1. Thus as early as 1479, the ships of the Flemish merchant Eustache de la Fosse were captured off Elmina by a Portuguese fleet and he and his officers were subsequently taken for trial in Portugal, where they were condemned to be hanged for having traded at Mina without the permission of the King of Portugal (“ad cause d'avoir esté en ladite minne sans le congiet du Roy”). FD 192 (see below for explanation of this reference).

2. See note 11 for details of the editions of the Esmeraldo.

3. The best modern edition of the relevant sections of the Portuguese text, together with a parallel French translation, is by Monod, Th., da Mota, A. Teixeira, and Mauny, R., Description de la Côte Occidentale de l'Afrique (Sénégal au Cap de Monte; Archipels) par Valentim Pernandes, (Bissau, 1951).Google Scholar

4. Ibid., 84/85 and 102/03. Alvaro Velho is discussed at some length, 175nl97, which draws on the work of Franz Hümmerich there cited. See also Dinis, A.J. Dias, Estudos dos Henriquinos, (Lisbon, 1960) 1:359.Google Scholar I owe this reference to P.E.H. Hair.

5. The best modern text of d'Almada's, AlvaresTratado breve dos Rios de Guiné (1594)Google Scholar is Brásio, Antonio, ed, Monumenta Missionaria Africana, 2d ser., (Lisbon, 1964), 3:229–378.Google Scholar There is an annotated edition, with English translation, of Donelha's, AndréDescriçao da Serra Leoa e dos Rios de Guiné do Capo Verde (1625), ed. da Mota, A. Teixeira and Hair, P.E.H. (Lisbon, 1977).Google Scholar

6. Valentim Fernandes Codex, MS Cod.Hisp. 27, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich. On Fernandes and his work see Introduction to Cenival, P. de & Monod, Th., eds, Description de la Côte d'Afrique de Ceuta au Sénégal (Paris, 1938)Google Scholar, and the works there cited, especially those by J.A. Schmeller, Friedrich Kunstmann, and Franz Hümmerich.

7. My translation from M.126. I do not always use Kimble's English translation, which is sometimes rather free. Here, for example, the Portuguese text as given by Mauny is: “Nem comvem que d'isto mais diguamos, poys que o que he dito, habasta pera entendermos o que compre; soomente que este comercio el-Rey nosso senhor,” which Kimble (K.121) translates as “What we have said of this is sufficient for our purpose, [which] solely concerns the commerce of our lord the King.”

8. The fullest discussion of Pacheco Pereira and his work is to be found in the writings of Joaquim Barrados de Carvalho. Pending the appearance of his book on this subject, these are listed in his La traduction espagnol du ‘De Situ Orbis’ de Pomponius Mela… et les notes marginales de Duarte Pacheco Pereira (Lisbon, 1974).Google Scholar

9. Marees, Pieter de, Beschryvinghe ende historisahe verhael van het Gout Koninckryck van Guinee, ed. Naber, S.P. L'Honoré (The Hague, 1912).Google Scholar There is an abridged English seventeenth-century translation in Purchas His Pilgrims (Maclehose, ed., 1905), 6:247–366.Google Scholar

10. Some reference has also been made to relevant but somewhat enigmatic Spanish and French texts produced between 1519 and 1559: Enciso's, Suma de Geografia (Seville, 1519)Google Scholar; La Cosmographie ascribed to Jean Fonteneau or Jean Alfonce, written apparently about 1544/45, though first published in Paris in 1904; and Les voyages avanturaux du Capitaine Ian Alfonce (Poitiers, 1559).Google Scholar Their Guinea material has been collated and usefully discussed by Hair, P.E.H., “Some Minor Sources for Guinea, 1519-1559,” History in Africa, 3(1976), 19–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11. Pereira, Duarte Pacheco, Esmeraldo de Situ Orbis: (1) trans, and ed. by Kimble, George H.T., (London, 1937)Google Scholar; (2) trans, and ed. by Raymond Mauny (Bissau, 1956).

