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African and European Cocoa Producers on Fernando Po, 1880s to 1910s

W. G. Clarence-Smith
The Journal of African History / Volume 35 / Issue 02 / July 1994, pp 179 - 199 DOI: 10.1017/S0021853700026384, Published online: 22 January 2009

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0021853700026384 How to cite this article: W. G. Clarence-Smith (1994). African and European Cocoa Producers on Fernando Po, 1880s to 1910s. The Journal of African History, 35, pp 179-199 doi:10.1017/ S0021853700026384 Request Permissions : Click here

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Journal of African History, 35 (1994), pp. 179-199 Copyright 1994 Cambridge University Press

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AFRICAN AND EUROPEAN COCOA PRODUCERS ON FERNANDO POO, 1880s TO 1910s

BY W. G. CLARENCE-SMITH* School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
I B R A H I M Sundiata's pioneering work has highlighted the role of Creole (Fernandino) immigrants in building up a flourishing cocoa economy on the island of Fernando Poo (Bioco) in the 1880s and 1890s, but he has been much more hesitant as to the extent, causes and periodization of their subsequent economic decline. Initially, he pointed to Spain's defeat in the 1898 war with the United States as the turning point, but in his recent book he inclines to the 1920s as the crucial decade. Spanish discrimination, internal weaknesses in the community and changing economic conditions are portrayed as contributing to the downturn. The balance between these various factors and the extent of economic decline, however, remain to be elucidated.1 Three suggestions are made here: that the 1920s were the watershed decade; that economic decline was not marked, even after the 1920s; and that Spanish discrimination had little impact on the prosperity of the great majority of the community prior to the mid-1920s. It is further suggested here that the role of the indigenous Bubi inhabitants in the development of the island's export economy was greater than has been acknowledged. Sundiata speaks of Bubi 'entrance into small-scale cocoa farming' in the 1940s, after they had recovered from the brink of demo-

* My thanks are due to the Instituto de Cooperacion para el Desarollo, Madrid, and to the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, for providing me with funds to study in Spain, and to the staff of the many archives and libraries who helped me: Archivo General de la Administracion [AGA], Alcala de Henares, Africa-Guinea (C = Caja; E = Expediente; GG = Gobernador General; Min. = Minister or secretary of state responsible for colonies); School of Oriental and African Studies [SOAS], London, Methodist Missionary Society Archives [MMSA], Primitive Methodist Papers (mf = microfiche); Liverpool City Libraries [LCL], Liverpool, Record Office and Local History Department [380 HOL = John Holt Papers]; Rhodes House [RH], Oxford; Unilever Archives [UA], London; University of Birmingham Library [UBL]; Arquivo Historico Ultramarino [AHU], Lisbon, Segunda Seccao, Sao Tome e Principe (P = Pasta); Arquivo Historico de Sao Tome e Principe [AHSTP], Sao Tome (Cx = Caixa, P = Pasta, M = Maco). Photocopies of a set of documents from the Archivo de la Casa de Guinea (ACG), Barcelona, were kindly sent to me by Professor Gonzalo Sanz Casas. I was refused access to the Catholic Claretian mission archives in Madrid, but valuable extracts are reproduced in Cristobal Fernandez, Misiones y misioneros en la Guinea Espaiiola (Madrid, 1962). 1 I. K. Sundiata, 'The Fernandinos: labour and community in Santa Isabel de Fernando Poo, 1827-1931' (Ph.D. thesis, Northwestern University, 1972); 'Prelude to scandal: Liberia and Fernando Po, 1880-1930', J. Afr. Hist., xv (1974), 97-112; 'Creolization on Fernando Po: the nature of society', in M. L. Kilson and R. I. Rotberg (eds.), The African Diaspora : Interpretive Essays (Cambridge, Mass., 1976), 391-413 ; Equatorial Guinea: Colonialism, State Terror, and the Search for Stability (Boulder, CO, 1990).
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graphic extinction. Carlos Crespo, author of the standard colonial ethnography, makes a passing reference to cocoa cultivation in the 1940s, without indicating when production began.3 Manuel de Teran's brief but excellent geographical survey gives more credit to the Bubi but provides little detail.4 More recent research by Gonzalo Sanz Casas, Teresa Pereira Rodriguez, Donato Ndongo Bidyogo and Max Liniger-Goumaz focuses on the Bubi as victims of land alienation and labour recruitment rather than as successful cash crop producers.5 Early Creole and Bubi prosperity was based on exports of palm oil to Britain, following the British occupation of Clarence (Santa Isabel, Malabo) in 1827.6 While much oil was imported from the mainland for re-export, Bubi also harvested and processed fruit from semi-wild palms on Fernando Poo, with Creole traders acting as middlemen.7 Cocoa was introduced from the neighbouring Portuguese islands in 1836 or 1854, but exports remained tiny for several decades.8 A marked downturn in palm oil prices was affecting Fernando Poo by the late 1880s, coinciding with the onset of a cocoa boom.9 By 1894 the palm oil trade throughout Western Africa was in deep crisis, and cocoa appeared as one of the chief means of salvation for the trading community.10 Experiments with other products on Fernando Poo, notably coffee, met with little success. In 1900 the island exported 1,152 tons of cocoa, 33 tons of palm oil and 16 tons of coffee.11 Twelve years later, 3,994 tons of cocoa accounted for 97 per cent of Fernando Poo's exports by value.12 Spaniards and Creoles both rushed to plant cocoa in the 1880s and 1890s. Spanish settlers were attracted to the island in significant numbers for the first time by the boom, possibly reflecting their greater historical experience of cocoa than of palm oil.13 As for the Creoles, Methodist missionaries complained of falling attendance at church, as members of the congregation Sundiata, 'The Fernandinos', 355. C. Crespo Gil-Delgado (Conde de Castillo-Fiel), Notas para un estudio anlropoldgico y etnoldgico del Bubi de Fernando Poo (Madrid, 1949), 189. 4 M. de Teran, Sintesis geogrdfica de Fernando Poo (Madrid, 1962). 5 G. Sanz Casas, 'Politica colonial y organizacion del trabajo en la isla de Fernando Poo, 1880-1930' (Ph.D. thesis, University of Barcelona, 1983); T. Pereira Rodn'guez, 'El colonialismo espanol en el Golfo de Guinea: aspectos socio-economicos, 1900-1930' (Trabajo de Investigacion, Universidad Nacional de Educacion a Distancia, Madrid, 1989); T. Pereira Rodriguez, 'Aspectos maritimo-comerciales del colonialismo espanol en el Golfo de Guinea, 1900-1930', in V. Morales Lezcano (ed.), Segunda Aula Canarias y el Noroeste de Africa (1986) (Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, 1988); D. Ndongo Bidyogo, Historia y tragedia de Guinea Ecuatorial (Madrid, 1977); M. Liniger-Goumaz, La Guine'e Equatoriale, tin pays meconnu (Paris, 1979); M. Liniger-Goumaz, Small is Not Always Beautiful: The Story of Equatorial Guinea (London, 1988). 6 M. Lynn, 'Commerce, Christianity and the origins of the "Creoles" of Fernando Poo', J. Afr. Hist., xxv (1984), 257-78. 7 LCL, 380 HOL-I, 1/4, T. Holt to J. Holt, 20 Aug. and 6 Nov. 1874. 8 Sundiata, Equatorial Guinea, 24; Teran, Sintesis, 84. 0 O. Baumann, Eine afrikanische Tropen-Insel: Fernando Poo und die Bube [sic] (Vienna and Olmiitz, 1888), 134, 136. 10 UA, United Africa Company Papers, Safe 1, Top shelf right, Box File A, Chairman's speech to the African Association, 28 Feb. 1895. 11 A. Ramos Espinosa de los Monteros, Espana en Africa (Madrid, 1903), 67. 12 Great Britain, Foreign Office, Historical Section, Spatiish Guinea (London, 1919), 13 55. Sanz Casas, 'Politica colonial', 92.
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spent ever more time on their farms. By the turn of the century, cocoa had clearly replaced palm oil as the main interest of the Fernandinos.14 Bubi cultivators participated enthusiastically in the cocoa boom. Catholic missionaries encouraged the planting of cocoa on their mission stations from 1887 at the latest. They extended this strategy to Catholic villages, and by the mid-1890s they were using their expertise in cocoa cultivation as a tactic to win over 'pagans' in traditional settlements.15 Bubi on Methodist mission stations were also busy with their cocoa farms by the early 1900s.16 A Spanish commentator noted in some surprise around 1900 that 'the degenerate Bubi...whom we despise, have their own cocoa plots'. 17 Cocoa cultivators were still said to be inferior in number to gatherers of palm fruit at the end of the 1890s, but Bubi cocoa was being bartered for firearms on a fair scale.18 The authorities, alarmed at the security implications, banned this commerce in 1906.19 In 1909 John Holt & Co reported that the supply of palm oil and kernels was drying up in the north-east of the island 'owing to the increasing attention that Bubies are giving to cocoa growing'.20 Two years earlier, a Catholic missionary in the Concepcion area noted the generosity of Bubi farmers in funding a new church, citing a local saying: 'While there is cocoa there will be money'. 21 Precise information on the distribution of cocoa production among social groups on the eve of the First World War is lacking, but what there is suggests a rough tripartite balance. Governor Angel Barrera, an able and experienced Spanish official, estimated that Bubi cultivators accounted for around one-third of the island's cocoa crop in 1910.22 In the same year, an employee of John Holt & Co thought that the Bubi share in the total might even be somewhat higher.23 Giinter Tessmann, a German anthropologist who carried out detailed fieldwork on the Bubi in 1915-16, repeated the figure of one-third.24 Incidental evidence, considered in more detail below, suggests an approximately even divide between European and Creole planters of the remaining two-thirds.
SOCIAL DISCRIMINATION

