Untitled Image (Royal Litters)
Shows slaves carrying wealthier Congolese from the Kongo kingdom in the Kwanza North region. According to Dapper, "when they want to take a trip they are carried in litters by their slaves. There are different kinds of litters as can be seen in the two illustrations shown here. When they went to move quickly, they take a number of slaves and some carry the litter while the others rest. Those who don't have the means to maintain so many slaves find porters to hire" (p. 348). In an informed discussion of Dapper as an historical source, Adam Jones writes "there is virtually no evidence that Dapper took much interest in what sort of visual material was to accompany his text, and that it was the publisher, Van Meurs, who probably did all the engraving himself." With respect to the plates, in particular, Jones concludes that "for those interested in seventeenth-century black Africa rather than in the history of European perceptions, few of the plates showing human beings and artefacts are of any value. . . [and] originated solely from Van Meurs' imagination. . . [although] they have been used as historical evidence in modern works." See Jones, "Decompiling Dapper: A Preliminary Search for Evidence" History in Africa, 17 (1990), pp. 187-190. See also image DAP3 for variations of litters.
Image Title
Untitled Image (Royal Litters)
RegID
SI-OB-644
Date
Late-1600s
Title
Untitled Image (Royal Litters)
Source
D. O. Dapper, Description de l'Afrique. . . Traduite du Flamand (Amsterdam, 1686; 1st ed., 1668), p. 349 (bottom). Copy in the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University.
Language
French
Item sets
Pre-Colonial Africa: Society, Polity, Culture
Spatial Coverage
Africa--West Central North
Reproduced In
D. O. Dapper, Description de l'Afrique. . . Traduite du Flamand (Amsterdam,1686; 1st ed., 1668), p. 349 (bottom).
Researchers
Jerome Handler; Michael Tuite; Henry B. Lovejoy Graduate Research Assistants: Tiffany Beebe; Travis May
Identifier
DAP11