ROCHEFORT Charles de Le Tableau de l’isle de Tabago ou de la Nouvelle-Oüalchre, l’une des isles Antilles de l’Amérique

Sabin 72324; Alden-Landis, III, 665/174; John Carter Brown, III, p. 137; Leclerc, 1147; not in Chadenat ; see Boucher de La Richarderie, VI, p. 193 (for the edition 1666 under a different title).

Extremely rare first edition.

Very rare travel report by the Huguenot Charles de Rochefort (1605-1683).

Having lived in the West Indies, Rochefort is best known as the author of Histoire Naturelle et Morale des isles Antilles de l’Amérique, published in Rotterdam in 1658. His work aroused a great deal of interest and was subsequently translated into Dutch (1662) and English (1666).

The present book, Tableau de l’Isle de Tabago, is much rarer and remained unknown to Chadenat, who owned several copies of Histoire Naturelle des Antilles.

In his introduction Rochefort states that ‘ce tableau que nous présentons n’est qu’une pièce détachée de notre Histoire naturelle & morale des Antilles’ but he goes on to say that he has drawn on many new details provided by ‘Monsieur Chaillou, l’un des pasteurs de la colonie de la même Isle de Tobago & qui en est retourné depuis peu avoir mis entre les mains plusieurs excellens mémoires, qui nous ont donné l’occasion & fourni en riche matière, d’amplifier ce que nous avions déjà dit ailleurs & d’en former cette relation toute particulière, en faveur d’un nombre bien considérable’. He felt that this ‘little treatise’ therefore contained a wealth of additional information to that given in his Histoire des Antilles, which had only touched on a superficial part of the subject.

Divided into fifteen chapters, it contains a wealth of details about Tobago and the first European colonisation activities. Beginning with the geographical situation, he discusses the climate, the quality of the soil, and the plants and herbs used for food, medicine and dyeing (he mentions several types of palm trees). He continues his description with details of ornithology, quadrupeds, fish and shellfish, as well as the food that can be harvested there (manioc, potatoes, fruit, etc).

He also mentions alcoholic beverages such as a local beer and a wine made from sugar cane (p. 54-55).

Commercial activities are then described, including the production of tobacco, indigo, ginger and cotton. After a brief overview of the history of colonisation, Rochefort praises the island as a means of attracting new settlers in chapter XIV entitled ‘des Avantages qu’on peut attendre de cette île & des singularitez qui s’y trouvent’. According to him, this island ‘does not support any venomous beasts’. He describes the routes to be taken from Vlissingen (in the province of Zeeland) and praises Mr Lampsins’ ships as “large and strong, good under sail & perfectly well equipped with cannons and all the provisions required for such an undertaking”.

“Dampierre, Antiles Française, pages 139-140, describes in full this colonization tract. It contains the material of pages 7-23 of Rochefort’s Histoire Naturelle des Isles Antilles, edition of 1665, rewritten and augmented by data given the author by M. Chaillon, a missionary from Tabago. The same work was reprinted in 1666 and published under the title Relation de l’Isle de Tabago” (JCB).

A very rare edition of which we have been able to trace a single copy at auction over the past 100 years.

Title and first dedication leaf slightly cut in white margin and formerly restored, small stains.

Provenance: Drélincourt (handwritten mention on the endpaper ‘Don de l’auteur, à Rotterdam – 1665) – signatures of Mariette Comte, L. Caille, and Lucien Caille on the fly-leaf. Charles Drelincourt (1633-1697) was an important French physician and anatomist, who settled in Leiden as a professor from the late 1660s.