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The Teixeira da Mota Archive and the Guinea Texts Project

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 May 2014

P.E.H. Hair
P.E.H. Hair*
Affiliation:
University of Liverpool
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Extract

Avelino Teixeira da Mota, who died on 1 April 1982 (obituary, The Times, 23 April 1982), was most widely renowned in international scholarship for his contributions to the history of maps and navigation during the period of the Portuguese “Discoveries.” But at the heart of his studies was Africa. His service in Guiné between 1945 and 1957, largely in a hydrographic survey, and in Lisbon as director of the Early Maps Unit from 1959, led him to issue a stream of publications on Africa--mainly west Africa and within that region mainly western Guinea--first through the Centro de Estudos da Guiné Portuguesa at Bissau, then through the Agrupamento (now Centro) de Estudos de Cartografia Antiga. As well as publishing copiously himself, Teixeira da Mota encouraged and edited the writings of many other Africanists. Aged only 61 when he died (suddenly, though after a long debilitating disorder that he thought he had overcome), and with more than 120 books and articles published, Teixeira da Mota had planned and announced many more publications. One list of proposed publications appeared in the apologia pro vita sua which he inserted at the start of his 1977 tri-lingual edition of Donelha's “Account of Sierra Leone.” Africanists, as they express deep respect and unbounded admiration for what this serving naval officer--a natural scholar with no university training— achieved, will understandably be wondering what now happens to the further publications he planned.

At the request of Admiral Teixeira da Mota's widow, Senhora Maria de Lourdes Teixeira da Mota, I visited Lisbon in June 1982; and I also discussed the future of the Africanist papers and documentation left by Teixeira da Mota, with Dr. Ignácio Guerreiro of the Centro de Estudos de Cartografia Antiga (in the absence overseas of the new director, Professor Luís de Albuquerque) and with Commandante António Estácio dos Reis of the Navy Museum.

Type
Research Article
Information
History in Africa , Volume 10 , 1983 , pp. 387 - 394
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1983

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References

A note on the Africanist publications of Avelino Teixeira da Mota (1920–1982)

