Trade and the Merchant Community of the Loango Coast in the Eighteenth Century Thesis submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Hull by Stacey Jean Muriel Sommerdyk Honors BA (University of Western Ontario) MA (York University) May 2012 ii Synopsis This thesis explores the political, economic and cultural transformation of the Loango Coast during the era of the transatlantic slave trade from the point of contact with Europeans in the sixteenth century until the end of the eighteenth century, with particular focus on the eighteenth century. While a number of previous studies of the West Central African slave trade have focused principally on the role of the Portuguese on the Angola Coast, this thesis makes a new contribution by evaluating the balance of power between Dutch and Loango Coast merchant communities. In doing so, this thesis concludes that well into the eighteenth century, local African religious and political traditions remained relatively unchanged on the Loango Coast, especially in comparison to their southern neighbours in Angola. Drawing upon detailed records compiled by the Middelburgse Commercie Compangie (MCC), the thesis builds upon an original database which accounts for approximately 10,000 slaves sold by 640 identified African merchants to the Dutch Middelburg Company over the course of 5,000 transactions. Expanding upon the work of Phyllis Martin and other scholars, this thesis highlights a distinction between the Loango and the Angola coasts based on models of engagement with European traders; furthermore, it draws attention to the absence of European credit data in the MCC slave purchasing balance sheets; and, finally, it explores the difficulties involved in procuring slaves via long distance trade. While making extensive use of the Slave Voyages Database, this study also seeks to move beyond the European focused studies of shipping patterns to begin to discover the identities of the African traders. In doing so, the thesis provides the first comprehensive list of African merchants in the eighteenth century. This list of African merchants also reinforces fragmented lists of rulers for the polities of Loango, Kakongo, and Ngoyo, and also gives us a more concrete picture of the role of the principal traders on the coast, Mafouks, in the eighteenth century. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, the thesis emphasises the large numbers of relatively small African investors in the trade, giving names and faces to the minor merchants of the slave trade. Consequently, African merchants stop being depicted only as amorphous interchangeable figures in the history of the transatlantic slave trade and begin to gain identities comparable to those of their European counterparts. iii Dedicated to Alfred and Muriel Langstaff who always believed in me iv Table of Contents Acknowledgments ………………………………………………………………………………….………v Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………………………….6 Chapter 1: Loango and the Transatlantic Slave Trade…………………………………….36 Chapter 2: Afro-European Encounters on the Loango Coast..………………………..68 Chapter 3: Maximizing Profit and Minimizing Risk: Transatlantic Shipping and the Loango Coast Slave Trade………………………………………………………………………112 Chapter 4: Cross-Cultural Exchange and the Transformation of the Loango Merchant Community, 1732-1797……………………………………………………………….139 Chapter 5: Negotiating Cross-Cultural Trade: From Coastal Markets to the Interior …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….170 Chapter 6: Conclusions………………………………………………………………………………..209 Appendices……………………………………………………………………………………………….…227 Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………………………………252 v Acknowledgements Firstly, I would like to offer gratitude to my supervisors David Richardson and Simon D. Smith for their significant contributions to my research. Without their vision, commitment, and organizational support this project would have been impossible. It has been a privilege to work with them and to be a member of the Wilberforce Institute. My thanks to Mike Turner for his insights into economic history and his comments on my first analysis of my database. Judith Spicksley has provided sustained support and encouragement throughout the project as well as having offered invaluable comments on the final draft. I owe her a debt of gratitude. Additionally I would like to thank my colleagues Filipa Ribeiro da Silva, Kate Hodgson, Nick Evans, David Wilkins, Alexia Rogers-Wright, Cicely Alsbury, Julius Nganji, and Gloria Nganji for their friendship and support throughout the process. A number of individuals have offered suggestions and source material to strengthen this project. Thank you to José Curto and Paul E. Lovejoy for introducing me to African history and their sustained support and