Apocalypse 1692

by Ben Hughes

  THE PEOPLE OF THE GOLD COAST, as distinct to the Quaqua from the Windward, were Akan. A loose conglomeration of multiple ethnicities bound by composite cultural, religious, and linguistic traits and a high degree of ideological conformity, the Akan were recognizable to Europeans by an intricate system of facial scarification practiced at puberty. Originating among the inland forests of West Africa, over time Akan culture spread and by the early seventeenth century the Akan language, Twi, had become the lingua franca of the entire Gold Coast (modern-day Ghana). Its usage stretched from the Komóe River in the west to the Volta in the east, from the Atlantic coast to the edge of the forest belt to the north. As well as practicing goat and sheep herding, the Akan exploited the region’s rich gold deposits. It was this resource that had given impetus to the formation of Akan states, which sold the gold to Wangara traders, who took it north of the Sahara to Islamic merchants some four hundred years before the arrival of the Europeans. The Akan were also notable for their expertise in medicinal plant use, their complex spiritual practices, warlike nature, and their skill in political and military organization.22

  By the late seventeenth century, the inland gold-producing areas of modern day Ghana were dominated by two Akan states, the Denkyria in the west and the Akwamu in the east. Both had risen to prominence by means of aggressive expansionist policies fueled by the European arms for which they exchanged their gold. The trade with the Europeans itself, however, was carried out by a third group of Akan people, the Akani, a multiethnic, seminomadic mercantile community who linked the inland areas with the coast. Relying on diplomacy rather than warfare, the Akani caravans carried gold from the interior to the Atlantic. There they entered the territory of several Akan coastal polities, principal among them the Fante and Asebu to the east of the central Gold Coast area and the Fetu to the west. Having traded their gold with the Europeans, the Akani then returned to the interior with their newly acquired trade goods. To the Portuguese, who had some understanding of the political complexities involved, the Akan were known as Mina, a name derived from the village-turned-trading-post on the central Gold Coast which the Portuguese had occupied from the 1480s to 1637. The name was also used by the French, Spanish, and Danish. The English and the Dutch, the latter of whom took over Elmina, as the outpost became known, in the mid-seventeenth century along with many of Portugal’s other settlements in the region, preferred the term Cormonatee, a corruption of the name Kormantin, another Akan settlement-turned-trading-post ten miles to the east of Elmina.23

  ON CHRISTMAS DAY, the Hannah reached the ruined Dutch fort of Takoradi.24 Founded in 1653 by the short-lived Swedish Africa Company, the fort had been held by both the Brandenburgers and the Danes before falling into the hands of the Dutch only to be besieged and captured (“by Clandestine means,” according to Bosman) by an English fleet led by Admiral Robert Holmes in 1664 on the eve of the Second Anglo-Dutch War. The next year the fort was retaken by the renowned Dutch admiral DeRuyter. Considering it a place of “little Importance” and difficult to maintain, De Ruyter promptly “raz’d it to the Ground,” while nine hundred “negroes” raised by the local Dutch governor plundered the nearby Akan village, “destroying it with Fire and Sword, and cutting off the Heads of all that they took Prisoners. . . . Since that time it hath yet once [more] changed Masters,” Bosman related, “but fell at last into . . . [Dutch] Hands” near the end of the seventeenth century.25

