EUROPEANS AND AFRICANS IN THE EARLY PERIOD OF PORTUGUESE EXPANSION IN AFRICA - THE ORGANIZATION AND COURSE OF THE FIRST ENCOUNTERS

• Authors: Tymowski Michal
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

This article is about the European - African encounters on West African coast in the XVth century. The bases of sources are: the Zurara and Rui de Pina chronicles, a description of voyages of Ca da Mosto, a work of Joao de Barros, and as a supplement material descriptions of Duarte Pacheco, Diogo Gomes, Eustache Delafosse, chronicle of Garcia de Resende and documents from Portugaliae Monumenta Africana. In the initial part of the article, the author - using the psychological literature - specifies what conditions must be met duringt a contact between individuals or groups of people, in order to be considered as an encounter. These are: the willingness of both parties to enter into contact, the organized character of the contact, the specification of both parties' objectives, an approved time and space, the peaceful nature of contact and reciprocal subjective treatment of the parties.Three encounters have been described and analysed: Valarte - Guitenyia, Ca da Mosto - Budomel and Diogo de Azambuja - Caramansa. The author describes the places of each encounters, the objectives of the parties, the parties' ways of presenting themselves, their methods of conducting talks and course of the meetings. The author then compares these three cases: the collapse of the talks and a disaster in the first case, then successful encounter in the second case, till the emergence of elements of coercion and the restriction of African subjectivity, while maintaining the appearance of voluntary actions by either side, in the case of the latter.

Keywords

EN

AFRICANS; CULTURAL CONTACT; ENCOUNTERS; EUROPEANS; XV CENTURY

Discipline

• HISTORY: HISTORY

• Publisher: Instytut Kultur Śródziemnomorskich i Orientalnych PAN
• Journal: Hemispheres. Studies on Cultures and Societies
• Year: 2010
• Issue: 25
• Pages: 95-122
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Tymowski Michal

• Michal Tymowski, Faculty of History, University of Warsaw, 26/28 Krakowskie Przedmiescie Str, 00-927 Warsaw, Poland

Identifiers

CEJSH db identifier

11PLAAAA094327