Company of Merchants Trading to Guinea

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The Company of Merchants Trading to Guinea ( English for "Society of merchants who trade in Guinea" ) was an English trading company that existed from November 1631 to the end of 1651 and which had a royal monopoly patent for English trade throughout the country west African coast south of the Senegal estuary.

founding

The "Company of Merchants Trading to Guinea" succeeded the " Company of Adventurers of London trading in Gynney and Bynney ", with which a profitable Africa trade could no longer be realized since 1628 due to the lack of willingness to invest on the part of many of its members at the time and their dual role as a company dealer and surreptitious dealer. So it was no less a person than Nicholas Crispe himself who suggested the formation of a new trading company to the English king. Nicholas Crispe had risen to dominate the old company, at the latest after 1628, and since then almost all of the few company ventures had been financed through him. In addition, the lucrative redwood trade from the Sierra Leone coast came almost exclusively into his private possession during this time. At that time, the company was only called "Crispe's Company".

Crispe's primary goal with regard to the new company was to establish English participation in the West African gold trade. To do this, however, one had to advance to those coastal areas where gold could be traded. This was primarily the West African Gold Coast . Of course, English traders had surfaced and traded gold here on the Gold Coast over the previous 80 years, but Nicholas Crispe now took the matter to a new level by realizing the need for a permanent English establishment with local traders and from which one from one had to have free access to the gold trade.

However, such a company initially required very high capital requirements, which could not be achieved with the old company. However, the time for the successful implementation of such a project seemed extremely favorable, which was mainly due to the fact that the Portuguese / Spaniards were no longer strong enough and the Dutch who were just advancing to the Gold Coast were not yet strong enough to gain a foothold to be able to thwart the English on this stretch of coast by means of military force. In addition, the Portuguese and Dutch fought each other bitterly on the Gold Coast. In the end, the decisive stimulus for entering the West African gold trade came from Nicholas Crispe's chance encounter with the Dutchman Arent de Groot.

The desired project also convinced King Charles I of England , who finally agreed to the revocation of the old society and the formation of a new society for trade in West Africa. Founding members of the new society were Nicholas Crispe, his old companions and adversaries Humphrey Slanley and William Clobery, as well as Sir Richard Young, Sir Kenelm Digby and George Kirke. Shortly thereafter, John Wood, Samuel Crispe and Abraham Chamberlain were also accepted as new members.

The monopoly privilege issued by Charles I for the new company was set for 31 years and no longer limited trade to "Gynney and Bynney" as with the previous company, but now related to the entire west coast of Africa south of the Senegalese Muzzle. The main item, which should be the primary goal of economic activity, is explicitly named gold , with the condition that at least 10,000 pounds of gold must be produced within the 31 years of validity. However, trading in other goods was not prohibited either. In this regard, of course, the lucrative redwood trade from the Sierra Leone coast continued to pay attention, but larger quantities of ivory were also expected on occasion, along with animal hides and skins , wax , rubber and above all pepper . Slaves, although not specifically mentioned in the patents but known to be of increasing importance, were also considered. Furthermore, although not mentioned in the patent, the sugar trade of São Tomé should be targeted as a guarantee for the economic success of a company in the event that, for whatever reason, not enough goods were available on the mainland coast.

A very big problem in the run-up to a first expedition to the Gold Coast turned out to be the staffing for the desired branch and for the development of the gold trade, as there was a lack of people with specialist knowledge in the gold trade, of which the English only anyway knew very little. Crispe saw a solution for this in Arent de Groot, who was already in England at his invitation and was waiting for his order. He had previously worked as a trader on behalf of the Dutch West India Company in the gold trade on the Gold Coast, but had gotten into an argument with his colleagues and is now trying to return to the Gold Coast for reasons of revenge. In addition, de Groot had sufficient knowledge and experience of the local gold trade. It was a profitable business for both sides, because the acquaintance with de Groot also seemed to Crispe as a gift from God, because without him it would have been very difficult to find a specialist who also had experience on the Gold Coast.

