Album 74

Scope and Contents From the Record Group: The Hamburg-based trading house of William O’Swald & Co. established an agency in Zanzibar in June 1849, having made earlier enquiries about East Africa’s commercial possibilities in 1844 and again in 1847. At the time, there was a very profitable trade in transporting cowrie shells from Zanzibar to West Africa where they were used as currency. By the mid-1850s, O’Swald together with the other German trading houses, Hertz and Hansing & Co., were despatching over twenty ships a year...

Scope and Contents From the Record Group: The Hamburg-based trading house of William O’Swald & Co. established an agency in Zanzibar in June 1849, having made earlier enquiries about East Africa’s commercial possibilities in 1844 and again in 1847. At the time, there was a very profitable trade in transporting cowrie shells from Zanzibar to West Africa where they were used as currency. By the mid-1850s, O’Swald together with the other German trading houses, Hertz and Hansing & Co., were despatching over twenty ships a year...

Scope and Contents From the Record Group: The Hamburg-based trading house of William O’Swald & Co. established an agency in Zanzibar in June 1849, having made earlier enquiries about East Africa’s commercial possibilities in 1844 and again in 1847. At the time, there was a very profitable trade in transporting cowrie shells from Zanzibar to West Africa where they were used as currency. By the mid-1850s, O’Swald together with the other German trading houses, Hertz and Hansing & Co., were despatching over twenty ships a year...