns were an absolute drug on the market.30 Indeed the declineof shipping only throws the lack of demand for guns into sharp relief. This,after all, was the same period in which many of Miles's wares were increasingtheir actual value by over Ioo per cent.31 It is therefore from Akan rather than

European political circumstances that we must seek our answer. In fact the

period under examination coincides with the decline and death of Osei

Kwadwo, the great empire-building Asantehene, and with the accession of

Osei Kwame which ushered in a period of internal dissension in Asante and

checked external expansion for a decade. Thus, as Asante warfare declined,so did the demand for guns.

Yet, if the above assumption is correct, it brings to the fore two other facts:the slump in guns was not matched by a decline in demand for gunpowdernor by a decline in the production of slaves. The first point suggests that

gun-smithing on the Gold Coast had by this period reached the level of

sophistication necessary to maintain an operable pool of weapons under

peace-time conditions. But if there were no appreciable wars or slave-raids,from whence came the slaves? Several historians have suggested that the

expansion of Asante (wherein guns were certainly needed) was conducted for

political rather than economic reasons, though the wars provided slaves as

well. However, Asante also raised slaves by purchase and through levying

tribute.32 It is quite likely that the latter modes were the preferred ones inpeacetime. Indeed, as T. C. I. Ryan has pointed out, they certainly should

have been preferred from an economic point of view.33 Thus by the time Osei

Bonsu made his oft-quoted remark about the Asante never making war

simply to gain slaves, it was likely correct.

The circumstances surrounding the unusually high exchange of guns and

powder in the Tantumkweri period are also instructive. Between April and

October of 1773 these commodities leapt from io per cent of the total value

of goods traded to nearly 25 per cent. In individual barters during this period,it went as high as 63 per cent. The reason for all this is clear. The coastal

29Richards, op. cit., 52.

30T70/I479, Miles to Shoolbred,15May 1777; T7o/1483, Miles to Norris,2I Feb.

1779,Milesto Shoolbred,22 Feb. 1779,Miles to John& Thos. Hodgson,22 Sept. 1779.31 Metcalf, op. cit., 36-8.32 LaTorre, WealthSurpassesEverything',219,407-8.33 T. C. Ryan, 'The Economicsof Tradingin Slaves' (Ph.D. thesis, Massachusetts

Instituteof Technology,1975),30-3I.

384 GEORGE METCALF




town of Mumford, near Tantumkweri, was being threatened with attack from

the inland state of Akron. The Mumfords therefore began to purchase armsand ammunition from the English forts at Tantumkweri and Winneba.

Eventually, when the Dutch supported the Akrons, the Company of Mer-chants itself fully armed the Mumfords.34 One interesting fact about this

dispute is that apparently both the Akrons and the Mumfords had to armthemselves from scratch. Fanteland was therefore certainly not like someother areas of West Africa where it was reported that people were 'neverwithout a musket in hand'.35 Nor would it seem that guns were widely usedfor other reasons, such as crop protection, or they would have been availablefor fighting as well. (Miles himself when justifying the gun trade to Africain a later period did not mention crop protection although it would have

strengthened his argument).36 Of course it is also clear that there were guns

aplenty in the Fante confederacy - for trade, for defence, for use at festivalsand funeral customs - but it would seem that normally they did not stray farfrom the main centres of trade.

In summary therefore, it may be stated that Miles's records indicate thaton the Gold Coast guns were used primarily for military as opposed to

hunting and agricultural purposes. On the other hand, by the late eighteenthcentury, it would not appear that they were necessary in order to produceslaves. There was little slave-catching in the coastal area anyway, while theinland Asante could raise slaves through levy once they had firmly establishedtheir dominion. If this assumption is correct, we do not have to date the

development as late as I 777, although it is the peace-time statistics that revealit. Asante was enforcing widespread tribute as early as the overthrow of

