Richard Jobson (explorer)

Template:Short description Template:For Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox person Richard Jobson (fl. 1620–1623) was an English explorer of West Africa. He is only known from his writings on his 1620–1621 voyage to the Gambia River.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Jobson in the Gambia, 1892

Life

He was appointed in 1620 to command an expedition to explore the River Gambia, for a group of adventurers. Former attempts in 1618 and 1619 had been failure, because of consequence of the hostility of the Portuguese and health problems.<ref name="DNB">Template:Cite DNB</ref>

Jobson, sailing from England on 25 October 1620, and arriving at the mouth of the Gambia on 17 November 1620, went up the river beyond the Barrakunda Falls, to an area he called Tenda, meaning river crossing in Mandinka.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Jobson visited several places recognizable in modern places names including Wuli, Kantora, and Sutukoba. He did not find the gold he sought.<ref name="DNB"/>

Somewhere in Gambia, Jobson refused to purchase some female slaves, stating that "We were a people, who did not deal in any such commodities, neither did wee buy or sell one another, or any that had our owne shapes;"<ref>Kay, George Kay, The Shameful Trade Pg45, probably quoting The Golden Trade, although this is not listed in the bibliography.</ref>

Works

After his return to England in 1621, Jobson published The Golden Trade.<ref>The Golden Trade, or a Discovery of the River Gambra and the Golden Trade of the Æthiopians; also the Commerce with a great blacke merchant called Buckor Sano, and his report of the houses covered with gold, and other strange observations for the good of our owne countrey, set downe as they were collected in travelling part of the yeares 1620 and 1621; by Richard Jobson, gentleman, 1623.</ref> He gives accounts of the Africans, then largely unknown to the English, though they had overland trade to the north coast.<ref name="DNB"/>

External links

• Online version of Jobson's The Golden Trade

Attribution

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