The extent of African cocoa production does not in itself reveal whether it might not have been even greater, had it not been for Spanish chauvinism. That there was widespread prejudice against Creoles among settlers and in the 'official mind' cannot be denied. Thus a report by the Council for the Philippines and the Possessions of the Gulf of Guinea in 1894 expressed marked unease at the fact that so many planters in Fernando Poo 'do not profess the Catholic religion, nor speak Spanish, and are not even of pure
Sundiata, ' T h e Fernandinos', 2312; 'Prelude', 97. Fernandez, Misiones, 484-6, 494-6, 544, 549-51, 582, 717. 10 SOAS, MMSA, 1154, mf 199, Banham 'Re Mr Bell's document', c. 1903. 17 Ramos Espinosa, Espaiia, 47, citing Lopez Vilchez, c. 1900. 18 P. Ferrer Piera, Fernando Poo y sus dependencias (description, producciones y estado sanitario) (Barcelona, 1900), 115. 19 AGA, 0-148, E-6, GG to Min., 30 Oct. 1906. 20 LCL, 380 HOL-I, 9/1, Laka letter, 12 May 1909. 21 Fernandez, Misiones, 527. 22 AGA, C-148, E-6, GG to Min, 28 Nov. 1910. 23 LCL, 380 HOL-I, 9/1, Fernando Po letter, 21 Dec. 1910. 24 G. Tessmann, Die Bubi auf Fernando Poo; volkerkundliche Einzelbeschreibung eines westajrikanisches Negerstammes (Darmstadt, 1923), 216.
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European race'. A decade later, a Spaniard waxed indignant that 'the most widespread language is English... and inside all the richest homes are numerous portraits of the king and queen of England'.26 But in 1895 t n e prominent Creole Richard McFoy attacked a Methodist missionary 'for depicting the Fernandinos as smarting under Spanish oppression. Far from suffering, the community was, in McFoy's view, quite satisfied with Spanish justice'. 27 Dictatorial regimes after 1923 adopted more restrictive policies, but it is anachronistic to tar with the same brush the liberal monarchy of earlier decades. As far as nationality is concerned, the British agreed to recognize only about one-tenth of the population of Clarence as British subjects on the eve of effective Spanish occupation in 1858, including a few Britons. The rest of the resident Creole population became Spanish by default.28 Indeed, William Allen Vivour, a wealthy Creole planter born in Sierra Leone, greeted the Austrian explorer Oscar Baumann in North West Bay (San Carlos, Luba) in 1886 as the local representative of the Spanish crown.29 Any Creole born on the island was considered in law to be a Spanish subject, so that the community became increasingly Spanish over time.30 There was some continued immigration from West Africa, but never on a scale to tilt the balance towards British subjects. Discrimination on grounds of nationality appears to have been relatively unimportant, even though Madrid occasionally fulminated against the influence of English culture on the island. In 1903, the government threatened to replace the Claretian Catholics with another missionary order because of their lack of success in 'hispanizing' the colony, but this turned out to be a storm in a tea-cup.31 The influential Chamber of Agriculture, founded in 1906, technically restricted membership to Spanish subjects resident on the island.32 However, the employees of John Holt & Co, some of whom were British West Africans, were told that they could join as 'honourary members'. 33 Nor was there any systematic anti-Protestant policy on the part of the authorities, for all the Methodist complaints. Indeed, the Claretians complained bitterly about free-thinking and masonic officials, said to include about half the governors between 1883 and 1912 and alleged to favour heretics. At the same time, the Claretians recognized that a number of Protestant Creole families had been extremely generous to them.34 Moreover, several leading Creoles were either already Catholic or well 'on the road to Rome' by 1914.35 There was no formal legal distinction on grounds of race until 1928, when 'people of colour' had to obtain a special document to claim equal rights to those of Europeans.36 Indeed, it was specified in 1904 that 'Spaniards of Sanz Casas, 'Politics colonial', 108. AGA, C-144, E-11, J. Coll y Astrell, 'Fernando Poo', 1905. 27 Sundiata, 'The Fernandinos', 324. 28 M. Lozano Serralta, La nacionalidad en los territorios dependientes (Madrid, 1955), 29 Baumann, Eine afrikanische Tropen-Imel, 132-9. 67-8. 30 Sundiata, 'The Fernandinos', 216, discussing the case of William Barleycorn. 31 32 Fernandez, Misiones, 728ft. Pereira Rodriguez, 'Aspectos', 248-9. 33 LCL, 380 HOL-I, 9/1, Fernando Po letter, 21 Sept. 1906. 34 3S Fernandez, Misiones, 675fF. Sundiata, 'The Fernandinos', chs. 6 and 9. 36 Lozano Serralta, La nacionalidad, 68.
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African origin' enjoyed the same rights as other nationals. When the prominent Creole planter Joseph Dougan went to Madrid in 1906 to petition the government of 'the motherland', he described himself as the representative of the 'dark-skinned Spaniards from a little piece of Spain in the Gulf of Guinea'. 38 And Sundiata draws our attention to a missionary report from 1920: When a ball is in progress at the Governor's place, we see how the elite makes merry. The select of both colours will be present, and when the band strikes up the waltz, black and white whirl off together.39 In the 1910s, Spanish authors stressed the eminence of the Creoles, not their decline. Saavedra wrote in 1910 of the 'not inconsiderable number' of well off Creoles in Fernando Poo, who tended to dress better and with more style than the Europeans. He continued, 'A few families... have considerable fortunes which allow them to visit the capital cities of Europe, especially London', and he singled out the Jones, Kinson, Vivour, Barleycorn, Balboa, Collins, Knox and Prince families for special mention.40 His evidence is backed up by Bravo Carbonel, writing seven years later, who noted admiringly the luxurious life styles of the leading Creoles, notably their consumption of the best champagne, cognac, whisky and cigars.41 The legal and social status of the Bubi was ambiguous. In 1868 rights of citizenship were extended to all Africans recognizing Spanish rule, but in practice Bubi villagers continued to be treated as legal minors. In 1888, the metropolitan penal code was made applicable to Christians alone. In 1901 a set of prohibitions was promulgated for 'natives', albeit with no legal definition of the term. 'Natives', still undefined, were placed under the Patronato de Indigenas (Protectorate of Natives) in July 1904. The Claretian Vicar Apostolic presided over this body, which was intended to restrain settler demands on Bubi land and labour. It was not until 1928 that a clear legal distinction was established between 'emancipated' and 'non-emancipated' blacks. Prior to that date, prominent Bubi could choose to be treated as Europeans, as long as they were baptized.42
THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF COCOA MARKETING

