Le Gabon précolonial : étude sociale et économique.

E. M'Bokolo—A Social and Economie Study of Pre-Colonial Gabon. Oral sources on the pre-colonial situation in the Gabon estuary before 1850 are scarce and unreliable but an interpretation of contemporary written sources gives a rather precise and detailed picture of the social organisation of the local people. The coastal Mpongwe were more deeply involved with the European traders, their sole economie activity—and a very rewarding one—being to act as middlemen between them and the inland peoples. They had lost the centralised political organisation which prevailed in the 18th century and were hard-struck by the economic changes which followed the French settlement in 1843 and the suppression of the slave trade. The Orungu and Nkomi, less directly involved in the coastal trade, and less dependent upon it, had kept a more centralised organisation and sufiered less of the change.M'Bokolo Elikia. Le Gabon précolonial : étude sociale et économique.. In: Cahiers d'études africaines, vol. 17, n°66-67, 1977. pp. 331-344