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LETTER IV. [actually LETTER V]
GRANVILLE TOWN, June 8, 1791.
My dear Madam,
Since my last I have been to the French Factory [ on Gambia Island], visited
several neighbouring towns, and made myself a little intimate with the history, manners, customs, &c. of the inhabitants
of this part of Africa, which, it seems, was first discovered by the Portugueze [sic], who named it Sierra de Leone,
or Mountain of Lions.1 The tract of country now called Sierra Leone is
a Peninsula one half the year, and an island the other—that is, during the rains the isthmus is overflowed. The river,
which was formerly called Tagrin, now takes its name from the country. [The river is
called the Rokel today.] At its entrance it is about ten miles from one Promontory to the other,
but here, it is scarcely half that distance across, and a few miles higher up it becomes very narrow indeed. It is not navigable
for large vessels any higher than Bance Island, but small craft may go a great distance up.
Besides the islands I have mentioned, there are several others, uninhabited, between this and Bance Island.
Granville Town is situated in a pretty deep bay on the south side of the river, about nine miles above Cape Sierra Leone
(the Cape lies in 8.28. N. Lat. . . . 12.30. W. Lon.), fifteen below Bance Island, and six [ sixteen?]
from Robana. Half a mile below us is the town of one Pa Duffee; two miles lower down is
King Jemmy's; and beyond him is Queen Yamacubba's, and two or three small places. A mile above us Signor Domingo
lives, and a little higher one Pa Will. I have been at all these places, and find a great similitude in the appearance
of the people, their behaviour, mode of living, building, amusements, &c.
The men are tall and stout, and was it not that their legs are generally small in proportion to their bodies, and somewhat
crooked, I should call them well limbed. The mode of treating infants 'till they are able to walk accounts for their being
bandy legged. A few days after a woman is delivered, she takes her child on her back to wherever her vocation leads her with
both its legs buckled round her waist and the calves pressed to her sides, by which means the tender bones are forced from
their natural shape, and get a curve that never after grows out; and thus, the infant is exposed either to the scorching sun,
or any change of weather that happens.
The women are not nigh so well shaped as the men, being employed in all hard labour makes them robust and clumsy. They
are very prolific, and keep their breasts always suspended, which, after bearing a child or two, stretches out to an enormous
length; disgusting to Europeans, though considered beautiful and ornamental here. They are not only obliged to till
the ground and do all laborious work, but are kept at a great distance by the men, who seldom suffer a woman to sit down or
eat with them. The day I dined at King Naimbana's, he told me I was the first woman that ever eat [sic] at the same
table with him.
Great respect and reverence is shewn to old age, by all ranks of people.
Polygamy likewise is considered honorable, and creates consequence. When an African speaks of a great man, he or she will
say, "Oh! he be fine man, rich too much, he got too much woman."
Anna Maria is reluctant to expound further on polygamy. The idea should shock a well-brought-up young Englishwoman. She
sees the circle of huts arranged around the man who is the linchpin of the family, and wonders what the various wives occupying
these huts think of each other. What must it be like to share openly a man’s sexual appetites with another woman? Sometimes,
when Alexander Falconbridge gives her no peace at night, she thinks it might be a relief to send him to another bed.
Is an older wife jealous when her husband takes a younger, more attractive wife? Do they compete for their children’s
places in the hierarchy? As she surveys the village scene, she sees the wives grinding flour in their deep wooden mortars
with pestles tall as they are, gossiping happily together while the men sprawl comfortably apart under a nearby shade tree,
their ease mirroring the significance of their discussions.
Anna Maria generally has definite opinions on most subjects. She has very strong opinions about the dalliances of Englishmen
and believes fervently that they should pay for their indiscretions. The idea of a man moving from bed to bed at his convenience
and with society’s sanction elevates her blood pressure. Better to say nothing than to reveal her inability to take
this subject in her stride.
The higher class of people hereabout mostly speak broken English, which they have acquired from frequent intercourse with
vessels that come to purchase slaves. They seem desirous to give education to their children, or in their own way of expressing
it, "Read book, and learn to be rogue so well as white man;" for they say, if white men could not read, or wanted education,
they would be no better rogues than black gentlemen.
I was treated with the utmost hospitality at every town I visited.
