Men twisting palm pulp in a net to wring out oily juices (1930?) 
Men and women pounding palm fruit in a pit (Ghana ca. 1910, author’s collection) 
Enslaved men cracking palm kernels with rocks (Beatty, 1915) 
Men pounding palm fruit in half-puncheons (1930) 
Women using an “oil canoe” in Liberia (Johnston 1906) 
Depericarping machine (EWJ Trevor patent, 1916) 
Stamp mill for crushing palm fruit (Bucher and Fickeney, 1919) 
Huileries Congo Belge factory (1911) 
John Buckman Esuman Gwira’s “Fanti Palm Oil Machine” (patent, 1910)
This gallery displays historic methods for producing palm oil and cracking kernels, including “traditional” methods and new machines introduced in the early twentieth century.
Jonathan Robins 