Richard Jobson (explorer)

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.[1]

Jobson in tha Gambia.
For other people with the same name, see Richard Jobson (disambiguation).

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.[2]

Jobson, sailing from England on 25 October 1620, and arriving at the mouth of the Gambia on 17 November, went up the river beyond the Barrakunda Falls, to an area he called Tenda, meaning river crossing in Mandinka.[3] Jobson visited several places recognizable in modern places names including Wuli, Kantora, and Sutukoba. He did not find the gold he sought.[2]

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;"[4]

Works

After his return to England in 1621, Jobson published The Golden Trade.[5] He gives accounts of the Africans, then largely unknown to the English, though they had overland trade to the north coast.[2]

Notes
  1. Jobson, Richard (1999). Gamble, David P. (ed.). The Discovery of the River Gambra (1623). London: The Hakluyt Society. p. 1.
  2. Lee, Sidney, ed. (1892). "Jobson, Richard" . Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 29. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
  3. Arnold Hughes; David Perfect (11 September 2008). Historical Dictionary of The Gambia. Scarecrow Press. p. 119. ISBN 978-0-8108-6260-9. Retrieved 3 April 2013.
  4. Kay, George Kay, The Shameful Trade Pg45, probably quoting The Golden Trade, although this is not listed in the bibliography.
  5. 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.
Attribution

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Lee, Sidney, ed. (1892). "Jobson, Richard". Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 29. London: Smith, Elder & Co.


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