West African studies

by Mary Henrietta Kingsley

The various grades of the people in Brass were the kings, next came the chiefs and their sons who had by their own industry, and assisted in their first endeavours by their parents, worked themselves into a position of wealth, then came the Winna-boes, a grade mostly supplied by the favourite slave of a chief, who had been his constant attendant for years, commencing his career by carrying his master’s pocket-handkerchief and snuff-box, pockets not having yet been introduced into the native costume; after some years of this duty he would be promoted to going down to the European traders to superintend the delivery of a canoe of oil, seeing to its being tried, gauged, &c. This first duty, if properly performed, would lead to his being often sent on the same errand. This duty required a certain amount of savez, as the natives call intelligence, for he had to so look after his master’s interests that the pull-away boys that were with him in the canoe did not secrete any few gallons of oil that there might be left over after filling up all the casks he had been sent to deliver; nor must he allow the white trader to under-gauge his master’s casks by carelessness or otherwise. If he was able to do the latter part of his errand in such a diplomatic manner that he did not raise the bile of the trader, that day marked the commencement of his upward career, if he was possessed of the bump of saving. All having gone off to the satisfaction of both parties, the trader would make this boy some small present according to the number of puncheons of oil he had brought down, seldom less than a piece of cloth worth about 2s. 6d., and, in the case of canoes containing ten to fifteen puncheons, the trader would often dash him two pieces of cloth and a bunch or two of beads. This present he would, on his return to his master’s house, hand over to his mother (id est, the woman who had taken care of him from the time when he was first bought by his Brass master). She would carefully hoard this and all subsequent bits of miscellaneous property until he had in his foster-mother’s hands sufficient goods to buy an angbar of oil—a measure containing thirty gallons. Then he would approach his master (always called “father” by his slaves) and beg permission to send his few goods to the Niger markets the next time his master had a canoe starting—which permission was always accorded. He had next to arrange terms with the head man or trader of his master’s canoe as to what commission he had to get for trading off the goods in the far market. In this discussion, which may occupy many days before it is finally arranged, the foster-mother figures largely; and it depends a great deal upon her standing in the household of the chief as to the amount of commission the trade boy will demand for his services. If the foster-mother should happen to be a favourite wife of the chief, well, then things are settled very easily, the trade boy most likely saying he was quite willing to leff-em to be settled any way she liked; if, on the contrary, it was one of the poorer women of the chiefs house, Mr. Trade-boy would demand at least the quarter of the trade to commence with, and end up by accepting about an eighth. As the winnabo could easily double his property twice a year—and he was always adding to his store in his foster-mother’s hands from presents received each time he went down to the white trader with his father’s oil—it did not take many years for him to become a man of means, and own canoes and slaves himself. Many times have I known cases where the winnabo has repeatedly paid up the debts of his master to the white man.

According to the law of the country, the master has the right to sell the very man who is paying his debts off for him; but I must say I never heard a case of such rank ingratitude, though cases have occurred where the master has got into such low water and such desperate difficulties that his creditors under country law have seized everything he was possessed of, including any wealthy winnaboes he might have.

Some writers have said this class could purchase their freedom; with this I don’t agree. The only chance a winnabo had of getting his freedom was, supposing his master died and left no sons behind him old enough or capable enough to take the place of their father, then the winnabo might be elected to take the place of his defunct master: he would then become ipso facto a chief, and be reckoned a free man. If he was a man of strong character, he would hold until his death all the property of the house; but if one of the sons of his late master should grow up an intelligent man, and amass sufficient riches to gather round him some of the other chief men in the town, then the question was liable to be re-opened, and the winnabo might have to part out some of the property and the people he had received upon his appointment to the headship of the house, together with a certain sum in goods or oil, which the elders of the town would decide should represent the increment on the portion handed over. I have never known of a case where the whole of the property and people have been taken away from a winnabo in Brass; but I have known it occur in other rivers, but only for absolute misuse, misrule, and misconduct of the party.

Egbo-boes are the niggers or absolute lower rank of slaves, who are employed as pull-away boys in the oil canoes and gigs of the chiefs, and do all the menial work or hard labour of the towns that is not done by the lower ranks of the women slaves.

The lot of these egbo-boes is a very hard one at times, especially when their masters have no use for them in their oil canoes. At the best of times their masters don’t provide them with more food then is about sufficient for one good square meal a day; but, when trade is dull and they have no use for them in any way, their lot is deplorable indeed. This class has suffered terribly during the last ten years owing to the complete stoppage of the Brassmen’s trade in the Niger markets.

This class had few chances of rising in the social scale, but it was from this class that sprang some of the best trade boys who took their masters’ goods away up to Abo and occasionally as far as Onitsa, on the Niger.

Cases have occurred of boys from this class rising to as good a position as the more favoured winnaboes; but for this they have had to thank some white trader, who has taken a fancy to here and there one of them, and getting his master to lend him to him as a cabin boy—a position generally sought after by the sons of chiefs, so as to learn “white man’s mouth,” otherwise English.

The succession laws are similar to those of the other Coast tribes one meets with in the Delta, but to understand them it requires some little explanation. A tribe is composed of a king and a number of chiefs. Each chief has a number of petty chiefs under him. Perhaps a better definition for the latter would be, a number of men who own a few slaves and a few canoes of their own, and do an independent trade with the white men, but who pay to their chiefs a tribute of from 20 to 25 per cent, on their trade with the white man. In many cases the white man stops this tribute from the petty chiefs and holds it on behalf of the chief. This collection of petty chiefs with their chief forms what in Coast parlance is denominated a House.

The House may own a portion of the principal town, say Obulambri, and also a portion in any of the small towns in the neighbouring creeks, and it may own here and there isolated pieces of ground where some petty chief has squatted and made a clearance either as a farm or to place a few of his family there as fishermen; in the same way the chief of the house may have squatted on various plots of ground in any part of the district admitted by the neighbouring tribes to belong to his tribe. All these parcels and portions of land belong in common to the House—that is, supposing a petty chief having a farm in any part of the district was to die leaving no male heirs and no one fit to take his place, the chief as head of the house would take possession, but would most likely leave the slaves of the dead man undisturbed in charge of the farm they had been working on, only expecting them to deliver him a portion of the produce equivalent to what they had been in the habit of delivering to their late master, who was a petty chief of the house.

The head of the house would have the right of disposal of all the dead man’s wives, generally speaking the younger ones would be taken by the chief, the others he would dispose of amongst his petty chiefs; if, as generally happens, there were a few aged ones amongst them for whom there was no demand he would take them into his own establishment and see they were provided for.