Robert Jamieson (died 1861) was a London merchant and promoter of commerce with

West Africa West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, Maurit ...

Life

Described also as a

palm oil Palm oil is an edible vegetable oil derived from the mesocarp (reddish pulp) of the fruit of the oil palms. The oil is used in food manufacturing, in beauty products, and as biofuel. Palm oil accounted for about 33% of global oils produced from ...

merchant of Liverpool, and as of Glasgow, Jamieson sought to open up major African rivers to navigation and commerce. His schooner, the ''Warree'', went to the

River Niger The Niger River ( ; ) is the main river of West Africa, extending about . Its drainage basin is in area. Its source is in the Guinea Highlands in south-eastern Guinea near the Sierra Leone border. It runs in a crescent shape through Mali, ...

in 1838. In 1839 he equipped the ''Ethiope'', and its commander, Captain

John Beecroft John Beecroft (1790 – 10 June 1854) was an explorer, governor of Fernando Po and British Consul of the Bight of Benin and Biafra. Early life Beecroft was born in England near the port of Whitby, Yorkshire.Howard Temperley, 'Beecroft, John (1 ...

, explored several West African rivers, to higher points in some instances than had then been reached by Europeans. In 1840 Jamieson was offered, but declined, a vice-presidency of the Institut d'Afrique of France. When the

Second Melbourne ministry The second Lord Melbourne ministry was formed in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland by the Viscount Melbourne in 1835. History Lord Melbourne's second government came to power after Sir Robert Peel's minority government resigned in ...

, in 1841, supported the African Colonisation Expedition to the Niger, he denounced the scheme. The attempt was abandoned from September 1841, and on 25 October many of the surviving colonists were rescued by the ''Ethiope''. Jamieson died in London on 5 April 1861.

Works

Narratives of explorations were published by Jamieson and others in the ''Journal of the Royal Geographical Society''. Jamieson opposed the Niger expedition in ''Appeals to the Government and People of Great Britain'', where he claimed the proposed colonisers would be monopolists. He pointed out the fulfilment of his predictions of disaster in ''Sequel to two Appeals'' (London, 1843). In 1859 Jamieson published ''Commerce with Africa'', emphasising the insufficiency of treaties for the suppression of the

African slave trade Slavery has historically been widespread in Africa. Systems of servitude and slavery were common in parts of Africa in ancient times, as they were in much of the rest of the Ancient history, ancient world. When the trans-Saharan slave trade ...

, and urging the use of the land route from Cross River to the Niger.

Notes

;Attribution {{DEFAULTSORT:Jamieson, Robert Year of birth missing 1861 deaths British merchants