The basic source for African imports used here is an invoice book of cargoes carried to Africa on the vessels of the Royal Company of Adventurers and its successor organization, the Royal African Company. This is the same source and database used for the slave price data. All these ships departed from London. A description of the data set is included below in the sources. A summary of the cargoes in constant pounds broken down by African region of embarkation is shown in Table C-1.

This summary does not reflect all merchandise arriving in Africa from the Atlantic world, nor even all the merchandise carried by the vessels of these companies. Between 1666 and 1713, records exist of nearly two hundred ships that sailed to Africa from the Caribbean rather than from Europe and many of them belonged to the Royal African Company. Almost all these ships carried rum, most of them from Barbados. Out of every ten ships, about seven went to the Gold Coast, two to the Gambia, and one to the Slave Coast, though in the latter case the rum was probably disembarked at Cape Coast Castle on the Gold Coast, before the ship proceeded to Whydah for slaves. The trade began in the late 1670s, with about two ships a year involved on average to 1698. Thereafter the volume quadrupled to ten ships a year.