Barbot, Dapper, Davity: A Critique of Sources on Sierra Leone and Cape Mount

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Abstract
It is over a decade since Professor Lawrence made a plea “for subjecting the sources for African history to that kind of critical appraisal which has customarily been applied to Greek and Roman authors.” Among Anglophone African historians, the plea has largely gone unheard. Could this conceivably be because critical source analysis is dull stuff for minds accustomed to the excitement of filling blank plains of African history with elephants of speculation and castles of moralistic stance? The opportunity provided by the reprinting of the standard sources has all too frequently been lost. One editor of an essential west African source is content to remark that the contemporary translation into English he is reprinting, considered together with another contemporary translation into French, are “all [sic], for the most part, considered faithful renditions of the original Dutch.” Standards of source-verification in published African history not uncommonly fall below the standards demanded in other fields of history; even reputable publishing houses occasionally produce works whose standards of historical enquiry are so low that they have been termed, unkindly but not altogether unjustly, “Academic Oxfam for Africa.” Perhaps a case does exist for speculation and commitment in African history, perhaps non-written sources may inform in detail as well as stimulate in general; but if the African historian dares to step outside the ivory tower of African studies, and is concerned that his subject be taken seriously by the historical profession as a whole, he must perform his exercises on the common ground of historical enquiry. This means that he must include a measure of dull critical analysis of written sources. Professor Shepperson once suggested that the time had come for more ‘dull’ African history: the present paper is intended as a contribution to this and to no other good cause.

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