the ashanti rubber trade with the gold coast in the eighteen-nineties

International African Institute

The Ashanti Rubber Trade with the Gold Coast in the Eighteen-NinetiesAuthor(s): Kwame ArhinSource: Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, Vol. 42, No. 1 (Jan., 1972), pp.32-43Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the International African InstituteStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1159529 .

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[321

THE ASHANTII RUBBER TRADE WITH THE GOLD COAST IN THE EIGHTEEN-NINETIES

KWAME ARHIN

INTRODUCTION

THIS study of the Ashanti rubber trade with the Gold Coast in the closing years of the last century explores further a theme with which I have for some time now

been occupied. The theme is the nineteenth-century background to Ashanti economic

development in the present century. In an earlier study of Ashanti trade with Hausa, Mande, and Mossi caravans I suggested that Ashanti experience with the kola trade

provided a significant foundation for the successful introduction of cocoa cultivation

early in this century, and that an adequate explanation of the latter requires a know-

ledge of the tools and the social framework of kola production and also of the

organization of kola distribution from the areas of production to the kola markets in modern north-central Ghana in the previous century (Arhin, I970). The rubber trade was complementary to Ashanti trade in the north, and a close look at it should throw more light on the economic outlook and organizational methods developed in the previous century which account for the eagerness with which the Ashanti took to cocoa cultivation and the success they made of its distribution before the era of the

lorry. Secondly, there was an interesting link between the rubber trade and the domestic slave trade with Samory2 which presents the Alymany in the role of a stimulant to the Ashanti economy; one tends to think of him solely in terms of his military- politico activities. Thirdly, the Government of the Gold Coast, which took a keen interest in the rubber trade, sent officials to observe its production and sale in the interior so that written reports may be compared with oral information. After a brief note on changes in the basis of, and the personnel involved in, Ashanti trade with the

European establishments on the Gold Coast in the nineteenth century, I shall examine the beginning, growth, and importance of the rubber trade; the categories of traders and the different modes of rubber collection; and lastly, the organization by which rubber reached the exporting agencies. The emphasis throughout will be on those features of the rubber trade which are significant for twentieth-century developments.

NINETEENTH-CENTURY CHANGES IN ASHANTI TRADE WITH THE GOLD COAST

From its establishment at the beginning of the eighteenth century to about 1874 Ashanti trade with the Europeans on the Gold Coast was based on the exchange of

I The Ashanti are a Twi-speaking matrilineal so that it embraces the Ahafo, Brong, and Sehwi people distinguished among the Akan peoples of peoples who were under the political influence of central and southern Ghana by their political allegi- the Ashantihene in the nineteenth century but do ance to the Ashantihene, the occupant of the Golden not now owe political allegiance to him. Stool based in Kumasi. But ' Ashanti ' has also been 2 For a short account of Samory's military and used here to denote the forest lands of central Ghana political activities, see Hargreaves, I968, pp. 244-6.



GOLD COAST IN THE EIGHTEEN-NINETIES 33

gold and war-captives for guns and ammunition, salt, and some cloths. This trade was largely in the control of the Ashantihene, the divisional and subordinate chiefs who were in charge of the wealth of the country and therefore of the means of trade with the Europeans (Arhin, 1970). Also, since the chiefs considered trade with the Europeans as an instrument not so much of the development of material welfare as of political expansion, they ensured that supplies of gold were used for the acquisition of the instruments of warfare.

Two major events in the nineteenth century affected Ashanti's commercial rela- tions with the Europeans. The first of these events was the British abolition of the slave trade in 1807 which had the consequence of making gold the major staple of Ashanti trade with the English, the leading European, traders. The second was the British invasion of Ashanti in 1874. The commercially significant consequence of the invasion was a considerable decline in both the quality and quantity of gold dust (Akers, i888). The decline is traceable to the political disorganization which the invasion brought to Ashanti. Rebellious and secessionist movements and succession crises (I875-92) diverted the chiefs from commerce, and the obvious disruption of the Ashanti machinery for military mobilization encouraged gangs of robbers to throw trade routes into jeopardy and commerce became an extremely hazardous venture.' Perhaps even more significant, in terms of real economic development, the enforced withdrawal of the chiefs from trading gave room for increased com- moner participation in the trade with the Gold Coast which resulted in a change in the war-oriented character of Ashanti trade with the Gold Coast: commoners can reasonably be assumed to be less interested in the promotion of warfare. This assumed change in what may be called the conditions of the coastal trade coincided with the development of the rubber trade, and the flow of goods through that trade into Ashanti was more significant in terms of material welfare than it had been before the I88os.

