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On Ravenstein's Edition of Battell's Adventures in Angola and Loango

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 May 2014

Jan Vansina
Jan Vansina*
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin—Madison
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Between 1590 and ca. 1610 the English sailor Andrew Battell lived in Central Africa, first in Angola until 1606/07 and then in Loango. His reports about these lands are a priceless source for the otherwise poorly documented history of Angola between ca. 1590-1606, especially since his is the only known eyewitness account about the way of life of the notorious Jaga. He actually lived with one of their bands supposedly for at least twenty months (26-27). In addition his account is also one of the very earliest about Loango. Hence modern historians of Angola and Loango have relied extensively on him. They all, myself included, have used the text edition by E.G. Ravenstein of The Strange Adventures of Andrew Battell of Leigh (London, 1901) and did so without referring back to the original documents. These are, first Battell's information in Samuel Purchas' Purchas His Pilgrimage, or Relations of the World and the Religions observed in all Ages and Places discovered from the Creation unto the Present (London, 1613), and later, the more detailed “The Strange Adventures of Andrew Battell” in Samuel Purchas His Pilgrimes (London, 1625), also known as Hakluytus posthumus after its frontispiece. Given the absolute reliance of modern scholars on Ravenstein, it is worthwhile to evaluate its reliability compared to the original publications.

Type
Research Article
Information
History in Africa , Volume 34 , 2007 , pp. 321 - 347
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 2007

References

1 All references in parentheses refer to pages in Ravenstein's edition and references to the two original editions in square brackets.

2 Ravenstein used the re-edition of 1617. I have only be able to use the re-edition of 1625.

3 Except for Hair, Paul E.H. “Material on Africa (Other Than the Mediterranean and Red Sea lands) and on the Atlantic Islands in the Publications of Samuel Purchas, 1613-1626,” HA 13(1986), 117-59Google Scholar.

4 “Adventures,” 61. The significance of this note escaped Ravenstein's attention, but Hair “Material,” 129, 149n44, noticed this, It is also possible that the very title of the work (“The Strange Adventures,” not “My Strange Adventures”) hints that it was not written by Battell despite the pronouns “we” and “I “used in the text.

5 Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. “transcribe.”

6 Purchas, Pilgrimes, preface not numbered, but 3-5 recto. Purchas tells us that half of the titles on each page are his own, and the others “such as pleased the corrector.”

7 On Purchas as a writer and editor see Helfers, James P., “The Explorer or the Pilgrim? Modern Critical Opinion and the Editorial Methods of Richard Hakluyt and Samuel Purchas,” Studies in Philology 94(1997), 174–75Google Scholar; Hair, P.E. H., “Material on Africa (other than the Mediterranean and Red Sea Lands) and on the Atlantic Islands in the Publications of Samuel Purchas, 1613-1626,” HA 13(1986), 117–59Google Scholar.

8 Purchas, , Pilgrimes, I preface, f. 3/p. 5Google Scholar. If the sections of the manuscript were sent to the printer in the order in which they were composed and at the end of each summer, then the Battell text was probably finalized in 1621 or 1622.

9 Could he have been the vicar who succeeded Purchas in Eastwood? Also the strikingly different organisation of chapters 5-7 suggests that a second transcriber could well have been involved.

10 Hair, , “Materials” 121Google Scholar.

11 He left the city temporarily after he heard that the governor succeeding Manuel Cerveira de Pereira was expected, and when it became known (39) that “the new governor would came not that year,” he went into hiding for six months (his estimate) before fleeing Angola. Simão da Cunha was offered the governorship of Angola but he refused the post before 14 February 1606, whereupon Manuel Pereira Forjaz expressed an interest. He received notice of his appointment on 2 August 1606 (Brasio, António, Monumenta Missionaria Africana. Africa Ocidental, 5:166-67, 171, 214, 214n., 246, 264-79, 289, 294, 313Google Scholar), but his departure was delayed, probably because of the Butaca affair. He actually left Lisbon only shortly before 31 May 1607 and arrived in Angola before October 1607. “The new governor” probably refers to him, and his retention in Lisbon might have been known in Angola by October 1606 at the earliest. Hence Battell probably fled Angola in the spring of 1607. This date tallies well with Purchas' estimate that Battell spent eighteen years in Angola, at least if Purchas did not count Loango as Angola. See Hair, , “Material,” 129Google Scholar.

