African agency and interactions with Europeans in the British expeditions to Niger River (1825-1854): the cases of William “Abubakr” Pasco and “Alihéli”

ABSTRACT

This paper discusses agency displayed by Africans who acted as ‘intermediaries’ in the relations between the British expeditions around the Niger River during the period from 1825 to 1854 and African societies. These travel accounts are some of the first that systematically described in European languages those regions of the African hinterland. Thus, almost every form of communication needed translators and consequently ‘intermediaries’. In this context, ‘intermediaries’ are understood as subjects acting in the liminal space between expeditions and their interlocutors, exercising several activities as interpreters, guides, messengers and sometimes even negotiators, in a context of deep transformations that reconfigured relations between the Atlantic and West Africa.

Keywords:
Travel writings; intermediaries; West Africa; History of Africa