Price Fluctuations in the Early Palm Oil Trade

Bibliographic Data

ID8978502
AuthorsA J H Latham (Swansea University, corresponding author)
Year1978
Volume19
Issue2
Pages213-218
Publication date1978-04-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Journal of African History (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0021-8537 • E-ISSN: 1469-5138
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0021853700027602
OpenAlexW2157810874
LanguageEN
Citations received6
References cited6

A previously unused price series from the Liverpool Mercury provides new information about the early days of the palm oil trade. A boom in 1818 drove prices to their century high, only to be followed in the 1820s by a prolonged depression. The boom may have encouraged merchants to try to bring Bonny into the oil trade, as its development as an important oil port dates from this time. However the depression of the '20s did not prevent the continued expansion of the trade, which was also sustained during the better prices of the 1830s. This information does not affect Northrup's recent suggestion that the slave trade continued to expand in the 1830s, as his evidence is inconclusive and there is no comparable information on slave prices. Yet clearly both trades were carried on side by side at the time. This was not because their supply networks were different. Slaves and oil were both sent from Ibibioland, being peripheral to the main economic activity of that region, domestic agriculture and craftwork

Agricultural science · Archaeology · Boom · Depression (economics · Economic history · Economics · Economy · Great Depression · Keynesian economics · Macroeconomics · Monetary economics · Oil boom · Oil price · Palm oil · Port (circuit theory · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · Engineering · History

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