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5. Class at an African Commercial Enclave
- University of Pennsylvania Press
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5 Class at an African Commercial Enclave Ty M. Reese In 1766, as Cape Coast and its West African hinterland experienced a famine that entailed a six-fold increase in the price of corn, the free “natives . . . suffered severely.” However, slaves owned by British trading companies endured even worse misery, “afford[ing] the most piteous examples that can be conceived.” An unusually severe rainy season, accompanied by “violent gusts of wind,” followed the food crisis, destroying the British fort at Sekondi and weakening Cape Coast Castle, which was operated by the Company of Merchants Trading to Africa (CMTA). Even though “constantly employed” and “allowed liquor as usual for working in their own hours,” the CMTA’s slaves continued to go hungry. Rather than supply the necessities of life directly to its bondpeople, the CMTA customarily paid them in trade goods, which slaves would then barter for food. However, in this crisis, those commodities no longer covered the cost of subsistence. The British governor blamed the problem on the increasing availability of “luxury” items on the coast and the consequent decline in their value. To solve the problem, Governor Hippisley recommended increasing company slave wages 25 percent because of the increasing “luxury” of the coast; however, the wages were still to be paid in commodities. With hindsight, it is clear that the predicament of the company’s slaves resulted, in part, from the way that labor was organized and how workers (both bound and free) were paid and able to feed (or not feed) themselves.1 To maintain the infrastructure of Britain’s Gold Coast slave trade, the CMTA required considerably more labor than just the slaves it owned. Officials knew, though, that it was difficult to obtain free laborers who would work effectively, since they “receive very little encouragement by words, nor are they the least attentive to promises in [the] future,”and because“the present now is what they look upon.” An example of the coastal labor problems occurred when Governor John Hippisley negotiated with Cudjoe Caboceer, the leader of the town, to hire fifty free laborers. They were “idle and saucy enough,” Hippisley complained, but “if they don’t work they shall however receive no pay.”2 At the end of the year, after Hippisley succumbed to disease, the new governor, Gilbert Petrie, discharged “all the free labourers that were furnished by Cudjoe Caboceer.” Initially,“they behaved tolerably well,” Petrie noted, “but at last grew so excessively lazy, that to keep them all at work, would have constantly employed the under-surveyor and near as many company slaves as there were free labourers.” Ironically, when Petrie settled with the supposedly free workers, Cudjoe “showed by appropriating the whole to himself, that they were [instead] his slaves.”3 This episode illustrates several issues concerning the nature of labor and of class relations at Cape Coast specifically and in the Atlantic World in general . Employers consistently tried to organize labor in ways that would advantage themselves (and their class), whether by purchasing slaves and servants or by hiring workers for wages. However, the systems designed by the wealthier classes often broke down. Sometimes, as in Cudjoe’s manipulation of the CMTA, other people in positions of authority won the struggle to define and control labor. At other times, workers were able to negotiate or to force more favorable terms. Like wealthy elites, laboring people sought to advance their own interests. In Cape Coast, free and unfree African workers used strikes, demands for gifts, and bargaining for wages to improve their positions . The various classes found themselves in different situations and conditions across the Atlantic World, but the struggles among them still shared many similarities.4 This chapter analyzes the various labor systems utilized by the CMTA and the conditions of employment and slavery at Cape Coast as a way to explore the operation of class in this enclave and to shed light on its place in the larger Atlantic World. West African seaboard peoples, unlike many of their Native American counterparts, maintained a dominant position in dealing with Europeans for centuries. While Cape Coast societies (somewhat akin to American Natives discussed by Daniel Richter in this volume) were often highly stratified, more than just the elites benefited from participation in the Atlantic economy. Instead, a broad segment of Cape Coast society were able to “eat” from the European presence. The concept of “eating” referred, in part, to the ability of Africans to share in the profit arising from interaction with...