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News from Nowhere: Duncan and “Adofoodia”*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 May 2014

Marion Johnson
Marion Johnson*
Affiliation:
University of Birmingham
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Extract

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 the Journal 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.

Type
Research Article
Information
History in Africa , Volume 1 , 1974 , pp. 55 - 66
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1974

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Footnotes

*

I would like to thank Dr. Robin Law of the University of Stirling for much fruitful discussion about Duncan and his travels. It was he who pinpointed Baffo as the last reliable point on the journey to Adofoodia and drew my attention to the fact that the three battles in the adjoining area mentioned by Duncan are also known in Dahomean tradition.

References

Notes

1. Duncan, J., Travels in Western Africa…, 2 vols. (London, 1847), 1 :iii–vi.Google Scholar

2. Address of Murchison, R.I. in JR GS, 14 (1844), p. cxx.Google Scholar

3. “Extract of a Letter from Mr John Duncan to the Librarian of the Royal Geographical Society dated Anamaboe, 7 December 1844,” JRGS, 15 (1845), pp. 350–1.Google Scholar

4. Duncan, J., “Note of a Journey from Cape Coast to Whydah on the West Coast of Africa, dated at Whydah, 19 April 1845,” JRGS, 16 (1846), pp. 143–53.Google Scholar

5. Duncan, J., “Note of a Journey from Whyddah on the West Coast of Africa to Adofoodia in the Interior, dated at Cape Coast, 14 October 1845,” JRGS, 16 (1846), pp. 159–62.Google Scholar

6. FO 84/775, folio 1 and subsequent letters. Public Record Office, London.

7. Ibid., 1ff, 33.

8. Address of Hamilton, W.J. in JRGS, 19 (1849), p. lxxviii.Google Scholar

9. Forbes, F.E., Dahomey and the Dahomans, 2 vols. (London, 1851), 1:156.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10. Ibid., p. 94.

11. Address of Smyth, W.H. in JRGS, 20 (1851), p. xxxix.Google Scholar

12. Barth, H., Travels and Explorations in West and Central Africa, English and German editions in 5 vols. (London and Gotha, 1857)Google Scholar; reprint in 3 vols. (London, 1965), 3:644. Unless otherwise noted, references are to the pagination in the reprint edition.

13. Ibid., p. 310.

14. R.F. Burton, Mission to Gelele, reprint ed. (London, 1966).

15. Skertchly, J.A., Dahomey As It Is (London, 1874), pp. 324ff.Google Scholar and map. See also Skertchly's account in Bates, H. W., ed., Illustrated Travels: A Record of Discovery, Geography, and Adventure, 6 vols. (London, 1869-1875), 4:336.Google Scholar

16. Wolf, L., “Dr Ludwig Wolf's letzten Reise nach der Landschaft Barbar,” Mitteilungen aus den deutschen Schutzgebeiten (1891), pp. 1ff.Google Scholar

17. Ibid, with emphasis in original. The editor probably was incorrect in claiming that Duncan's account had long been suspect. Apparently neither Barth nor Wolfs editor knew what a dromedary was. Possibly Duncan was equally ignorant, since he referred to camels at “Adofoodia” without back reference to the dromedaries of “Sogbo”. The “Adofoodia” camels were pack animals.

18. Deville, A., “Dans le Borgou: le royaume de Bouay,” Bulletin du Comite de l'Afrique francaise (1896), p. 262.Google Scholar

19. Frederick, , Lugard, Lord, Diaries, ed. Perham, M. and Bull, M., 4 vols. (London, 1959-1963), 4:81,115, 117, 142, 150, 156, 184-5, 189.Google Scholar Lugard evidently relied on the existence of places marked on his map.

20. See, e.g., the maps in Hertslet, E., The Map of Africa by Treaty, 3rd ed., 3 vols. (London, 1909).Google Scholar

21. Duncan, letter dated 7 December 1844, p. cxx, and idem, Travels, 2:82-4. For this incident see also Evangelische Missions Magazin (1845), pt. 4, pp. 103-4, and Kwamena-Poh, M., Government and Politics inAkuapem State, 1730-1850 (London, 1973), pp. 64–7.Google Scholar

22. Skertchly, , Dahomey As It Is, pp. 221–3Google Scholar; Bates, , Illustrated Travels, 4:366.Google Scholar

23. Duncan, letter dated 14 October 1845, pp. 159-62.

24. There were several slave uprisings in Bahia between 1807 and 1835, the one in 1835 being the most serious and resulting in the repatriation of some slaves. The “emancipation” spoken of by Duncan probably referred to the manumission of slaves throughout British territories in 1833. Cf. Forbes, , Dahomey and the Dahomans, 1:37, 2:71.Google Scholar

25. Ibid., 1:86.

26. Could these have been the “two Arabs from Uorin” mentioned by Crowther? See Schon, J.F. and Crowther, S.A., Journals (London, 1842), p. 320Google Scholar, which deals with the Niger Expedition of 1841.

27. Barth, , Travels and Explorations, 3:337.Google Scholar

28. Ba, H. and Daget, J., L'empire peul du Macina (Dakar, 1955), pp. 66–7.Google Scholar

29. Last, D.M., The Sokoto Caliphate (London, 1967), pp. 149ffGoogle Scholar; Barth, , Travels and Explorations, 3:131.Google Scholar

30. Polanyi, K., Dahomey and the Slave Trade (Seattle, 1968), p. 94.Google Scholar

31. For a near-contemporary account of this state see Barth, , Reisen und entdeckungen in Nord- und Central-Afrika, 4 vols. (Gotha, 1857-1858), 3:182ff.Google Scholar The German edition is fuller than the English version on this subject.

32. Forbes, , Dahomey and the Dahomans, 1:37.Google Scholar

33. Herskovits, M., Dahomey: An Ancient African Kingdom (New York, 1938), 1:9.Google Scholar

34. Ibid., p. 17.