Akyem in I742. Thus as Kwami Arhin pointed out long ago,37 there is noreason to assume that Osei Kwadwo's campaigns were principally motivated

by the desire to gain slaves, however welcome the latter were as a by-product.For some time the picture has been emerging that textiles rather than

firearms constituted the most attractive imports to most Africans over the

largest period of time,38 and that the textiles themselves were for mass

consumption rather than finery for elites. This, as LaTorre has noted, was

certainly true of the Akan;39 Miles's records underline that fact. From a

consumer's point of view, textiles were the cornerstone of trade on the GoldCoast. In terms of the trade ounce, they constituted 5I per cent of the totalvalue of all goods Miles bartered for slaves, 65-3 per cent of those he barteredfor ivory and Ioo per cent of the goods he bartered for gold. This last figureis especially noteworthy inasmuch as the items that Miles exchanged for goldwere those for which the Fante paid a premium of over ioo per cent duringthe scarcity caused by the American Revolution.40 It was impossible to makea normal exchange without textiles. Of the few occasions when they do not

appear in a barter of Miles, all but two were cases of elderly or infirm slaves34 The most convenient summary of the Mumford dispute is found in PRO, BT

6/I and 2.35 Quotedin Richards, Importof Firearms',46.36

T70/73, Miles to Lordsof Treasury,24 April I813.37 K. Arhin, 'The Structure of Greater Ashanti (1700-1824)', . Afr. Hist., VIII

(1967), 65-85.38 See A. G. Hopkins, An Economic History of West Africa (New York, I973), IIo.39 LaTorre, 'Wealth Surpasses Everything', 55, 387-90.40 Metcalf, op. cit., 37-8.

385



that Miles purchased with rum alone.41 The remaining two were abnormalin the opposite fashion - one barter for tobacco alone and one for tobacco and

gold when tobacco was at a tremendous premium.42

In order of importance, the categories of textiles that Miles traded were:cottons, woollens, linens, silks and weaves that mixed cotton and silk. Cottonsconstituted 59'9 per cent of the textiles in the slave barters, 63'6 per cent ofthose in the ivory barters, though only 44'9 per cent of those in his goldexchanges. In his years on the coast, Miles dealt in thirty-four different cotton

commodities, but six of these easily took the lion's share of his trade. These

were, again in order of importance, mixed romauls43(the most popular singleitem of any sort, present in over 95 per cent of the barters), English chintz,44East Indian chelloes, rolls of plain cotton from England, mixed patches and

guinea stuffs. Allejars, brawls, palampores, pulicats, sasty romauls, sastra-

cundees and used sheets were also of significance. Though well behindcottons, woollens were a strong second in textile sales, constituting 20'3 percent of the value of the latter in slave barters, 22-7 per cent in the ivory barters

and 51 per cent in the gold barters. Presumably their predominance over

cotton in the last category was owing to the fact that all gold barters were

made during wartime when English goods were especially scarce. Miles dealt

in five separate woollens, but only three, says, ells, and half ells, were

significant overall. Miles sold three types of linen, which constituted 8-9 percent of the value of textiles in slave barters. (Linens were insignificant in the

ivory barters and non-existent in the gold.) Of the three, silesias, a German

linen cut into small pieces, were extremely popular appearing in nearly 50per cent of his exchanges. Irish linen was also significant, but for some reason

sold well only at Tantumkweri. The third linen, chollets, an English copyof a French product, appeared very rarely. Silks constituted 7-3 per cent of

the textile value in Miles's slave barters, and here Miles marketed six items

all of East Indian origin: atlasts, bandanas, silk brawls, silk romauls, satin

stripes and taffeta. Only the last three of these were significant in his

commerce though at least one silk item appeared in about 50 per cent of his

total barters. In addition, Miles exchanged another seven East Indian items

41

The main question about these barters is whyMiles

purchasedsuch inferior

merchandise.However he occasionallypresentedslaves to his Africanwife and con-cubines;theywereprobablyprocured n these 'cheap' transactions.

