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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | Pawns on the Gold Coast: the rise of Asante and shifts in security for debt, 1680-1750 |
Author: | Spicksley, Judith |
Year: | 2013 |
Periodical: | The Journal of African History (ISSN 0021-8537) |
Volume: | 54 |
Issue: | 2 |
Pages: | 147-175 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | Ghana |
Subjects: | Europeans trade pledging gold slaves |
External link: | https://doi.org/10.1017/S0021853713000297 |
Abstract: | In the seventeenth century, Europeans on the Gold Coast (present-day Ghana) took gold pawns as security for debt, but from the early eighteenth century, they turned increasingly toward the use of human pawns. This shift was the result of a transformation in levels of demand for gold amongst African sellers, most notably the Asante, who began to secure control over local gold sources from c. 1700. The change in demand for gold was accompanied by a rise in slave prices on the West African coast, but it was the indigenous system of debt recovery that proved crucial to the success of European trade. Notes, ref., sum. [Journal abstract] |