as they evaded royal decrees and continued to work privately and independently, in direct competition with the official trade of Portuguese monarchs. Among the decrees issued in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries to control these outlaws were regulations that specifically prohibited the sale of iron on the Guinea Coast, a convincing indication of its strategic importance. Local Portuguese interests, lançados and Cape Verde Islanders, were reportedly using it especially in transactions for the purchase of captives and ivory.32 Where this iron was from, whether it was locally produced bar iron acquired in arbitrage trade or European bar iron either transshipped from Lisbon through the islands or acquired illicitly from other European traders in the vicinity, or a combination of all of the above, is not clear.
In the second half of the sixteenth century, small numbers of French and English merchants began to intrude on the Upper Guinea Coast. But they did so only in fits and starts since they were initially ill-equipped and hesitant to challenge Portugal’s long-standing claims to trade with Africa. What trading they did was centered mainly on the Senegal River, along the Petite Côte, the coast between the Gambia River and south to the vicinity of Sherbro Island, and much farther south and east on the Gold Coast. These merchants were in search of captives, intermediate goods for European markets such as hides and ivory, and, above all, gold. Armed clashes with vessels manned by local lançados and Portuguese alike kept any serious expansion of the foreigners’ trade there in check.
It is therefore of interest to consider the vituperative remarks of Álvares de Almada, who described commerce on the Upper Guinea Coast in the late sixteenth century as being in ruin because of the French and the English. His account exaggerates the influence of these newcomers prior to the seventeenth century so as to portray his compatriots as victims in dire need of royal favors. In the past, he complains, many vessels from the Cape Verde Islands had sailed to the mainland to purchase captives, cloth, wax, and ivory in abundance. However, rising competition with agents of French and English merchants had supposedly forced them to abandon the trade. They had bid up prices for African commodities and captives, he claimed, and the former peace and security they had enjoyed with their coastal trading partners no longer existed. In describing so dramatically the decline of Portuguese trade on the Upper Guinea Coast at this time, it is likely that Almada was deliberately using them to bolster his case for a stronger official Portuguese presence there as well as protecting the hidden activities of his fellow islander and lançado merchants.33
It was the seventeenth century that saw an increasing presence of Dutch, English, and French merchants on the Upper Guinea Coast—predecessors of the RAC—and with them came a flood of European-made bar iron and other overseas commodities. Since much of the larger-scale iron smelting in West Africa was done in regions of the interior, blacksmiths near the coast would have had very limited and uncertain supplies of the metal besides what little they got from recycling. Thus these new Atlantic sources of iron must have significantly enabled the work of these smiths. The Englishman Richard Jobson’s account of his travels on the Gambia River in 1620–21 provides a valuable description of local blacksmiths, their workshops and products, and how much these new supplies of European bar iron were already becoming such a boon to them. He commented that among all of the artisanal occupations he had observed, the most important one was blacksmithing. He described how blacksmiths specialized in working bars of iron metal into finished goods such as swords, javelin blades, arrows, and especially agricultural tools. They themselves were not smelters and so depended on others for their supplies of iron. Therefore, the regular arrival of European bar 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.