12 Most travel accounts omit any detailed mention of their return voyages. Is this omission here due to a cut by Purchas, a decision of the transcriber to omit it, or to discretion on the part of Battell himself? Is it even possible that Battell absconded with the funds of the shop he managed, like many agents in Angola would do in later years?

13 By his own reckoning: at the earliest 2.5 years (77—stated before 1613) from late 1606 or early 1607=1609; at the latest: 3 years (41—stated after 1613) is 1610, but as the discrepancy in his statements shows, his reckoning is unreliable. Note his whole stay 1589/(1590) to 1609/10 lasted 20/21 years. An arrival in Leigh late in 1610 or even early 1611 is the most likely.

14 van den Broecke, Pieter in Ratelband, K., ed., Reizen naar West Afrika van Pieter Van den Broecke, 1605-1614 (‘s Gravenhage, 1850), 43, 57Google Scholar. In January 1610 there was a local factory there managed by Lowies Mendis (Luis Mendes). In 1612 its manager was Francisco Delmede Navero. Battell had probably worked for this factory.

15 Elephant's hair was in great demand in Angola and Kongo. There are four further mentions of Battell in Loango, namely a “I was once there [at the court]” (47) twice “I have asked X” 49, 59) and one in a marginal note by Purchas: “I saw the Negro boy” (55).

16 As Ravenstein (xi) wrongly inferred. So did Hair, “Material,” 148n43.

17 This instance shows how misleading Ravenstein's edition can actually be.

18 This chapter is clearly inspired by the topics in the notes on natural history in Pigafetta, Pigafetta Lopes Filippo and Lopes, Duarte, Relazione del Reame di Congo e delle circonvicine contrade (Rome, 159)Google Scholar. We cite the well-annotated French translation by Bal, Willy, Description du Congo (Louvain, 1965)Google Scholar. For animals: see ibid., 51-63 (Book 1, chapter 8), plants 76-78 (Book 2, chapter 1).

19 If this is correct, the text of “Adventures”was completed after Battell's death, which then occurred in 1624 at the latest.

20 Bal, , Description, 70 (Book 1, chapter 12)Google Scholar. Note the connection made there between Jaga and Agag.

21 Unlike Purchas; see Hair, “Material,” 120–22Google Scholar.

22 Miller, Joseph, “Requiem for the ‘Jaga’” Cahiers d'études africaines 49(1973), 131Google Scholar.

23 The older Pilgrimage has “Imbangolas” (84) and the later “Adventures” has “Gagas or Gindes” (19). Did the transcriber omit/delete Imbangala or did Battell no longer mention this?

24 Brasio, , Monumenta, 4:533Google Scholar, where Guindas are distinguished from Jaguas. In the 1680s these Guindas seem to have been remembered as Gingas. See Delgado, José Mathias, ed. História das guerras Angolanas por António de Oliveira Cadornega. 1680 (2 vols.: Lisbon 1940), 1:52Google Scholar.

25 See Henige, David, Numbers from Nowhere (Norman, 1998), passimGoogle Scholar.

26 Hence Ravenstein's footnotes (53) correcting Battell's “fifteen miles” and “two leagues” are an exercise in futility.

27 Did Battell's numbers increase between his pre-1613 declarations and the ones after? For Loango, yes; for Mayumba, yes; for the Jaga, also yes, because pre 1613 16 months (in all), later 16 months (26) + 4 months (27) makes 20 months.

28 Between 1591 and 1594 there were four different governors and the situation in the colony was too dramatic to leave much time for official trading.

29 Delgado, Ralph, História de Angola (2d. ed.: Lobito 1961), 381, 390Google Scholar.

30 37n3; Brasio, , Monumenta, 5:227, 391Google Scholar. Had he been a Portuguese ally in 1603?

31 Ibid., 5:54: a Jesuit relation of 1603-04.

32 Miller, Joseph, “The Imbangala and the Chronology of Early Central African History” JAH 13(1972), 563n55CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem., “Requiem,” 123n6, is also a considerable exaggeration. Battell's account does not reveal “the influence of Portuguese from both Guinea and Kongo.” Miller's only evidence for this is the use of tavale for a type of drum a word that could well be Senegambian. Moreover, the word might be the transcriber's and not Battell's choice.

