Elara Bertho

@mprovencalle.bsky.social
@univrouen.bsky.social

Mots-clés : relation de voyage, Villault de Bellefond, légende, Côte de l’Or, Akan

Keywords: travel account, Villault de Bellefond, legend, France, Gold Coast, Akan, Gulf of Guinea

Géographique : France, golfe de Guinée

It then evolved to become a tool in the fight against the Dutch monopoly that had been established, particularly in the kingdom of Eguafo. Villault de Bellefond would have taken up and enriched this legend, of which he became aware during his visit to the region.

This article develops another hypothesis: this legend would have been elaborated by Africans living on the Gold Coast in the early 17th c. to attract the French to the region and put an end to the Portuguese monopoly.

Then, the Normans made numerous voyages to West Africa until the beg. of the 15th c.

Charles de La Roncière (1925) and Raymond Mauny (1950) consider that Villault de Bellefond wrote in order to support Colbert's colonial project in Africa and labelled his narration a legend.

In 1669, the Frenchman Nicolas Villault de Bellefond published a travel account entitled "Relation des costes d’Afrique appelées Guinée". It reports in great detail that the Normans passed Cape Bojador as early as 1364, i.e. almost 70 years before the Portugueses.

Le tout en #openaccess à ce lien brill.com/downloadpdf/...

Et pour le livre papier @degruyterbrill.bsky.social offre 35% jusqu'à la fin juillet avec le code DGBCONFB

brill.com/edcollbook-o...

Olivier Langlois is full researcher at CEPAM CNRS UMR7264 à l'Université Côte d'Azur

This article proposes a new hypothesis concerning the geographical origin of the builders of the DGB monuments. In line with many migration and origin accounts, the Mowo-Gudur region may have played a special role in the settlement process of highlands.

This comparison reveals a time offset between the traditions of the summits and their analogues in the foothills.
It also sheds new light on the settlement process in the interior of the mountain chain.

The DGB (diy-geɗ-biy) sites, perched on the northern heights of the Mandara Mountains, have revealed two pottery traditions that the author compare with those that make up the chrono-cultural sequences of the surrounding foothills and plains.

Aujourd’hui nous republions l’ensemble de ces textes en kanouri (chansons, proverbes, lettres, textes historiques) dans une double transcription celle du XIXe siècle et une lisible par les locuteurs contemporains et nous les traduisons en français pour les faire connaitre au plus grand nombre.

It also explains how the Sultanate of Kilwa attempted to break away from Omani control.

#manuscript, #SwahiliCoast, #diplomacy, #slavetrade, #Oman, #Kilwa, #France, #AfricanHistory

It sheds crucial light on the nature of relations between Swahili, Omani and French at the beginning of the 19th c. It shows the importance of slave-trading networks for French diplomacy and how they persisted after the official abolition of the slave trade.

This article includes a reproduction of the letter, its transcription and translation. The historical analysis helps to understand the context (actors, political situation), as well as the strategies of resistance of the Swahili sovereigns in the face of Omani expansionism in East Africa.

A newly edited and translated letter from mfalme Sulaymān b. Ḥasan to Louis XVIII, written in Arabic in 1819, aimed to seal an alliance between France and the Sultanate of Kilwa against the Omanis settled in Zanzibar, thanks to the good offices of an Arabic-speaking scholar and a slave trader.