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Archival Materials on the Brandenburg African Company (1682-1721)*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 May 2014

Adam Jones
Adam Jones*
Affiliation:
Frobenius-Institut, Frankfurt am Main
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Extract

Brandenburg-Prussia was the last European power to enter the African trade in the seventeenth century. In an attempt to emulate the success of the Dutch West India Company, the Great Elector granted a charter to a newly-created company in 1682. It was known under various names--as the Electoral Brandenburg African Company, the Emden Company, the Brandenburg Afro-American Company, and (after the Great Elector's successor had made himself “King in Prussia” in 1701) the Royal Prussian African Company. By 1686 it had acquired a fort and two trading posts on the western Gold Coast and a fort on the island of Arguin (now part of Mauritania). Through an agreement with the Danish crown, it was also allowed to occupy a small part of the Caribbean island of St. Thomas and sell slaves there. Nevertheless, the company never really got off the ground, and from about 1698 onwards, as its fortunes steadily declined, its representatives in Africa were left more and more to their own devices. Lacking support from Europe, the last Brandenburg-Prussian Director-General abandoned the Gold Coast in 1716, and five years later Arguin was captured by the French.

In most respects the company was more Dutch than German. Its formation was the work of Benjamin Raule, the Great Elector's Dutch-born Naval Director; a large proportion of its capital, merchandise, and ships came from the Netherlands; and from about 1698 (if not earlier) the Brandenburg forts in Africa did more trade with Zeeland interlopers and English “ten per cent” ships than with vessels sent by the company. Furthermore, all but one of the Directors-General on the Gold Coast and Commandants at Arguin were Dutchmen (usually former servants of the Dutch West India Company), as were more than half of their subordinates. It is not surprising, therefore, that about three-quarters of the surviving records are in Dutch.

Type
Research Article
Information
History in Africa , Volume 11 , 1984 , pp. 379 - 389
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1984

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Footnotes

*

This article is a by-product of a project sponsored by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, to which I wish to express my thanks. I am also grateful to the staffs of the archives in which I conducted my research, particularly Frau Dr. Kohnke (Merseburg), Herr Kraft (Emden), Dr. Walter Deeters (Aurich), M.P.H. Roessingh (The Hague), Dr. von Schroeder (West Berlin) and Hans Kargaard Thomsen (Copenhagen). Finally I should like to thank Théodore Monod and Anneli Partenheimer-Bein for their assistance. Many of the documents referred to in this article are reproduced in my book, Brandenburg Sources for West African History, 1680-1700 (Wiesbaden, in press).

References

Notes

1. E.g., Steltzer, Hans Georg, Mit herrlichen Häfen versehen. Brandenburgisch-preussische Seefahrt vor dreihundert Jahren (Frankfurt, 1981)Google Scholar; Huth, Hans, “Otto Friedrich von der Groebens Abenteuer in Afrika,” Der Bär von Berlin: Jahrbuch 1976 für die Geschichte Berlins, 30–52Google Scholar; Reichhold, Walter, “Brandenburg-Preussen an der Mauretanischen Küste,” Internationales Afrika Forum, 13 (1977), 80–81.Google Scholar For a brief review of Brandenburg trade with Africa in this period, see Schmitt, Eberhard, “The Brandenburg Overseas Trading Companies in the 17th Century,” in Blussé, Leonard and Gastra, Femme, eds., Companies and Trade (Leiden, 1981), 159–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For earlier secondary works, see the bibliographies in Steltzer, Mit herrlichen Häfen; Schück, Richard, Brandenburg-Preussens Kolonial-Politik unter dem Grossen Kurfürsten und seinen Nachfolgern (1647-1721), (2 vols.: Leipzig, 1889)Google Scholar; Monod, Théodore, L'ile d'Arguin (Mauritania): essai historique (Lisbon, in press).Google Scholar

2. von der Groeben, Otto Friedrich, Guineische Reisebeschreibung, nebst einem Anhange der Expedition in Morea (Marienwerder, 1694)Google Scholar; Oettinger, Paul, ed., Unter kurbrandenburgischer Flagge. Nach dem Tagebuch des Chirurgen Johann Peter Oettinger (Berlin, 1886).Google Scholar See Jones, Adam, “Double Dutch? A Survey of Seventeenth-Century German Sources for West African History,” HA, 9(1982), 141–53.Google Scholar

3. Schück, , Brandenburg-Preussen, II.Google Scholar

4. Brandenburg-Preussen auf der Westküste von Afrika 1681-1721 (Kriegsgeschichtliche Einzelschriften, verfasst vom Generalstab: Berlin, 1885).Google Scholar

5. Welman, C.W., Ahanta. Native States of the Gold Coast, No. 2 (London, 1930).Google Scholar

6. In Merseburg I was unable to find two documents cited by Schuck: R.65.21, letter from Dannies to Ramler, 12/22 November 1697; Pamphlet Collection No. 89c, “Notulen en dingtalen van de processe tusschen de Brandenburgsche Africaensche ende de Nederlandsche West-Indische Compagnie” (Rotterdam, 1692).Google Scholar

