trade was to a large extent responsible for this ignorance. Peaceful penetration was difficult in a continent where strangers were liable to be captured and sold as slaves, and armed penetration was not possible for the small groups of Englishmen who frequented the coast either as representatives of a trading company, or as individual adventurers. Nor did the English traders greatly desire to undertake the work of exploration. Their position in the slave trade was that of one of the many middlemen between the Muhammadan or other slave raiders and the English planters in the West Indies. For this occupation adventures into the interior would have been a great additional danger and expense, without providing compensating financial gain. The safest method of penetration for Europeans, strategically, was by the rivers, but the climate of the rivers of tropical Africa exacted so heavy a mortality from Europeans that the protection given by the ships' walls against human enemies was offset by the decimation of the crews in their cramped quarters and the unhealthiness of the moist atmosphere. For these reasons the English, in company with other European Powers, left the exploration of the interior until conditions changed at the end of the eighteenth century. By 1750 the Africa that was known to Western Europe, apart from Mediterranean Africa, consisted of a well-defined coastline and a number of regions in which the Europeans had their trading posts, with some features of the interior sketched in, according to hearsay or imagination. The region of the Senegal and Gambia rivers was well known, for traders had penetrated some considerable distance up these rivers; the coastline and islands between the Gambia and the coast of the Gulf of Guinea were also accurately known and charted, as was the Guinea Coast itself. The French had a fort on the island of Goree guarding the approach to the Senegal, and one on the island of St Louis in the mouth of the river, and many factories up its course. The British, in addition to a fort on James Island in the mouth of the Gambia, had a number of factories up the river the entrance of which they commanded. The Portuguese had trading stations on the Bissagos islands, and the Guinea Coast was dotted with European holdings. This shore was divided, from west to east, into the Grain Coast, Tooth (or Ivory) Coast, Gold Coast and Slave Coast, the majority of the forts being concentrated on the Gold Coast, where the Dutch and English together had some twenty-five forts and factories, the Brandenburgers two, and the Danes one. Other trading posts were established and abandoned, so that the number of places in effective occupation varied from time to time. All these Guinea forts were erected on a strip of coastal plain separated by a range of mountains from the little-known interior. The power of the native kingdom of Ashanti was being built up, but it was still an inland power only, and the coast was in possession DEFECTIVE KNOWLEDGE OF THE INTERIOR 453 of a number of small native powers of which the Fantis were the strongest. From the coast to the Ashanti borders there was communication by trading paths down which the slave coffles came, except in time of native wars when these were blocked. Behind the Ashanti territory lay a region about which there was no accurate knowledge. The most disputed feature of this distant interior was the great riverway of the Niger, concerning which men made interesting speculation. The most accurate cartographer of Africa in the early eighteenth century, the Sieur d'Anville, who was employed by Louis XV, made no guess at the course of the river, and left the Niger out of his maps, inscribing "on n'a aucune connoissance de ce qui est plus avant dans les terres" on the land just north of the coastal region,1 but others who followed him had less restraint. An Englishman who published a map in 1760 depicted the Niger as a river flowing between two lakes about longitude 3° East and a marsh in longitude 10° West, with no egress to the sea.2 This was more accurate than a commonly accepted view, which was expressed in the Annual Register in 1758, that the source of the Niger was in East Africa, and that it flowed westward to the coast dividing into three branches, the Senegal, the Gambia, and the Rio Grande, by which it entered the Atlantic. Until the time of Mungo Park's explorations, however, this view remained current in England. To the east of the Gold Coast the native kingdom of Dahomey, where the British had a fort at Whydah, was a synonym for barbaric tyranny, and knowledge of the interior was possible only so far as it was allowed by the native ruler. Though there were no English settlements in the Congo region there was some knowledge of that interior due to the Portuguese settlements there. In the eighteenth century East Africa belonged to an entirely different sphere from that of West Africa, the latter pertaining