iron on the coast meant that they and their workshops could flourish as never before. Initially, in Jobson’s time, overseas iron was adapted to the preexisting norms for measuring and circulating locally made bar iron. The long and cumbersome imported European bars had to be cut down into the shorter lengths of their own standard bar iron currency units, which ranged between eight and twelve inches. This important conversion of imported commodity to local currency became a new task for smiths, many of whom traveled from town to town, setting up their workshops and supplying their own anvils, hand tools, charcoal fuel, and skills to work the iron possessed by local residents. Jobson noted that careful monitoring of the work was necessary because smiths were known to help themselves to extra portions of bar iron in the process.34
Demand for iron on this part of the Guinea Coast was particularly strong and continued to be so as the RAC established its presence there. And European bar iron was required especially for purchasing the captives sought by the company. Already in 1615, Cape Verde Islanders were noticing a marked increase in the market prices for captives, complaining that what they used to pay for two prime males was now being charged for a single unhealthy man. One likely reason for this rise in the price for slaves, or for the decrease in the value of imported metal, was the increasing flows of metal coming in mainly on northern European vessels. Luso-African traders, having no direct supplies of iron from Portugal, therefore had to rely on others—first the Spaniards, and then the English.35 Jobson, too, noted the inflation of prices on the coast for slaves. The accepted length of bar iron currency there was twelve inches, but English traders up the Gambia River found that they could get away with using the shorter eight-inch bar iron currency units in calculating and making their purchases.36 In the second half of the seventeenth century, overseas (“voyage”) iron, in one-bar units, became the currency of account for trading by England’s Royal African Company in this region of the Guinea Coast, though at differing valuations, and as such it was integrated into both the English and the West African trading systems.
Gifts and Protocols
European traders had to adapt also to local norms for receiving and hosting strangers and for establishing and maintaining the commercial relationships they offered. Salutations in local languages and offerings of food, drink, and gifts were essential social lubricants that enabled goods to move smoothly along the international channels of exchange. Some of these were regular and institutionalized, whereas others could be personal and idiosyncratic requests of the moment. During Coelho’s twenty-three years of residence on the Upper Guinea Coast, he came to appreciate the local variants of these protocols and how they operated. Referring to the “Jolof coast” (the northern part between the Senegal River and Cape Verde), he advised that European merchants visiting there should not hesitate to be generous to local officials and the nobility and that they should host them regularly, serving them spirits and any other kind of refreshment they might request. He hastened to add a cryptic warning that holding back on such hospitality would not turn to their advantage. Paying proper respects began when first entering the vicinity of a coastal or riverine town with the sending of a respectful message of greeting accompanied by a gift to the local king. The business of buying and selling could not begin until the king’s chosen day when he would arrive to officially exchange gifts, inspect the merchandise, and declare that trading negotiations could then commence.37 Describing a purchase of captives at Ponta in the Bissagos Islands off Bissau, Coelho specified what kind of gifts were required. There, wine was the preferred social drink, whereas elsewhere it was brandy. Small beads were necessary both as a gift and also for purchasing food and other provisions. High-quality textiles were welcome favors to local hosts, who were also entitled to a tip from the seller for each captive sold.38 Gifts operated thusly as a form of customs fee.
Such well-established proprieties assured visitors of good and regular business prospects. Regarding Europeans’ purchases of kola in the environs of Sierra Leone, Coelho alluded to a time before the mid-seventeenth century when Portuguese ship masters were so suspicious and mistrustful of local merchants that they insisted that human pawns or hostages be placed on board as pledges of trust. He went on to say that in his time such wariness was no longer the case and that relations with kola suppliers were consistently productive. What he then described as typical of the kola trade presents another local variant of gift-giving protocols. Arriving ships would send an envoy to the king, who then sent envoys in return to deliver the message of when the king would come to formally greet them. Upon his arrival, accompanied by lesser kings, officials, and nobles, an extended period of feasting and socializing commenced. Ship masters together ceremonially rewarded the king with a gift, whereupon the king then gave permission for their traders to come ashore. Each trader then met up with one or another of the lesser kings and was escorted along with his merchandise to a village inland where he would purchase kola.39 Once there, further rounds of feasting, gift giving, and socializing undoubtedly took place.
A rather less enthusiastic description comes from the French Huguenot (Calvinist) Jean Barbot, who wrote of his two brief voyages to the Guinea Coast in 1678–79 and 1681–82. His account of his time ashore in Senegal drew on conversations he had with employees of the French Compagnie du Sénégal and included a listing of the numerous dues and tolls that agents of the company had to pay when trading inland. These charges, which he attributed to the “black kings,” were a determining factor, in his view, of how profitable the trade would be. He or his informants estimated them to be about ten percent of the total value of the trade and specified that they were paid in goods. He also listed other payments to individuals such as local officials and suppliers of wood and water. Still other gifts or payments were due to individuals in each town or village. In the example he gave of the village of Camalingue, there were gifts to minor officials, to the king’s wife, to the valet and son of the town’s governor, to the chief interpreter and his valet, and to others. These charges, while individually small, added up to a significant amount and were considered by Barbot to be too time consuming and troublesome to dispense.40
But even Barbot could warm to local kings on the Guinea Coast who, according to his judgment, behaved with good manners and propriety. Such was his impression of the elderly king of Sestos on the “Pepper Coast” (well to the south, in modern Liberia), where he visited for over a week during his second voyage.41 He provides a detailed description of his meeting and exchange of gifts with the king, an event that took place in a special circular building where Sestos officials met to discuss and settle trade agreements with foreign merchants and other strangers (see fig. 1.3). Among its interior furnishings was a small shrine where ritual offerings were made and where oaths were declared and witnessed. Barbot’s illustration of the meeting shows the king and his senior courtiers, all dressed in embroidered and flowing white cotton robes and seated on patterned mats. Barbot was careful to note the “grisgris,” or charms, gracing the king’s elaborate cap and necklaces. After a formal welcoming of the visitors came a ceremonial exchange of gifts. Barbot’s gift consisted of two long bars of “voyage iron,” a selection of glass beads, several iron knives, and two flasks of brandy. The king offered his guests provisions—two hens and a container of clean (hulled) rice—which Barbot’s men immediately prepared for the assembled to share.
FIGURE 1.3 King of Sestos receives Jean Barbot. John Barbot, “A Description of the Coasts of North and South-Guinea,” in A. and J. Churchill, A Collection of Voyages and Travels (London, 1732). Collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society.
What Barbot was seeking from the king was not only an arrangement to buy ivory but also permission to cut wood and to replenish their water supplies. At the conclusion of their meeting, the king’s interpreter informed Barbot that he could expect a visit from the king very shortly. Over the course of his stay, Barbot managed to purchase a small amount of ivory along with stores of rice and about two hundred chickens. And his men, in addition to provisioning the ship with wood and water, took advantage of the fine fishing the river had to offer. Lacking Coelho’s extensive and decades-long experience on the Guinea Coast and perhaps revealing something of his own puritanical values, Barbot characterized Sestos in idyllic terms as a community