American Trade--Mode of Advertising, and of making Sales--Standard of
Commercial Integrity--Dealings with Slave-Traders--Trade with the
Natives--King's "Dash"--Native Commission-Merchants--The Gold Trade-The
Ivory Trade--The "Round Trade"--Respectability of American
Merchant-Captains--Trade with the American Squadron.
More vessels come to the coast of Africa from Salem than from any other
port in the United States; although New York, Boston, and Providence, all
have their regular traders. Some of these trade chiefly to Gambia or
Sierra Leone; others to Gallinas, Monrovia and down the coast, touching at
different points. Others, again, go to the Gaboon river, and the islands
of Princes and St. Thomas; and some stretch still farther south, to
Benguela, and beyond. Most American vessels bring provisions, such as
flour, ship-bread, beef, pork, and hams, which are bought chiefly by the
European or American colonists. The natives, however, are yearly acquiring
a taste for them. The market being often overstocked, this part of the
trade is precarious. Other exports are furniture, boots and shoes, wooden
clocks, and all articles of American manufacture, or such as are used
among civilized men. All the vessels bring New England rum, leaf-tobacco,
powder, guns, large brass pans, and cotton cloth. On these points, a great
deal of correct information has been given by Dr. Hall, and may be found
in some of the numbers of the African Repository.
The mode of trading has some peculiarities. On arriving at a civilized
settlement, the captain sends his "list" ashore to some resident merchant.
This list contains a schedule of his cargo, with the prices of each
article annexed, and the kind of pay required. Some take only cash. Most
vessels, however, take the productions of the country at a stipulated
price; for instance, camwood at, say, sixty dollars per ton, palm-oil, at
twenty-five to thirty-three cents per gallon, ivory, ground or peanuts,
gold dust, and gum. At the Cape de Verd islands, salt, goat-skins, and
hides, are the chief commodities received in exchange; at Gambia, hides;
at Monrovia, Cape Palmas, and other settlements in Liberia, camwood and
palm-oil are the great staples. There is likewise some ivory, but not in
large quantity. On the Gold Coast, the trade is in gold-dust and palm-oil;
at the Gaboon, in ivory and gold-dust,--and at Benguela, in gum.
The "list" being put up conspicuously in the merchant's store (such being
the method of advertising in Liberia, where the newspapers are not made
use of, for this purpose), the traders, purchasers, and idlers, come to
see what is for sale. The store becomes, for the time being, the public
Exchange of the settlement, where people assemble, not merely with
commercial views, but to hear the intelligence from abroad, and to diffuse
it thence throughout the country. In due time, the captain comes on shore
with his samples, and individual purchasers bargain for what they want.
The captain receives payment, whether in cash or commodities, and weighs
the camwood, or measures the palm-oil, at the merchant's store. If credit
be given, the merchant is responsible, and receives a perquisite of five
per cent on all sales. The captain takes up his residence on shore, and
sends for goods from his vessel, as they are wanted; while the mate and
crew remain on board, to despatch and receive the cargo. Every vessel has
in its employ several Kroomen, by whom all the boat-service is performed.
When the demand for goods appears to have ceased, the captain either takes
his unsold cargo away, or leaves a portion to be disposed of in his
absence, and sets sail for another settlement. Here the same process is
gone through with, and so on, until the cargo is sold. The captain then
turns back, touching at the several places where he has left goods, to
receive the proceeds, and thence home to America, for a new cargo. Regular
traders have numerous orders to fill up, from persons resident on the
coast; taking care, of course, to allow themselves a good profit for their
trouble and freight. The trade with the colonists is easy and sufficiently
plain; the only difficulty being the somewhat essential one of obtaining
payment. Colonial traders, in abundance, are eager to buy on credit; but,
possessing little or no capital, they often fail to satisfy their
obligations at the period assigned--if, indeed, they ever pay at all.
Commercial integrity is not here of so high an order as in older
countries, where the great body of merchants have established a standard
of rectitude, which individuals must not venture to transgress.
Another large branch of business is at places where the slave-trade is
carried on; as at Gallinas and Wydah. Here, provisions, guns, powder,
cotton cloths, and other goods, suitable for the purchase or subsistence
of slaves, are sold at good prices for cash, or bills of exchange. The
bills of Pedro Blanco, the notorious slave-dealer at Gallinas, on an
eminent Spanish house in New York, and another in London, are taken as
readily as cash. A large number of the vessels engaged in the African
trade, whether English or American, do a considerable part of their
business either with the slavers, or with natives settled at the
slave-marts, and who, from their connection with the trade, have plenty of
money. Some of the large English houses give orders to their captains and
supercargoes not to traffic with men reputed to be slave-dealers; but, if
a purchaser come with money in his hand, and offer liberal prices, it
requires a tenderer conscience and sterner integrity than are usually met
with, on the coast of Africa, to resist the temptation. The merchant at
home, possibly, is supposed to know nothing of all this. It is quite an
interesting moral question, however, how far either Old or New England can
be pronounced free from the guilt and odium of the slave trade, while,
with so little indirectness, they both share its profits and contribute
essential aid to its prosecution.
The method of trade with the natives is more tedious than that with the
colonists, and differs entirely in its character. On anchoring at a
trade-place, it is necessary, first of all, to pay the King his "dash," or
present, varying in value from twenty dollars to seven or eight hundred.
Such sums as the latter are paid only by ships of eight hundred or a
thousand tons,--and in the great rivers, as Bonny or Calebar. The "dash"
may be considered as equivalent to the duties levied on foreign imports,
in civilized countries; and doubtless, as in those cases, the trader
remunerates himself by an enhanced price upon his merchandize.