42T70/I265, barters25 May 1777with 'Assuah' (slavenos. 225-6), andwith JohnKwamino (slave no. 230).

43 Romaulsweresmallpiecesof East Indiancottongoodsthatvariedbewilderinglyn

qualityas well as in colour and pattern.Thus 'mixed' romaulsconstituted a mini-assortment n themselves.For instancea box of 3000 mixed romaulsshipped from

England in 1795 comprised: 200 blue soot romauls, 200 brown Barragore romauls, oo00

red Ashantee romauls, 700 hair romauls, 8oo blue romauls, 8oo fine blue romauls and o00

deep mixed romauls. See T7o/I57I, (?) to Richard Miles, 'packed for the African

Committee by Serjeant Chambers', 2 Nov. 1795. 'Mixed patches', manufactured in

England, varied in a similar fashion, but were more prosaically named: 'type no. 3 ', 'typeno. 7' etc. See T70/I479, Miles to Captain Windsor Brown, 2I May 1774.

44 The origin of the chelloes and chintz in Miles's barters present something of a

problem. Both products were manufactured in England as well as in India and when Miles

entered them in his barter lists he rarely distinguished them in terms of origin. It would

appear however from extant order lists that the pieces of chintz he ordered were mainly

English and the chelloes mainly Indian. See, for instance, T70/I479, indent by R. Miles

for the King George, Capt. Smith, 15 Sept. 1773.

386 GEORGE METCALF




of a mixed silk and cotton weave, but altogether these made up only 3-5 percent of the value of his textile trade.

In summary, we might therefore reiterate that textiles dominated the trade

on the Gold Coast in terms of the variety of items, in constituting the bulkof any normal assortment and in the overall value of the total commodities

exchanged. Indeed, in terms of the Akan consumer, it is no exaggeration to

say that textiles were what the trade was all about. This becomes even moreobvious if we subtract the value of gold from Miles's barters on the groundsthat gold was a currency rather than a consumer item, was produceddomestically, and was therefore purchased from the Europeans as a con-venience rather than a necessity. In this case we find that textiles totalled 6o'7per cent of the value of all commodities that Miles exchanged. Thus textiles'drove' the trade on the Gold Coast in the way that sugar 'drove' it in the

Western Hemisphere.In an article which attempts a broad survey of West African patterns of

consumption, David Richardson tests the old notion that Africans were

passive and gullible consumers and finds that the opposite picture is the trueone.45 He uses as a measure the amount of foreign-produced goods that theBritish were forced to market against their will in order to maintain a

competitive position. Miles's records make it clear that the intense compe-tition, both international and between individual traders, that existed on theGold Coast produced a situation whereby the Akan brokers definitelydictated the trade in terms of the goods they wished to receive.46 It was only

during abnormal circumstances (primarily European wars) that the Fante didnot get precisely what they wanted. Slightly amending Richardson's method,we may divide the goods Miles marketed into three categories, following the

preference of the imperial authorities: goods of British manufacture, goodsof Irish or colonial origin (including those brought to England by the EastIndia Company and re-exported) and goods of purely foreign origin. By this

we may see, in the Appendix, that British goods ostensibly comprised 4I'5per cent of the total value of merchandise traded, colonial (including Irishand East Indian), 34-3 per cent, and totally foreign 24'2 per cent.

Yet this is only part of the story. It is also clear that much smuggling took

place. The chief area for this lay in East Indian textiles. Theoretically, theBritish East India Company should have been able to provide everything thatwas needed both in terms of quality and quantity. In practice, at least someof the goods the Dutch imported from India would be superior in terms ofeither quality or availability at any given time. Since demand for the manyarticles in this category was constantly changing on the coast, commercial

intelligence was extremely important to the shipowner loading his cargo in

England. Miles himself normally wrote several times a year to his corre-

spondents in London, keeping them abreast of the local situation.47 Thusmerchants had to act quickly, getting a proper assortment wherever theycould, and many a ship that ostensibly cleared England for Africa alsostopped at Amsterdam. When the Board of Trade attacked the Company of

45David RichardsonWest Africanconsumptionpatternsandtheir influenceon theeighteenthcenturyslavetrade', in GemeryandHogendorn,TheUncommonMarket.