to Atlantic commerce, the former to that of the East Indies. Oceans, not continents, made unities in the eighteenth century, and the English thought of Africa from 1750 to 1787 as the Atlantic coastline opposite the West Indies, an essential part of an important triangular trade. The Company of Merchants had not long been established before rivalries with the French in the Gambia and with the Dutch on the Gold Coast disturbed its peace. French rivalry, though it was strongest in the Gambia region, was also felt on the Gold Coast, and the English traders sought to secure a footing farther north than the Gambia, so that they might have free entrance to the gum trade from which the French were attempting to exclude them. The Seven Years' War stimulated the rivalry of English and French, and the wishes of the English traders were met by the prosecution of a vigorous African campaign in 1758. The English forces captured the 1 d'Anville, J. B., Carte particulière de la partie principale de la Guinée, 1729. * Bennett, R., Africa according to Sieur d'Anville, 1760. French headquarters at Fort St Louis in the Senegal in May 1758, and Goree in December.1 The Gold Coast was little troubled by the war. The French attempted in 1757 to capture our headquarters at Cape Coast Castle, but failed,2 and by the end of the war the British had won substantial successes over the French. Yet at the Peace of Paris the English captures in Africa were not all retained, the claims of the African traders not being appreciated to the same extent by those who concluded the treaty as they had been by Pitt. By the treaty of 1763 England acquired the Senegal with its forts and dependencies, but restored the island of Goree to France, a cession which caused much indignation. Pitt had insisted on the English retention of both Goree and Fort St Louis, and he now protested against the restoration of Goree to France as unstatesmanlike and unnecessary.3 The retention of the island gave France a base in a good strategic position for preying on the English trade. England, however, gained a large new trading ground situated in a valuable region. With the French continuance in Goree a strong government was needed for the new English territory if the claim to control the gum trade, which the English merchants had desired, was to be made effective. The great value of this trade in the eighteenth century was due to the importance of gum in the finishing processes of silk materials, and it was, therefore, a necessity to the manufacturers of both France and England. The region north of the River Senegal was the best gum-bearing area in West Africa, and both countries wished to keep their rivals out of this extremely desirable territory. It was also urgent that some authority should be put in command of the ceded forts without delay. In 1764, in answer to a request from the Committee of the Company of Merchants trading to Africa, an Act was passed by which the Senegal was united with the other English forts under its management. This arrangement for the government of the new territory did not last long, as there were complaints of the weakness of the Company's administration and of its failure to maintain English authority against French aggression. In consequence the Board of Trade and Plantations recommended that the British holdings should be divided into two groups, those in the Senegal and Gambia region being under a new form of administration, the others being left to the control of the Company, and this arrangement was adopted. Following this Act a Crown province was erected out of the old Gambia holdings and the new Senegal forts and dependencies, under the name of "Senegambia". Its administration seems strikingly elaborate in comparison with that 1 See C.O. 267/12. 2 Letters, Co. of Merchants trading to Africa, 13 Feb. 1757 (P.R.O. T. 70/30). 5 Representation by the Board of Trade to the Crown, 2 Feb. 1765 in Colonial Office papers. C.O. 391/72. THE GOVERNMENT OF SENEGAMBIA 455 which had been considered adequate for the rest of the coast.1 The constitutional scheme, probably due in the main to Lord Shelburne, was designed in imitation of the government of the American colonies with certain modifications adapted to the particular conditions of West Africa. The chief authority was entrusted to a governor, acting with a small council. A chief justice had power to erect the necessary courts for both civil and criminal cases. Trial by jury was to be instituted, and justices of the peace and constables appointed after the English fashion. There was to be an agent as well as a secretary to the province, and for native affairs a secretary conversant with the Moorish tongue. That the province should lack no aid to civilisation, the establishment included schoolmasters and chaplains, and to strengthen the governor's position in maintaining the defence of the colony a vice-admiralty court was to be set up for the trial