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Hamlet in an Afro-Portuguese Setting: New Perspectives on Sierra Leone in 1607*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 October 2013

P.E.H. Hair
P.E.H. Hair*
Affiliation:
University of Liverpool
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Extract

For thirty-eight days in August and September of 1607, two ships of an English expedition to the East Indies lay in the Sierra Leone estuary, mainly in order that the sailors might recover from the scurvy developed in a four-months' voyage by drinking lime-water prepared from local fruits. When the ships returned from the East, journals of the expedition became available. Richard Hakluyt collected three, including that of the expedition's commander, William Keeling. These passed eventually to Samuel Purchas, who in 1625 published extracts from them and from other journals independently collected. In Purchas' publication the Sierra Leone stage of the voyage is referred to in extracts from two writings: Keeling's daily journal, and the “large Journall” of the merchant William Finch -- not in fact a daily journal but a detailed, accurate, and very valuable synoptic description. While Finch's “Remembrances touching Sierra Leone” appears to have been published in full, Purchas cut the relevant section of Keeling's journal. He stated “I have beene bold to so shorten as to express only the most necessary Observations for Sea or Land Affaires.” The original of Keeling's journal has disappeared, and therefore, with the exception of some entries to be shortly described, what Purchas cut cannot now be reinstated. However, four other journals of the voyage which contain material on Sierra Leone have survived. The one with the briefest reference to Sierra Leone was published in 1878, and extracts from the Sierra Leone sections of the other three appeared in print in 1877 and 1923. The present paper makes use of a transcription of the whole of the relevant sections in the three manuscripts, a transcription which I hope to publish soon elsewhere.

Type
Research Article
Information
History in Africa , Volume 5 , 1978 , pp. 21 - 42
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1978

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Footnotes

*

This paper is partly based on transcriptions of the sections of unpublished English journals listed in footnote 6, transcriptions which will be published in full elsewhere. All unreferenced extracts in seventeenth-century English in the text are from these transcriptions and can generally be traced in the original journals by date of entry. It is to be noted that as the English had not yet adopted the Gregorian calendar, their dates (Old Style = O.S.) were ten days behind Portuguese dates (New Style = N.S.) by 1607. Dates in the text are given O.S. unless otherwise stated.

References

1. At this period, although it was not realised that citrus fruit afforded a preventative, lemons were among the foods thought to effect a cure for scurvy. At Sierra Leone the 1582 English expedition “founde many lymmons growinge whereof we broughte great store aboorde,” and the 1585 Cavendish expedition “tooke Limmons.”: Donno, Elizabeth S., An Elizabethan in 1582, [Hakluyt Society, 2d ser., 147] (London, 1976), p. 303Google Scholar; Hakluyt, Richard, Principal Navigations (3 vols.: 1598–1600: London), 3; p. 804.Google Scholar Writing of his 1593 voyage Richard Hawkins noted that “most fruitful for this sicknesse is sowre Oranges and Lemmons.” Purchas, Samuel, Purchas his Pilgrimes (4 vols.: London, 1625), 4: p. 1374.Google Scholar Bottles of lemon juice were taken on Lancaster's 1600 voyage to the East, and lemon juice was recommended in Woodall, John, The Surgeons Mate (London, 1617), p. 185Google Scholar, cited in Keevil, John J., Medicine and the Navy (4 vols.: London, 1957–1963), 1: p. 220.Google Scholar But the 1607 expedition was especially systematic in its medical use of Sierra Leone limes (i.e. “lemons”); in the unpublished texts see the entries for 22-23 August.

2. On William Keeling and his voyages to the East (which gave the name to the Cocos-Keeling Islands off Java) see Strachan, Michael and Penrose, Boies, eds., The East India Company Journals of Captain William Keeling and Master Thomas Bonner 1615-1617 (Minneapolis, 1971), pp. 4-7, 16–47.Google Scholar

3. For the transmission of material from Hakluyt to Purchas see the contribution by Steele, Colin R. in Quinn, David B., ed., The Hakluyt Handbook, [Hakluyt Society, 2d ser., 144-45] (2 vols.: London, 1974), 1:pp. 80, 85.Google Scholar

4. Purchas, 1, lib. 3, pp. 188-90 (Keeling); lib. 4, pp. 414-16 (Finch).

5. All that has survived is a damaged first leaf of the original, and an exiguous contemporary precis, India Office Library, L/MAR/A/iii and vi. The precis gives entries for only two days at Sierra Leone and these add nothing to other sources. These entries were first noted in Markham, Clements, ed., The Voyage of Sir James Lancaster … with Abstracts of Journals of Voyages to the East Indies [Hakluyt Society, 1st ser., 56](London, 1877), p. 109.Google Scholar

