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Decompiling Dapper: A Preliminary Search for Evidence*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 May 2014

Adam Jones
Adam Jones*
Affiliation:
J.W. Goethe-Universität
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Extract

Geographical compilations used to be valued because they made things easy for those who read them: instead of being confronted with a set of barely intelligible travelers' accounts, the reader was offered their essence in a predigested form. Yet today most self-respecting historians pride themselves on using only “original” sources. In the recent historiography of Africa much useful work has been devoted to the task of showing the derivative nature of certain seventeenth-and eighteenth-century European works.

One of the victims of this growing awareness has been the monumental book on Africa by Olfert Dapper (1668). Many of Dapper's sources for individual regions have been identified, notably for the Cape of Good Hope, Senegal, Sierra Leone, the Gold Coast, Allada, and Loango. In the case of Tunis it has even been possible to show that everything in Dapper's account derived from published sources. Not surprisingly, some scholars have contemptuously dismissed the book as a “mere compilation.”

Type
Research Article
Information
History in Africa , Volume 17 , January 1990 , pp. 171 - 209
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1990

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Footnotes

*

I am grateful to the Fondation Olfert Dapper for supporting this research and to Ezio Bassani, René Baesjou, F. Bontinck, Ernst van den Boogaart, Janneke Borgesius, S. A. C. Dudok van Heel, J. D. Fage, P. E. H. Hair, Beatrix Heintze, Robin Law, Gerhard Liesegang, G. Nováky, Robert Ross, and John K. Thornton for helpful suggestions. Quotations from Olfert Dapper's Naukeurige Beschrijvinge der Afrikaensche gewesten are from the second edition (Amsterdam 1676), because it is more easily accessible to most scholars than that of 1668 and the text is virtually the same. Titles of works listed in the appendix are given only in abbreviated form in these notes.

References

Notes

1. See my “Olfert Dapper et sa Description de l'Afrique” in Objets interdits (Paris, 1989), 72–84, 87.Google Scholar

2. Schapera, Isaac, ed., The Early Cape Hottentots Described in the Writings of Olfert Dapper (1668), Willem ten Rhyne (1686) and Johannes Gulielmus de Gravenbroek (Cape Town, 1933)Google Scholar; Thilmans, Guy, “Le Sénégal dans l'oeuvre d'Olfried Dapper,” BIFAN, 33 (1971, 508–63Google Scholar; Hair, P. E. H., “Barbot, Dapper, Davity: A Critique of Sources on Sierra Leone and Cape Mount,” HA, 1 (1974), 25–54Google Scholar; Jones, Adam, “Semper aliquid veteris: Printed Sources for the History of the Ivory and Gold Coasts, 1500-1750,” JAH, 27 (1986), 215–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Law, Robin, “Problems of Plagiarism, Harmonization and Misunderstanding in Contemporary European Sources: Early (Pre-1680s) Sources for the ‘Slave Coast’ of West Africa,” Paideuma, 33 (1987), 337–58Google Scholar; Martin, Phyllis M., “Du Loango” in Objets interdits, 66–71.Google Scholar

3. Louis, André and Verplancke, Léon, “La Tunisie au XVIIe s. d'après la ‘Description de l'Afrique’ du Dr. O. Dapper,” IBLA. Revue de l'Institut des Belles-Lettres Arabes à Tunis, 29 (1966), 143–213.Google Scholar

4. E.g. Raven-Hart, R., Cape Good Hope 1652-1702. The First 50 Years of Dutch Colonisation as Seen by Callers (2 vols.: Cape Town, 1971), 2:499.Google Scholar

5. Henige, David, “The Race is Not Always to the Swift: Thoughts on the Use of Written Sources for the Study of Early African History,” Paideuma, 33 (1987), 54Google Scholar, with emphasis in original.

6. Ibid., 57.

7. From the point of view of modern historians he compares unfavorably with Davity in this respect: cf. Hair, “Barbot, Dapper, Davity.”

8. Amsterdam University Library, Remonstr. Kerk III E 10: 352, my translation. For a transcription of the copy of this letter in Leiden University Library (Br. F. 11) see Dozy, Ch. M., “Olfert Dapper,” Tijdschrift van het Aardrijkskundig Genootschap, 2/3 (1887), 435.Google Scholar

9. See Jones, “Dapper.”

10. Faust, Elfriede, Arabien 1680. Olfert Dappers Arabienbuch und seine Quellen, geprüft an Nachrichten über Kaffee, Sesam und Träumen (Köln, 1977).Google Scholar

11. Cf. Thilmans, , “Sénégal,” 513–14.Google Scholar

12. I have not listed translations published after 1667, except those accompanied by a modern editorial apparatus. Nor have I included, for example, French translations of Dutch works.

