Fishing Cannoes of Mina 5 or 600 at a Time; Negro's Cannoes, Carrying Slaves on Board of Ships at Manfroe
The top engraving depicts dozens of fishing canoes interspersed among slave ships. The bottom engraving depicts enslaved people being transported to slave ships by canoe. In the background various forts from the Voltaic region are depicted, including Elmina and Cabo Corso [Cape Coast]. Awnsham Churchill (1658–1728) was an English bookseller and radical Whig politician who sat in the English and British House of Commons from 1705 to 1710. With his brother, John, he built a successful bookselling business. They never went to Africa and compiled their images based on collections of travel accounts. This image derived from Jean Barbot (1655-1712), who was a French explorer and merchant. Employed by the Compagnie du Senegal, Barbot documented two voyages along the coast of West Africa between the Senegambia and Voltaic regions, then across the Atlantic to the Caribbean in 1678-1679 and 1681-1682. Barbot described how "the Blacks of Mina are commonly handsome, lusty, and strong men. . . Their usual employments are trade, husbandry and fishery. I have often seen seven or eight hundred canoes come out from thence. . . to fish with hooks and lines. . . each canoe having, some two, some three, some four paddlers. I was so pleas'd with the sight of such a number of canoes thus plying about, that I could not forebear representing them in the print here adjoin'd. . . the Mina Blacks drive a great trade along the Gold Coast. . . and are the fittest and most experienc'd men to. . . paddle the canoes over the bars and breakings which render this coast. . . so perilous. . . the waves in the ocean rising in great surges" (p. 156-157).
Image Title
Fishing Cannoes of Mina 5 or 600 at a Time; Negro's Cannoes, Carrying Slaves on Board of Ships at Manfroe
RegID
SI-OB-785
Date
1732
Title
Fishing Cannoes of Mina 5 or 600 at a Time; Negro's Cannoes, Carrying Slaves on Board of Ships at Manfroe
Source
"Plate IX" in Awnsham Churchill and John Churchill, Collection of Voyages, vol. 5 (London: Printed for Awnsham and John Churchill, 1732), p. 156.
Language
English
Item sets
Slave Ships & the Atlantic Crossing (Middle Passage)
Spatial Coverage
Africa--Voltaic--Elmina
Reproduced In
Derived from John Barbot, A description of the coast of North and South-Guinea, and of Ethiopia inferior, vulgarly Angola: being a new and accurate account of the western maritime countries of Africa. . . (London?: n. p., 1732). For comments on the bottom illustration see P. E. H. Hair, Adam Jones and Robin Law, Barbot on Guinea (1678-1712), vol. 2 (London: Hakluyt Society 1992), p. 518 and 536n9 .
Researchers
Jerome Handler; Michael Tuite; Henry B. Lovejoy Graduate Research Assistants: Tiffany Beebe; Travis May
Last Updated
2007; 29-Aug-19
Identifier
Barbot001