33 Ratelband, , Reizen naar West Afrika, 65Google Scholar, for the original. La Fleur, J.D. ed. and trans. Pieter van den Broecke's Journal of Voyages to Cape Verde, Guinea and Angola, 1605-1612 (London 2000), 95–96Google Scholar, for a translation.

34 Brun, Samuel, Schiffarten. Welche er in etliche newe Länder …gethan (Basel, 1624), 20Google Scholar; translated in Jones, Adam, “Samuel Brun's Voyages of 1611-20” in German Sources for West African History 1599-1669 (Wiesbaden, 1983), 56–57, and nn 74-76Google Scholar, for references in later authors of 1625 and 1670.

35 Van den Broecke was in Loango from April to September 1608, 30 January 1610 to April 1611, and February to June 1612. He wrote his description with this story in October 1612. Brun was there in 1612.

36 But Purchas' only comment about this in “Adventures”: [980] was “tyrannicall Customs,” much milder than such comments about the Jaga as “His dependance on the Devill,” “Generation of Vipers,” “ His solemne sacrifice to the Devill,” and “Butcherly rites” in “Adventures”:[974, 976, 977].

37 Brun, , Schiffarten, 19–20Google Scholar. The event itself dates from 1611 or 1612 and could have been known in Amsterdam by early October of that year. It presumably occurred during a royal audience attended by van den Broecke. The possible dates are 9 April 1611, 15 February 1612, 22 March 1612 (least likely), or 18 June 1612.

38 Fleur, La, Journal of Voyages, 96n2Google Scholar; Naber, S.P. L'Honoré, ed., Toortse der Zee-Vaert door Dierick Ruiters (1623)Google Scholar and Samuel Brun's Schiffarten (1624) (s'Gravenhage, 1913), 15n1Google Scholar, who suggests—without much evidence—that Battell's text is probably derived from Brun.

39 See the marginal notes to Hartwell's translation of Pigafetta in Ravenstein, Pilgrimage, 1005, 1025 and the entry in the Table The Giachas or Agagi.

40 My small capitals.

41 Ravenstein, , Pilgrimage, 983–84Google Scholar.

42 Ibid.

43 Brasio, , Monumenta 4:533Google Scholar. Guindas and Jaguas were kings neighboring the kingdom of Angola.

44 A Report of the Kingdom of Congo, a Region of Affrica: Gathered by PHILIPPO PIGAFETTA, out of the Discourses of Master EDUARD LOPES a Portugall, translated out of the Italian into English by Master Hartwell, Abrahamand here abbreviated in Purchas His Pilgrimes (London, 1625), 2:1005, 1025Google Scholar.

45 See Jerónimo Castanho's reports to the king dated 5 September 1599, in Brasio, , Monumenta, 4:599, 611Google Scholar, which might refer to an expedition in which Battell participated.

46 Citations in Miller, , “Requiem,” 123nn3, 4Google Scholar, show that the link between the Mane in Sierra Leone and Congo had been laid already by 1594. But the Jesuit António Barreira in a letter between 1606 and 1610, is the first explicitly to derive the Jaga from the Mane rather than the reverse.

47 Ravenstein, , Strange Adventures, xiiGoogle Scholar.

48 Vansina, Jan, “Foundation of the Kingdom of Kasanje, JAH 4(1963), 358n10CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem., Kingdoms of the Savanna (Madison,1966), 66; idem., “More on the Invasions of Kongo and Angola by the Jaga and the Lunda,” JAH 7(1966), 421n3; Miller, , “Imbangala,” 564-65Google Scholar.

49 Birmingham, David, “The Date and Significance of the Imbangala Invasion of Angola,” JAH 6(1965), 149CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem., Trade and Conflict in Angola (Oxford 1965), 66; 68-71. Like myself, he relied on Imbangala oral traditions recorded in 1851 rather than on Battell and proposed a putative origin of the Imbangala in the Rund kingdom.

50 Miller, , “Requiem” 121-23, 131Google Scholar. But in his Kings and Kingsmen: Early Mbundu States in Angola (Oxford, 1976), 177–78n6Google Scholar, he blames Purchas not Battell for identifying the Imbangala with the Jaga.

51 Miller, “Requiem,” 123Google Scholar.

52 See notes 42, 43 above and Miller Kinsmen.

53 Martin, Phyllis, External Trade of the Loango Coast (Oxford 1972), 5–41Google Scholar.

54 Miller, Kings and Kinsmen, passim.