13. One handicap is the lack of adequate national bibliographies for countries such as the Netherlands, Germany, and Italy, although the short-title catalogs currently being prepared will soon improve this situation. Bibliographies such as those of P Tiele (1867, 1884, republished 1966, 1969) are useful but urgently require revision.

14. Dapper does not seem to have used the valuable information in van Wassenaer's, NicolaasHistorisch verhael alder ghedenck-weerdichste geschiedenissen… (Amstelredam, 1622–1635).Google Scholar

15. For a detailed discussion of Dapper's sources on Tunis see Louis, and Verplancke, , “Tunisie,” 147–52.Google Scholar

16. See Thilmans, , “Sénégal,” 511–18.Google Scholar

17. The relevance of Jobson's book was recognized as early as 1624 by the Dutch West India Company, which instructed one of its officers to “browse through it and note the essentials in Dutch:” Algemeen Rijksarchief (hereafter ARA), O.W.I.C. 1, resolution of the XIX, 9.11.1624.

18. Hair, , “Barbot, Dapper, Davity,” 33–36.Google Scholar

19. See Ratelband, K., Vijf dagregisters van het kasteel São Jorge da Mina (Elmina) aan de Goudkust (1645-1647) ('s Gravenhage, 1953), lxxviii–lxxx.Google Scholar

20. Most of this seems to derive from a manuscript written in about 1647-54: see below.

21. Jones, , “Semper aliquid,” 216, 227.Google Scholar On this last subject Dapper had at least one other source besides Valckenburg and Prins—probably a contemporary newssheet; but there is no evidence that he read the account which was eventually published in the Holland se Mercurius, 16. dl. (1670), 91–95Google Scholar, or the account in Journael ofte Dagh-Register over de Reyse Gedaen door de Heer Luytenant Admirael M. A. de Ruyter in de West-Indien door A. F. (Amsterdam, 1665).Google Scholar Nor did he use the journal of Reynoud Borremans (ARA, 1. Afd., Admiraliteitscolleges XLVII 21), although two of his engravings were at least indirectly related to this source (see below).

22. Moreover, his description of Säo Jorge da Mina, based partly on that of De Marees (110a-112b), takes no account of the fact that the west bastion was enlarged by the Portuguese before they lost the fort in 1637: Lawrence, A. W., Trade Castles and Forts of West Africa (London, 1963), 127.Google Scholar

23. Law, , “Problems,” 344.Google Scholar

24. Ibid., 343-45.

25. Ryder, A. F. C., Benin and the Europeans, 1485-1897 (London, 1969), 88.Google Scholar Cf. idem, “Dutch Trade on the Nigerian Coast During the Seventeenth Century,” Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria, 3 (1965), 196-99, 205; Marquart, J., Die Benin-Sammlung des Reichs-Museums für Völkerkunde in Leiden (Leiden, 1913), vii, xxii–xxiii.Google Scholar

26. See Ardener, Edwin, “Documentary and Linguistic Evidence for the Rise of the Trading Polities Between Rio del Rey and Cameroons, 1500-1650” in Lewis, I. M., ed., History and Social Anthropology (London, 1968), 93, 100ff., 107–09Google Scholar; Bucher, Henry H., “Mpongwe origins: Historiographical perspectives,” HA, 2 (1975), 60–61, 65–66; 73Google Scholar; Gaulme, François, Le pays de Cama. Un ancien état côtier du Gabon et ses origines (Paris, 1981), 164–71.Google Scholar

27. Martin, , “Olfert Dapper,” 68.Google Scholar

28. Cf. Ravenstein, E. G., ed., The Strange Adventures of Andrew Battell of Leigh, in Angola and the Adjoining Regions (London, 1901), 48.Google Scholar

29. Du Jarric's discussion of Kongo was itself largely a translation of Pigafetta, although for Angola the former had original material, possibly obtained from Balthasar Barreira: John K. Thornton, personal communication.

