A New Lautoconus Species Radiation from Gambia, West Africa

The Festivus ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 50 (3) ◽  
pp. 164-172
Author(s):  
Edward Petuch ◽  
David Berschauer

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.

2008 ◽  
pp. 133-168
Author(s):  
Mark C. Hunter

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.


Author(s):  
Deirdre Coleman

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’.


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.


1917 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 270-301
Author(s):  
Arthur Burchard

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.


1994 ◽  
Vol 21 ◽  
pp. 251-268 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisabeth de Veer ◽  
Ann O'Hear

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.


2005 ◽  
Vol 32 ◽  
pp. 247-267 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robin Law

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.


English Today ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 50-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Anchimbe

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.


Author(s):  
Diane Frost

‘Kru Country’ is the first chapter in the section titled ‘In the Beginning’ and describes the development of the Kru as European trade and traffic increased on the West African coast. The chapter defines the origins of the terms ‘Kru’ and ‘Kroo’ and assesses the emergence of the construct of the Kru as a result of various social and economic processes that occurred during a period of European colonial activity in West Africa. Frost also explores the changing nineteenth century European systems of trade, and the Kru’s influence on these systems, while providing a useful cultural context that includes a discussion on the significance of ‘bride-wealth’ on Kru migration.


2008 ◽  
pp. 105-132
Author(s):  
Mark C. Hunter

This chapter concerns the Anglo-American efforts to reach an agreement regarding their colonial activities on the West African coast. It discusses Lord Palmerston’s foreign policy in relation to the slave trade; America’s economic interest in West Africa; escalating difficulties in Anglo-American diplomacy; the Webster-Ashburn treaty, Quintuple treaty, and the Tucker-Paine agreement. Rather than escalate confrontation over disagreements, both Britain and America used their navies to further their goals peacefully, proving sea power to be a useful mechanism in international diplomacy.


2008 ◽  
pp. 73-104
Author(s):  
Mark C. Hunter

This chapter provides a further analysis of naval relations, piracy restrictions and the suppression of slavery between 1820 and 1830. It continues to document the anti-piracy stance of the US Navy during the increase and decline of piracy in the early 1820s. It also documents the British anti-piracy efforts, and discusses their perceived lacklustre effort as reported by US media outlets. It examines colonisation in detail, including the actions of the American Colonization Society on the West African coast, and the presence of the Royal Navy in West Africa. It concludes by stating that the Anglo-American relationship was heavily strained in this period due to conflicting attitudes toward slavery, yet despite tensions, they remained co-operative while combatting piracy.


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