Nothing but the pain

In the seventeenth century, a new use for gum Arabic was discovered in Europe, in the textile-dyeing process. Quite suddenly, the wholesome effects of gum reached far beyond its ability to soothe a sore throat. In Great Britain the livelihood of thousands of working-class families came to depend on gum. French, Dutch and British trading companies brought shiploads of it to European ports, at enormous cost and with great hardship.

Even before knowledge of this new discovery spread, the market for gum had been growing, and seafaring nations had invested in developing trade routes to secure a certain supply. One of the new places from which the Dutch West-Indies Company (WIC) tried to import gum was Benin, the kingdom (in present-day Nigeria) west of the bend in the Niger before it flows out into the ocean. Since the seventeenth century, the WIC had been running trading posts there, as had the Portuguese and the British African Company. By 1700, however, all these companies were having trouble – not because the kings of Benin kept the devil at bay with human sacrifices and lured the rain with virgins impaled on skewers, but because the Europeans granted the king credit so that he could buy gum from his suppliers. This arrangement often led to conflict. At the same time, Benin did not yield much ivory or many slaves, and African pepper lost its value when a better variant was imported from Asia. As business dwindled, the number of ships that sailed to Benin also dropped.

In 1713, however, the factor at the WIC fortress of St George d’Elmina (on the coast of today's Ghana) was ordered to give it another try and investigate the possibilities of buying gum and redwood in Benin. The factor, Revixit van Naerssen, discussed it with Oba (king) Akenzua I, who had never sold gum before, but welcomed the proposal. The king was especially interested in the continuation of the Dutch supply of copper, silk and damask, but he hid what he wanted much better than they did. In the first transaction, he obtained 77 pounds of beads for 761 pounds of gum – a bad deal, according to the WIC's director-general, altough this first load brought a good profit at auction in Amsterdam and Zeeland.