76 Joseph E. InikoriIt is important to note that all the Europeans who came to Africa fol-
lowing the Portuguese discovery of an ocean route to that continent were
attracted in the first instance by the desire to develop trade with Africa in the
products of her soil—gold, pepper, ivory, etc.—and for a time these remained
the most valuable commodities in the Atlantic trade between Africa and Europe.
In addition, the European merchants even acted in those early years as dis-
tributors of African products from one African region to another. Between
1633 and 1634 the Dutch alone imported about 12,641 pieces of Benin cloth
into the Gold Coast, present-day Ghana.^58 Again, in 1645, a Dutch vessel
brought to the Gold Coast from Ardra and Benin, 588 pieces of Ardra cloth
and 1,755 pieces of Benin cloth, respectively.^59 Between 1486 and 1506 the
Portuguese developed an important trade with Benin in Benin pepper.^80 The
latter example clearly shows that the rulers of the coastal States took keen
interest in this early trading in African products. For instance, when large-scale
importation of European and oriental cotton cloths reduced demand for Benin
cloth on the Gold Coast, and the Dutch, therefore, failed to buy Benin cloth
as they did previously, the king of Benin protested and forced them to take
at least 1,700 pieces a year.^61
Apart from gold, pepper, ivory and some other minor products, the
European merchants, quite early in their contact with Africa, were aware of
the possibilities of producing in Africa a wide range of products for which
there was a demand in Europe. The records of the European companies that
traded with Africa are full of correspondence from their officials on the African
coast relating to such possibilities. For example, in July 1708, the governor of
the Royal African Company resident on the coast, wrote to the Company :The ground of this country is as fertile as any ground in the West Indies, taking places
according as they lye nearer or farther from the sea, but the natives are such scothful
sordid wretches, and so given to stealing from one another rather than labour that
little or nothing is made of it.. .6a
The governor recommended that the company should establish a settlement at
Fetue on the Gold Coast, which 'will be an inlet to all manner of Plantations'.
The success of such company-owned plantations would encourage people to
apply to the company 'to come and settle here upon such terms as you may
think convenient to permit to settle on'. The company's plantations were to
contain corn, sugar cane, indigo, cotton and cattle. The governor refers to the
Dutch 'laying out ground on the River Butteroe near their fort there' for the
development of a sugar-cane plantation, 'for to make sugar and rum here they
have lately sent to Whydah for two hundred slaves, and they expect by their
next shipping all sorts of materials for their making sugar and rum.. ,'^63 \
Later in the eighteenth century, when the Royal African Company's