30. For instance, there is material on the natural history of west central Africa in Piso, Guilelmus and Marcgrave, Georgius, Historia naturalis Brasiliae (Amstelaedami, 1648).Google Scholar

31. See Vossius, , De Nili, 63–65.Google Scholar I am grateful to François Bontinck for pointing out the links.

32. de Rome, Jean-François, Brève relation de la fondation de la mission des Frères Mineurs Capucins, ed. Bontinck, François (Louvain, 1964).Google Scholar Dapper cannot, of course, have used the two major seventeenth-century descriptions of Angola, those of Cavazzi and Cadornega, although a first draft by the former existed by 1665.

33. Cf. Thornton, John K., The Kingdom of Kongo. Civil War and Transition 1641-1718 (Madison, 1983), 24, 142.Google Scholar One mystery is Dapper's reference (1676 II: 238) to an account (verhael) by a “Captain Fuller,” who was in the service of the Dutch West India Company in Angola in 1648: I have discovered no published source under this name and therefore suppose that this must have been in manuscript.

34. For Cappelle see Jadin, Louis, L'ancien Congo et l'Angola, 1639-1655, d'après les archives romaines, portugaises, néerlandaises et espagnoles (3 vols.: Bruxelles, 1975), 221ff.Google Scholar For Mortamer see Naber, S. P. l'Honoré, “Nota van Pieter Mortamer over het gewest Angola,” Bijdragen en Mededeelingen van het Historisch Genootschap, 54 (1933), 1–42.Google Scholar It is unlikely that these documents were still in Brazil when Dapper wrote.

35. Dapper's borrowings from this work are indicated in the edition by Schapera.

36. Ethiopia Oriental e varia historia de cousas notaveis do Oriente (Evora, 1609).Google Scholar

37. See Alfred, and Grandidier, Guillaume, Collection des ouvrages anciens concernant Madagascar (7 vols.: Paris, 1903–1910), vols. 1-3.Google Scholar It is interesting to speculate on the identity of the work which Vossius had recommended to Dapper, mentioned in the letter quoted above. If it was that of Diogo do Couto (Da Asia portuguesa, 1602-16), Dapper apparently did not succeed in obtaining it.

38. E.g., Ouwinga, Marvin Thomas, “The Dutch Contribution to the European Knowledge of Africa in the Seventeenth Century: 1595-1725,” (Ph.D., Indiana University, 1975), 275Google Scholar; Thilmans, , “Sénégal,” 518Google Scholar; Italiaander, Rolf, ed., Olfert Dapper. Umbständliche und eigentliche Beschreibung von Africa Anno 1668 (Stuttgart, 1964), 386.Google Scholar Not long after Dapper's death it was alleged that he had drawn his material from the “diaries of those who have been in foreign places, especially of seamen” (Benthem, Heinrich L., Holländischer Kirch- und Schulen-Staat ([2 pts., Franckfurt and Leipzig, 1698], pt. 2, p. 370Google Scholar), but no attempt was made to substantiate this claim.

39. I am grateful to François Bontinck for improving my translation of this passage.

40. Kernkamp, G. W., “Brieven van Samuel Blommaert aan den Zweedschen Rijkskanselier Axel Oxenstierna, 1635-1641,” Bijdragen en Mededeelingen van het Historisch Genootschap, 29 (1908), 5–10Google Scholar; van Opstall, M. E., De reis van de vloot van Pieter Willemsz Verhoeff naar Azie 1607-1612 (2 vols.: 's Gravenhage, 1972), 292n2.Google Scholar

41. Amsterdam Gemeente-Archief, Notarieel Archief (hereafter N. A.) 115 ff. 30-30v, J. Bruyningh 13.2.1609; States-General Resolutions, 24.8.1607, 30.7.1610, 6.8.1610.

42. Elias, Johan E., De Vroedschap van Amsterdam. 1578-1795 (2 vols.: Haarlem, 1903–1905), 373.Google Scholar

43. Amsterdam N. A. 138ff. 97-98v, J. Bruyningh 19.12.1614; N. A. 199 ff. 134-137v, J. Bruyningh 8.4.1617; N. A. 214 f. 57v, J. Meerhout 1.12.1618; N. A. 215 f. 99v, J. Meerhout 11.2.1620; N. A. 215 f. 196v, J. Meerhout 1.6.1620; Engelbrecht, W. A. & van Herwerden, P. J., eds., De Ontdekkingsreis van Jacob le Maire en Willem Cornelisz. Schonten in de jaren 1615-1617. Tweede deel ('s Gravenhage, 1945), 207, 209.Google Scholar

44. Amsterdam N. A. 201 f. 137, J. Bruyningh, July 1622; States-General Resolutions 23.9.1621. Probably Blommaert did not have agents in West Africa at this time: cf. ARA, O.W.I.C. 1, Resolution of the XIX, 26.3.1624; Amsterdam N. A. 747 ff. 160-165, J. Bruyningh 26.6.1621.

