Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-dh8gc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T13:05:38.135Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

African perceptions of Europeans in the early period of Portuguese expeditions to West Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 September 2015

Michal Tymowski
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The aim to this article is to analyse the judgments and opinions of Africans about Europeans during the early Portuguese expeditions to West Africa in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. While opinions of Europeans about Africans are for that period certified by numerous and varied sources, the opinions of Africans are difficult to examine. Cultures of the West African coast in the fifteen and early sixteen century were illiterate. Local oral traditions do not go back – within the scope of this field of interest – to such distant centuries. There are two types of sources: Firstly, African statements written down in European texts, which require a particularly critical approach; secondly, some Africans expressed their opinions about Europeans in works of Art. These include the statues of Europeans from the area of present-day Sierra Leone (the Sapi people), and from the state of Benin (the Edo people). In this article the author examines: 1) the circumstances in which the Africans expressed their opinions (ad hoc meetings, political negotiations, trade, court ceremonies); 2) the authors (individuals or social and ethnic groups), which were attributed the judgments; 3) the content of speeches; and 4) the motives which guided the Africans. Then author compares individual cases, analyses the common characteristics and the distinct features of judgments and opinions known to us, and discusses the possibility of identification of general traits of Africans’ opinions about Europeans.

Keywords

West AfricaAfricansEuropeansfifteenth centurycultural contactopinions
Type
Articles
Information
Itinerario , Volume 39 , Issue 2: Africa In The Atlantic World , August 2015 , pp. 221 - 246
Copyright
© 2015, Research Institute for History, Leiden University 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

Michal Tymowski, born in Warsaw in 1941, has studied history at the University of Warsaw and at the École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris and is now a retired professor from the University of Warsaw. He led a field expedition to the Sahara (1974), participated in a study of oral tradition in Bamako (1976) and Niamey (1977), and was a member of the international Early State project (1978–2008). He was professor at the Université Paris IV-Sorbonne (1989–1993). He is a correspondent member of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Polish Academy of Sciences. He is the author, among other titles, of L’Armée et la formation des Etats en Afrique Occidentale au XIXe s., Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego, Warsaw 1987; The Origins and Structures of Political Organizations in Pre-Colonial Black Africa, Edwin Mellen Press, Lewiston 2009.

