Henry Smeathman, the Flycatcher

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deirdre Coleman
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
Sierra Leone ◽  
West Indies ◽  
West African ◽  
Middle Passage ◽  
The West ◽  
Plantation Slavery ◽  
West African Coast ◽  
The World ◽  
African Coast

In 1771 Joseph Banks, John Fothergill and other wealthy collectors sent a talented, self-taught naturalist to Sierra Leone to collect all things rare and curious, from moths to monkeys. The name of this collector was Henry Smeathman, an ingenious and enterprising Yorkshireman keen on improving his position in the world. His expedition to the West African coast, which coincided with a steep rise in British slave trading in this area, lasted four years during which time he built a house on the Banana Islands, married several times into the coast’s ruling dynasties, and managed to negotiate the tricky life of a ‘stranger’ bound to landlords and local customs. In this book, which draws on a rich and little-known archive of journals and letters, Coleman retraces Smeathman’s life and his attitudes to slavery, both African and European, as he shuttled between his home on the Bananas and two key Liverpool trading forts—Bunce Island and the Isles de Los. In the logistical challenges of tropical collecting and the dispatch of specimens across the middle passage we see the close connection forged in this period between science, collecting, and slavery. The book also reproduces and discusses Smeathman’s essay describing his journey on a fully slaved ship from West Africa to Barbados, a unique account because it is written by a passenger unconnected to the slave trade. After four years in the West Indies observing plantation slavery Smeathman returned to England to write his ‘Voyages and Travels’.

The Royal African Company of England's West African Correspondence, 1681-1699

1993 ◽  
Vol 20 ◽  
pp. 173-184 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robin Law
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
Sierra Leone ◽  
West African ◽  
Gold Coast ◽  
Original Form ◽  
Cape Coast ◽  
General Terms ◽  
West African Coast ◽  
African Coast ◽  
History Of

This paper draws attention to an ambitious project in the publication of source material for the precolonial history of West Africa, which has recently been approved for inclusion in the Fontes Historiae Africanae series of the British Academy. In addition to self-promotion, however, I wish also to take the opportunity to air some of the problems of editorial strategy and choice which arise with regard to the editing and presentation of this material, in the hope of provoking some helpful feedback on these issues.The material to be published consists of correspondence of the Royal African Company of England relating to the West African coast in the late seventeenth century. The history of the Royal African Company (hereafter RAC) is in general terms well known, especially through the pioneering (and still not superseded) study by K.G. Davies (1957). The Company was chartered in 1672 with a legal monopoly of English trade with Africa. Its headquarters in West Africa was at Cape Coast (or, in the original form of the name, Cabo Corso) Castle on the Gold Coast, and it maintained forts or factories not only on the Gold Coast itself, but also at the Gambia, in Sierra Leone, and at Offra and Whydah on the Slave Coast. It lost its monopoly of the African trade in 1698, and thereafter went into decline, effectively ceasing to operate as a trading concern in the 1720s, although it continued to manage the English possessions on the coast of West Africa until it was replaced by a regulated company (i.e., one open to all traders), the Company of Merchants Trading to Africa, in 1750.

A New Lautoconus Species Radiation from Gambia, West Africa

The Festivus ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 50 (3) ◽  
pp. 164-172
Author(s):  
Edward Petuch ◽  
David Berschauer
Keyword(s):  
New Species ◽  
West Africa ◽  
River Mouth ◽  
Sympatric Species ◽  
West African ◽  
The West ◽  
Species Radiation ◽  
West African Coast ◽  
African Coast ◽  
Reef Fauna

Six sympatric species of the cone shell genus Lautoconus Monterosato, 1923 have been discovered on an isolated rock reef near the Gambia River Mouth, Gambia, West Africa. Of these, four were found to be new to science and, together, they represent a previously unknown Gambian endemic species radiation. These include: Lautoconus fernandi new species, L. gambiensis new species, L. rikae new species, and L. wolof new species. The poorly-known Gambian endemic cone, Lautoconus orri (Ninomiya and da Motta, 1982) was also found to be a component of the rock reef fauna, as was the wide-ranging L. guinaicus (Hwass, 1792) (Senegal to Ghana). The Gambian cluster of sibling species represents the farthest-south separate radiation of Lautoconus known from the West African coast.

The Royal Navy and West Africa, 1843-1857

2008 ◽  
pp. 133-168
Author(s):  
Mark C. Hunter
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
Free Trade ◽  
West African ◽  
Economic Interest ◽  
Royal Navy ◽  
The West ◽  
The North ◽  
West African Coast ◽  
African Coast ◽  
American Diplomacy

This chapter analyses the British naval policies concerning West Africa between 1843 and 1857. During this period, Britain sought to encourage legitimate commerce and curtail slavery for its own economic interest, while domestically America feared the British domination of the West African coast. As such, suspicion and mistrust was rife between the two nations, and is in great detail via the abolitionist activity in the North of England; the actions of free traders and slavers; Royal Navy operations; the competition for trade between Britain and France; Commodore Charles Hotham’s slavery suppressing naval strategy; British free trade treaties; and the naval methods of enforcing British goals. It concludes in 1857, with British interests torn between strategic naval aims and domestic pressures, and British and American diplomacy still tense over West African policies.

