William Smith was an English surveyor employed by the

Royal African Company The Royal African Company (RAC) was an English mercantile (trade, trading) company set up in 1660 by the royal House of Stuart, Stuart family and City of London merchants to trade along the West Africa, west coast of Africa. It was led by the J ...

(RAC) in 1726 to survey their

castles A castle is a type of fortified structure built during the Middle Ages predominantly by the nobility or royalty and by military orders. Scholars debate the scope of the word ''castle'', but usually consider it to be the private fortified r ...

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 ...

. The RAC dispatched him in response to reports of their castles deteriorating conditions and low personnel numbers. His account of the trip, ''A new voyage to Guinea'', was published posthumously in 1744, with a second edition being published in 1745. The full title of his book was ''A new voyage to Guinea: describing the customs, manners, soil, manual arts, agriculture, trade, employments, languages, ranks of distinction climate, habits, buildings, education, habitations, diversions, marriages, and whatever else is memorable among the inhabitants''. In the book, Smith gave an account of several locations in West Africa, including

Fort Tantumquery Fort Tantumquery is a military structure designed to facilitate the slave trade. The Royal African Company built it in the 1720s, at Otuam in the Mfantsiman Municipal District, Central Region (Ghana), Central Region, Ghana, in what was known at the ...

and

Fort Winneba Fort Winneba was a slave fort designed to facilitate the trade in enslaved people. The Royal African Company built the fort in 1694, on the Gold Coast, in modern-day Ghana. William Smith, who had been appointed to review the Company's castles ...

. Upon Smith's return to

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

in September 1727, he submitted a report to the RAC indicating they could not afford the maintenance costs of the castles, which amounted to about £13,500 by 1731. In response to this, in 1730 the

British Parliament The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of Westminster, London. It alone possesses legislative supremacy ...

had voted to grant an annual subsidy of £10,000 to the RAC to their castles could be properly maintained. As historian Robert W. Harms noted in his 2002 work '' The Diligent: A Voyage Through the Worlds Of The Slave Trade'', the subsidy resulted in the

British government ga, Rialtas a Shoilse gd, Riaghaltas a Mhòrachd , image = HM Government logo.svg , image_size = 220px , image2 = Royal Coat of Arms of the United Kingdom (HM Government).svg , image_size2 = 180px , caption = Royal Arms , date_es ...

assuming financial responsibility for the RAC's establishments along the

Gold Coast Gold Coast may refer to: Places Africa * Gold Coast (region), in West Africa, which was made up of the following colonies, before being established as the independent nation of Ghana: ** Portuguese Gold Coast (Portuguese, 1482–1642) ** Dutch G ...

References

{{Authority control 18th-century English people English surveyors