Short titles have added, in square brackets, the number of the note in which the full title appears.

1. Among the few oral traditions collected in Guinea in earlier centuries is a Fula kinglist which was included in an archive document of ca. 1600. When this list is compared with lists of pre-1600 kings independently collected in the present century, the significant agreements are almost matched by the significant disagreements—which may be thought to limit confidence in the stability of oral traditions (da Mota, A. Teixeira, “Un document nouveau pour l'histoire des Peuls au Sénégal pendant les XVème et XVIème siècles,” Boletim cultural da Guiné portuguesa 24 (1969), 781–860Google Scholar, also série separatas no. 56, Agrupamento (later Centro) de Estudos de Cartografia Antiga (Lisbon, 1969), the list on 26-29). Since a school of African historians, perhaps particularly influential in North America, has been tempted to use recently-collected oral traditions, often on their own, to “reconstruct” what is slackly termed “precolonial African history,” it is worth noting one heartfelt retraction: Wright, D.R., “Requiem for the Use of Oral Traditions to Reconstruct the Precolonial History of the Lower Gambia,” HA 18 (1991), 399–408.Google Scholar

2. Existing collections of archive documents containing material relating to early Guinea include the following:

Marques, J.M. da Silva, ed., Descobrimentos Portugueses (3 vols. in 5 parts: Lisbon, 1944–1971)Google Scholar: thick folio volumes, limited availability in libraries outside Portugal; mainly documents from Portuguese archives, with Portuguese translations of documents in Latin and Italian; chronological order, with additions; brief summaries of each document, in Portuguese; covers up to 1500, therefore mainly Morocco, Atlantic islands, Sahara, and Guinea; solely documents in vols. 1 and 3, whereas vol. 2 is a lengthy study citing many other documents, A. Iria, “O Algarve e os descobrimentos;” previous publication of individual documents indicated; some annotation; bibliography, which includes useful comments on earlier collections, e.g., Ramos Coelho 1892; chronological list; good index of persons, places, and subjects in each volume.

Dinis, A.J. Dias, ed., Monumenta Henricina (15 vols.: Coimbra, 1960–1975)Google Scholar: well-printed folio volumes, limited availability; includes documents from archives outside Portugal, many not previously published, those in Latin not translated but references supplied to existing translations; chronological order; very full summaries of each document, in Portuguese; covers up to ca. 1470, therefore mainly Morocco, Atlantic islands, Sahara, western Guinea; previous publication of individual documents indicated; some annotation; bibliography; “indice analítico” but actually of persons and places, few subjects, in each volume.

Bràsio António, ed., Monumenta Missionaria Africana. Africa Ocidental (20 vols. [in two series representing respectively western Guinea, and eastern Guinea plus Congo/Angola, with 5 vols. and part of a supplementary vol. on pre-1550s Guinea]: Lisbon, 1952-88): the handiest collection, quarto volumes, more widely available; documents mainly in Portuguese, some from Italian archives, those in Latin not translated; chronological order; brief summaries of each document, in Portuguese; covers up to ca. 1700, Guinea and Congo/Angola; previous publication of individual documents seldom indicated; hardly any annotation; index of persons and places only in each volume.

[Rego, António da Silva, ed.], As Gavetas da Torre do Tombo (13 vols.: Lisbon, 1960–1977)Google Scholar: documents mainly in Portuguese; very brief summaries of each document, in Portuguese; covers ca. 1100-ca. 1800 in each volume, Portugal and overseas, hence 1440s-1550s Guinea documents scattered through all volumes; chronological listing in each volume; no annotation; no indexes.

The first three collections also contain material from the extended accounts noted later in the present paper, either the full accounts or extracts (e.g., Silva Marques and Dias Dinis have extracts from Zurara and Cadamosto, occasionally with useful annotation). But these accounts are generally more accessible in their separate editions. For a recent collection limited to the Cape Verde Islands see the next note. The extent of the early Guinea material in Portuguese and Italian archives, and to some extent the character of the documents, can be judged from Ryder, A. F. C., Materials for West African History in Portuguese Archives (London, 1965)Google Scholar; Gray, Richard and Chambers, David, Materials for West African History in Italian Archives (London, 1965)Google Scholar; Giglio, Carlo and Lodolini, Elio, Guida delle fonti per la storia dell'Africa a sud del Sahara esistenti in Italia (3 vols.: Zug, 1973–1982).Google Scholar Difficulties in researching archives in Portugal in earlier decades, noted in Ryder (above), are fully confirmed in Godinho, Vitorino Magalhāes, L'économie de l'empire portugais aux XVe et XVIe siècles (Paris, 1969), 55–65Google Scholar—see p. 55 for some disastrous effects of the 1755 earthquake. The archival documents in English translation in Blake, J.W., Europeans in West Africa (1450-1560) (2 vols.: London, 1942), 1:64–181Google Scholar, are a small selection of the more significant items, necessarily unrepresentative of the mass of “laundry bills of empire,” although a number of these are also included. The most informative of Blake's documents for Euro-African relations are the reports from Mina, but it has to be noted that the Portuguese at Mina were circumstanced differently from the Portuguese else-where in Guinea. Blake drew his documents mainly from an older collection, Ramos-Coelho, José, Alguns documentos do Archivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo àcerca das navegações e conquistas portuguezas (Lisbon, 1892)Google Scholar, a pioneering collection of texts and summaries in Portuguese or Latin covering up to 1530, but one whose pre-1500 material is now replaced by that of Silva Marques, and whose post-1500 material is largely on Asia. It has been claimed that Blake “reproduces less than one percent of the extant documentation pertaining to Mina in the time period.” (Vogt, John, Portugese Rule on the Gold Coast 1469-1682 [Athens, Georgia, 1979], x)Google Scholar—for comment on the claim see da Mota, A. Teixeira and Hair, P.E.H., East of Mina: Afro-European Relations on the Gold Coast in the 1550s and 1560s (Madison, 1988), 38n8.Google Scholar The “Lusocentricity” of the archival documents is demonstrated in Rodrigues, Vitor Luís Gaspar da Conceição, “A Guiné nas cartas de perdão (1463-1500),” Actas do Congresso Internacional “Bartolomeu Dias e a sua época,” (4 vols.: Porto, 1989), 4:397–412Google Scholar, also serie separatas no. 220, Centro de Estudos de História e Cartografia Antiga (Lisbon, 1989).

4. Recent informative use of archive documents includes the statistical analysis of port records to investigate the early trade between the Cape Verde Islands and the mainland coast (de Albuquerque, Luís and Santos, M. Emília Madeira, eds, História Geral de Cabo Verde, vol. 1 (Lisbon/Praia, 1991), passim.Google Scholar The discussion, largely based on a port register for 1513-16 published in vol. 2 of the corpo documental cited in the previous note. However we inevitably learn little about the Africans at the other end of this trade.

5. Godinho, Vitorino Magalhães, Documentos sobre a expansã portuguesa (3 vols.: Lisbon, [1943], 1945, 1956).Google Scholar This work listed the early sources systematically and with brief critical comment (1:10-18, with an added reference to Münzer, 2:181). Since Magalhães Godinho, in his introduction and extensive annotation, commented shrewdly on the context and ideology of the early source writers, his own context and ideology in the 1940s is worth noting (his later works, wide-ranging and perceptive, to some extent modify his earlier views). He drew on the work of those Portuguese historians who had recently discussed the aims of the early outthrust and had in particular produced a critical re-evaluation of “Henry the Navigator.” Duarte Leite had been sceptical of the received patriotic image of the Infante while António Sergio represented those who attempted to relate the outthrust to contemporary socio-economic developments within Portugal, i.e., the “rise of the bourgeoisie.” Magãlhaes Godinho in this work played down the chivalric image of the outthrust and emphasized both its notional crusading element, often a cover for mere “piracy,” and its basic economic motivation. His particular line, following Sergio, was that Portugal invaded Morocco to obtain control of the cereals it desperately needed—a view not now generally accepted, but in any case not relevant to the history of Guinea. However his insistence on the influence of the Moroccan situation on the early outthrust and the aims of the Infante is certainly relevant and remains valuable. A second particular view, that an assumed rivalry between a crusading D. Henrique and a mercantile D. Pedro influenced the southward advance, has been latterly demolished: see L. Bourdon, ed. (“with the collaboration of R. Ricard” and with notes also by Rafols, E. Serra, Monod, T., and Mauny, R.), Gomes Eanes de Zurara: Chronique de Guinée (Dakar, 1960), 30–31Google Scholar; Thomaz, Luís Filipe, “Le Portugal et l'Afrique au XVe siècle: les débuts de l'expansion,” Arquivos do Centro Cultural Português, 21 (1989), 161–256Google Scholar, also série separatas no. 221, Centro de Estudos de História e Cartografia Antiga (Lisbon, 1989)—in the latter, on p.75n37). The documentation on Guinea appears in the first two of Magalhães Godinho's three volumes: the final, 1956 volume was able to make use of Teixeira da Mota's study of early Guinea exploration and it supplied notes, based on this study, additional to those in the 1945 volume. Many of the documents in the complete work relate to Morocco and the Atlantic islands and the theme throughout is Portuguese exploration. Nevertheless, despite the work appearing before academic Africanist scholarship was well advanced, the annotation on Guinea tackles purely African matters—which other editors of Guinea sources at that time often ignored—and deals with them adequately up to a point.

