The Trade between Western Africa and the Atlantic World, 1600–90: Estimates of Trends in Composition and Value

1992 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 369-385 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ernst Van Den Boogaart
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Slave Trade ◽  
Central Africa ◽  
Terms Of Trade ◽  
Gold Coast ◽  
Coastal Regions ◽  
Commodity Trade ◽  
North West ◽  
Western Africa ◽  
The North

Extending the approach of D. Eltis and L. C. Jennings to the seventeenth century, the author takes estimates for the decades 1623–32 and 1680–90 as the starting points for his discussion of trends in the composition and value of the Atlantic imports and exports of Western Africa. Contrary to prevalent opinion, he argues that at least from 1600 onwards the value of slave exports was two to three times higher than that of commodity exports, as measured according to the prices in America and Europe. However, during most of the century more imports were bartered in the commodity trade than in the slave trade, since the trading margin in the latter sector was considerably higher than in the former. The different margins go some way to explaining why the Portuguese concentrated on the slave trade from Angola between 1600 and 1635, which they could carry on with fewer European imports and more effectively protect, while the more efficient Dutch merchants achieved primacy in the competitive commodity trade of West Africa. The different margins also meant a very uneven distribution of imports over coastal regions. Owing to the predominance of Akan gold in the commodity trade, the Gold Coast drew an estimated fifty per cent of all imports at the beginning of the century and still accounted for 34 per cent at the end. Owing to its predominance in the slave trade, West-Central Africa drew 25 per cent of all imports throughout the century. The few available data on the composition of imports suggest that there may have been a shift from metal goods to textiles and a marked increase of Asian textiles and cowries. From 1593 on the Dutch may have initiated a shift in the gross barter terms of trade in favour of the African merchants which spread from the Gold Coast to other areas when the North-west Europeans obtained the major share in the Atlantic slave trade.

PAWNSHIP, DEBT, AND ‘FREEDOM’ IN ATLANTIC AFRICA DURING THE ERA OF THE SLAVE TRADE: A REASSESSMENT

2014 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-78 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul E. Lovejoy
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Slave Trade ◽  
Gold Coast ◽  
Guinea Coast ◽  
Congo River

AbstractA reassessment of the institution of pawnship in Africa for the period from the seventeenth century to the nineteenth century tightens the reference to situations in which individuals were held as collateral for debts that had been incurred by others, usually relatives. Contrary to the assumptions of some scholars, pawnship was not related to poverty and enslavement for debt but rather to commercial liquidity and the mechanisms by which funds were acquired to promote trade or to cover the expenses of funerals, weddings, and religious obligations. A distinction is made, therefore, between enslavement for debt and pawnship. It is demonstrated that pawnship characterized trade with European and American ships in many parts of Atlantic Africa, but not everywhere. While pawnship was common north of the Congo River, at Gabon, Cameroon, Calabar, the interior of the Bights of Biafra and Benin, the Gold Coast, and the upper Guinea coast, it was illegal in most of Muslim Africa and the Portuguese colony of Angola, while it was not used in commercial dealings with Europeans at Bonny, Ouidah, and other places.

Catawba

Fit for War ◽  
2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Elizabeth Fitts
Keyword(s):  
North Carolina ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
American Indian ◽  
Slave Trade ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
Territorial Expansion ◽  
Charles Town ◽  
The Core ◽  
The North

Chapter 3 documents the emergence, composition, and political interactions of the Catawba Nation through the mid-eighteenth century. Between the Spanish incursions of the 1560s and the establishment of Charles Town in 1670, a group of Catawba Valley Mississippians known as Yssa rose to become the powerful Nation of Esaws that formed the core of the eighteenth-century Catawba Nation. In the late seventeenth century this polity was a destination for European traders as well as American Indian refugees fleeing hostilities associated with the Indian Slave trade and settler territorial expansion. While many of these refugees were from the Catawba River Valley, others—most notably the Charraw—were Piedmont Siouans who fled southward from the North Carolina-Virginia border. The incorporation of refugees had significant implications for Catawba politics and daily life, which are explored in subsequent chapters.

