A Neglected Source for the History of Little Popo: The Thomas Miles Papers ca. 1789–1796

2001 ◽  
Vol 28 ◽  
pp. 293-330
Author(s):  
Silke Strickrodt
Keyword(s):  
Large Body ◽  
West African ◽  
External Trade ◽  
The Public ◽  
West African Coast ◽  
Private Correspondence ◽  
Major Exception ◽  
History Of ◽  
Public Record ◽  
The Town

During the era of the slave trade, Aného (in modern Togo), which was known to Europeans as “Little Popo” or simply “Popo,” was normally marginal to English commercial interest on the west African coast. This lack of interest is reflected in the sources that exist in British archives today. Documentary material for trade at Aného is scarce, and references to the town rarely go beyond the mentioning of a ship going there to complement its cargo of slaves. However, there is a major exception: the papers of Thomas Miles, which document the activity of the “Popo Factory” of the English firm of Messrs Miles & Weuves in the 1790s. These papers, which are kept in the Public Record Office in London (PRO), comprise a large body of material, including accounts, inventories and commercial and private correspondence. Full of detail, they offer a unique glimpse of Aného and its external trade at a time when the town was at the height of its economic power.In spite of their great value for the history of Aného and the kingdom of Ge (Genyi/Guin), however, the Thomas Miles papers are virtually unknown to historians of the area. The object of this paper is therefore to draw attention to the existence of this material and make historians aware of the unparalleled wealth of information that it contains. The first part of this paper comprises an explanation of the background and a description of the documents, which is followed by a brief discussion of their special strengths and limitations. In the second part, I focus on one aspect, which is the African side of the trade. Here I look at the question of what these documents tell us about Popo society. I have compiled a list of the African traders that frequented the factory, whom I then tried to identify.

The Birth of an American State: Georgia: An Effort of Philanthropy and Protestant Propaganda

1923 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 22-49
Author(s):  
R. A. Roberts
Keyword(s):  
Authentic Materials ◽  
The Public ◽  
Present Essay ◽  
Northern Continent ◽  
History Of ◽  
Public Record ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Common ◽  
Full Day ◽  
The Town

Students of the history of the communities now established in a great Republic and a great Dominion on the northern continent of America have this advantage: that they can begin at the beginning of things, at a definite point or from a line drawn, so to say, in the open plain in the light of the full day. There is for them no search for the head-springs of the river in almost impenetrable fastnesses, no dim twilight before the dawn, no doubtful region of myth or tradition or biassed chronicle. A plain tale of truth and fact is there for their perusal from the first. And I suppose in the case of no one of the States which has a beginning before the Declaration of Independence is this more conspicuous than in the case of the last of them formed from overseas, Georgia, the subject of the present essay. The authentic materials are ready to hand in the Public Record Office in abundance: in State papers, in entry books of letters, in books of appointments and grants to settlers, in journals of trustees, in minutes of the Common Council, in proceedings of the president and assistants for the town and county of Savannah from 1741 onwards, and in a mass of original correspondence, memorials and the like.

Medina Gounass: Constructing Extra-National Space in a West African Borderland

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
David Newman Glovsky
Keyword(s):  
Islamic Law ◽  
West African ◽  
Religious Community ◽  
National Space ◽  
Cross Border ◽  
History Of ◽  
Postcolonial Africa ◽  
Postcolonial States ◽  
The Town

Abstract The historical autonomy of the religious community of Medina Gounass in Senegal represents an alternative geographic territory to that of colonial and postcolonial states. The borderland location of Medina Gounass allowed the town to detach itself from colonial and independent Senegal, creating parallel governmental structures and imposing a particular interpretation of Islamic law. While in certain facets this autonomy was limited, the community was able to distance itself through immigration, cross-border religious ties, and smuggling. Glovsky’s analysis of the history of Medina Gounass offers a case study for the multiplicity of geographical and territorial entities in colonial and postcolonial Africa.

The Royal African Company of England's West African Correspondence, 1681-1699

1993 ◽  
Vol 20 ◽  
pp. 173-184 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robin Law
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
Sierra Leone ◽  
West African ◽  
Gold Coast ◽  
Original Form ◽  
Cape Coast ◽  
General Terms ◽  
West African Coast ◽  
African Coast ◽  
History Of

This paper draws attention to an ambitious project in the publication of source material for the precolonial history of West Africa, which has recently been approved for inclusion in the Fontes Historiae Africanae series of the British Academy. In addition to self-promotion, however, I wish also to take the opportunity to air some of the problems of editorial strategy and choice which arise with regard to the editing and presentation of this material, in the hope of provoking some helpful feedback on these issues.The material to be published consists of correspondence of the Royal African Company of England relating to the West African coast in the late seventeenth century. The history of the Royal African Company (hereafter RAC) is in general terms well known, especially through the pioneering (and still not superseded) study by K.G. Davies (1957). The Company was chartered in 1672 with a legal monopoly of English trade with Africa. Its headquarters in West Africa was at Cape Coast (or, in the original form of the name, Cabo Corso) Castle on the Gold Coast, and it maintained forts or factories not only on the Gold Coast itself, but also at the Gambia, in Sierra Leone, and at Offra and Whydah on the Slave Coast. It lost its monopoly of the African trade in 1698, and thereafter went into decline, effectively ceasing to operate as a trading concern in the 1720s, although it continued to manage the English possessions on the coast of West Africa until it was replaced by a regulated company (i.e., one open to all traders), the Company of Merchants Trading to Africa, in 1750.

scholarly journals Traces of French Culture in Palanga: The Historical Context of Palanga Botanical Park, Personalities, and Memory