The redirection of Fernandian exports away from Britain has been claimed as a possible factor contributing to the economic decline of the Creole community.43 A brief spurt of Spanish activity followed the official occupation of the island in 1858, but it died away without the development of a Spanish stake in the economy. In 1874, Santa Isabel was a free port, there were no fiscal advantages for Fernandian produce entering Spain and the
Pereira Rodriguez, 'El colonialismo', 65. AGA, C-144, E - n , J. Dougan to Min., 29 Apr. 1906. 39 Sundiata, ' T h e Fernandinos', 341. 40 D. Saavedra y Magdalena, Espaiia en el Africa Occidental: Rio de Oro y Guinea (Madrid, 1910), 111-14. 111 J. Bravo Carbonel, Fernando Poo y el Muni; sus misterios y riquesas; su colonizacio'n (Madrid, 1971), 44-7. 42 Lozano Serralta, La nacionalidad, 68; Liniger-Goumaz, La Guine'e, 395, 404. 43 Sundiata, 'The Fernandino', 318-19, 351.
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island's exports went mainly to Britain.44 However, Madrid took a new interest in its neglected possessions in the 1880s, as the Africanista movement swept over Spain. The colonial administration was strengthened, Claretian missionaries developed a solid presence from 1883, and Catalan financial groups called for the protectionist colonial system to be extended to Africa.45 In 1887 the Compania Trasatlantica of Barcelona obtained a subsidy to establish regular steamer connections with Spanish ports in western Africa.46 But Santa Isabel remained a free port, the standard import tariff on Fernandian cocoa entering Spain was maintained and red tape in Barcelona discouraged planters from selling their crop there.47 The turning point came in 1891-2, when duties on Fernandian imports into Spain were abolished.48 Differential export duties were then levied in Fernando Poo from 1894, to encourage the shipping of produce to Spain in Spanish ships.49 Exports to Spain rose fast as the advantages of shipping cocoa to Barcelona became apparent. Spanish steamers sailed more frequently and received subsidies to call at minor ports, limiting the risks and costs of storing and transporting cocoa. An 8 per cent ad valorem duty on exports to foreign destinations from Santa Isabel contrasted with free exports to Spain. Direct imports into Spain of Fernandian cocoa arriving by Spanish vessels were exempt of duty, while heavy import taxes were placed on competing Latin American cocoa. The price paid by Spanish consumers was well above that in Britain, to the advantage of Fernandian producers.50 However, there is no evidence that the diversion of exports to Spain was prejudicial to Creole planters. On the contrary, many of them moved rapidly and effectively to exploit the lucrative new market. A missionary reported in 1900: 'Hardly any of the coloured farmers sell their cocoa in Fernando Po. Nearly all ship [to Barcelona], and ship to advantage. ' 5 1 For foreigners on the island, exporting to Spain yielded the extra bonus of effacing any lingering impression that they might harbour anti-Spanish sentiments.52 Nor was the quality of Creole cocoa worse than that of their Spanish competitors. Indeed, John Holt & Co noted in 1910 that 'some of the best prepared cocoa shipped from here is prepared by Mr Max Jones, and several other black planters'. 53 The Spanish government, buffeted by the consequences of defeat in the war with the United States, imposed a heavy import duty on Fernandian cocoa in 1898, provoking a long and bitter campaign of opposition, in which black and white planters acted in complete unison. The burden of import duties was largely passed on to producers on the island, who were able only AHU, P-507, Governor to Overseas Minister, 30 Apr. 1874. W. G. Clarence-Smith, 'The Portuguese and Spanish roles in the scramble for Africa', in S. Forster et al., (eds.), Bismarck, Europe and Africa : the Berlin West African Conference and the Onset of Partition (Oxford, 1988), 215-27. 46 B. G. Hahs, 'Spain and the scramble for Africa: the " Africanists" and the Gulf of Guinea' (Ph.D. thesis, University of New Mexico, 1980), 278. 47 AGA, C-144, E-11, 'Apuntes', 20 Jun. 1903. 48 AGA, C-682, E-6,? to Min., 26 Apr. 1902. 49 R. M. de Labra [y Cadrana], Nuestras colonias de Africa (Madrid, 1898), 17. so SOAS, MMSA, 1153, mf 182, W. Barleycorn to Mr Smith, 18 Apr. 1896; SOAS, MMSA, 1156, mf 238, Minutes of the Council of Missionaries, San Carlos, 12 Feb. 1900. 51 SOAS, MMSA, 1156, mf 238, T. C. Showell to Mr Burnett, 27 Feb. 1900. 52 SOAS, MMSA, 1156, mf 238, Council of Missionaries, San Carlos, 12 Feb. 1900. 53 LCL, 380 HOL-I, 9/1, Fernando Po letter, 21 Feb. 1910.
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to wring partial concessions from Madrid. The price received by the island's cocoa producers roughly halved between 1902 and 1912, at a time when world cocoa prices were only falling slightly.55 But this nominal price fall on Fernando Poo was in part illusory, reflecting the appreciation of the peseta after a period of rapid depreciation in the late 1890s.56 Fears that the Creoles might sell their cocoa abroad proved groundless. In 1912, nine-tenths of the island's cocoa went to Spain in Spanish bottoms.57 The opinion of 'all the farmers' in 1915 was that Barcelona remained the only practical market.58 High export duties penalized exports to foreign destinations from Santa Isabel, while stiff differentials continued to favour Fernandian over foreign cocoa in Spain. Fernando Poo was even protected from competition by African smallholders in Rio Muni, as Madrid refused to extend tariff preference to the colony on the mainland.59 A quota system introduced in 1911 divided planters along economic lines, but not necessarily along ethnic ones. Up to 2,000 tons a year of Fernandian cocoa could be imported into Spain at a reduced level of duty. Any imports in excess of this quota were forced to pay the higher duty levied on foreign supplies. The quota was revised upwards several times, but it was never sufficient to cover the island's entire crop. Because of the nature of the fiscal year, cocoa had to be stored in Fernando Poo to be sure of entering Spain at the right time. Small planters thus tended to sell their crop to large planters or traders who had storage facilities.60 But a fair number of small planters were Spanish, and several of the large planters were Creoles.61 Moreover, a missionary argued that it made good sense to sell cocoa locally, as it avoided storage costs, long delays in payment and the risk of price fluctuations in Barcelona.62 There is little indication that the Bubi cultivators who sold cocoa locally were being exploited, for competition for their produce was intense. Traders could no longer afford to wait on the beach in 1908 and were sending agents up into the villages to barter for cocoa.63 Bubi cocoa fetched a low price because it was imperfectly fermented and roughly dried over open fires.04 But prices flexibly reflected quality. Thus John Holt & Co noted in 1907: 'This season we shall try to buy the cocoa from the Bubi just as he gets it from his tree. We think to offer them three reales per kilo to allow for loss of weight.>65 Nor was there any problem in finding a market for inferior grades of cocoa in Europe.66
AGA, C-104, E-3 'Exportation de cacao, 1904-1914'. SOAS, MMSA, 1153, mf 185, W. Barleycorn to Mr Guttery, 18 Dec. 1912; UBL, Cadbury Papers, 304, 'Highest cocoa prices paid by Cadbury, 1880-1911 '. 30 E. Escarra, he de'veloppement industriel de la Catalogue (Paris, 1908), 197. 57 Great Britain, Spanish Guinea, 40. 58 SOAS, MMSA, 1157, mf 258, H. M. Cook to General Missionary Committee, June 59 1915. AGA, C-104, E-3, 'Exportacion de cacao, 1904-14'. 00 AGA, C-104, E-3 'Exportacion de cacao, 1904-14'. 01 L. Ramos-Izquierdo y Vivar, Description geogrdfica, gobierno, administration y colonization de las coldnias espanolas del Golfo de Guinea (Madrid, 1912), 205. 62 SOAS, MMSA, 1157, mf 258, 'Cocoa farming', c. 1920. 03 LCL, 380 HOL-I, 9/1, Laka letter, 6 Oct. 1908. 04 Bravo Carbonel, Fernando Poo, 57-8, 123. 05 LCL, 380 HOL-I, 9/1, Fernando Po letter, 9 Apr. 1907. 00 Der Gordian, 1 Mar. 1899, 1,622.
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W.G.CLARENCE-SMITH THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF LAND

