Brokers of Change: Atlantic Commerce and Cultures in Precolonial Western Africa ed. by Toby Green (review)

This collection of essays seeks to understand the process of contact and change in precolonial Western Senegambia through the influences of commerce, settlement, and interpersonal relations. The book might be seen as an extension and deepening of a tradition of Atlantic history pioneered in the 1960s by French scholars such as Pierre Chaunu, Frédéric Mauro, and the great Fernand Braudel, but with a much stronger emphasis on culture than was characteristic of the earlier generation. The essays fall into three themes: the concept of “creole,” the specifics of commercial exchange in Senegambia, and the fate of the region following the end of the slave trade.

Gerhard Seibert, in a methodological piece, argues that the term “creole” really applies only to the newly created societies in the offshore islands of Africa, such as São Tomé and Cape Verde, and not the mainland, where the influence of Europe was more muted and the exchanges less profound. In particular, he excludes Angola and Kongo, where the most extensive mainland cultural exchange had taken place, without the more pervasive Europeanizing evident in the islands.

Natalie Evert’s essay provides meat to this concept by examining the mixed communities along the Gold Coast, but it argues that Akan culture essentially prevailed over European culture. Toby Green’s essay confirms this pattern as he traces the evolution of Cape Verde from a trading center to a backwater from a commercial point of view, but in other ways to a place of profound cultural exchange that created a new society. Ibrahima Seck sees the Senegambian mainland as a sort of laboratory for cultural mixing that subsequently had an impact on the African diaspora. Christopher Evans, Marie-Louise Stig Sørensen, and Konstantin Richter write about a European-style church found in excavations on Cape Verde, confirming the European contribution to religious life.

The role of Senegambia as a cultural template for the diaspora also concerns Bart Jacobs, who sees Dutch commerce in Senegambia as a precursor to the development of Papiamento in the Dutch West Indies. The commercial contact theme is the subject of other essays as well. António de Lameida Mendes looks at Senegambia as an early site of modernity and provides a sweeping overview of commercial links in the Atlantic circa 1600. José Lingna Nafaté explores commercial arrangements in Senegambia with a focus on the African partners. Heather Dalton writes about the early English trade and its partnership with Iberian intermediaries. Filipa Ribeiro da Silva’s careful study of Dutch notarial archives reveals the Dutch attempts to penetrate areas where Iberians had not established strong commercial relations. Michael Tuck’s study of the wax trade focuses on the participation of nonelite Africans. And Linda Newson uses Iberian American records to trace trading routes and products from Senegambia to mainland South America.

While most of the contributors focus on the period before the end of the slave trade, the final section contains essays on later periods, led by George E. Brooks’s examination of the transition from slave trading to peanut and coffee exporting, which was accompanied by an increase in slavery on the mainland. Marika Sherwood also explores this transition, using the career of Mathew Forster to demonstrate how local players could be slave traders and “legitimate” traders at the same time. Finally Philip J. Havik’s study of Anglo–Portuguese rivalry on Bolama Island seeks to integrate the local story into this well-known international event, revealing the important role played by local women.

All of these papers are based in thorough archival research and manuscript sources, and the authors have done the often tedious work of teasing clues from masses of unrelated material. As with all collections of essays, it reflects the state of research of a wide range of investigators whose work does not always fit a central theme, but they are...