stated that he was unsure whether it was an error that “the negroes like the bars
better for the print of the hammer” but that “they like them very well as they are now made.” 53 Indeed, portable copper goods that could be exported in large
quantities were valued as a form of exchange across the West African coast; in
1700, for example, 48 copper rods could afford a male while a female was valued at 36. 54 Small horseshoe-shaped bracelets called manillas were also used as a form of currency. 55 It is evident that some of the pioneering works in Swansea
were producing these goods, as a 1744 print of the White Rock works features a
‘Manilla House’ that was used to manufacture products specifically for the African market. 56 By the 1760s, White Rock had a department devoted to the manufacturing of manillas and short copper rods. 57 The balance sheets for the
Forest copperworks in 1768 indicates that it was also involved in producing
goods for the slave trade as there are two references to rods and manillas totalling £1,235 7s 8d in value. 58 Moreover, all of the production at the
Penclawdd works in the 1780s was exported to Africa to purchase slaves, which
was a minor contribution compared to the output of Bristol and Liverpool, but it was significant nonetheless. 59 As the large slave ports of Bristol and Liverpool flanked Wales, it is unlikely that any slaving expeditions left Swansea. 60 It could be argued, then, that Wales
did not directly participate in the slave trade in the sense that no ships were
53 Quoted in Straw, pp. 24-5. 54 Olfert Dapper, Naukeurige Beschrijvinge der Afrikaensche Gewesten (Amsterdam: Jacob van Meurs, 1668), p. 510 cited in Stanley B. Alpern, ‘What Africans Got for Their Slaves: A Master List of European Trade Goods’, History in Africa, 22 (1995), 5-43 (p. 14). 55 Alpern, p. 13. 56 G. Grant Francis, The Smelting of Copper in the Swansea District of South Wales from the time of Elizabeth to the Present Day (London: Henry Sotheran, 1881), p. 117. 57 Francis, p. 113 cited in R. O. Roberts, ‘Penclawdd Brass and Copper Works: A Link with the Slave Trade’, Gower, 14 (1961), 35-43 (p. 36). 58 Francis, p. 113. 59 Roberts, ‘Penclawdd Brass and Copper Works’, p. 36. 60 Evans, Slave Wales, p. 7.
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