Human Sacrifice

2021 ◽  
pp. 139-154
Author(s):  
John Parker
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
West Africa ◽  
Slave Trade ◽  
West African ◽  
The Self ◽  
Gold Coast ◽  
Human Sacrifice ◽  
The West ◽  
Southeastern Nigeria ◽  
Forms Of Violence

This chapter recounts the broader Akan world's or Asante's human sacrifice. It notes that the practice, as established by Law, was widespread in those parts of the West African coastal and forest zones largely untouched by Islam, both in powerful states such Benin, Dahomey and Asante and among non-centralized peoples such as the Igbo in present-day southeastern Nigeria. The chapter presents evidence suggesting that human sacrifice may well have increased in magnitude in the era of the Atlantic slave trade, as increasing levels of militarization and accumulation generated new forms of violence, predation and consumption. The earliest evidence for human sacrifice in the region, however, came from the Gold Coast itself, where, as elsewhere in West Africa, it was identified as an integral part of mortuary customs for the wealthy and powerful. The chapter then shows seventeenth-century accounts about the slaves who composed the majority of those immolated at royal funerals. It also explores how the self-sacrifice of certain individuals served on the early Akan states.

scholarly journals IV.—On Some Fossils from Central Africa

1890 ◽  
Vol 7 (12) ◽  
pp. 553-558 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. Rupert Jones
Keyword(s):  
Central Africa ◽  
Tropical Africa ◽  
North West ◽  
The North

In Professor Henry Drummond's “Tropical Africa,” 8vo. London, 1888, pp. 183–199 are occupied with an interesting “Geological Sketch” of the country between the Zambesi River (about 18° S. Lat.) and the Tanganyika plateau (about 3° S. Lat.), his own observations having been made along a route from Kilimane on the coast, to the Shiré, and up that river, by Lake Shirwa and Lake Nyassa, to Karonga (or Karonga's village) on the north west shore near the end of the lake; and thence through the Uchungu district, for about 70 miles, in a part of the Tanganyika plateau.

scholarly journals WOMEN INVESTORS AND THE VIRGINIA COMPANY IN THE EARLY SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

2019 ◽  
Vol 62 (4) ◽  
pp. 853-874 ◽  
Author(s):  
MISHA EWEN
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
New World ◽  
Domestic Sphere ◽  
North West ◽  
The North ◽  
Sugar Trade ◽  
Role Of Women ◽  
Investment Portfolios ◽  
Early English

AbstractThis article explores the role of women investors in the Virginia Company during the early seventeenth century, arguing that women determined the success of English overseas expansion by ‘adventuring’ not just their person, but their purse. Trading companies relied on the capital of women, and yet in seminal work on Virginia Company investors women have received no attention at all. This is a significant oversight, as studying the women who invested in trading companies illuminates broader issues regarding the role of women in the early English empire. This article explores why and how two women from merchant backgrounds, Rebecca Romney (d. 1644) and Katherine Hueriblock (d. 1639), managed diverse, global investment portfolios in the period before the Financial Revolution. Through company records, wills, letters, court depositions, and a surviving church memorial tablet, it reconstructs Romney's and Hueriblock's interconnected interests in ‘New World’ ventures, including in Newfoundland, the North-West Passage Company, Virginia colony, and sugar trade. Studying women investors reveals how trade and colonization shaped economic activity and investment practices in the domestic sphere and also elucidates how women, in their role as investors, helped give birth to an English empire.

Burundi

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marius Schneider ◽  
Vanessa Ferguson
Keyword(s):  
Great Lakes ◽  
Central Africa ◽  
Economic Capital ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Capital ◽  
West Side ◽  
North West ◽  
International Airport ◽  
The North ◽  
Republic Of The Congo

Burundi is a landlocked country in the Great Lakes region where East and Central Africa meet. It is wedged between Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and Rwanda. It is a small country of 27,834 square kilometres (km) with a population of 10.8 million in 2017, making it the second most densely populated country in Africa. Since February 2019, Burundi has two capitals: Gitega is the political capital of Burundi while Bujumbura is the economic capital. Bujumbura is also the largest city is and hosts the only international airport, the Bujumbura International Airport. The biggest port of the country is situated on the Lake Tanganyika on the north-west side of Bujumbura. The working week is from Monday to Friday and the currency used is the Burundi Franc (BIF).

