ABSTRACT
Settlement, interaction, and exchange in Niumi between the sixteenth and early nineteenth centuries were oriented toward the Atlantic and other broader global exchange networks, but not as strongly toward interior African markets. Involvement in these broad trade networks had the potential to generate a surplus of previously scarce and thus highly valued items. Before the opening of the Atlantic, the resources used to negotiate or assert one’s status were comparatively limited in Niumi. Those with materials to exchange had to transport their goods, which included dried fi sh and other foodstuffs in addition to salt, to interior markets either on their own or through middlemen (Crone 1937). Both options lowered the already minimal profi t because the closest interior markets where one could access a buyer were Niani and Wuuli. Once reaching a market place, traders were reliant on multiple social relationships that facilitated economic exchange that would enable them to acquire the material means of social negotiation (i.e. trade goods and gifts).