6. For discussion of Zurara's life and writings, and for the full titles of the early publications of his writings, see the works of Dias Dinis and Bourdon, detailed in notes 9 and 15 below.

7. Denis, Ferdinand, Chroniques chevaleresques de l'Espagne et du Portugal (2 vols.: Paris, 1839–1840), 2: 43–44Google Scholar; de Santarem, Visconde, ed., Chronica do Descobrimento e Conquista de Guiné (Paris, 1841)Google Scholar; Schmeller, J.A., “Ueber Valentim Fernandez Alemão und seine Sammlung von Nachrichten ueber die Entdeckungen und Besitzungen der Portugiesen in Afrika und Asien bis zum Jahre 1508, enthalten in einen gleichzeitigen portugiesischen Handschrift der Kgl. Hof- und Staats-Bibliothek zu München,” Abhandlungen der Philosophisch-Philologischen Classe der Koeniglich Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Bild 4, Abth. 3a (Munich, 1847)Google Scholar, separately paginated, 1-73; Soares, Torquato de Sousa, ed., Crónica dos feitos notàveis que se passaram na Conquista de Guiné por mandado do Infante D. Henrique (2 vols.: Lisbon 1978, 1981)Google Scholar (text and appendices, vol.1; text in modernized orthography, vol. 2).

8. Beazley, C.A.R. and Prestage, E., eds, The Chronicle of the Discovery and Conquest of Guinea. Written by Gomes Eannes de Zurara (2 vols.: Hakluyt Society, London, 1896).Google Scholar The introduction (in vol. 2) deals at length with Prince Henrique and with the history of the exploration of West Africa, in terms now outdated, while the notes, curiously, are largely those of Santarem of half a century earlier, sometimes still informative today, but tending to digressions on classical topics and concentrating on Portuguese exploration rather than on Euro-African contacts. The translation has been praised (Bourdon, , Chronique [5], 34Google Scholar), but the English tends to be Victorian-Medieval. A French translation of an abbreviated version of the chronicle, together with extracts from Zurara's earlier chronicle on the capture of Ceuta, prepared by Virginia de Castro e Almeida and published with a brief introduction and briefer annotation at Paris in 1934, was translated into English by Bernard Miall and appeared as Conquests and Discoveries of Henry the Navigator Being the Chronicles of Azurara… (London, 1936).Google Scholar Only one brief extract is to be found in Prestage, Edgar, ed., The Chronicles of Femao Lopes and Gomes Eannes de Zurara (Watford, 1928).Google Scholar

9. Dinis, António J. Dias, Vida e obras de Gomes Eanes de Zurara (2 vols.: Lisbon, 1949)Google Scholar, vol. 1 “Introdução à Crónica dos Feitos de Guiné;” Soares, Sousa, Crónica (7), vol. 1Google Scholar, appendices; de Carvalho, Joaquim Barradas, A la recherche de la specificité de la Renaissance Portugaise: L'“Esmeraldo de Situ Orbis” de Duarte Pacheco Pereira et la littérature portugaise de voyages à l'époque des grandes découvertes: Contribution à l'étude de la pensée moderne (2 vols.: Paris, 1983), 1:276-77, 280–320Google Scholar, including definitive bibliographies in the notes.

10. For Magalhães Godinho, Documentos, see note 5 above; Bourdon, Chronique [5] includes a sound bibliography and—mirabile dictu—comprehensive indexes, including an invaluable index of subjects.

11. This note explains my reluctance to give conquista its apparently straightforward meaning of “conquest.” The chronicle is certainly about “deeds,” but the reference to “conquest” is less obvious since no military activities in Guinea are described. It may be that the title of Zurara's chronicle was intended to be a compressed expression of the reality—“military deeds of conquest against Saharan Moors which led up to the discovery of Guinea.” There may also have been some uncertainty about where Guinea began—a few documents use the term so vaguely that it appears that their authors considered that Guinea began at Arguim or even further north, immediately after Morocco. However, a perhaps sounder explanation is that conquista appears to have been a term with a secondary, abstract connotation—a claim on theological grounds of spiritual overrule of those non-Christian lands in which Christians operated, even if the overrule was not, or was not yet, effective militarily. Thus the Treaty of Tordesillas awarded Portugal the conquista of the kingdom of Fez, another “conquest” never conquered, and the popes regularly awarded a conquista in respect of campaigns yet to be fought. For a discussion of the appropriate name for the chronicle see Soares, Sousa, Crónica [7], 1:369–75.Google Scholar Note that Barradas de Carvalho claims that the term “descobrimento” was not used in Portuguese texts before the last quarter of the fifteenth century (de Carvalho, Barradas, Esmeraldo [9], 1:283Google Scholar).

12. Comparison of the Guinea chronicle with Zurara's other productions should show to what extent he followed Cerveira, assuming, as is likely, that lie incorporated material more or less word for word. A glance at the other chronicles suggests to me some differences in technique, but this is the opinion of a non-expert. A word count in each would be instructive. If a comparison has been already done I have not stumbled across it. It has been argued that Cerveira died in 1442 (Serrão, Joaquim Veríssimo, História breve da historiografia portuguesa [Lisbon, 1962], 63)Google Scholar, but the death would seem to have been that of another man with the same name (Bourdon, , Chronique [5], 29n1Google Scholar; de Carvalho, Barradas, Esmeraldo [9], 299–300Google Scholar). For a lengthy discussion of Cerveira's supposed contribution (including the list of motives for the out-thrust on the part of the Infante, normally ascribed to Zurara), see Soares, Sousa, Crónica [7], 1:396–403.Google Scholar

13. “Since the volume we have written seems to us of a reasonable length, we halt here, with the intention, as already stated, of producing a further work which will extend to the termination of the Infante's activities, even although these were latterly not carried out with as much labor and courage as the former ones were, since after this year [1448] what was accomplished in these parts consisted more of commercial transactions than of acts of valor and feats of arms” (chap. 96). It is, however, worth noting that, whereas chapter 12 is entitled “How Antão Gonçalves brought back the first captives/slaves,” by chapter 16 we learn how the same man “made the first exchanges/trade.” That the chronicle is highly selective in its history, leaving out, for instance, not only the details of commerce but even the details of navigation and toponymy, is strongly argued in de Carvalho, Barradas, Esmeraldo [9], 1:283–84.Google Scholar

14. It is arguable that D. Henrique was influenced by current contacts between western Christendom and Christian Ethiopia, that he believed that Ethiopia extended across Africa, and that he hoped to contact outposts of Ethiopia in Guinea. He appears to have thought of the river Senegal as a branch of the Nile and spoke of Guinea as “near Egypt” (Thomaz, , “Le Portugal” [5], 52, 56Google Scholar).

15. For Iberian crusading against North Africa and especially Morocco, see Houseley, Norman, The Later Crusades,1274-1580 (Cambridge, 1992), passim.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Magalhães Godinho makes the point that Portuguese “piracy” was so endemic that it was not limited to anti-Islamic “crusading” but extended to attacks on vessels of other Christian nations, especially those of Castile. However, he tends to ignore Islamic piracy. The sources on this are no doubt less easily accessible and probably limited, a further example of the irony that a culture which has triumphantly recorded its earlier deeds is more likely to be indicted by modern scholars for what they now interpret as misdeeds, than a culture which in the past did the same but kept few or no records. See, however, the reservations about Islamic capacity at sea expressed in note 17 below. For the connection between endemic Mediterranean razzias and the existence of substantial numbers of slaves in every Mediterranean state between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries, see Verlinden, Charles, L'esclavage dans l'Europe médiévale (2 vols.: Bruges 1955Google Scholar; Ghent 1977)

16. For a detailed and convincing exposition of the role of the Canaries in various aspects of “European expansion” in this period, see Fernàndez-Armesto, Felipe, Before Columbus: Exploration and Colonisation From the Mediterranean to the Atlantic, 1229-1492 (London, 1987)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, a work marred only by its imbalance between Spanish and Portuguese achievement., passim, e.g., 2:259 “les razzias réciproques.”

