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Further Correspondence Respecting East Africa - Document - Nineteenth Century Collectio... - 2 views

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  • Having been for several years established as merchants in Zanzibar our friends are constantly receiving, either on their own account, or that of their constituents, large parcels of ivory, duty on which they have heretofore paid to the Imperial British East Africa Company, when caravans come by the Mombasa route, and to the German Govern¬ ment when through their territory
  • his latter can only be avoided by shipping the ivory in its entirety as received from Uganda, or as expressed by the Com¬ pany's notification " not breaking bulk."
    • diegothestallion
      diegothestallion on 26 Apr 23
       
      BREAKING BULK IS THE SYSTEM OF TRANSPORTING GOODS IN PIECES SEPARATELY, RATHER THAN BEING SHIPPED IN A CONTAINER. ACCOURDING TO THE PROVIDED STATEMENT IS THAT EAST AFRICA SPEND LOT OF CAPITAL TO EXPORT THEIR IVORY BECAUSE IS SHIPPED IN PIECES INSTEAD OF SHIPPING THE IVORIES IN BULK.
  • From the foregoing you will, they trust, see the necessity for sorting the ivory, and the impossibility of complying with the Company's regulations of not breaking bulk, so that, to deal with the ivory for the purposes of trade, and as they have heretofore done, entails, under present conditions, a duty of 30 per cent., 15 per cent, to the Government in Uganda, and 15 per cent, to the Company at the coast
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • i.e., that such parcels contain, as a rule, three distinct descriptions of ivory, one of which is suitable for shipment to Europe, one for the New York market, where it is pur¬ chased in Zanzibar by the American merchants, and the remaining description is bought by the Indian traders in Zanzibar, being suitable for Indian requirements, and after being cut up, a certain portion is shipped from India to the London market
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The Ivory Trade and Political Power in Nineteenth-Century East Africa | SpringerLink - 11 views

link.springer.com/...978-3-030-42595-1_9 222058834 History 2A
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  • The Ivory Trade and Political Power in Nineteenth-Century East Africa | SpringerLink
  • Elephants from the East African interior were the innocent victims of their region’s increased connections to oceanic commerce during the nineteenth century. Americans, Europeans, and South and East Asians all demanded East African ivory in increasing quantities over the time-period, and elephants were killed to fuel their demand.
    • diegothestallion
      diegothestallion on 26 Apr 23
       
      The more ivory was demanded ,the higher elephant were killed to meet the required demanded ivories and to expand the ivory trade further.
  • This was part of a process through which ivory ceased being an object reserved for elites and became consumed by a wider stratum of society in the form of, for example, billiard balls, piano keys, and bangles.Footnote 1 Ivory’s increased commodification divorced elephants from most pre-existing cultural or symbolic associations that East Africans had of them, especially around prominent trade routes.
    • diegothestallion
      diegothestallion on 26 Apr 23
       
      This sentence provide examples of product that were produced using ivory, Namely Piano Keys and billiard ball. This are product produced using soft ivory that was found in East Africa
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • Elephants from the East African interior were the innocent victims of their region’s increased connections to oceanic commerce during the nineteenth century. Americans, Europeans, and South and East Asians all demanded East African ivory in increasing quantities over the time-period, and elephants were killed to fuel their demand.
  • elephants were hunted throughout East Africa since before the nineteenth century and elephants continued to survive in sheltered locales throughout the region, including in regions where ivory traders were long-known to frequen
    • diegothestallion
      diegothestallion on 26 Apr 23
       
      THIS SHOWS THAT EAST AFRICAN ECONOMY DEPEND MOSTLY IN IVORY TRADE BECAUSE ELEPHANT HUNTING DID NOT START IN 19TH CENTUARY BUT IT WAS TAKING PLACE BEFORE THAT, BUT DID NOT INTENSIFY COMPARED TO 19th CENTUARY.
  • South Asia was a major market for East African ivory by sometime in the seventh or eighth centuries and it was imported into China during the Song dynasty (960–1279).
  • Firstly, elephant hunters used and displayed ivory throughout the period, even though the demographic who comprised the primary elephant hunters shifted. During the first half of the nineteenth century, most East African elephant hunters were members of secret societies or part of age-grade systems that brought boys into manhood.
  • Elephant hunters also displayed and used ivory and other elephant products to distinguish themselves from other members of the population. Burton, for example, noted that Gogo ivory hunters’ wore ‘disks and armlets of fine ivory’ in 1858.
    • diegothestallion
      diegothestallion on 26 Apr 23
       
