Trade, Coasters, and Conflict in the Rio Pongo from 1790-1808

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Periodical article

Title:	Trade, Coasters, and Conflict in the Rio Pongo from 1790-1808
Author:	Mouser, Bruce L.
Year:	1973
Periodical:	The Journal of African History
Volume:	14
Issue:	1
Pages:	45-64
Language:	English
Geographic terms:	Guinea Sierra Leone
Subjects:	traders history 1700-1799 1800-1899 History and Exploration Economics and Trade Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups)
External link:	https://www.jstor.org/stable/180776
Abstract:	A dominant theme in early 19th-century economic history for the West African coast has been the transition from slaving to legitimate commerce, and the persistence of the former after the trade became illegal (1806). The ability of trading centres to withstand changes in commercial patterns depended largely upon the character of slaving which had preceded its legal termination. For the several forms of the trade see the publications of S. Rottenberg, W.A. Rodney, C.W. Newbury. The Rio Pongo, with its entrepot of Fula trade on the coast, was home to one of the Windward Coast's largest bulking and slaving centres at the turn of the 19th century. This article describes the Pongo community of European and Eur-african traders, its life style and relationships to the indigenous economic and political systems, and the cohesiveness which enabled it to withstand a major challenge for control of commerce by the Sierra Leone Company between 1795 and 1802. Notes, map. summary.