A New and Accurate Description of the Coast of Guinea
Divided into the Gold, the Slave, and the Ivory Coasts

William Bosman's letters from the early eighteenth century describe the geographical, political and natural history of Africa's Guinea coast.

William Bosman (Author)

9781108031257, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 2 June 2011

550 pages, 7 b/w illus.
21.6 x 14 x 3.1 cm, 0.69 kg

An early example of the travel-writing genre, William Bosman's collection of letters, originally written in Dutch and first published in English in 1705, describes the geography and political and natural history of the coast of Guinea. This 1907 edition is presented as a facsimile of the 1705 version, retaining the original typography. Bosman (born in 1672) went to Africa at the age of sixteen in the service of the Dutch West India Company, and spent fourteen years on the Gold Coast. This collection of twenty letters, written to his uncle in the Netherlands, remains an important source of information about this area of west Africa in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Bosman's accounts are highly descriptive, and his writings cover all aspects of the area, from its flora and fauna to its political, social and legal systems, its enterprising natives and its climate and diseases.

Preface
1. Of the Gold Coast in general
2. Of the Antese Country, with the English and Dutch forts there
3. Of the country of Commany, the English and Dutch forts there
4. Of Fetu, the Dutch fort Conraadsbourg, the English chief fort Cabocorse
5. Of Acron, and the Dutch fort Leydsaamheid
6. Of the several forts of gold
7. Of the quantity of gold exported, whither, and by whom
8. Of the unhealthiness, climate, season, &c. of the coast
9. Of the nature, customs, manners, habit, education, manual arts, employments, languages, ranks of distinction, habitations and musical instruments of the negroes on the Gold Coast
10. Of the religion, and idolatry of the negroes
11. Of the government of the negroes, their trials of causes, whether civil or criminal
12. Of the marriage of the negroes
13. Of their sickness, the administration of remedies, and their idolatrous offerings upon that head
14. Of the tame and wild quadrupedes of the Gold Coast, and particularly of the elephants, apes and cameleons
15. Of the common and uncommon wild-fowl, birds, reptiles, insects and fish
16. Of the trees, plants and fruits
17. Of snakes, porcupines, tygers, jackals, elephants and deifyed spiders
18. Of the Slave Coast in general
19. Of the government of Fida, their trial and punishment of crimes
20. Of the Fidasian quadrupedes, fowls, corn, fruits, soil, wars, arms
21. Of Rio Formosa, on the River of Benin, the interest of the Portugese and other Europeans there
22. Of the Tooth (or Ivory) and Grain Coast.

Subject Areas: African history [HBJH]