Jean Barbot as a Source for the Slave Coast of West Africa

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Abstract
The author, who collects from others, is far from being exact.John Barbot's Description of the Coasts of North and South Guinea, published in 1732 (and cited hereafter as 1732) is a text well known to historians of western Africa. The problems involved in its use as a historical source have been recognized for some time, and have been clarified in recent years primarily by the scholarship of Professor Paul Hair. The history of Barbot's text is, in general terms, now clear enough. John or, as he was originally called, Jean Barbot was a Frenchman who spent some time in the African trade, in the employment of the Compagnie du Sénégal. A Huguenot, he was obliged to leave France after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 and settled in England, where he died at Southampton in 1713. According to his own account (1732:381) Barbot made two voyages to Africa between 1678 and 1682. The manuscript journal of his first voyage, in 1678-79, is extant and has recently been published. That of his second voyage, in 1681-82, is not known to have survived. He subsequently wrote, in French, a general account of the western African coast under the title Description des Côtes d'Affrique, which he completed in 1688, but for which he was unable to find a publisher. This manuscript (hereafter cited as 1688) is also extant, and an English translation and critical edition of it is now in preparation, under the general editorship of Paul Hair. The 1688 Description was based partly on Barbot's own observations in 1678-82, but also drew extensively from earlier published accounts, especially from that of the Dutchman Dapper, published in 1668.

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