Land alienation at first took the form of purchases from Bubi owners, whether chiefs or individuals, although the right to sell land to outsiders was contested and vendors later claimed that they had ceded only temporary usufruct.67 It was thus essential for buyers to obtain official recognition of purchases as freehold, on the payment of the usual fee for land concessions.68 The 1904 land law recognized that there had been abuses and specified that all transfers of land from 'native' to 'non-native' should be authorized in writing.69 But sales continued. In 1910, some Bubi were offering cleared land planted in cocoa to the Methodists at a 'bargain' price of around ten pesetas per hectare.70 The results of this type of land alienation, mainly to Creoles, were presented in a polemical form by a Spanish missionary: The island of Fernando Poo has been taken by the English blacks from Sierra Leone, who settled in Fernando Poo because they saw that there were no constraints to their actions, as though it was a country open to the first settlers. And thus the greatest part of the island is in the hands of these English blacks. They have herded the Bubis, the natives of the island, into the interior of the island, the worst part of all, where they can hardly find the necessary means of subsistence. And these foreign English Blacks possess most of the best coastal soil.71 Baumann and Ferrer Piera argued that the Bubi preferred to cultivate the lands further up the mountains, because they were cooler and relatively free from malaria, and in earlier times had been safe havens from slave raids. 72 While this may have been the case, there is little doubt that the whole island was perceived as belonging the various Bubi chieftaincies, as is shown in a map dating from 1841. 73 A greater area was probably alienated directly by the state. Land 'without an owner' reverted to the crown and could be ceded to corporate entities and individuals, including 'natives' and foreigners. 'Vacant' land was often defined as land not under cultivation at any given time, which ignored the fact that the Bubi rotated their cultivation sites and left them fallow for long periods. T h e land law of 1904 provided for surveys of reserve boundaries, but this was carried out extremely slowly, allegedly for lack of funds. Bubi who cleared small areas in the forest and set up unregistered cocoa plots after 1904 were treated as squatters on public land. 74 Observers noted growing Bubi anger at loss of land. 75 T h e total ceded area rose from some 3,800 hectares in 1891 to around 16,000 in 1914, of which Tessmann, Die Bubi, 47, 178-9. SOAS, MMSA, 1154, mf 199, J. Bell 'Fernando Po Missions', c. 1903. 69 AGA, C-152, E-i, 'Bases para la reorganizacion del registro de la propiedad', 12 July 1926. 70 SOAS, MMSA, 1155, mf 228, Mrs Showers to Rev. Guttery, 6 May 1910. 71 Fernandez, Misiones, 674. The date to which this document refers is uncertain.
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72 Baumann, Eine afrikanische Tropen-Insel, 80, 84, 88, 134; Ferrer Piera, Fernando Poo, 185. 73 John Clarke's map is reproduced in A. Martin del Molino, Los Bubis, ritos y creencios (Madrid and Malabo, 1989), 11. 74 AGA, C-152, E-i,'Bases para la reorganizacion del registro de la propiedad', 12 July 1926. 75 A. Coll, Segunda memoria de las misiones de Fernando Poo y sus dependencias (Madrid, 899), 13; Tessmann, Die Bubi, 235.

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about two-thirds were in cultivation. Major conflicts arose from Bubi claims to the right to harvest oil palms on plantations.77 Some planters cut down disputed palms, occasionally driving Bubi claimants to the extreme step of committing suicide.78 In 1911, Bubi frustration over the land issue spilled over into protest meetings, allegedly organized by mission Africans.79 All the land in the island belonged to the Bubi people, they proclaimed.80 And yet, in 1913 the Compafua Trasatlantica obtained the right to harvest oil palms on crown lands, constituting a further major infringement of what the Bubi saw as their rights.81 Individual Bubi increasingly took out freehold titles, with strong backing from the missions. The Claretians obtained land concessions in their own name and parcelled them out in lots of around two hectares per family. From the 1880s they helped other Bubi, including 'pagans', to register claims to land.82 Legal title to a minimum of one hectare had the added advantage of providing exemption from forced labour.83 In 1909 to 1916, some Bubi were obtaining considerably more than a hectare. One concession of over 18 hectares was registered.84 Bubi were sometimes denied the right to land concessions because they lacked a family name and proof of identity, but Christians could always produce a baptismal certificate.85 Obtaining freehold title led to new forms of expropriation, however, as Bubi farmers mortgaged their plots and could not keep up with payments.86 In 1906, a missionary reported of the Bubi of San Carlos that 'nearly all of them are ensnared in debt and have their plots mortgaged'.87 Creoles owned all their land in freehold and had no problems in getting concessions from the colonial state. The British granted the first concessions around Clarence to 'original settlers' in the late 1820s.88 The Spaniards thought it politic to recognize existing property rights in 1858, as long as there were signs that plots had been cultivated in some way.89 Further concessions to Creoles were made later. Of the land grants listed in 1891, 32 appear to have belonged to Creoles, judging by the names. Vivour was the Fernandino with most land, 202 hectares in all. Only four concessions to Creoles were over 20 hectares in size, and some amounted to less than a hectare.90 In the period 1909 to 1916, land concessions were still being made every year to Fernandinos.91
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77

Sanz Casas, 'Politica colonial', 105, 115, 228.

AGA, C-974, E-25, L. Navarra, 'Consideraciones', 1 Jan. 1888. 78 Tessmann, Die Bubi, 47, 50, 178, 228. 79 AGA, C-2, E-5, GG to Min, 13 Oct. 1911. 80 AGA, C-2, E-5, 'Bando sobre el trabajo de los Bubis', 26 July 1912. 81 RH, Mss. Afr. s 1525, 13/7, Holt to Hueh'n, 13 Feb. 1913. 82 Fernandez, Misiones, 484-5, 526, 582. 83 AGA, C-148, E-6, GG to Min., 15 and 30 Oct. 1910. 84 ACG, 'Relacidn de los terrenos concedidos', 1909-16. 85 AGA, C-152, E-i, 'Bases para la reorganizacion del registro de la propiedad', 12 July 86 1926. SOAS, MMSA, 1157, mf 258, 'Cocoa farming', c. 1920. 87 88 Fernandez; Misiones, 528. Lynn, 'Commerce', 264. 80 AGA, C-152, E-i, 'Bases para la reorganizacion del registro de la propiedad', 12 July 1926. 90 AGA, C-152, E-7, 'Relacion de los Sres. Propietarios en esta Ysla que efectuaron el pago de la contribucion territorial', 1891-2. 01 ACG, 'Relacion de los terrenos concedidos', 1909-16.

l88

W.G.CLARENCE-SMITH

A few Europeans and mestizos obtained estates of up to 600 hectares in the early days of Spanish rule, but the authorities were dismayed at the lack of cultivation on these large properties, which mainly belonged to nonSpaniards.92 After 1868, local authorities on the island were forbidden to grant concessions of over 50 hectares to Spanish subjects or ten hectares to foreigners, a limit raised to 100 hectares for applicants of all nationalities in 1904. Larger concessions had to be authorized in Madrid.93 Spanish immigrants entering the island in the 1880s thus received small concessions, usually around 20 hectares.94 Colonial officials dreamed of 'yeomen farmers', and some even pursued wild fantasies of diverting floods of poor Spanish emigrants to the island.95 Governor Barrera was exceptional in his preference for plantations of between 400 and 1,000 hectares.96 Some concentration of landholding occurred through market mechanisms in the 1900s, but Fernando Poo remained well known for its small estates, contrasting with the situation in neighbouring German and Portuguese colonies.97 Contributing to the small size of farms was the reluctance of metropolitan firms to invest in plantations before the 1920s. Large Spanish companies seem to have found it relatively easy to persuade the authorities in Madrid to grant them major estates, but only a handful of Catalan concerns already involved in the cocoa economy in some way bothered to set up plantations. The Compania Trasatlantica shipping company owned 400 hectares by 1891.98 The Rius y Torres company of Barcelona extended its shipping services to Fernando Poo towards the end of the 1890s and bought some 300 hectares.99 La Vigatana de Fernando Poo, founded by a Catalan trading house in the 1890s, owned a 200-hectare estate in 1900.10t) The Casa Hueh'n, Barcelona cocoa brokers, joined with a Basque capitalist to set up the Compania Colonial de Fernando Poo in the 1890s.101 But these were isolated instances, far removed from the concerted land grabbing by a handful of interlinked German firms around Mount Cameroun.102 Sundiata argues that Creoles lost land to Europeans from around the turn of the century, in large part because of their poor knowledge of the Spanish language and legal system.103 Cases of Creoles losing mortgaged land to creditors were certainly common, and frequent complaints on this score were directed to consular authorities by British subjects. Sundiata cites the vivid
92

AGA, C-I52, E-7, 'NotaremitidaaS. M. elRey', 1911; AGA, C-152, E-i, 'Bases para la reorganization del registro de la propiedad', 12 July 1926. 94 Gaceta de Madrid, 17 Sept. 1891, 915-16. 95 Ramos-Izquierdo, Description, 210-12. 90 Sundiata, 'The Fernandinos', 294, citing 1913 a British Foreign Office document. 97 J. von Puttkamer, Gouverneursjahre in Kamerun (Berlin, 1912), 249. 98 AGA, C-152, E-7, 'Relacion de los Sres. Propietarios en esta Ysla que efectuaron el pago de la contribucion territorial', 1891-2. 99 F. Quintana Navarro, Barcos, negocios y burgueses en el Puerto de la Luz, 1883-1913 (Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, 1985), 112 and n. 94; AGA, C-144, E-i 1, J. Coll y Astrell 10 article, 1905. AGA, C-144, E - n , J. Coll y Astrell, 'Fernando Poo', 1905. 101 p e r r e r Piera, Fernando Poo, 196. 102 W. G. Clarence-Smith, 'Plantation versus smallholder production of cocoa: the legacy of the German period in Cameroun', in P. Geschiere and P. Konings (eds.), Itine'raires d'accumulation au Cameroun (Paris, 1993), 187-216. 103 Sundiata, Equatorial Guinea, 36.

