Company of Adventurers of London trading in Gynney and Bynney

The Company of Adventurers of London trading in Gynney and Bynney (English for: Society of London soldiers of fortune who trade in Guinea and Benin ) was an English trading company based in London , which was founded in 1618 and at the same time held royal monopoly patents for the English Trade in West Africa was equipped. The society existed from 1618 until the end of 1631.

initial situation

An English trade in West Africa had existed since the Tudor period, i. H. Strictly speaking, since the middle of the 16th century, which was mainly limited to the redwood trade on the coast of Sierra Leone and the area around the mouth of the Gambia . With the establishment of the above company it was hoped to be able to better secure the existing timber trade against the Portuguese and French competition and also to gain access to the trade in gold , which could be traded in albeit small quantities at the Gambia estuary.

Founded in 1618

The Society had 34 members at the time of its formation, its first governor was Sir William St. John. First they started still in 1618 with the establishment of a permanent trading post at the mouth of the Gambia, more followed shortly afterwards on the coast around the Cape Sierra Leona around.

Crisis 1625

In 1625, however, the company got into a serious liquidity crisis , which seriously endangered the continued existence of the company. The reasons for this can be summarized in the following four points:

Several expeditions up the Gambia in search of direct access to the gold-producing countries had failed. In 1621 alone, the unsuccessful expeditions were financed with a loss of £ 5,600 .
The founding member John Davies, one of the oldest established Guinea traders of his time and one of the real initiators of the company, was allowed in 1620 to operate on the coast on a private account despite his membership of the company. This right was also granted to other company members.
The occurrence of surreptitious traffickers on the West African coast increased sharply and became serious competition, especially since other company members also took part without special permission. There were also a certain number of more or less organized private surreptitious traffickers.
In 1622 a complaint against the English was State Council ( Council of state ) put forward, in which one complained about that ... the Company neither its own trade takes, even if it seems promising, nor other permit to do such a ... Probably the complaint was not very successful, because in 1624 a similar complaint was made before the English House of Commons accusing the company of abusing the monopoly patent. This led to an arbitration procedure , for the duration of which the monopoly patent was temporarily suspended. The result of the trial was that the Company's governor, Sir William St. John, was incarcerated in Deptors' Prison in 1625 .

Downward trend 1625–1628

Of the original 34 founding members, only four were still active for the company in 1627. Many had died, such as B. John Davies in 1626, or they had withdrawn from the company to trade on their own account.

One of these founding members, who went over to private trading without a license from the company, was the old Guinea veteran Humphrey Slaney, who had focused particularly on the redwood trade from the Sherbro region of Sierra Leone. He had three young "interns" at his side: William Clobery, John Wood and Nicholas Crispe. However, after William St. John was imprisoned in 1625, they were accepted into the Company along with a few other young offspring of wealthy families. Among those who rose to positions of influence in the Company from 1625 to 1628 included: a. Veteran Humphrey Slaney, brothers Nicholas and Samuel Crispe, William Clobery, and members of the Chamberlain and Digby families. Nevertheless, the dual role of most of the participants in the West African business remained, in addition to trading on behalf of the company, there was also extensive trading in their own name and for their own account.

Only Nicholas Crispe ended his private activities in 1627 and from now on only acted on behalf of the company, which meant a certain break with his previous colleagues Slaney, Clobery and Wood. In 1628, Nicholas Crispe increased his commitment to the company and acquired significant company shares, making him the owner of the largest volume of stake in the company, placing him in a dominant position. He also paid an additional £ 1,600 into a special fund for the factories in the Sherbro area, which can practically be interpreted as the purchase of these factories by Nicholas Crispe, although other members of the Crispe family were probably also involved.

