King Aggri's House at Cape Coast Castle

This engraving illustrates Fante thatched-roof housing outside the notorious slave fort at Cape Coast in the Voltaic region. Allen wrote that with "the exception of a few English houses, the town consists of straggling lines of mud-huts, to which little clusters of palm trees. . . add a look of coolness, even under the burning sun of that coast" (p. 135). William Allen (1792–1864) was an English naval officer and explorer. Thomas Richard Heywood Thomson (1813–1876) was an English explorer and naturalist. They took part in the Niger expedition to map the course of the river. In Cape Coast, Allen and Thomson interacted with the Fante king, Joseph Aggrey Essien (1809–1869).

Image Title

King Aggri's House at Cape Coast Castle

RegID

SI-OB-850

Date

1848

Title

King Aggri's House at Cape Coast Castle

Source

William Allen and Thomas Richard Heywood Thomson, A Narrative of the Expedition sent by Her Majesty's Government to the River Niger, in 1841, vol. 1 (London: R. Bentley, 1848), p. 135.

Language

English

Item sets

Pre-Colonial Africa: Society, Polity, Culture

Spatial Coverage

Africa--Voltaic--Cape Coast

Researchers

Jerome Handler; Michael Tuite; Henry B. Lovejoy Graduate Research Assistants: Tiffany Beebe; Travis May

Last Updated

10-Feb-17; 27-Aug-19

Identifier

Allen01