Their common food is rice, pepper pot, or palaver sauce,2 palm nuts, and palm oil; with the latter both sexes
anoint their bodies and limbs daily, tho' it does not prevent them from smelling vastly strong.3 Wherever I went,
there was commonly a fowl boiled or broiled for me. I liked the pepper pot; it is a kind of soup made with a mixture of vegetables
highly seasoned with salt and red pepper.4
Their houses are much like those I have heretofore described, but very low; they are irregularly placed and built either
in a square or circular form; and as this part of the country is thinly inhabited, each town contains a very few houses.
The inhabitants are chiefly Pagans, though they believe [in] the existence of a God, but consider him so good that he cannot
do them an injury. They therefore pay homage to the Devil, from a belief that he is the only supernatural being they
have to fear; and I am informed they have consecrated places, in different parts of the woods, where they make annual sacrifices
to him.
Cleanliness is universally observed. Their simple furniture, consisting generally of a few mats, wooden trenchers and spoons
made by themselves, are always tidy and their homely habitations constantly clean swept and free from filth of any kind. Nor
do I think nature has been so unkind to endow those people with capacities less susceptible of improvement and cultivation
than any other part of the human race. I am led to form this conjecture from the quickness with which even those who cannot
understand English comprehend my meaning by gestures or signs and the aptness they have imitated many things after me.
Their time is calculated by plantations, moons, and days. The reason of the first is they clear a new field once a year,
and if asked the age of a child or any thing else, they will answer, so many plantations, in place of years: they register
their moons by notches on a piece of wood, which is carefully hanged up in some particular part of the house.
Their chief amusement is dancing: In the evening men and women assemble in the most open part of the town where they form
a circle, which one at a time enters and shews his skill and agility by a number of wild comical motions. Their music is made
by clapping of hands and a harsh sounding drum or two made out of hollowed wood covered with the skin of a goat. Sometimes
I have seen an instrument resembling our guitar, the country name of which is bangeon.5
The company frequently applaud or upbraid the performer with bursts of laughter or some odd disagreeable noise. If it is
moonshine and they have spirits to drink, these dances probably continue 'till the moon goes down, or ‘till day light.
The Timmany [Temne] dialect is commonly spoke here, though
the nation so called is some distance to the northward. The natives account for this in the following way: Many years ago
the Burees, a tribe of people formerly living upon the banks of the river Sierra Leone, were conquered and drove away to other
parts of the country by the Timmany's [sic], who, having possessed themselves of the land, invited many strangers to
come and live among them. The Timmanys being again engaged in war, which the inhabitants of Sierra Leone did not chuse [sic]
to join in, they therefore alienated the connection and declared themselves a distinct nation, and have been considered as
such ever since.
Every chief or head man of a town is authorized from the King to settle local disputes—but when disagreements of
consequence arise between people of separate places, then a Palaver is summoned to the residence of the complainant, when
the King attends or not as suits him; but if inconvenient to go in person, he sends his Palaver-man, who carries the King's
sword, cane, or hat, as a signal of inauguration to his office.
When all the parties are met, they enquire into the business of their meeting, and a majority of voices determine who has
reason of his or her side. If the crime is fornication, the punishment is slavery, unless the offender can ransom him
or herself by paying another slave or the value in goods. It is customary when the judges cannot procure sufficient
proof to oblige the party accused to take a poisonous draught, called Red Water—this potion is prepared by the judges
themselves, who make it strong or weak as they are inclined by circumstances—if strong and the stomach does not
reject it instantaneously, death soon ensues—but if weak, it seldom has any other effect than a common emetic.6
At the last town I visited, the head man's favorite woman had a beautiful mulatto child, and seeing me take much
notice of it, he said, "God amity, sen, me dat peginine, true, suppose he no black like me, nutting for that, my woman drinkee
red water, and suppose peginine no for me, he dead."
I could not help smiling at the old fool's credulity and thinking how happy many of my own countrywomen would be to rid
themselves of a similar stigma so easily. Crimes of larger magnitude, such as witchcraft, murder, &c. are punished
in the same way, i.e. the criminal is obliged to drink of this liquor unless there be evidence sufficiently strong to acquit
or condemn him; when that is the case, if convicted, he either suffers death, or is sold as a slave.