Edward Falconer was then sent to the Sherbro area to take over these newly acquired factories as administrator on behalf of Nicholas Crispe. It was obvious that this would automatically lead to a collision with Slaney and Clobery, who also, or above all, ran their redwood business here on a private basis after 1625. Possibly there was an extrajudicial agreement in the conflict between Crispe and Slaney / Clobery in consultation with the crown, because in 1627 letters of war were issued for Slaney, Clobery and Wood by the English government . Two ships that left the port of London for West Africa in December 1627 were also equipped for the intended pirate voyages .

Disaster 1628–1631

From 1628 on, Nicholas Crispe was in the position of Deputy Governor undoubtedly at the top of the company and led a. a. also often presided over the company's own courts of justice. Yet society seemed doomed when a particularly bad debt crisis arose in 1628. In the run-up to this, 15 members (including Kenelm Digby, who later became Deputy Governor ) withdrew their consent to a new company in the Gambia, which they had previously given. However, at this point in time, considerable investments had already been made in the Gambia project. Triggered by this withdrawal, the trust in the company's ventures also sank among the other shareholders, which led to the fact that the company was no longer able to organize an enterprise in West Africa with the shareholders' capital of its members.

In addition, after England intervened in the Thirty Years' War, there were numerous hostile looting, which made the crisis even worse. For example, in 1629 in the area around the Senegal estuary, the company ship “Benediction”, which was mainly loaded with slaves, was seized and confiscated by French privateer captains , which alone brought the company a loss of £ 20,000.

In general, it seemed in 1629/1630 that society was no longer able to compete with the Dutch, French and Portuguese in West Africa.

Crispe's measures to stop the surreptitious trade seemed to have paid off after some time, however, as Slaney and Clobery submitted a pathetic petition to the English Council of State in 1630, claiming that they were on the verge of ruin because Crispe, who pretended to be on behalf of the Company, have usurped the entire redwood trade. They claimed they had already invested over £ 20,000 in this redwood trade, alleging that they had once been allowed to enter into agreements with the company that would allow them to trade on a private basis. They were unsuccessful with this petition, the State Council agreed with Crispe.

In 1631 the crisis in society became even more serious and existential than it had ever been. Creditors pressured and eventually went to court, and the Court of Wards and Liveries ordered the company to pay its debts. This was followed by a joint meeting of Sir Richard Young, the Governor , Nicholas Crispe, the Deputy Governor , and Philip Digby with the creditors, which was inconclusive. The company blamed the refusers of 1628 for the catastrophic financial situation and asked them to pay off the debts they had incurred as a result of their refusal.

New focus of trade

Nevertheless, in the middle of the deepest crisis, a light appeared on the horizon and that was the shine of the gold of the Gold Coast . The Portuguese, who had controlled the gold trade on the Gold Coast for 150 years, had increasingly neglected their West African trade and the Dutch were only just beginning to challenge the Portuguese for trading venues. In the eyes of the English there was a certain chance of success as far as trading ventures on the Guinea coast were concerned. After all, an economic success of possible Guinea expeditions could be secured, since if for some reason little or no gold was available, slaves on the western Guinea coast and sugar in São Tomé could still be taken over. Neither the Portuguese nor the Dutch were politically and militarily strong enough at this time to be able to prevent British trade in West Africa in this regard. And of course various wood from Sierra Leone or elsewhere could also be brought along.

Crispe received the crucial information about this from a Dutchman named Arent de Groot, who had previously worked for the Dutch West India Company (WIC) on the Gold Coast and was now in dispute with the WIC. He knew the gold trade well on the Gold Coast and told Crispe about it when he happened to meet it. Crispe, it seems, invited de Groot to England a short time later and offered him the management of an English company on the Gold Coast. De Groot, who was already keen to return to the Gold Coast and take revenge on certain former colleagues there, accepted with delight. Both sides agreed that now, 1631, the time for action had come. However, the planned entry into the gold business required a very large amount of money, which could not be achieved with the company in its current state. For this purpose either a completely new structuring of the company had to take place or, if this was not possible, a new company had to be founded.

