Raffia Cloth in Equatorial African History

Cloth in Equatorial African History

    The long history of raffia cloth, an indigenous product produced from the fibers of raffia trees in West Central Africa, reveals how cloth, both imported and locally produced, impacted Equatorial Africa differently throughout the precolonial period. Disproving assumptions of static African societies that never changed over time, the evolving use of raffia cloth demonstrates continuity within change as a result of increasing contact with Europeans, the slave trade, and internal changes. For example, the gradual replacement of raffia cloth by imported cloth from European traders over the centuries exemplifies the change with continuity theme in the history of the region best. African agency through the production of raffia, and the trade with Europeans, despite growing dependency on European imports for rulers to legitimize their power, unquestionably demonstrates local autonomy and choices in a changing world from the 16th through the 19th century.

Cloth was a basic resource for peoples of Loango Coast throughout precolonial history, becoming essential for initiation and burial ceremonies and part of key transactions that cemented lineage and state alliances (Martin 136). In addition to being used as a form of currency and item in social transactions, raffia and cloth more generally was associated with those wielding power, such as kings, lineage elders, traders, and religious specialists (136). Since most raffia in the area was traded from eastern Kongo and further inland, those who controlled access to raffia from locations far from the centralized, larger kingdoms of Kongo, Ngoyo, and Loango were able to become powerful in their respective states due to their monopoly on the elaborate, intricately worked raffia (Vansina 8). Local African societies utilized a large-scale,  locally-based system of production that was not industrially organized, but led to enormous amounts of raffia cloth manufactured in the region for use as currency, trade, clothing, and burials during this period. In fact, Vansina estimates, assuming raffia for daily use would last four months, would have required at least 1,800,000 lengths to as much as 3,000,000 for the plain weave cloth per year just for the kingdom of Kongo (8). This implies that total raffia production in West Central Africa must have reached what Vansina refers to as proto-industrial levels during this period (18). This African manufacturing base provided an essential ingredient in various social transactions such as bride wealth and settling dues, like legal fees  and as a bartering tool for ordinary peoples since the peoples of the region lacked a regional monetary economy (18). Only through the gradual displacement in the market by cloth imports in the late 17th century did the system begin to change (Martin 114).

Once imported cloth and manufactured goods began to displace raffia in the trade of textiles, control over access to the sources of cloth remained an important marker of status. Kings endeavored to retain control of cloth distribution, but their power was quickly challenged since their power had become dangerously dependent on foreign imports from Portuguese, Dutch, French, and English traders. They were willing to trade with those lacking the king’s approval and sold such a highly produced manufactured item that it becoming increasingly common within Equatorial Africa. New rulers emerged out of their control of trade with European merchants, establishing their own large dependent bases through redistribution of these prestigious goods, which inevitably led to the gradual dissolution of several kingdoms in the region, such as the Kingdom of Kongo. Moreover, Dutch, English and French ships unloaded a wide variety of cotton, linen, and woolen cloths onto the African market, were not interested in raffia cloth as the Portuguese had been previously, due to the growth of the slave trade (145). Indeed, the slave trade had previously facilitated the growth of the raffia trade in the region since the first caravans that traversed across the region for slaves in the early 16th century were financed by Portuguese merchants (Vansina 19). Now, from the late 17th century to the 19th century, raffia cloth becomes marginal to the kingdoms which had previously defined status partially based on its acquisition and control. 

Interestingly, raffia remained a core part of social measurements of wealth and in trade. Though by 1826, the people of Cabinda, Ngoyo’s trading port, saw raffia as a cloth associated with the poor, despised peoples of the interior, and slaves, since only those groups wore it, raffia cloth remained a significant marker of social statu in parts of the interior. Beginning perhaps in the kingdom of Loango, the custom of burying one’s dead with several wraps of raffia cloth meters thick became widespread in the region (Martin 140). Even the poorest villagers would become indebted to elites, who hoarded cloth, in order to ensure their deceased kin would be prepared to enter the next world in high status with cloth like elites (142). Cloth remained essential in trade with Europeans well after the introduction of coinage, becoming embedding in the language of ‘pieces,’ or of the basic unit, about six yards of cotton (146). Raffia was also still used in the , at least initially, in the burials, from the coast to the interior, of the rich (142). Thus, African agency through the control and trade of imported cloths becomes obvious through the continued use of raffia for new purposes such as elite funerals, and its ties with trade and power until the colonial period.

Besides developing a dependency on imported foreign cloth in order to legitimize their rule, and despite the ravages of the slave trade, which was necessary to acquire the manufactured foreign imports to maintain their dependence, African rulers and traders maintained a non-monetary economy through which ordinary peoples of the region were able to continue their daily lives without the use of coins or a single currency (Vansina 17). Raffia cloth, in addition to metalware and ceramics, provided alternatives to a single currency system, and allowed common peoples to engage in local trade in products that sustained well-developed markets where transactions were eased by recourse to currencies such as metalware and ceramics (Vansina 19). African agency also appears with the growth of the cotton industry in Angola, which provided another type of currency for peoples in the region that was not from Europe or the Americas. In addition, African rulers and elites who switched to wearing European cloth as a sign of status continued to wear cloth from fur and bark cloth as a sign of traditional symbols of political authority (9).

The history of raffia cloth in West Central Africa, therefore illustrates an example of African agency despite the development of unequal trading relations between African rulers and European merchants. Raffia was replaced by imported European cloth, which led to growing African dependence on European traders for prestige goods which were often not used for practical purposes, which would suggest that local peoples did not understand the value of the goods they traded in. African rulers certainly did, but the fundamental differences between a developed monetary economy, and a non-monetary economy without a capitalist, industrialist system of production indubitably created conditions of extreme inequality in trade over time. Nevertheless, local African societies in the region continued to value cloth and their own alternative measurements of wealth and power to legitimize their rule according to traditional systems of thought and social organization. Material goods such as raffia or European cloth were only worth as much as the dependence it would provide for elites. Cloth remained an important symbol of one’s social status and an important marker of power despite social changes.