References

Bibliography of Works Cited

Barros, João de. Ásia. Dos feitos que os Portugueses fizeram no descobrimento e conquista dos mares e terras do Oriente. Primeira década, sexta edição actualizada e anotada por Hernani Cidade, notas por Manuel Múrias, Lisboa: Divisão de Publicaçoes e Biblioteca.Agência Geral das Colónias, 1945.Google Scholar
Barros, João de. “The Asia of João de Barros. The First Decade.” In The Voyages of Cadamosto and other documents on Western Africa in the second half of the 15th century, edited by Gerald R. Crone, 103–147. London: Hakluyt Society, Second Series, No LXXX, 1937.Google Scholar
Bassani, Ezio, Fagg, William B.. Africa and the Renaissance: Art in Ivory. N. York, Huston: The Center for African Art and Prestel-Verlag, 1988.Google Scholar
Ben-Amos Girshick, P. “The Symbolism of Ancestral Altars in Benin.” In Benin Kings and Rituals. Court Art from Nigeria. Exhibition Catalogue, edited by Barbara Plankensteiner, 151–159. Wien: Snoeck Editions, 2007.Google Scholar
Bieżuńska-Małowist, Izabela and Małowist, Marian. Niewolnictwo. Warszawa: Czytelnik, 1987.Google Scholar
Blake, John W. Europeans in West Africa,1450–1560. Nendeln: Kraus Reprint, 1967.Google Scholar
Boulegue, Jean. Le grand Jolof (XIIIe–XVIesiècle). Paris: Edition Façades, 1987.Google Scholar
Boxer, Charles R. The Portuguese Seaborne Empire 1415–182. London: Hutchinson, 1969.Google Scholar
Brásio, António. A acção missionária no periodo henriquino. Lisboa: Comissão Executiva das Commemorações da Morte do Infante D. Henrique, 1958.Google Scholar
Brooks, George E. “Historical Perspectives on the Guinea-Bissau Region, Fifteenth to Nineteenth Centuries.” In Vice-Almirante A. Teixeira da Mota: In Memoriam, vol. 1, 277–304. Lizboa: Academia de Marinha, Instituto de Investigação Científica Tropical, 1987.Google Scholar
Brooks, George E. Landlords and Strangers. Ecology, Society, and Trade in Western Africa 1000–1630. San Francisco: Westview Press, 1993.Google Scholar
Ca da Mosto, Alvise da. Le navigazioni atlantiche del Veneziano Alvise Da Mosto, « Il Nuovo Ramusio », vol.5, edited by Tulia Gasparrini Leporace. Roma: Istituto Poligrafico dello Stato, 1966.Google Scholar
Ca da Mosto, Alvise da. “The Voyages of Cadamosto and Pero de Sintra.” In The Voyages of Cadamosto and other Documents on Western Africa in the Second Half of the 15th Century, edited by Gerald R. Crone, 1–84. London: Hakluyt Society, Second Series, No LXXX, 1937.Google Scholar
Curnow, Kathy. “Alien or Accepted: African Perspective on the Western “Other” in 15th and 16th Century Art,” Society for Visual Anthropology Review, 6 (1990): 38–44.Google Scholar
Curtin, Philip D. Economic Change in Precolonial Africa. Senegambia in the Era of the Slave Trade. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1975.Google Scholar
Dapper, Olfert. Olfert Dapper’s Description of Benin (1668), edited by Adam Jones. Madison: African Studies Program, University of Wisconsin, 1998.Google Scholar
Delafosse, Eustache. Voyage d’Eustache Delafosse sur la côte de Guinée, au Portugal et en Espagne (1479–1481), transcrit, traduit et présenté par Denis Escudier. Paris: Editions Chandeigne, 1992.Google Scholar
Descobrimentos portugueses. Documentos para a sua história. 3 vols. edited by J. M. da Silva Marques. Lisboa: Edição do Instituto de Alta Cultura, 1944–1971.Google Scholar
Egharevba, Jacob. A Short History of Benin. Ibadan: Ibadan University Press, 1960.Google Scholar
Ekpo, Eyo and Willet, Frank. Treasures of Ancient Nigeria. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1980.Google Scholar
Fagg, William B. Afro-Portuguese Ivories. London: Batchworth Press, 1959.Google Scholar
Feinberg, Harvey M. Africans and Europeans in West Africa: Elminas and Dutchmen on the Gold Coast During the Eighteenth Century. Philadelphia: The American Philosophical Society, 1989.Google Scholar
Fernandes, Valentim. Description de la Côte d”Afrique de Ceuta au Sénégal par Valentim Fernandes (1506–1507), edited by Pierre de Cenival and Théodore Monod. Paris: Librairie Larose, 1938.Google Scholar