THE BEGINNING AND GROWTH OF THE RUBBER TRADE

The first consignments of rubber, like the first Portuguese exports of gold back in the fifteenth century, came from the immediate Gold Coast hinterland.2 K. B. Dickson (I969, p. I62) states that an agent of the Basel Mission started exporting rubber in the i86os; that before 1885 rubber exports came mainly from Akim, Krepi, and Wassaw; and that owing to the 'destructive' method of tapping the trees, supplies from this southern area were exhausted by the beginning of the i89os; so that 'The rubber trade was only saved when the forests of Ashanti were made to yield their wealth of rubber from about 890 '.

The exploitation of rubber in Ashanti more than doubled the volume of exports. In a dispatch (November I893) to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, the Governor of the Gold Coast gave the following export figures:

On the political consequences of the British 2 Szereszewski, I965, pp. 1-12, provides a general invasion of x874 on Ashanti see Tordoff, I965, survey of trade in the nineteenth century. pp. I-28.

D



THE ASHANTI RUBBER TRADE WITH THE

Year Rubber exports Value (,s sterling) quantity (lb.)

I880 I,200 43 I88I 555 31 i882 70 I 1883 57,913 2,372 I884 223,843 I3,620 1885 548,474 26,775 I886 1,549,I2I 69,011 1887 1,306,252 62,430 I888 878,387 38,048 1889 1,241,628 55,198 1890 3,36I,055 231,282 1891 2,946,913 198,901

The Gold Coast Annual (Colonial) Reports give the following figures for 1894-9:

1894 3,027,527 232,250 1895 4,022,385 322,070 I896 3,735,439 313,817 i897 4,957,016 4I9,9I3 1898 5,984,984 551,667 1899 5,572,554 555,73

One cannot estimate exactly Ashanti's share of these exports, but officials of the Gold Coast were in no doubt that a much larger proportion of them came from Ashanti. The Annual Report of 1894 attributed the fall in exports of that year from the previous one to political disturbances in Ashanti. The Report for i 898 noted that:

From returns received from Ashanti, it is shown that 70,000 to 90,000 lb. weekly, during the season, pass through Kumasi to the coast. There are other roads to the coast by which rubber is carried in large quantities from west and east; the main supply, however, from the west and north of the Colony now goes through Kumasi as being the safest road.

Throughout the eighteen-nineties, then, the rubber trade increased the wealth of Ashanti in the form of goods worth over 200,000o per year.

It is unfortunate that one cannot estimate in any precise manner how much of this amount was saved or used in the acquisition of traders' goods. By traders' goods I mean commodities like cloths, drinks, salt, and iron tools that were not used by the trader himself but put to further trading. But there is little doubt that there was some

saving in the sense of withholding part of the cash realized from the rubber trade from immediate spending. The Gold Coast Blue Book of 1891 noted that

A proportion of the silver coins [realized from the sale of rubber and other commodities- gold and ivory-] which finds its way into the interior countries is buried in the earth by the natives for security. British Gold Coins are occasionally worn on the necks and arms as ornaments, and silver coins are also melted and worked into ornaments, etc.

The meaning of 'security' in this context is unclear. Informants in Ashanti, the Brong-Ahafo Region, and among the Brong inhabitants of Eirebo (east-central Ivory Coast),' spoke of the care taken by traders to conceal their wealth from the notice

1 I made inquiries on the rubber trade in the at Aboisso, south-eastern Ivory Coast, and at Cape Dorma, Brong-Ahafo region, and at t1rebo, east Coast, western Ghana. Their trading operations did central Ivory Coast, in the summer vacation of 1970. not differ from those of Ghana. The old traders of t2rebo said they sold their rubber

34



GOLD COAST IN THE EIGHTEEN-NINETIES 35 of the chiefs for fear of being dispossessed through forced loans and dubious judicial processes. It may also be that owners of silver coins feared thieves. On the second part of the Blue Book statement, it need be said that in the inland Akan areas only chiefs wore gold and silver ornaments, but these were elaborately wrought crafts- men's works and not just coins. It is also worth noting that buried silver came in useful to the owners when, in the next century, effective British administration restrained the chiefs from persecuting rich men, thus removing a major obstacle to economic growth in Ashanti.