  By the time of the Hannah’s visit, all that remained of Takoradi was a single “Negroe’s House” where trade was conducted. Nevertheless, Danvers did good business. Anchored off the coast for two weeks, the Hannah took over eighty-two marks in gold, worth £2,634 sterling, in exchange for 19,097 knives; 2,310 pewter basins; 760 pieces of perpetuanas; 117 half firkins of tallow; 33 says (a cloth from Leiden in the United Provinces); 65 iron bars; 16 chests of sheets; 3 pieces of boysadoes; and 14 barrels of gunpowder, thus turning a profit of £1,119 on the £2,634 purchase price of the goods in London.26 The sale of gunpowder was a particularly risky business, as Phillips explained: “The negroes are so little apprehensive of danger, that when we have sold them two or three barrels of powder, and they have got it in their canoe, they have . . . fallen to drinking [spirits] and smoaking tobacco till they were drunk,” he explained, “all the while sitting a top of the barrels . . . and letting the sparks from their pipes fall upon them without any concern, which created a terror in us to see, and by which means they are frequently blown up; so that it is our custom, as soon as we have sold them any powder, to make them take it into their canoe, and put off, and lie about 200 yards from the ship till the rest of their business be completed, lest we might be injur’d by their stupid carelessness.”27

  On January 6, 1690, sitting significantly lighter in the water, the Hannah sailed thirty miles east-northeast.28 En route the sloop was buffeted by the freshwater outflow of the Pra River estuary, a sacred spot for the Akan, before passing the “moderately large” town of Chama, site of yet another Portuguese-built fort, since captured by the Dutch.29 The seventh of January saw the Hannah reach Komenda. A Royal African Company factory had once stood outside the native village, but in 1687 the English had been “forced from there by the blacks.” The Dutch, whom the English were in little doubt had instigated the move, had proceeded to build a fort on the site the following year. Since then, due to events in Europe, there was some hope that the intermittent warfare and double-dealing that plagued Anglo-Dutch operations on the Gold Coast might be coming to an end.30 “As affaires now are,” one London-based Royal African Company employee wrote in June 1689, “wee need not much feare the Dutch; their Prince of Orange being now our King, our alliances are very close & such as that wee now beleive none of their servants abroad dare violate.” Nevertheless, Europeans paid little heed to treaties negotiated in their homelands once beyond the line. “You must not trust them,” the scribe had added in a postscript. It was to prove wise advice indeed.31

  On January 8 and 9, Danvers was trading once more. In a series of transactions “to Windward of Comenda,” he bartered his remaining knives, iron bars, tallow, perpetuanas, says, gunpowder, brandy, and pewter basins for thirty-four guineas of gold (£1,088 sterling). Danvers even managed to rid himself of eight pieces of boysadoes which had been “Damidged” in transit.32 The company’s leading agents, based at Cape Coast Castle on the Gold Coast, often complained about the Windward trade. Many ships, failing to sell all their goods, were forced to dump them at Cape Coast Castle so as to be able to fill their holds with slaves farther east. These abandoned goods, for which the Cape Coast factors were obliged to pay in gold, proceeded to spoil in the humid conditions and had a negative effect on the Castle’s account books, thus causing considerable discontent.33 The Hannah’s voyage, however, had been inordinately successful. As well as entirely clearing his hold, aside from the two hundred lead bars he had ill-advisedly shipped in London, Danvers had turned a considerable profit. The ivory picked up at Sanguin and Cape Lahoe was worth roughly £3,000 on the London market, while the 132 marks of gold acquired to the east of Cape Apolonia would fetch £4,224. After deducting the cost of the trade goods purchased in London, the Hannah had made a profit of £4,728, a total which compared favorably with the accounts of ninety-five other Royal African Company voyages to the region made between 1680 and 1687. Three had shown a net loss, while the average profit was 38 percent. Even the most successful, which recorded net gains of 141 percent, pales by comparison with Danvers’s gains of over 170 percent, a result perhaps explained by the voyage’s timing. Due to the threat of French privateers, the Hannah had been the first Royal African Company vessel to visit the Windward Coast for five months.34