Fernandes, Valentim. Description de la Côte Occidentale d’Afrique (Sénégal au Cap de Monte, Archipels) par Valentim Fernandes (1506–1510), edited by Théodore Monod, Avelino Teixeira da Mota and Raymond Mauny. Bissau: Centro de Estudos da Guiné Portuguesa, 1951.Google Scholar
Gomes, Diogo. De la première découverte de la Guinée récit par Diogo Gomes (fin XVe siècle), texte latin et traduction française, edited by Théodore Monod, Raymond Mauny, George Duval. Bissau: Centro de Estudos da Guiné Portuguesa, 1959.Google Scholar
Hair, Paul E. H. The Founding of the Castelo de São Jorge da Mina. An Analysis of the Sources. Madison: African Studies Program, University of Wisconsin, 1994.Google Scholar
Horta, José da Silva. “A Representação do Africano na literatura de viagens, do Senegal à Serra Leoa (1453–1508).” Mare Liberum, 2 (1991): 209–338.Google Scholar
Horton, Robin. “Stateless Societies in the History of West Africa.” In History of West Africa, edited by J. F. A. Ajayi and Michael Crowder, vol. 1, 78–119. London: Longman, 1971.Google Scholar
Inneh, Daniel. “The Guilds Working for the Palace.” In Benin Kings and Rituals. Court Art from Nigeria. Exhibition Catalogue, edited by Barbara Plankensteiner, 103–117. Wien: Snoeck Editions, 2007.Google Scholar
Luschan, Felix von. Die Altertumer von Benin, vols. 1–3. Berlin: Georg Reimer, 1919.Google Scholar
Małowist, Marian. Wielkie państwa Sudanu Zachodniego w późnym średniowieczu. Warszawa: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1964.Google Scholar
Mark, Peter. African in European Eyes: The Portrayal of Black Africans in 14th and 15th Century Europe. New York: Syracuse University, 1974.Google Scholar
Mark, Peter. “Towards a Reassessment of the Dating and the Geographical Origins of the Luso-African Ivories: Fifteenth–Seventeenth Century.” History in Africa, 34 (2007): 189–211.Google Scholar
Mark, Peter and da Silva Horta, José. The Forgotten Diaspora. Jewish Communities in West Africa and the Making of the Atlantic World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011.Google Scholar
Monteil, Charles. “Le coton chez les Noirs.” Bulletin du Comité Scientifique et Historique de l’AOF, 9 (1926): 585–683.Google Scholar
MMA (Monumenta Missionaria Africana), Africa Ocidental (1471—1531), edited by António Bràsio, Lisboa: Agência Geral do Ultramar, 1952.Google Scholar
Mota, Avelino Teixeira da. “D. João Bemoim e a expedição portuguesa ao Senegal em 1489.” Boletim Cultural da Guiné Portuguesa, 22:101 (1971): 63–111.Google Scholar
Mudimbe, Vincent Y. The Invention of Africa. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988.Google Scholar
Mudimbe, Vincent Y. The Idea of Africa. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994.Google Scholar
Newitt, Malyn. “Mixed Race Groups in the Early History of Portuguese Expansion.” In Studies in the Portuguese Discoveries I, ed. by Timothy F. Earle, Stephen Parkinson, 35–52. Warminster: Aris and Phillips, 1992.Google Scholar
Newitt, Malyn, ed Portuguese in West Africa 1415–1670: A Documentary History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.Google Scholar
Northrup, David. Africa’s Discovery of Europe, 1450–1850. New York-Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.Google Scholar
Ordonaçoens do Senhor Rey D. Affonso V, vols.1–5. Coimbra, 1792.Google Scholar
Ordonações Manuelinas, vol.5. Evora-Lisboa, 1521.Google Scholar
Pacheco, Duarte Pereira. Esmeraldo de Situ Orbis. Côte occidantale d”Afrique du Sud Marocain au Gabon par Duarte Pacheco Pereira (vers 1506–1508), edited by Raymond Mauny. Bissau: Centro de Estudos da Guiné Portuguesa, 1956.Google Scholar
Pacheco, Duarte Pereira. Esmeraldo de situ Orbis, translated and edited by G. H. Kimble. London: Printed for The Hakluyt Society, 1937.Google Scholar
Pina, Rui de. Crónica de el-Rei D. João II, edited by A. Martins de Carvalho. Caimbra: Atlântida, 1950.Google Scholar
Pina, Rui de. “Fragments about Mina construction.” In Monumenta Missionaria Africana. Africa Ocidental (1471–1531), edited by Antonio Brásio, 8–14. Lisboa: Agência Geral do Ultramar, 1952.Google Scholar