17. That the Infante's activities were in part a campaign against Islamic piracy is suggested in Soares, Sousa, Crónica [7], 1: 410.Google Scholar The Straits—and further east—were undoubtedly the scene of razzias and piracy on both sides, but there are difficulties in assessing the Islamic response to Christian advance in the more southern part of the Little Sea. In particular the exent of Moroccan marine activity is uncertain and may have been limited. While Islamic sailors were pioneers in navigational methods in the Indian Ocean, while Maghribi sailors at one period raided across the Mediterranean, while Arabic sources of the eleventh century record merchant shipping on the northern half of the coast of Atlantic Morocco (Mauny, Raymond, Les navigations médiévales sur les côtes sahariennes antérieure à la découverte portugaise (1434) [Lisbon, 1960], 26–33Google Scholar), and while stories of Muslim voyages into the “Sea of Darkness” recorded in the fourteenth century, although almost certainly legendary, testify to some Arab interest in penetrating the Atlantic (Cuoq, J.M., Receuil des sources Arabes concernant l'Afrique occidental du VIIIe au XVe siècle (Bilad al-Sudan) [Paris, 1985], 281n1)Google Scholar, by the fifteenth century there seems to have been a decline in Islamic marine capacity in both the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. The decline was halted in the Mediterranean in the next century only by the advance of the Turks. Since the Turks depended on Greek sailors, it is conceivable that the earlier Islamic activity in the Little Sea had also depended on non-Islamic sailors, in this case presumably Iberian, and if so representing a marine tradition going back to Carthaginian times. There is no evidence that, despite their proximity, the Moroccans of post-classical times reached or were aware of the Canaries, or that otherwise they made any significant high-seas voyages in the Atlantic. One suggested explanation is that Morocco followed age-old Mediterranean technology in the use of galleys, which were of limited effectiveness in the rougher Atlantic (Hess, Andrew C. A., The Forgotten Frontier: a History of the Sixteenth-Century Ibero-African Frontier [Chicago, 1978], 17CrossRefGoogle Scholar). Further, it is plausible that the internal troubles of Morocco, and the wholly land-based traditions of the various immigrant peoples, militated against interest in maritime activities. Yet Atlantic Morocco had suitable ports and navigable rivers—Leo Africanus, who visited the region ca. 1500, commented on the failure to make use of one of the latter, which had “neither barges nor barks” (Jean-Léon, l'Africain, Description de l'Afrique, trans. Épaulard, A. [2 vols.: Paris, 1956], 548Google Scholar). His detailed account nowhere mentions native ocean shipping, and the Portuguese accounts give the impression that, although they met stiff resistance on land whenever they attempted to conquer beyond their strongpoints, the Portuguese met no naval resistance when setting up the strongpoints, and that their merchant shipping sailed into and between Moroccan ports without any local competition or fear of piracy. (The confidence gained in virtually total command of the sea—unless threatened by other Europeans—first in Atlantic Morocco and then in Guinea, helps to explains the brashness of the Portuguese irruption into the Indian Ocean.) It is highly unlikely that there was no native coastal shipping in small boats, and fishing at sea was undoubtedly conducted; but Islamic marine resistance to the Christian outthrust may have been limited to assaults on Iberian fishing boats and hostility to Iberian sailors who came ashore elsewhere than in ports and at strongpoints. There appears to be no evidence of Moroccan razzias in this period directed against the Spanish Canaries, although these did occur in later centuries.

18. Cadamosto, chapter 1, in the Crone translation—see note 23 below=Leporace, T.G., Le navigazioni atlantiche del veneziano Alvise da Mosto (Venice, 1966), 6–7.Google Scholar

19. Evans, Joan, ed., The Unconquered Knight: a Chronicle of the Deeds of Don Pero Niño (London, 1928), 78–79.Google Scholar I am indebted to Professor C.T. Allmand for the reference. This anti-Islamic razzia was in 1404: for Dom Pero's earlier and subsequent marine razzias against “Moors,” see pp. 69-98. He also conducted razzias along the coast of southern England, on behalf of France and one of the rival popes. In the Hundred Years' War Castile supported France and Portugal supported England, nevertheless during a period of truce in 1395 French and English soldiers assisted the Genoese in an attack on Mahadiya in North Africa, as described by Froissart. A further connection between the Anglo-French War and anti-Islamic crusade is that in the 1440s it was argued that crusade in Morocco served the purpose of providing Portugal with an excuse for dissociating itself from any war between Christian states, viz., the Anglo-French conflict (Thomaz, , “Portugal” [5], 7, 26Google Scholar). Since France and England recognized rival popes, during their war each gave thought to having a crusade declared against the other (Houseley, , Later Crusades [15], 248Google Scholar). Two adventurers from France who participated in the attack on Mahadiya later led the Norman attack on the Canary Islands (Fernàndez-Armesto, , Before Columbus [16], 175Google Scholar).

20. “Les plans henriquins d'exploration de la côte occidentale ne semblent pas constituer, à l'origine, un projet expansionniste distinct de celui de la conquête du Maroc; bien au contraire, ils s'intègrent, de toute vraisemblance, dans la même stratégie, visant simplement à envelopper le Maroc par le Sud” (Thomaz, , “Portugal” [5], 23Google Scholar). There is some evidence that the Infante expected that a southward outthrust, by bringing Christian Portugal into contact with Christian Ethiopia, would surround the Islamic world on the south (ibid., 52; Soares, Sousa, Crónica [7], 408-10, 416Google Scholar). For a more detailed exposition of the crusading element in the out-thrust see Hair, P.E.H., “How the South was Won—and How the Portuguese Discovery Began,” Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 71 (1994)Google Scholar,

21. Fernàndez-Armesto, Before Columbus [16], passim.

22. Schmeller, , “Ueber Valentim Fernandez” [7], 18–34.Google Scholar For the translations see the Bissau edition (cited in the following note), 9; Godinho, Magalhaes, Documentos [5], 1: 69–115.Google Scholar

23. Crone, G.R., ed., The Voyages of Cadamosto and Other Documents on Western Africa in the Second Half of the Fifteenth Century (London, 1937), 91–102Google Scholar; Monod, T., Mauny, R., and Duval, G., eds, De la première découverte de la Guinée récit par Diogo Gomes (fin XVe siècle) (Bissau, 1959)Google Scholar—the foliation of the MS is cited and given in subsequent references. Crone repeated the translation of ff. 275v-283v which he found in Major, R.H., The Life of Prince Henry of Portugal Surnamed the Navigator… (London, 1868), 288–98Google Scholar; the Bissau edition covers ff. 270-283v.

24. Dalby, D. and Hair, P.E.H., “A West African Word of 1456,” Journal of West African Languages, 4 (1967), 13–14.Google Scholar For further discussion of the word see da Mota, A. Teixeira, Mar, além mar: estudos e ensaios de história e geografia (Lisbon, 1972), 243–45.Google Scholar

25. For the dating of Behaim's text see de Carvalho, Barradas, Esmeraldo [9], 322 (with a bibliography).Google Scholar

26. Monod, et al., Découverte [23], f. 273.Google Scholar However, Magalhães Godinho, commenting on a document of 1458 in which the Infante noted that what began with war has become trade, argued as follows. “The Infante confirms the statements of Zurara, Cadamosto and Diogo Gomes, that at a certain stage he changed his approach to the natives: war, or rather piracy [i.e. razzias], was succeeded by peaceful trade, both however to oblain slaves. Yet it seems that this was not a change of heart on the part of the Infante—it is commonly supposed that the spirit of crusading gave way to commercial preoccupations—but rather that a phase of unregulated activity devoted to the pursuit of instant gains was replaced by a phase of regulated activity” (Documentos [5], 1:151Google Scholar). But it was probably radier more than this. If not a “change of heart” it was “une mutation importante dans la mentalité de D. Henrique” (Thomaz, , “Portugal” [5], 55Google Scholar). Cadamosto stated that the new policy applied to the Saharans: “the Lord Infante will not permit further hurt to be done to them, because he hopes that, mixing wilh Christians, they may without difficulty be converted to our faith, not yet being firmly attached to the tenets of Muhhamad, save from what they know by hearsay” (Crone, , Voyages [23], 18Google Scholar=Leporace, , Navigazioni [18], 28Google Scholar). The belief that the Saharan Berbers were not fully Islaruized represented a more subtle approach than that which produced the earlier razzias, although whether it was true is uncertain.

27. Despite their common Islam, there may have been continuing conflict between the Berbers and Arabs in the desert. It has been suggested thai (lie sedentary Berbers were captured by the Portuguese more easily because they had become “accustomed over centuries to suffer passively the harrying they received from Arab camel-men” (Thomaz, , “Portugal” [5], 54Google Scholar). But Zurara's account, notwithstanding its bias, can be read as indicating that, although overwhelmed by surprise and superior arms, the Berbers put up a fair degree of resistance and did not suffer the Portuguese razzias “passively.”

28. An intriguing statement in Gomes' account refers to a battle between two African kings in the Sudanic interior, news of which reached Gomes on the Gambia River but also simultaneously Prince Henry in Portugal, the latter via a letter or report from “a certain merchant of Oran” (Monod, et al., Découverte [23], f. 277Google Scholar).

29. Russell, P.E., Prince Henry the Navigator: the Rise and Fall of a Culture Hero (Oxford, 1984)Google Scholar; Fernàndez-Armesto, , Before Columbus [16], 185–92Google Scholar, which in dismissal of Portuguese achievement goes further than Russell in “demythologizing” the Infante, leading one historian to comment pertinently that “it is hard to see how it [the issue of his aims] can be resolved if all of Henry's own pronouncements are regarded as elaborate camouflage” (Houseley, , Later Crusades [15], 310–11Google Scholar). For a detailed consideration of Zurara's mentalité and a perceptive comparison with that of Valentim Fernandes, see de Carvalho, Barradas, Esmeraldo [9], 1:296–97.Google Scholar

30. For Schmeller see note 7 above; Baião, António, O manuscrito “Valentim Fernandes” (Lisbon, 1940)Google Scholar (“l'édition, qui ne comporte pas la moindre notice explicative, est en outre très défecteuse,” Bourdon, , Chronique [5], 13n1Google Scholar; cf. de Carvalho, Barradas, Esmeraldo [9], 1: 277, 286-87, 297, 321Google Scholar, equally critical). For some minor emendations of Baião's readings in one section see Hair, P.E.H., “The text of Valentin [sic] Fernandes's account of Upper Guinea,” Bulletin de l'Institut Français de l'Afrique Noire, 31B (1969), 1035–38.Google Scholar For examples of apparent misreadings by the copyist of the manuscript see Godinho, Magalhães, Documentos [5], 196n2.Google Scholar

31. See da Costa, A. Fontoura, Cartas das Ilhas de Cabo Verde de Valentim Fernandes (1500-1508) (Lisbon, 1939), 33–43.Google Scholar This work is more wide-ranging than its title and includes details of the career of Valentim Fernandes “the Moravian” in Portugal (21-33). Another analytic list appeared in Cenival and Monod (see note 35 below), 1-4.

