By the beginning of the nineteenth century, the slave
trade was in a state of decline. One reason was the growing
sense of outrage among humanitarians in several
European countries over the purchase, sale, and exploitation
of human beings. Traffic in slaves by Dutch merchants
effectively came to an end in 1795 and by Danes
in 1803. A few years later, the slave trade was declared illegal
in both Great Britain and the United States. The
British began to apply pressure on other nations to follow
suit, and most did so after the end of the Napoleonic Wars
in 1815, leaving only Portugal and Spain as practitioners
of the trade south of the equator. Meanwhile, the demand
for slaves began to decline in the Western Hemisphere,
and by the 1880s, slavery had been abolished in all major
countries of the world.
The decline of the slave trade in the Atlantic during
the first half of the nineteenth century, however, did not
lead to an overall reduction in the European presence in
West Africa. To the contrary, European interest in what
was sometimes called “legitimate trade” in natural resources
increased. Exports of peanuts, timber, hides, and
palm oil increased substantially during the first decades of
the century, and imports of textile goods and other manufactured
products also rose.
Stimulated by growing commercial interests in the
area, European governments began to push for a more
permanent presence along the coast. During the first
decades of the nineteenth century, the British established
settlements along the Gold Coast (present-day Ghana)
and in Sierra Leone, where they attempted to set up agricultural
plantations for freed slaves who had returned
from the Western Hemisphere or had been liberated by
British ships while en route to the Americas. A similar
haven for ex-slaves was developed with the assistance of
the United States in Liberia. The French occupied the
area around the Senegal River near Cape Verde, where
they attempted to develop peanut plantations.
The growing European presence in West Africa led to
tensions with African governments in the area. British
efforts to increase trade with Ashanti, in the area of
the present-day state of Ghana, led to conflict in the
1820s, but British influence in the area intensified in later
decades. Most African states, especially those with a
fairly high degree of political integration, were able to
maintain their independence from this creeping European
encroachment, called “informal empire” by some
historians, but eventually, the British stepped in and annexed
the region as the first British colony of the Gold
Coast in 1874. At about the same time, the British extended
an informal protectorate over warring tribal
groups in the Niger delta.
World History