Advance to the Gold Coast

Of course, Crispe was fully aware of the distribution of power on the Gold Coast at the time. The Portuguese could only hold their own in Elmina , while the Dutch sat both to the west and east of it, and that on a stretch of coast from Kommendah to Accra based on treaties that had been concluded with the rulers of the coastal empires. Apparently the Dutch had not been able to make a contract with the King of Agona and this was also the reason why Nicholas Crispe, who accompanied the first expedition to the Gold Coast himself, chose the Wiampa (later Winneba ) , which belongs to Agona, as the first port of call. At the beginning of 1632 the English went ashore here and first made contact with the King of Agona. The king was well disposed to the English and allowed them by contract to set up a trading post, the construction of which began immediately. However, not very much gold could be expected from Winneba and it quickly became clear that a foothold on the Gold Coast would only be possible if the Dutch were challenged and attacked in their own centers of power, be it at the price of victory or destruction. In this respect, too, the services of an Arent de Groot proved extremely helpful. In fact, in August 1632, despite massive Dutch protests and hindrances, he succeeded in signing a contract with Ambro, one of the most important Fanti chiefs. In it Ambro granted the English a commercial right in the entire Fanti-Land and allowed them to set up trading offices at Kormantin (today's Saltpond ), Adja and Anomabo as well as on all stretches of coast that were under the jurisdiction of the Fanti-Nation. The English then began to set up a trading post in Kormantin, which they made their headquarters, and another in Ekki-Tekki (later the Kommendah ), although the latter was given up again in the following year 1633.

At the end of 1636 a first success was seen when one of the ships brought 4 Hundredweights Gold, which brought the company a profit of approximately £ 30,000. Between 1636 and 1644, the Company's ships brought an estimated £ 500,000 worth of gold to England, supplemented by sugar from São Tomé.

Teething problems

In 1638 the construction of a small fortified fort near Kormantin began to protect the local trading post from the Dutch. However, due to unambitious designs, the construction activities were extremely slow and even after eight years they were not finished in 1646.

However, the far bigger problem the Society struggled with in the 1630s was coping with the constant bankruptcies of its members and also agreeing to liquidate the debts that had once been incurred by the 1628 objectors. The creditors had brought the debt matter to court again after a period of pressure, at a time when there was still £ 945 outstanding debt. The " Privy Council " then decided in a judgment of July 1, 1637 that the outstanding amount should be raised by the company, namely by means of a special levy from its members on all redwood and ivory imports .

Another significant problem for the company was the still flourishing surreptitious trade

Nonetheless, trade in West Africa was immensely profitable for the Company in those years, despite the huge expenditures for forts and factories, largely financed by Nicholas Crispe himself. Nicholas Crispe will later claim that in those years he imported about half a million pounds sterling in gold from West Africa to England, and that a trade on that basis would bring the nation fifty or sixty thousand pounds a year. Even if these figures are certainly exaggerated, they nonetheless show that the profits from the West African gold trade, when it ran smoothly, were enormous.

Nicholas Crisp was I. Because of his royalist sympathies to King Charles of this in 1640 in the knighthood raised. A little later, the king confirmed his African monopoly patent for another 20 years.

West African Trade and English Civil War

In the course of the increasingly acute conflict in England, which turned into the open outbreak of the English Civil War in 1642 , Sir Nicholas Crispe was expelled from the English Parliament in February 1641 for royalist behavior and as a monopoly . Finally, a parliamentary arbitration committee asked him to hand over the royal monopoly patents for West African trade to the House of Commons.

Nicholas Crispe had to flee London and went to the side of King Charles I. The unminted gold found in his house worth £ 5,000 was confiscated. Although during this period of the Civil War all English maritime activities were strictly controlled by Parliament, the Company's African voyages continued. However, this was more due to the fact that King Charles I sent a squadron of 15 warships to protect Crispe's African trade.