On the opposite shore lives a populous nation called the Bullams, 7 whose King I
had occasion to mention in a former letter. I have been at only one of their settlements, a place directly over against us,
belonging to a man named Dean. The people appear more inclined to industry than the Sierra Leonians, which a stranger may
readily discern by the superior way their houses are furnished in. I am told it is a fertile country, and the inhabitants
make so much rice that they are able to sell a quantity annually.
In the neighbourhood of Dean's Town at a place called Tagrin Point was formerly an English factory belonging to one Marshall;
but he unluckily got into a dispute with the natives, who drove him away and pillaged his goods; they are a barbarous implacable
set of people.
This is all the history I have learnt of the Bullams, therefore shall return to my own side of the water.
We have had heavy tornadoes and falls of rain for several weeks, and I yet enjoy my health as well, if not better, than
I did for several years past in Europe. Deaths are not frequent among the natives; indeed I have not heard of one since we
arrived. Their national diseases are few; probably anointing themselves as they do with palm oil makes them less liable to
evil consequences from the unhealthy putrid vapour that almost constantly hovers about these mountains; the poisonous effects
of which carries off numbers of foreigners.
Another reference to malaria. Anna Maria does not realize that the Africans who have survived the many diseases of the
area have developed immunity to them. Babies and children die in large numbers.
About ten days ago the master of the cutter went to Bance Island, where he drank too freely, and returning a little indisposed,
signified a wish of going to the French factory for medical assistance. Falconbridge having had some difference with this
man, therefore, lest he might wrong construe any offers to serve him, without hesitation complied with his desire, and he
immediately set out in the cutter to Gambia, Falconbridge and myself accompanying him. [Alexander
Falconbridge has quarreled with his brother and now with the captain of their cutter. Anna Maria is still careful not to assign
any blame.] The distance being but six miles, and a fresh sea breeze, we soon ran up.
Mr. Rennieu not only received us with the politeness of a Frenchman, but with kindness and friendship. When he saw the
master of the Lapwing, he said to me, "Madam, Captain Kennedy (for that was his name) will never leave Africa, but
in two or three days time he will come under my big tree." I did not instantly comprehend him, which the Frenchman
perceived, and explained himself by saying, "under the large tree I saw a little distance off was the burying ground, and,"
added he, "there is something in the countenance of Kennedy denoting his dissolution to be near at hand; and I am persuaded
the man cannot live more than two or three days." I took care not to mention or hint to Kennedy what Mr. Rennieu said to me,
lest the force of imagination might kill him—however, in spite of all our endeavours, the prophecy was fulfilled; a
severe fever came on the same night, and the second day he was a corpse.
There was no accommodation for sleeping on shore at the Factory which Mr. Rennieu could offer us—we were, consequently,
obliged to sleep on board. I could not think of allowing the poor sick man to be exposed to the inclemency of night air and
insisted on his taking a birth in the cabin—nor could I think of continuing in the cabin while he was ill lest his disorder
might be infectious; and the only alternative was to lay upon deck, or in the hold. The former being most preferable, our
mattresses were spread at night under the awning, where we lay; but I took the precaution to wrap myself up in a flannel gown,
and cover'd my head with a cap of the same—was it not for that, in all probability I must have added to the number under
Mr. Rennieu's big tree.
The Europeans believed that malaria was caused by the mists and miasmas in the air, and that wool clothing would prevent
its spread.
For two nights we lay on deck, and [during] each of them we were unlucky enough to have violent tornadoes. During the storm
I threw two large blankets over me, and though the rain penetrated through both, yet my flannel gown and cap intercepted it
and prevented me from getting wet, except my feet, which I bathed in spirits when the tornado was over, and thus, I believe,
escaped any bad consequences; but being under the necessity of staying another night at Gambia, I did not chuse to experience
the good effects of my blankets a third time and accepted an invitation which the Captain of an American [ship] had made us—to
take a bed on board his ship.
The rains, when they finally come, are welcomed like blessings from heaven. Settlers and Englishmen alike open their mouths
and shirts to the sweet scent of it. They dance like pardoned criminals as the benign moisture bathes their bodies. But as
day after day rolls by with cascades of relentless stinging, drenching water falling from the heavens, the enchantment turns
to misery. Boiling and gushing red laterite mud, the torrent rages down the slopes like a cascade. The storms are so violent
that humans can neither hear each other speak nor see, can only sit huddled under their inadequate shelters. Mud sucks at
their feet and slides through their tents. The mornings are blotted out by mist and fog, everything indistinct, dreamlike,
the air dank and fetid. Great gray masses of cloud snag on the hill above them and hang there leaking steadily over the landscape.
