VILLAULT DE BELLEFOND Nicolas Relation des costes d’Afrique, appelées Guinée ; avec la description du Pays, mœurs & façons de vivre des Habitans, des productions de la terre, & des marchandises qu’on en apporte, avec les Remarques Historiques sur ces Costes. Le tout remarqué par le Sieur Villault, Escuyer sieur de Bellefond, dans le voyage qu’il a fait en 1666 et 1667.

Gay, 2827 ; Chadenat, 5148 ; Cioranescu, 66619.

First edition, very rare.

One of the first and one of the most important early travel accounts on Guinea. In the 17th century, European nations were expanding and consolidating their presence on the African coast, which provided a large number of primary materials (gold, gum, ivory, etc.). Through the The slavetrade many lives were broken and manpower was sent abroad to the American colonies. The Dutch were present at Gorée, the Gold Coast and the Cape of Good Hope; the English were making their mark in Guinea; France was concentrating on Senegal.

It is theerfore hardly surprising that the best accounts published at the time were written by traders such as Nicolas Villault de Bellefond, a merchant and Colbert’s agent on board a vessel chartered by the Compagnie des Indes, who explored every coastal town from Cape Verde to the Gold Coast.

The book is packed with invaluable information about the ‘kingdoms’ visited, the colonial settlements, the villages, the customs and beliefs of the local people, the life of the missionaries, the geography, the flora and fauna, the commercial activities of the Europeans, the agricultural and mining resources, the diseases and remedies, etc. Villault’s lively narrative records the incidents of the voyage (the house of an Englishman razed to the ground by cannon fire, the capture of a ship laden with ‘400 slaves’, an encounter with a warship, etc.). Villault’s lively narrative records the incidents of the voyage (the house of an Englishman razed to the ground by cannon fire, the capture of a ship laden with “400 negroes”, the encounter with a Breton vessel commanded “by a Zeeland privateer”, etc.) and includes digressions on the French presence in Africa (the sailors from Dieppe, the origin of ivory factories, French settlement in Elmina at the end of the 14th century, the discovery of Saint Thomé Island and Benin, battles with the Portuguese, etc.).

Good copy, albeit some occasional staining, especially on last 2 quires.