The Three Governors Fleet, part four
The Danes travelling with them since Copenhagen were aiming to explore inland a bit, into highlands too little explored by Europeans. These had been discovered by the Portuguese, and reached by travel up the Senegal or Gambia rivers by others. a great river was known to be up there, somewhere. Ibn Battuta had written of it, and peoples they encountered made mention of it in stories of bygone empires. As it was a matter of geography and cartography, Tevel insisted they travel on the same ship as him.
"Since the maps of Leo Africanus, this
Niger has been known to cross the desert and the almost-desert lands south of it. But no one knows where it ends."
"How much of it is known?"
"It is the river of rivers in Tombouctou. The Jaliba - or something like that - to the peoples around there. We believe that is as far North as it goes. But our goal is to take our canoes from as far as this
Moa takes us, carry them to this
Niger or
Jaliba, then ride it until we find ourselves in the sea again. We might even meet you in Fernau!"
Tevel had
attentively read every map he could find or have copied off the Guinea coast. But he had
memorized details nearest Fernau, however different they appeared on different maps. And if he knew one thing, he did not relish the thought of travelling to Fernau, in a canoe, from the mouth of even the nearest inlet that might have been a river mouth. One bout of sea sickness was enough to make him regard every doubling of size of a vessel on the sea as a more-than-doubling of insurance against vomit.
"We would of course welcome you with open arms. But don't you suspect your river will come out rather further West?"
"Oh, we don't follow the superstitions that it's another Nile up there. If I had to guess, the river the Portuguese first turned around at - the
Volta is such a ridiculous name, when you think of it - that will be the one. But who knows."
"And then, should you find the mouth, will Denmark seek to place a fort there?"
"Almost certainly. We have to get a spot somewhere, and if everyone else already has the best spots along the coast, we could do worse than to find a spot with good access to the interior."
Denmark would indeed make its mark on the Guinea coast, within a decade.
Six ships, five big and one small, sailed from the Moa for Saint Helena. Tevel did not get sea sick.
Eight canoes paddled up the Moa, out of sight of the ships flying the black crayfish on raspberry red. The men paddling were never seen or heard from by Europeans again.
- - -
Beyond Cape Palmas, plans changed. When the ships ventured south in search of changes in currents and winds, Keir and the other captains did not find what they expected. The direction and force of the winds led them two things: travel past Saint Matthew Island to Saint Helena would be fighting against winds, and then travel from Saint Helena to Fernau might prove twice as difficult.
So six ships, five big and one small, changed course, returning to the Guinea current to set course for Elmina. Tevel had thought he was beginning to get sea-sick again. He didn't mind giving up the fantasy of being the first man to see Saint Matthew Island in over a century in favour of a more settled stomach.
- - -
The Treaty of Tordesillas is well-known for drawing a line across the world and making the lands and seas on either side of it the
lebensraum of Portuguese or Spanish fleets, respectively. But the idea of setting aside unknown areas of the world as being reserved for either of those nations first came up in an earlier treaty, the Treaty of Alcáçovas. And Treaty of Alcáçovas, in turn, came about in the wake of the Portuguese defeating a fleet of 35 Spanish caravels off the coast of El Mina. After that battle, and that (first) treaty, Portugal never again had Spain as a rival in these lands or waters.
The Dutch, English, French, and now others were now seeking their own Elminas - places to draw wealth and slaves from the continent, places to inject influence into it. If imitation was the most
sincere form of flattery, that was how they flattered Portugal. A more
direct form of flattery was stealing, which is what the Dutch finally managed in 1637 (thanks to information from a man who escaped Portuguese custody on Principe, no less).
In some ways, Elmina was the fulcrum of fates in Guinea: the greater part of Portugal's wealth for two centuries came either from here or reinvestments of the profits from here. Its model of leasing from local peoples, trading with them, interbreeding with them, empowering local allies, buying the slaves those local allies captured, then shipping them across the Atlantic for further profit and/or labour, that was a model rivals were starting to copy, after Portugal's head start of generations. Some who were not wealthy became so here. Some whose people had lived
this way elsewhere became people who lived
that way here. And people who had lived free, wherever that freedom had been enjoyed, here became people who would never live free again.
In short, it was a place of great human diversity. The Courland fleet sought plants and people - of whatever degrees of freedom - who had experience of São Tomé, Principe, Fernau, or the mainland coast nearest there. Some were found, discussed with or recruited or paid for, while Tevel introduced himself to those in charge of the now-Dutch fort, its trade, its diplomacy. If this were Europe, and Fernau were Courland, Elmina might be Vienna or Paris or Rome. In some ways, Tevel thought, it might be an insult to use any of those cities as a comparison rather than Lisbon, still ascendant.
Six ships, five big and one small, sailed from Elmina to Fernau. Tevel did not get sea sick.
- - -
[I posted this quite by accident, before I was done the writing of it - as a result, Fernau and Saint Helena are delayed by one more instalment.]
, but now i wonder, was Courland's dealings with Fernando Pó an IOTL event?
