Kola trade and state-building: upper Guinea Coast and Senegambia, 15th - 17th centuries
OA Version
Citation
Abstract
INTRODUCTION: From earliest recorded times to the present day, no African commodity has
been more important in West African commerce than kola, a product of the
coastal rainforest belt. Kola are highly esteemed as an indulgent and mild
stimulant, are used for medical purposes, as valued presents between friends
and first acquaintances, as symbols in social and religious ceremonies, as
tokens of peace or war (depending on their white or red color) in diplomatic
exchanges between states, and as the source of a distinctive yellow dye for
decorating cloth.
The beginnings of West African inter-regional commerce in kola cannot be
dated. That the savannah populations had a longstanding commerce with the
forest areas is attested by Arabic sources dating kola exports from the
Western Sudan to North Africa from the thirteenth century. 2 In recent years
scholars have contributed much information concerning overland routes
connecting kola-producing areas of Guinea-Conakry, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and
Ghana with interior markets, but there has been no comparable study of
coastwise commerce along the upper Guinea Coast, and for good reason: the
paucity of sources for the period prior to the seventeenth century.... [TRUNCATED]
Description
African Studies Center Working Paper No. 38
License
Copyright © 1980, by the author.