The African Company of Merchants or Company of Merchants Trading to Africa was a British chartered company operating from 1752 to 1821 in the Gold Coast area of modern Ghana, engaged in the Atlantic slave trade.
The company was established by the African Company Act 1750, and in 1752 replaced the Royal African Company which had been established in 1660. [1] Unlike its predecessor, the African Company of Merchants was a regulated company, not a joint stock company: Clause IV of African Company Act 1750 stated: "That it shall not be lawful for the Company, established by this Act, to trade to or from Africa in their corporate or joint Capacity, or to have any joint or transferable Stock, or to borrow, or take up, any Sum or Sums of Money, on their Common Seal". [2]
The assets of the Royal African Company were transferred to the new company and consisted primarily of nine trading posts or factories: Fort William, Fort James, Fort Sekondi, Fort Winneba, Fort Apollonia, Fort Tantumquery, Fort Metal Cross, Fort Komenda and Cape Coast Castle, the last of which was the administrative centre. [1] This coastal area was dominated by the indigenous Fante people.
The company was managed by the African Committee, which was composed of nine committee members, three each from London, Liverpool and Bristol. The constitution stipulated that the committee should be elected annually from the general body of traders from these cities, who paid 40 shillings to be admitted to the company. According to the constitution, these committee members could only hold the post for three years. However, in 1772 a series of pamphlets were published claiming that the Committee members were not acting properly. [3]
The company was funded by an annual grant approved by Parliament, which covered the costs of the London office and the forts. The committee had to report to the Exchequer, the Admiralty and, from 1782, the Secretary at War. [1] John Shoolbred,(1740–1802), uncle of another John Shoolbred noted for his advocacy of vaccination, was secretary to the committee for several years. [3]
The imperial government prohibited the African slave trade after 1807, although the company continued to operate for some years afterwards. In keeping with the ethos of liberal reform, administrative authority over the African Company's territory was transferred to Governor Charles MacCarthy of Sierra Leone, Sierra Leone having been founded as a refuge colony for freed formerly enslaved peoples. (Governor McCarthy was subsequently killed in the First Anglo-Asante War.) In 1817, the company signed a treaty of friendship recognising the Asante claims to sovereignty over large areas of the coast, including areas claimed by the Fante. However, after it became public knowledge that the company had continued the slave trade within its privately held territory, the British government abolished the company in 1821. [4]
The Gold Coast was a British Crown colony on the Gulf of Guinea in West Africa from 1821 until its independence in 1957 as Ghana. The term Gold Coast is also often used to describe all of the four separate jurisdictions that were under the administration of the Governor of the Gold Coast. These were the Gold Coast itself, Ashanti, the Northern Territories protectorate and the British Togoland trust territory.
The Ashanti–Fante War (1806–1807) was a war fought between the Ashanti Empire and the Fante Confederacy in the region of what is currently the Republic of Ghana.
Osei Bonsu also known as Osei Tutu Kwame was the Asantehene. He reigned either from 1800 to 1824 or from 1804 to 1824. During his reign as the king, the Ashanti fought the Fante confederation and ended up dominating Gold Coast trade. In Akan, Bonsu means whale, and is symbolic of his achievement of extending the Ashanti Empire to the coast. He died in Kumasi, and was succeeded by Osei Yaw Akoto.
The Royal African Company (RAC) was an English trading company established in 1660 by the House of Stuart and City of London merchants to trade along the West African coast. It was overseen by the Duke of York, the brother of Charles II of England; the RAC was founded after Charles II ascended to the English throne in the 1660 Stuart Restoration, and he granted it a monopoly on all English trade with Africa. While the company's original purpose was to trade for gold in the Gambia River, as Prince Rupert of the Rhine had identified gold deposits in the region during the Interregnum, the RAC quickly began trading in slaves, which became its largest commodity.
Cape Coast Castle is one of about forty "slave castles", or large commercial forts, built on the Gold Coast of West Africa by European traders. It was originally a Portuguese "feitoria" or trading post, established in 1555, which they named Cabo Corso.
Thomas Edward Bowdich was an English traveller and author.
The Dutch Gold Coast or Dutch Guinea, officially Dutch possessions on the Coast of Guinea was a portion of contemporary Ghana that was gradually colonized by the Dutch, beginning in 1612. The Dutch began trading in the area around 1598, joining the Portuguese which had a trading post there since the late 1400s. Eventually, the Dutch Gold Coast became the most important Dutch colony in West Africa after Fort Elmina was captured from the Portuguese in 1637, but fell into disarray after the abolition of the slave trade in the early 19th century. On 6 April 1872, the Dutch Gold Coast was, in accordance with the Anglo-Dutch Treaties of 1870–71, ceded to the United Kingdom.