of cases of piracy and adjudication on prizes, under the presidency of the governor. The raison d'être of this province being the extension of English commerce, a superintendent of trade was appointed to guard that interest. Three companies of white soldiers called Independents provided the necessary defence. As good salaries were provided for the chief officers in this establishment, the governor receiving £1200 a year, and the chief justice £400, the cost of the Senegambian administration amounted to about £10,050 a year. To meet the burden Parliament passed an Act in 1765 laying a duty on all gum exported from the coast.2 Whatever the merits in the abstract of this scheme of government it failed to suit the conditions of the country, and the successive governors found themselves involved in difficulties in carrying out the terms of their instructions. The first governor, Colonel Charles O'Hara, arrived in West Africa in 1766.3 In accordance with his military interests, he set himself at once to remedy what he considered the appalling weakness of the province, and without greatly troubling himself about the civil administration he began to rebuild the defences of Fort St Louis and to prepare for vigorous measures against the French. The delimitation of boundaries being ambiguous in the treaty of 1763, O'Hara gave to it an extensive interpretation, and prepared to deal severely with any French intrusion upon British claims. Though his rule seems to have been generally popular, he offended the inhabitants of the island on which Fort St Louis stood by moving some of them to the mainland on grounds of military necessity. His rule came to an end with his recall and dismissal for having failed to carry out the terms of his instructions. He left the coast late in 1776, and in the following year a heated debate on the African settlements and their 1 See Martin, E. C., The British West African Settlements, pp. 57 seqq. 2 5 George III, c. 37. See Martin, pp. 76 seqq. government took place in the Commons.1 It turned mainly on the mismanagement of the Company of Merchants trading to Africa, but the Opposition now tried to censure the extravagance of the Government in Senegambia. The attack was eluded by Lord North, but the governor appointed to succeed O'Hara felt its effects. After an interval of some months, John Clarke arrived to take command of the province in April 1777. His instructions were a revised edition of those which had been given to O'Hara, and he was advised not to fall into his predecessor's errors. The new governor attempted to set all parts of the administrative machinery working, but found very great difficulty owing to the lack of a resident English population. During his rule courts of judicature were set up and used, but when appeal was brought against them in England, they were pronounced to have been illegally constituted-a ruling which brought both the governor and the chief justice under risk of penalties for illegal action. Constant criticism was Clarke's portion, as the Government wished to be able to answer its opponents, and Lord George Germaine informed him that the Senegambian establishment was to be retrenched. Before he had an opportunity of putting the reforms into practice Governor Clarke died, a victim to an epidemic that swept the garrison in August 1778. While he was in command, the French declared war on Great Britain; but Clarke died just as the first French expedition to Africa was on its way to the coast. A quarrel arose among the British officers as to who should succeed him, and the rival parties finally attempted to settle the matter by force. When the French vessels arrived off the island of St Louis, one part of the British garrison was occupied in holding the fort against another, and, engaged in this dispute, they offered no serious resistance to the French, who settled the quarrel by taking the command upon themselves. This loss of the headquarters in Senegambia was not allowed to pass without retaliation, and in 1779 Goree fell into our hands. On the rupture with Holland in 1780 there was a contest on the Gold Coast, though neither the Dutch nor the English there desired a trial of strength by engaging in open warfare. The Dutch had just lost a very able governor, and his successor was a man of far less vigour, while the English were conscious that their forts, garrisons, and supplies were in an extremely precarious condition. When news of impending hostilities reached the coast, they, therefore, agreed among themselves to maintain an attitude of neutrality. Owing to this policy no welcome was given to some British privateers who appeared at Cape Coast Castle in February 1781, with captured Dutch vessels, or to the news they brought of the official proclama 1 Parl. Hist. XIX, 291 seqq. 2 Letter from Schotte, 29 March 1779 in C.O. 267/20. 3 Governor at Cape Coast Castle to Committee of Co. 19 March 1781 (P.R.O. T. 70/33). |