93

AGA, C-794, E-25, L. Navarra, 'Consideraciones', 1 Jan. 1888.

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189

petition of Joseph Emmanuel Taylor, a native of New Calabar, written in broken English: I have properties here which are taking from me by force by the Judge of Fernando Poo, and give to his countryman, for which reason I cannot tell. And the Judge stated to me that I being an English Subject, I am not worthy of having such properties. Taylor had contracted a 16,000-peseta mortgage with the Ambas Bay Company, which had sold the debt to a Spaniard. Taylor said that he had repaid the sum owed but was not allowed to present evidence to that effect.104 But the Spanish authorities showed a deep dislike of 'usury', and they frequently made it difficult for creditors to foreclose. John Holt & Co complained that Spanish judges reduced 10 per cent interest rates to 5 or 6 per cent, on the grounds that the higher rate was illegal.105 Moreover, red tape and lack of qualified lawyers made it difficult to foreclose, so that proceedings could drag on for years.106 The evidence for other forms of loss of land by Creoles is fragmentary. One official was said to have abused his position to acquire a Fernandino farm at a dishonestly low price.107 But this allegation was put forward by Catholic missionaries as part of an intense polemic, and it was an isolated case.108 Sundiata further suggests that Creoles were unfairly targeted in the confiscation of land for lack of cultivation, citing a number of examples from 1915.100 However, Spaniards were also adversely affected by such stipulations.110 In 1904, a land commission was set up to look into land claims, but there is no evidence that the chaos in the land registers was used against Creoles.111 A conflict between John Holt & Co and one of the Barleycorn family in 1905, arising from the commission's activities, was settled amicably.112 Most important of all, people of all races both lost and gained land through indebtedness in the difficult decade of the 1900s. British trading companies, accused of engrossing the most land, foreclosed impartially on blacks and whites and usually sold the land again as fast as they could.113 Small Spanish planters as well as small Creoles were among those who lost land through debt.114 The complexities of the issue are illustrated by the case of the 300hectare Bococo estate in the San Carlos region, developed by Francisco Romera, a former Spanish naval officer.115 By 1905 Romera had gone bankrupt and the property belonged to Barcelona cocoa brokers, the Casa Hueh'n.116 A year later the estate had passed into the hands of a leading Creole, Max Jones, who offered it for sale to John Holt & Co.117 In 1910,
104
105 100
107 108

Sundiata, 'The Fernandinos', 255.

LCL, 380 HOL-I, 9/1, Fernando Po letter, 1 Mar. 1909 and 21 Jan. 1910. LCL, 380 HOL-I, 9/1, Fernando Po letter, 7 Oct. 1910.
Sundiata, ' T h e Fernandinos', 250, and ' P r e l u d e ' , 100-1. 109 Fernandez, Misiones, 739-40. Sundiata, ' T h e Fernandinos', 296-7.

110 111 112 113 114 116 117

AGA, C-66o, E-10, F. Romera and J. Coll y Astrell to Min., 7 Nov. 1903. Sanz Casas, 'Politica colonial', 108-10. LCL, 380 HOL-I, 9/1, Fernando Po letter, 24 Dec. 1905. LCL, 380 HOL-I, 9/1, Fernando Po letter, 11 Sept. 1910, and 7 Oct. 1910. 115 Ramos-Izquierdo, Description, 205. Ferrer Piera, Fernando Poo, 52. AGA, C-144, E-11, J. Coll y Astrell, 'Fernando Poo', 1905. LCL, 380 HOL-I, 9/1, J. Cottrell to J. Holt, 31 Oct. 1906.

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W.G.CLARENCE-SMITH

Max Jones was the co-owner of Bococco with the British trader Francis Wilson.118 Jones further consolidated his lands in San Carlos by foreclosing on the plots of small Bubi farmers who had become hopelessly indebted to him.119 The career of Max Jones runs contrary to the thesis of Creole decline. Although his father was a Protestant, Jones was sent to study with the Jesuits in Spain. Returning to Fernando Poo in 1887, he worked as a carpenter before setting up his own workshop. He dominated cocoa farming in the San Carlos area by the mid-1890s, set up a printing shop in Santa Isabel and owned the first electricity generator in the town in 1925. Always careful to keep on the right side of the Spanish government and planters, Jones declared in 1911 in a local paper: 'We, agriculturalists and merchants, Spaniards and Fernandinos, all united in a fraternal embrace, once again make clear our most sincere allegiance to the high authority of this colony...'. He retired to Spain, where his seven sons were educated. Although he appears to have remained a Protestant, he was a generous benefactor of the Catholics, and some of his descendants converted.120 The family, its name pronounced 'Hdnness', is prominent in Equatorial Guinean politics today. Max Jones was the most successful Creole landowner of his day, but he was not unique. Some 500 hectares, or around 15 per cent of the total ceded area, were in Creole hands in 1891. William Vivour was the largest landowner, with 202 hectares.121 A very incomplete survey from 1900 showed that Amelia Barleycorn Vivour, William Vivour's widow, owned 400 hectares, while Daniel Kinson had amassed some 300 hectares in separate plots. Max Jones, Samuel Prince, James McFoy and Jeremy Barleycorn were the other chief Creole landowners.122 Between 1909 and 1916, the name of Max Jones crops up most frequently among the Creoles obtaining fresh land concessions, but there are numerous references to other leading Creole families, notably Davis, Barleycorn, Vivour, Kinson, Dougan, Balboa, Knox, Barber, Coker and Collins. Other names on the lists which probably refer to members of the Creole community are Wright, Smith, Harris, Watson, Williams, Niger, Johnson, James, Robinson, Cowan and Tray.123 If some Creoles were losing land, others were still accumulating it. A map which can be dated from internal evidence at around 1913 shows a roughly even mix of Spanish and English names for the owners of estates.124
118 Adolf Friedrich Duke of Meckleburg, From the Congo to the Niger and the Nile (London, 1913), vol. 2, chapter by J. Mildbraed, 251. 119 SOAS, MMSA, 1157, mf 258, 'Cocoa farming', c. 1920. 120 Sundiata, ' T h e Fernandinos', 344-7; Liniger-Goumaz, La Guine'e, 266-8; R. Pelissier, 'Fernando Poo un archipel hispano-guineen', Revue Franfaise a"Etudes Politiques Africaines, xxxm (1968), 95-6. 121 AGA, C-152, E-7, 'Relacion de los Sres. Propietarios en esta Ysla que efectuaron el pago de la contribucidn territorial', 1891-1892 122 A. Moreno Moreno, Reseiia historica de la presentia de Espana en el golf0 de guinea (Madrid, 1952), 85, n. 118. 123 ACG, 'Relacion de los terrenos concedidos', 1909-16. 124 Enciclopedia Universal Ilustrada Europeo-Americana 23, 835. The volume was published at some time in the 1920s, but the railway on the map serves to date it.

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Santa Isabel (Clarence) Estates assumed to be in European hands Estates assumed to be in Creole hands Reserves Pastoral Abandoned estates Roads Proposed road Rivers

10 km Map. Land distribution between social categories, 1941.