The identity of John Rattray, diatomist and collector on the Buccaneer expedition (1885–1886) to West Africa

Phytotaxa ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 408 (4) ◽  
pp. 296-300
Author(s):  
ESTRELA FIGUEIREDO ◽  
DAVID WILLIAMS ◽  
GIDEON F. SMITH
Keyword(s):  
Sierra Leone ◽  
Royal Botanic Garden ◽  
West African ◽  
Botanic Gardens ◽  
Botanic Garden ◽  
The West ◽  
West African Coast ◽  
African Coast ◽  
Royal Botanic Gardens ◽  
The 19Th Century

Herbarium records show that during the second half of the 19th century John Rattray collected several plant specimens at ports of call along the West African coast (Canary Islands, Senegal, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Ghana, São Tomé, Príncipe, and Angola). At the herbarium (K) of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, England, four such specimens are databased, three of which can be examined online. At the herbarium (E) of the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh, Scotland, 26 specimens are databased, twenty of which are imaged. All the specimens we examined have printed labels stating ‘Collected by John Rattray, H.M. Challenger Commission, Edinburgh’ with only a handwritten indication of the locality, for example ‘Loanda’ (Luanda, Angola). The collecting date has been omitted from the labels and there are no further details on the specimens. An investigation of the literature revealed that there is some confusion regarding the origin of the material and the identity of John Rattray, the collector.

IV. The Establishment of the Sierra Leone Protectorate and the Insurrection of 1898

1956 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 56-80 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. D. Hargreaves
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Social Organization ◽  
Sierra Leone ◽  
West African ◽  
The West ◽  
The North ◽  
Effective Administration ◽  
West African Coast ◽  
African Coast ◽  
Tribal Areas

The Colony of Sierra Leone originated in settlements of freed slaves on the West African coast carried out on the initiative of British philanthropists in the later eighteenth century. For over a century, British responsibility was as far as possible restricted to the small mountainous peninsula on which Freetown stands, and to certain nearby islands; but influence was inevitably obtained over nearby coast and hinterland, and during the nineteenth century some additional territories were incorporated in the Colony, though not always brought under effective administration. In 1896 the remaining regions not conceded to be under French or Liberian influence were proclaimed a British Protectorate; which also included, for administrative purposes, certain chiefdoms formerly part of the Colony. In this period, therefore, the term ‘Colony’ is applied to the peninsula and islands originally settled, with a few predominantly tribal areas around the river Sherbro; the term ‘Protectorate’ to territories the size of Ireland, which form the great bulk of the area marked ‘Sierra Leone’ on a modern map, and whose social organization was at this time exclusively tribal. At the beginning of 1898 British officials began to collect a House Tax which had been imposed on three of the five districts of the Protectorate. In February, resistance to the tax by certain Temne chiefs developed into open warfare in the north, and at the end of April a series of savage attacks took place on British and American subjects, mostly of African birth and descent, among the Mende and Sherbro people further south. These two outbreaks constitute the insurrection to be studied in this paper.

Memorandum of Sundry Occurrences During a Passage from Liverpool to Fernando Po in the Schooner Maria of Liverpool, and Whilst Trading on the West African Coast

1993 ◽  
pp. 137-190
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
West African ◽  
Family Tree ◽  
Valuable Resource ◽  
The West ◽  
West African Coast ◽  
African Coast ◽  
Supplementary Material ◽  
Insight Into

This diary details the life of John Holt during a voyage across West Africa for the purposes of trade. Several entries included detailed accounts of the sale and purchase of goods and provide a valuable resource and insight into his career as a maritime merchant. His travels span the Kroo Coast; Bimbia; Bata; Gaboon; Fernando Po; Georges Bay; the Brass River; Loango Bay; and Mayumba. A small, ten-day voyage to the Krou coast, and Holt’s family tree have been included as supplementary material.

The Case of the “Appam” and the Law of Nations

1917 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 270-301
Author(s):  
Arthur Burchard
Keyword(s):  
Wireless Communication ◽  
West Africa ◽  
West African ◽  
The West ◽  
Severe Storm ◽  
Law Of Nations ◽  
West African Coast ◽  
African Coast ◽  
The Law ◽  
High Seas

At the time when the Emden and all other German ships had ended their careers on the high seas, and England thought herself safe from the inroads of German cruisers on the ocean, about the middle of January, 1916, the Liverpool liner Appam disappeared on a voyage from Dakar, West Africa, to Plymouth, England. This ship had left its port of departure on January 11th and was expectgd in Plymouth the 21st of that month. After four days, wireless communication with the vessel ceased suddenly, and as nothing was heard of the ship during the following days, it was given up for lost. It was admitted that it had either gone down in a severe storm which had been raging on the West African coast, or had been sunk by a German submarine which had extended its radius of action.

