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Drake's Fake: A Curiosity Concerning a Spurious Visit to Asante in 1839

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 May 2014

T. C. McCaskie
T. C. McCaskie*
Affiliation:
Centre of West African Studies, University of Birmingham
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Extract

A wholly fraudulent source is an unusual occurrence in historical research. What is much more common and of much more intellectual interest is the discovery of a source that skilfully combines spurious invention with some regard for accuracy and convincing detail. This second kind of source is of course very familiar to historians of Africa, and the present note deals with a document of this type that, among other things, purports to offer a brief first-hand account of life in Kumase in 1839. I am chiefly concerned hare with the accuracy or inaccuracy of this piece of reportage; and--unusually for precolonial Africa--the document presently under review can be directly compared with a number of other precisely contemporary written accounts of life in Kumase.

In his pioneering work published over thirty years ago on the suppression of the illicit nineteenth-century slave trade from Africa, Christopher Lloyd remarked on the paucity of first-hand accounts authored by slave traders. He also offered a number of judicious observations respecting the veracity or reliability of such accounts of this type as did exist. In his treatment of the workings of the illegal West African slave trade, Lloyd relied very heavily on one of the annotated editions of the memoirs of Théodore Canot (alias Théophile Conneau). Canot or Conneau is justly famous, and in the intervening years since the appearance of Lloyd's book this important source has become something of an exegetical industry among historians of West Africa.

Type
Research Article
Information
History in Africa , Volume 11 , 1984 , pp. 223 - 236
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1984

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References

Notes

1. Lloyd, Christopher, The Navy and the Slave Trade: The Suppression of the African Slave Trade in the nineteenth Century, (London, 1949).Google Scholar

2. Canot's memoirs were published in a very influential edition as Captain Canot: or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver.…. (New York, 1854).Google Scholar The original manuscript was recently published as Conneau, Theophilus, A Slaver's Log Book, or 20 Years' Residence in Africa, (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1976).Google Scholar The following exegeses of Canot's text are important: Debien, G., “Théodore Canot condamné comme négrier en 1854,” Revue Française d'Histoire d'Outre-Mer, 57(1970), 214–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem., “Encore mon ami Canot, 1842-44,” Notes d'Histoire Coloniale, 2(1973), 222-26; Daget, S., “Encore Théodore Canot; quelques années de la vie d'un négrier et quelques questions,” Annales de l'Université d'Abidjan, Série 1, 5(1977), 39–53Google Scholar; Holsoe, S. E., “Theodore Canot at Cape Mount, 1841-1847,” Liberian Studies Journal, 4(1972), 163–81Google Scholar; Mouser, B., “Theophilus Conneau: The Saga of a Tale,” HA, 6(1979), 97–107Google Scholar; Jones, A., “Théophile Conneau at Galinhas and New Sestos, 1836-1841: A Comparison of the Sources,” HA, 8(1981), 89–106.Google Scholar

3. Lloyd, , Navy and the Slave Trade, 294.Google Scholar

4. Ward, W. E. F., The Royal Navy and the Slavers: The Suppression of the Atlantic Slave Trade, (London, 1969)Google Scholar; Clendenen, C. C. and Duignan, P., Americans in Black Africa up to 1865, (Stanford, 1964)Google Scholar; Brooks, George E., Yankee Traders, Old Coasters and African Middlemen: A History of American Legitimate Trade With West Africa in the 19th Century, (Boston, 1970)Google Scholar; Bennett, Norman and Brooks, George E., eds., New England Merchants in Africa: A History Through Documents, 1802 to 1865, (Boston, 1965).Google Scholar

5. Revelations of a Slave Smuggler.…., with a new foreword by Jackson, Blyden, (Northbrook, Ill., 1972).Google Scholar

6. Ibid., i.

7. For recent observations on the da Souza family and the Dahomean economy see Peukert, Werner, Der Atlantische Sklavenhandel von Dahomey 1740-1797: Wirtsahaftsanthropologie und sozialgeschichte (Wiesbaden, 1978)Google Scholar; Manning, Patrick, Slavery, Colonialism and Economic Growth in Dahomey, 1640–1960 (Cambridge, 1982).CrossRefGoogle Scholar The recent novella by Bruce Chatwyn, The Viceroy of Ouidah, is fairly obviously based on the history of the da Souza family. I mention it here only because some of its fascinations with the exotic are little different from Drake's.