12. Dalby, David and Hair, P.E.H., “A Further Note on the Mina Vocabulary of 1479-80,” Journal of West African Lanuages, 5(1968), 130.Google Scholar

13. de la Fosse, Eustache, ed. Foulché-Delbosc, R., “Voyage à la Côte occidentale d'Afrique (1479-80),” Revue Hispanique, 4 (1897), 174–201.Google Scholar Raymond Mauny published the West African sections of de la Fosse's text in modernized French with some annotation, Boletim Cultural da Guiné Portuguesa, 14 (1949), 181–95.Google Scholar

14. Blake, John, ed., Europeans in West Africa, 1450-1560 (2 vols.: London, 1942).Google Scholar

15. Blake's comments and notes of 1942 should now be used together with the notes on 193-224 of his West Africa: Quest for God and Gold, 1454-1578 (London, 1977)Google Scholar, a reprinting with additional notes of his European beginnings in West Africa, 1454-1578 (London, 1937).Google Scholar

16. The Principall Navigations, Voiages and Discoveries of the English Nation by Richard Hakluyt, imprinted at London, 1589, a photolithographic facsimile with an introduction by Quinn, D.B. and Skelton, R.A., (2 vols.: Cambridge, 1965).Google Scholar

17. But as Hair has pointed out in The Hakluyt Handbook, ed. Quinn, D.B., (London, 1974), 199Google Scholar, Hakluyt took the material not directly from Eden, but via Willes', RichardThe history of travayle of 1577.Google Scholar

18. Historians usually refer to Hair, P.E.H., “Ethnolinguistic Continuity on the Guinea Coast,” JAH, 8 (1967), 247–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar But, as Hair points out on 249, this is a summary article. The detailed linguistic evidence on which it is based is presented in “An Ethnolinguistic Inventory of the Upper Guinea Coast Before 1700,” African Lanuage Review, 6 (1967), 32–70Google Scholar, and “An Ethnolinguistic Inventory of the Lower Guinea Coast Before 1700,” African Lanuage Review, 7 (1968), 47–73Google Scholar; 8 (1968), 225-56. It should be remarked that, without such an exhaustive examination of the evidence, Blake had percipiently come to the same general conclusion as Hair some twenty-five years earlier (cf B.52-54; also the 1949 lecture referred to by Hair, in “Ethnolinguistic Inventory,” 7 (1968), 47.Google Scholar

19. For further details, see Appendix IV by W.F. Morris in Kimble, Esmeraldo. Here it is said, inter alia, that Pacheco worked to 18 leagues to a degree compared with the “generally accepted Portuguese figure of 17½,” giving leagues respectively of 3.33 n.m. (3.84 st.m.; 6.17 km.) and 3.43 n.m. (3.95 st.m.; 6.35 km.), and that Pacheco was “the more accurate” (K.181). Reference is also made occasionally to “Dutch miles,” which are virtually the same as “leagues.” The Dutch mile at the end of the sixteenth century is supposed to have been the equivalent of 6.33 km. or 3.42 nautical (3.93 statute) miles.

20. Estrelin, or esterlin, is a gallicization of the English word “sterling,” i.e. the silver penny; the equivalent Dutch word (used, for example, by de Marees) was engels. Copies of the English silver penny had circulated in the Low Countries in the fourteenth century. The weight of an actual sterling varied over time, but in theory it was 1/240 of a Troy 1b. of silver, i.e. 1/20 of a Troy oz. or 24 grains, and an English “pennyweight” emerged at this standard independently of the currency. In the Low Countries, the esterlin or engels similarly became an independent weight. The Low Countries system of weights was comparable to the English Troy system but, whereas the latter was based on the grain of wheat (average 0.048 gram) and had 24 grains to the pennyweight, their system was based on the grain of barley (0.064 gram) and had 32 grains to the esterlin or engels. However 24 × 0.064g. = 32 × 0.048g. = 1.536 grams!

21. This seems counter to later experience, e.g. in the Galinhas region in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, where it seems clear that slave exporters preferred to sell men rather than women. (Adam Jones, personal communication. Mr. Jones is working on a history of the Galinhas for a Birmingham University Ph.D.)

