1675 De Wit Map of the Guinea Coast of Africa

This is Frederic De Wit's c. 1675 nautical chart of western Africa, extending from modern-day Mauritania to Angola. The map foregrounds the mouth of the River Congo in the south while detailing the complicated coastline between the Rivers Senegal, Gambia, and a 'Rio Grande,' probably the Geba in modern Guinea-Bissau. The whole of this region, and that of Senegal in the north, is historically the Slave Coast: a prime source of African people sold into slavery as part of the Atlantic Slave Trade.

A Closer Look

Embellished with compass roses, rhumb lines, and sailing ships, the engraving is oriented to the north and presents coastal information, islands, shoals, and navigational detail. The chart begins in the north at the Arguin Banks, off the coast of Mauritania. A complex of rivers surrounding the region named Gambia marks modern-day Senegal, The Gambia, and Guinea-Bissau. Following the coastline down, the Windward Coast between Sierra Leone and Benin is sharply detailed and annotated with European trading ports. The regions there are noted - the Grain Coast, the Ivory Coast, the Gold Coast, and the Qua Qua coast (named for the Kwakwa peoples there). From Benin, the coast turns south to reveal Gabon and Angola, and the mouth of the Congo.

Senegal and The Gambia

Many maps of the 17th century focused on the region covered by this one, but the detail here in the extreme west is novel. Typically, the Senegal River and the rivers emptying to the south of it are portrayed as having a single source originating from the Niger River. Here, only the lower portions of the rivers are shown, with no speculation of their sources; the details of settlements along the rivers are much more granular than on works only a few years older, such as the maps of Goos or the Doncker. In particular, this chart shows a more accurate representation of the Gambia River than any earlier, including soundings and the notation of Elephant Island. Such is suggestive of contemporary reports from English mercantile efforts to make inroads there in competition with the French.

Explicit Slave Imagery

Romeyn de Hooghe's masterful engraving illustrates European intentions for the charted region. In the background to the right, an African pulls a crucible from a wood-burning forge; this is a reference to gold. An African boy carries an armload of bags, presumably filled with the stuff, to a pair of European merchants measuring it with scales. To the left foreground, a transaction occurs: two African warriors receive coins from a European merchant in exchange for a trio of African captives, their hands behind their backs; presumably tied. While one of the warriors accepts his payment with his right hand, with his left, he points toward the Gambia.

Publication History and Census

This chart first appeared in De Wit's 1675 Orbis Maritimus ofte Zee Atlas, which De Wit kept in print for the rest of the century. Itwas reprinted by Renard in the early 18th century and again by Ottens in 1745. 14 entries for the various editions of this chart are listed in OCLC, but these are imprecisely and inconsistently dated. The chart appears on the market from time to time.