DE LIMA, GERALDO
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Geraldo de Lima (18? – December 12, 1912) was an enterprising Ewe who became an influential and successful trader, with a commercial empire extending from the left bank of the lower Volta River, in what is now southeastern Ghana, to Grand Popo in southwestern Dahomey. To protect his trade interests, he tried to prevent the extension of British authority along the Ewe coast of what is now the Republic of Togo, but his power was crushed by the British government.
Adzoviehlo Atiogbe, as he was originally called, was born at Agoué in Dahomey at an indeterminate date in or before 1835. In the 1850s he was employed by Casar Cequira Geraldo de Lima, a ‘Brazilian’ freedman who became a slave trader. (The Brazilians were Africans who, having been taken as slaves to Brazil, returned as freedmen, often engaging in the slave trade themselves). Cequira based his operations in the Ewe coastal state of Anlo in what is now the Volta Region of Ghana. In 1862, when Cequira died, Atiogbe appropriated his money, stocks, wife, and name.
He increased the volume of the trade in slaves, entered the palm oil business, and shipped merchandise on his own account. By 1864, however, he had given up slave trading and was concentrating on palm oil, which he exported in exchange for textiles, tobacco, guns, gunpowder, and liquor. He carried on a flourishing trade along the Keta Lagoon and on the left bank of the Volta River, and completely outbid his numerous African and European competitors. His trade empire, apart from extending as far east as Grand Popo, also stretched westward to Kong, on the right bank of the Volta, some 45 mi (72 km) northeast of Accra, in what is now the Eastern Region of Ghana.
To protect his trade, Lima tried to use his influence to prevent the British authorities of the Gold Coast from extending their jurisdiction into the area to the east of the Volta. The British therefore disliked him, and accused him of many crimes, alleging, inter alia, that he had instigated the war which broke out in 1865-66 between Anlo and the people of Ada, at the mouth of the Volta River.
In May 1871, the British bombarded his residence at Bodza in Anlo, and put a price of £200 on his head. But this did not stop him from trading, even though he was unable to prevent the extension of British rule to Anlo in 1874. He nevertheless succeeded in avoiding paying customs duties by smuggling his merchandise into the country. During this period he allied himself with some chiefs who lived on the inland shore of the Keta Lagoon, and who had their own reasons for opposing the British authorities.
It was alleged that he took advantage of the German presence on the Ewe coast in 1884, and that, in concert with Chief Tenge of Anyako, which is on the northern shore of the lagoon in what is now the Volta Region of Ghana, arranged the cession of the trans-lagoon Anlo country to Germany to check the British advance in that area.
On January 7, 1885, the British district commissioner at Keta arrested him. An attempt by chiefs Tenge and Tsigui of Anyako to rescue him, which was unsuccessful, led to the battle known as the Taleto War, which was fought in the vicinity of Anyako. While the British failed to obtain any incriminating evidence against him, they nevertheless kept him imprisoned in Elmina Castle from May 29, 1885, to November 1893. Both commercially and politically he was ruined. He later went blind, and in 1912 died of injuries sustained after a fall.
D. E. K. AMENUMEY