45. Ratelband, K., De westafrikaanse reis van Piet Heyn 1624-1625 ('s Gravenhage, 1959), livGoogle Scholar, referring to 1623.

46. For Blommaert's interest in the Baltic in the 1620s see Amsterdam N. A. 219 f. 168v, J. Meerhout 24.12.1622; N. A. 229 f. 163, J. Meerhout 29.6.1626; N.A. 243 f. 5c, J. Meerhout 13.11.1630.

47. Verwey, H. de la Fontaine, “Michel le Blon: Graveur, kunsthandelaar, diplomaat,” 61. Jaarboek van het Genootschap Amstelodanum (1969), 116Google Scholar; Dahlgren, E. W., Louis de Geer 1587-1652 (2 vols.: Uppsala, 1923), 212, 218, 327, 333, 401Google Scholar; Kernkamp, “Brieven;” further information kindly supplied by G. Noväky.

48. Amsterdam N. A. 731 f. 132, P. Carelss 13.4.1639; N. A. 320 f. 204v, F. van Banchem 9.5.1640; N. A. 956 map 3 f. 282, B. Baddel 6.8.1640. In 1646 Blommaert's son, likewise called Samuel, was reported to have gone mad in Recife: N. A. 1078 ff. 82-83v, J. van der Ven 5.2.1646. Perhaps he had lived in Africa and written reports for his father; this would explain Dapper's mistake.

49. Many references in Amsterdam N. A., 1645-51; Laer, A. J. F., ed., Documents Relating to New Netherland 1624-1626 in the Henry E. Huntington Library (San Marino, Cal., 1924), 269Google Scholar; Eekhof, A., “De ‘Memorie’ van Isaack de Rasière voor Samuel Blommaert,” Nederlandsch Archief voor Kerkgeschiedenis, n.s. 15 (1919), 245–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Jameson, J., Narratives of New Netherland, 1609-1664 (New York, 1909), 184, 261CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wieder, F. C., De stichting van New York in Juli 1625 ('s Gravenhage, 1925), 52, 99–110.Google Scholar

50. The error in all these works derives ultimately from Elias, , Vroedschap, 373.Google Scholar See Amsterdam N. A. 1098 f. 376, J. v. d. Ven 4.12.1651; N. A. 2192 ff. 12 and 67-68, A. Lock 3.1.1652 and 16.1.1652; Amsterdam Gemeente-Archief, burial records. During the last years of his life Blommaert lived on the Keizersgracht, in the house which is now No. 343: Anne-Marie S. Logan, The ‘Cabinet’ of the Brothers Gerard and Jan Reynst (Amersterdam, 1979), 18Google Scholar; Amsterdam N. A. 1078 ff. 82-83v, J. van der Ven 5.2.1646.

51. Some anglophone scholars may have been misled by the distorted version of Dapper's statement in Ogilby, John, Africa (London, 1670)Google Scholar: “…Samuel Blomert, one long Resident there, his Observations being faithfully Collected by the Learned Isaac Vossius.”

52. E.g. Marquart, , Benin-Sammlung, III.Google Scholar

53. This is hinted at in the opening words of a long memorandum on New Netherlands written for Blommaert by Isaack de Rasière upon his return to Holland in about 1628: “As I feel myself much bound to your service, and in return know not how otherwise to recompense you than by this slight memoire…” (Jameson, , Narratives, 102–15Google Scholar; for the original text see Eekhof, “Memorie.”) Cf. Wieder, , Stichting, 107.Google Scholar

54. Letter of 28.1.1640, cited in Kernkamp, , “Brieven,” 40.Google Scholar

55. There is a little evidence, albeit rather weak, that Blommaert may have seen himself as a sort of armchair ethnographer. In advocating acceptance of the South American Indians as potential allies against the Spanish, he pointed out that “although they are a barbarous nation, they have been fighting for their freedom for a century:” ARA, O.W.I.C. 2, minutes of 6 June 1642.

