Note A — Chapter IX
Reading edition
As it may be interesting to learn the nature of trade on this coast,—which is commonly misunderstood at consisting in slaves alone,—I thought it well to set down the inventory I made out of the caravan’s stock and its result, as the various items were intrusted to my guardianship. The body of the caravan itself consisted of seven hundred persons, principally men; while the produce was as follows:
3,500 hides $1,750
19 large and prime teeth of ivory, 1,560
Gold, 2,500
600 pounds small ivory, 320
15 tons of rice, 600
40 slaves, 1,600
36 bullocks, 360
Sheep, goats, butter, vegetables, 100
900 pounds bees-wax, 95
Total value of the caravan’s merchandise, $8,885
Our profits on this speculation were very flattering, both as regards sales and acquisitions. Rice cost us one cent per pound; hides were delivered at eighteen or twenty cents each; a bullock was sold for twenty or thirty pounds of tobacco; sheep, goats or hogs, cost two pounds of tobacco, or a fathom of common cotton, each; ivory was purchased at the rate of a dollar the pound for the best, while inferior kinds were given at half that price. In fact, the profit on our merchandise was, at least, one hundred and fifty per cent. As gold commands the very best fabrics in exchange, and was paid for at the rate of sixteen dollars an ounce, we made but seventy per cent. on the article. The slaves were delivered at the rate of one hundred “bars” each. The “bar” is valued on the coast at half a dollar; but a pound and a half of tobacco is also a “bar,” as well as a fathom of ordinary cotton cloth, or a pound of powder, while a common musket is equal to twelve “bars.” Accordingly, where slaves were purchased for one hundred and fifty pounds of tobacco, only eighteen dollars were, in reality, paid; and when one hundred pounds of powder were given, we got them for twenty dollars each. Our British muskets cost us but three dollars apiece; yet we seldom purchased negroes for this article alone. If the women, offered in the market, exceeded twenty-five years of age, we made a deduction of twenty per cent.; but if they were stanchly-built, and gave promising tokens for the future, we took them at the price of an able-bodied man. The same estimate was made for youths over four feet four inches high; but children were rarely purchased at the factories, though they might be advantageously traded in the native towns.