CATEGORIES OF TRADERS AND MODES OF OBTAINING RUBBER

H. M. Hull (I897a) and C. H. Armitage (I898)I reported that rubber traders

operating in Ashanti were Akim and Fanti from the Gold Coast and natives of the central districts of Ashanti. The Akim and Fanti traders operated either independently or in partnership with such established firms as F. A. Swanzy of Cape Coast. Opanyin Abebrese of Asante-Mampon stated that Ashanti traders, too, operated either independently or in partnership with established Ashanti traders at Cape Coast and Salt- pond. He called the latter gotogas (' gold takers ') among whom he mentioned Akosa of Asante-Mampon and Adusei of Serwuah, eight miles east of Kumasi. Akosa and Adusei were both famous in Ashanti for their wealth. An independent trader

financing his own enterprise had to provide his own equipment, such as the hand- scale for weighing the rubber, and purchase the goods used in barter for it; traders in partnership with firms or other traders were advanced equipment and barter goods or sums of money as an operating capital which they paid off in the course of their operations.

Some initial capital for starting in the rubber trade was necessary not only for the purchase of equipment and barter-goods, but also because the forest lands in which rubber was tapped were subject to hire or rent for specific periods. In a letter (d.I4.i.97) to the Colonial Secretary of the Gold Coast, Hull noted that 'anyone wishing to collect rubber in Sehwi and Gaman [Dorma] had to pay the owner of the land ?2 before commencing operations. This entitled him to work for 3 to 4 months.' By ' anyone ' Hull certainly meant anybody who did not owe political allegiance to the chiefs of the districts in which he was operating. Natives of the Ahafo, Nkoranza, Sehwi, Wam, and Wenchi districts-the areas most prolific in rubber-were exempt from the rule. It is said at Dorma that strangers sometimes obtained access to land for rubber collection and shared the produce with the landowner, usually the chief, the tapper getting a third. Strangers who did not themselves tap rubber made arrange- ments with tappers to obtain supplies.

Three types of traders can be distinguished by the manner in which they obtained rubber. The first were those who contracted with local collecting agents to obtain supplies, so that they collected the assembled loads without themselves visiting the bush. The second were itinerant traders who visited bush settlements and collected rubber from the tappers. The third were local tappers who carried their rubber to the coast for sale. Each of the first two groups had their own peculiar devices and

I Both Hull and C. H. Armitage acted as Travel- districts in 1897; Armitage visited the War (Dorma) ling Commissioners of the government of the Gold district in I898. Coast. Hull visited the Ahafo, Sehwi, and Wenchi




practices for obtaining rubber. But they all aimed at maximizing their profits by reducing the 'producer' price as much as possible. Like the modern cocoa agents, they did not themselves determine the selling price of their produce on the Gold Coast.

According to Hull (i897a) the first group consisted of ' unscrupulous brokers of the " scholar " class as well as Ashanti pure and simple '. These visited the collecting centres and made advances of money to agents, both chiefs and commoners, stipulat- ing that they were to receive so many bags or loads of rubber at a certain date. To maximize the difference between the producer and the re-sale prices the broker, Hull

reported, used his own scale which weighed generally up to 90 lb.; 'the spring was " tied" to make it weigh more, and not unfrequently had been shortened for the same purpose by having a piece cut off. I have myself seen an instance of this where the spring was both tied and cut; the real value of the scale was 6s. and it had been

given to the chief [of Wenchi] by the owner in payment of a debt of ?3.' The result of this practice was that a load of rubber seldom weighed less than I20 lb. and upwards and the broker made a clear profit of ?5 on the load on the coast. Hull calculated the

profit as follows:

Value of the load on the Coast-1C8; Transport at local rate-?I; Value of the load in the bush-?2; Profit-?5.

Hull also reported that as well as manipulating their scales, brokers extorted money from their agents for what they represented as breaches of contract. He wrote: ' On

settling up day if there [was] any delay in producing the stipulated amount of rubber, the honest broker [had] to be pacified with a bonus of ?I and if he [could] pick up a quarrel at the same time with the debtor he would manage to squeeze another LI or ?2 out of him.' To illustrate the point Hull recalled a case he had settled in which the servants, nhenkwaa, of the Kumasi Akwamuhene, Asafo-Buakye, had demanded and received as ' pacification ', ?2. I4S. from the Wenchihene, to whom the Akwamu- hene had given an advance of ?I6, for delivering on the appointed day only five instead of the promised ten loads.

Rubber and slaves

The second group of traders-those who obtained rubber directly from tappers in the bush-may be further subdivided on the basis of the mode of financing their

enterprises. Written sources and oral information indicate the following two sub- divisions. First, there were those who came to the rubber trade from trading kola in the north, and, secondly, those who started off in the rubber trade by obtaining gold dust in one of two ways: by finding treasure trove or by gold-mining.