The sky is the color of oiled steel and the wind gusts furiously. Blinding flashes of lightning illuminate the landscape,
followed by salvos of roaring thunder. Sleep brings little respite, and joints ache on rising. Soon chests are congested,
noses running, ears plugged up.
Immediately after the corpse was removed, we had the Lapwing scowered [sic], washed with vinegar, and smoaked
with tobacco and brimstone to free her from every suspicion of dangerous infection.
I must avail myself of the present moment to give you some description of Gambia Island. It is small and low, not two miles
in circumference, situated in the midst of swamps and marshes from whence a continued stench comes sufficient to choak [sic]
a carrion crow—'tis wonderful how any human beings could pitch on such a place to live in. The Europeans there have
all complexions as if they were fed on madder and saffron. Their manner of living is slovenly and hoggish, though they seem
to have plenty of fresh stock and provisions of almost every kind—they are very inactive and indolent, which I am not
astonished at, for such must ensue from the lassitude produced by the unhealthiness of the place.
The buildings are of mean and disrespectable appearance, being a pile of grass and sticks clumsily put together. They have
a factory ship, and few goods are kept on shore from a fear of being surprised and robbed by the natives.
Formerly the island was protected by a company of French soldiers, but the vast and rapid mortality deterred their government
from sending fresh supplies. Rennieu, however, preserves a kind of consequence and keeps his neighbours in awe by a number
of strange legerdemain tricks he has learnt, some of which he shews when ever he has visitors.
After seeing Gambia [Island], I consider Granville Town a delightful spot, where we have none of those swampy low grounds;
but a reviving sea breeze that cheers us every day, which is almost spent before it reaches them. I suppose this must be owing
to the heavy dense atmosphere that opposes its progress, for distance cannot be the cause.
Since the rains commenced, the nights grew alternately cooler; indeed I find a blanket very comfortable. Even during the
dry weather (when I had room to breathe), I found night many degrees colder than day; but it is now, at times, cold, that
I am glad to find a fire. This sudden transition from heat to cold, and from cold to heat, I am rather disposed to think,
accounts for the turpitude of the climate. At all events it certainly is one of the most considerable causes.
From a fear that my inadequateness to give historical delineations will expose me to your criticism, I have to beg you
will look over any rhapsodies with lenity; this is all I can hope for—that all I dread.
Falconbridge thinks of leaving Africa the middle of this month. The loss of Kennedy, want of provisions fit for taking
to sea, and the late Mate (now Master of the cutter) and several of our people being sick, disconcerts us a good deal. But
we are told the rains will be considerably worse, and every day will render it more dangerous and difficult to get off the
coast. Falconbridge is determined to do his best, and get away as quick as possible.
Oh my friend! what happiness shall I feel on seeing Old England again; and, if it pleases God for us to arrive safe, the
difficulties, dangers, and inconveniences I have surmounted and have yet to encounter, will only serve me to laugh at.
Your's, &c. &c.
Endnotes:
1. A number of explanations are offered for the name. The most logical is that the thunder
storms that break over the hills in the rainy season sounds like lions roaring.
2. Palaver sauce was the name given by whites to the boiled leaf
of a plant somewhat resembling spinach. Winterbottom, An Account, vol. 1, p. 64.
3. Winterbottom believed that the
women used palm oil "to preserve the velvet smoothness and softness of their skins." Winterbottom, An Account, vol.
1, p. 102.
4. red
pepper: capsicum frutescens, or bird pepper, which Winterbottom considered very ‘wholesome’ in preventing
gout and ‘intermittents’ (i.e. ague). It is so highly esteemed by the natives, he wrote, that "it is used not
only as seasoning to their food, but enters largely into the composition of their medicines." Winterbottom, An Account,
vol. 2, pp. 44-45.
5.
Forerunner to our banjo?
6. Red Water was made from an infusion of the bark of Erythrophleum
guineense. Winterbottom gives more information on this custom in An Account, vol. 1, pp. 129-33.
7. "At that period the northern shore was
still controlled and inhabited by the Bulom (Sherbro) people, who also occupied the country to the south of the peninsula."
Fyfe, Anna Maria Falconbridge, p. 48.
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