CONGOLESE SLAVER’S SPEAR C.1870-80

Ex: Methodist Missionary Society, sold at Christies, London in the 1980’s. 56 ½” length with finely forged medially ridged leaf shaped head with  beveled edges, on butted seam conical socket. Wood haft with swelled grip flanked by trade iron tape decoration. That tape was one of the European made commodities involved in slavery commerce. The slave market at the time was the Arab World and South America. Slaves were also taken for local consumption (cannibalism). In the course of converting Africans to Christianity, missionaries collected money for their cause by visiting churches in England and displaying the collection of African cultural items from which this came. The visits would include lectures about the natives and their cultural practices, particularly slavery.