192

W.G.CLARENCE-SMITH ACCESS TO LABOUR

Creoles and Europeans both had access to servile and semi-servile labour in the early years of the cocoa boom. Creoles first obtained freed slaves introduced by the British from the late 1820s, and during the 1880s and 1890s they went on frequent trips to West Africa to obtain fresh workers.125 Many labourers sent to 'Nanny Po' from Sierra Leone and Liberia at this time were sold as slaves, while others were former slaves.126 Spaniards also imported freed slaves from Cuba, after formally abolishing slavery in their African possessions in 1859.127 Slaves who escaped from the neighbouring Portuguese islands of Principe and Sao Tome were frequently handed over to local employers.128 An organized syndicate clandestinely importing de facto slaves from the Portuguese islands developed in the 1900s.129 Perhaps because of their servile origins, such labourers tended to remain on the island as a permanent labour force.130 Some of the former slaves from the Portuguese islands became small landowners.131 There were no signs of friction between Creoles and Europeans over labour supplies in the period up to 1900. The government twice forced planters to hand over workers without compensation for official purposes in the 1890s, leading private employers of all origins to unite in protest.132 When the British closed their possessions to recruiters from Fernando Poo in 1900, after a strike by labourers from western Nigeria, Creole and European planters joined together to sign a harshly worded protest, lambasting the government for mishandling the crisis.133 In 1901 the Curadoria Colonial (colonial labour bureau) was established to oversee imports and inspect plantations, and John Holt complained three years later that the Curadoria was a weapon for the administration to favour its own people, a modern version of the infamous repartimiento system of Spanish America.134 However, the Curadoria stressed that its only criterion in distributing contract labour from Liberia and Ri'o Muni was whether planters were able to look after their workers.135 In 1903, a group of traders and planters protested at labour recruitment monopolies in Liberia and Rio Muni, but the complaint was that these arrangements favoured a small clique and penalized all other employers, black and white.136 When ten planters negotiated a private labour agreement with the Liberian government in 1905,
Sundiata, 'The Fernandinos', 45-70, 238. S. Holsoe, 'Slavery and economic change among the Vai', in S. Miers and I. Kopytoff (eds.), Slavery in Africa : Historical and Anthropological Perspectives (Madison, '977). 2 97~8; A. Phillips, The Enigma of Colonialism: British Policy in West Africa l27 Sanz Casas, 'Politica colonial', 53-4. (London, 1989), 34-6. 128 AGA, C-675, E-23, Delegado de Gobernacion to Min., 11 May 1879. 129 AHSTP, i-a-A, Cx-430, P-2, A. Barrera, 16 Nov. 1910, and other documents. 130 SOAS, MMSA, 1157, mf 258, 'Cocoa farming', c. 1920. 131 ACG, 'Relacion de los terrenos concedidos', 1909-16 132 SOAS, MMSA, 1155, mf 225, F. Pickering and W. Barleycorn to General Missionary Committee, 11 July 1892; LCL, 380 HOL-I, 1/8, R. Holt to J. Holt, 15 Dec. 1899. 133 AGA, C-219, E-2, GG to Min., 15 June 1900. 134 Sundiata, 'The Fernandinos', 245, n. 3. 135 AGA, C-148, E-7, GG to Min., 31 July 1913, and 31 Aug. 1913. 136 Sanz Casas, 'Politica colonial', 239.
126 125

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the group included four of the island's leading Creole planters. It was specifically stated that there would be no discrimination against any employer in the distribution of labour, save that the first eighty men would be reserved for those who had financed the expedition.137 The Spanish authorities mounted 'pacification' operations in Rio Muni in the early 1910s and supplied the planters of Fernando Poo with 'rebels' as forced labourers, but there is no indication of favouritism in the distribution of workers.138 British traders specialized in importing labourers in bulk through the Curadoria and hiring them out to small planters. But as John Holt & Co put it in the case of one Creole woman: 'We only made 10 pesetas per month profit on these boys, but we did not lend them for the sake of profit, but to get cacao and do her business.>139 Employers were spared the costs, risks and bureaucratic complications of direct imports, and they could lay off workers in slack periods. Moreover, customers included Spaniards as well as Creoles, so that it is impossible to equate small planters with Fernandinos.140 In addition to imported contract labour, some Bubi worked freely on estates. Baumann mentioned this as early as 1886, and by 1900 the majority of workers in the frontier plantations of San Carlos were Bubi.141 They came on their own terms, as day labourers or to do piece work, and they hired themselves out to both Creoles and Europeans.142 The missionaries alleged that they were attracted by the availability of strong alcohol.143 Occasionally, they acted as labour tenants.144 Planters complained that they were an unstable labour force, prone to disappearing suddenly back to their villages.145 Moreover, they were few in number and they disliked the poor working conditions on plantations.146 Most of them preferred to meet their cash needs by selling crops, small stock or products of hunting and gathering. 'Pagan' Bubi were ostracized by their families if they worked for outsiders, so plantation labour was said to be restricted to Christians.147 When the authorities finally imposed forced plantation labour on the Bubi, it was certainly not to the exclusive advantage of Spaniards. In 1906 Governor Saavedra went to the residence of the Bubi paramount chief in Moka and insisted that chiefs should provide labour for planters. As workers were not forthcoming, two leading Creole planters, Daniel Kinson and Manuel Balboa, led militia expeditions to round people up and oblige them to sign three-year contracts. Up to 1,800 Bubi, including some free labourers, were working on Creole and European estates by the end of the year.148 But
AGA, C-148, E-7, 'Convenio', 24 Aug. 1905. Sanz Casas, 'Politica colonia', 224. 139 LCL, 380 HOL-I, 9/1, Fernando Po letter, 25 Sept. 1906. u0 AGA, C-148, E-7, GG to Min., 31 July 1913, and 31 Aug. 1913. 141 Baumann, Eine afrikanische Tropen-Insel, 9, 38; AGA, C-219, E-z, GG to Min., 25 Feb. 1900. 142 SOAS, MMSA, 1153, mf 183, W. Barleycorn to Mr Burnett, 21 Sept. 1900; AGA 0-148, E-6, GG to Min, 28 Nov. 1910. 143 SOAS, MMSA, 1154, mf 199, Banham, 4 May 1903. 144 Ramos Espinosa, Espaiia, 49. 146 M. Kingsley, Travels in West Africa (London, 1982 [4th ed]), 62; LCL, 380 HOLI, 9/1, Laka letter, 13 July 1906. 14G SOAS, MMSA, PM 1157, mf 256-7, Sta. Isabel Council, 9-10 Nov. 1916. 147 Tessmann, Die Bubi, 216-17, 236-7. 148 AGA, C-148, E-6, GG to Min., 15 Sept. 1906, 1 Oct. 1906, and 13 Dec. 1906.
138 137

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- CLARENCE-SMITH

they did as little as they could, and the new interim governor confessed himself unhappy with this procedure.149 A less arbitrary system of forced plantation labour was introduced, but it collapsed after three years. In 1907 Bubi were ordered to present themselves under their chiefs for three months paid work during the main cocoa harvest from September to November, or to work unpaid for forty days on public works. Exemptions were granted to those who owned a hectare of land in cash crops, cultivated four hectares of communal land in cash crops, or worked for wages. In 1908, those eligible were ordered to turn out for a further three months, from March to May, to prune and weed the plantations.150 In 1910 a Bubi chief in the San Carlos area refused to comply with these demands and was killed after minor skirmishes.151 A series of Bubi protest meetings followed, and Madrid decided in 1911 that coercing labour for the benefit of private employers was a violation of the law.152 The revolt of 1910 effectively marked the end of forced labour demands from the Bubi.153 Prominent Bubi cultivators had little difficulty in obtaining workers. They were reported to be employing contract labour as early as 1900, although it is not clear whether these were fellow Bubi or foreign Africans.154 Agricultural corvee labour was performed for chiefs, and men worked for other people to accumulate marriage payments.155 Bubi with insufficient land tilled the fields of their wealthier countrymen.156 Domestic slaves and pawns were generated by debt or judicial sentence, although they could not be sold.157 But the most common situation for Bubi cocoa farmers was to rely on family labour for most tasks and to collaborate with neighbours when extra labour was required.158 The numerous workers who ran away from plantations were a potential source of labour for Bubi villagers, but relations were strained by conflicts, especially over women.159

ACCESS TO CREDIT

For the aspiring Spanish planter who walked off a steamer with little to his name, credit was essential.160 A planter obtaining 50 hectares of forest and borrowing at 5 per cent in 1906 would incur losses in the first four years, break even in terms of current expenditure in the sixth year, and begin to make an overall profit in the thirteenth year. Land and working capital were
LCL, 380 HOL-I, 9/1, Fernando Po letter, 21 Oct. 1906 and 21 Nov. 1906. Ramos-Izquierdo, Description, 264-6, 274-5. 151 SOAS, MMSA, 1154, mf 201, J. Bell to Mr Guttery, 24 and 25 July 1910. 152 AGA, C-2, E-5, 'Bando sobre el trabajo de los Bubis', 26 July 1912. 153 Tessmann, Die Bubi, 217. 154 AGA, C-219, E-2, GG to Min., 25 Feb. 1900; SOAS, MMSA, 1157, mf 258, 'Cocoa farming', c. 1920. 155 Tessmann, Die Bubi, 174-6, 216; Crespo Gil-Delgado, Notas, 154-6. 156 SOAS, MMSA, 1157, mf 256, Sta. Isabel Council, 9-10 Nov. 1916. 157 Baumann, Eine afrikanische Tropen-Insel, 101; Kingsley, Travels, 70; Teran, Sintesis, 50; Crespo Gil-Delgado, Notas, 151, 160-1. 158 SOAS, MMSA, 1157, mf 257, T. Stoner to Quarterly Committee, c. 1919. 159 AGA, C-148, E-6, GG to Min., 15 Oct. 1910. 160 AGA, C-660, E-10, F.Romera and J. Coll y Astrell to Min., 7 Nov. 1903.
150 149