6. The journal of William Hawkins, Keeling's second in command, was published in Markham, Clements R., ed., The Hawkins' Voyages [Hakluyt Society, 1st ser., 57](London, 1878), p. 370Google Scholar (Hawkin's journal in India was published by Purchas). The journals of the merchants Anthony Marlowe (aboard the Hector), John Hearne and William Finch (aboard the flagship Dragon), and an unidentified individual aboard the Hector, are unpublished: British Library, Cotton MSS, Titus B VIII (Sierra Leone section ff. 253-257v); India Office Library, L/MAR/A/v (ff. 6v-10v) and L/MAR/A/iv (ff. 13v-15v). Extracts from the last two appeared in Markham, , Voyage of Lancaster, pp. 111, 113–4Google Scholar; and extracts from all three in Frederick Boas, S., Shakespeare and the Universities (London, 1923), pp. 88–95.Google Scholar

7. The first publication, in The European Magazine (1825/26), in an appendix to an article by one “Ambrose Gunthio,” pp. 339-347, was only re-discovered and noted in Evans, G. Blakemore, “The authenticity of Keeling's journal entries,” Notes and Queries, 196(1951), pp. 313–15.Google Scholar The second publication, in Rundall, Thomas, Narrative of voyages … with selections from the early records of the Honourable the East India Company [Hakluyt Society, 1st ser. 5](London, 1849), p. 231Google Scholar, led to a discussion in Markham, , Voyages of Lancaster, pp. ix–xGoogle Scholar and then in Lee's, Sydney influential Life of Shakespeare (London, 1898), p. 369.Google Scholar

8. Note that in this paper “Sierra Leone” refers not to the modern state, but following one contemporaneous usage, to a restricted district around the Sierra Leone estuary.

9. The Borea/Borrea/Boreach/Burrea/Boree of the English texts was certainly the same man as the Buré of the Portuguese texts who became “King Philip” after baptism. Alvares, Manuel, “Etiópia Menor e descrição geográfica de Província da Serra Leoa,” edition by da Mota, Avelino Teixeira in preparation, f. 92.Google Scholar But it is not absolutely certain that the terms are the same: Buré is a family name, Borea (which also appears in Alvares, f. 81v, without explanation) may have been a Temne praise-term, possibly with etymological connections.

10. Guerreiro, Francisco, Relacam anual das cousas que fizeram os Padres da Companhia de Jesus nas partes da India Oriental en emalgũas outras … Tirado tudo das Cartas dos mesmos Padres …, (4 vols.: Evora-Lisbon, 1603–1611)Google Scholar, reprinted in modernized orthography, ed. A. Viegas (3 vols.: Coimbra, 1930-42).

11. Purchas, 2, lib. 9, cap. 5, “The Jesuites gleanings in Africa to Christian Religion, gathered out of their own writings,” esp. pp. 1558-61, reference to ‘Balthasar Barerius’ on p. 1559.

12. du Jarric, Pierre, Thesaurus Rerum Indicorum, (Cologne, 1615).Google Scholar

13. See, for instance, contributions to Notes and Queries (9th ser., London), from W. Foster, 6(1900), pp. 41-42, 195(1950), pp. 44-45; from S. Race, 195(1950), pp. 345-47, 480-81, 196(1951), pp. 513-15; and from G.B. Evans, 196(1951), pp. 313-15, 197(1952), pp. 127-28, 180-82. These discuss whether the entries were fabricated by the Shakespearean forger, John Payne Collier.

14. “The earliest recorded but improbable performance,” according to Campbell, O.J. and Quinn, E.G., A Shakespeare Encyclopaedia (London, 1966), pp. 228, 419.Google Scholar

15. This shipboard performance is cited as an example of the energy and ingenuity of the common Englishman of the period, hence of the pioneer English settlers in America, in Bridenbaugh, Carl, Vexed and Troubled Englishmen (New York, 1968), p. 238.Google Scholar

16. Tellez, Balthazar, Chrónica da Companhia de Jesu na Provincia de Portugal (2 vols.: Lisbon, 1645–1647), 2: pp. 643–52Google Scholar; Brásio, António, Monumenta Missionaria Africana, Africa Ocidental, 2d. ser., (4 vols.: Lisbon, 1958–1964), 4Google Scholar: passim.

17. I am indebted to Avelino Teixeira da Mota of the Centro de Estudos de Cartografia Antiga, Lisbon for allowing me to cite the transcription of Alvares he is editing and I am translating.

18. Purchas, 1: p. 188. Previous English visits to Sierra Leone were in 1580 (Drake), 1582 (Fenton), and 1586 (Cumberland and Cavendish). No English ships appear to have visited between 1586 and 1607.

19. Hakluyt, Richard, Principall Voyages (London, 1589), pp. 649–55.Google Scholar

20. For Barreira see the introduction to Thilmans, Guy and de Moraes, Nora Isabel, “La description de la côte de Guinée du père Baltasar Barreira (1606),” BIFAN, ser. B, 34(1972), pp. 1–49.Google Scholar For Barreira's early activities in Sierra Leone see the annotated translations of his letters of 23.2.1606 and 9.3.1607 in my “Early Sources on Leone, Sierra,” Africana Research Bulletin [Freetown], 5/4(1975), pp. 81–118Google Scholar, and 6/2(1976), pp. 45-70.