In 1640 Arent de Groot was again commissioned by the company on the Gold Coast. This time he succeeds again, amid the angry protests of the Dutch, in concluding treaties with local rulers and in establishing the British at Egya , Anomabo , Anashan and Takoradi , displacing the Dutch, where, as he claimed, the local rulers gave the English the would have granted sole commercial rights. In the same year the English start to set up a trading post in Takoradi. The Dutch were very angry about it and complained bitterly to their home government that their trade on the Gold Coast was falling more and more, while other nations (meaning the English) were making more and more profits. In particular, people were very angry about the betrayal of their compatriot Arent de Groot.

In 1643 the parliament in London decided to cut off the gold supply for the king and his followers. The result was that the company got into a serious crisis. For example, one of the Crispe ships was hijacked by parliamentarians. In addition, rival interloopers and, above all, the Dutch competition got an enormous boost. The Dutch in particular were always ready to undertake activities to weaken or even prevent the British gold trade. Another of the Crispe ships, fully loaded, fell into the hands of pirates on the way back from Africa . The year 1643 ended with a loss of approximately £ 20,000 for the Crispes Company. Debt accumulated and fiscal 1644 began for the Company with real liabilities (liabilities, etc.) of £ 10,000 compared to real assets (deposits, accounts receivable, etc.) of just £ 405. In addition, £ 5,000 had been "borrowed" from a ship Crispes by the naval committee and around £ 2,000 had been paid out in advance to customers, etc. This meant that the company was barely able to finance a West Africa trade and was probably almost entirely discontinued in the course of 1644. This is confirmed by reports from December 1644 from officials of the Dutch West India Company on the Gold Coast to the Dutch government, in which it is stated that the English have now almost completely left the Gold Coast. The small trading post at Takoradi had also been given up again and the local ruler of Kormantin had invited the Dutch to build a lodge with him. The latter was of course tackled immediately.

At the beginning of 1644 Sir Nicholas Crispe still owned half of the company's shares, while his brother, Samuel Crispe, owned a quarter of the total and John Wood controlled the rest. However, the Crispe brothers' shares were confiscated by Parliament in 1644 on the grounds that Nicholas Crispe owed the state £ 16,000. The management of the company passed to John Wood at this time.

Wood first tried to revive the West African trade. The Dutch on the Gold Coast reported to their home government in December 1645 that the English were back in Kormantin and that the restoration of their former fort had resumed with determination. In addition, several attempts were made in the period 1645–1650 to set up or revive new factories on the Gold Coast, primarily at Takoradi, Egya, Accra, on Cabo Corso, and at Winnebah, but none of these actions were successful due to the lack of cooperation on the part of the local residents Authorities. When in 1650 the traders of the English company reported back home that they now had 16 factories on the Gold Coast, this was a gross exaggeration, because most of the factories that were already being opened without the consent of the local rulers were already closed Beginning of its construction phase, destroyed again by the locals. Despite all the efforts of the English, no profitable trade was made on the Gold Coast during this period.

When King Charles I was executed on January 31, 1649, the management of the company consisted of John Wood, Mauriel Thompson, Rowland Wilson and Thomas Walter. With the beginning of the financial year 1650 the company is still officially run under the chairmanship of Nicholas Crispe, but it is explicitly mentioned in this context that the recipients of the original patents of 1631 have given up all their interests in favor of John Wood and his partners.

Swedish competition

Thomas Crispe arrived on the Gold Coast in early 1650. He held the position of "Chief Factor" and concentrated his main activity on establishing an English foothold on Cabo Corso. Construction of a trading post had already begun here in 1647, albeit exactly opposite an existing Dutch trading post. At the end of 1647 the English, and shortly afterwards at the beginning of 1648 also the Dutch, were forced by the locals to leave this place again.

The Swedish commissioner Neumann and King Bredewa von Fetu in Degou (today's Cape Coast) in 1648.

When a Swedish ship happened to be anchored at Cabo Corso in 1648 to trade here, the Swedes received an invitation from the King of Fetu to build a permanent Swedish trading post. A corresponding contract is signed. People in Sweden are enthusiastic. A Swedish monopoly company for African trade is immediately founded and Queen Kristina of Sweden immediately has an expedition equipped to sail to the Gold Coast in order to implement the project of a Swedish branch in West Africa. The Swedish expedition, led by Heinrich Carloff, who came from Finland , arrives at Cabo Corso in 1650.