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the key requirements, as fixed capital was limited to buildings and boats.161 But these calculations were based on the legal maximum rate of interest, whereas the real rate was likely to be 10 per cent or over.162 Not surprisingly, Spanish immigrants usually began by accumulating capital through trading ventures.163 Creoles and Bubi had less need to borrow. Creoles accumulated start-up capital through artisanal activities and trade, and many made windfall profits during the boom years of 1890s, when cocoa prices were high and land and labour prices low.164 Bubi cultivators could obtain land and labour at no monetary cost and at a low opportunity cost. However, the rapid development of Bubi cocoa cultivation on Catholic mission stations was fuelled by a mixture of gifts and advances from the mission.165 Some Bubi may also have accumulated funds through trade, as a Methodist report in 1916 noted that a few enterprising Christians were acting as 'middle men between their country men and the merchants', by buying cocoa for the latter.166 Funds were borrowed for non-productive purposes, but suggestions that Africans were more likely to waste capital than Europeans are suspect. Sundiata portrays profligacy as the major Creole weakness.167 He echoes Mary Kingsley's verdict that the Creoles spent 'most of their money in the giddy whirl' of Santa Isabel.168 But this does not fit with Baumann's intimate and detailed portrait of Vivour as an archetypal miser, saving every penny.169 The Bubi first became accustomed to receiving advances during the palm oil trade.170 When they turned to cocoa, some of them borrowed excessively in order to build European houses.171 But Catholic missionaries reported that others obtained credit in order to expand cultivation.172 A British observer in 1906 took the impartial position that people of all colours were guilty of wasting money on useless luxuries.173 There is no evidence of racial discrimination on the part of lenders. British merchant houses were the major source of agricultural credit on the island. John Holt & Co provided not only loans but also labourers, transport and accountancy services, and threw in 'any little matter free of charge'.174 Creoles were certainly prominent among those owing money to British companies, but there is no indication in the Holt papers that the company differentiated among potential customers on grounds of colour or nationality. Spanish cocoa brokers began to make loans in the 1890s, taking payment in cocoa in Barcelona.175 The largest of these firms, the Casa Hueh'n, was
161 102 103 104 103 166

AGA, C-104, E-3, F. Sabater, 'Ensayo', 1906. LCL, 380 HOL-I, 9/1, Fernando Po letter, 21 Jan. 1910. Sanz Casas, 'Politica colonial', 143-4. Sundiata, 'The Fernandinos', 199-203, for biographical details. Fernandez, Misiones, 643, 648. SOAS, MMSA, 1153, mf 185, W. Barleycorn, 'Banni Mission account', December Sundiata, 'The Fernandinos', 253-4, 2 93 (n- 2)> 343; a n d 'Creolization', 407-8. 1G9 Kingsley, Travels, 72. Baumann, Eine afrikanische Tropen-Insel, 132-9. RH, Ms. Afr. s 1525, 13/3, M. Gardner to J. Holt, 17 Feb. 1877. SOAS, MMSA, 1157, mf 258, 'Cocoa farming', c. 1920. Fernandez, Misiones, 528, 643, 648. LCL, 380 HOL-I, 9/1, J. Cottrell to J. Holt & Co, 31 Oct. 1906. LCL, 380 HOL-I, 9/1, Fernando Po letter, 25 Sept. 1906. AGA, C-104, E-3, GG to Min., 17 Mar. 1913.

1916.
167 168 170 171 172 173 174 175

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W.G.CLARENCE-SMITH

described in 1900 as the broker 'of the two English Houses here, and also of nearly all the Spanish and Coloured traders'. 176 The Casa Hueh'n advanced loans to all and sundry, and a sample break-down in 1906 showed only a slight majority of Spaniards among its debtors.177 Large planters were another source of credit, but wealthy Creoles were among the creditors and small Spanish planters among the debtors.178 The fact that the first bank on the island was British may have proved a slight advantage for Creoles. The Casa Hueh'n toyed with the idea of setting up a bank in 1899.179 But the British ban on labour recruitment led Spanish creditors to call in their debts the following year.180 The governor sometimes borrowed funds from the agency of the Banco Nacional Ultramarino in the neighbouring Portuguese colony, an option which does not seem to have been open to individual planters.181 However, the Portuguese bank served as a model of what could be done, and an official delegation was sent to Sao Tome in 1909 to study its operations.182 This followed the Bank of British West Africa's decision to open an agency in Fernando Poo.183 In 1910, the Spanish parliament voted a profit guarantee of 5 per cent a year for a Spanish bank on the island, leading eventually to the foundation of the Banco Colonial Espanol del Golfo de Guinea in 1916. But the bank collapsed when the deputies had second thoughts about the profit guarantee.184

E P I L O G U E : THE INTER-WAR YEARS

The thesis of Creole decline becomes more plausible for the late 1920s, partly because of patterns of immigration. In 1885, there were said to be 1,284 moradores (settlers) on the island, of whom 1,083 were black, 170 white and 31 mulatto.185 Catholic mission statistics for 1910 showed that there were in Santa Isabel, excluding labourers and servants, 982 morenos (blacks) and 206 whites, which probably included people of mixed race. The majority of the morenos were ' Sierra Leonean' planters, at a time when most planters resident on the island lived in Santa Isabel.186 Whatever the problems involved in interpreting these figures, they seem to show that the ethnic composition of the planter class changed relatively little between 1885 and 1910. But the balance shifted quickly after the First World War. Official figures showed 655 whites in Fernando Poo in 1923, 1,113 in 1932 and 3,319 in 1942.187 At the same time, immigration from West Africa dried up and may even have given way to emigration. All in all, the Creole community on Fernando Poo is said never to have exceeded 1,500 persons.188 SOAS, MMSA, 1156, mf 238, Council of Missionaries, San Carlos, 12 Feb. 1900. LCL, 380 HOL-I, 9/1 (Sundries), Hueh'n letter, 9 Sept. 1906. 178 AGA, C-IO4, E-3, GG to Min., 17 Mar. 1913. 170 LCL, 380 HOL-I, 9/1, 'Interview with Mr Maysmore', 13 June 1899. 180 Sanz Casas, 'Politica colonial', 168. 181 Banco Nacional Ultramarino, Relatdrios (Lisbon, 1890), 283. 182 AHU, P-531, Governor to Overseas Minister, 31 Jan. 1909. 183 R. Fry, Bankers in West Africa : The Story of the Bank of British West Africa Limited (London, 1976), 62. The date is given as between 1905 and 1909. 184 185 Bravo Carbonel, Fernando Poo, 270-1. Ramos Espinosa, Espaiia, 75. 180 Fernandez, Misiones, 598-9. 187 Sans Casas, 'Politica colonial', 33 (1923 whites only census); Direccion General de Marruecos y Colonias, Resumen estadi'stico de Africa Espaiiola (Madrid, 1954), 413-14. 188 Sundiata, 'Creolization', 393.
177 176

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Changes in the organization of firms were also important, as A. G. Hopkins has argued for Lagos.189 The pioneer founders of several major Spanish companies arrived on the island from the mid-1900s, but land grants to Europeans in the period 1909 to 1916 were still quite small. The largest concession was 202 hectares to the Compani'a Trasatlantica in 1911 in five separate blocks.180 It was not until the mid-1920s that most of the joint-stock companies which dominated plantation agriculture up to independence were founded, and that really large concessions began to be authorized.191 Creoles eschewed the formation of such companies, and they suffered from the steady fragmentation of their estates through inheritance.192 Second-generation Fernandinos tended to drift out of agriculture and into the professions, probably suffering from a common inability of children to replicate the entrepreneurial success of their parents.193 This said, the extent of Creole decline in the inter-war years should not be exaggerated. Sundiata refers to statistics for 1920 which seem to indicate that Creoles were already producing far less cocoa than Europeans.194 But the high figure for the Ambas Bay Trading Company shows that these must be export and not production figures, for the company owned little land and mainly purchased cocoa from other producers.195 In 1923, one of the three delegates sent to Barcelona to negotiate with cocoa brokers was the leading Fernandino Joseph Dougan.196 Similarly, Edward Barleycorn was one of the two delegates sent to Liberia by the planters to deal with labour questions in 1927.197 The subdivision of land through inheritance may have caused a fall in the average amount of property per head, but it did not of itself reduce the total amount of land owned by the community. Concessions were frozen at 39,000 hectares in 1930, of which 21,000 were in the hands of Europeans and 18,000 (46 per cent) in the hands of African, including both Creoles and Bubi.198 A detailed map from a company report written in 1941 suggests that about a sixth of the medium and large estates were still in the hands of Creoles. The author of this report comments further:
The Sierra Leoneans, although few in number today, form a minority which has long been hispanized. They constitute a kind of indigenous aristocracy in the capital city, a position which they have acquired through their great spirit of entrepreneurship, hard work and intelligence.199

