Making Money

Life, Death, and Early Modern Trade on Africa's Guinea Coast

Colleen E. Kriger

• Publisher: Ohio University Press
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9780896805002
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: African History
• Index: History

A new era in world history began when Atlantic maritime trade among Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas opened up in the fifteenth century, setting the stage for massive economic and cultural change. In Making Money, Colleen Kriger examines the influence of the global trade on the Upper Guinea Coast two hundred years later—a place and time whose study, in her hands, imparts profound insights into Anglo-African commerce and its wider milieu.

A stunning variety of people lived in this coastal society, struggling to work together across deep cultural divides and in the process creating a dynamic creole culture. Kriger digs further than any previous historian of Africa into the records of England's Royal African Company to illuminate global trade patterns, the interconnectedness of Asian, African, and European markets, and—most remarkably—the individual lives that give Making Money its human scale.

By inviting readers into the day-to-day workings of early modern trade in the Atlantic basin, Kriger masterfully reveals the rich social relations at its core. Ultimately, this accessible book affirms Africa's crucial place in world history during a transitional period, the early modern era.

Index

alcohol, 31, 34, 73

Almada, André Álvares de, observations written by, 15, 18, 22, 28–29

ancient Ghana, 16–17

Anglo-African men: Bridgman, Richard, 80, 102, 161; Corker, Thomas, Jr., 164; Cumberbatch, John, sons of, 172–75; Rogers, Zachary, sons of, 170–72; Skinner, James and Thomas, 76, 159; Skinner, Matthew, 76, 80, 159, 161, 173

Arabic, sources written in, 10–11, 16–22

arbitrage trading: coastal, by ship, 25–26; definition of, 25; overland, by caravan, 26–28; slaves in, 108–9

archaeological sites, West African: ancient Benin, 11; Gao, 11; Igbo-Ukwu, 10–11; Jenne-jeno, 14; Ma’den Ijafen, 11, 19; Sanga, 20–21

artisans, European, 37, 39–46, 64, 146, 160

artisans, South Asian, 39

artisans, West African: carpenters, 182; ironworkers, 14–16, 30; leatherworkers, 62–63, 207n58; tailors, 173; textile producers, 20–23; use of captive labor, 109–12

assortment bargaining: definition of, 23–24; descriptions of, 24–28

Atlantic trade: crossings of Atlantic, 125, 132; multicultural social networks in, 4; opening up of, 5–6, 37; slave preferences in, 109; on Upper Guinea Coast, 48, 51–52, 54, 57–59

Baltic trade, 37, 42, 44, 48, 63

Barbot, Jean, observations written by, 32–34

Benin Kingdom, 11, 47

bilad al-sudan, Land of the Black People, 9, 17

Billingary, RAC account of a linger, 99–100, 102, 149. See also La Belinguère

Black Harry, RAC employee, 182–83

Blow, William, RAC employee, 128, 129, 169–70

Bonna, RAC employee, 178–80

Booker, Hope, child/house slave of John Booker, 2, 87, 149, 169

Booker, John, RAC employee, 1, 2, 87, 129–31, 157, 167; estate of, 149–52

brandy: as customs payment, 73, 76, 78; as gift, 34, 137; as payment for curing sale slaves, 120; as payment of salary, 156; as reward for returning runaways, 135; in s...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Series Editors’ Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Atlantic Lives: Anglo-African Trade in Northern Guinea
• One: Buyers and Sellers in Cross-Cultural Trade
• Two: “Artificers” and Merchants: Making and Moving Goods
• Three: West Africans Profiting in Atlantic Trade
• Four: Company Property: Captives, Rebels, and Grometos
• Five: Free Agents and Local Hires: Managing Men in Northern Guinea
• Conclusion: Anglo-African Relations
• Suggested Further Readings, by Chapter and Topic
• Notes
• Works Cited
• Index