However, Thomas Crispe had already heard about the Carloff expedition and its imminent arrival in advance and was willing to prevent the Swedish enterprise by all means. He sent his henchman, John Buckle, to the Fetus, where he was received by Henrico, the cousin, heir, and chief agent of the King of Fetu. In return for gifts and payments, which amounted to the equivalent of 64 pounds sterling, he was given a considerable piece of land on Cabo Corso in order to be able to set up an English trading post there. This piece of land, so the English will later claim, also included the piece of land on which the later Fort Carolusburg was built. The same claim was later made on the site on which Fort Frederiksborg was built, as well as on the stretch of coast between the two Fortresses. Although the legality of the English claims can be strongly doubted, Thomas Crispe had Fetu officials spread that he had been given ownership of all this land.

Carloff arrives four days later. He is received by the King of Fetu and after numerous gifts to the King, he is allowed to start building a trading post in accordance with the agreement of 1648. The English protested against it in the sharpest form, but it did not help. Nevertheless, they were also allowed to build an English trading post in the immediate vicinity of the Swedish one. A kind of race began, but the Swedes were the first to finish the construction. On the other hand, the English had a better location with a stretch of land behind the actual Cape.

A memorable agreement was reached on May 28, 1650. Both the Swedes and the English signed a contract with the King of Fetu, which stipulates that the Swedes will have sole commercial rights and that the English will not be allowed to stay on site for more than six months without Swedish permission. The angry protests by the English, however, resulted in an extension of the right to stay until September 1652.

In September 1652 it came to an escalation, the locals snatched their trading post from the English, drove out the English servants and handed the complex over to the Swedes, who then destroyed it and began to build a fort at the same place (later Fort Carolusburg). Nevertheless, the British were pityed and allowed to run a small English trading post elsewhere, and they were also granted commercial rights for at least the next 35 years. This approval was later the main argument of the English to justify the local English presence on Cabo Corso and to defend English claims to property.

End and new beginning

In 1651 the "Committee of Trade" of the English Parliament assessed that the Guinea trade was in a catastrophic state. Due to the high costs of building and maintaining their factories on the Gold Coast, the company has so far lost more than £ 100,000 and the competition from the Dutch, but also the English Interlooper, would cause great damage to the company. Probably the most important among the English interloopers was a certain Samuel Vassal. In the run-up to this, the aforementioned Samuel Vassal had already been indicted by the company before the English Council of State for making unjustified claims for himself and, above all, for obtaining a concession for trade in Africa through one worried about undue interference. Certain members of the company were also accused of the latter, but they vehemently denied such an accusation. After a detailed examination of the legal situation, the “Council of State” finally handed the case over to the “Committee of Trade” for closer assessment and a decision. After hearing the parties, the Committee of Trade submitted its report in 1651. It was finally recommended that despite the many difficulties in Africa trade, the royal monopoly should be maintained. Thereupon the monopoly was confirmed for the company for a further 14 years, which, however, was given a new name: " Company of London Merchants ".