  On January 10, Danvers arrived at Cape Coast Castle. Built by the Swedes in 1652 on the territory of the Fetu, a small coastal Akan kingdom, Cape Coast Castle had since been acquired by the English and was now their principal base on the entire Gold Coast. Thomas Crispe, the factor involved in the original deal, had paid £64 worth
of trade goods to the Fetu for the privilege of living on their territory, and by the time of the Hannah’s arrival the English were paying a ground rent of nine marks of gold, or £288, per year. According to Captain Phillips, Cape Coast Castle made for a “handsome prospect from the sea. . . . [It] was . . . very regular and well-contriv’d, and as strong as . . . can be. . . . It has four flank[ing batteries] . . . which have a cover’d communication with each other and are mounted with good guns; and . . . [there] is a noble battery of fifteen whole culverin and demy cannon, lying low, and pointing upon the road, where they would do good execution upon any ships that should pretend to attack the castle.” Bosman, for his part, noted an array of small lizards and salamanders which sunbathed on the castle walls, occasionally breaking into movement to snatch a passing spider, fly, or worm. The whole fort was built on a massive rock upon which the Atlantic rollers broke with such force “that the noise thereof is hear’d all over.” Below the fort, a water tank had been cut out of the rock which was capable of holding four hundred tons. Above was “a most pleasant walk” from which Samuel Humphreys, the company’s chief merchant since 1687, could observe the ships in the roads. Through his telescope, Humphreys could also spy on the Dutch headquarters of Elmina, the largest European fortification in the whole of West Africa, which lay just seven miles to the west.35

  Having fired a salute from the Hannah’s cannon, which was promptly returned from the fort, Danvers boarded his longboat and was rowed to within a cable’s length of the beach, where he was met by a flat-bottomed native canoe which took him ashore through the breakers. Once on dry land, Danvers was escorted inside Cape Coast Castle. A “well-secur’d and large gate” that faced a Fetu town to the north led to a courtyard, which was surrounded by a barracks built for the hundred-strong garrison, a wretched and unhealthy bunch of malarial alcoholics and whoremongers, according to Bosman, who were fortunate indeed if they survived their first year. Also present were several “gromettos” or castle slaves, brought from other areas of Africa to perform the duties the Europeans considered beneath them, as well as numerous Akan employees who served as porters and canoeists. “Genteel convenient lodgings” housed Humphreys, Richard Wright, and John Boylston, the first, second, and third merchants, respectively, while less commodious rooms were occupied by at least five minor factors, as well as the commander of the garrison, a chaplain who, according to Captain Thomas Phillips, “read the church prayers” to the men “every morning at nine o’clock . . . and preach’d every Sunday,” and a surgeon who had “a mate and a barber under him.” Elsewhere was a “spacious warehouse” and several smaller ones, some granaries, rum vaults and workshops, a pigeon roost, a chapel, and two gardens full of “lime and orange trees.” Below ground, cut out of the rock alongside the water tank, were dark, gloomy dungeons which could house up to one thousand slaves. A single iron grill afforded the “poor wretches” some light and air.36

  BY THE LATE 1680s, the nature of the trade conducted between the Akan peoples and the Europeans on the Gold Coast was changing. Previously, the area had been known for its gold. By the time of Danvers’s arrival, it was becoming apparent that the slave trade was more lucrative for all parties. Some two thousand slaves were being exported from the Gold Coast to the Americas every year. This development caused increasing instability in the interior where the Denkyria and Akwamu were conducting systematic and widespread warfare to enable them to acquire captives to sell to the Europeans. This also had implications for the coastal region. Among several others, the polities of the Fetu and Fante, the former of whom dominated the area around Cape Coast Castle, while the latter were based around the village of Anomabu some fifteen miles to the northeast, were locked in a struggle for control of the gold and slave trades on the coast. Previously characterized by low-level skirmishes and assassinations of political leaders, by the late 1680s the fighting had become endemic, as evidenced by a joint Fante-Asebu attack on the Fetu in 1688 which involved a column of some 5,400 warriors. The fighting, which would last until the turn of the eighteenth century, came to be known as the Komenda Wars. Although the Europeans played little role in actual combat, they exploited the situation to further their own ends, aiding one side or another with arms and ammunition or financing campaigns to secure better trading conditions with the victors. The Dutch and English also encouraged native attacks on each other’s outposts: 1688 had seen a failed siege of Cape Coast Castle by the Fetu.37