Mar, além mar: estudos e ensaios de história e geografia, 1, 1944-1947, (Memóriae, no. 11, Agrupamento de Cartografia Antiga, Junta de Investigações do Ultramar), Lisbon, 1972Google Scholar
As viagens do Bispo D.Frei Vitoriano Portuense à Guiné e a cristianizacão dos reis de Bissau, (Memórias no. 14), Lisbon, 1974.Google Scholar
André Donelha: Desarição da Serra Leoa e dos Rios de Guiné do Cabo Verde (1625)/ An account of Sierra Leone and the Rivers of Guinea of Cape Verde (1625), ed. da Mota, A. Teixeira and Hair, P.E.H., (Memórias no. 19, Centro de Estudos de Cartografia Antiga, Junta de Investigações Cientxficas do Ultramar), Lisbon, 1977Google Scholar
“O noroeste africano na nartografia portuguesa antiga,” Boletim Cultural da Guiné Portuguese, (1948), 173–99.Google Scholar
“Nota sobre os vestígios Portugueses na cartografia francesa do noroeste africano nos séculos XVII e XVIII,” Boletim Cultural da Guiné Portuguesa, 5 (1950), 370–84.Google Scholar
“Fernão Vaz, explorador ignorado do Golfo da Guiné,” Boletim Cultural da Guiné Portuguese, 6 (1951), 657–80.Google Scholar
“xsNota sobre o povoamento e a agriculture indígena na Guiné Portuguesa,” Boletim Cultural da Guiné Portuguesa, 6 (1951), 657–80.Google Scholar
“Contactos culturais luso-africanos na Guiné de Cabo Verde, Boletim da Soaiedade de Geografia de Lisboa, 69 (1951), 659–67.Google Scholar
“Novos elementos sobre a acção dos Portugueses e franceses em Benim na primeira metade do século XVI,” Boletim Cultural da Guiné Portuguese, 7 (1952), 157–60.Google Scholar
Bartolomeu Dias, desaobridor de Cabo de Boa Esperança, Lisbon, 1955 (and English translation).Google Scholar
“A viagem do Bartolomeu Dias e as Ideias geopolíticas de D.João II,” Boletim da Sociedade de Geografia de Lisbon, 76 (1958), 297–322.Google Scholar
“Notas sobre a história dos Portugueses na África Negra,” Boletim da Soaiedade de Geografia de Lisbon, 77 (1959), 27–55.Google Scholar
“Um luso-africano: Honório Pereira Barreto,” Boletim da Soaiedade de Geografia de Lisbon, 77 (1959), 389–416.Google Scholar
“Le Portugal et l'histoire de l'Afrique’, Bulletin des Séances de l'Academie Royale des Sciences d'Outre-Mer, 7 (1961), 878–89.Google Scholar
“D. Luis da Cunha e a carta da África meridional de Bourguignon d'Anville (1725),” Revista Portuguesa de História, 10 (1962), 399–410; also Separata no. 4, Agrupamento de Estudos de Cartograf ia Antiga [hereafter AECA].Google Scholar
“Nouveaux éléments sur le pilote Lourenço Marques,” Studia, 11 (1963), 291–300.Google Scholar
“Os Portugueses e a cartografia antiga da África Central (1550-1800),” Boletim da Academia das Ciênaias de Lisboa, 25 (1963), 13–27.Google Scholar
“Um plano do porto de Moçambique pelo explorador Lacerda e Almeida (1797),” Geographica, 1 (1965), 80–89.Google Scholar
(with António Carreira) “Milho zaburro and milho maçaroca in Guinea and the islands of Cape Verde,” Africa, 36 (1966), 73–84.Google Scholar
“Ilha de Santiago e Angra de Bezeguiche, escalas da Carreira da India,” Do Tempo e da História, 2 (1968), 141–49.Google Scholar
“Gago Coutinho, marinheiro e geografo, e a exploração de Cabora-Bassa,” Boletim da Soaiedade de Geografia de Lisboa, 87 (1969), “Cartografie antiga de Sofala,” Monumenta, 9 (1973), 5–18; also Separata 87, AECA.Google Scholar
“A actividade marítima dos Bijagos nos séculos XVI e XVII,” In memoriam António Jorge Dias, (3 vols.: Lisbon, 1974), 3: 243–77.Google Scholar
(with Francisco Leite de Faria) “Novidades nauticas e ultramarinas numa informação dada em Veneza em 1517,” Memórias da Academia das Ciências de Lisboa - classe de Ciências, 20 (1977), 7–75; also Separata 99, Centro de Estudos de Carto-grafia Antiga [hereafter CECA].Google Scholar
(With R. Mauny) “Le voyage du navire ‘Santiago’ à la Sierra Leone et à la Rivière de S. Domingos (1526),” Bulletin de l'Institut Fondamentale d'Afrique Noire, 37 B (1975), 589–603.Google Scholar
(with R. Mauny) “Le voyage du navire ‘S.Miguel’ au Benin (1522),” Bulletin de l'Institut Fondamentale d'Afrique Noiré, 40 B (1978), 66–86.Google Scholar
Some Aspects of Portuguese Colonization and Sea Trade in West Africa in the 15th and 16th Centuries, Bloomington, 1978; also, in Portuguese, Separata 98, CECA.Google Scholar
“Cartas portuguesas antigas na Coleçcão de Groote Schuur,” Memoriae do Centro de Estudos de Marinha, 7 (1977), 167–190; also Separata 105, CECA.Google Scholar
“Entrée d'esclaves noirs à Valence (1445-1482); le remplacement de la voie saharienne par la voie atlantique,” Revue Française d'Histoire d'Outre-Mer, 66 (1979), 195–210.Google Scholar
“Viagens espanholas das Canarias à Guiné no século XVI, segundo documentos dos arquivos Portugueses,” in III Colóquio de História Canário-Americana (La Laguna, 1980), 219–50.Google Scholar
“Sarmento Rodrigues no Governo da Guiné” (Academia de Marinha, 1979).Google Scholar
“Les relations de l'ancien Cabcu avec quelques états et peuples voisins” (Dakar, 1980).Google Scholar
“História marítima e a convergencia de civilizações: o caso de Joal e do Gabu em relação com Léopold Sédar Senghor” (Academia de Marinha, 1981).Google Scholar
“Duarte Pacheco Pereira, capitão e governador de S.Jorge da Mina.”Google Scholar