English Traders on the Guinea Coast, 1657–1668: An Analysis of the East India Company Archive

1989 ◽  
Vol 16 ◽  
pp. 237-284 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret Makepeace

English trade with Guinea in west Africa was regulated during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries by royal letters patent. In 1631 Charles I issued a patent which entitled the Guinea Company, headed by Sir Nicholas Crispe, to the monopoly of trade from Cape Blanco to the Cape of Good Hope for a period of thirty-one years. The Guinea Company continued to operate during the Interregnum in spite of increased competition both from freelance merchants, known as interlopers, and from rival European powers. The Council of State in 1651 decided to allow the monopoly to run for a further fourteen years, but restricted the Company to an area lying between two points set twenty leagues to the north of Cormantine, its headquarters in Guinea, and twenty leagues south of the fort at Sierra Leone, leaving the remainder of the coast open to all English traders.The East India Company was eager to gain a part in the Guinea trade because ships calling there on the way to India could exchange a cargo of European manufactured goods for a consignment of gold and ivory which was used to sustain operations at the factories in India. In this way the Company had less need to export large quantities of bullion from England to India, a practice which was both heavily criticized and formally restricted before 1660. In 1649 the East India Company reached an agreement with the Assada adventurers that the Guinea and East India trades should be united, but decided that this scheme could not be effected immediately.

Author(s):  
Marius Schneider ◽  
Vanessa Ferguson

Guinea, also sometimes referred as Guinea-Conakry, is found in West Africa. It is bordered by Guinea-Bissau, Senegal, and Mali in the north and Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Ivory Coast in the south. In 2016, Guinea had a population of 12.6 million over a territory of 245 860 square kilometres (km). Its capital and largest city is Conakry. The official language of Guinea is French, and the currency used is the Guinean franc (GNF).


Author(s):  
Marius Schneider ◽  
Vanessa Ferguson

Liberia is situated in the southern part of West Africa on the North Atlantic Ocean, bordered by Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Ivory Coast, covering an area of 111,369 square kilometres (km) with a population of 4,958,454. The majority of the population live in the Montserrado county and home to the capital city of Monrovia, with approximately 25 per cent of the Liberian population living in greater Monrovia. Monrovia is the capital and most populous city in Liberia and has the largest artificial port in West Africa. Typically, business hours are Monday to Friday from 0800 to 1700 with banks closing at 1500. The official currency of Liberia is the Liberian dollar (LRD).


1985 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-29
Author(s):  
Jean Houbert

Seawaysand settlers were closely associated with the creation of the European colonial empires which radially changed the course of modern history. That expansion was triggered off by the search for a way round the Arab monopoly to the riches of the Orient, and the massive land-mass of Africa was in the way. The European sailors looked westwards across the uncharted ocean and the search led, inadvertently, to America where the New World of settlers was brought into being. Southwards, skirting the rim of the African continent, the seamen finally discovered the great sea route to the Orient round the Cape of Good Hope: there another world of settlers grew up closely linked to the seaway. Long after, with Europe's supremacy over the oceans well established, the Suez Canal was cut, and the old route to the East round the north of Africa was re-opened. Later, EuropeanJewish settlers were implanted in the area.


1975 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
George E. Brooks

The commercialization of peanuts on the Upper Guinea Coast began along the Gambia River in the early 1830s, expanded to southern Guinea and northern Sierra Leone in the late 1830s, and Senegal and Portuguese Guinea in the early 1840s. African cultivators and traders responded to the new marketing opportunities with remarkable swiftness, and everywhere peanut cultivation spread it occasioned far-reaching economic and social changes for the societies concerned. A rapidly growing demand for peanuts in France, together with favourable changes in French tariffs, greatly benefited French and Senegalese traders in competition with British and Sierra Leonean rivals. The consequence was that the former attained a dominant commercial position on the Upper Guinea Coast by the 1860s, an advantage that would be exploited in the achievement of French political hegemony over much of the area in the colonial partition which followed.


