Writing in the 1590s about Sierra Leone, André Alvares de Almada, a Cape Verde Islands trader who had probably at one time visited Sierra Leone, commended its peoples for being “unfriendly to the English and French,” not least by fighting John Hawkins—the latter remark obviously a reference to Hawkins' well-known visit in 1567/68. But when did the French visit Sierra Leone? Elsewhere I have cited the evidence for three French voyages to the Sierra Leone estuary in the later 1560s, probably in 1565, 1566, and 1567. I now analyze archive material published in two French works that appeared long ago but are probably little known to Africanists, since both concentrate on voyages to the Americas. The first source calendars items in the registres de tabellionage (notarial registers) of the Normandy port of Honfleur relating to intercontinental voyages, the items being mainly financial agreements made before or after voyages. Dates, names of ships, and destinations are supplied for the period from 1574 to 1621: what proportion of all intercontinental voyages from Honfleur during that period is represented in the registers is uncertain. But in the eleven years between 1574 and 1584, there are recorded 24 voyages to both Guinea and America, the ships proceeding across the Atlantic from Africa. The American destination is usually described as “Indes de Pérou,” meaning the Caribbean. The African destination of 15 named vessels making 19 voyages is “Serlione” or “coste de Serlion,” in 15 instances given singly, otherwise with the addition of “et Guinée,” “et Guinée et coste de Bonnes-Gens,” or “et cap de Vert et coste de Mina.” The remaining voyages were to “Guinée,” to “cap de Vert [Cape Verde, i.e. Senegal],” to “cap des Bonnes-Gens” [Ivory Coast], or to more than one of these.