      THIS IS WHERE IVORY WAS USED AS A RITUAL TO SYMBOLISE THEIR BELIEVE OR TO BE ABLE TO IDENTIFY EACH OTHER IN IVORY MARKET OR IN OTHER COMMUNITIES.
  • The patterns of ivory consumption in nineteenth-century East Africa indicate that it became a product that was increasingly tied to chiefly status. Control of its distribution and trade were the functions of chiefs.
  • The importance of the ivory trade to political power in East Africa’s coastal and island regions has been interpreted though alternate dynamics to its importance in the interior. On the coast, access to and control of the ivory trade is often linked to understandings of the power dynamics between Omani and Rima populations.
  • In the interior, meanwhile, it has been seen to shape the relationships between pre-existing chiefs, rising militarised chiefs, and coastal traders.
  • The global ivory trade was increasingly integral to the construction of political power in nineteenth-century East Africa. In the interior of this region, chiefs, state-builders, warlords, and prominent traders sought control of ivory and its trade to buttress their political authority, symbolically, economically, and militarily.
  • This divergence was tied to East Africa being a global supplier rather than a consumer of ivory. Within East Africa itself, though, few members of the general populace sold ivory directly to the global market.
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Ivory Trade - 2 views

geography.name/ivory-trade 222058834 History 2A
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  • For centuries ivory—the material of elephant tusks—was one of the most sought-after luxury items from Africa. A brisk ivory trade developed in ancient times, linking hunters deep within the continent to markets around the world. By the 1980s elephants had been hunted nearly to extinction, and most nations banned the ivory trade.
  • Despite vigorous trade in other regions, East Africa remained the world's chief supplier of ivory. Business flourished in ZANZIBAR and MOZAMBIQUE, where merchants exported tusks to western India and other markets.
  • By the late 1700s East Africa's vast ivory network reached as far inland as the Congo Basin. Some local peoples specialized in hunting elephants and transporting their tusks to the coast.
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IVORY TRADE IN EAST AFRICA.pdf - 0 views

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  • THE EAST AFRICAN IVORY TRADE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
  • THE East African ivory trade is an ancient one. It is mentioned in the first accounts of geographers and travellers, and they give it more prominence than the
  • ave-trade. It may have been the search for ivory which brought the first ships around Cape Guardafui, and then southwards along the East Afr
  • ...23 more annotations...
  • great quantity.1 Reference to the export of ivory from the East African coast continues throughout the early and later middle
  • Marco Polo refers to the East African coast and states: 'they have elephants in plenty and drive a brisk trade in tusks'.2 During the Portuguese domination of the coast from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, ivory continued to be an important export; it receives more mention in Portuguese records than does the slave tr
  • East African ivory is soft ivory and is ideal for carving. It was in keen demand in the Orient because of its superior quality and because it was less expensive than that from
  • ast Asia. But in addition to the markets of the East, East African ivory was much sought after in Europe for the large ivory carving centres which had grown up in southern Germany and in the Low Countries during the Middle Ages, and which supplied large numbers of religious reliquaries and artistic novelties for Christian Europe.
  • But it was in the nineteenth century that the great development of the East African ivory trade took place. An increased demand for ivory in America and Europe coincided with the opening up of East Africa by Arab traders and European explorers, and this led to the intensive exploitation of the ivory resources of the interior. Throughout the nineteenth century, East Africa ranked as the foremost source of ivory in the world; ivory over-topped all rivals, even slaves, in export value, and it
  • ntil the early nineteenth century, ivory was obtained in sufficient quantity from the coast to meet demand, but, writing in the i84os, the missionary Krapf observed that, although the elephant was still found in some areas near the coast, ivory caravans were now making regular trips into Usagara, Masailand and the Kikuyu countries. Krapf was surprised to see an elephant tusk from Kikuyuland so large that it required three stalwart Akamba tribesmen to carry it
  • The two great inland markets for ivory were Unyanyembe (Tabora) in what is now central Tanzania, and Ujiji on the east coast of Lake Tanganyi
  • The British East Africa Company purchased ivory in Buganda at the rate of 35 lb. of ivory for two kegs of powd
  • The ivory trader had to know his ivory, which varies from hard to soft. On the whole, the ivory of East Africa is of the soft variety. The dividing line between soft and hard is the Congo border; west of this line it is hard, to the east it is soft, although there are variations within each region. Buyers maintained that soft ivory came from areas where water was scarce; for example coastal ivory from near Pangani and Mombasa was never as good as that from the dry, upland regions of the interior. Sof
  • ivory is white, opaque, and smooth, it is gently curved, and easily worked, and has what might be called 'spring'. Hard ivory, on the other hand, is translucent, glossy and of a heavier specific gravity than soft ivory; it is more subject to extremes of temperature and more difficult to carve.
  • ing, although in the interior the price might fluctuate in terms of trade goods. It rose from io lb. of ivory for I lb. of beads in 1848, to almost weight for weight in 1859; then at the time of the Franco-Prussian War there was another rise, and then the price levelled o
  • Bargaining for ivory required infinite patience. In some countries, such as Buganda, Bunyoro and Ankole, the ivory trade was largely controlled by the ruler, with whom negotiations were carried on; one tusk of every pair belonged de jure to the king, who also possessed the right to purchase the remaining
  • e. Ivory also fell into the ruler's hands in the form of tribute from subject states.15 The arrival of Basoga and Bakedi chiefs bearing rich presents of ivory was a common occurrence at Mutesa's court, as the first missionaries in Uganda obse
  • The value of ivory was calculated in different ways. The African estimated its value by its size and quality. The Arab carried his steel-yard scales which were simple and practical, and, all things being equal, he purchased ivory by weight, the unit being the frasilah (34-3
  • lb.).16 In the southern Sudan and some parts of East Africa-for example, in Karagweivory was valued in terms of cattle, and this was one of the causes of the cattle raids carried out by ivory dealers. With the cattle they looted, they could trade for more ivory.
  • vory no doubt, when combined with free porterage in the form of slaves, was highly lucrative, for both could be sold at the coast, and the profit from slaves was in a sense baksheesh
  • The business of ivory trading could only be rendered lucrative by constant extension and development, and this required more capital than the Arab possessed. The first Europeans to arrive on the East African coast had found the ivory trade largely in the hands of the Indian merchants at Zan
  • and in preference to his left, so an elephant works with a particular tusk'. One tusk is usually more worn and lighter than the other; and it is frequently broken owing to its use as a lever to tear up small trees, hence the term el hamid-'the servant'-given to this tusk by the ivory trad
  • At the same time as the ivory reserves of East Africa were being tapped from the east coast, there was also taking place a substantial ivory trade to the north by the Nile r
  • Ivory is elastic and flexible, and can be used to make excellent riding whips, these being cut longitudinally from whole tusks. Nothing was wasted from ivory, hundreds of sacks of cuttings and shavings, scraps returned by manufacturers, were used as ivory dust for polishing, in the preparation of Indian ink, and even for food in the form of ivory je
  • Zanzibar as the ivory market for East Africa, supplying 75 % of the world's total in 1891, began to lose ground by the end of the century. There had been for many years a substantial ivory export from the lesser dhow ports on the mainland, such as Malindi,
  • ury. In 1960-61 not only did the entire export of East African ivory-I50,ooo lb.-pass through this port, but also 200,000 lb. from the Con
  • During the nineteenth century ivory over-topped all rivals in trade valueeven slaves.
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Trade and Transformation Participation in the Ivory Trade in Late 19th Century East and... - 3 views