56. See Hair, P. E. H., “An Early Seventeenth-Century Vocabulary of Vai,” African Studies, 23 (1964), 129–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Zwernemann, Jürgen, “Zwei Quellen des 17. Jahrhunderts über die Vai in Liberia: Samuel Brun und Olfert Dapper” in Lukas, J., ed., Neue afrikanistische Studien (Hamburg, 1966), 292–319Google Scholar; Jones, Adam, “The Kquoja Kingdom: A Forest State in Seventeenth-Century West Africa,” Paideuma, 29 (1983), 23–43.Google Scholar

57. Hair, , “Vocabulary,” 130–31.Google Scholar

58. Hair, , “Barbot, Dapper, Davity,” 34.Google Scholar

59. ARA, O.W.I.C. 43, journal of the ‘Neptunus,’ 14.6.1625; Jones, , “Kquoja,” 23, 29.Google Scholar

60. Janssonius, J., Nieuwen Atlas, of te Werelt Beschryvinge (Amsterdami, 1638).Google Scholar

61. Martin, Phyllis M., The External Trade of the Loango Coast, 1576-1870 (Oxford, 1972), viiiGoogle Scholar; idem, “Du Loango,” 68-69. Martin does not indicate specifically which W. I. C. documents Dapper used. For a transcription of Van den Broecke's manuscript see Ratelband, K., ed., Reizen naar West-Afrika van Pieter van den Broecke 1605-1614 ('s Gravenhage, 1950), 62–72.Google Scholar

62. Ratelband, , Reizen, 58.Google Scholar On this voyage Lijnbaen had conducted some trade on the Grain Coast.

63. For Senegal see Thilmans, , “Sénégal,” 514–15Google Scholar; for Allada, , Law, , “Problems,” 343–45Google Scholar; for Benin, , Ryder, , Benin, 87–88.Google Scholar

64. Leiden University Library, BPL 927. I hope one day to transcribe and edit this document.

65. Ratelband, , Dagregisters, lxxii, lxxv–lxxxviiiGoogle Scholar (he carefully avoided giving the manuscript's location!); Law, , “Problems,” 343n27.Google Scholar See also Thornton, John K., “Traditions, Documents, and the Ife-Benin Relationship,” HA, 15 (1988), 354.Google Scholar

66. 1676 II; 124; Leiden University Library, BPL 927 f. 14.

67. Vossius, , de Nili, 69Google Scholar: “Porro non in Africa sola, sed & apud Indos Orientales in Insula Borneo, & Praeterea in Nova Guinea…”

68. Tulpius, , Observationum, 274–76.Google Scholar

69. There can be little doubt that this is true of the description of animals in Kquoja and Angola: in a single sentence, for example. Dapper (1676 II: 231) provided the names given by the people of both these “countries” to the boa constrictor.

70. Wieder, F. C., ed., Monumenta Cartographica (5 vols.: The Hague, 1925–1933), 3:73.Google Scholar

71. Hair, , “Vocabulary,” 130Google Scholar; idem., “Barbot, Dapper, Davity,” 52. I wish to thank Prof. Opperman, head of the library's manuscript department, for his patience and assistance. It is conceivable that when Wieder wrote that the papers were in the library, he meant they were in his private collection, whose contents remain unknown to this day.

72. Catalogas Compendarius I: Codices Manuscripti Bibliothecae Academiae Lugduno-Bataviaei (Lugduni-Batavorum 1932), 30–31Google Scholar, Codices Vossiani Germano-Gallici. Particularly important in this context is a manuscript on Brazil: see de Mello, José Antonio Gonsalves, ed., Diàlogos das grandezas do Brasil. 2.a edição integral, segundo o apógrafo de Leiden (Recife, 1966).Google Scholar Although Vossius may well have known Blommaert in the Netherlands or in Sweden, he is unlikely to have obtained the papers before Blommaert's death. There is no reference to them in a list of Vossius' manuscripts made at the end of 1649: Catalogus codicum manu scriptorum Bibliotheca regiae Holmiensis c. annum MDCL ductu et auspicio Isaac Vossii conscriptus, ed. Callmer, Christian (Holmiae Suecorum, 1971).Google Scholar

73. Wieder, Stichting, 99-110.

74. Manuscrits provenant des collections des Chevaliers van Rappard, de M. le Pasteur H. A. J. Lütge d'Amsterdam, e. a. (Frederik Muller & Cie., Amsterdam, 16-17 juin 1910).Google Scholar Some of the Van Rappard documents were acquired from a dealer in 1911 by Henry E. Huntington; but the Huntington Library (San Marino, California) does not possess the Ruiters document, and its whereabouts is unknown.