Bubi smallholders also lost ground in relative terms, but they continued to be significant cocoa producers. In 1940 there were on Fernando Poo 1,766 fincas indtgenas (native plots), defined as covering less than 20 hectares. They totalled 9,811 hectares, of which a little over half were ceded with title and
189 A.G.Hopkins, 'Richard Beale Blaize, 1854-1904, merchant prince of West Africa', Tarikh, 1 (1966), 77-8. 1B0 ACG, 'Relacion de los terrenos concedidos', 1909-16. 191 Liniger-Goumaz, La Guine'e, entries for companies. 102 J. Nosti Nava, Agricultura de Guinea, promesa para Espafia (Madrid, 1948), 18. 103 Sundiata, 'The Fernandinos', 349, 354. 184 Sundiata, 'The Fernandinos', 314, citing La Voz de Fernando Poo, 1921. 105 LCL, 380 HOL-I, 9/1, Fernando Po letter, 24 Aug. 1906; Moreno, Reseiia, 85 n.

118.

J. Bravo Carbonel, Guinea Espaiiola, los mil miliones de pesetas anuales (Madrid, 197 1926), 108-9. Sundiata, 'Creolization', 397. 108 Sundiata, 'Prelude to scandal', m . 100 Anon.,' Viaje a las posesiones Espanolas del Golfo de Guinea, Abril-Septiembre de 1941' (typescript in my possession), 80-1, 88-92, and map.

100

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tons

W.G.CLARENCE-SMITH

produced 1,629 of cocoa. 'Native cocoa' thus represented 11 per cent of exports.200 This was well down on the third of exports achieved by the Bubi in the 1910s, but it was roughly the same in terms of overall tonnage. Flourishing co-operatives developed, and a few Bubi moved into the planter elite.201 Bubi society was also changing in a manner which prepared the way for rapid economic advance after the Second World War. Crespo described them in the 1940s as a strongly 'creolized' population, uninterested in their past culture and history. They all spoke Spanish, three-quarters of them could read and write the language, nearly all of them were baptized Christians and nine-tenths of marriages were celebrated in church.202 The barriers between Bubi and Fernandino were breaking down.
CONCLUSION

The roughly tripartite equilibrium in cocoa output achieved by the early 1910s between Bubi, Creoles and Europeans in Fernando Poo seems at first sight to be unique. It stands in sharp contrast to the situation described for the other main centres of African cocoa cultivation at the time. European planters are seen as having been dominant in the Portuguese, German, French and Belgian colonies.203 In the British territories of the Gold Coast and Nigeria, in contrast, production has been represented as being firmly in the hands of indigenous smallholders.204 The example of Fernando Poo indicates that one should scrutinize the received wisdom with care, stressing in particular the pioneering role played by Creoles in the development of cocoa production in western Africa as a whole. For Nigeria, this has already been well established.205 Similar tendencies were apparent in the Gold Coast, but they have been obscured by the attachment of the ethnic label of Ga to people who were strongly 'creolized', in both economic and social terms. William Solomon, D. P. Hammond and the famous Tetteh Quashie himself, the mythical pioneer of cocoa cultivation in the Gold Coast, were prominent examples.208 In
200 Anon., ' Viaje', 100; Sanz Casas, 'Politica colonial', 117; J. L. Barceld, Perspectivas econdtnicas del Africa Ecuatorial Espaiiola (Madrid, 1947), 34. 201 Liniger-Goumaz, La Guine'e, 85-8, 134-5; Pelissier, 'Fernando Poo', 99. 202 Crespo Gil-Delgado, Notas, 191-2. 203 ly Hodges and M. Nevvitt, Sao Tome and Principe from Plantation Colony to Microstate (Boulder, 1988), ch. 2; Companhia de Cabinda, Breve historia da Companhia de Cabinda, igoj-igy3 (Lisbon, 1973); M. Michel, ' Les plantations allemandes du Mont Cameroun 1885-1914', Revue Frangaise d'Histoire d'Outre-Mer, LXII (1969), 183-213; C. Chalot and M. Luc, Le cacaoyer au Congo Franfais (Paris, 1906); J. Claessens, 'Note relative a la culture du cacaoyer au Mayumbe (Congo Beige)', Bulletin Agricole du Congo Beige, v (1914), 214-46. 204 P. Hill, The Migrant Cocoa Farmers of Southern Ghana: A Study in Rural Capitalism (Cambridge, 1963); S. Berry, Cocoa, Custom and Socio-Economic Change in Rural Western Nigeria (Oxford, 1975). 205 A.G.Hopkins, 'Innovation in a colonial context: Nigerian cocoa farming 1880-1920', in C. Devvey and A. G. Hopkins (eds.), The Imperial Impact: Studies in the Economic History of Africa and India (London, 1978), 83-96; J. Peel Ijeshas and Nigerians: The Incorporation of a Yoruba Kingdom, i8gos-igyos (Cambridge, 1983), ch. 7; J. B. Webster, 'The Bible and the plough', Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria, xi (1963), 418-34. 206 Hill, Migrant Cocoa-Farmers, 26, 172-3, 221-2, 225, 238-40.

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199

Cameroun, a similar reluctance to acknowledge the 'creolized' nature of the Duala people has led scholars to underestimate the Creole contribution to the spread of cocoa cultivation.207 In Sao Tome, small Creole farmers produced around two-thirds of the island's cocoa by weight in 1893, ar>d ' n 1908 they still accounted for 15 per cent in Sao Tome and 19 per cent in Principe.208 From a wider perspective, the example of Fernando Poo challenges the idea that Creoles were in general economic and social decline from around the 1890s.209 Creoles were perhaps obtaining a shrinking slice of a very rapidly expanding economic cake, rather than losing out in absolute terms. Moreover, this may have been linked to a demographic phenomenon, that is the inability of the Creoles to expand their numbers significantly. A reexamination of the economic position of Creoles and 'creolized' Africans in the whole of western Africa during the period of formal colonialism is overdue.
SUMMARY

The decline of the Creole or Fernandino planters of Fernando Poo came later and was less severe than has sometimes been said, while the indigenous Bubi inhabitants played a far greater role in the development of the cocoa economy than has usually been acknowledged. Social discrimination against Creoles and Bubi was of little significance. The re-direction of Fernandian exports to Spain from the 1890s had no negative effect on African producers, and Creoles and Spaniards united to fight tariff policies detrimental to their interests. Bubi suffered severely from land alienation, but they kept sufficient land to be able to participate fully in the cocoa boom. Creoles lost land through debt, but so did Spaniards. The beneficiaries of land transfers were black as well as white, and a map from around 1913 shows a roughly even mix of Spanish and Creole landowners. Black and white planters were united in every aspect of labour which involved relations with the authorities. Attempts to force poor Bubi into plantation labour collapsed quickly, and wealthy Bubi cultivators had little difficulty in finding labour to employ. Access to credit was equal for all landowners, and the evidence for Africans being more spendthift than Europeans is of dubious validity. The thesis of African decline becomes more plausible from the mid-1920s, due to Spanish immigration, the formation of joint-stock companies, and accentuated social discrimination, but the extent of that decline remains to be determined. The roughly tripartite equilibrium between Bubi, Creole and European cocoa producers in the early 1910s contrasts with descriptions of other cocoa-growing areas in western Africa, suggesting the need for a re-examination of the evidence for the Creole role in cocoa cultivation and for Creole economic decline from the 1890s in West Africa.

Clarence-Smith, 'Plantation versus smallholder production'. A. F. Nogueira, A ilha de S. Thome (Lisbon, 1893), 29; F. Mantero, A mao d'obra em S Thome e Principe (Lisbon, 1910), annexes. 209 A. Wyse, The Krio of Sierra Leone: An Interpretative History (London, 1989), ch. 4; L. Spitzer, The Creoles of Sierra Leone: Responses to Colonialism, 1870-1945 (Madison, 1974).
208

207