46 This is not to claimthatthey dictatedprices.47

T7o/I482 and 1483 are filled with such correspondence.

387



Merchants in a report to the House of Commons in April of 1777, one of the

charges was that ships belonging to Miles's associates, 'after having been

partly laden in England, have gone to Holland, to complete their Cargoes with

the Goods and Manufactures of that Country, to the great Prejudice of ourown.48 It is significant that Miles did not deny this charge.

Descriptive evidence about individual commodities underlines the extent

to which Akan tastes controlled the market. Gold of course was the prime

example. British traders had to buy and sell it at a loss, but without it there

was no trade at all.49 Miles himself suggested that a grand combination of

European shipping might reach an agreement to prohibit the sale of this

article,50 but the intense competition rendered such hopes vain. Only the

great scarcity in European goods occasioned by the American Revolution

altered the situation. With other products the story was the same. American

rum had driven English brandy and gin from the Gold Coast by the I750's.

But the West Indies did not share in this bonanza; their product was too harsh

for Akan tastes. Again, the War of Independence at last gave the British

Caribbean an opening. As for tobacco, Miles informed his correspondentsthat there was no point in attempting to break the Brazilian monopoly of that

product by purchasing tobacco in Lisbon, London or anywhere else. The

Africans would not look at any other tobacco as long as there was a Bahia

ship on the coast. Moreover, he advised his friends that if they did get their

hands on some of the Brazilian product, they had better make certain it was

fresh. The Akan would not purchase stale tobacco.51

Even in the case of woollens, where the English dominated the market invirtue of the excellence of their product, African preferences bedevilled the

merchants. On some occasions it was a question of having the right colours

at the right time. In March of 1777, Miles advised his friend John Shoolbred

to send only a few blue half ells, 'no Green ones. A few Yellow I believe will

sell for Gold'.52 More important still was the problem of Akan brand

consciousness. Sometimes the Fante would accept the products of only one

or two firms. As Miles explained the difficulty, again to Shoolbred:

I'm really sorry to tell you that Mr Kershaw's half says are by no means equal

to [Knipe's]nor do I think if all the men in the

kingdomwere to attempt a

manufacture of the kind, they cd. eclipse Knipe's; at least not in the eyes of the

Blacktradershere, &it is them thatareto be pleased; asto the finenessor the qualityof them, I can say nothing as I'm no judge; they may for ought I know be equally

good, but Knipe's will always go foremost... Apropos we have 600 half Ells from

Mr Menduit...they might ly in the warehouses for ever-Mr Kershaw's

woolens... as far exceeds Menduit's as Knipe's do Kershaw's.53

The Fante were therefore very sophisticated, whether as middlemen or as

consumers. It is also clear that the goods they themselves consumed were for

the mass market rather than for a small elite. The whole population (or at

least that portion of it visible atthe

waterside)was clothed

entirelyin

48 Great Britain, Parliamentary Papers, 1777, vol. 59, 'Return of the Committee for

Trade and Plantations on the African Trade', 5.49

Metcalf, op. cit. 34-5.50 T70/I482, Miles to John Bourke, 31 Jan. I773.51

T70/1482, Miles to Shoolbred, io Aug. 1775.52

T70/I482, Miles to Shoolbred, 6 March I777.53 T70/I483, Miles to Shoolbred, 25 July 1779.

