ABSTRACT
The story of the Hauka begins with first contacts between Europeans and West Africans; first contacts, however rare, brought on by the Atlantic slave trade which, along the Guinea and Upper Guinea coasts, dates to the late fifteenth century. It was not until the abolition of the slave trade in the nineteenth century that Europeans began their comprehensive economic exploitation of West African lands and peoples. For fear of what was then a mysterious and incurable "fever," few Europeans dared to leave the safety of their anchored ships; fewer still left the security of coastal enclaves to explore the "interior."