Gerhard Rohlfs in Yorubaland

1994 ◽  
Vol 21 ◽  
pp. 251-268 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisabeth de Veer ◽  
Ann O'Hear
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
North Africa ◽  
English Translation ◽  
West African ◽  
The West ◽  
West African Coast ◽  
African Coast ◽  
The Way

Gerhard Rohlfs was born in Vegesack near Bremen in 1831. He was a frequent traveler in Africa, and in 1865-67 he became the first European to travel from north Africa across the Sahara to the west African coast, from Tripoli to Borno, then through Bauchi and Keffi to Loko, thence down the Benue to its confluence with the Niger at Lokoja, which he reached on 28 March 1867. From there, he proceeded upstream along the Niger to Raba, delivering presents to Masaba of Nupe. From Raba, he traveled overland through Yorubaland to Lagos. In 1868 he published an account of the first half of this journey, from north Africa to Borno, in Petermann's Mitteilungen. In 1872 his account of the second half, “Gerhard Rohlfs' Reise durch Nord-Afrika vom Mittelländischen Meere bis zum Busen von Guinea, 1865 bis 1867, 2. Hälfte: von Kuka nach Lagos (Bornu, Bautschi, Saria, Nupe, Yoruba),” also appeared in Petermann's. A later publication, Quer durch Afrika, which appeared in 1874-75, covered the entire journey.Rohlfs' accounts of his travels in west Africa south of the Sahara have up to now been greatly neglected. The works mentioned above have never been published in English translation, which no doubt goes some way to explain this neglect. Rohlfs' information on his stay in Kuka (the capital of Borno) and his visits to Bauchi and Nupe have been cited by some scholars, at least. Very few, however, appear to have consulted his description of the last leg of his 1866-67 journey, in which he proceeded from the Niger south through Yorubaland to Lagos, visiting Share, Ilorin, Iwo, Ibadan, and parts of Ijebuland on the way.

scholarly journals Ethnicities of Enslaved Africans in the Diaspora: On the Meanings of “Mina” (Again)

2005 ◽  
Vol 32 ◽  
pp. 247-267 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robin Law
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
West African ◽  
Gold Coast ◽  
The West ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
Generic Term ◽  
West African Coast ◽  
African Coast ◽  
Two Sides ◽  
Published Paper

The term “Mina,” when encountered as an ethnic designation of enslaved Africans in the Americas in the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries, has commonly been interpreted as referring to persons brought from the area of the “Gold Coast” (“Costa da Mina” in Portuguese usage), corresponding roughly to modern Ghana, who are further commonly presumed to have been mainly speakers of the Akan languages (Fante, Twi, etc.) dominant on that section of the coast and its immediate hinterland. In a recently published paper, however, Gwendolyn Hall has questioned this conventional interpretation, and suggested instead that most of those called “Mina” in the Americas were actually from the “Slave Coast” to the east (modern southeastern Ghana, Togo, and Bénin), and hence speakers of the languages nowadays generally termed “Gbe” (though formerly more commonly “Ewe”), including Ewe, Adja, and Fon. Given the numerical strength of the “Mina” presence in the Americas, as Hall rightly notes, this revision would substantially alter our understanding of ethnic formation in the Americas.In further discussion of these issues, this paper considers in greater detail than was possible in Hall's treatment: first, the application of the name “Mina” in European usage on the West African coast itself, and second, the range of meanings attached to it in the Americas. This separation of African and American data, it should be stressed, is adopted only for convenience of exposition, since it is very likely that ethnic terminology on the two sides of the Atlantic in fact evolved in a process of mutual interaction. In particular, the settlement of large numbers of returned exslaves from Brazil on the Slave Coast from the 1830s onwards very probably fed Brazilian usage back into west Africa, as I have argued earlier with respect to the use of the name “Nago” as a generic term for the Yoruba-speaking peoples.

Local meaning in the English of West Africa

English Today ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 50-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Anchimbe
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
West Africa ◽  
West African ◽  
The West ◽  
New Meanings ◽  
West African Coast ◽  
African Coast ◽  
Local Meaning ◽  
Successful Teaching

THIS ARTICLE addresses differences in meaning that are current in English as it is used along the West African coast. It is not uncommon for an ESL teacher to be confronted with such questions as, ‘Is that what “stranger” means?’ or such responses as, ‘Sir, I do not have a “belly”!’ However, in this context, a sound knowledge (or simply an awareness) of new meanings attached to old words may save some embarrassment. This paper proposes that, for the sound and successful teaching of English as a second language in West Africa, teachers should acquaint themselves with such usages.

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