75. Eekhof, “Memorie.”

76. Verslagen omtrent 's Rijks oude archieven 1865-1877 ('s Gravenhage, 1914), 26Google Scholar; ARA, Archief van het Algemeen Rijksarchief 1800-1940 No. 32 #198, J. Holtrop 13.10.1866 to Rijksarchivarius.

77. A request for information may have been made by Nicolaas Witsen, with whom Dapper had close ties (cf. Jones, , “Dapper,” 74Google Scholar). It was Witsen, for instance, who obtained from Wreede a ‘Hottentot’ translation of the Lord's Prayer: see Rietbergen, P. J. A. N., “Witsen's World: Nicolaas Witsen (1641-1717) between the Dutch East India Company and the Republic of Letters,” Itinerario 9 (1985), 126, 130.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

78. Rogge, H. C., summary of a lecture on Dapper, Tijdschrift van het Aardrijkskundig Genootschap, 1/5 (1881), 2–4.Google Scholar

79. Theal, George McCall, History and Ethnography of Africa South of the Zambesi (3 vols.: London, 1910), 3:376.Google Scholar

80. Spohr, O. H., “The First Hottentot Vocabulary, 1663,” Quarterly Bulletin of the South African Library, 18 (1963), 27–33.Google Scholar Wreede's wordlist has been published in Molsbergen, E. C. Godée, Reizen in Zuid-Afrilca in de Hollandse tijd, I: Tochten naar het Noorden 1652-1686 ('s Gravenhage, 1916), 215–24.Google Scholar

81. Schapera, , Early Cape Hottentots, 2–3.Google Scholar

82. See, for instance, Molsbergen, Godée, Reizen, 39n5.Google Scholar

83. There are a few interesting similarities between the latter and Dapper's account: both, for instance, confused the “Strandlopers” and the “Caepmans.”

84. Raven-Hart, , Cape Good Hope, 2:499.Google Scholar Unfortunately he does not attempt to substantiate this claim.

85. See Blussé, Leonard and Falkenburg, R., Johan Nieuhofs beeiden van een Chinareis 1655-1657 (Middelburg, 1987), 15–16.Google Scholar

86. This, incidentally, explains why Nieuhof's account contains some details derived from the Klare Besgryving.

87. 1676 I: 418. Cf. Thilmans, , “Sénégal,” 545Google Scholar, citing the journal of Jacob Le Maire and Willem Cornelisz. Schouten.

88. 1676 II: 217. Cf. Avelot, R., “Une exploration oubliée. Voyage de Jan de Herder au Kwango (1642),” La Géographie, 26 (1912), 319–28.Google Scholar

89. Cf. Boxer's, C. R. introduction to the reprint of Begin ende Voortgangh van de Vereenighde Nederlantsche Geoctroyeerde Oost-Indische Compagnie (Amsterdam, 1970).Google Scholar

90. ARA, Leupe-Collectie, VEL 743, map dated 25 Dec. 1629. A version of this, with several significant additions, was published in Claas Jans. Voogt, , D e nieuwe groote ligtende ze-fakkel, “t vyfde deel (Amsterdam, 1683).Google Scholar These two maps and another related one will be discussed in a forthcoming article by René Baesjou, who, unlike me, believes that Dapper's use of the 1629 text proves that he had access to West India Company records: “The Historical Evidence in Old Maps and Charts of Africa, With Special Reference to West Africa,” HA, 15 (1988), 62.Google Scholar

91. Amsterdam N. A. 1289 ff. 8v-19v and 28v - 19v, H. Schaeff 8.2.1644 and 5.3.1644; N. A. 1134 f. 143, J. v. d. Ven 3.8.1660; Jones, Adam, German Sources for West African History, 1599-1669 (Wiesbaden, 1983), 142–44Google Scholar; Ratelband, Dagregisters; de Roever, Nicolaas, “Twee concurrenten der eerste West-Indische Compagnie,” Oudh-Holland, 7 (1889), 195–222.Google Scholar

