1755 Seale & Postlethweyt Large Antique Map Trade Routes & Forts of West Africa

Cartographer :William Seale

  • Title : A New and Correct Map of the Coast of Africa from Cape Blance to the Coast of Angola with Explanatory Notes of all the Forts and settlements belonging to the several European Powers
  • Ref #:  92347
  • Size: 20 1/2in x 17in (520mm x 430mm)
  • Date : 1755
  • Condition: (A+) Fine Condition

Description:
This large finely engraved, highly detailed original antique map of the west coast of Africa from Senegal To Angola - with a separate inset map of the Gold Coast was engraved by William Seale - after Jean-Baptiste Bourguinon D'Anville - and was published in Malachy Postlethweyt's monumental 2 Volume Dictionary of Trade & Commerce published between 1751 & 1774.
Incredibly detailed map with an in-depth explanation of the different commercial interests of the European countries from Senegal referred to as the Gum Coast, Sierra Leone & Liberia known as the grain coast, Ivory coast, Ghana & Benin known as the Gold Coast all the way down to Angola.
The extensive text, bottom left, gives a detailed explanation to the different trades undertaken in which areas on the West Coast of Africa. This also included the unfortunate Slaves Trade, Ivory, Gold and Grain as well as local & European settlements and forts.
A truly fascinating insight into a vast region of Africa that was so crucial to the commerce and wealth of Western Europe.

Malachy Postlethweyt's Dictionary of Trade & Commerce:
A monumental dictionary of trade and commerce. It is based in part on the Dictionnaire universel de Commerce (Paris: 1723-30) of Jacques Savary de Bruslon, under whose name it is often catalogued, but has been adapted by Postlethwayt for a British audience, with substantial enlargements and improvements, and entirely new material relating to England and her colonies. Postlethwayt devoted twenty years to the preparation of the dictionary, which was first published in 1751-55 &  includes a description of British affairs in North America since the peace of 1763.
As with his other works, the dictionary demonstrates Postlethway’s deep commitment to the expansion and strengthening of English trade. Included are entries for geographical locations (Africa, Antilles, Canada, Japan, Louisiana, &c.), products (brandy, cardamom, codfish, diamonds, sugar, &c.), trading companies (Dutch East India Company, English African Company, &c.), treaties of commerce, and a vast range of other information of value to merchants (bankruptcy, currency, bills of exchange, brokerage, exportation, landed interest, privateering, &c.). The Dictionary is also important for containing almost the whole substance of Richard Cantillon’s Essay on Commerce, its first appearance in print.

Background: Being part of the Mediterranean world, the northern coasts of the African continent as far as the Straits of Gibraltar and even round to the area of the Fortunate Isles (the Canaries) were reasonably well known and quite accurately mapped from ancient times. In particular, Egypt and the Nile Valley were well defined and the Nile itself was, of course, one of the rivers separating the continents in medieval T-O maps. Through Arab traders the shape of the east coast, down the Red Sea as far as the equator, was also known but detail shown in the interior faded into deserts with occasional mountain ranges and mythical rivers. The southern part of the continent, in the Ptolemaic tradition, was assumed to curve to the east to form a land-locked Indian Ocean. The voyages of the Portuguese, organized by Henry the Navigator in the fifteenth century, completely changed the picture and by the end of the century Vasco da Gama had rounded the Cape enabling cartographers to draw a quite presentable coastal outline of the whole continent, even if the interior was to remain largely unknown for the next two or three centuries.
The first separately printed map of Africa (as with the other known continents) appeared in Munster's Geographia from 1540 onwards and the first atlas devoted to Africa only was published in 1588 in Venice by Livio Sanuto, but the finest individual map of the century was that engraved on 8 sheets by Gastaldi, published in Venice in 1564. Apart from maps in sixteenth-century atlases generally there were also magnificent marine maps of 1596 by Jan van Linschoten (engraved by van Langrens) of the southern half of the continent with highly imaginative and decorative detail in the interior. In the next century there were many attractive maps including those of Mercator/Hondius (1606), Speed (1627), Blaeu (1 630), Visscher (1636), de Wit (c. 1670), all embellished with vignettes of harbours and principal towns and bordered with elaborate and colourful figures of their inhabitants, but the interior remained uncharted with the exception of that part of the continent known as Ethiopia, the name which was applied to a wide area including present-day Abyssinia. Here the legends of Prester John lingered on and, as so often happened in other remote parts of the world, the only certain knowledge of the region was provided by Jesuit missionaries. Among these was Father Geronimo Lobo (1595-1678), whose work A Voyage to Abyssinia was used as the basis for a remarkably accurate map published by a German scholar, Hiob Ludolf in 1683. Despite the formidable problems which faced them, the French cartographers G. Delisle (c. 1700-22), J. B. B. d'Anville (1727-49) and N. Bellin (1754) greatly improved the standards of mapping of the continent, improvements which were usually, although not always, maintained by Homann, Seutter, de Ia Rochette, Bowen, Faden and many others in the later years of the century. (Ref: Tooley, M&B)

General Description:
Paper thickness and quality: - Heavy and stable
Paper color: - White
Age of map color: - 
Colors used: - 
General color appearance: - 
Paper size: - 20 1/2in x 17in (520mm x 430mm)
Plate size: - 19 1/2in x 15 1/2in (495mm x 395mm)
Margins: - Min 1/4in (5mm)

Imperfections:
Margins: - Bottom left margin cropped to plate-mark
Plate area: - Folds as issued
Verso: - None

$275.00