End and new beginning

The initially vague hopes seemed to be fulfilled when many of the wealthier traders in London became enthusiastic about Crispe's idea of entering the gold business and expressed their willingness to join such a company.

The matter was also brought forward to King Charles I of England , who was positive about the matter and could be persuaded to withdraw the royal patents from 1618 and to issue new ones. A new company had previously been founded in November 1631 under the direction of Nicholas Crispe: the Company of Merchants Trading to Guinea . The Company of Adventurers of London trading in Gynney and Bynney ceased to exist.

literature

R. Porter, The Crispe Family and the African Trade in the Seventeenth Century , in: Journal of African History , 9 (1), 1968, pp. 57-77

Footnotes

↑ "Gynney" means the Guinea coast. The term was introduced by Duarte Pacheco Pereira for the west African coast between the mouth of Senegal and the Cape of Good Hope. Later, however, the southern part of the coast was demarcated and the southern border of the Guinea coast was drawn at the mouth of the Ojono River (Alt-Calabar region, today's western Nigeria). The part above this point up to the Senegal estuary was therefore also called Upper Guinea .

↑ With "Bynney" is meant Benin. In historical times, however, Europeans understood Benin to be the state that stretched in the hinterland of the slave coast . This can be traced back to the Portuguese, who first established permanent trade contacts with a West African ruler east of the Volta Estuary in Benin. However, one can equate the historical name Benin with the empire Oyo , a territorially very large state between the lower Niger and the coast east of the Gold Coast and west of the Cameroon Mountain , which existed until 1831. The real Kingdom of Benin , whose core area was in the Calabar region (coastal region of today's western Nigeria), was part of the Oyo Empire at the time of the early Europeans.

↑ A large part of the gold traded at the mouth of the Gambia came from the gold fields near Bambouk , a small part also came on the southern gold route from Begho in the hinterland of the Gold Coast.

↑ English: interloper ; French: entreloupe ; Dutch: Lorrendreyer or Lorrendraijer ; German: lord bearer A lord bearer was a ship that did not belong to a state monopolized trading company and traded for its own account, circumventing the respective state monopoly in Africa or elsewhere.

↑ The nearby island of Gorée was at that time a main point for the shipping of slaves to America.

↑ Since 1580 Portugal and Spain were linked in personal union.

[1] "Gynney" means the Guinea coast. The term was introduced by Duarte Pacheco Pereira for the west African coast between the mouth of Senegal and the Cape of Good Hope. Later, however, the southern part of the coast was demarcated and the southern border of the Guinea coast was drawn at the mouth of the Ojono River (Alt-Calabar region, today's western Nigeria). The part above this point up to the Senegal estuary was therefore also called Upper Guinea .

[2] With "Bynney" is meant Benin. In historical times, however, Europeans understood Benin to be the state that stretched in the hinterland of the slave coast . This can be traced back to the Portuguese, who first established permanent trade contacts with a West African ruler east of the Volta Estuary in Benin. However, one can equate the historical name Benin with the empire Oyo , a territorially very large state between the lower Niger and the coast east of the Gold Coast and west of the Cameroon Mountain , which existed until 1831. The real Kingdom of Benin , whose core area was in the Calabar region (coastal region of today's western Nigeria), was part of the Oyo Empire at the time of the early Europeans.

[3] A large part of the gold traded at the mouth of the Gambia came from the gold fields near Bambouk , a small part also came on the southern gold route from Begho in the hinterland of the Gold Coast.

[4] English: interloper ; French: entreloupe ; Dutch: Lorrendreyer or Lorrendraijer ; German: lord bearer A lord bearer was a ship that did not belong to a state monopolized trading company and traded for its own account, circumventing the respective state monopoly in Africa or elsewhere.

[5] The nearby island of Gorée was at that time a main point for the shipping of slaves to America.

[6] Since 1580 Portugal and Spain were linked in personal union.