92. Roever, “Twee concurrenten.”

93. Two were written in 1657-59 (Leiden, K.I.T.L.V., H65a, H65b). Another probably dates from between mid-1662 and mid-1664: de Jonge, J. K. J., D e Oorsprong van Neerlands bezittingen op de kust van Guinea ('s Gravenhage, 1871), 51–69CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see Roever, , “Twee concurrenten,” 206.Google Scholar

94. Binder, Franz and Schneeloch, Norbert, “D. D. Wilree & Willem Godschalk van Focquenbroch, geschilderd door P. de Wit te Elmina in 1669,” Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum, 27 (1979), 17–20.Google Scholar

95. Moreover, following his marriage in September 1666, Wilré moved to the Brouwersgracht, not far from the Anjelierstraat, where Dapper was probably living at this time.

96. E.g. Gray, J. M., A History of the Gambia (London, 1940), 85Google Scholar; Martin, , External Trade, 18, 41, 67, 71Google Scholar; Kea, R. A., Settlements, Trade, and Polities in the Seventeenth-Century Gold Coast (Baltimore, 1982), 136, 147.Google Scholar

97. See, for instance, Blaeu, I., “Novissima Africae Descriptio,” (1659)Google Scholar, in the “Rostock Atlas:” Atlas des Grossen Kurfürsten (reprinted Stuttgart, 1971), map XXXII.Google Scholar The accompanying text is largely derived from Leo Africanus.

98. Baesjou, , “Historical Evidence,” 80.Google Scholar Cf. Norwich, Oscar I., Maps of Africa: An Illustrated and Annotated Carto-Bibliography (Johannesburg, 1983), 822Google Scholar; Koeman, Cornelis, Joan Blaeu and his Grand Atlas (Amsterdam, 1970), 82–83.Google Scholar

99. Österreichisches Nationalbibliothek, Vienna, Atlas Blaeu-Van der Hem, “Pascaert van Cabo Monte.”

100. Blaeu, I., “Novissima Africae Descriptio,” 1659Google Scholar, in the “Rostock Atlas,” map XXXII (“…eme[n]data[m] ex accuratissimis Tabulis et variis ejusde[m] orae descript. Chorogr. Spectatissim. Viri D. Samuelis Blomart, dum viveret Directoris Societatis Indiae Orientalis”); Sanson, Nic., L'Affrique, en plusieurs cartes nouvelles, et exactes (Paris n.d., c. 1656)Google Scholar, maps of “Guinée” and “Isles du Cap Verd” (“…tirés… de Blomart…”).

101. Perhaps, for instance, the map of St. Helena “by I. N.” (=Johan Nieuhof?) was new. It has also been suggested (Ravenstein, , Strange Adventures, 126n1Google Scholar; Avelot, , “Exploration oubliée,” 320–27Google Scholar) that certain details in the map of Congo and Angola came directly from the itinerary of Jan der Herder cited by Dapper; but this requires careful investigation.

102. Cf. Raven-Hart, , Cape Good Hope, 1: 92Google Scholar, referring presumably to Heurnius, Justus, De Legatione Evangelica ad Indos capéssenda admonitio (Lugduni Batavorum, 1618).Google Scholar

103. The same ape featured in a map of “Guinea” included in some of the Blaeu atlases, appropriately dedicated to Tulpius. Cf. Baesjou, , “Historical Evidence,” 58.Google Scholar Several seventeenth-century authors used the term “orang-outang” to describe any large ape: see Tyson, Edward, Orang-Outang, sive Homo Sylvestris: or, the Anatomy of a Pygmie [1699]Google Scholar, facsimile, intr. Ashley Montagu (London, 1966), 10.

104. See Bassani, Ezio, Un Cappuccino nell' Africa del Seicento (=Quaderni Poro 4, Milano), 32–34Google Scholar, where Bassani is more critical of this picture than in his “Oeuvres d'art et objets africains dans l'Europe du XVIIe siècle” in Ouvertures sur l'art africain (Paris, 1986), 78.Google Scholar

105. 1676 II: 100, reproduced in Garrard, Timothy F., Akan Weights and the Gold Trade (London, 1980), pl. 21Google Scholar, under the caption “Akan Family, Seventeenth Century.” Another plate in the same section (ibid., 102) combines canoe making on the Gold Coast with people crossing a bridge in the Kquoja kingdom, over 1,000 kilometers away: Van Meurs evidently did not notice that Dapper had slipped in a paragraph which properly belonged to an earlier part of his book.