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  • Trade and Transformation: Participation in the Ivory Trade in Late 19th-Century East and central Africa
  • Ivory ornaments sometimes served as a mark of the expertise and prowess of these hunters, the best documented example of this being Kamba ivory armlets (ngotho). The value of these armlets grew as a result of the increasing scope and intensity of the ivory trade during the 19th century. At the same time, their meaning and uses changed (Kasfir, 1992, 'Trade and p. 323-4). Ivory objects could also be used to create and mark kinship and crmnsforrnation: political ties.
    • diegothestallion
      diegothestallion on 25 Apr 23
       
      examples of Ivory Ornaments is jewelry and piano keys that were created from tusks and teeth of animals such as elephants.
  • First, ivory had important and widespread political meanings as a sign of authority and an item of tribute. This was frequently expressed in terms of rights to the "ground tusk:' the tusk from the side of the dead elephant that lay on the ground
    • diegothestallion
      diegothestallion on 25 Apr 23
       
      Ivory was used for ritual and as sign of power such as motifs used by kings as the property of the royal house, For example the king of Benin kingdom that wears ivory tusk as kings mark.
  • ...16 more annotations...
  • Ivory had corresponding uses in regalia and displays of power, both material and ritual
  • Second, like the slave trade, the ivory trade strengthened some political leaders and systems, but more often and more significantly it provided new avenues to power and wealth for those lower in the political hierarchies or outside them altogethe
  • Third, societies involved in the ivory trade created their own sets of frontiers. These might include areas where ivory was acquired through hunting by members of the society, areas where ivory was acquired through Canadian trade with others, areas where ivory was an established item of tribute and, as Journal of~evelopment it became scarcer, areas where ivory was obtained by taxing or plundering Studies trade caravans.
  • As mentioned earlier, ivory could be translated into value both in the sphere of subsistence production and reproduction, and in the sphere of production for trade. In both, it generated a concatenation of status, coercive power and wealth.
    • diegothestallion
      diegothestallion on 25 Apr 23
       
