The Port of Geba

The Port of Geba: at the crossroads of Afro-Atlantic TRADE AND CULTURE Philip J. Havik Any.why(seediscussionMapithas1),not,ofwouldtheasyet,portrequirebeenofGebafirstthelocatedandsubjectforemostinofcurrentresearchansweringdayandGuineathepublication.questionBissau (seeMap1),wouldrequirefirstandforemostansweringthequestion .whyithasnot,asyet,beenthesubjectofresearchandpublication. AlthoughGebaismentionedintravelaccounts,archivaldocumentsand secondarysources,itremainsarathermysterioustradesettlementintheAfrican interior. This curious lacuna is a reminder of the problems faced by historiography and anthropology when focusing on such Afro- Atlantic outposts whose contours are ill defined and which appear to resist classification. In part, the silence surrounding Geba is due to the fact that the site was situated on the interface between two geo-political areas, where states or 'empires' met. In fact, the lack of attention paid to the town also owes a great deal to the existence of two imperial traditions, one African and associated with Soninké and Mandé expansion to the coast, and the other Euro-Atlantic and Afro-Portuguese, that penetrated the continent via its many rivers and creeks, thus relegatingGeba to an academic no-man's land. Over a period of four centuries the port of Geba constituted one of the main bargaining counters between these two political and economic spaces in the Guinea Bissau region. It formed the lynchpin of the barter trade in which slaves, gold, hides and ivory were exchanged for iron bars, textiles, salt and kola nuts. From its establishment in the sixteenth century to its demise in the second half of the 1800s, it was the principal Afro- Atlantic port in the region where the caravans run by djilas , i.e. itinerant Mandé speaking traders (also s i lati, including Saracollé and Jakhanke) travelling from the Upper Niger River, met with the trading vessels navigating the upper reaches of the Geba River from the Atlantic. Thousands of slaves were exported every year through Geba and transported to Latin-America and the Caribbean across the Atlantic, probably from the 1520s or 1530s onwards. But at the same time Geba also formed the crossing point for the inter-African trade route which linked the Soninké- and Mandé-controlled areas north of the river that formed part of the Kaabú federation with Biafada territories of Degola and Quinará to the south (see Map 2). This trade route supplied weekly markets in the latter areas where the djilas sold their wares, including slaves, iron, hides, textiles and indigo, for cattle, fruit, ivory, honey, beeswax, salt and kola nuts. In addition, there were other overland trade routes that linked Geba to the upper Gambia River, for example to the port of Cantora in the Wuli province which fell within Kaabú's frontiers. Therefore, given that its location was truly strategic in the context of inter- African and AfroAtlantic trade networks, the silences surrounding its history are all the more Mande Studies 9 (2007) pp. 2 1 -50 22 Philip J. Havik Map 1: Map of Portuguese Guinea by A.C Portuguese Guinea with Geba (still) ident region. Reproduction by courtesy of the ' I -»JI {1 iL, -U, (7> =a ' r - T he Port of Geba 2 3 surprising. A quick browse through sources on Kaabú shows that Geba is hardly or not mentioned at all. Djibril Niane's study on the western Manding dedicates only a few lines to the town, even though he admits it was one the main outlets for the gold and slave trade associated with djila merchants (Niane 1989: 82). In his otherwise excellent and detailed study of Kaabú, Mamadou Mané fails to refer to the town when giving a short overview of the most important 'Portuguese' trade settlements in the GB region (but does mention Farim, Cacheu, Ziguinchor and Guinala). These and other contributions, largely based upon oral testimonies, appear to indicate that the status of the town of Geba is marginal in Mandé historiography. Although Geba is associated with Birassu or Brassou and also with the Farim Cabo, the province of Ganadú in which Geba is located is not mentioned. Cissoko ( 1 969, 1981) fails to pay any attention to Geba in his essays on the history of Kaabú, while more recent scholarly work only makes fleeting mention of Geba which remains largely circumscribed to maps (Lopes 1999). However, most of the maps used by these and other authors including Barry (1988) simply omit Geba even

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• Finding provenance, seeking context

  Open Access•Peter Mark•Afriques•2019

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