Guinea Company (London)
This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. (September 2012) |
The Company of Adventurers of London Trading to the Ports of Africa, more commonly known as "the Guinea Company", was a private
History
King
Nicholas Crispe got most of his royal support through the building of trading forts on the Gold Coast of Komenda and Kormantin. The king, James I, saw them as a great value to future of England–Africa trade.
The Guinea Company had touched on many different trades, one of which was gold, which in the beginning was its primary objective. Between 1618 and 1621, three expeditions were made up the Gambia River to collect gold. No profits were made, and after the third trip the company accumulated a loss of £5,600, which was a great deal of money during this era as Nicholas Crispe had purchased the majority of the company's shares for less than £800. After Crispe had failed in leading the company in finding gold along the Gambia River, it resorted to the collection of redwood from Sierra Leone as its main export.
In 1631 a new charter was formed and granted to the "Company of Merchants Trading to Guinea". Like the first charter in 1618, this too was for 31 years, but it was from
In 1640, Nicholas Crispe and his trading company had once again been put under political pressure from England. In 1640, parliament ordered him to give up his monopoly on Guinea. And it was in 1644 when his of the company were taken away,[clarification needed] and the company was later handed on to merchants who supported the parliament.
The achievements of the Guinea trade company have for the most part been unappreciated and gone unacknowledged.[citation needed] They played a significant role in the history of trade and development all along the west coast of Africa. As well as bringing in England into the gold trade through the Gold Coast.
According to British parliamentary records, the company also appears to have been involved in the trade of enslaved Africans.
See also
References
- ^ Hugh Thomas, The Slave Trade: The Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade: 1440-1870 Simon and Schuster, 2013
ISBN 1476737452p.177
- The Crispe Family and the African Trade in the Seventeenth Century, by R. Porter
- The Journal of African History © 1968 Cambridge University Press
- The Oxford History of the British Empire: Volume I: The Origins of Empire By William Roger Louis, Alaine M. Low, Nicholas P. Canny, Peter James Marshall, Andrew N. Porter, Judith Margaret, pp. 250–254
- Negotiated Empires: Centers and Peripheries in the Americas, 1500-1820 By Christine Daniels, Michael V. Kennedy