388 GEORGE METCALF




European textiles.54 Cheap pots, pans and tankards were clearly used by

everyone and there is no doubt that rum and tobacco were universally

enjoyed. The imported metals together with indigenous iron production

supplied local agriculture with its implements. Nevertheless, it must bestressed that, whatever generalizations may be made from Miles's barters

about Fante and Akan consumption, these certainly must not be automaticallyextended to other peoples in other areas. Miles himself would have been in

complete agreement with this point. In I780, he wrote to two of his Englishassociates regarding the kinds of cargo they would need if they wished to

attempt voyages to several different areas in Guinea. Table 2 compares these

suggestions with his actual barters on the Gold Coast and also with the

goods with which he stocked a factory in Little Popo on the Slave Coast in

1794. The differing patterns of consumption in the different regions are

clearly illustrated.The variations illustrated in the table are very interesting. Although

they cannot be fully explained without more detailed knowledge of the

differing societies and areas in question,55 a few points may nevertheless be

noted. One is the high profile of textiles throughout. In the two areas where

textiles were not dominant (Sierra Leone and the Grain Coast) what is

reflected is not so much a lack of interest in textiles as an unusually highdemand for another commodity - tobacco and hardware respectively.

Indeed, regarding Sierra Leone, Miles counselled his associates that if theyhad difficulty in procuring so much tobacco they might reduce it by up to

a half and substitute textiles. On the other hand the overwhelming percentageof textiles in the Bassam-Appolonia area is also misleading. Trade in this

region was dominated by the Dutch (Miles includes bribes to Dutch officials

as part of the cost of the voyage), while most of the textiles he suggests were

of British manufacture, principally woollens. Thus they would constitute

premium goods to which the African consumers in the area did not normallyhave direct access.

Also noteworthy is the relatively low profile of guns and gunpowder in most

areas, especially in comparison with textiles. Paradoxically this both supportsand argues against Inikori's thesis about the relationship of guns and slaves.

Again, on evidence drawn from Bonny, Inikori has argued that Africans whosold slaves were principally interested in receiving guns in return, while those

who dealt in other commodities (such as provisions) were not very interested

in firearms.56Table 2 thus indicates that the demand for guns in such 'good'

slaving areas as the Gold Coast and Little Popo was significantly less thanwe might expect from Inikori's argument. However, at least as noteworthyis the fact that the three areas (Grain Coast, Sierra Leone, Bassam to

54 GreatBritain,Parliamentaryapers,Houseof CommonsAccountsandPapers,1789,'Minutesof the Evidence',vol. 83, 60-62.

55It shouldbe stressed,however,thatthese recommendationswerenot mere'guess-timates'of Miles. Althoughhis first-handknowledgewas limitedto the Gold Coast andto Little Popo, the documentsmake it clear that he had collected much intelligenceregardinghe other areas romcaptainswho frequented hem.Moreoverhe wasmakingthese suggestions o close businessassociatesandwould have been acutelyembarrassedhadhe giveninaccurate dvice.

56 Inikori,ForcedMigration,136.

389



Table 2. Variations in African Consumption Patterns Accor

European Co

African

Commodities Guns and Hardware

Area of Trade Bartered Textiles Gunpowder and Metals C

Gold Coasta Slaves 51-o0% 1 % 8o0%

Ivory Coastb Ivory 430 % 250 % 150 %Sierra Leoneb Camwood and Ivory 230% - -

Grain Coastb Malaguetta Pepper 18-5 - 43?0%Bassam to Appoloniab Gold 88-o -

Little Popoa Slaves 59*0% 32-5 % 40 %

Sources: Gold Coast: Miles's barters, T70/I 264 and 1265; Ivory Coast, Sierra Leone,

T70/I483, Miles to [Blundell and Cleland], n.d., follows directly after Miles to Richard Smit

'Copy of the Inventory...at Popo 23 March I794', and 'Invoice of Sundry Goods shipp'dPopo' Io Oct. 1794.

a = percentages in terms of the ounce of trade.

b = percentages in terms of prime cost.




Appolonia) where Miles recommended cargoes containing no guns at all57were also areas from which no slaves were expected in exchanges.

