THE GOLD COAST.
This coast has, from its discovery in the 15th century to our own day, been the chief trade region in the Bight of Benin; and Barbot states that the amount of gold sent from it to Europe in his day was £240,000 value per annum.
The trade selection for the Gold Coast trade in the 17th and 18th centuries is therefore very interesting, as it gives us an insight into the manufactures exported by European traders at that time, and of a good many different kinds; for English, French, Portuguese, Dutch, Danes and Brandenburghers were all engaged in the Gold Coast trade, and each took out for barter those things he could get cheapest in his own country.
“The French commonly,” says Barbot, “carry more brandy, wine, iron, paper, firelocks, &c., than the English or Dutch can do, those commodities being cheaper in France, as, on the other hand, they (the English and Dutch) supply the Guinea trade with greater quantities of linen, cloth, bugles, copper basons and kettles, wrought pewter, gunpowder, sayes, perpetuanas, chintzs, cawris, old sheets, &c., because they can get these wares from England or Holland.
“The French commonly compose their cargo for the Gold Coast trade to purchase slaves and gold dust; of brandy, white and red wine, ros solis, firelocks, muskets, flints, iron in bars, white and red contecarbe, red frize, looking glasses, fine coral, sarsaparilla, bugles of sundry sorts and colours and glass beads, powder, sheets, tobacco, taffeties, and many other sorts of silks wrought as brocardels, velvets, shirts, black hats, linen, paper, laces of many sorts, shot, lead, musket balls, callicoes, serges, stuffs, &c., besides the other goods for a true assortment, which they have commonly from Holland.
“The Dutch have Coesveld linen, Slezsiger lywat, old sheets, Leyden serges, dyed indigo-blue, perpetuanas, green, blue and purple, Konings-Kleederen, annabas, large and narrow, made at Haerlem; Cyprus and Turkey stuffs, Turkey carpets, red, blue and yellow cloths, green, red and white Leyden rugs, silk stuffs blue and white, brass kettles of all sizes, copper basons, Scotch pans, barbers’ basons, some wrought, others hammered, copper pots, brass locks, brass trumpets, pewter, brass and iron rings, hair trunks, pewter dishes and plates (of a narrow brim), deep porringers, all sorts and sizes of fishing hooks and lines, lead in sheets and in pipes, 3 sorts of Dutch knives, Venice bugles and glass beads of sundry colours and sizes, sheep skins, iron bars, brass pins long and short, brass bells, iron hammers, powder, muskets, cutlaces, cawris, chintz, lead balls and shot, brass cups with handles, cloths of Cabo Verdo, Qua Qua, Ardra and Rio Forcada, blue coral, alias akory from Benin, strong waters and abundance of other wares, being near 160 sorts, as a Dutchman told me.”
I am sorry Barbot broke down just when he seemed going strong with this list, and I was out of breath checking the indent, and said “other wares,” but I cannot help it, and beg to say that this is the true assortment for the Gold Coast trade in 1678. The English selection “besides many of the same goods above mentioned have tapseils, broad and narrow, nicanees fine and coarse, many sorts of chintz or Indian callicoes printed, tallow, red painting colours, Canary wine, sayes, perpetuanas inferior to the Dutch and sacked up in painted tillets with the English arms, many sorts of white callicoes, blue and white linen, China satins, Barbadoes rum, other strong waters and spirits, beads of all sorts, buckshaws, Welsh plain, boy-sades, romberges, clouts, gingarus, taffeties, amber, brandy, flower, Hamburgh brawls, and white, blue and red chequered linen, narrow Guinea stuffs chequered, ditto broad, old hats, purple beads. The Danes, Brandenburghers and Portuguese provide their cargoes in Holland commonly consisting of very near the same sort of wares as I have observed the Dutch make up theirs, the two former having hardly anything of their own proper to the trade of the Gold Coast besides copper and silver, either wrought or in bullion or in pieces of eight, which are a commodity also there.
“The Portuguese have most of their cargoes from Holland under the name of Jews residing there, and they add some things of the product of Brazil, as tobacco, rum, tame cattle, St. Tome cloth, others from Rio Forcado and other circumjacent places in the Gulf of Guinea.”