This engraving depicted a woman smoking a pipe and carrying a child on her back with children playing in the background. The accompanying text is describing the Sierra Leone area in the Upper Guinea Coast region. 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.
Negro House at Sierra Leona
SI-OB-812
1745-1747
Negro House at Sierra Leona
"Plate XXXVI" in Thomas Astley (ed.), A New General Collection of Voyages and Travels, vol. 2 (London: Thomas Astley, 1745-1747), facing p. 312.
English
Pre-Colonial Africa: Society, Polity, Culture
Africa--Rivers--Sierra Leone
Derived from a larger engraving based on the late seventeenth century voyages of Jean Barbot and published in Awnsham Churchill and John Churchill, Collection of Voyages (London: Printed for Awnsham and John Churchill, 1732).
Jerome Handler; Michael Tuite; Henry B. Lovejoy Graduate Research Assistants: Tiffany Beebe; Travis May
2-Jun-16; 21-Aug-19
Astley007