32. Sousa Soares, however, considers that Fernandes' version throws light on the construction of the chronicle, being based on an intermediate version, and discusses it at length (Soares, Sousa, Crónica [7], 381–90Google Scholar). But the argument being mainly one from silence—those points where Fernandes omits references in the Paris manuscript—it is not altogether convincing. After an extensive comparison of the Paris manuscript and Fernandes' version, Barradas de Carvalho concludes that the latter is simply an abbreviation, Fernandes having omitted those elements which reflected the difference between the mentalité of Zurara and his own (de Carvalho, Barradas, Esmeraldo [9], 1: 286–97).Google Scholar

33. Schmeller, , “Ueber Valentim Fernandez” [7], 50–62Google Scholar; F. Kunstmann, “Valentin Ferdinands Beschreibung der Westküste Afrika's bis zum Senegal mit Einleitung und Anmerkungen,” “Valentin Ferdinands Beschreibung der Westküste Afrika's von Senegal bis zur Serra Leoa im auszuge dargestellt,” “Valentin Ferdinands Beschreibung der Serra Leoa mit einer Einleitung über die Seefahrten nach der Westküste Afrika's im vierzehnten Jahrhundert,” Abhandlungen der Historischen Classe der Koeniglich Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Bild 8, Abth. 1 (Munich, 1856), 221–85Google Scholar (translation, 239-85); Bild 8, Abth. 2 (1857), 781-825; Bild 9, Abth. 1 (1862), 111-42 (translation with comments, 127-42).

34. de Cenival, P. and Monod, T., eds, Description de la Côte d'Afrique de Ceuta au Sénégal par Valentim Fernandes (1506-1507) (Paris, 1938)Google Scholar; Monod, T., da Mota, A. Teixeira and Mauny, R., eds, Description de la Côte Occidentale d'Afrique (Sénégal au Cap de Monte, Archipels) par Valentim Fernandes (1506-1510) (Bissau, 1951).Google Scholar Brief extracts from Fernandes' account, with annotation, appeared in Godinho, Magalhães. Documentos [5], 2: 29-54, 192–95Google Scholar, 3: 283-89. Some corrections to the Bissau French translation are given in Godinho, Magalhães, Economie [2], 196n2.Google Scholar The edition has been criticized for its use of the 1940 text as base and its failure to consult the original manuscript (de Carvalho, Barradas, Esmeraldo [9], 1: 21n110).Google Scholar

35. Hümmerich, F., “Studien zum ‘Roteiro’ der Entdeckungsfahrt Vasco da Gama, 1497-1499,” Revista da Universidade de Coimbra, 10 (1924), 53–303Google Scholar, Portuguese translation in Bràs, Moura, Diàrio da viagem de Vasco da Gama (2 vols.: Porto, 1945), 1:173–547.Google Scholar On f. 140 of the account it is stated that Alvaro Velho “says that”—a phrase which suggests that he and Fernandes had met and spoken.

36. A single sentence in the final note, no. 200, observes that there are “elements” from Cadamosto on ff. 101, 102, and 104. This note is credited to Teixeira da Mota, whose annotation only extended from f. 120—presumably the editors of the earlier sections overlooked the borrowings, although they are signaled by dates in the text. Other marginal dates in the manuscript were, however, omitted in the 1940 edition: Bourdon, , Chronique [5], 14nGoogle Scholar5. The borrowings from Zurara are from Fernandes' own summary version (ibid., 13-14). For all the borrowings, see de Carvalho, Barradas, Esmeraldo [9], 1:323–70.Google Scholar

37. Hair, “Text” [30]—but the suggestion needs to be checked by a closer investigation of the Munich manuscript than the 1940 edition provides.

38. Cortesão, Armando and da Mota, Avelino Teixeira, Portugaliae Monumenta Cartographica (6 vols.: Coimbra, 1960–1963) (particularly vol. 1).Google Scholar A more recently discovered early map, that of Jorge de Aguiar dated to 1492, is discussed in Cortesão, Armando, História da Cartografia Portuguesa (2d ed.: 2 vols.: Lisbon, 1970), 2:210–14Google Scholar=History of Portuguese Cartography (2 vols.: Coimbra, 1969, 1971), 2:212–15.Google Scholar Its toponymy of western Guinea is listed in Teixeira da Mota, Mar, além mar [24], opp. 122 and 127.

39. As a starting point see Texeira da Mota, Mar, além mar [24], “A descoberta da Guiné,” 99-249, which reproduces and discusses some early foreign maps and has a good bibliography. For a map showing Guinea in a French atlas whose toponymy is partly in English—the earliest Guinea toponymy in English translation —and for my comments on the map see Wallis, Helen, ed., The Maps and Text of the Boke of ldrography Presented by Jean Rotz to Henry VIII (Oxford, 1981), 46–47.Google Scholar Another map showing Guinea in another French atlas, one by Vallard of ca. 1545, is reproduced in color in a packaged set of a sample of sheets currently available from the Huntington Library, San Marino, California.

40. da Mota, A. Teixeira, Topónimos de origem portuguesa na costa ocidental de Africa desde o Cabo Bojador ao Cabo de Santa Caterina (Bissau, 1950).Google Scholar A study of all toponyms between capes Verga and Palmas by myself remains in manuscript, apart from the following article; Mitchell, P.K. and Hair, P.E.H., “Historical Toponymy of the Scarcies Area,” Sierra Leone Geographical Journal, 14 (1970), 31–37.Google Scholar There are, of course, many articles which use specific early toponymy as evidence, e.g., Law, Robin, “Early European Sources Relating to the Kingdom of Ijebu (1500-1700): a Critical Survey,” HA, 13 (1986), 245–60.Google Scholar

41. For a list of Benincasa maps see Emiliani, M., “Carte nautiche dei Benincasa, cartografi anconetani,” Bolletitno della R. Societa Geografica Italiana, 73 (1936), 485–510.Google Scholar For the relationship between Cadamosto and the Benincasa maps see Crone, , Voyages [23], xxxiv–v.Google Scholar

42. da Mota, Teixeira, Mar, além mar [24], 99–249Google Scholar (a revised version of an article first published in 1946).

43. See note 31 above.

44. Peres, Damião, ed., Os mais antigos roteiros da Guiné (Lisbon, 1952.Google Scholar The dating of the roteiro is discussed in de Carvalho, Barrradas, Esmeraldo [9], 1: 378–79.Google Scholar The extension of Portuguese knowledge of the topography of Guinea, evidenced in maps and roteiros, is discussed in Hair, P.E.H., “Discovery and Discoveries: the Portuguese in Guinea, 1441-1650,” Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, 69 (1992), 11–28.Google Scholar For the early roteiros see da Costa, A. Fontoura, A marinharia dos descobrimentos (3rd ed.: Lisbon, 1960), 288–302.Google Scholar

45. It has been suggested (e.g., Crone, , Voyages [23], 109n1Google Scholar) that Barros saw the Pacheco Pereira manuscript. But the passages which might indicate borrowing appear to be so few and so slight that the identity of wording may be merely coincidental.

46. de Figueiredo, Manoel, Hydrografia … com os roteiros de … Guine … (Lisbon, 1614 and 1625)Google Scholar; the Guinea roteiro copied exactly in Carneiro, António de Maris, Regimento de pilotos… (Lisbon, 1642 and 1655)Google Scholar, and almost exactly in Luís Serrao Pimentel (later editions, Manoel Pimentel), Arie pràtica de navegar… (Lisbon, 1681, 1712, 1746, 1762, 1819).Google Scholar For comparison of a sample passage between Pacheco Pereira and Figueiredo see Law, “Early European Sources” [40], 255. This borrowing from a manuscript of Pacheco Pereira's work does not appear to be noted in Barradas de Carvalho, Esmeraldo [9].

47. Basto, R.E. de Azevedo, ed., Esmeraldo de situ orbis (Lisbon, 1892)Google Scholar; Dias, E. da Silva, ed., Esmeraldo de situ orbis (Lisbon, 1905)Google Scholar; Peres, Damião, ed., Esmeraldo de situ orbis (Lisbon, 1954).Google Scholar The extant texts, being by late copyists, contain errors; nevertheless, the text variants of the later editions are sometimes helpful in disentangling corrupt forms of African names. The 1954 edition has an introduction and appendices which discuss Pacheco Pereira's life and career, including issues not relevant to Africa. It ignores the 1937 English translation (see next note) which has fuller annotation of the content of the work. Its index lists names only. The texts, the life and career of the author, the sources, editions (209-12—the 1892 and 1954 editions are severely criticized) and translations (212) of the account are discussed in well-nigh definitive detail in de Carvalho, Barradas, Esmeraldo [9], 1: 23–271.Google Scholar This study argues (403) that the missing drawings were, with possibly two exceptions, not maps, as previously supposed.

