The atlantic system included a complex trade network among

Trade with Europeans led to far-reaching consequences among Native American In the colonial era, the Atlantic Ocean served as a highway between Europe, tying together a network of people, raw materials, finished goods, merchants, and from Europe, Africa, and North America in the system of transatlantic trade.
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With those posts they could collect duties and send out patrols to intercept traders 9. In France and Great Britain signed a convention that recognized their mutual right to collect tolls at the boundary, while stipulating open commerce. By using coercion to control the interior frontiers, however, France went beyond what the British thought was permissible under the agreements.

France not uncommonly used force against traders — redirecting caravans, seizing cattle and other commodities, compelling sale of animals at fixed price often below market value , and arresting juula They then went on to defeat its ruler, Almami Bokari Biro, and declare a protectorate. By taking control of a major trading state and the primary source of cattle for the region, they were better able to re-direct the flow of this valuable commodity and other goods, particularly those that were exchanged for cattle or traded alongside cattle.

Also, the French almost totally re-directed the rubber trade, which in the last three decades of the s had grown to be a major export commodity. Whereas traders had primarily carried rubber to Freetown in the middle s, once France began to divert it through force and tax policies, Conakry quickly took most of it. This further undercut older patterns of inter-regional traffic that were linked with rubber. The destruction of the Muslim states ended their capacity to finance large caravans and reduced the importance of several towns that had facilitated inter-regional flows.

Avoidance was a common juula response to boundary patrols, unpredictable closures, and, especially, customs fees. For many juula smuggling became a way of life, though detection threatened their lives and livelihood They re-imagined the macro-region with the new boundaries in mind.

When the French attempted to destroy the Falaba Road Corridor by instituting a prohibitively high tariff on cattle passing through that section of the colonial boundary, juula who sought to reach the lucrative Freetown market quickly adjusted by walking their animals a very long way around through Liberia and eastern Sierra Leone.

French officials were forced to abandon a mistaken policy Still, overall, there was a severe reduction in cattle exportation to Sierra Leone lasting well into the 20 th century, and juula and middlemen were required to make major changes in patterns of exchange, as described in the next section.

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Most important for the long term history of the macro-region was the great reduction in exchange between complementary ecological zones. Exchange that had a long history was now illegal, or at least more costly and risky. Traders located in the two colonies faced impediments to partnerships and network building, including different laws and court systems, tax regimes, and currencies.


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As colonial rule became more deeply entrenched, however, some traders were able to take advantage of the new situation, for instance, by profiting from differentials in prices and also the exchange rates of currencies. Increasingly, traders began to move more regularly across the boundary in new patterns, either smuggling or paying duties, and re-orienting their networks to the existence of new urban centers and rail transport. African rulers were removed from office or demoted to being chiefs in an administrative hierarchy, and lesser title holders often found their authority constricted, although colonialism provided some office holders with new opportunities to acquire resources and exploit subjects.

In the plain, many title holders and big men lost much of their capacity to order space through social, political, and military power and experienced a restricted capacity to use extensive networks and long-term alliances.

Empire of Cotton

A major step in spatial reorganization took place between about and as Europeans in both colonies directed the construction of railway lines linking the capitals and their ports to the interior; the rails, along with feeder roads, created dendritic systems for channeling bulk quantities of agricultural exports to the main ports and imports inland to Africans producers and other consumers Map 2. Map 2. Colonial Boundary and Railways, ca.

Some old trading towns at the heads of navigation — in other words at the intersection of the coastal and east-west corridors — lost most of their commercial life, while others entered long periods of competition with rival towns, and still others continued as viable exchange centers. Thus, Magbeli nearly died and its traders declined or moved because its hinterland was truncated by the splintering of the Falaba Road Corridor and the building of the northern spur of the Sierra Leone railway, and by the rise of new collection points along it. Traders in Kambia and Melikuri, near to each other on opposite sides of the colonial boundary, competed over prices of imports and access to the once common hinterland where exports were produced; their opportunities were determined to a considerable degree by custom duties and by the development of transport routes running parallel to the colonial boundary, which some traders continued to cross see Howard in preparation.