In his Report (i 897a) H. M. Hull wrote: 'I strongly suspect but cannot absolutely prove it, that the kola nuts brought [to Wenchi] are exchanged for slaves who are

largely used for bringing down rubber.' Hull was only partly correct. Slaves obtained in exchange for kola nuts were used for porterage, but, for central Ashanti traders, slaves obtained with kola or with grey baft from Samory's war-camps were of greater importance as a barter-commodity with which one obtained loads of rubber. Traders involved in the exchange of slaves for rubber usually took to rubber after trading in

36



GOLD COAST IN THE EIGHTEEN-NINETIES 37 the kola markets north of Ashanti. The father of a former cattle trader of Kintampo, a late nineteenth-century market town I20 miles north-west of Kumasi, started

trading kola for slaves, Hausa blankets, and Mossi coarse cloths and shea-butter and

disposed of these to the Ashanti at Kintampo. In the last decade of last century trade with Ashanti was disrupted so he turned his attention to rubber. He obtained his rubber in the Nkoranza district for slaves and other goods from the north, took it to Lome, then capital of German Togoland, or to Cape Coast, whence he brought guns and ammunition, drinks, and salt to be exchanged for more rubber (Arhin, I969).

While some central Ashanti traders followed this practice, the majority belonged to the group of traders who exchanged grey baft for slaves from Samory's war-

camps. This happened particularly in the period 894-7 when the Alymany fought in the Bonduku, Bona, Bole, and Wa districts, while certain of his lieutenants operated in the neighbourhood of Banda and Wenchi. In Ashanti, Samory is remembered not

only as a great warrior and a potential ally, but is also associated with the rise of a

great demand for grey baft (obtained from Cape Coast) and a plenitude of war-

captives which greatly lowered the price of slaves.' According to Opanyin Abebrese of Asante-Mampon, unless a man was lucky

enough to find a treasure trove of gold nuggets and dust, which he shared with the chiefs, the potential financier of both the kola and rubber trade had to go gold-mining at Manso-Nkwanta, forty miles south-west of Kumasi. Manso-Nkwanta was the

principal Ashanti gold-mining centre in the last quarter of the nineteenth century (Arhin, 197I). Gold dust was directly exchanged at Cape Coast or Saltpond for bales of grey baft or exchanged for silver coins which were then used in purchasing the

grey baft. There were two possible reasons for changing gold dust into silver coins and then converting the latter into grey baft and other goods. One is that Ashanti and other middlemen, known as gold takers or changers, who stood to gain from such exchanges in the form of commissions and the manipulation of scales, may have succeeded in persuading incoming traders that the conversion of gold into silver was a necessary part of trading on the coast. Old Kwesi Johnson, a Senior Divisional Chief of Cape Coast, whom I asked about them, described gold takers as cashiers attached to European firms. The second reason is that a certain amount of silver was

required by chiefs to be used for personal adornment and for embossing what were known as the ' silver stools '. The traders took bales of grey baft to Samory's war-

camps and exchanged them for war-captives (nnonkofo). Some of the latter were then taken to the Ahafo district, formerly western Ashanti, and directly bartered for loads of rubber in the bush settlements. The Ahafo district was a sparsely populated area where nnonkofo were in great demand for labour and for incorporation into family- groups.

At Dorma, which adjoins Ahafo on the west, Mpanyinfo Yaw Addo and Kwame

Oppong (former participants in the rubber trade) stated that, towards the end of the

century, most rubber tappers in the district stopped selling rubber to visiting traders and carried their own produce to Cape Coast. Dorma traders exchanged grey baft for slaves from Samory's war-camps in the neighbouring town of Bonduku, but did not re-exchange them for rubber. They incorporated them into their families, kept

I Grey baft was the material from which Samory made the long flowing garb of his Sofas or warriors.




them as measures of wealth, as means of reward for favourite wives and children, and used them as labour in gold digging, rubber production, and in snail collection, an important aspect of the Dorma economy.

