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Golberry
Sylvain Meinrad Xavier de
Fragmens d'un voyage en Afrique, fait pendant les années 1785, 1786 et 1787, dans les Contrées occidentales de ce Continent, comprises entre le cap Blanc de Barbarie, par 20 degrés, 47 minutes, et le cap de Palmes, par 4 degrés, 30 minutes, latitude boréale
Book
Paris
Treuttel & Würtz
1802
French
Travels in Africa performed during the years 1785, 1786, and 1787, in the western countries of that continent (London: 1802). English. Reise durch das westliche Afrika (Leipzig: 1803, and Berlin/Hamburg: A. Doll, 1804). German.
Travel Writings
Bibliothèque Nationale de France. British Library. Kongelige Bibliotek, Danmark. Koninklijke Bibliotheek, Nederland. Rhodes House, Oxford.
Travel West Africa French Senegal Geography Commerce Interior
Golberry's Fragmens d'un voyage en Afrique stresses the importance of the Senegal coast to French trading interests, whereas the interior was almost unknown: "a thick veil still covered the interior parts of this continent" (3). He calls for French expansion in the region, the construction of fortifications, and investment in creating one large trading area for France, under central control. This detailed travel account of West Africa was read and cited by other travel writers of the period, and by abolitionists although Golberry was favorable to the re-establishment of France's transatlantic slave trade, as it contained detailed geographical and commercial information on the region.
Two volumes. Golberry is also sometimes spelt Golbéry. Cited in Wilberforce's Letter to his Excellency, the Prince of Talleyrand Perigord ... On the Subject of the Slave Trade (1814): "let me refer [...] to the testimony of various travellers, even to that of Parke and Golberry themselves, though seduced by self-interest into favouring the cause of the Slave Traders." (12)