Generally, in the early years, Melikuri had an advantage, but around the First World War, Kambia traders benefited because their networks tapped an extremely rich kola growing area at a time when overseas markets were expanding.

Empire of Cotton - The Atlantic

African traders and authorities undertook the physical upgrading of one of the roads of the old Futa-Scarcies Corridor and bought lorries that traversed the road with bulky produce and imports. Port Loko was less affected by the rail than Magbeli and the boundary than Kambia; its local traders did fairly well, especially as cattle and other goods continued to reach it and as traffic in its river, part of the Coastal Corridor, remained vigorous. European traders, however, took advantage of the colonial umbrella to set up operations there and in several other head of navigation centers in both colonies and directly challenge Africans in certain sectors.

In contrast, some old centers gained from being on or very near to the new colonial boundary, which also saw the rise of new towns, especially those assigned colonial functions. Thus, Falaba, the ancient capital of Solima, which had been in decline during the late 19 th century, got a boost when the British chose it to be a district headquarters and when cross-boundary cattle traders located there. Heremakono on the French side similarly gained in importance and attracted traders, including those crossing the frontier.

Many traders who were most involved in cross-boundary trafficking — those examined in the above section — found it difficult to take advantage of the new administrative and transport structures, but some adapted well by changing their locations, patterns of movement, and networks.

In the process, they modified their strategies for dealing with boundaries. Many Africans treated the French and British sections of that zone as one region. Farmers and occasional traders regularly moved back and forth across the boundary to sell their crops and buy necessities. Professional regional traders residing in the zone and farther afield made careful assessments of which goods to buy in each sphere; they obtained some on the British side and some on the French side, depending on how duties and transport costs affected prices for similar historical trading options, see Nugent Colonial officials quickly recognized that Africans were creating a border zone along both sides of the boundary by traveling back and forth through numerous bush paths and waterways.

The British, in particular, mounted a campaign to interdict African traders they considered smugglers, but, in the end, abandoned most stations and removed the supervisors and patrols Some juula sought to keep their commerce viable by sustaining older patterns, others by radically modifying their spatial and organizational arrangements to fit the new colonial realities. Among them were traders described above — those who crossed at the far interior points, avoiding French patrols while maintaining sections of the old routes from Futa Jallon and the Upper Niger.

Most, though not all, of the rail and administrative towns were located away from the frontiers, so African traders were required to make spatial adaptations to take advantage of new opportunities. Large-scale European firms, antecedents of modern multi-national corporations, built produce collecting, wholesaling, and retailing networks along the rails, gaining revenue through handling volume. Those African traders using the rails to transport food, kola, and other commodities to Freetown and Conakry struggled against the power of foreign companies by demanding lower fares and shipping rates, the right to rent rail cars jointly, and so on Howard in preparation.

Other traders who settled in the new towns found ways to re-orient their connections and build new networks, even across boundaries. Some emigrated from Futa Jallon or the upper Niger, others from the plain, including now bypassed villages and dying towns. Some who abandoned the old corridors, re-directed their trade by forging connections that reached from Futa Jallon into southeastern Sierra Leone.

David Hancock

All such cross-boundary networks now connected the main source of cattle with towns or crop production areas where population and demand were growing; traders maintained parts of an ancient commercial nexus by altering their location, patterns of movement, and networks. In the later 19 th century, traders, most of them Krio based in Freetown, built successful businesses by purchasing kola nuts from traders operating in the Coastal Corridor and then accompanying the kola north on the scheduled steamships, mostly to Bathurst Banjul.

Bathurst continued to be the import center for The Gambia and, to some degree, Senegal. Traders began sending kola unaccompanied to Senegal and The Gambia on ships that regularly stopped at their ports. They used the inter-colonial telegraph lines to arrange deals with distant partners and to modify prices and contracts quickly as market conditions changed. Traders, thus, were now promoting trade that crossed the Sierra Leone boundary in the port and then French and British boundaries in the northern colonies.

Sierra Leoneans also built up an even larger commerce in kola to Nigeria. The system was shaped by demand from the Atlantic, the wider West African world, and the regions that comprised the system. Among those regions, the Sierra Leone-Guinea plain was critical because it bridged the interior and the ocean and because Freetown was located within the plain. Complex networks of all types spanned the plain and reached far beyond Howard Trade flowed along roads that integrated the plain and linked it with neighboring regions. The centers of political and military power on the coast and inland, namely the Colony of Sierra Leone and the great Muslim almamates , affected but were unable to order the space of the plain.

