Lightbourn family of Farenya, Rio Pongo: Lightbourn famille de Farenya, Rio Pongo

Mouser, Bruce L.

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Title:	Lightbourn family of Farenya, Rio Pongo: Lightbourn famille de Farenya, Rio Pongo
Author:	Mouser, Bruce L.
Year:	2011
Periodical:	Mande Studies
Volume:	13
Pages:	21-90
Language:	English
Geographic term:	Guinea
Subjects:	traders mercantile history slave trade 1800-1899
External link:	https://www.jstor.org/stable/44080885
Abstract:	Amongst families of coastal Guinea that were deeply involved in slave trading and that transitioned to legitimate commerce during the nineteenth century, the Lightbourn family of Farenya in the Upper Rio Pongo obtained a level of success and integration that was unusual amongst EurAfricans. The history of this family and of its founders and their family and business connections in West Africa, South Carolina, Cape Verde Islands, Cuba, and Bermuda, underscores the complexity of commerce in the Atlantic-centred world and along the American and African coasts. It demonstrates that, although European initiatives may have been necessary catalysts for change, the speed of transition to a new and different commercial field and the degree of compliance to those initiatives was decided by persons and families residing on the African coast. The Lightbourns bridged differences between systems that involved caravan commerce dominated by Mande and Fula groups between Africa's interior and the coast, as well as shipping and marketing between Africa, Europe and the Americas, and intermediate commerce on the African coast, that allowed those systems to interact and flourish. In this case, more is known about the African side of the Lightbourn partnership than about the American side. Lightbourn history also illustrates the transnational character of family units as they 'made the most of similarities' and adjusted from being outsiders to becoming newcomers in the African context and from slave traders to legitimate traders in the global context. App., bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. in English and French. [Journal abstract]

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