22. However, it may be noted that Hair, “The Use of African Languages in Afro-European Contacts in Guinea, 1440-1560” Sierra Leone Language Review, 5 (1960), 16–17Google Scholar, put forward an ingenious argument which, if accepted, would lead to the conclusion that parts of the Grain Coast or its immediate hinterland had been in contact with the western Sudan by 1461.

23. Rodney, Walter, “African Slavery and Other Forms of Social Oppression on the Upper Guinea Coast in the Context of the Atlantic Slave Trade,” JAH, 7(1966), 433.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

24. Pacheco gave population figures in terms of “vezinhos” for the following places:

25. Dicionário de história de Portugal, ed. Serrão, Joel, (Lisbon, 1971?), 4:340–41.Google Scholar I am grateful to D.W. Lomax for this reference.

26. In modern times, R.E. Bradbury gave an average of 7 persons per household in Benin villages (Benin Studies [London, 1973] 152Google Scholar), and Elizabeth Tonkin got the same average for the village she worked in in Sasstown Territory, Liberia in 1976 (personal communication). It is difficult to say how widely representative this figure might be, even for the present time, let alone how relevant it might be to conditions in the past. It is therefore offered merely as some indication of what might be involved in translating “vezinhos” into individual inhabitants.

27. I do not think that this conflicts with the opinion expressed by Hair in his note on “aldeia” on p.180A of the edition of Donelha cited in note 5. The list in note 24 above does not suggest that he had a hierarchical ranking in mind.

28. Dalby, and Hair, , “Further Note,” 129–31Google Scholar; also Hair, , “A Note on de la Fosse's ‘Mina’ Vocabulary of 1479,” Journal of West African Languages, 3 (1966), 56.Google Scholar

29. See, for example, n257, 302/03, in Teixeira da Mota and Hair's edition of Donelha cited in note 5 above.

30. Thus in 1562 William Rutter was to wait at Mouri “for the merchants that came out of the country which were come with their gold” (Hakluyt, , Principal Navigations, Everyman ed., 1907), 4:135Google Scholar, while in 1704 Willem Bosman was to write of the need for the “passes” to be open so that the merchants from the interior could reach the coast “safe and uninterrupted” A new and accurate description of the coast of Guinea (London, 1705), 90.Google Scholar

31. Hair, , “Ethnolinguistic continuity,” 259.Google Scholar

32. Daaku, Kwame, Trade and Politics on the Gold Coast, 1600-1720, (Oxford, 1970)Google Scholar Map 1. However, it should be noted that the original map also has a passage of text; this is translated in Daaku's Appendix I. There is another publication of the map and its text by Daaku, and van Dantzig, A., Ghana Notes and Queries, 9 (1966).Google Scholar The handwriting on the original map is by no means easy to read, and some of the published interpretations may need amending. For example, both publications have a state labeled “Saboe” where it might be expected to be, between “Futu” and “Fantijn,” and also, another state called “Sabue” on the Pra river just north of Shama. On a photocopy of the original map (which is No.743 in the Verzameling Kaarten (Leupen Collectie) in the Rijksarchief at The Hague), a comparison of the initial letters of these names with the initial letters for “Inkassa” and “Sonquaij” indicates that the initial letter of “Sabue” is not “S” but “I.” Furthermore, its last two letters appear to be not “ue” but “ou.” Thus the reading would be “Iabou,” a rendering of the state name Jabi which would make good sense.