8. Drake, , Revelations, 28.Google Scholar

9. For some more realistic accounts of Asante military dress and weaponry see, for example, Bowdich, Thomas E., Mission from Cape Coast Castle to Ashantee (London, 1819)Google Scholar and Dupuis, Joseph, Journal of a Residence in Ashantee (London, 1824).CrossRefGoogle Scholar A brief general overview is to be found in Terray, E., “Contribution à une étude de l'armée asante,” Cahiers d'Études africaines, 61/62(1976), 297–356.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10. For a brief overview see Boahen, A. A., “Asante-Dahomey Contacts in the Nineteenth Century,” Ghana Notes and Queries, no. 7(1965), 1–3.Google Scholar For military contact, but in the eighteenth century, see Fynn, J. K., “The Reign and Times of Kusi Obodum, 1750–64,” Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana, 8(1965), 24–32Google Scholar and idem., Asante and Its Neighbors, 1700–1807 (London, 1971).

11. Drake, , Revelations, 9.Google Scholar

12. On restrictions on movement throughout Asante, and on the difficulties of access and egress see Wilks, Ivor, Asante in the Nineteenth Century: The Structure and Evolution of a Political Order (Cambridge, 1975).Google Scholar There are numerous scattered descriptions of the dress of both swordbearers and court criers. For convenient comparison see Rattray, Robert S., Religion and Art in Ashanti (Oxford, 1927), esp. 278–79.Google Scholar

13. Drake, , Revelations, 95.Google Scholar

14. Ibid., p. 96.

15. Both the manuscript journal and the letters are in the Methodist Mission Archives on deposit in the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.

16. For some contemporary account of the context of Verveer's mission see Douchez, F., Causeries sur la Côte de Guinée à propos de l'expédition du Général Major Verveer pendant l'été de 1828 (Amsterdam, 1839).Google Scholar A description of the Dutch agency in Kumase is to be found in van Dantzig, A., “The Dutch Military Recruitment Agency in Kumasi,” Ghana Notes and Queries, no. 8(1966), 21–24.Google Scholar See too the introduction to Baesjou, René, ed., An Asante Embassy on the Gold Coast: the mission of Akyempon law to Ehnina, 1869–1872 (Leiden and Cambridge, 1979).Google Scholar

17. The original of William Huydecoper's journal is in General State Archives, The Hague, KvG (Dutch Settlements on the Coast of Guinea) 349. It was translated by Irwin, Graham as Huydecoper's Diary, Journey from Elmina to Kumasi, 28th April 1816–18th May 1817 (Legon, 1962).Google Scholar

18. J. Huydecoper's letters from Kumase are in General State Archives, The Hague, KvG (Dutch Settlements on the Coast of Guinea) 772. While J. Huydecoper's letters remain unpublished, the observations of his successor as Dutch agent in Kumase were published. See Pel, H.J., Aanteekeningen gehouden op eene reis van S. George d'Elmina near Coemassie (Amsterdam, 1842).Google Scholar

19. The published version of Riis' journal is cited in full in the text of the present paper. The original, together with a number of relevant letters, is in the Basel Mission Archives, Basel. I am grateful to Paul Jenkins for supplying me with a copy of Riis' original manuscript.

20. See for example, Methodist Mission Archives, London, Rev. Hoffman to Sir T. F. Buxton, Basel, 15 September 1840. During his second visit to Kumase Freeman recorded the destruction of much of “Mr. Ruydecoper [sic]” the Dutch Agent's property by fire. See Methodist Mission Archives, London, Journals of T.B. Freeman, entry for 22 January 1842.

21. See Holman, J., Travels in Madeira, Sierra Leone, Teneriffe, St. Jago, Cape Coast, Fernando Po, Princes' Island etc. (London, 1840)Google Scholar; Cruickshank, Brodie, Eighteen Years on the Gold Coast of Africa (London, 1853)Google Scholar; Hutchinson, T. J., Impressions of Western Africa (London, 1858)Google Scholar; Lloyd, M., ed., Memoirs: vieux souvenirs of the Prince de Joinville (London, 1895).Google Scholar

22. Indeed, Freeman's open-handed hospitality was one of the principal reasons for his financial difficulties in the 1850s.

23. Johnson, Marion, “News from Nowhere: Duncan and ‘Adofoodia’,” HA, 1(1974), 55–66.Google Scholar

24. There is an analysis of Kwame Poku Agyeman's role in government in McCaskle, T. C., “The Paramountcy of the Asantehene Kwaku Dua Panin (1834–67): A Study in Asante Political Culture,” (Ph.D., Cambridge, 1974).Google Scholar

25. See Methodist Mission Archives, London, Journals of T. B. Freeman, entries for 1, 5, 6, 8, 11, 13, 14 and 15 April 1839.

26. Drake, , Revelations, 95.Google Scholar