      In simple terms ivory was traded for capital which provided platform for different areas to be connected and other people using force to make other people to work unwillingly like slaves. People who are wealthy used their power to dominate others, such as Tippu Tip who included the words like enslaving local people as way of ivory trade and interior development in communities were he referred as barbaric .
  • For example, the Maasai, who were important intermediaries in the ivory trade, did not hunt elephants themselves but gained access to ivory through groups of Dorobo and Okiek, sometimes using ties such as marriage and sometimes forcing these hunters to turn over both elephant ivory and hippopotamus teeth for minimal compensation (Wright, 1985, p. 546; Kasfir, 1992, p. 322-3).
  • In both the Eastern Congo and Southern Sudan, coercion was an essential feature of the ivory trade in the late 19th century and a notable part of the accom- panying reconfiguration of political and economic structures there.
    • diegothestallion
      diegothestallion on 25 Apr 23
       
      Coercion means the threat or force For example when individual is forced to work in plantations against his or her will
  • This trade system was also shaped by terms of trade that ran steadily in favour of African ivory exporters during the 19th century, since ivory prices rose while those of manufactured goods such as cloth dropped.
    • diegothestallion
      diegothestallion on 25 Apr 23
       
      Ivory trade started dominating trading systems and this favored African continent because ivories came from Africa and the higher the demand of ivory resulted in an increase in ivory prices compared to other items like clothes and salt.
  • This allowed for substantial accu- mulation on the part of intermediaries in the trade; it also allowed these inter- mediaries to continue to profit even as their operating costs grew with the increased distance of the ivory frontier from the coast (Sheriff, 1986 and 1987).
  • First, through training and example, local people were to be weaned off their "barbarous" practices and introduced to more "civilized" ones, though Page notes the Swahili ambivalence about admitting assimilated Canadian yournal "savages" to positions of equality (1974a, p. 76). This transformation would oj~evelopmenr remove, or at least reduce the primary markers of native "barbarism" - Studies paganism, cannibalism and nakedness
    • diegothestallion
      diegothestallion on 25 Apr 23
       
      Local people were supposed to change the way they used to live because according to Tippu Tips they were living a barbarous life compared to his. this transformation will completely change how the local people engaged with their environment because the ideas of ivory trade and development of interior needed to be achieved.
  • The second area of transformation involved bringing peace and order to areas where local people would otherwise be fighting each other (Page, 1974b, p. 114).
    • diegothestallion
      diegothestallion on 25 Apr 23
       
      The second transformation, was to bring solution to communities were people did not get along, as way of enhancing the transformation. This would make the process easy allowing ivory trade to take place and the possibility of creating routes that lead to the interior, so that ivory market can be established in regions like Manyema. This will result in distance ivory trade.
  • In spite of the rhetoric of peace and order, the destruction at the leading edge of Swahili expansion in the Eastern Congo - which involved raids on villages, removal of people and property, confiscation or destruction of food crops, and the spread of small pox - was only slowly followed by the estab- lishment of a new order.
  • The third area of transformation involved reorienting communities in the region to produce surpluses of a variety of agricultural products. This included the introduction of new crops such as rice, maize, citrus fruits and various vegetables.
    • diegothestallion
      diegothestallion on 25 Apr 23
       
      The third transformation according to Tippu is to introduce agriculture to communities so that they can produce more surplus to be traded because Tippu highlighted that agriculture changed to plantation were slaves worked. This shows that intensive ivory trade resulted in other local people being enslaved to work plantations or to slaughter elephant for ivory to be traded.
  • Ivory provided status and livelihood for porters engaged in transporting it. The ivory trade was crucial in the development of long-distance trade routes by peoples in the interior, particularly by the Nyamwezi and the Yao.
    • diegothestallion
      diegothestallion on 25 Apr 23
       
      People got rich because of ivory trade and hunters were given respect because they were the one who will provide more horns after slaughtering elephant horn while hunting and this made the to be wealthy by ivory trade.
  • Among the Nyamwezi, the carriage of ivory was important in the development of a body of professional porters with particular skills and a work culture that set norms for long-distance caravan transport in the 19th century (Rockel, 1996).
  • For porters on the road, ivory could also provide a means for independent enterprise: porters might use their wages or resources provided by their lineage to acquire and trade small amounts of ivory or other goods in addition to the loads for which they were contracted
    • diegothestallion
      diegothestallion on 25 Apr 23
       
      this shows that people were involved in ivory trade as way of being independent because by trading ivory they could earn something in return such as status and respect from other local people.
  • ivory was the basis of several kinds of transactions at the coast. It was used to discharge the debts of those who traded in the interior and was the basis for the further extension of credit, often in the form of trade goods. It was also the basis for the authority of senior merchants like Tippu Tip, who used it to acquire guns and trade goods, which he would then lend out with interest to "responsible Arabs, in order to start them [in the Journal O,~eve~,,pment business], and also in order to retain authority over them" (Ward, 1891, p. 63)
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