Lituanistica ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 67 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Julija Paškevičiūtė
Keyword(s):  
Local Community ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
The Public ◽  
Seaside Resort ◽  
French Culture ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Will ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The City ◽  
The Town

The article focuses on the origins of French culture in Palanga, a Lithuanian seaside resort, that go back to the years of the rule of the Tyszkiewicz family. The emphasis is put on Palanga Botanical Park (created before the end of the nineteenth century) as the most significant trace of French culture present in the resort and the seaside region until now. The specific symbols in the park created according to the will of the Counts Tyszkiewicz reflect the actualities of French culture. The importance of this space in the city is revealed, and Édouard François André’s principles of park creation are discussed in a new context. They are related to the dialogue that has been established between the residents of Palanga, the park, its creator, and his granddaughter Florence André since the first years of the independence of Lithuania. In order to give a meaning to Édouard André’s creation and to the relationship between the two countries, the correspondence between the great-granddaughter of the famous French landscape designer and the former director of the park, Antanas Sebeckas, is disclosed. It reflects the endeavour of these two personalities and its value for the international relations in representing French culture to the public. Florence André’s letters to the author of this article are also an important resource as she explains the reasons why the park plays an essential role in Palanga. It is shown how certain personal life events (Florence André’s wedding ceremony in Palanga, the park created by her great-grandfather) have become an inclusive part of the history of the town and represent intercultural relations and exchanges. The article is also based on some memories and narratives of the members of the local community in which the park features as a symbol and tradition of the city.

Woburn Abbey and the Dissolution of the Monasteries

1933 ◽  
Vol 16 ◽  
pp. 129-160
Author(s):  
Gladys Scott Thomson
Keyword(s):  
Present Writer ◽  
The Public ◽  
History Of ◽  
Public Record

A prolonged search has recently been undertaken by the present writer with the permission and encouragement of the Duke of Bedford with the object, in the first place, of locating if possible the records of the Cistercian abbey of Woburn and, in the second, of ascertaining what material hitherto unused, or partly unused, exists in the Public Record Office and elsewhere concerning the history of that abbey at the time of its dissolution and immediately subsequent thereto.

Women and family

2020 ◽  
pp. 220-273
Author(s):  
Alice Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Primary Sources ◽  
Urban Context ◽  
The Public ◽  
Private Correspondence ◽  
Self Worth ◽  
Cultural Sphere ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Education Culture ◽  
The Town ◽  
Insight Into

Using primary sources including diaries and letters, this chapter sheds considerable light on the female intellectual and cultural sphere. A wide-ranging discussion of middle-class women living in an Irish urban context is offered here. Although Victorian elite women left a much lighter record than that of men, private correspondence from the large Workman family and Mary Watts’ diary and biography provide a fascinating insight into the female sphere as it existed in the town. Women’s experience of education, culture, singleness, courtship, marriage, motherhood and philanthropy are all discussed in this chapter, raising questions about levels of female independence, self-worth and participation in the public sphere. Fatherhood and childhood are also discussed in this chapter.

Sir John Melton's Case (1535): Cockermouth Castle and the Three Silver Luces

1996 ◽  
Vol 55 (2) ◽  
pp. 249-264
Author(s):  
J.H. Baker
Keyword(s):  
Chance Discovery ◽  
The Public ◽  
Strange Story ◽  
History Of ◽  
Public Record ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Daunting Challenge

“FOR who shall interest us in contingent remainders,” wrote the young Mr. Maitland in 1879, “… while Chinese metaphysics remain unexplored.” It would indeed be a daunting challenge to kindle even a bare possibility of historical interest in the nooks and crannies of Fearne's elaborate learning. Yet so much progress has been made with Chinese metaphysics since 1879 that perhaps the time has come to riska brief excursion into the history of the contingent remainder. The occasion is a chance discovery in the Public Record Office which unlocks the strange story behind one of the first leading cases on the subject.

The Amazons of Dahomey

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Agbenyega Adedze
Keyword(s):  
Oral Tradition ◽  
West African ◽  
Oral Traditions ◽  
Historical Evidence ◽  
The West ◽  
West African Coast ◽  
African Coast ◽  
History Of ◽  
French Colonial ◽  
Female Fighters

The Amazons in general come from Greek legend and myth without any palpable historical evidence. However, there is no doubt about the historical female fighters of the erstwhile Kingdom of Dahomey (Danhome or Danxome) in West Africa, which survived until their defeat by the French colonial forces in 1893. The history of the historical Amazons of the Kingdom of Dahomey stems from vast amounts of oral tradition collected and analyzed over the years, as well as written accounts by Europeans who happened to have visited the kingdom or lived on the West African coast since Dahomey’s foundation in the 17th century to its demise in the late 19th century. These sources have been reviewed and debated by several scholars (including Amélie Degbelo, Stanley B. Alpern, Melville J. Herskovits, Hélène d’Almeida-Topor, Boniface Obichere, Edna G. Bay, Robin Law, Susan Preston Blier, Auguste Le Herisse, etc.), who may or may not agree on the narrative of the founding of the kingdom or the genesis of female fighters in the Dahomean army. Nonetheless, all scholars agree that the female forces traditionally called Ahosi/Mino did exist and fought valiantly in many of Dahomey’s battles against their neighbors (Oyo, Ouemenou, Ouidah, etc.) and France. The history of the Ahosi/Mino is intricately linked to the origins and political and social development of the Kingdom of Dahomey. Ahosi/Mino are still celebrated in the oral traditions of the Fon.

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