What do two small villages in Connecticut USA have to do with elephant awareness?

Quite a lot actually.

The settlements of Deep River and the henceforth lamentably named Ivoryton were rural substance farms before local entrepreneurs managed to steer a massive ivory trade network through their gates. Between 1860 and 1938 Ivoryton became the largest ivory trading hub in the US.

Ivory consumerism in the US began in the late 1700s, principally for hair combs. But the demand exploded in the 1860s with the huge piano key market. Pianos were extremely popular and considered a necessary cultural recreation in American homes across the country. I guess you could say it was the equivalent of the TV of the day. Ivory was recognised as ideal covers for piano keys and as the US was producing about half the world’s pianos, the demand escalated. This in itself drove up interest in other items such as toothpicks, jewellery, billiard balls, spatulas and letter openers. Even, somewhat curiously, screwdriver handles.

During this period, the USA was the largest ivory consumer on the planet. Makes one think right?

Ivory markets are usually associated with Asian countries and their traditional uses, but this has not always been the case. A market, after all, is only as fluid as its demand.

The piano market mercifully receded by 1910 with the invention of wireless radios. And by 1930, the ivory trade in Ivoryton and Deep River crashed by 90%. The last shipment of tusks that came through occurred in 1954, and that as they say, was all they wrote.

The story deepens.

In order to fuel these crazy markets, Africa descended into a mad chapter of darkness. It's estimated that more than 30 000 elephants a year fed the trade through Ivoryton between 1860 and 1938. I for one can’t bear to do the maths to work out a number.

One of the merchants from Ivoryton spend 12 years at Zanzibar and personally established a trade network with local Muscat Arabs, to arrange massive hunting caravans into the interior. It would have been impossible for him not to know of the repercussions that were about to unfold. Local porters were recruited in their thousands … lets just say on a non-voluntary basis … to carry ivory back to Zanzibar. From here it was dispatched by steamer to Connecticut. This network and passage was a major recruiter in a diabolical slave trade market as well; what better way to maximise profit by merely selling your porters! Those that survived anyway. It's estimated that only 1 in 5 porters returned to Zanzibar alive.

It is rather ironic to discover that the same said ivory merchant was a known slave trade abolitionist back home in the US … the lure of white gold does strange things to a person does it not?

The legendary missionary/explorer David Livingstone spoke out in public about this abhorrent business, claiming that every pound of ivory that left Africa was responsible for a man’s life. It's known that the last slave steamer to land in the US occurred in Alabama in 1860. The famous meeting between Livingstone and Henry Stanley, a journalist on assignment for the New York Herald, occurred in what is present day Tanzania in 1871. This encounter would have revealed much to the western world.

What is it about human lust? That the darkness of human suffering could be attributed to the demand for ivory. That commercial trade networks have been the seat of untold tragedy and displacement.

And what of the elephants, the unfortunate bearers of white gold? Caught in the crosshairs of greed and madness. Who speaks for them, who is a voice for their silence?

More at www.alanmcsmith.com

Photo A memorial plaque to elephants at Deep River, Connecticut.