33. Adam Jones, personal communication.

34. Donelha, Descrição, 96/97 and note 113; 162/63.

35. Ibid, note 113.

36. Dalby, David, Language Map of Africa and the Adjacent Islands (London, 1977), text, 40.Google Scholar

37. This pledge was Martin Frobisher. See also B.358-60, 378.

38. Hair, , “Note,” 55Google Scholar; idem, “Further Note,” 130.

39. De Pina's account is printed in Blake; see B.72.

40. Beschryvinghe, 82. The identification is also made, though without discussion, by Blake (B.53).

41. In the Purchas translation (Maclehose ed., 1905), 6:300-01 corresponding to page 80 in the Naber edition):

Their Townes that stand upon the Sea-side are not very faire, but rather filthie places, and stinke like carrions… The Townes that lie inward to the Land are richer of Goods and Gold then [sic] the Sea-townes, and fuller of Houses and Men; besides that, they have more Merchants dwelling in them: for those on the Sea-side are not so rich, nor of so great power, as being for the most part Interpreters, Rowers, Pilots, Servants, Fisher-men and Slaves to the Inhabitants of the Townes. The King keeps his Court in the neerest Towne that standeth within the Land whereof he is King, and placeth a Captaine in the Sea-townes which are under his command… I have heard some of the Negroes that dwell within the Land say that there are many great Townes within the Land, much are farre exceeding the Haven or Sea-townes.

De Marees expostulated upon the “stinke” of the “Sea-townes” at some length and, although he did not say so, it was undoubtedly due to the drying of fish for preservation and for trade to the interior.

42. Lawrence, A.W., Trade Castles and Forts of West Africa (London, 1963), 280nl.Google Scholar

43. Daaku, , Trade and politics, 183.Google Scholar

44. B.332n2; also Blake, , West Africa, 101–02Google Scholar; but see also 212n31.

45. Enciso and Alfonce and their publishing history are discussed, and their relevant texts are translated and compared in Hair, , “Some Minor Sources,” 21–24, 33, 34.Google Scholar

46. Beschriyvinghe, 90; cf Bosman, , New and Accurate Description, 5, 66, 326.Google Scholar

47. Cf Ozanne, Paul, “Notes on the Early Historic Archaeology of the Accra Plains,” THSG, 6 (1962), 63–64.Google ScholarMarees', De inland town of “Spice” (Beschriyvinghe, 90)Google Scholar may have something to do with Ladoku.

48. See Admiralty Charts 3113 & 3431.

49. Hakluyt, (Everyman ed., 1907), 4:135.

50. Blake, , Europeans in West Africa, 212n29, 220n44.Google Scholar

51. Compare note 19 above.

52. Dickson, Kwamina B., A Historical Geography of Ghana (Accra, 1971), 22, 254.Google Scholar

53. A New and Accurate Description, 56-57.

54. Beschriyvinghe, 87

55. Ibid, 87, 87n2. It is true that de Marees' estimates of distance were not always very good. But this is much more the case west of Cape Coast - where, for example, he put the distance between Shama and Komenda, which is actually about 9 n.m., at only 1 Dutch mile. But east of Cape Coast, probably because he was better acquainted with the eastern coast, his distances accord with reality much better. It should also be mentioned, however, that it is also possible to read his text as saying additionally that Kormantin was two Dutch miles “lower” than “Infantin.” The syntax here is not easy, but the best reading seems to be that, as well as being one mile from “Infantin,” Kormantin was also two Dutch miles lower than Mouri, which is about right, since the actual distance between the two places is 8 n.m.

56. The change from “Ebaane” to “Abaan” is one of the more interesting changes of spelling made by Hakluyt when revising his text for the second edition. Hair has suggested to me, very reasonably, that the change was made to accord with the “Abaan, Abaan” which Towerson said (H.119; B.407) the people cried when the king drank at the reception for his English visitors. See below, note 61.

