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The Shore and the Marketplace: Microspace in the European-African Trade on the West African Coast in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries (Descriptions and Iconographic Sources)

2012; Polska Akademia Nauk; Volume: 105; Linguagem: Inglês

10.12775/aph.2012.105.02

2450-8462

Michał Tymowski,

African history and culture studies

During the second half of the fi fteenth century, the rudiments of all the future organisational forms that were to constitute trade between Europeans and Africans were to be laid out in West Africa.These included trade on the caravels; trade on the shore, in places where Europeans came on land; trade at local markets; and trade at trading posts guarded by forts (Arguim, São Jorge da Mina).The economic aspects of the beginnings of trade between the Portuguese and the Africans have been well researched and described.In addition, Philip Curtin and George E. Brooks examine the macrospace of trade at the level of the entire West Coast region and its hinterland as well as on an inter-regional scale. 1 The present article, however, will focus on the microspace of trade -its scenery -an aspect which