20 entries
Trade centres · named 1461
Cape Mount
The great Vai headland and lagoon port at the northwestern corner of the coast.
Ethnic groups · pre-1822 and continuing
Dei people
The people of Cape Mesurado itself — small in number, decisive in 1821–22.
Rulers · fl. c. 1830s, Jondu, Cape Mount
Dualu Bukele
Vai inventor of the Vai syllabary, one of the few writing systems independently created in modern times.
Ethnic groups · pre-1822 and continuing
Gbandi people
Southwestern Mande farmers and traders of the upper Lofa, holding the road between Loma country and the Gola forest.
Ethnic groups · pre-1822 and continuing
Gola people
Mel-speaking forest people of the Lofa–St Paul interior, custodians of a formidable Poro.
Rulers · fl. c. 1780s–1830s; d. before the 1860s
King Sao Bosso Kamara
Mandingo sovereign of Bopolu and head of the Condo Confederation, who mediated the 1822 crisis at Cape Mesurado.
Rulers · fl. late 18th century
King Yoda (Gola)
Gola war-leader of the interior forest whose campaigns pushed Gola authority toward the Dei coast.
Rulers · c. 17??–1827/28
King Zolu Duma
'Peter Careful', ruler of the southern Vai and neighbouring Gola from his capital at Gon.
Ethnic groups · pre-1822 and continuing
Mende people
Southwestern Mande of the north-western borderland, whose expansion reshaped Poro and Sande across the Vai and Gola country.
Rulers · fl. c. 1800–1840s
Siaka of Gallinas
Vai ruler of the Gallinas country whose lagoons became the most notorious slaving station on the coast.
Explorers & agents · 1820–1902; in Sierra Leone 1847–53
Sigismund Wilhelm Koelle
Missionary linguist whose Polyglotta Africana and Vai grammar recorded the languages and testimony of the region.
Explorers & agents · 1939–2017
Svend E. Holsoe
Historian of the Vai and the Condo Confederation; founder of the field of Liberian ethnohistory.
Trade centres · pre-1822 and continuing
The coastal salt industry
Sea-salt boiled and evaporated in the lagoons of the Vai and Dei coast — the coast's chief export to the interior.
Kingdoms & polities · c. 1800–1870s
The Condo Confederation
A multi-ethnic commercial state centred on Bopolu, dominating the road from the interior to the sea.
Forts & factories · c. 1700–1849
The Gallinas
The lagoon barracoon complex north of Cape Mount, one of the last great slaving stations of West Africa.
Trade centres · 15th–19th centuries
The ivory trade
Elephant tusks from the forest interior, and the carved ivories that made the Upper Guinea coast famous in Renaissance Europe.
Kingdoms & polities · c. 1235–c. 1600
The Mali Empire and the forest frontier
The western Sudanese empire whose southern commercial frontier reached the northern edge of the Liberian forest.
Kingdoms & polities · c. 17th–19th centuries
The Mende frontier
The southward Mende expansion that shaped the northern Vai and Gola country and carried Poro and Sande with it.
Trade centres · devised c. 1832–33
The Vai script
An indigenous syllabary invented by Dualu Bukele and his associates — one of the few independently created writing systems in modern history.
Ethnic groups · pre-1822 and continuing
Vai people
Coastal Mande traders between Cape Mount and the Mano, later authors of the Vai script.