57. Blake, , West Africa, 155.Google Scholar

58. Ibid, 173, 175.

59. Hakluyt, (Everyman ed., 1907) 4:130-31.

60. Calendar of State Papers, Dom., Addenda, 1566–1579, XVII, No.115.Google Scholar

61. It is difficult to suggest with any certainty what Akan (or, conceivably, Ga) name might be represented by “Ebaane” or “Abaan.” One possibility might be Obeng, and it should be noted that Daaku (Trade and Politics, 38) mentions “Aban” as a personal name occurring in European trading records of the seventeenth century. However, there is a common noun aban, almost certainly Akan in origin but also found in Ga and Ewe, the first meaning of which is “a house built of stone, or a large or splendid house, a house of many rooms.” According to Thomas McCaskie (personal communication), who is interested in the development of this word and who has given me the above definition, aban was probably coined in Akan to describe the new phenomenon of the European forts and castles on the coast. Thus a man known as Aban might in all probability have been so called because of his association with a European fort or castle. It would seem unlikely, though, that King Ebaane/Abaan was so called for such a reason, despite his apparent invitation to Towerson. The question is complicated because Towerson said that at a ceremony attended by his English visitors, the king poured a series of libations and then drank himself, whereupon “the people cried with one voice ‘Abaan, Abaan’ with certain other words” - these last unfortunately not being recorded (B.407). It would seem reasonable that, whatever the people actually shouted, their English visitors could have assimilated it to the king's name (or, alternatively, the other way round; cf. note 56 above). Hair has suggested that the people were shouting “abá-óo, abá-óo,” “Hail, Hail.” But the ceremony itself may provide a solution to the whole puzzle, for McCaskie has suggested to me - and I find this most plausible - that Towerson's description of it makes it likely that what was being celebrated was the king's nameday, and that what the people were crying was “aá-bene, aá-bene,” “Tuesday, Tuesday.” If so, the king's day name would have been Kwabena, itself not too far removed from Ebaane/Abaan.

62. Ozanne, , “Early Historic Archaeology,” 63.Google Scholar The latter part of this article is full of insights into the effect of the growth of coastal trade on the internal trade and settlement patterns of the states of the Accra plains.

63. “Some Remarks on Beads and Trade in Lower Guinea in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries,” JAH, 3 (1962), 343–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

64. As Ryder, has indicated (Benin and the Europeans [London, 1969], 26Google Scholar), this river is unlikely to have been the Rio Escravos, for Pacheco Pereira described both the dangers of entering it and the lack of trade on it (K.128; M.136/7-138/9). So it must have been one of the other five “slave rivers” of the Delta then known to the Portuguese. (Pacheco listed these as Rio Primeiro (the modern Apara Creek), Rio Fermoso (the Benin River), Rio Escravos, Rio Forcados and Rio Ramos (the last three still being known by these names). But even so, de la Fosse would seem to have exaggerated the distance travelled by “Fernand de Les Vaux” - as Pacheco did too; the 170 leagues he gave from Mina to Rio dos Forcados is really nearer 140.

65. But not always, I think, as long as Newbury, Colin suggested when he wrote (The western Slave Coast and its rulers [Oxford, 1961], 18)Google Scholar that the Portuguese had established contact with the King of Allada “about the beginning of the seventeenth century.” The English merchant captain James Welsh, who sailed along the Slave Coast on his way to Benin at the end of 1590 and the beginning of 1591, knew about Ardra (Allada), and captured and destroyed a Portuguese caravel off its coast (Hakluyt, [Everyman ed., 1907] 4:302-30). He also anchored for a time off “Villa longa” between the port of Ardra and Lagos. I have not been able to identify this place.

66. In 1590, Welsh tried to send a boat carrying some of his merchants into the Volta (which he called the “Rio de Boilas”), “but they durst not put into the river because of a great billow that continually broke at the entrance upon the bar.” (Hakluyt, [Everyman ed.] 4:302)

67. Ryder, A.F.C., “An Early Portuguese Trading Voyage to the Forcados River,” JHSN, 1 (1959), 306.Google Scholar The original word could have been “reino,” that is, “kingdom.”

68. On Ughoton see Ryder, , Benin and the Europeans, 88–89.Google Scholar

69. See, for example, Anthony Ingram's account of his visit in 1589; Hakluyt (Everyman ed, 1907) 4:298.

70. Ryder, , Benin and the Europeans, 88ff.Google Scholar

71. See the graphic description by “D.R.” (ca. 1600) in “A Description and Historical Declaration of the Golden Kingdom of Guinea” (i.e. the abridged English translation of de Marees's book, see note 8 above) in Purchas His Pilgrims, (Maclehose, ed., 1905), 6:354Google Scholar; also Bosman, , New and Accurate Description, 463Google Scholar, and in the reprint of 1967 Bradbury's note on 571.

