Donald Mackenzie (trader)

Donald Mackenzie (born c. 1840) was a Scottish abolitionist, writer, and trader who founded the trading post at Tarfaya.^[1] In the 1870s, he founded the North-West Africa Trade Company and a Canarian tea trading agency, the latter of which supplied green tea to the Sahrawis.^[2] In the late 1870s and early 1880s, he acquired land at Tarfaya and built a trading post there in the form of a sea fort.^[3] The trading post saw difficulties during the Sous Expeditions, and Mackenzie was pushed out of the region in 1886.^[4] He sold this failing fort in 1895.^[5] According to Mackenzie himself, he sold the rights to the fort for £50,000.^[6]

Mackenzie authored The Khalifate of the West: Being a General Description of Morocco (1911) and Flooding of the Sahara (1877).^[1]^[3] His 1877 work was a proposal to build waterways in the Sahara to facilitate trade.^[3] According to Edwin Emery Slosson, this proposal grew weak when land elevation in the Sahara was shown to be higher than expected.^[7] A review in The Geographical Journal called the 1911 work most valuable for its history of the Cape Juby settlement.^[8] Mackenzie also authored reports for the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society in 1886 and, as Special Commissioner,^[9] 1895.^[10]^[11] According to Dr. Henry Theodore Hodgkin, Mackenzie's 1895 report catalyzed the official abolition of slavery in Zanzibar in 1897.^[12]

Works

Books

The Flooding of the Sahara, the Plan for Opening Central Africa to Commerce (London, 1877)
The Khalifate of the West: Being a General Description of Morocco (London, 1911)

Reports

A Report on the Condition of the Empire of Morocco Addressed to the Right Hon. the Earl of Iddesleigh, G.C.M.G., Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, &c (London, 1886)^[11]
"Report on Special Mission to Zanzibar and Pemba" (Anti-Slavery Reporter, 1895)^[10]

Articles

"The British Settlement at Cape Juby, North West Africa" (Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, 1889)^[13]

References

[1]
Behn, Wolfgang (2006). Concise Biographical Companion to Index Islamicus: Bio-bibliographical Supplement to Index Islamicus, 1665-1980, Volume Two (H-M). Brill. p. 485. ISBN 9789047418092.
[2]
Röschenthaler, Ute (2022). A History of Mali's National Drink: Following the Tea Ritual from China to West Africa. Brill. p. 92. ISBN 9789004524675.
[3]
Pennel, C. (2000). Morocco Since 1830: A History. NYU Press. p. 101. ISBN 9780814766774.
[4]
Pennel, C.R. (2013). Morocco: From Empire to Independence. Oneworld Publications. ISBN 9781780744551. The 1886 Sous expedition...forced Mackenzie out of Tarfaya...
[5]
Baers, Michael (2022). A History of the Western Sahara Conflict. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. p. 116. ISBN 9781527585737.
[6]
Mackenzie, Donald (1911). The Khalifate of the West, a general description of Morocco. Simpkin and Marshall. pp. 200–201. OCLC 2076350. In February 1895 I left England for East Africa as Special Commissioner for the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society. During my absence negotiations were carried on through the British Foreign Office and Sir E. Satow, the British Minister in Morocco, with the object of disposing of the Company's interests at Cape Juby to the Moorish Sultan. His Majesty finally agreed to purchase the rights of my Company at Cape Juby for £50,000.
[7]
Emery Slosson, Edwin (1928). "Plans to Restore the City of Brass". Science News Letter. 13–14. Science Service – via Google Books. ...the scheme collapsed when a better knowledge of land levels showed that most of the Sahara was over six hundred feet above sea level, much of it above 1,600, and it would take a lot of pumping to keep it wet.
[8]
F. R. C. (1911). "'The Khalifate of the West: being a general description of Morocco.' By Donald Mackenzie. Maps and Illustrations. London: Simpkin, Marshall & Co., Ltd. 1911. 10s. 6d". The Geographical Journal. 37. Royal Geographical Society: 651 – via Google Books. In some respects the most valuable of Mr. Mackenzie's chapters are those in which he tells the tale of the Cape Juby settlement (1880–1896). It is a story of an enterprise that failed, but deserved to succeed; an enterprise recalling the days of the merchant adventurers who founded kingdoms. Of this enterprise Mr. Mackenzie was the originator and controlling spirit.
[9]
G. F. S. (1897). "Slavery in British East Africa". Church Missionary Intelligencer. 48. Church Missionary Society: 81–94 – via Google Books. ...while Mr. Donald Mackenzie, who went as a Special Commissioner of the Anti-Slavery Society to the East Coast in the spring of 1895...
[10]
Societies After Slavery: A Select Annotated Bibliography of Printed Sources on Cuba, Brazil, British Colonial Africa, South Africa, and the British West Indies. University of Pittsburgh Press. 2002. p. 155. ISBN 9780822972600.
[11]
El Hamel, Chouki (2014). "7: The Abolition of Slavery in Morocco". Black Morocco: A History of Slavery, Race, and Islam. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781139620048.
[12]
Hodgkin, Henry (1916). Friends Beyond Seas. pp. 141–142. OCLC 2517785. A considerable sum of money was also contributed by the Society in order to enable the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society to send out Donald Mackenzie to investigate conditions in Zanzibar and Pemba. He reported that, out of a population of 400,000, more than 250,000 were slaves, and he pointed out the fallacy of supposing that financial disaster would follow their liberation. No doubt this report largely contributed to the action of the British Government in April of the following year (1897), by which the legal status of slavery was abolished.
[13]
Trout, Frank (1969). Morocco's Saharan Frontiers. Librairie Droz. p. 150. ISBN 9782600044950.