Footnotes

  1. ↑ At that time this was 4530 ... 5300 kg, the numerical values ​​for the conversion vary depending on the author. In the 17th century, the London pound was defined as 1 English pound to London = 81.5 parts of 100 ancient Roman Pondus. ( Zedler's Universal Lexicon , 1732–1754)
  2. ↑ São Tomé was then in the Lusospanian possession. The reason that the English were allowed to trade here at that time (provided they adhered to certain taboo rules) was due to the Anglo-Portuguese alliance which had been ratified with the Treaty of Windsor in 1386. The treaty goes back to the support that the Portuguese king once received from (predominantly) English crusaders when they made a stopover in Portugal on their journey to the East. This Anglo-Portuguese alliance is basically still valid today and represents the world's oldest, still valid alliance treaty in the world.
  3. ↑ In the literature, Ambro is often referred to as the "King of the Fanti", but that the Fanti nation formed a united kingdom at that time is a flawed interpretation. De Groot himself left a report on these negotiations in which he mentions “Braffo” as the title for Ambro. With the Fantis, however, the Braffo is only the military commander in chief in the event of war.
  4. ↑ today's Egya at 5 ° 11 ′  N , 1 ° 6 ′  W
  5. ↑ At that time, 4 cwt.l. = 203.2092 kg. (Conversion according to McCusker, who for England and Ireland for the reign of Jacob I as King of England and Scotland an equivalent of 1 long hundedweight (English hundredweight) [cwt.l.] = 4 quarters of 28 pounds = 112 pounds = 50 , 8023 kg.)
  6. ↑ The sugar supplements from São Tomé ended in 1641 when the Dutch conquered the island.
  7. ↑ A surreptitious trader is a captain or his client who traded in a state-protected concession area in his own name and for his own account without having obtained a permit from the concession holder. (German historical name: "Lordträger"; Danish / Dutch: "Lorrendreyer"; English: "interlooper"; French: "entreloope")
  8. ↑ In this context, Nicholas Crispe, together with Slaney and Clobery, even sued one of his own relatives, John Crispe, in court in November 1637 of having prepared an interlooper trip to West Africa for the purpose of the slave trade and for its damage. The defendant denied this with the assertion that the barbery was his target. At that time, barberry was understood to mean the African regions north of the Senegal estuary and west of Egypt. The local English trading rights went back to the first forays by the English on the African continent and represented a separate concession area opposite the rest of the West African coast. The judgment, however, proved the company right and forbade John Crispe to travel to West Africa unless he was expressly permitted will. Oliver Clobery, probably a close relative of William Clobery, and Maurice Thompson also suffered a similar charge in 1638. However, a ruling allowed them to continue to travel to West Africa.
  9. ↑ In England at that time, the pound sterling was a fictitious bill coin (banco coin) worth 1 pound = 16 ounces sterling silver (= 22-carat silver = 22 parts silver + 2 parts copper) with the subdivision: 1 pound sterling ( £) = 20 shillings (s.), Each of 12 denari (d.) (Penny), d. H. The value of 240 denari corresponded exactly to the value represented by 22/24 pounds of fine silver. This definition existed since 1489. It was not until the 19th century that paper bills with pounds sterling appeared as a currency in circulation. Zedlers Universal Lexikon (1735) mentions the conversion of gold to silver money in England: 1 ounce of gold = £ 3 + 14 s. + 2 d.
  10. ↑ Crispe made this statement in 1661 at a moment of deep personal crisis.
  11. ↑ His daughter was married to Sir Nicholas Crispe's brother, Tobias Crispe.
  12. ↑ probably a cousin of Nicholas Crispe
  13. ↑ The Cabo Corso of the Portuguese, in German: Cape Corse. Today the city of Cape Coast is located here . The flagpole of Fort Carolusburg (actually Karlsborg), later Cape Coast Castle, was exactly at 5 ° 5 ′ 25 ″  N , 1 ° 12 ′ 45 ″  W

swell

  • Johannes Kretschmar: Swedish trading companies and attempts at colonization in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In: Hansische Geschichtsblätter. 38 = Vol. 17, 1911, ISSN  0073-0327 , pp. 215-246.
  • R. Porter: The Crispe Family and the African Trade in the Seventeenth Century. In: Journal of African History. 9, 1, 1968, ISSN  0021-8537 , pp. 57-77.
  • John J. McCusker: Les equivalents métriques des poids et mesures du commerce colonial aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles. In: Revue française d'histoire d'Outre-Mer. 61, 224, 1974, ISSN  0300-9513 , pp. 349-365.
  • Magnus Mörner: Cabo Corso på Guldkusten. In: Allsvensk Samling. 37, June 1950, ZDB -ID 820523-1 , pp. 4–7 (in Swedish)