Without Portuguese sources we would know precious little about sub-Saharan Africa in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Lacking an adequate knowledge of Portuguese, most historians of Africa have, like me, avoided this period wherever possible. In doing so, we have missed much that is of interest. To take just one example: in his História das Guerras Angolanas, written in the early 1680s, António de Oliveira Cadornega explained how the slaves exported from Angola were ‘ransomed’ from eaters of human flesh, adding: ‘This is not only useful for commerce but still more for the service of God and the good of their souls. … They are thus taken away from their heathen ways and are redeemed to live lives which serve God and are good for commerce’ (p. 143). This must surely count as one of the most remarkable attempts ever made to justify the slave trade.
Newitt's anthology, which covers West Central as well as West Africa, constitutes a counterpart to his book ‘East Africa’ (2002) and was likewise initially intended for Ashgate's series ‘Portuguese Encounters with the World in the Age of the Discoveries’. The emphasis is on ‘encounters’ and on Portuguese attempts to ‘reconcile their experience with the myths and legends inherited from classical and medieval learning’ (p. i). But there is also plenty of information on African history. Drawing mainly upon documents already published in Portuguese by António Brásio and others, Newitt provides English-speaking readers with an opportunity to dip into the wealth of material that the Portuguese left behind. The 24-page general introduction is followed by 57 documents, each with a helpful brief introduction. The book is enhanced by seven maps, a useful glossary, and an index.
The documents, of which only about one-third have hitherto been published in English or French, are given headings that range from the colloquial (‘The Portuguese run into opposition’) to the postcolonial (‘Duarte Pacheco Pereira tries to come to terms with “difference”’). They are arranged in 12 chapters; chronology does not appear to have been a major consideration here, and in some cases we are not even told when a document is thought to have been written. Beginning with early encounters in Morocco, the book proceeds to the fifteenth-century voyages to West Africa. This is followed by chapters on the Atlantic islands, the Upper Guinea Coast, Elmina, and Benin. Kongo and Angola are dealt with in five chapters, though one of these – on Christianity in Kongo – includes an extract from Álvares on maleficium on the Upper Guinea Coast. There is also a chapter on the Atlantic slave trade (four documents) and one entitled vaguely ‘People and places’.
I am unable to judge the quality of the translation but am intrigued by the considerable differences between, for instance, Newitt's translations of Donelha and those published by P. E. H. Hair (1977). Occasionally the choice of words surprises me – did ‘violas’ (p. 101) exist in 1491? – but in general the texts read well. However, it is not entirely clear whether the texts from the work by Cuvelier and Jadin on Kongo (1954) have been translated from the documents' original language (Latin, perhaps?) or from Jadin's French version, thus translating a translation. Similarly, does Newitt's translation of Cadamosto derive directly from the original Italian or from Peres's Portuguese translation (1948)? In the case of the famous ‘anonymous Portuguese pilot’, at least, it seems clear that Newitt has chosen to translate a modern Portuguese translation of Ramusio's Italian text, which was itself based on a source now lost. Thus we are offered an English translation of a Portuguese translation of an Italian translation of a lost Portuguese source.
The annotation is helpful but somewhat sparse, perhaps a result of the publisher's priorities. It is not made clear how much of it is taken from, for instance, Hair's annotation of Donelha and to what extent this has been simplified. To take a few examples, Donelha's reference to ‘corfis’ is explained in terms of the Temne word for ‘spirit/spiritual power’ (p. 82, n. 10), but the correct orthography (given by Hair) is distorted, and Hair's remark that the term was used by other missionary authors is left out. It is misleading to say that ‘The Bullom-speaking ethnic group lived along the Sherbro River’ (p. 82, n. 6) – especially when Donelha gives the correct location. Nor does the statement that ‘Luanda was one of the most important fisheries’ (p. 225, n. 13) throw much light on a sentence about ‘fishing’ for buzios (shell money). Almost as disturbing is the choice of secondary literature to cite. On the so-called Mani invasions, their ‘links with the Poro initiation society’, silent trade, Jews on the Upper Guinea Coast, the concept of ‘fetish’, or the manuscript of Valentim Fernandes, it seems to me that Newitt has consulted the wrong literature, too little literature, or no literature at all.
Nevertheless, the book fills a significant gap. It will presumably reach a wide audience (for teaching purposes it is quite suitable) and should encourage interested readers to proceed from here to the sources themselves. Ideally, it should also motivate scholars to complete for publication the translations of Álvares, Álvares de Almada, Lemos Coelho, and Jesuit documents for which P. E. H. Hair undertook so much preparatory work.