The King being "dashed" to his satisfaction, trade commences. The canoes
bring off the articles which the natives have for sale; and the goods of
the vessel are exhibited in return. At first, it is a slow process; either
party offering little for the commodity of the other, and asking much for
his own. But, in a few days, prices becoming established on both sides,
business grows brisk, and flags only when one party has little more to
exchange. Native agents are employed by the stranger; some being Kroomen
attached to the vessel, and others trade-men, inhabiting the native towns.
These men, in addition to their small regular pay, continually receive
presents, which are necessary in order to excite their activity and zeal.
There is still another mode of trading, resorted to by many masters of
vessels. They entrust quantities of goods--varying in value from a
trifling sum up to a thousand dollars, or even more--to native trade-men.
With these, or part of them, the trade-man goes into the interior, makes
trade with the Bushmen, and brings the proceeds to his employer. These
native agents are sometimes trusted with large amounts, for several months
together, and not unfrequently give their principal great trouble in
collecting his dues. Their families, to be sure, are held responsible, and
the King is bound to enforce payment. Nevertheless, if so disposed, they
can procrastinate, and finally cheat their creditor out of his debt;
especially as the vessel cannot remain long upon the coast, awaiting the
King's tardy methods of compulsion.
On the Gold Coast, each vessel employs a native who is called its
"gold-taker," and is skilful in detecting spurious metal. The gold-dust is
brought for sale, wrapped up in numerous coverings, to avoid waste. It is
tested by acids; or, more commonly, by rubbing the gold on the
"black-stone," when the color of the mark, which it leaves upon the stone,
decides the character of the metal. The gold, after its weight has been
ascertained, is put by the captain into little barrels, holding perhaps
half a pint, and with the top screwing tightly on. This "glittering dust"
(to use the phrase which moralists are fond of applying to worldly pelf),
commands from sixteen to eighteen dollars per ounce, in England and the
United States. It is gathered from the sands which the rivers of Africa
wash down from the golden mountains; and, when offered for sale, small
lumps of gold and rudely manufactured rings are sometimes found among the
dust--ornaments that have perhaps been worn by sable monarchs, or their
sultanas, in the interior of the country.
In the ivory trade, small teeth (comprising all that weigh less than
twenty pounds) are considered to be worth but half the price, per pound,
that is paid for large teeth. From fifty cents to a dollar is the ordinary
value of a pound of ivory. Some large teeth sell for a hundred dollars, or
even a hundred and fifty. The sale of such a gigantic tusk, as may well be
supposed, is considered an affair of almost national importance, and the
bargain can only be adjusted through the medium of a "big palaver." The
trade in ivory is now on the decline; the demand in England and France not
being so great as formerly, and America never having presented a good
market for the article.
Palm-oil is brought from the interior, on the heads of the natives, in
calabashes, containing two or three gallons each. In speaking of the
interior, however, a comparatively short distance from the coast is to be
understood. Gold, where great value is concentrated into small bulk, and
some ivory, may occasionally come from remote regions; but the vast inland
tracts of the African continent have little to do, either directly or
indirectly, with the commerce of the civilized world.
In dealing with the natives, there was formerly a system much in vogue,
but now going out of use, called the "round trade." The method was, to
offer one of each article; for instance, one gun, one cutlass, one flint,
one brass kettle, one needle, and so on, from the commodity of greatest
value down to the least. In all traffic there is a desire on the part of
the native to obtain as great a variety as his means will compass. If the
native commodity on sale be valuable, the captain offers two or more of
his guns, cutlasses, flints, brass kettles, and needles; if it be small,
and of trifling value, he perhaps exhibits only a flint and a needle as an
equivalent. The native of course tries to get the most valuable, and the
purchaser to pay the least. If the former demand a piece of cloth, and if
it be refused by the captain, the native then asks what he will "room" it
with. The captain, it may be, proposes to substitute a needle; and, after
much talk, the troublesome bargain is thus brought to a point. English
vessels usually have supercargoes; the Americans are seldom so provided.
But the American captains, on the other hand, are respectable,
intelligent, and trustworthy men, almost without exception. The exigencies
of the trade require such men; and any defect, either of capacity or
integrity, would soon be brought to light by the onerous duties and
responsibilities imposed upon them. Great latitude must be allowed them,
or the voyage cannot be expected to turn out profitably. They perform the
double duty of master and supercargo, and perhaps with the more success,
as there can be no disunion or difference of judgment. These captains are
likewise often part owners of vessel and cargo.
Since the African coast has been made the cruising ground of an American
squadron, the merchantmen have brought out stores, with the expectation of
disposing of them to the ships of war. Some of these speculations have
turned out very profitable; but now, when the Government understands and
has made provisions for the wants of the station, this market is not to be
relied upon. To the officers, indeed, there is a chance, though by no
means a certainty, of selling mess-stores. The prices charged by
merchantmen correspond with the scarcity of the article, and are sometimes
enormous. I have known nine dollars a barrel asked for Irish, or rather
Yankee potatoes, and have paid my share for a small quantity, at that
rate. To those who see this vegetable daily on their tables, it may seem
strange that men should value a potatoe five times as highly as an orange.
After eating yams and cassada, however, for months together, one learns
how to appreciate a mealy potatoe, the absence of which cannot be
compensated by the most delicious of tropical fruits. Adam's fare in
Paradise might have been much improved, had Eve known how to boil
potatoes; nor, perhaps, would the fatal apple have been so tempting.