48. Kimble, G.H.T., ed., Esmeraldo de situ orbis of Duarte Pacheco Pereira (London, 1937)Google Scholar; Ricard, R., “La côte atlantique du Maroc au début du XVIe siècle, d'après des instructions nautiques portugaises,” Hespéris, 7 (1927), 229–58Google Scholar; Godinho, Magalhães, Documentos [5], 1:122-28, 223-32, 3:283, 299–304Google Scholar; Mauny, R., ed., Esmeraldo de situ orbis (Côte occidental d'Afrique du Sud Marocain au Gabon) par Duarte Pacheco Pereira (vers 1506-1508) (Bissau, 1956).Google Scholar

49. Barradas de Carvalho's monograph, in French, consists of a 1975 thesis updated to 1980, and additional sections summarizing a series of earlier publications in Portuguese. This work of brilliantly microscopic research is perhaps most remarkable—and perhaps most useful to Africanists—for the meticulously assembled bibliographies in its notes. Unfortunately, the critical edition of Pacheco Pereira's work promised in several of Barradas de Carvalho's publications was never realized (and the same was the case witli the study of Pacheco Pereira in Guinea promised by Teixeira da Mota, the material assembled for which could not be found after his death in 1982). In the 1982 publication Barradas de Carvalho argued (25-39) that Pacheco Pereira had seen various unpublished writings, and he claimed that there had been one borrowing from a letter written by Jerome Münzer in 1493 (for Münzer see below), three borrowings from chronicles of Rui de Pina (for whom see below), and one borrowing from Zurara. However, several of the borrowings are so slight as to be doubtful (and why borrow so little?); moreover, in the case of the Zurara a common source has been suggested by Bourdon—conceivably this may apply to other of the apparent borrowings.

50. Hair, P.E.H., “An Ethnolinguistic Inventory of the Upper Guinea Coast Before 1700,” African Language Review, 6 (1967), 32–70Google Scholar; 7 (1968), 47-73; 8 (1969), 225-56; Fage, J.D., “A Commentary on Duarte Pacheco Pereira's Account of the Lower Guinea Coastlands in his Esmeraldo de situ orbis, and on Some Other Early Accounts,” HA, 7 (1980), 47–80.Google Scholar

51. See the cautious conclusions of de Carvalho, Barradas, Esmeraldo [9], 1:30–31Google Scholar, to the effect that Pacheco Pereira was acquainted with Senegal, Benin, and Príncipe, but that the extent of any exploration he did is uncertain.

52. Paesi novamente retrovati… (Vicenza, 1507), 7–51Google Scholar; [Ramusio, G.B.], Delle Navigationi et Viaggi… (3 vols.: Venice, 1550–1559), 1:105–21.Google Scholar For the details of the other earlier works, see the bibliographies in Crone, Voyages [23], and in Caddeo (note 55 below) and Leporace, Navigazioni [18].

53. Peres, Damião, ed., Viagens de Luís de Cadamosto e de Pero de Sintra (Lisbon, 1948).Google Scholar The appended notes mainly discuss the dreary issue of whether Cadamosto discovered the Cape Verde Islands (for the latest round of discussion see Albuquerque, and Santos, Madeira, Cabo Verde [4], 23–39Google Scholar). But they also consider the uncertain chronology of Pero de Sintra's voyage(s). Appended illustrations are of title pages of various early editions and versions.

54. Godinho, Magalhães, Documentos [5], 3:144-227, 305–22.Google Scholar

55. Caddeo, R., Le navigazioni atlantiche di Alvise da Ca' da Mosto, Antoniotto Usodimare e Niccoloso da Rocco (Milan, 1928) (Cadamosto, 159-293)Google Scholar; Leporace, Navigazioni [18].

56. For Crone, see note 23 above. One instance of mistranslation—the lichen, orchel, “se tenze com essa pani;” this is translated as “is used to colour bread” instead of “is used to colour cloths.” (Crone, , Voyages [23], 12Google Scholar; Leporace, , Navigazioni [18], 19Google Scholar).

57. Magalhães Godinho, Documentos [5]; Teixeira da Mota, Mar, além mar [24].

58. Comparison of Fernandes' version and the 1507 printed version indicates that Fernandes saw and used either the printed text or a manuscript circulating in Portugal which was more or less identical with the printed text. The minor differences between Fernandes' version and the other text are explicable in terms of Fernandes translating from Italian to Portuguese and paraphrasing at some points—contrary to what Magalhães Godinho supposed (Godinho, Magalhães, Documentos [5], 3:109Google Scholar). Since the supposed manuscript is otherwise unknown, it is perhaps more likely that he used the printed text. Fernandes' contemporary Portuguese translation has some value in that it occasionally throws light on otherwise obscure points in Cadamosto's Italian. For a comparison of a short section see Hair, P.E.H., “Early Sources on Religion and Values in the Sierra Leone Region: (1) Cadamosto 1463,” Sierra Leone Bulletin of Religion, 11 (1969), 51–64Google Scholar (unfortunately with many misprints).

59. Crone, , Voyages [23], 78Google Scholar = Leporace, , Navigazioni [18], 117.Google Scholar

60. Crone, , Voyages [23], 21Google Scholar = Leporace, , Navigazioni [18], 30.Google Scholar For a more detailed discussion of Cadamosto's sources see Du Tertre, Marie-Pierre Laurent, “Les informateurs d'Alvise da Mosto, première et deuxième navigations (1455 & 1456),” Revista da Universidade de Coimbra, 34 (1988), 477–84Google Scholar, also série separatas no. 211, Centro de Estudos de História e Cartografia Antiga (Lisbon, 1988)—but I do not agree that Cadamosto used written sources in Portugal.

61. But, since Cadamosto states that he had earlier been in Flanders, it is conceivable that he had earlier visited Portugal.

62. Crone, , Voyages [23], 35, 55, 60, 68Google Scholar = Leporace, , Navigazioni [18], 49, 77, 84, 98–99.Google Scholar On the Portuguese use of interpreters, see Hair, P.E.H., “The Use of African Languages in Afro-European Contacts in Guinea,” Sierra Leone Language Review, 5 (1966), 5–26Google Scholar; “Portuguese Contacts With the Bantu languages of the Transkei, Natal, and Southern Mozambique, 1497-1650,” African Studies 39 (1980), 9-11, 24–28.Google Scholar

63. Crone, , Voyages [23], 55Google Scholar = Leporace, , Navigazioni [18], 76.Google Scholar

64. Crone, , Voyages [23], 48Google Scholar = Leporace, , Navigazioni [18], 67.Google Scholar

65. For Schmeller see note 7 above; Kunstmann, F., “Hieronymus Münzers Bericht über die Entdeckung der Guinea, mit einleitender Erklärung,” Ahhandlungen der Historischen Classe der Koeniglich Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Bild 7, Abth. 2 (Munich, 1854), 289–362Google Scholar; de Vasconcelos, B., “‘Itineràrio’ do Dr. Jerónimo Münzer (a),” O Instituto 83 (1932), 140–90.Google Scholar The section of Münzer's account dealing with Spain was published in French translation, with an introduction and notes, in Pfandl, L., “Itinerarium Hispanicum Hieronymi Monetarii, 1494-1495,” Revue Hispanique, 48 (1920), 1–179.Google Scholar

66. Cenival and Monod [34] state (9) that Münzer “often contents himself with transcribing Diogo Gomes,” which probably generated the incorrect statement that “Münzer's work is little more than a transcription of Gomes” (Fage, J.D., A Guide to Original Sources for Precolonial West Africa Published in European Languages [Madison, 1987], 6).Google Scholar In fact it has been suggested that Munzer as well as Behaim contributed to the final form of the Diogo Gomes text (Godinho, Magalhães, Documentos [5], 2:181Google Scholar).

67. Vasconcelos, , “Itineràrio” [65], 19.Google Scholar

68. Foulché-Delbosc, R., “Voyage à la côte occidentale d'Afrique, en Portugal et en Espagne,” Revue Hispanique, 4 (1897), 174–201Google Scholar; Mauny, R., “Eustache de la Fosse—Voyage dans l'Afrique Occidentale (1479–1480),” Boletim Cultural da Guiné Portuguesa, 4 (1949), 181–89Google Scholar; Hair, P.E.H., “Early Sources on Religion and Social Values in the Sierra Leone Region: (2) Eustache de la Fosse,” Africana Research Bulletin, 4 (1974), 49–54Google Scholar; Hair, P.E.H., “A Note on de la Fosse's “Mina” Vocabulary of 1479-1480,” Journal of West African Languages, 3 (1966), 55–57Google Scholar; Dalby, D. and Hair, P.E.H., “A Further Note on the Mina Vocabulary of 1479-1480,” Journal of West African Languages, 5 (1968), 129–31.Google Scholar

69. Voyage d'Eustache Delafosse sur la côte de Guinée, au Portugal et en Espagne (1479-1481), “transcrit, traduit et présenté par Denis Escudier” (with a foreword by Théodore Monod) (Paris, 1992). Since this edition will now be regularly used, its status deserves assessment. The text is presented twice, the second time in a version in modern French—the latter appears to be correct, but is hardly necessary, and a glossary of occasional obsolete terms would have sufficed since scholars will continue to cite the sixteenth-century version. These texts are followed by a lengthy commentary, of a broad and Eurocentric nature, mainly with reference to the provenance of the text, the background of De la Fosse and the course of the voyage. On specific matters this is heavily based on Blake and Russell, few new points of information or interpretation being added, and it would seem that Escudier is not fully acquainted with previous publications on the voyage from the Africanist angle. De la Fosse's text is claimed to be newly transcribed, but regretably Escudier fails to relate his transcription to the earlier one by Foulché-Delbosc or to supply any explanation of his form of transcription. I have therefore compared the two versions (up to f. 138), the differences between which turn out to be trifling, and also compared both versions with the section of Mina in the manuscript (which I have on microfilm). Both transcriptions (hereafter F-D and E) are to some extent edited versions. Both add punctuation to a text which has virtually none, but add it differently, E producing new sentences, whereas F-D produces only clauses. E further adds brackets, capitals on toponyms, a few accents, and occasional respellings—some correct, some not. E adds markers for foliation but, oddly, omits numbering them. None of this matters much, although it leaves undecided the extent of new transcription. However, E does add a very few words missing in F-D, yet in one noted instance appears to follow F-D, by including a word I cannot see in the manuscript (E, p. 26, line 4 from bottom, “demeurans”). For total authenticity scholars will continue to check either version with the manuscript text, and a closely annotated Africanist edition is still required. The Escudier edition has a helpful chronology and index.

