Negro Houses of Cape Mesurado
This engraving depicts household buildings and domestic economic activities around Cape Mesurado on the Upper Guinea Coast. There is a kitchen, a hut for preparing millet and rice, a palaver (meeting) room, a space to hold court and a marketplace. 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.
Image Title
Negro Houses of Cape Mesurado
RegID
SI-OB-813
Date
1745-1747
Title
Negro Houses of Cape Mesurado
Source
"Plate LI" in Thomas Astley (ed.), A New General Collection of Voyages and Travels, vol. 2 (London: Thomas Astley, 1745-1747), facing p. 527.
Language
English
Item sets
Pre-Colonial Africa: Society, Polity, Culture
Spatial Coverage
Africa--Rivers--Cape Mesurado
Reproduced In
This is a reversed version of the same illustration published in Jean Baptiste Labat, Voyage du Chevalier des Marchais en Guinee. . . fait en 1725, 1726, & 1727, vol. 1 (Paris: C. Osmont, 1730), facing p. 121.
Researchers
Jerome Handler; Michael Tuite; Henry B. Lovejoy Graduate Research Assistants: Tiffany Beebe; Travis May
Last Updated
19-Mar-16; 21-Aug-19
Identifier
Astley008