21. Brásio, , Monumenta, 4:p. 232.Google Scholar This letter is not in Guerreiro, Relaçam.

22. Brásio, , Monumenta, 4:p. 369.Google Scholar

23. On Barreira's contacts with Cação see Thilmans, and Moraes, , “Description,” pp. 22–3Google Scholar; Brásio, , Monumenta, 4:pp. 67–69, 96, 175, 241–52Google Scholar (ignoring the incorrect editorial reference on p. 243 to the kings of Sierra Leone). On the Bissagos Islands and the proposed conquista, see da Mota, A. Teixeira, “Actividade marítima dos Bijagós nos séculos XVI e XVII” in In memoriam António Jorge Dias (3 vols.: Lisbon, 1974), 3:pp. 243–77.Google Scholar

24. da Mota, Teixeira, “Dois escritores quinhenistas de Cabo Verde: André Alvares de Almada e André Dornelas [sic],” Liga dos Amigos de Cabo Verde, Boletim Cultural, Supplemento, 1970, pp. 10–44Google Scholar, reprinted as no. 61 of the Serie separatas of the Agrupamento de Estudos de Cartografia Antiga, Junta de Investigações do Ultramar, Lisbon, 1971.

25. Guerreiro, , Relaçam, part 1604-05 (1607), ff. 156–158vGoogle Scholar, Brásio, , Monumenta, 4:pp. 114–25 (a fuller version)Google Scholar; and see my translation in Africana Research Bulletin, 6/3 (1976), pp. 34–59.Google Scholar

26. Brásio, , Monumenta, 4:pp. 171, 262Google Scholar (this letter wrongly dated 1607); Guerreiro, , Relagam, part 1604-05(1607), f. 149.Google Scholar

27. Brásio, , Monumenta, 4:p. 229Google Scholar; Alvares, , “Descrição,” f. 128v.Google Scholar

28. See my “Sierra Leone in the Portuguese Books of Complaint 1567-8,” Sierra Leone Studies, n.s. 26(1970), pp. 8–10Google Scholar, idem., “Protestants as Pirates, Slavers, and Protomissionaries: Sierra Leone 1568-1582,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 21(1970), pp. 204, 208.

29. Purchas, , Pilgrimes, lib. 4, p. 414.Google Scholar

30. Guerreiro, , Relaçam, part 1607-8(1611), ff. 223v, 225, 229, 230, 233, 235, 236vGoogle Scholar; Brásio, , Monumenta, 4:p. 257.Google Scholar

31. Keeling replied, either on the evening of the 4th, as one journal implies, or (more likely) during the 5th. The information about the elephant hunt in an unpublished journal confirms the additional Keeling entry, and also corrects the entry in Purchas, which described the hunt but dated it to the 7th.

32. Average daily rainfall in the first half of September at Freetown is normally over one inch, Church, R.J. Harrison, West Africa (6th ed., London, 1966), p. 49Google Scholar

33. Guerreiro, , Relaçam, part 1607-08(1611), f.253.Google Scholar

34. Donelha, André, Desarição da Serra Leoa e dos Rios de Guiné do Cabo Verde / An Account of Sierra Leone … (1625), edited by da Mota, A. Teixeira and Hair, P.E.H. [Centro de Estudos de Cartografia Antiga, Memórias, 19](Lisbon, 1977), p. 262n166.Google Scholar

35. Theal, George M., Records of South-Eastern Africa, (9 vols.: London, 1898–1903), 8:pp. 175, 223.Google Scholar There is, however, no evidence of dramatic performances aboard Portuguese vessels: Duffy, J., Shipwreck and empire, (Cambridge, Mass., 1955), p. 101CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Boxer, C.R., ed., The Tragic History of the Sea [Hakluyt Society, 2d ser., 112](London, 1959), p. 20.Google Scholar

36. Guerreiro, , Relaçam, part 1604-5(1607), f. 153.Google Scholar

37. da Mota, A. Teixeira, “A viagem do navio ‘Santiago’ à Serra Leoa e Rio de S. Domingos em 1526 (livro de armação),” Boletim Cultural da Guiné Portuguesa, 24(1969), pp. 529–79Google Scholar, reprinted in Série separatas, AECA, JIU, Lisbon, no. 53 (1969).

38. Hair, , “Portuguese Books of Complaint,” p. 6.Google Scholar

39. Ruiters, Dierick, Toortse der Zeevaert, ed., Naber, S.P. L'Honore (Gravenhage, 1913), pp. 295–6/65.Google Scholar Originally published in 1623. Translated in Hair, , “Early Sources,” Africana Research Bulletin 5/3(1975), p. 62.Google Scholar

40. Guerreiro, , Relaçam, part 1604-5(1607), f. 155–155vGoogle Scholar; part 1607-8(1611), ff. 223-223V, 225, 229, 233; Alvares, , ‘Descrição’, f. 137–137v.Google Scholar

41. Donelha, , Descrição, pp. 108, 110.Google Scholar

42. Guerreiro, , Relaçam, part 1604-5(1607), f. 153v.Google Scholar

43. Donelha, , Descrição, p. 108.Google Scholar

44. Guerreiro, , Relaçam, part 1604-5(1607), f. 150Google Scholar; part 1607-8 (1611), f. 225v.

45. Alvares, , ‘Descrição’, f. 135.Google Scholar