ABSTRACT
The biggest part of West African gold was exported through the Gold Coast, a fact which goes far toward explaining why this area was consistently the scene of the most intense rivalries between European traders in Africa. The expectation was exaggerated and surely could only have been realized if the Company had ousted all other Europeans from the trade. Higher export prices for slaves should have driven up the labour costs of gold extraction in Africa and the depletion of the most easily accessible deposits would have had a similar effect. Slaves may be compared in importance with gold as an African export by multiplying the annual number shipped by their price in America. After 1807, the decline in the number of slaves exported and the rise in the amount of ‘legitimate’ trade rapidly eclipsed the importance of the slave trade for most of Africa.