1968 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 639-642 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. I. Tougarinov ◽  
K. G. Knorre ◽  
L. L. Shanin ◽  
L. N. Prokofieva

Age determinations completed during the last two years indicate a structural complexity previously undetected in the southern part of West Africa. Holmes and Cahen identified very ancient metamorphic rocks in Sierra Leone, in the western part of the Nigerian Shield. Their date of 2900 m.y. for monazite by the U–Pb method is comparable to a date of 2540 m.y. for biotite, recently determined by the K–Ar method.A Lower Proterozoic geosyncline, developed on the Archean basement, was deformed and metamorphosed 1800 to 2000 m.y. ago. The metamorphic complexes of the Ivory Coast and Ghana belong mainly to this period. The dominant trend of foliation is north to northeast.On the north slope of the Guinean crystalline complex younger granites are dated at 980 m.y. Associated extrusive rhyolites give an age of 1000 m.y.In eastern Ghana and Togo a thick sequency of conglomerates, sandstones, and pelitic sedimentary rocks contain glauconites dated at 620 m.y. These sedimentary rocks are the miogeosynclinal portion of an Upper Proterozoic geosyncline. The eugeosynclinal portion of this geosyncline was metamorphosed about 600 m.y. ago to form the Nigerian gneissic complex. The younger granites in Nigeria were intruded 170 m.y. ago.


1946 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 185-252 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. C. Muirhead Thomson

The eggs of A. gambiae var. melas are distinctly different from those of typical gambiae, and it is now regarded as a distinct species, A. melas. Other workers have found that the larvae also differ, physiologically and structurally. All adults with an extra dark band on the palps—4-banded forms— are known to be melas, but those adults with normal 3-banded palps can so far only be distinguished from typical gambiae by egg characters.A. melas is now known to be an important vector of malaria in coastal districts in West Africa. In some estuarine and mangrove swamp areas it may be even more important than typical gambiae. In melas caught in Freetown estuary (mostly from Wellington village), 42 out of 1,000 glands dissected were positive, giving a sporozoite rate of 4·2 per cent. for all months of the year. The oocyst rate was 4·7 per cent., and the total infection rate was 7·8 per cent.In Freetown estuary melas is rare in Freetown itself, and in the adjoining village of Kissy, but in all other parts of the estuary is at least as important as typical gambiae. In many places it is the dominant vector. In Wellington to the east of Kissy, and on the Bullom shore which forms the north shore of the estuary, melas forms about 90 per cent. of Anophelines caught in houses.


2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 128-140
Author(s):  
Alhaji Bakar Kamara

The focus of this research is to investigate the influence of wharfs on school children. Therefore it will report the findings of the result on the influences of wharfs on school children with specific case on Portee Wharf in Freetown, Sierra Leone in West Africa. In this regard, the introduction describes the research area, stating the statement of the problem, the overall goal and specific objectives that will be attained in this study, justification for selecting the topic, problems to be encountered during the course of carrying out this research and major influences. Besides, an indication of the methods used to investigate the topic will also be highlighted. Moreover, the studies will analyze the actual responses of the respondents of the activities of the wharf on school-going children. It will address the questionnaire in accordance with the following: Background information of respondents, this investigated areas such as sex, age, religion, occupation and tribe; It enquires about the activities of the wharfs, reasons and consequences of children engaged in wharfs and strategies to control problems that may emanate from the wharf. The paper will show the findings, gives the summary, conclusion and recommendations of problems identified while carrying out the research.


1972 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 36-53 ◽  
Author(s):  
John C. McManus

This study of Indian behavior in the fur trade is offered more as a report of a study in progress than a completed piece of historical research. In fact, the research has barely begun. But in spite of its unfinished state, the tentative results of the work I have done to this point may be of some interest as an illustration of the way in which the recent revival of analytical interest in institutions may be used to develop an approach to the economic history of the fur trade.


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