  Among those to lose influence in this period were the Akani traders who had acted as middlemen between the coastal polities and those of the interior. By the 1690s they were gradually being replaced by Fante and Fetu caboceers (middlemen or merchants).38 Perhaps the most successful were the mulatto sons of African mothers and European fathers. Since the mid-fifteenth century, when the Portuguese had first arrived and taken local mistresses, the mixed ancestry, bicultural understanding, and linguistic skills of such people had made them ideally suited to the role. By the end of the seventeenth century, each European fort and settlement had its share of such entrepreneurs who grew rich from taking a cut, or dashy, “of a knife or two” on every transaction. Around the time of the Hannah’s visit to the Guinea Coast two of the most prominent caboceers were Johnny Kabes, “a Kommenda negroe” who had originally been a “friend” of the Dutch but was equally willing to do business with the English and only too happy to play each side off against the other, and Edward Barter, a mulatto who had grown all-powerful at Cape Coast, despite the reservations of the Royal African Company.39

  THE Hannah remained at Cape Coast Castle for three weeks.40 As well as loading the ship with Indian corn with which to feed the slaves they were to pick up at Ouidah, two hundred miles farther east, the crew unloaded the stores brought from London, which proved to have been spoiled in transit, and the gold acquired on the Windward Coast while Danvers and his officers were entertained onshore. This may have involved a banquet with their Dutch “allies” at Elmina or even an expedition into the interior to hunt for “tyger” or elephant. The latter, Bosman noted, were particularly difficult to kill, “unless the Ball happens to light betwixt the Eyes and Ears” as “their Skin is as good proof against the common Musquet Lead-Balls, as a Wall.”41 Further tasks at Cape Coast Castle were to fill the Hannah’s water butts and hire several Akan canoeists. As the landing at Ouidah was even more perilous than the others along the West Africa coast, and as the locals had not developed their seafaring abilities, picking up Gold Coast canoeists before doing business on the Slave Coast was essential for all captains proceeding there.42

  On January 31, Danvers fired a parting salute, upped anchor, and sailed on.43 En route to Ouidah, the Hannah passed several Akan villages and European outposts. There were English factories at Anashan, Anomabu, Tantamkweri, Lagoo, Winnebah, and Shido, a “neat” Dutch fort “of about twenty guns” stood on a hill at Koromantin, there was a Danish fort at Christianborg, and at Accra English and Dutch forts had been built a mere musket shot apart. Beyond, the coastline was less densely populated. The English factory at Alampo was all that was seen for several miles. Afterward, the ship reached the estuary of the mighty Volta River, marking the boundary of the Gold and Slave Coasts. Sounding with the ship’s lead as he inched forward, Danvers negotiated the double river bar with care before sailing on into deeper water, and the Hannah arrived off Ouidah on February 14.44 As the town was situated three miles inland, Danvers dropped anchor in eight fathoms in the roads two miles off shore, a location visited by as many as fifty European slave ships per year. With a hoist rigged to the ship’s capstan, the Akan canoes were lowered into the ocean and Danvers, accompanied by the ship’s surgeon and several sailors, armed with muskets from the ship’s stores, was paddled ashore to where a line of tents on the beach pitched among a “great thick tuft of trees” marked the start of the route inland.45 The journey ashore was a treacherous one. As well as the possibility of being capsized and drowned in the breakers, there was the risk of sharks to contend with, a
s John Atkins, a surgeon employed by the Royal African Company, related on a visit in 1721: “A canoe was going on shore from a merchant-ship, and in attempting to land, overset: a shark nigh hand seized upon one of the men in the water, and by the swell of the sea, they were both cast on shore; notwithstanding which the shark never quitted his hold, but with the next ascent of the sea, carried him clear off.”46