Potential Distribution of Fall Armyworm in Africa and Beyond, Considering Climate Change and Irrigation Patterns

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bipana Paudel Timilsena ◽  
Saliou Niassy ◽  
Emily Kimathi ◽  
Elfatih. M. Abdel-Rahman ◽  
Irmgard Seidl-Adams ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Central Africa ◽  
Fall Armyworm ◽  
Large Area ◽  
Western Africa ◽  
The North ◽  
Management Interventions ◽  
Population Establishment ◽  
Almost All ◽  
North And South ◽  
Irrigation Patterns

Abstract The fall armyworm, Spodoptera frugiperda (FAW), first invaded Africa in 2016 and has since become established in many areas across the continent where it poses a serious threat to food and nutrition security. We re-parameterized the existing CLIMEX model to assess the FAW global invasion threat, emphasizing the risk of transient and permanent population establishment in Africa under current and predicted future climates, considering irrigation patterns. FAW can establish itself in almost all countries in eastern and central Africa and a large part of western Africa under the current climate. Climatic barriers, such as heat and dry stresses, may limit the spread of FAW to North and South Africa. Future predictions suggest that FAW invasive range will retract from both northern and southern regions towards the equator. However, a large area in eastern and central Africa is predicted to have an optimal climate for FAW persistence. These areas will serve as FAW ‘hotspots’ from where it may migrate to the north and south during winter seasons and then pose an economic threat. Our projections can be used to identify countries at risk for permanent and transient FAW-population establishment and inform timely integrated pest management interventions under present and future climate in Africa.

The Financing of the Ashanti Expansion (1700–1820)

Africa ◽  
1967 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 283-291 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kwame Arhin
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
West Africa ◽  
Slave Trade ◽  
Coastal Areas ◽  
Gold Coast ◽  
Opening Paragraph

Opening ParagraphThe arrival of Europeans, and the introduction of guns, first in the coastal areas JL and then into the interior of West Africa, altered the nature of warfare. Already in the seventeenth century, the Akan-Fanti, Akim, Akwamu, and other peoples on the Gold Coast no longer relied entirely on bows and arrows, spears, and javelins which were the traditional weapons but used guns and even a few cannon. Besides the change in weapons, wars were undertaken on a larger scale than ever before—a situation which was aggravated by participation in the slave trade. Among the peoples of the Gold Coast, now Ghana, none excelled the Ashanti in either the scale or intensity of their fighting. From the turn of the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries, they fought major wars of conquest and minor ones of consolidation throughout the area of present-day Ghana, and after 1820 they were involved in four major clashes with the British until the latter dissolved their kingdom in 1900.

scholarly journals The Beginnings of the Cistercian Order

1905 ◽  
Vol 19 ◽  
pp. 169-207
Author(s):  
W. A. Parker Mason
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Old French ◽  
Religious Orders ◽  
North West ◽  
The North ◽  
Cistercian Order ◽  
Rolling Plain ◽  
French Words ◽  
The Church

In the eastern part of the Duchy of Burgundy, in a region which now forms the southern portion of the Côte-d'Or Department, lies Cîteaux. The country around, after gently sloping from the hills on which Dijon stands, some four or five leagues to the north, here expands into a rolling plain formed by the basin of the Saône, and not far away southwards there is the junction of this river with its tributaries, the Doubs and the Denthe. The Côte-d'Or hills to the north-west protect it from some of the more violent storms, and under their shelter and through the congenial nature of the soil has grown up the great vine-growing industry of the district. Around Cîteaux in old days the country was wild, marshy, and a tangled mass of scrub, and even to-day the soil here is marshy, and there is an abundance of pools. The name itself shows the nature of the place: in its older form Cisteaux, or Cistercium, it seems to be derived either from Cisternæ, which Du Cange explains as ‘a marsh with stagnant pools’; or from Cistels, as the Bollandists give the form of the word; or Citeals, which is the form of the word preferred by Courtépée, with a variant Cisteauls. These last are explained as old French words meaning marsh rushes. Whichever be the correct derivation, the fact pointed to is the same; the word itself shows the swampy, unpromising nature of the country. But here was to spring up the mother-house of one of the greatest and most powerful of the religious orders of the Church, which some ot its adherents could claim to have been the mother of 10,000 dependent houses, 4,000 male, and 6,000 female, by the seventeenth century.

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