Informants in Dorma and in central Ashanti divided rubber traders into two

groups. One made single journeys with rubber to obtain specific goods-cloths, drinks, salt, and tobacco-for their own use; they also distributed some of them to their kinsfolk. Goods obtained for personal and social uses were known as abotomdee. The second group were batadifo, continuous traders. They obtained much the same goods with their rubber as the first group, but, in their case, these were adwvadidec, traders' goods, since they were used for further trading. For the first group, slaves were ahonyadee, prestige goods; for the second they were adwadidee, to be used as part of the traders' personnel or to be exchanged for rubber. It was pointed out at Dorma that the development of the rubber trade led to the founding of settlements in the forest which later became centres of cocoa cultivation. The inhabitants of such settlements were single or compound conjugal families and, if the founder had any, of slaves. The boom in the domestic slave trade with Samory was due partly to the labour requirements of these settlements. Their growth was not due to the activities of the first group, the target traders, but to those of the second group, the professional traders.

Unlike informants in central Ashanti, those in Dorma were specific on the rates of exchange between grey baft and slaves, stating that a piece (I 2 yards) of the cloth cost 2S. 6d. at Cape Coast; 4 pieces of grey baft (much less after a particularly successful Samory expedition) fetched a slave. A slave, then, cost Ios. If, as was stated at Asante-Mampon, 4 slaves fetched a load of rubber which cost ?8 on the coast, the trader made a profit of ?6, less living and porterage expenses from the bush to the coast. Samory's wars were a great boon to enterprising traders.

Hull reported ( 897b) that to maximize their profits collectors of rubber from the bush had recourse to practices similar to those mentioned in connection with the brokers. They tampered with hand-scales, and held unauthorized courts at which they tried alleged offenders, imposing fines in the form of loads of rubber. If the fine was not forthcoming in rubber, it was commuted to porterage duties, and the alleged offender, his wife and children were made to carry loads of rubber to the coast. Captain D. Stewart, the British Resident at Kumasi, replying to Erwine' on the subject of traders operating in the bush, wrote on their ' malpractices ':

they establish themselves in the bush villages and proceed to hold court, terrorize the natives, extorting money on every possible occasion; buying rubber is about the last thing they do, stealing and extorting it are their real methods.

It should be said in explanation that the interval between the exile of Prempeh I of Ashanti in I896 and the effective deployment of British administrative law- enforcement personnel, about I901, was a period of disturbance in which there was increase in organized robbery on the roads: the Ashanti had a word for this: kwan mu ka, ' disturb travellers on the roads'.

I Erwine was an official of the Ashanti Development Syndicate.

38



GOLD COAST IN THE EIGHTEEN-NINETIES

THE ORGANIZATION OF RUBBER DISTRIBUTION FROM THE

FOREST TO THE COAST

The previous distinction between target and professional traders is relevant for a description of the organization of rubber distribution from the forest to the Euro- pean firms on the coast. A trader's status determined the scale of his operations. This, in turn, determined the type of labour he used for porterage, whether or not he supplemented road with river transportation, and whether, on the coast, he sold his rubber to a broker or to a firm such as the Swanzys. An occasional rubber trader, who made only periodic trading sorties, carried his own rubber, aided by any wives, unmarried children, and slaves he had. A return journey to Cape Coast averaged six weeks with a daily rest-stop. On the route the group slept on their loads in the paos, open halls, of the houses at which they asked for accommodation. They paid no rent for accommodation but were obliged to buy foodstuffs and other cooking materials from their landlord. Recurrent trading journeys led to the establishment of

regular host-guest relationships which modified the nature of mutual obligations: the host then became the traveller's fiewura or' landlord ' who reserved accommodation for him in the rubber-trade season. The wives of the host were expected to cook for the guest and the latter returned their services with gifts, including salt for the wives and tobacco for the husband.

The landlord' the trader encountered on the journey was different from those at

Cape Coast or Saltpond, where the exporting firms were located. The landlords in these towns were either rubber brokers or commission agents for brokers and firms.

They competed keenly for guest traders, particularly among the natives of their own home districts. Opanyin Addo of Dorma told amusing stories of how landlords

regaled their guests with choice foods and drinks, apparently without any gain to themselves, in the contest to win more visitors and retain their accustomed guests. A landlord who was also a broker bought the rubber from his guests; if not, he gave information about current prices obtaining at the various brokers' and usually succeeded in directing guests to brokers of his choice. He received his commission from the buyer and had a share of the rubber acquired from the differences between the brokers' and the firms' weights.