Titled authorities, big men, traders, and farmers of the plain organized that area politically and commercially through cooperation, competition and violent struggle.

Finally, within the overall stability of the main commercial corridors and towns, the patterns and complex relationships among networks, towns, and roads were quite flexible. Traders were used to adapting to changes in the accessibility and safety of roads, the location of favorable exchange sites, and the functional activities sited in various towns. Those traders who did well had a strategic sense of opportunity, hazard, and amenity, which included building bridges across social and political lines and negotiating existing boundaries.

A similar, perhaps even more acute, strategic thinking was needed in the imperial and colonial eras as Europeans established and patrolled boundaries that were exclusionary and often difficult to cross. African rulers, titled officials, big men, and traders lost much of their ability to use power and resources to contest the order of towns and roads.

In the first two decades of the 20 th century, European authorities and firms directly reshaped space in the plain and interior by setting up administrations and building new infrastructures, most importantly, spatially fixed, carbon-based rail transport systems, and other fixed capital facilities. The rail and road systems and administrative structures established formal in contrast to functional regions, and, along with associated changes in urban population levels, retailing by large firms, and consumption, led to a hardening of the spatial patterns of towns.

That, as well as the improved telegraphs and regularity of steamships, affected African traders in many ways, but unevenly according to their location and capacity to use the technologies. The cumulative actions of traders also modified the structures in which they made decisions For many traders who successfully adapted to the colonial era, their spatial strategies involved reconstituting networks — links among exchange nodes and ties with other traders — as well as crossing boundaries. Traders in different sectors and locations developed different border crossing logics and networks.

Many African traders of the Sierra Leone-Guinea plain who dealt in imports and bulky export crops were pushed down the commercial ladder or closed their businesses. Those who continued to trade responded differently to the colonial boundary depending on where they were based, the commodities they handled, and the competitors they encountered. Some traders living around Kambia and Melikuri seem to have found ways to accommodate to the presence of colonial officials, negotiating relationships on both sides of the boundary.

Digital Resources for the Study of Global Slavery and the Slave Trade

Traders in that zone created a border region rich with networks and culture that included knowledge of passageways and techniques for challenging and outlasting the controls of colonial authorities. Kola traders were especially attentive to changes in colonial policies, technology, and demand. Demand was in turn affected by prices of kola grown in other colonies and by the incomes of consumers, who typically were residents of new towns or farmers producing cash crops for global markets.

By necessity such exchanges meant crossing the boundary. Others who bought kola choose, instead, to supply overseas exporters who operated out of Freetown. A spectacular pattern of adaptation was shown by those traders — mostly Krio, many of them women — who took advantage of the regular patterns of steamship movement to transfer kola to distant, overseas colonies such as The Gambia, Senegal, and Nigeria — in all cases crossing boundaries. Those kola exporters coordinated the boundary crossing with partners in the consuming colonies through innovative networks and use of telegraph lines for instant communication about quantities, quality, and prices.

Traders also were quick to build new networks by linking supplies with new sources of demand in prosperous places and by allying with wholesalers and marketers who disposed of animals. Some re-oriented the kola-cattle nexus to integrate new towns in the two colonies. Thus the adaptability of both kola and cattle traders did not simply involve novel ways of crossing boundaries; critical to boundary crossing and to intra-colony trade, as well, was their ability to see and meet broad shifts in demand and to facilitate changes in networks linking centers.

Through those actions, they created functional regions that did not coincide with formal colonial regions — namely, the administrative districts or the colonies themselves, which the French and British envisioned as containers. Traders were influenced by global forces spatially manifested through colonial boundaries, administrative centers, and transport systems, while they forged local sites of exchange and regions that integrated production zones with consumers.

During the era of high imperialism, the French and British first created customs spheres, then set down a line marking off their respective territories, and, finally, conquered the interior, patrolled the boundary intensively, and disrupted existing commercial patterns. Oxford Handbooks Online. Publications Pages Publications Pages.