"Nicolas Clerk's Report for the First Quarter of 1893"

Concerns the Volta Slave trafic. This is the basis for much of the material in the Heidenbote article 1893 p.90ff. There is rather more material in the manuscript than in the printed version (which is an editorial compilation rather than a printing of parts of Clerk's manuscript). The main additional points are: - Most slaves entering the Volta area are Mosis and Grusis, taken in the slave raids of Gazare or Kasare, whose great advantage is that his adversaries are armed only with bows and arrows. - Salaga price: 5-10 barrels gunpowder or 2-4 barrels gunpowder and 1-3 cases spirits. - Resale price in Buem 6-12 barrels gunpowder or 8-12 cases spirits. - Clerk's earlier report that the slave trade had increased in Kpandu after the coming of the German coloenial regime was retailed originally by Catechist Asiedu who then in Amfoi had it originally from an eye-witness. - He describes the Ada people as having many fishing and trading villages along the Volta. - In 1892 Clerk names two people as bringing slaves into Worawora, Mamma (2 trips) and Bede (1 visit). In a joint visit together they brought 13 slaves almost all of whom were sold in Worawora. - He names the richest man in Buem as Nketea of Akaneem - he has a whole village full of slaves. - The price of spirits is in the proportion of 1:2:3 between Lome, Accra and Buem, and the price of powder 7:19:15 in the same places. - Clerks house was put up with the help of 3 slaves of a man called Ahenkora, who loaned them as day-labourers. The same man had a slave who was a hunter with an elephant to his credit. He also sent another to the school. - He had seen Yiripe people in Atonko returning home from Salaga empty handed because of the civil war there. Clerk's advice to obtain the collapse of the slave trade is to raise the price of gunpowder, make it clear who lives in the area of which colonial power, and have both colonial powers clearly outlaw slavery. Further a man should be stationed in the Kpando-Krakye area to see that the trade really does end - if he is a Gold Coast man he must be changed frequently in order to make sure that he does not allow himself to be bribed.

March 1893

March 1893

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