70. Russell, P.E., “Novos apontamentos sobre os problemas textuais do Voiage à la Guinée de Eustàquio de la Fosse (1479-1480),” Revista Portuguesa de História, 16 (1978), 209–21.Google Scholar Russell argues that the references to a printed work of the 1510s which led previous writers to consider that De la Fosse wrote his account in old age were editorially inserted and that, although the Guinea episodes were probably little altered by the editor, the Akan vocabulary may have been abbreviated. It might be added that the adventures in Iberia, which take up far more of the account than the Guinea experiences, are related in extremely lively detail and this alone makes it very unlikely that they were recalled decades later. The age of De la Fosse in 1479-80 is uncertain: apparent references to his early youth may have been editorially inserted and since he appears to have had previous experience of trading, he was probably a young man, perhaps around twenty. Escudier modifies both points marginally, arguing that while the text was originally composed as Russell suggests, De la Fosse added to it, or perhaps even generally revised it, at least two years later; and he considers that at the time of voyage De la Fosse was not a young man but somewhat older (Voyage, previous note, 94-95, 97). Both modifications appear debatable.

71. Ramusio, , Navigationi [52], 1: ff. 125–29Google Scholar (facsimile in Sauvageot, next note). Ramusio added sub-titles and marginal summaries in his second edition of 1554. A French translation appeared in Temporal, Jean, trans., L'Historiale description de l'Afrique… (Lyon, 1556).Google Scholar

72. Blake, , Europeans [2], 14–166Google Scholar; Sauvageot, G., “Navigation de Lisbonne à l'île São Tomé par un pilote portugais anonyme (vers 1545),” Garcia de Orta, 9 (1961), 123–38.Google Scholar The earlier French and Portuguese translations are listed in Sauvageot. The Italian text was republished in Caddeo, , Navigazioni [55], 297–328.Google Scholar

73. The Portuguese chronicle of Rui de Pina (Chronica del rey D. Affonso V), which notes the war, was not published until 1790. The relevant part of Barros' chronicle, published in 1552, ignored the war but it was briefly noted in Damião de Góis, Chronica do principe Dom Joam segundo do nome, published in 1567. Two earlier Portuguese sources, Gomes and Pacheco Pereira, mention individual Castilian interlopers of the prewar period, but Pacheco Pereira does not mention the warfare.

74. Pulgar, Hernando del, Crónica de los señores reyes católicos Don Fernando y Dona Isabel (Madrid, 1923)Google Scholar, and Carriazo, Juan de Mata, ed., Crónica de los Reyes Católicos por su secretario Fernando del Pulgar (2 vols.: Madrid, 1943)Google Scholar (with a different numbering of chapters); de Palencia, Alonso, Cronica de Enrique IV, ed. y Melia, A. Paz (5 vols.: Madrid, 1904–1909; 2 vols.: Madrid, 1973-75)Google Scholar; de Toro, José Lopez, ed., Cuarta Década de Alonso de Palencia (2 vols.: Madrid, 1970–1974).Google Scholar Extracts from the last work relating to the earlier part of the campaign conducted in the Canaries are in de Toro, J. López, “La conquista del Gran Canaria en la ‘Cuarta Década’ del cronista Alonso de Palencia, 1478-1480,” Anuario de Estudios Atlànticos, 16 (1970), 17–33.Google Scholar The first publication of Pulgar was in Latin under a different name; see Carriazo, above, lxx-lxxvii.

75. Blake, J.W., European Beginnings in West Africa, 1454-1578 (London, 1937)Google Scholar, extended version, West Africa: Quest for God and Gold (London, 1977), 41–56Google Scholar; Blake 1942, Europeans [2], 18-246. A few more recent publications referring to the war are listed in Fernàndez-Armesto, , Before Columbus [16], 273–74.Google Scholar

76. de la Torre, Antonio and Fernàndez, Luis Suàrez, Documentos referentes a las relaciones con Portugal durante el reinado de los Reyes Católicos (3 vols.: Valladolid, 1958–1963), vols. 1-2.Google Scholar For other published Castilian archive sources, see Russell, P.E., “Fontes documentais castelhanas para a história da expansão portuguesa na Guiné nos últimos anos de D. Afonso V,” Do tempo and da história, 4 (1971), 5–23.Google Scholar

77. For this episode, see Hair, P.E.H., The Foundation of the Castelo de Sao Jorge da Mina (Madison, 1994).Google Scholar Some Castilian vessels sailed as far as the Niger Delta to pick up slaves (probably at “Rio dos Escravos, Slaves' River”) in order to sell them at Mina, thus imitating the Portuguese. On this inter-African trade, see Ballong-Wen-Mewuda, J.B., “Le commerce portugais des esclaves entre la côte de l'actuel Nigeria et celle du Ghana moderne aux XVe et XVIe siècles” in Daget, S., ed., De la traite à l'esclavage (2 vols.: Paris, 1988), 1: 121–24.Google Scholar But we have no details of this earliest European trading contact with the Nigerian coast.

78. It appears that a few Castilian vessels illegally sailed to Mina in the 1480s but no detailed records are available. Between then and the 1550s other Spanish sailings, either from Europe or from the Canaries, to localities in Guinea—usually to unspecified or vaguely defined localities and probably more often to Senegal than to further east—are known to have occurred: da Mota, A. Teixeira, “Viagens espanolhas das Canarias à Guiné no século XVI, segundo documentos dos arquivos Portugueses” in III Coloquio de Historia Canario-Americana (1978) (Las Palmas, 1980), 219–50Google Scholar; Cabrera, Manuel Lobo, “Viajes Canarios a Guinea” in Vice-Almirante A. Teixeira da Mota in Memoriam (2 vols.: Lisbon, 1980), 219–50Google Scholar). Curiously, neither of these articles notes a reference in an earlier collection of archive documents to a Portuguese complaint of 1503 about an alleged Castilian voyage to “the coast of Guinea, to Fernando Po, and to trading places on that coast” (Ramos-Coelho, , Alguns documentos, 132Google Scholar). This extreme Castilian penetration is probably confirmed by a toponym, a praia dos castelhanos, that appears on a map of Fernando Po apparently drawn in the 1500s: Monod, Teixeira da Mota, and Mauny, Description [34], opp. 146.

79. de Witte, Ch.-M., “Les bulles pontificales et l'expansion portugaise,” Revue d'Histoire Ecclésiastique, 48 (1953), 683–718Google Scholar; 49 (1954), 438-61; 51 (1956), 413-53, 809-36; 53 (1958), 5-46, 443-71.

80. Boxer, C.R., The Portuguese Seaborne Empire, 1415-1825 (London, 1969), 20–21Google Scholar (“the charter of Portuguese imperialism”); De Witte (previous note), 51:433; and see my argument in Hair, P.E.H., “Columbus From Guinea to America,” HA, 17 (1990), 128n46.Google Scholar

81. For details of these works, see Hair, P.E.H., “Some Minor Sources for Guinea, 1519-1559,” HA, 3 (1976), 19–46.Google Scholar

82. Ramusio, , Navigationi [52], 1: 125–29Google Scholar; Blake, , Europeans [2], 166–69.Google Scholar

83. Die Merfart vñ erfarung nüwer Schiffung vnd Wege zu viln onerkanten Inseln vnd Künigreichen…wie ich Balthasar Spreger sollichs selbs …gesehen vn erfaren habe…(Augsburg[?], 1509). Extracts from this work with all its accompanying woodcuts, together with related woodcuts that appeared in 1508, were republished in facsimile in Hirschberg, Walter, ed., Monumenta ethnographica: Schwarzafrika (Graz, 1962)Google Scholar; and the material on Guinea—basically on Cape Verde and the Cape Verde Islands—appeared, together with English translations, annotation, and an extensive bibliography, in Jones, Adam, “The Earliest German Sources for West African History (1504-1509),” Paideuma, 35 (1989), 145–54.Google Scholar

84. Portuguese analysts of Pina tend to concentrate on the issue of his false, or at least exaggerated, claim to authorship of chronicles of much earlier kings, and his poor reputation helps to explain why until recently his genuine writings gained far less attention than did the writings of his predecessor Zurara and successor Barros (who praised Zurara but ignored Pina).