The Anglo-Ashanti wars were a series of five conflicts that took place between 1824 and 1900 between the Ashanti Empire—in the Akan interior of the Gold Coast—and the British Empire and its African allies. The wars were mainly due to Ashanti attempts to maintain and enforce their imperial control over the coastal areas of present-day Ghana, where peoples such as the Fante and the Ga had come under the protection of the British. Although the Ashanti emerged victorious in some of these conflicts, the British ultimately prevailed in the fourth and fifth conflicts, resulting in the complete annexation of the Ashanti Empire by 1900.
The Mankessim Kingdom (1252–1844) was a pre-colonial African state in modern-day Ghana. It is regarded as the heartland of the Fante people, and operated as capital of the Fante Confederacy in the 19th century. The town of Mankessim still exists, and is located in the Central Region of Ghana, about an hour and a half drive west of Accra. The Mankessim Kingdom's influence was quite vast; it extended to the whole of the Fante people, and at times the entire coast of modern-day Ghana.
Osei Kwadwo was the 4th Asantehene of the Ashanti Empire who reigned from 1764 to 1777. Osei Kwadwo was elected in replacement of Kusi Obodom who was removed out of power.
Anomabu, also spelled Anomabo and formerly as Annamaboe, is a town on the coast of the Mfantsiman Municipal District of the Central Region of South Ghana. Anomabu has a settlement population of 14,389 people.
The Asante Empire, today commonly called the Ashanti Empire, was an Akan state that lasted from 1701 to 1901, in what is now modern-day Ghana. It expanded from the Ashanti Region to include most of Ghana as well as parts of Ivory Coast and Togo. Due to the empire's military prowess, wealth, architecture, sophisticated hierarchy and culture, the Ashanti Empire has been extensively studied and has more historic records written by European, primarily British, authors than any other indigenous culture of sub-Saharan Africa.
John Hope Smith was an English Colonial Head of the Gold Coast as Governor of the Committee of Merchants of the Gold Coast from 19 January 1817 until 27 March 1822.
Gold Coast Euro-Africans were a historical demographic based in coastal urban settlements in colonial Ghana, that arose from unions between European men and African women from the late 15th century – the decade between 1471 and 1482, until the mid-20th century, circa 1957, when Ghana attained its independence. In this period, different geographic areas of the Gold Coast were politically controlled at various times by the Portuguese, Germans, Swedes, Danes, Dutch and the British. There are also records of merchants of other European nationalities such as the Spaniards, French, Italians and Irish, operating along the coast, in addition to American sailors and traders from New York, Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Euro-Africans were influential in intellectual, technocratic, artisanal, commercial and public life in general, actively participating in multiple fields of scholarly and civic importance. Scholars have referred to this Euro-African population of the Gold Coast as "mulattos", "mulatofoi" and "owulai" among other descriptions. The term, owula conveys contemporary notions of "gentlemanliness, learning and urbanity" or "a salaried big man" in the Ga language. The cross-cultural interactions between Europeans and Africans were mercantile-driven and an avenue to boost social capital for economic and political gain i.e. "wealth and power." The growth and development of Christianity during the colonial period also instituted motifs of modernity vis-à-vis Euro-African identity. This model created a spectrum of practices, ranging from a full celebration of native African customs to a total embrace and acculturation of European culture.
The Bond of 1844 was an agreement signed between Fante chiefs and the British government. It was signed on 6 March 1844 in Ghana, which was then known as the Gold Coast.
Ghana–United Kingdom relations are the diplomatic, historical and trade relations between Ghana and the United Kingdom. Modern state Ghana-UK relations began when Ghana became independent from the UK in 1957.
John Shoolbred was a Scottish slave trader primarily active in London. He was a member or "freeman" of the African Company of Merchants, an organisation established in Great Britain to participate in the transatlantic slave trade. He also served on the Committee of nine members who ran the company. When his reputation was under attack in 1777, he wrote to Edmund Burke to thank him for his political support.
The Economy of the Ashanti Empire was largely a pre-industrial and agrarian economy. The Ashanti established different procedures for mobilizing state revenue and utilizing public finance. Ashanti trade extended upon two main trade routes; one at the North and the other at the South. The Northern trade route was dominated by the trade in Kola nuts and at the South, the Ashanti engaged in the Atlantic Slave Trade. A variety of economic industries such as cloth-weaving and metal working industries existed. The Ashanti originally farmed in subsistence until agriculture became extensive during the 19th century.
Kwadwo Egyir, later renamed Brempong Kojo and later Europeanized as Caboceer Cudjo, was born around 1700 in Ekumfi in a Fante chiefdom on the Gold Coast, the village being located in what is now the Ekumfi district of Ghana, and died on March 24, 1779 in Cape Coast. He was a slave trader in the service of the British Gold Coast in Cape Coast.
