Gold: Production and Trade: West Africa

Gold was an important staple in the trans-Saharan trade. The lure of gold spurred the Portuguese exploration down the African coast. But long before the Portuguese began exploring, gold from West Africa had reached Europe and the Middle East through the trans-Saharan trade. The exact location of gold mines often remained a secret, because middlemen tried to prevent foreigners from reaching them. Gold and gold mining were also traditionally associated with legend and myth. For example, when Mansa Musa (1312-1337), the ruler of the Sudanese kingdom of Mali, visited Egypt, he described two plants in his country whose roots contained pure gold.

Although gold from West Africa had reached Europe and the Middle East for centuries, its flow from West Africa dramatically increased from the middle of the eighth century. From the eighth century until the

Lobi women washing for gold, southwest Burkina Faso (Upper Volta), 1930s. This work was done entirely by women, each of whom was paid one franc per day. © SVT Bild/Das Fotoarchiv.

Twelfth century, most of the gold coming from West Africa remained in the Muslim world. In the centuries before 1200, Western Europe had abandoned gold as the basis for its currency, as most of the gold at the time had been drained through an adverse balance of trade with the East. However, from the second half of the thirteenth century and the beginning of the fourteenth century, European countries returned to the gold standard, and the demand for, as well as the volume of gold, once more increased.

Gold from West Africa came from four principal fields: Bambuhu, between the Senegal and the Faleme Rivers, Bure on the Upper Niger, Lobi, southeast of the Bure fields, and the Akan gold fields in present - day Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire.

The Bambuhu fields were mined when Ghana was at its apogee. The king of Ghana ruled that gold nuggets found in the mines of his country should be reserved for him and his people could have only the gold dust.

During the eleventh and twelfth centuries Sudanese traders ventured south and opened the Bure gold fields. This shift of gold sources in effect coincided with the decline of Ghana. Ghana had actually controlled the gold fields, but it turned out that whenever the area of production was conquered and controlled, gold production in the area declined or stopped completely.

The rise of Mali in the thirteenth century was associated with the development of the Bure gold fields. The king of Mali did not control the gold fields, however, for fear that gold production would be interrupted. Mali was content to extract tribute from the gold-bearing regions. It was gold from this region that the Mali ruler Mansa Musa (1312-1337) distributed on a lavish scale during his pilgrimage to Mecca. Mansa Musa reputedly arrived in Egypt with camels loaded with gold bars and bags of gold dust. He spent and gave away so much gold that it depressed the currency exchange for twelve years.

The kings of the Songhay Empire, which was further away from the Bure and Akan gold fields, did not control the production of gold either, but they too benefited from the gold passing through their empire.

The gold that was produced and traded in West Africa was also used as currency in the commercial centers of north Africa and the western Sudan. Even in the sixteenth century, commercial centers such as Jenne and Timbuktu continued using gold as currency for larger transactions. Before the fifteenth century, gold and the production of gold were in the hands of Africans and African merchants.

When the Portuguese arrived on the west African coast during the fifteenth century, they sought to secure a share of the gold trade that had previously reached Europe through the north African ports on the Mediterranean Sea. In 1448 the Portuguese built a fort at

Arguin, hoping that it might divert some of the transSaharan gold trade to the adjacent African coast, but very little gold flowed to that trading post. When Portugal reached the area of Senegambia in the 1450s, it was able to secure some gold coming mainly from the gold fields of Bure and Bambuhu. In fact, it was their interest in gold that led the unsuccessful effort by the Portuguese to interfere in the affairs of the Jolof by attempting to unseat Bumi Jelen as their ruler in the late fifteenth century. The Portuguese interest in gold further led them to establish the first European post in the African interior, in Bambuhu, in the sixteenth century. The English also advertised the Gambia region as the source of the gold trade in the seventeenth century. Meanwhile, the French focused their trading plans on the Senegal on both gold and slaves.

In 1471 when the Portuguese reached the Gold Coast, Mande merchants were already active in the area and the Portuguese found themselves competing with the Mande for the gold from the Akan gold fields. Despite the presence of the Mande, the Portuguese did profitable business in gold and maintained a monopoly on this trade for one hundred and fifty years, until they were dislodged by the Dutch. Their desire to protect the gold trade led the Portuguese to build the Elmina castle. Not only did the Portuguese build a castle, they also brought slaves from the area of Benin to the Gold Coast to work in the mines.

Annual Portuguese gold exports from the Akan gold fields between 1481 and 1521 are estimated at between 20,000 and 25,000 ounces. There was, however, a drastic decline after 1550. Gold mining was a peacetime activity, and the competition from the slave trade and the method of procuring slaves no doubt affected gold exports. Export volume was further affected when most of the alluvial layer was exhausted and deep mining was required. In the Akan area, it was clear by the second decade of the eighteenth century that the so-called Gold Coast had become primarily concerned in slave trading. Gold exports declined after 1550 and did not recover until the middle of the nineteenth century.

Edward Reynolds

Further Reading

Curtin, Philip D. Economic Change in Precolonial Africa.

Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1975.

Dumett, Raymond E. El Dorado in West Africa: The Gold-Mining Frontier, African Labor, and Colonial Capitalism in the Gold Coast, 1875-1900. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1998. Gerrard, Timothy F. Akan Weights and the Gold Trade. London: Longman, 1980.

Sundstrom, Lars. The Trade of Guinea. Upsala, Oslo, 1965. Wilks, Ivor. Forest of Gold: Essays on the Akan and the Kingdom of Asante. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1993.

Gore: See Senegal: Colonial Period: Four Communes: Dakar, Saint-Louis, Gore, and Rufisque.