encouragement. To Jelmer Vos, my thanks for your help with understanding my Dutch sources. I sincerely appreciate the comments Phyllis Martin offered on an early draft of Chapter 4. I would also like to acknowledge the generosity of Bruce Mouser in sharing the Valley Sunday Star-Monitor-Herald articles with me. Mariana Candido who has offered me friendship and encouragement as well as commenting on multiple drafts of my thesis, you have my deepest thanks. I would also like to acknowledge the financial support of the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, the Overseas Research Students Awards Scheme, and the University of Hull in the writing of my thesis. The generosity and hospitality of Jos Hopman and Martine Voors during multiple research trips to the Netherlands is much appreciated. I owe much to my parents who taught me that anything is possible and to my sisters who have always sought to keep me grounded. Finally, I would like to thank Joel Quirk who has helped me to grow in so many ways as an individual and as an academic. 6 Introduction Between 1514 and 1865, approximately 12.5 million enslaved Africans entered the Atlantic World via the transatlantic slave trade.1 This massive forced migration transformed coastal communities throughout the Atlantic Ocean and beyond. Europeans acted as brokers in the redistribution of goods from Europe, and later Asia and the Americas, in exchange for enslaved labourer to develop the Americas. Thus, the transatlantic slave trade was truly a global phenomenon which was facilitated by European advances in shipping technology in the Early Modern period. During this period the Loango Coast, Africa’s Atlantic coastline north of the mouth of the Congo River to the Equator, emerged an important market of exchange. According to the Transatlantic Slave Voyages Database (hereafter the Voyages Database), the first known transatlantic slaving voyage departed the African Coast with a cargo of slaves in 1514. Unlike the more famous transatlantic voyages to come later, this ship was in search of labourers for use in Europe not the Americas. The voyage was undertaken by a Portuguese ship. This ship embarked an estimated 237 slaves at the Congo River, the southern boundary of the Loango Coast. An estimated 168 of these slaves disembarked in Vigo, Spain, the remaining 69 slaves having died en route.2 In 1865 the last transatlantic voyage recorded in the Slave Voyages Database, whose area of slave embarkation is known, set sail for the Congo River. This vessel’s name was the Cicerón, a steamship built in Liverpool. Although a British built ship, the ship’s last slaving voyage began in Cadiz, Spain. Mesquita directed this voyage as the ship’s captain. The ship docked in the Congo River where it embarked an estimated 1,265 enslaved Africans. Upon its arrival in Cuba, 1,004 slaves remained to be disembarked.3 These two voyages, which bookend the Slave Voyages Database, highlight the continuity of trade on the Loango Coast while 1 The Transatlantic Slave Voyages Database. http://www.slavevoyages.org/tast/assessment/estimates.faces Accessed on 8 September 2011. 2 http://www.slavevoyages.org/tast/database/search.faces Query: Principal place of slave purchase – West Central Africa. Accessed on 23 May 2010. 3 http://www.slavevoyages.org/tast/database/search.faces Query: Voyage Identification Number - 5052. Accessed on 23 May 2010. 7 simultaneously drawing our attention to the economic and technological advances which evolved as a result of continued contact between the four continents of the Atlantic world. Stretching from Cape Lopez in the north to the Congo River in the south, the Loango Coast is best known for its three slave trading ports, Loango Bay, Malemba, and Cabinda Bay, which serviced the transatlantic slave trade between 1660 and 1867. Although Europeans frequented the coast before this time, they came primarily in search of cloth, ivory, redwood, and elephant tails. In this early period, trade policy was defined by Loango, the dominant polity to the north of the Congo River. In the 1660s, the external trade of the Loango Coast shifted definitively from products to people. Between 1660 and 1810, the French, English, and Dutch were the dominant trading partners of the merchants on the Loango Coast. During this period at least 475,000 slaves entered the transatlantic slave trade through Loango Coast ports. This was the formative stage in slave trading on the Loango Coast, when the mechanisms of long-distance slave trade were established. Between 1811 and 1867 a further 1.3 million slaves are recorded to have passed through these ports on Portuguese, Brazilian, and American ships which made the Loango Coast one of the top four transatlantic slave trading regions in Africa.4 Despite its importance