Informants stated that visiting traders chose their own townsmen as landlords or brokers in the expectation that they would be given a better deal in the matter of

weights. A better deal meant that the difference between the 'bush' and 'Cape Coast' weights of rubber would be smaller than they would find elsewhere. The capacity of an ofiewura to attract and retain visitors depended on visiting traders' experience of his weights. Traders could tell the degree of cheating because they weighed their rubber before setting out for the coast. But it was also found that all landlords' scales weighed heavier than those used in the interior. This was because the broker's business at the European trade establishments, which operated within the traditions of the gold and ivory trade of two centuries behind it, required a period of apprenticeship and a certain amount of investment in housing and hospitality. It was a full-time job. Commissions on business with the firms were probably not

enough to cover living expenses and also sustain the broker's business and had to be

For the functions of landlords in another West African city see Cohen, I966, pp. I8-33.

39




supplemented by the rake-off on weighing. Tampering with scales was in a way similar to adulterating gold.' In the first case, the broker made his profits by cheating the seller; in the second case, he cheated the firm.

Professional traders, who dealt directly with the firms, employed hired labour, boo paa, and also slaves for porterage. Labourers for hire, apaafo, were available in sufficient numbers because the inland people wanted to visit Cape Coast, regarding such visits as opportunities for acquiring cloth and minor European trade goods. The ?i per load of rubber, which they earned, was often enough to launch them as independent traders. In an answer to an inquiry from the Colonial Secretary, whether recruitment of rubber carriers in the interior led to domestic slave trade between rubber traders and the coastal peoples, the District Commissioner of Saltpond wrote (18 October 1897):

From enquiries I have made, I understand that the men who carry rubber down from the interior are not slaves, but either independent people who buy the rubber themselves from the producers in the interior and sell it on the coast on their own account, taking back either money goods in return, or else employed by the producers to take rubber to the coast and bring back imported goods.

The District Commissioner of Cape Coast also told (7 October 1897) the Colonial Secretary,' Porters, whether adults or children, who bring down rubber are not sold in Cape Coast. They come down as porters and return with trade goods.'

The denial by the District Commissioners that traders used slaves for porterage constitutes only an apparent contradiction of oral information which asserts the con- trary. The Commissioners' statements were either based on misinformation (in view of the prosecution of alleged domestic slave dealers) or they simply meant that no porter was sold within the area of British jurisdiction. In the second case, slave meant human beings intended to be sold or actually sold. Informants meant by slaves, nnonkhfo, human beings acquired by purchase or in war who could be given in pawn or resold. Visiting traders knew that the laws of the Government of the Gold Coast (G.N.A., 1874) forbade the sale of nnonhkfo, and did not openly sell them. However, the legal prohibition on slave dealing on the coast did not prevent the use of men bought outside the area of British jurisdiction.

The Governor of the Gold Coast appeared himself to be aware of the slave trade with Samory though not of its importance to the rubber trade. He wrote (2 5 Novem- ber 1897) to the Secretary of State for the Colonies:

From reports made to me on my recent tour [on the western Gold Coast] I have no doubt that slaves captured by Samory's bands are sent down to French Gaman [mid-eastern Ivory Coast] and that they are thence taken in small parties into western Ashanti and into Sehwi.

The Governor was only slightly misinformed: Ashanti traders who obtained slaves from Samory did so directly and not circuitously through agents on the French side of the border.

While professional traders generally used the normal trade tracks, agents of established firms with more capital and operating east of Atebubu in the Nkoranza districts used the river (Volta) in addition to road transportation. According to Hull

I See Dupuis, 1824, Appendix, lxx.

40




(1897a), porters were sent along the existing trade tracks between Kintampo, Ate- bubu, and Yeji, whence they engaged canoes to convey the rubber either to Krachi or Adda, a well-known centre of the salt trade in eastern Gold Coast. Canoe transportation was cheaper since ' 2 men could take between 20 and 25 loads of z20 lb. each in a large canoe'. Rubber intended for Lome (German Togoland) went by canoe as far as Kpandu and overland to Lome; or it was sent to Akuse and thence to Keta. Hull makes it clear that what determined the movement of rubber was the cheapness of labour on the various routes and the articles required by the rubber trader. Wenchi was visited by agents of European firms' because Samory's presence in the neighbourhood ensured adequate and cheap supplies of labour; traders from British territory smuggled rubber to Lome because the Germans appeared to be less concerned about the domestic slave trade while some preferred German to British goods.

It appears from both the oral and written accounts that, considered in relation to final disposal of their rubber, professional traders may be divided into two sorts. The first, mentioned in earlier paragraphs, consisted of self-financed traders who, therefore, had the option to sell either through brokers or directly to any of the European trade establishments. The second consisted of agents who, since they were initially financed by the firms, were obliged to sell their rubber to them. As has been noted, the desire for adequate returns led both groups to resort to the same weighing tricks. Finally, it is worth mentioning that the rubber, like the kola, trade of the last century, was neglected in the early part of this century in favour of cocoa production.

