Enslaving Commodities: Tobacco, Gold, Cowry Trade, and Trans-Imperial Networks in the Bight of Benin (c. 1690s–c. 1790s)

ABSTRACT:This article will explore the importance of three specific commodities (tobacco, gold, and cowry shells) for the operation of the Bahian slave trade in the Bight of Benin during the eighteenth century, focusing on the trans-imperial trading networks involving Portuguese, Dutch, and English merchants on the west African coast. The goal is to demonstrate the relationship between such commodities and the transatlantic and local economy linked to the slave trade. It linked transoceanic commercial networks, which affected in several ways the political, social and economic organization of African societies, as well as playing a critical role in the organization of new trading networks between Bahian-based businessmen, Western Indian and West African traders in eighteenth-century Atlantic slave trade.