Prestigious gifts in the slave trade

The exchange of gifts has been part of social protocol since at least antiquity. Gifts were central instruments in diplomatic exchanges during the Middle Ages and into the early modern era, on several occasions helping to seal agreements and initiate business deals. That heads of state receive gifts from foreign nations is nothing new. For example, the collections of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in the United States include dozens of works of art and artefacts given to him by heads of state from all over the world, including Africa.

In Brazil, exchanges of gifts have historically been associated with corruption. Every Brazilian knows how exchanges of gifts influence political life and business. After all, offering gifts to politicians, civil servants, executives and employees of private companies has always been a thinly veiled way of trying to gain an advantage. Gift exchanges have also been a feature of corruption scandals. The most recent of these was the case of the former Brazilian president, the fascist Jair Bolsonaro, and the then first lady Michelle Bolsonaro, who received jewellery and luxury watches as gifts from the Saudi Arabian government and then illegally sold several of these million-dollar gifts.

What few people know is that during the era of the Atlantic trade in enslaved Africans, European and American slave traders also offered gifts to African rulers, officials and traders when they arrived on African shores, even before starting the process of buying enslaved Africans to transport them to the Americas.

Most often, the gifts were exactly the same items transported aboard slave ships to the coasts of Africa, where they were used as currency to purchase enslaved people. These items included fabrics, alcohol, cowrie shells, iron bars and manufactured items such as rifles, knives, clothing, pans and cutlery. In this context, these articles were used as a form of tribute, given to the various African agents established along the coast to initiate trade.

Over the years, European traders learnt the very specific tastes of African rulers and agents and were thus able to provide exclusive items to African traders to please them and, in return, obtain the best captives within the shortest possible time. In this context, gifts could also be conceived as bribes, because by offering them to African agents, ship captains and European merchants sought to obtain advantageous conditions in the trade of human beings. For example, expensive fabrics and manufactured items such as clothes, hats and metal items were reserved for rulers and agents who held higher positions. In addition, as part of these exchanges, African traders also offered men, women and especially children as gifts to European traders and rulers.

Prestigious gifts made of valuable materials remained essential items in the Atlantic trade in enslaved Africans until the mid-19th century. But, like the gifts given to Bolsonaro, there are controversial stories behind some of these presents, which today form part of European and American museum collections.