1752 Leach / Kitchin Map of the Middle Gambia River, West Africa

A fine example of Thomas Kitchin's 1752 map of the middle portion of the Gambia River, based on the description of John Leach, an agent of the Royal African Company. It highlights reconnaissance from Leach's travels, which were recounted in several works in the years afterwards, eliciting popular interest among the British public.

A Closer Look

Coverage extends along the Gambia River from Eropina and the 'Dear Islands' (Pasri and Deer Island), roughly halfway into the territory of the contemporary nation-state of The Gambia, eastwards to the area on the present-day border between The Gambia and Senegal. The travels of John Leach, an agent of the Royal African Company, inform the map. Leach and Thomas Harrison explored the area in 1732 in search of trading opportunities. The Royal African Company was a chartered monopoly created to manage English / British trade along the west coast of Africa. It was supplanted in the early 18th century, leading to a free-for-all among private traders, contributing to an increase in the scale and brutality of the slave trade.

Trading posts ('factories'), ports, and other facilities utilized by British traders and their agents line the river. Many indigenous settlements are indicated, as are the approximate borders between local kingdoms or chieftainships. Due to his extended foray in the region, Leach was well informed about local political constellations, and labels a few settlements as 'king's town'.

On the water, soundings are recorded all along the river. Roads between settlements are traced, with distances noted. This information was derived from Francis Moore's Travels into the inland parts of Africa. Illustrations of insects surround the map, including a large ant hill at left.

Publication History and Census

This map was engraved by Thomas Kitchin based on descriptions by John Leach. Its provenance is somewhat unclear; maps based on Leach's travels first appeared in Francis Moore's Travels into the inland parts of Africa (1738), but they differ widely from Kitchin's work. (Moore's work is referred to above the scale, confirming that this map was produced afterwards.) The present map was included in A New General Collection of Voyages and Travels, published between 1745 and 1747, but its notation in that work is entirely different. It was reproduced in French by Nicholas Bellin for l'Abbé Prevost’s Histoire generale des voyages.

This edition of the map with the present notation ('Pl. 150, No. 87, Vol. 2, p. 357') is held by the New York Public Library, which dates it to 1732, too early given that Kitchin was born in 1718. Research by Barbara McCorkle suggests that this edition of the map appeared in Thomas Salmon's The universal traveller: or, a compleat description of the several foreign nations of the world, published in 1752 - 1753. Regardless of printing, this map appeared in close proximity to 'A Map of the River Gambia from its Mouth to Eropina' (also sold by us), which covers the lower portion of the river to the west of the area seen here.