72. Connah, Graham, “New Light on the Benin City Walls,” JHSN, 3 (1967), 593–94, 597 and figs 1 and 2.Google Scholar

73. This is a point oddly missed by Ryder, who says that Pacheco “was governor of S. Jorge da Mina from 1520 to 1522, but it is generally believed that he… based [his Esmeraldo] upon experience gained from an earlier spell of duty in Guinea.” Benin and the Europeans, 25n3, with emphasis added.

74. For “D.R.” see above, note 53; Dapper, Olfert, Naukeurige Beschrijvinge der Afrikaensche Gewesten (Amsterdam, 1668), 495–505Google Scholar; David van Nyendael's account is Letter XXI in Bosman, New and Accurate Description.

75. Hakluyt (Everyman ed., 1907) 4:297-99. There is also some rather diffuse information to be found in the account of the anonymous Portuguese pilot (ca. 1540) printed by Ramusio in 1550 and reproduced in translation by Blake (B.145-66). See especially the account of the burial of the Benin king, B.150-51.

76. Hair, , “Lower Guinea Coast,” 250n76.Google Scholar

77. Ryder, , Benin and the Europeans, 60–61.Google Scholar But see also Johnson, Marion, “The Cowrie Currencies of West Africa,” JAH, 11 (1970), 18.Google Scholar

78. Talbot, P., The Peoples of Southern Nigeria (4 vols.: London, 1926), 1:281–82.Google Scholar

79. Law, Robin, The Oyo Empire, c.1600-c.1836 (Oxford, 1977), 37–44Google Scholar; Smith, Robert S., Kingdoms of the Yoruba (2nd ed. London, 1976).Google Scholar

80. Barros, João de, Da Asia, Dec. I (1552)Google Scholar, Bk.1, Ch.4 as translated by Crone, G.R., Voyages of Cadamosto, [Hakluyt Society, 2d ser., 80] (London, 1937), 126–27.Google Scholar

81. I had considerable discussion on this subject with Bradbury before his untimely death in 1969.

82. Bradbury, R.E., The Benin Kingdom and the Edo-Speaking Peoples of South-Western Nigeria (London, 1957), 53.Google Scholar

83. Ryder, A.F.C., “A Reconsideration of the Ife-Benin Relationship,” JAH, 6 (1965), 25–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

84. Ryder, , Benin and the Europeans, 8Google Scholar; Law, , Oyo Empire, 31–33, 39–44.Google Scholar

85. Shaw, Thurstan, Igbo-Ukwu, (2 vols.: London, 1970).Google Scholar

86. Ryder, , Benin and the Europeans, 14–15.Google Scholar

87. Northrup, David, “The Growth of Trade Among the Igbo Before 1800,” JAH, 13 (1972), 223.Google Scholar But see also the comments by the linguist Kay Williamson reported in Hair, “Lower Guinea Coast, II,” 250n76.

88. Bradbury, R.E., Benin Kingdom, 127.Google Scholar But see comment on Bradbury's remark in Hair, “Lower Guinea Coast, II,” 250n72.

89. For example Alagoa, E.J., “Long-Distance Trade and States in the Niger Delta,” JAH, 11 (1970), 319–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

90. Fage, “Some Remarks;” idem, “More About Aggrey and Akori Beads,” forthcoming in Mélanges Mauny. See also Willett, Frank, Baubles, Bangles, and Beads: Trade Contacts of Mediaeval Ife, Centre of African Studies, University of Edinburgh, 1979.Google Scholar

91. Benin was able to supply the sixteenth-century English traders with what they thought were vast quantities of pepper. But it was not the same pepper as that from the East Indies, and the Portuguese ceased dealing in it once they had established their Indian Ocean trading system (within a year or two of Pacheco's writing).

92. Hakluyt (Everyman ed., 1907) 4:297; Bradbury, , Benin Kingdom, 26.Google Scholar

93. For example, Alagoa, “Long-Distance Trade;” Northrup, “Growth of Trade.”