If Table 2 makes it clear that generalizations about Akan consumption

cannot be extended to other areas in the same time-period, it is equallyimportant to avoid applying them to the Akan in a different era. For instance,a century or so before they dealt with Miles, the Fante would themselves have

possessed a different view of why commerce with the English was desirable.

What the trade was for in the late seventeenth century is probably summed

up accurately in the preamble to a treaty the political and religious leadersof the Fante signed in 1753 with Thomas Melville, the first governor in the

service of the Company of Merchants. In it the Fante acknowledged that itwas the English who, through furnishing them with 'Arms, Ammunitionand Money', had allowed them 'not only to take Possession of the Lands

now inhabited by us, likewise to conquer all those little States around us atpresent subject to our Dominion '.58In other words the Fante were obtaining

guns and ammunition in order to pursue a policy of conquest and control oftrade routes. One might note that in obtaining their ends they sold largenumbers of the people they conquered and exported gold as well.

By the mid-eighteenth century, however, what we might call the 'mature'

phase of Fante pre-colonial society had been established. Wars of conquesthad ended. In the north and east the Fante were hemmed in by the mighty

power of the Asante. In the west they do not appear to have had much desireto expand beyond Kommenda.59 All the main trade routes west of Accra were

securely in their hands. Thus guns and ammunition were now neededprimarily for trade and defence - both of these factors hingeing on theattitude of Asante. But, as T. C. McCaskie has noted, in Asante itselfcommerce was supplanting warfare as the chief source of enrichment by thelate eighteenth century.60 In Miles's time, the quiescence of the northern

empire, and the fact that it could raise all the slaves it needed through tribute,resulted in the gun trade dwindling away almost entirely. Thus the Fante gaveup slave-catching and became middlemen between the Europeans and theAsante. Their prowess in this respect is well attested by the combination of

annoyance and respect they commanded from each of their major trading

partners.61 Besides purveying slaves to the English, European manufacturesto the Asante and gold to both parties as the occasion demanded, the Fantewere also consumers of all three products.

Because the Fante made the crucial decision (well-noted by historians) notto enslave their own full-citizens save for crimes or debt, the trade did not

radically deform the basic institutions of their society. The testimony ofMiles and his fellow slavers to the effect that Fante institutions were as freeand just as any in the world may have been self-serving but is congruent with

57T70/I479, 'Memorandum',n.d. but followsin letterbookmmediatelyafter Milesto J. Brooks, 20 Nov. 1780.

58 C.O. 267/I8, 'Treaty Between the Braffoe and Curranteers, the Priests and Peopleof Fantee,and the PresidentandCouncil of CapeCoast,6 Feb. i753'.

59 Likely because the neighbouring militaristic state of Ahanta was a tough nut that was

not economically worth the cracking.60 T. C. McCaskie, 'Accumulation, wealth and belief in Asante history', Africa, LIII

(I983), 23-43.61 See LaTorre, op. cit., 313-18 and J. K. Fynn, Asante and Its Neighbours, I700oo-807

(Northwestern University Press, 1971), 86, 123.

391



virtually all other evidence.62 Despite this, and despite the fact that the

principal economic activities in Fanteland continued to consist of such thingsas subsistence agriculture and fishing, the effects of the Fante traffic with the

Europeans did permeate the whole of their society. Gold became a form ofwealth in the confederacy itself, (though a secondary one according to

Miles),63 and the Fante economy became partially monetarized.64 Domestic

slavery almost certainly increased immensely as a by-product of the trade.