106. See Hirschberg, Walter, “Early Historical Illustrations of West and Central African Music,” African Music, 4/3 (1969), 10–14.Google Scholar

107. 1676 II: 201. Cf. Hirschberg, Walter, “Der Quellenwert früher ethnographischer Bilddokumente,” Anthropos, 63 (1968), 153–54.Google Scholar

108. Ezio Bassani, personal communication. He and Letizia Tedeschi are writing an article on the ‘Hottentot’ drawings in Florence.

109. Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, A 1396-1399. The view of Algiers shows de Ruyters' ship in 1662, but this date need not necessarily apply to the view itself, which was also used by other engravers, perhaps via Dapper's book: see Brandt, Geeraert, Het leven en bedrijf van den heere Michiel de Ruiter (Amsterdam, 1687).Google Scholar For Zeeman (alias Reinier Nooms) see Bénézit, E., Dictionnaire critique et documentaire des peintres, sculpteurs, dessinateurs et graveurs (10 vols.: Paris, 1976), 10:877.Google Scholar

110. Hollandse Mercurius, 16. dl. (Haerlem, 1670), 90.Google Scholar

111. ARA, 1. Afd., Admiraliteitscolleges XLVII 21, “Memoriael ofte korte dagelycksche Aenteyckeninge…met enige figuurtjes verciert door Reynoud Borremans,” 1665.

112. I consider the first alternative unlikely: a) in the Hollandse Mercurius the castles are partially obscured by the addition of a large number of ships in the foreground; b) (more important) this version does not show as much of the surrounding countryside as do Borremans and Van Meurs.

113. These inconsistencies are pointed out in Ratelband, , Dagregisters, lxix.Google Scholar

114. Braun, Georg and Hohenberg, Franz, Beschreibung und Contrafactur der vornembster Stät der Welt (Köln, 1574; facsimile, ed. Max Schefold, Plöchingen, 1965), plate following p. 55.Google Scholar It was later used in Theodor, Johan and de Bry, Johan Israel, Warhafftige historische Beschreibung dess gewaltigen goltreichen Königreichs Guinea (Frankfurt am Main, 1603)Google Scholar, Plate XXIV and in the Atlas Blaeu of 1642. Disappointingly, neither Lawrence, Trade Castles, nor van Dantzig, Albert, Forts and Castles of Ghana (Accra, 1980)Google Scholar has much to say about the pictures of forts in Dapper's book. Since Lawrence does reproduce three mid-seventeenth-century pictures of Elmina by Dutchmen, it appears likely that he discarded Dapper's view of the castle in the Portuguese period because he considered it totally fanciful.

115. Ezio Bassani, personal communication. The engraving is related to a painting now in the possession of the Fondation Olfert Dapper in Paris, reproduced on the back cover of Ouvertures sur l'art africain; unfortunately nothing is known about its origins.

116. de Sousa-Leão, J., Frans Post, 1612-1680 (Amsterdam, 1973), 155Google Scholar, Plate D. 49. See Wieder, , Monumenta, 4:113Google Scholar; Joppien, R., “The Dutch Vision of Brazil: Johan Maurits and his Artists” in van den Boogaart, E., ed., Johan Maurits van Nassau-Siegen 1604-1679. A Humanist Prince in Europe and Brazil (The Hague, 1979), 299n14.Google Scholar

117. Stichting Atlas van Stolk, Rotterdam, Catalogue Nr. 1865, “Het Innemen vande Stadt St Pavlo de Loando.” Cf. Zandvliet, K., “Johan Maurits and the Cartography of Dutch Brazil, the South-West Passage and Chile” in Van den Boogaart, , ed., Johan Maurits, 505.Google Scholar I am grateful to Janneke Borgesius for pointing out similarities and differences between the various versions.

118. Wieder, , Monumenta, 1:13–14.Google Scholar

119. Cf. Raven-Hart, , Cape Good Hope, 7:121.Google Scholar “The Fort is of course as imaginative as is the crater-like Mountain…”

120. I have already done this for the Ivory and Gold Coasts, annotating my photocopies in seven different colours. Together with P. E. H. Hair and Robin Law I am engaged in similar work on the writings of Jean Barbot.