CONCLUSIONS

The rubber trade was clearly not a marketing activity of the peripheral kind.2 It was a transitional trading activity which was linked with Ashanti trade in the north, and gold-mining in central Ashanti. It was the seed-bed of some present Ghanaian economic institutions. Among these are hiring land for production and what amounts to share-cropping, both of which are prominent features of cocoa cultivation.3

But to assess fully its impact on Ashanti one has to examine it in relation to the two principal categories of traders engaged in it. These were what I have called target and professional traders. The former were concerned with what the Ashanti called abotomdee and ahonyadee, consumer and prestige goods. The first included salt, drink, and cloth and the second slaves, though slaves were put to more than prestigious uses. To incorporate slaves in small matrilineages was to ensure their survival, a matter of supreme value to the Ashanti. So incorporated, slaves also became part of a pool of labour in which role they may be considered as fixed assets. They became of great use in the next century when the owners took to cocoa production (Arhin, I970).

But of greater importance, from the point of view of continuing economic development, were the activities of the batadifo, professional traders. The batadifo, in this context the rubber traders, hired land, bought labour, and established broker con- nections, and so created part of the institutional infrastructure used for the production

Hull met an agent of Messrs. Gredelt of Agome, Palime, and Lome, at Wenchi in I897.

2 See Bohannan and Dalton, I962, pp. 20-I. 3 See Hill, 197o, ch. Ix, pp. 21-9.

41




and marketing of cocoa early in the next century. Also, the contact established between some entrepreneurs on the Gold Coast and the forest dwellers of Ashanti was of some value to the success of the later attempt of the Government of the Gold Coast to unify the Gold Coast and Ashanti commercially through the introduction of a uniform currency. Whereas previously middlemen of the Gold Coast had limited their contact with traders from the forest peoples to the vicinities of the European trade establishments, their search for rubber now led them to the hamlets of rubber

tappers. It is a problem in a study of this sort that the tangible results of the trade activities

of the professionals cannot be seen and measured with any precision, just as their modes of capital accounting, which, according to Weber (I96I, p. 207), is a definite mark of the presence of capitalism, cannot be detailed. But there is no doubt that they accumulated capital which, in Ashanti, took the form of silver hoarding and numbers of slaves, the latter being considered the supreme measures of investment, sikaboten, stock capital, and of wealth, agyapadee. Again, one cannot show in any meaningful way how much of the returns from trade was invested. Silver was hoarded mainly as a precaution against possible despoliation by the chiefs and was put to creative uses after i 896 when the British presence ended the era in which the chief had been

accepted as the sole custodian of wealth. Slaves, of which it was said at Dorma that one man had 170, were permitted to be accumulated because they increased the sub-

jects and therefore the 'power' of the chiefs. Incorporated slaves were the major source of labour before hired labour became the normal practice in cocoa production.

The experience gained by rubber traders was also of great value: it strengthened their ability to pursue wealth and tended towards the crystallization of the capitalistic outlook already engendered by the commercial contact with northern caravans.

Samory wars in the Ashanti hinterland also deserve serious consideration for their

impact on Ashanti trade in the I89os.

REFERENCES

AKERS, G. E. i888. Letter (d. 22/i2/i888) to Colonial Office in PRO CO/879 35. ARHIN, K. I969. 'The Development of Market-centres at Atebubu and Kintampo since I874. ' Ph.D.

thesis, University of London. I970. ' Aspects of the Ashanti Northern Trade in the Nineteenth Century', Africa, xl. 4, pp. 363-73. I97I. ' Political Succession and Gold-mining at Manso-Nkwanta ', Research Review, Institute of African

Studies, Legon, pp. IoI-Io9. ARMITAGE, C. H. 1898. Report d. 31 October to Colonial Secretary in Acc. No. I293/58, Ghana Nationa

Archives [G.N.A.], Accra. BALSTONE, A. 1905. Letter to the Comptroller of Customs in Acc. No. I293/58, G.N.A., Accra. BOHANNAN, P., and DALTON, G. I962. Markets in Africa. Evanston, Ill. COHEN, A. 1966. ' The Politics of the Kola Trade ', Africa, xxxvi. i, pp. I8-33. DICKsON, K. B. I969. A Historical Geography of Ghana. Cambridge. DISTRICT COMMISSIONER, Cape Coast. I 897. Letter to the Colonial Secretary of the Gold Coast in Acc. No.