Miles testified that the number of domestic slaves was extremely large, that

they constituted the chief form of property in Fanteland and that every free

black owned at least one or two.65 This may have been an exaggeration but

Miles's papers provide further supplementary evidence. For instance, while

at Tantumkweri, Miles kept a fatherly eye on the African family of John

Cockburn, one of his predecessors as fort-chief, who had since returned to

Bristol. Ambah, Cockburn's Fante wife, was clearly no 'merchant princess'.She made her living by selling canky, an African bread. Nevertheless she had

'3 or 4 Duncoe [i.e. non-Akan] slaves', whom Miles occasionally employedto help her make ends meet !66Miles also insisted that the occupation of most

domestic slaves at the coast was the same as that of their owners - they

farmed, fished and hunted.67 (Those belonging to great men were also

sacrificed at funerals). If his statements about the numbers and occupationof domestic slaves are to be believed, then it is clear that the external slave

trade fostered domestic slavery rather than vice-versa. Such large numbers

of people could never have been brought to the waterside for such occupations

except as a by-product of the wealth produced by external trade. Miles alsoclaimed that domestic slaves were widely used by Fante families as substitutes

for kinsmen who had been condemned to slavery for debt or for some forms

of crime.68

Apart from guns, gold and slaves, the Fante were primarily interested in

the acquisition of the textiles with which they clothed themselves, the metals

from which they manufactured their agricultural implements and the

hardware that was useful in their daily life. They also enjoyed luxuries such

as alcohol and tobacco, but not to an extent that was obviously deleterious

to their society as a whole. If the trade does not appear to have stimulated

indigenous manufacturing to any significant degree, neither, in the case ofthe Fante, does it seem to have stifled such activity.69

62 Studiesspecifically rmainlyon the Fantearenotoverwhelmingn number.Besidesworksalready itedseeJ. M. Sarbah,Fanti LawReport,London I904),FanteCustomaryLaws (3rded., London, I968), and The Fanti National Constitution2nd ed. London

I968); J. G. Christaller,Dictionary of the Asante-Fante Language (Basle, i881); J.

Christensen,DoubleDescentAmong he Fante (New Haven, 1954); Mary McCarthy,Social Changeand the Growthof BritishPower n the GoldCoast: TheFante States,I807-I841 (N.Y. and London, I963); 1. Sanders, 'The expansion of the Fante and the

emergenceof the Asantein the eighteenthcentury',J. Afr. Hist, xx (I979); K. Arhin,'Diffuse authorityamongthe coastalFante', GhanaNotesandQueries, (Nov. 1966),

66-70; I. Chukwukere,The Akan heoryof conception arethe Fantereallyaberrant ',Africa, XLVIII, 1978. 63 'Minutes of the Evidence', op. cit., 4I.

64 LaTorre, WealthSurpassesEverything',422-3.65 'Minutes of the Evidence', op. cit., 63.66 T70/I482, Miles to Cockburn,5 Feb. 1773.67 'Minutesof the Evidence',op.cit., 50.

68Ibid.,50, 53-4.69 Forthe remarkableurvivalof indigenoushandicraftndustriesamongst he Akan,

evenin the faceof Europeanmports,see Dickson,HistoricalGeography,5, 43-4, 92-5;

GEORGE METCALF392




If their positions as consumers and middlemen in the slave trade undoubt-

edly made the wealthy amongst the Fante wealthier, it does not appear to have

rendered the poor any poorer. The Akan as a whole were inveterate traders

and the Fante in particular appear to have excelled in this field.70 Europeangoods no doubt passed through the hands of many merchants great and smalland there were small and part-time slave brokers as well.7' Unlike some otherareas of Africa, Fanteland was not depopulated by the trade and indeed

probably gained in population through the importation of domestic slaves.

