This engraving depicts a walled and circular Fulɓe (or Fula, Fulani, Peul, Fulaw) village and surrounding lands with livestock and other agricultural/pastoral activities likely from the Senegambia region. Francis Moore (d. 1756) was an English travel writer and clerk of the Royal African Company. He was stationed at the Gambia River between 1730 and 1735. Moore visited numerous towns and trading posts along the Gambia River from its mouth to the Guinea Highlands hundreds of miles inland. Thomas Astley (d. 1759) was a British bookseller and publisher who never went to Africa. His imagined localities and illustrations of Africa were informed by a library of travel books at his disposal.
View of a Fûlî Town & Plantations About It
SI-OB-809
1745-1747
View of a Fûlî Town & Plantations About It
"Plate XXXIX" in Thomas Astley (ed.), A New General Collection of Voyages and Travels, vol. 2 (London: Thomas Astley, 1745-1747), facing p. 264.
English
Pre-Colonial Africa: Society, Polity, Culture
Africa--Western Savanna
A near identical engraving is in Edward Cavendish Drake, A New Universal Collection of Authentic and Entertaining Voyages and Travels, from the Earliest Accounts to the Present Time (London: Printed for J. Cooke, et al., 1768), facing p. 521.
Jerome Handler; Michael Tuite; Henry B. Lovejoy Graduate Research Assistants: Tiffany Beebe; Travis May
5-Apr-16; 21-Aug-19
Astley004