1329/58, vol. 2, G.N.A., Accra. DISTRICT COMMISSIONER, Saltpond. I897. Letter to the Colonial Secretary in Acc. No. I329/58, vol. 2,

G.N.A., Accra. DuPUIs, JOSEPH. I 824. Journal of a Residence in Ashantee. London. GHANA NATIONAL ARCHIVES. 1874. General Law Forbidding Slavery in No. I of 1874 in Acc. No. 1306/58,

G.N.A., Accra. GOVERNOR OF THE GOLD COAST. 1893. Despatch to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, enclosing a

Memorial from merchants, agents and traders of the Gold Coast with his observations, J. M. Sarbah Papers, SC/6/26, G.N.A., Accra. 1897. Letter to the Secretary of State for the Colonies in Acc. No. I 329/5 8, G.N.A., Accra.

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HARGREAVES, J. D. I968. Prelude to the Partition of West Africa. New York. HILL, POLLY. I970. Studies in Rural Capitalism. Cambridge. HULL, H. M. I897. Letter to the Colonial Secretary in Acc. No. 1297/58, G.N.A., Accra.

I897a. Report d. 14 February to the Colonial Secretary in Acc. No. 2154/58, G.N.A., Accra. 897b. Report d. 14 May to the Colonial Secretary in Acc. No. 3819/58 G.N.A., Accra.

STEWART, D. 1897. Letter to H. B. W. Erwine of the Ashanti Development Syndicate in Acc. No. 1398/58, G.N.A., Accra.

SZERESZEWSKI, R. I965. Structural Changes in the Economy of Ghana, I89r-191I. London. TORDOFF, W. I965. Ashanti under the Prempehs 1888-19i3. London WEBER, M. 1961. General Economic History. Translated by F. K. Knight. New York: Collier Books.

Resume

LE COMMERCE ASHANTI DU CAOUTCHOUC AVEC LA GOLD COAST AU 19^me SIECLE

LE commerce du caoutchouc avec la Gold Coast debuta en I86o, mais a la fin de i880 les incisions destructrices avaient epuise les arbres a caoutchouc dans l'arriere-pays, si bien que les producteurs durent chercher leur approvisionnement dans les forets Ashanti. Trois

types de commerSants, se distinguant selon leurs modes d'obtention du caoutchouc, l'expor- taient vers la Gold Coast. C'etaient des agents de firmes europeennes, des commercants

independants, et des producteurs locaux. Mais on peut classer de facon plus interessante ces commerSants en fonction de leur 'statut', c'est-a-dire selon qu'ils sont occasionnels ou

professionnels; le ' statut ' du commercant determine, en effet, sa faSon d'obtenir le caoutchouc, le personnel utilise pour l'acheminer jusqu'a la c6te, et la maniere dont finalement il reserve le caoutchouc a l'exportation. Ce sont les commergants professionnels, par l'exten- sion et les methodes operatoires ainsi que par les profits realises par ce commerce, qui ont favorise le developpement economique ulterieur des Ashanti. La guerre de Samory fut aussi un facteur important du developpement du commerce du caoutchouc.

CONTRIBUTORS TO THIS NUMBER AYLWARD SHORTER. Lecturer and Director of Research, Pastoral Institute of Eastern Africa, Kampala,

Uganda; Honorary Lecturer at Makerere University in the Department of Sociology; author of articles on the Kimbu and their history.

CHARLES D. LAUGHLIN, JR. Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology-Anthropology, State University College at Oswego, New York; co-author of Anthropology: A Different Reader (I972) and various papers in economic anthropology and the philosophy of science. ELIZABETH R. LAUGHLIN. Doctoral candidate, Social Psychology, Syracuse University; co-author of papers and contributions in family planning and on sexual values and practices among the So of north-eastern Uganda.

WYATT MACGAFFEY. Associate Professor of Anthropology, Haverford College, Haverford, Pennsyl- vania; author of Twentieth Century Cuba (I965), with C. R. Barnett, Custom and Government in the Lower Congo (1970), and a number of papers on African history and Kongo religion.

KWAME ARHIN. Research Fellow at the Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana, in charge of the Ashanti Research Project; author of various articles on Ashanti trade in the nineteenth century.

I. H. VANDEN DRIESEN. Senior Lecturer in Economics at the University of Western Australia; formerly on the staff of the University of Ife, Nigeria; author of papers on land problems in Nigeria.

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the ashanti rubber trade with the gold coast in the eighteen-nineties

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