85. Resende did add a few minor details, mainly of a general nature, when he copied passages on Guinea from Pina, as noted in Blake, , Europeans [2], 71, 79, 85.Google Scholar

86. Hakluyt, Richard, Principall Navigations… (London, 1589), 80.Google Scholar

87. Cidade, Hernani and Mürias, Manuel, eds, Asia de João de Barros (Lisbon, 1945), déc. 1, lib. 2, cap.1.Google Scholar Reliance on Barros for information on Guinea has always been encouraged by the fact that in the 1520s and 1530s he held responsible posts in die Casa da Guiné at Lisbon. Moreover, he almost certainly served at Mina. Although doubt about this service has often been expressed, since no documentation can be traced (and he was undoubtedly not the governor or captain, as sometimes stated), in the course of his chronicle he relates an anecdote about ships at sea and his own experience “some years later [than 1518], when I was going to the castle of São Jorge da Mina on the coast of Guinea” (ibid., déc. 3, liv. 3, cap. 1). Although the reference is casual and is detached from his sections on Mina, in which there is no reference to service there, it would seem decisive—as far as it goes. In view of his subsequent promotion it may be supposed that Barros went to Mina as factor or sub-factor, and the date was perhaps 1522 or a little later, since he was given a Lisbon position in 1525. Thus at both Lisbon and Mina he would seem to have been in a position to obtain first-hand information. It is curious, however, that the episodes in the history of Afro-Portuguese relations in western Africa highlighted in his chronicle are precisely the same as those highlighted by Pina. When he narrates the 1482 events at Mina he generally follows Pina and adds surprisingly little from first-hand knowledge of the African and local background, and this first-hand knowledge is not of course necessarily his own. It is difficult to resist the conclusion that Barros was not particularly well-informed about Guinea, and that his reputation as the prime source has rested on his earlier publication, his superior, or at least much-admired, literary quality, and the long period during which Pina's credentials were under a cloud (not as it happens for the relevant chronicle but for earlier writings supposedly plagiarized). As for Barros's service at Mina, assuming that his traveling towards Mina led to his actually arriving there and not to some marine adventure which sent him back to Lisbon, it might have been the case that his time there was very short, possibly because of illness, or alternatively because of some administrative reversal. The only other possibilities would seem to be that he was either not very observant when at Mina, or else insufficiently interested in the Mina scene to care to add more than a very few notable details to the Pina account.

88. de Pina, Rui, Chronica d'El Rey Dom loam II, ed. de Carvalho, Alberto Martins (Coimbra, 1950)Google Scholar, with a defensive introduction; de Almeida, Manuel Lopes, ed., Crónicas de Rui de Pina (Porto, 1977)Google Scholar; Garcia de Resende, Crónica de D. João II e miscelânea, facsimile reprint of 1798 edition, with introduction by Joaquim Veríssimo Serrão (Lisbon, 1973); Barros, previous note; Godinho, Magalhães, Documentos [5], 1: 128-36, 2: 170-79, 185-95, 3: 289–95.Google Scholar Extracts on Guinea from Pina, Resende, and Barros are also to be found in Bràsio, Monumenta [2].

89. Other than in Portuguese, Barros first became available in Italian. In 1554 Ramusio published select chapters (Ramusio, , Navigationi [52], 2nd ed., [3 vols.: Venice, 1554–1559], 1: ff. 426–36Google Scholar, in reprint of 1588 edition, ed. R.A. Skelton and G.B. Parks [3 vols.: Amsterdam, 1967-70], 1: ff. 384v-394), the only Guinea episode included being that of Bemoim (déc. 1, liv. 3, cap. 8). But an Italian translation of the whole of Decades 1 and 2 appeared in 1562 (2 vols.: Venice).

90. Crone, , Voyages [23], 103–47.Google Scholar

91. Blake, , Europeans [2], 70–87.Google Scholar Blake probably did not think it necessary to present passages where Barros enlarged on Pina since Crone's translation of Barros had appeared a few years earlier in the same Hakluyt Society series.

92. da Mota, A. Teixeira, “D. João Bemoim e a expedicao portuguesa ao Senegal em 1489,” Boletim cultural da Guiné portuguesa, 26 (1971), 63–111Google Scholar, also serie separatas no. 63, Agrupamento de Estudos de Cartografia Antiga (Lisbon, 1971), 8-14. However, examination of other Guinea episodes shows that Barros also omits details in Pina, therefore both sources need to be consulted. For a comparison of the chroniclers' material in relation to one episode, see Hair, Founding [77].

93. Fernandes also described, on the western coast, the Cape Verde Islands, as did Pacheco Pereira.

94. Apart from the passages noted, Pina included a number of incidental references to Guinea, to discussions in Lisbon over the Guinea trade, to the title “Lord of Guinea,” and to successful diplomatic efforts blocking English voyages to Guinea in the 1480s (caps. 7, 34, translated in Blake, , Europeans [2], 295, 297–98Google Scholar).

95. Barros, Asia [87], déc. 1, liv. 3, cap. 8.

96. Eastern Guinea may, however, have been described in Barros' Geography, a text he refers to but which was never published and is last. On the text and the loss see António Baião, introduction to de Barros, João, Décadas [extracts] (4 vols.: Lisbon, 1945), xlix–lxxi.Google Scholar

97. Damião de Góis' chronicle of Prince João, later João II, covering the years 1455-1481, and written in the 1550s, includes chapters on the early exploration of Guinea, but these appear to be wholly from Zurara, Cadamosto, Pina, and Barros, apart from some embroidery—hence Góis is not considered separately in the present paper. Brief extracts from the Cronica do Principe Dom loan… (Lisbon, 1567)Google Scholar, with annotation, appear in Godinho, Magalhães, Documentos [5], 1: 136–40Google Scholar; 2: 236-45; 3: 244-70. Barros does include (déc. 7, liv. 3, cap. 4) information on the relations between Benin and an interior ruler, said to have been collected in the 1480s (but not recorded in Pina), and confirmed by his own interrogation in 1540 of an envoy from Benin.

98. There is remarkably little on Guinea in Julien, Ch.-A., Les voyages de découverte et les premiers établissements (XVe-XVIe siècles) (Paris, 1947)Google Scholar, which tends to rely on Blake, Beginnings [75]. For the relevant section of the text of Jean Alfonse, see Hair 1976, note 78 above; and for a French-Kru wordlist of 1544 see Dalby, David and Hair, P.E.H., “‘Le langaige de Guynee’: a Sixteenth Century Vocabulary From the Pepper Coast,” African Language Studies, 5 (1964), 174–91.Google Scholar For a little on mid-century French activities, see Teixeira da Mota and Hair, East of Mina [2]; and on slightly later activities see Hair, P.E.H., “A Note on French and Spanish Voyages to Siena Leone, 1550-1585,” HA, 18 (1991), 137–41.Google Scholar

99. Thevet's relevant writings are listed below. Guinea references may occur almost anywhere in the rambling disquisitions but the notional sections on Guinea are indicated in square brackets. Les Singularitez de la France Antarctique (Paris, 1557/1558)Google Scholar; English translation, The Newe found worlde, or Antarctike… (London, 1568)Google Scholar; reprint of the French original, ed. P. Gaffarel, (Paris, 1878), and of extracts on Brazil but with a useful general introduction, ed. F. Lestringant, (Paris, 1983): [chapters 10 (Cape Verde), 12 (River Senegal), 13-15 (Cape Verde Islands), 18 (Mina and São Tomé)]; La Cosmographie universelle… (Paris, 1575)Google Scholar [liv. 3, chapters 1 (Guinea, Mina, etc), 2-6 (Senegal), 7 (Cape Verde Islands), 12 (Guinea, etc), 13-14 (São Tomé)]; “Le Grand Insulaire,” Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, Ms fr. 15452-15453 [15452, ff. 112v-18v (“Iles des noirs” = Cape Verde, Bissagos Islands, etc); 132-34v (Cape Verde Islands), 135v-38 (“Isle de Guber” = Cape Verde, etc), 210-13 (São Tomé)]; “Histoire…de deux voyages,” BN, Ms fr. 15454 [ff. 132-35 (Cape Verde Islands), 135-38 (“He de Guber”), 210-13 (São Tomé)]. On Thevet see Lestringant, Frank, Le Huguenot el le Sauvage (Paris, 1990)Google Scholar; André Thevet, cosmographe des derniers Valois (Geneva, 1991)Google Scholar; and his edition of Thevet, André, Cosmographie de Levant (Geneva, 1985).Google Scholar As an instance of Thevet's methods, much of the material on Guinea in Les Singularitez was borrowed from Cadamosto (Lestringant 1991, 111-12). For comment on a passage in Thevet's 1575 work see Hair, P.E.H., “Some French Sources on Upper Guinea, 1540-1575,” Bulletin de l'Institut Français de l'Afrique Noire, 31B (1969), 1030–34Google Scholar; and for a map of São Tomé see Hair, P.E.H., “A Note on Thevet's Unpublished Maps of Overseas Islands,” Terrae Incognitae 14 (1982), 105–16CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lestringant, Frank, “Catalogue des cartes du Grand Insulaire” in Pastoreau, Mireille, ed., Les Atlas francais (XVIe-XVIIe siècles) (Paris, 1984), 481–95.Google Scholar In the 1970s I began a critical edition of Thevet's writings on Guinea, but got bogged down in identifying the few embedded snippets of original material and in conflating the contradictions and confusions; moreover, my second-hand general research on Thevet was overtaken by Lestringant's series of authoritative and first-hand studies. In view of the latter's recent publication of two-thirds of a magnum opus on Thevet (above), and the rather different interest in Thevet he has to date expressed, I may yet resume, but in case I do not, the listing of Guinea passages above may be useful to other scholars.