7. R.65.33 ff. 2-66v; R.65.56 ff. 93-205v. I hope to publish an edited translation of this diary.

8. Having purchased a microfilm of N.B.K.G. 218-219, I discovered that only about a third of the pages were remotely legible. For a general survey of material relating to Africa in the Hague, see Roessingh, M.P.H. and Visser, W., Guide to the Sources of the History of Africa South of the Sahara in the Netherlands (Munich, 1978).Google Scholar

9. See Jones, Adam, “A Further Note on the Amsterdam Notarial Records,” HA, 9(1982), 367–69.Google Scholar

10. For a detailed list of documents concerning Arguin (in Paris and elsewhere), see the bibliography in Monod, Arguin. This supersedes the information given in Carson, Patricia, Materials for West African History in French Archives (London, 1968)Google Scholar, although the latter is still of some value as a general guide.

11. See Henige, David, “The James Phipps Papers Re-visited,” African Research and Documentation, 16/17 (1978), 21–23.Google Scholar

12. See Kellenbenz, H., “Die Brandenburger auf St. Thomas,” Jahrbuch für die Geschichte von Staat, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft Lateinamerikas, 2(1965), 196–217Google Scholar; Westergaard, Waldemar, The Danish West Indies under Company Rule (1671-1754), (New York, 1917).Google Scholar

13. von Borcke, Graf, Die Brandenburgisch-preussisahe Marine und die afrikanische Kompagnie (Koln, 1864).Google Scholar According to Schück's bibliography, this is a translation of a manuscript by Graf von Hertzberg, entitled “Hlstoire de la marine et de la compagnie africaine de Prusse.” I have so far been unable to study this manuscript (now in the Deutsche Staatsbibliothek, East Berlin, under the reference Ms. boruss. qu. 122 and 123), but suspect that it was little more than a copy of that of Petitpierre. I am informed by Dr. Hans-Erich Teitge that the manuscripts do not give the author's name or the date of composition, and that qu. 123 consists of 139 pages, including four maps and two illustrations; qu 122 contains the same text (107 pages).

14. Several of these have been reproduced in Steltzer, , Mit herrlichen Häfen, and in Lawrence, A.W., Trade Castles and Forts of West Africa (London, 1963).Google Scholar The groundplan of Gross-Friedrichsburg in 1684, however, has not been published again, although it is probably more reliable than the other illustrations. All of the originals appear to have been lost, but there are copies in the Jorberg papers (Repositur 92) of the Geheime Staatsarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz.

15. Groeben, , Reisebeschreibung, opp. p. 78.Google Scholar

16. ADM 7/830, Barbot, Jean, “Description des côtes d'Affrique” (completed in London, c. 1688).Google Scholar PRO, London. An edited English translation is being prepared, under the general editorship of P.E.H. Hair and myself.

17. Barbot, John, A Description of the Coasts of North and South Guinea (London, 1732), plate 11.Google Scholar The caption refers to Gross-Friedrichsburg as “ye Danish fort,” confusing it with Frederiksborg (near Cape Coast), which belonged to the Danes until 1685.

18. Reproduced in Steltzer, Mit herrlichen Häfen, plate 16. See n. 14.

19. Bosman, Willem, Nauwkeurige besahryving van de Guinese Goud-, Tand- en Slave-kust (Utrecht, 1704; 2nd ed., 1709).Google Scholar These are basically identical to two undated and unsigned sketches now kept in the library of Leiden University (BPL 1935, ff. 1-1v).

20. 22/C, “Plan et elevation du fort d'Arguin en Afrique habité par les troupes de l'Electeur de Brandenbourg,” and D.F.C., 10/C, “Vueue du Fort Darguin.” Archives Nationales, Section Outre-Mer, Paris. Both are reproduced in Monod, Arguin, plates ix-x.

21. Priestley, Margaret and Wilks, Ivor, “The Ashanti Kings in the Eighteenth Century: a Revised Chronology,” JAH 1(1960), 83–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar But cf. Boahen, Adu, “When Did Osei Tutu Die?” Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana, 16(1975) 87–92.Google Scholar

22. Dubois (see n. 7) mentioned “the Great Prince Ozaay, the most powerful prince of this country” on 5 February 1712; on 31 March 1712 he received news from “the Great Prince Zaay of Assantee” (presumably the same person) that the Dutch and English were not prepared to let the Asante have merchandise or salt, because they had assisted Jan Conny. He mentioned the same “Great Prince Zaay” again on 15 July 1712 and 12 November 1713; and on 17 December 1713 he sent presents to Zaay, the “Great Prince of Asjante” and to his first counsellor, Amagotja. Throughout the diary there are references to Asante traders and to wars in which Asante was involved. It is worth noting that Dubois did not refer to “the Zaay” (cf. Priestley, and Wilks, , “Ashanti Kings,” 87Google Scholar). In view of the wide variety of meanings attached to the title hene, it seems likely that the “king” said to have died in 1712 was not Osei Tutu but the holder of some subordinate Asante stool.