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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Tropical Forests and West African Enterprise: The Early History of the Ghana Timber Trade
Author:Dumett, Raymond E.ISNI
Year:2001
Periodical:African Economic History
Volume:29
Pages:79-116
Language:English
Geographic term:Ghana
Subjects:mercantile history
exports
wood industry
History and Exploration
Agriculture, Natural Resources and the Environment
Economics and Trade
External link:https://www.jstor.org/stable/3601708
Abstract:Prior to the 1890s the export trade in wood products from the Akan region (Ghana) had been minimal, limited largely to the occasional export of middling grades of softwood timber, such as camwood and barwood, which were crushed in Europe mainly for the manufacture of red dyes. What occurred at the end of the 1880s and early 1890s with the export of a luxury hardwood - West African mahogany - was an entirely new phenomenon. This article examines the early decades of the Gold Coast mahogany industry. Questions studied include: What were the origins and basic strengths of the Gold Coast timber industry? Why did mahogany emerge rather suddenly as an important item in West African international trade at the end of the nineteenth century? Were there any commercial leaders or entrepreneurial groups who demonstrated special skills and acumen? Where were the major logging and exporting centres located? What were the relationships between indigenous African entrepreneurs and the European merchant capitalists and shipping companies which tended to dominate Atlantic commerce? Notes, ref. [ASC Leiden abstract]
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