100. Actually Barros says little about the Portuguese-Castilian clash in the Canaries where, pace Las Casas, Prince Henrique's claim was not without historical justification (as admitted even by Fernàndez-Armesto, , Before Columbus [16], 171Google Scholar), and he omits any mention of the less-justified Castilian claim to Guinea, the 1475-79 war, and the forced abandonment by Castile of its Guinea ambitions. Las Casas was thus easily aroused.

101. See de las Casas, Bartolomé, Historia de las Indias, ed. Carlo, Agustín Millares (3 vols.: Mexico City, 1951), lib. 1, caps. 22-27.Google Scholar He mentions Barros for almost the first time in lib. 1, cap. 18, where he indicts Prince Henrique for “the tyranny of the Portuguese over these islands [the Canaries], against the wish and command and admonition of the King of Castile.” His indignation is directed against the political challenge of Portugal and he avoids comment on the Spanish conquest and enslavement of the Guanche. However, he next cites Zurara, from Barros, and begins a verbal assault on the Portuguese—and the dishonest Barros—for pretending that the object of Discovery was to spread the Gospel while actually it was to kill, rob, and enslave Africans (caps. 22-27). He hints that the Portuguese are to blame for all that went wrong in the New World, Columbus having introduced slavery after seeing the Portuguese at work in Guinea: Hair, “Columbus [80].” For Las Casas' late conversion to crusade against slavery of Black Africans see Wagner, H.R., The Life and Writings of Bartolomé de las Casas (Albuquerque, 1967), 246–47.Google Scholar Editors, biographers, and interpreters of Las Casas having been almost to a person Americanists, his chapters on the Portuguese in Guinea have tended to be considered irrelevant digression and ignored.

102. Hakluyt 1589, Navigations, [86], 520-21; Williamson, James A., Sir John Hawkins… (Oxford, 1927), 13–15Google Scholar; rewritten as Hawkins of Plymouth (London, 1949)Google Scholar, “second edition” 1969, 32-33—for comment on these versions and “editions,” see my note in Mariners's Mirror, 56 (1970), 422Google Scholar; Blake, , Europeans [2], 299–301.Google Scholar

103. Eden, Richard, The Decades of the newe worlde or west India…wrytten in the Latin tounge by Peter Martyr of Angleria… (London, 1555), ff. 343–60Google Scholar; Hakluyt 1589, Navigations, [86], 83-130; Blake, , Europeans [2], 314-24, 326-46, 360–430Google Scholar;

104. Blake, , Beginnings [75], 114, 143–60Google Scholar; Blake, , Europeans [2], 249–94Google Scholar; Teixeira da Mota and Hair, East of Mina [2]. Teixeira da Mota traced the relevant Portuguese documents and outlined the scope of a proposed paper discussing the English voyages, but died in 1982.

105. Hair, P.E.H. and Alsop, J.D., English Seamen ami Traders in Guinea, 1553-1565: the New Evidence of Their Wills (Lewiston, 1992).Google Scholar

106. Blake, , Europeans [2], 94-95, 112–14Google Scholar; Santos, Maria Émilia Madeira, “Contactos e caminhos comerciais na Costa da Mina durante as duas primeiras décadas do século XVI” in Domingues, Francesco Contente and Barreto, Luís Filipe, eds., A abertura do mundo: estudos de história dos descobrimentos europeus (2 vols.: Lisbon, 1987), 2: 109–22.Google Scholar See also the information gained from an account ledger of 1529-31 in Vogt, John, “Portuguese Gold Trade: an Account Ledger From Elmina, 1529-31,” Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana, 14 (1973), 93–103.Google Scholar For attempts to quantify gold transactions using archive and printed records, see Godinho, Magalhães, Economie [2], 240–43Google Scholar; da Mota, Teixeira and Hair, , East of Mina [2], 35.Google Scholar Two unpublished doctoral theses make extensive use of archival documentation but, significantly, although each writer searched the Portuguese archives, most of the cited documents had already been published: Ballong-Wen-Mewuda, J. Bato'ora. “Sao Jorge da Mina (Elmina) et son contexte socio-historique pendant l'occupation portugaise, 1482-1637” (Université de Paris I, 1984)Google Scholar; Elbl, Ivana, “The Portuguese Trade With West Africa, 1440-1521” (University of Toronto, 1986).Google Scholar Despite its title, the first thesis deals principally with the first half of the sixteendi century. Elbl's thesis is a study of major importance.

107. da Mota, A. Teixeira, “A viagem do navio ‘Santiago’ à Serra Leoa e Rio de S. Domingos em 1526,” Boletim Cultural da Guiné Portuguesa, 24 (1969), 529–79Google Scholar, also série separatas no. 53, Agrupamento de Estudos de Cartografia Antiga, (Lisbon, 1969), which includes a list of the extant livros, most of which relate to voyages from São Tomé to Mina or Benin; daMota, A. Teixeira and Mauny, R., “Le voyage du navire Santiago à la Rivière de S. Domingos (1526),” Bulletin de l'Institut Français de l'Afrique Noire, 37B (1975), 589–603 (annotated French translation of the text)Google Scholar; Hair, P.E.H., “Sources on Early Sierra Leone; (12) The livro of the ‘Santiago,’ 1526,” Africana Research Bulletin, 8 (1977), 28–49 (annotated English translation)Google Scholar; Ryder, A.F.C., “An Early Portuguese Trading Voyage to the Forcados River,” Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria, 1 (1959), 294–321 (annotated English translation)Google Scholar; Bràsio, António, “Um extraordinario documento quinhentista,” Studia, 15 (1966), 155–74 (Portuguese text of previous item)Google Scholar; Mauny, R., “Le livre de bord du navire Santa Maria da Conceiço,” Bulletin de l'Institut Français de l'Afrique Noire, 29B (1967), 512–35 (French translation)Google Scholar; Bràsio, , Monumenta [2], 1st ser., 4: 158–64Google Scholar (S. Cristovāo, São Tomé to Mina); Ryder, A.F.C., Benin and the Europeans, 1485-1897 (London, 1969), 295–306 (fragmentary log of the S. Miguel in English translation).Google Scholar In relation to shipping documents see also the Cape Verde Islands port register cited in note 4 above.

108. de Faria, Francisco Leite and da Mota, Avelino Teixeira. “Novidades nàuticas e ultramarinas numa informação dada em Veneza em 1517,” Memórias da Academia das Ciências de Lisboa, classe de Ciências, 20 (1977)Google Scholar, also série separatas no. 99, Centra de Estudos de Cartografia Antiga, (Lisbon, 1977); Hair, P.E.H., “A Note on Early References to ‘Calabar’,” Journal of Niger Studies, 1/2 (1977), 127–28.Google Scholar The toponym is apparently also documented in an undated (? ca. 1530) livro de armação (Teixeira da Mota, ‘Santiago’ [107], 7).

109. I have presumed to suggest forms of appropriate editing for sources in African history in Hair, P.E.H., “The Task Ahead: the Editing of Early European-Language Texts on Black Africa” in Heintze, Beatrix and Jones, Adam, eds., European Sources for Sub-Saharan Africa Before 1900: Use and Abuse [=Paideuma, 33] (Stuttgart, 1987), 29–51.Google Scholar

110. Discretion, disguised as a mild sense of shame, leads me, as a recent translator of several megabytes of Portuguese, to add that the weak linguist—like myself, who began translating Portuguese Guinea texts only because no one else was volunteering and did so entirely from scratch, not then knowing a não from a nau—should admit to his limited capacity and frequently utter loud warnings.

111. If we look at the later centuries of encounter we find that, before the period of European colonial rule the period in which Afro-European relations can most convincingly be studied is the century from the 1550s to the 1650s. The sources for this period, at least for western Guinea, are both relatively abundant and relatively “neutral.” Thereafter, although sources increase, the psychopolitical or “caring” obsession of modern historians with the Atlantic slave trade so diverts attention from overall issues, so obscures detail with a priori and anachronistic moral judgments, and so concentrates research on a minority of Guineans as “victims” at the expense of the role of the majority in normal human entrepreneurial activities, between themselves or with Europeans, that critical assessment of the sources with a view to a balanced reconstruction of the history of Afro-European relations is given low priority on the research agenda.

112. As regards printed sources, the present paper elaborates selectively on information in two useful general guides: Fage, J.D., A Guide to Original Sources for Precolonial Western Africa Published in European Languages (Madison, 1987)Google Scholar, and Jones, Adam, Raw, Medium, Well-Done: A Critical Review of Editorial and Quasi-Editorial Work on Pre-1885 European Sources for Sub-Saharan Africa, 1960-1986 (Madison, 1987).Google Scholar

112. As regards printed sources, the present paper elaborates selectively on information in two useful general guides: Fage, J.D., A Guide to Original Sources for Precolonial Western Africa Published in European Languages (Madison, 1987)Google Scholar, and Jones, Adam, Raw, Medium, Well-Done: A Critical Review of Editorial and Quasi-Editorial Work on Pre-1885 European Sources for Sub-Saharan Africa, 1960-1986 (Madison, 1987).Google Scholar