Events and Happenings: Uncommon Meals and the Atlantic Trade at 18th century Juffure (The Gambia)

Abstract

The arrival of the Portuguese on the West African coast in the mid-15th century reoriented the centre of trade relative to the European market in West Africa. In the Senegambia this was manifested as a shift in the concentration of wealth from polities connected to the interior Saharan markets to the newly emerging commercial centres on the coast oriented towards the Atlantic. The Gambia River’s incorporation in the Atlantic World brought about a significant realignment of the local commercial sphere, availability of commodities, and access to wealth, which resulted in specific material manifestations indicative of emerging socio-economic relations in the newly settled Niumi commercial centre. The village of Juffure became the primary trading town in Niumi, possessing a British trading factory and serving as a filling station for their base of operations at James Island. Of interest here is how the increased access to wealth and interaction with European traders affected socio-economic relationships amongst Juffure’s residents, including assertions of socio-economic status through diet. Drawing on archaeological and archival sources, changes in the expression of wealth and status at 18th century Juffure are explored.