News from Nowhere: Duncan and “Adofoodia”

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Abstract
By his own account, John Duncan was born in 1805 on a farm in southwest Scotland and enlisted in the Life Guards at the age of seventeen. He obtained his discharge in 1839 and was appointed master-at-arms to the Niger Expedition of 1841. In the course of this, while aiding his men at the Cape Verde Islands, he received a leg wound which became so serious that amputation was contemplated, and he was left with a permanent weakness in the leg. Despite this he offered his services to the Royal Geographical Society in 1844 to go to Africa and penetrate to the Kong Mountains. He was provided with instruments and funds for this purpose and given passage to Cape Coast on a warship.Duncan's plans at this date seem to have been somewhat indefinite. The Royal Geographical Society was told in 1844 that Duncan, “full of zeal and activity though not professing to be very scientific,” was going to the west coast of Africa. It was not known, however, whether he would “follow the line between Loanda on the west and Mozambique on the east” or would “confine his explorations to the country of Koomassie [Asante] and the Kong Mountains, east of Cape Coast, and to an excursion to the new settlement at Abbe Accuta [Abeokuta] where the missionary Crowther is now established.” During his journey Duncan wrote several letters to the Society. One, dated at Anamabu in December 1844, explained that he had been refused permission by the Asantehene to go beyond Kumasi and so he was planning to ascend the Volta river instead. A second from Whydah written in April 1845 described his travels along the coast and on the lagoons. The last letter was written at Cape Coast in October 1845 and described his visit to the Dahomey capital. In addition, it contained an account of a journey he claimed to have made to “the town called Adofoodiah, at 13°6'N.” This last letter was written at a time when Duncan was entirely without resources, and he ended by saying that he wanted to go to Timbuktu “passing to the left of Ashanti.” A footnote to the letter, as published in theJournal of the Royal Geographical Society, noted that “funds have since been sent to Mr Duncan to assist him in carrying out his views of visiting Timbuctoo and descending the Niger.” However, this expedition was never undertaken and Duncan returned to England shortly afterward.

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