The Fante were also employed in provisioning, canoeing, porterage and manyother activities connected with the commerce. Precisely because so many hada stake in the trade, it was carried on in an orderly fashion and with strict

rules. Slaves normally came down to the coast in a steady trickle rather than

in a great stream (Miles purchased on average I-7 slaves per barter), and

appear to have caused little disorder at the waterside.72Indeed if one looks at the slave trade in its widest sense (including the trade

in slave-produced goods), and questions its raison d'etre, one is struck by the

parallel between the Fante in the mature phase of their history and theirBritish trading partners in the era prior to the Industrial Revolution. Bothused the trade to amass capital - whether in the form of slaves and gold inFanteland or of bills of exchange in London. Both saw the commerce as

important for defence. Through it the Fante obtained the muskets theyneeded while the British regarded the triangular trade as the principal nurseryof their seamen. Each, directly or indirectly, used the West Indies as a place

of removal for their criminals, debtors and social misfits. Both parties derivedsuch common luxuries as rum and tobacco from their traffic together. Each

utilized some of the minor articles of the trade for productive purposes: the

English wove West Indian cotton on their looms, the Fante fashioned

European iron into agricultural implements. Overwhelmingly, the tradesatisfied consumer yearnings among both peoples for commodities that wereuseful enough but conferred no long-run benefits. Sugar in England,European and East Indian textiles on the Gold Coast - both no doubt cateredto elite markets in the first instance, but soon became 'necessities of life' forthe masses. Lastly, in neither case did the majority of either people exhibit

much knowledge of or interest in the tragic fate of those whose laboursproduced the goods thus consumed.

In England, of course, the economic structure of the nation as well as thesocial and moral outlook of its people were transformed by the IndustrialRevolution. No such change took place in West Africa. The extent to whichthe slave trade, through capital accumulation, contributed to the trans-formation in the first instance, or, through depopulation, precluded it in thesecond instance, is beyond the scope of this paper.

E. Reynolds, Trade and Economic Change on the Gold Coast I807-18I4 (London, 1974),

22-4.70 Kwame Daaku, 'Trade and trading patterns of the Akan', in C. Meillassoux (ed.),

The Development of Indigenous Trade and Markets in Africa (London, I97I).71 Metcalf, op. cit., 33.72 'Minutes of the Evidence', op. cit., 58.

393



GEORGE METCALF

SUMMARY

The European goods which Africans consumed in the slave trade era tell us much

about the African societies whichimported

them. However thestudy

of thesubjecthas involved much confusion through the application of fragmentary evidence from

different societies in different stages of development towards the fashioning of

broad hypotheses about the impact of the trade on West Africa as a whole. It is

important therefore, when the evidence is available, to study each society and each

group of African middlemen individually as well as within the wider context.

The papers (especially the barter records) of Richard Miles throw a good deal

of light on one such microcosm: the Akan people of the Gold Coast in the second

half of the eighteenth century. The Fante middlemen with whom Miles dealt

required, for virtually every barter, an assortment of goods from five major

categories: hardware, currencies, textiles, luxury items, arms and ammunition.

Though all these categories were necessary for the trade, it is notable that textileswere far and away the dominant commodity desired by the Akan. Guns were in

surprisingly low demand during this period which suggests that the Akan slave

producers (principally the Asante) had no difficulty raising slaves through tribute

in peacetime and were not forced to rely on wars and slave-raids.

Miles's documents also make it clear that generalizations drawn from the Gold

Coast in this period cannot be extended automatically to other areas; Akan historytells us that neither can they be extended on the Gold Coast into a different era.

APPENDIX

Origin of Goods Bartered by Miles for slaves

Percentage of total value

of goods traded

British OriginBritish textiles 25-I

Guns and powder II'2

Hardware and unworked metals 5'9Total 42'2

Colonial originEast Indian textiles 21-6

Rum (American and W. Indian) 9'oIrish linen 2'I

Irish tallow I'4

Empty cases (mainly empty rum ankers) o08Total 34'9

Foreign origin

Liquor (France and Holland) 0-2

Knives (Holland) 0'2

Pipes (Holland) o-i

Silesias (Germany) 2-3

Tobacco (Brazil) 4'3

Gold (Africa) 15-8

Cowries (Africa) NegligibleTotal 22-9

Source: PRO, T70/1264 and I265.

394

metcalf - a microcosm of why africans sold slave. . akan consumption patterns in the 1770s

Documents