Pitt, Rivers, H. L, Augustus. Antique Works of Art from Benin. London: Printed Privately, 1900.Google Scholar
Plankensteiner, Barbara, ed Benin Kings and Rituals. Court Art from Nigeria. Exhibition Catalogue. Wien: Snoeck Editions, 2007.Google Scholar
PMA (Portugaliae Monumenta Africana), edited by Luis de Albuquerque, and Maria E. Madeira Santos. Vols.1–3, 5. Lisboa: Impresa Naciónal. Casa da Moeda, 1993–1995.Google Scholar
Rodney, Walter. A History of the Upper Guinea Coast, 1545–1800. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970.Google Scholar
Russell, Peter E. “Some Socio-Linguistic Problems Concerning the Fifteenth Century Portuguese Discoveries in the African Atlantic 1343–1490.” In P. E. Russell, Portugal, Spain and African Atlantic 1343–1490, 1–15. Aldershot: Ashgate, 1995.Google Scholar
Russell, Peter E. “Prince Henry the Navigator: The Rise and Fall of a Culture Hero.” In P. E. Russell, Portugal, Spain and African Atlantic 1343–1490, 3–30. Aldershot: Ashgate, 1995.Google Scholar
Russell, Peter E. “White Kings on Black Kings: Rui de Pina and the Problem of Black African Sovereignty.” In P. E. Russell, Portugal, Spain and African Atlantic 1343–1490, 151–163. Aldershot: Ashgate, 1995.Google Scholar
Russell, Peter E. “Veni, vidi, vici: Some Fifteenth-century Eyewitness Accounts of Travel in the African Atlantic before 1492.” In Medieval Ethnographies. European Perceptions of the World Beyond edited by Joan-Pau Rubiés, 315–328. Aldershot: Asghate, 2009.Google Scholar
Russell, Peter E. Prince Henry ‘the Navigator.’ A Life. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001.Google Scholar
Ryder, Alan F. C. Benin and the Europeans 1485–1897. London: Longman, 1969.Google Scholar
Saunders, Alastair C. A Social History of Black Slaves and Freedmen in Portugal 1441–1555. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982.Google Scholar
Snowden, Frank M. Blacks in Antiquity: Ethiopians in the Greco-Roman Experience. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1970.Google Scholar
“Textes portugais sur les Wolofs au XVe siècle (Baptème du prince Bemoí),” traduits par José Gonçalves, avec des notes de Paul Teyssier. Bulletin de l’IFAN, 3:B (1968): 822–846.Google Scholar
Thornton, John. Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.Google Scholar
Tymowski, Michal. “How did European Explorers Communicate with Indigenous African People in the 15th Century?” Africana Bulletin, 50 (2002): 43–74.Google Scholar
Tymowski, Michal. “La peur et le courage lors des premières expéditions européennes en Afrique au XVe siècle.” Africana Bulletin, 53 (2005): 41–61.Google Scholar
Tymowski, Michal. “Why did Valarte Die? Death of a Danish Knight During an Expedition to West Africa in mid 15th Century.” Acta Poloniae Historica, 98 (2008): 61–74.Google Scholar
Tymowski, Michal. The Origins and Structures of Political Institutions in Pre-Colonial Black Africa. Lampeter: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2009.Google Scholar
Tymowski, Michal. “Europeans and Africans in the Early Period of Portuguese Expansion in Africa—the Organization and Course of the First Encounters.” Hemispheres. Studies on Cultures and Societies, 25 (2010): 95–122.Google Scholar
The Voyages of Cadamosto and other documents on Western Africa in the second half of the 15th century, edited by Gerald R. Crone Second Series, no LXXX. London: Hakluyt Society, 1937.Google Scholar
Vansina, Jan. Art History in Africa. An Introduction to Method. London: Longman, 1984.Google Scholar
Zurara, Gomes Eanes de. Crónica dos feitos notáveis que se passaram na conquista de Guiné por mandado do Infante D. Henrique, versão actualizada do texto pelo Torquato de Sousa Soares, vol. 2. Lisboa: Academia Portuguesa da História, 1981.Google Scholar
Zurara, Gomes Eanes de. The Chronicle of the Discovery and Conquest of Guinea written by Gomes Eanes de Azurara, vols.1–2, translated by Charles R. Beazley and Edgar Prestage. New York, 1899.Google Scholar