¹ This article originally took the form of a paper given before the Seminar on the Recent History of the Commonwealth, at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London, on 26 January 1962.Google Scholar

² Ashanti (Oxford, 1925), 81.Google Scholar

³ Survey of British Commonwealth Affairs, vol. ii,Google ScholarProblems of Economic Policy, 1918–1939, Part 2 (Oxford, 1942), 330.Google Scholar

⁴ Survey of British Commonwealth Affairs, vol. II, Problems of Economic Policy, 1918–1939, Part 2 (Oxford, 1942, 1942), Appendix A passim, especially pp. 331–2.Google Scholar

⁵ e.g. Howard, Cecil, Mary Kingsley (London, 1957), 9–10.Google Scholar

⁶ Howard, op. cit. 215, quoting a letter from Mary Kingsley to John Holt.Google Scholar

⁷ This raises the interesting question of why she proved such a fanatical supporter of their interests, for it is quite clear that self-interest was not involved. There is little concrete evidence to suggest any firm explanation. The reason was probably the simple one that she liked most of the traders personally, developed close personal friendships with Goldie, John Holt, and others, and regarded them as a much-abused and unjustly treated group of likeable and honourable men. It does also appear that she took a personal dislike to many missionaries and Government officials, and felt them to be self-seeking and hypocritical.Google Scholar

⁸ I have discussed these activities in Sir George Goldie and the Making of Nigeria (London, 1960), 303–6.Google Scholar

⁹ Travels in West Africa (London, January 1897).Google Scholar

¹⁰ London, 1899.

¹¹ See the published correspondence in P.P., LXII (1897), 8480, ‘Papers relative to the Liquor Trade in West Africa’.Google Scholar

¹² Chamberlain was anxious to resume direct control of the Company's territories.Google Scholar

¹³ This had been revealed to them by the Colonial Office to Liverpool Chamber of Commerce, 15 March 1896, in P.P., LXII (1897).Google Scholar

¹⁴ October 1897, p. xii. The section referred to is pp. 491–500.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Travels (1900 edition), 494.Google Scholar

¹⁶ In the chapter ‘Commerce in West Africa’ in West African Studies, 281 ff., where there is considerable discussion of the concept of expanding trade, there is no mention of the liquor trade, or its role in development. Considering the amount of space devoted to the liquor trade in the Travels this is an extraordinary omission.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Travels, 493ff. Note also that the only missionaries singled out as exempt from the general condemnation are those like Dennis Kemp, who denied that Gold Coasters were drunkards. Mary Kingsley made no comment on Kemp's additional comment that he nevertheless thought liquor ‘of no benefit to the natives’ except to state that she did ‘not agree’, giving no reasons.Google ScholarIbid 492–3.Google Scholar

¹⁸ As usual Hancock, op. cit. 332–3, has the most stimulating comments, and others have followed him. He does not mention her idea of African inferiority, but stresses the ideas derived from this, especially the idea that African societies are worthy of respect and serious study before they are senselessly destroyed by officialdom.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Travels, 500.Google Scholar

²⁰ Ibid. 501, see also p. 296.Google Scholar

²¹ Keane, was Professor of Ethnology at Cambridge. In his Ethnology (Cambridge, 1896), 266, he argued that Africans' ‘inherent mental inferiority’ was caused by ‘premature closing of the cranial sutures’!Google ScholarPubMed

²² Travels, 504.Google Scholar

²³ West African Studies, 385–6.Google Scholar

²⁴ Ibid. 385.Google Scholar

²⁵ Ibid. 386.Google Scholar

²⁶ Travels, 488–9.Google Scholar

²⁷ 13 March 1898, in the John Holt Papers. I am indebted to Mr Cecil Holt, of John Holt and Company (Liverpool) Ltd, for permission to quote from these papers.Google Scholar

²⁸ Travels, 489.Google Scholar

²⁹ Ibid 489.Google Scholar

³⁰ Ibid 490.Google Scholar

³¹ Ibid 502.Google Scholar

³² Ibid. 503.Google Scholar

³³ i.e. the letters from Mary Kingsley to John Holt wherein she constantly seeks his advice on matters of factual information and describes to him periodically the state of the work; in the letters reproduced in Gwynn, S., Mary Kingsley (London, 1933), in the Colonial and Foreign Office correspondence, and in the letters between the traders preserved in the John Holt Papers.Google Scholar

³⁴ See footnote 8.Google Scholar

³⁵ Mary Kingsley to John Holt, 1 October 1898. Her comments are on the first draft of Chapter XIII which she enclosed.Google Scholar

³⁶ Mary Kingsley to John Holt, 2 July 1898.Google Scholar

³⁷ West African Studies, 345.Google Scholar

³⁸ Ibid. 357–8.Google Scholar

³⁹ Ibid. 295.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Ibid. 324–5.Google Scholar

⁴¹ Kingsley, Mary to Holt, John, 5 September 1899.Google Scholar

⁴² Kingsley, Mary to Holt, John, 9 November 1899.Google Scholar

⁴³ West African Studies, 309–10.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Kingsley, Mary to Holt, John, 5 May 1898.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ West African Studies, 392ff.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Though in a letter to John Holt of 29 April 1898 she described a speech by BadenPowell ‘on railways and all manner of such-like “tommy rot”’.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Kingsley, Mary to Holt, John, a February 1898.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Kingsley, Mary to Holt, John, 21 June 1898.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Kingsley, Mary to HoIt, John, September 1899.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ West African Studies, 398.Google Scholar

⁵¹ Kingsley, Mary to Holt, John, 18 September 1899.Google Scholar