''The Narrative of Robert Adams'' is a memoir by American sailor
Robert Adams first published in 1816. The narrative is the story of the adventures of Adams, then a twenty-five-year-old American sailor who claimed to be enslaved in
North Africa
North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...
for three years, from 1810 to 1814, after surviving a shipwreck. He was said to have finally been ransomed by the
British Consul
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies.
** Britishness, the British identity and common culture
* British English, ...
, where he eventually made his way to London. It was there that, as a random beggar on the streets, he was "discovered" by the
Company of Merchants Trading to Africa, where he narrated the full details of his adventure.
Adams claimed to have visited
Timbuktu
Timbuktu ( ; french: Tombouctou;
Koyra Chiini: ); tmh, label=Tuareg, script=Tfng, ⵜⵏⴱⴾⵜ, Tin Buqt a city in Mali, situated north of the Niger River. The town is the capital of the Tombouctou Region, one of the eight administrativ ...
during his enslavement, which would have made him the first
Westerner to reach the city. Upon his stated liberation, and return to Europe, Adams' story was published in two heavily edited and divergent accounts, most notably ''The Narrative of Robert Adams.''
Because his story was sanctioned by some of the most distinguished men in England, including members of government, who had a noted financial interest in Africa, his narrative(s) gained credibility despite "its most glaring absurdities".
[
Often cited as an example of ]white slavery
White slavery (also white slave trade or white slave trafficking) refers to the slavery of Europeans, whether by non-Europeans (such as West Asians and North Africa, North Africans), or by other Europeans (for example naval galley slaves or th ...
, today Adams's story is widely known to have been fabricated, lending to the dismissal of his story within general history discussions and recordings.
Significance
Europeans had sought the supposed golden riches of Timbuktu
Timbuktu ( ; french: Tombouctou;
Koyra Chiini: ); tmh, label=Tuareg, script=Tfng, ⵜⵏⴱⴾⵜ, Tin Buqt a city in Mali, situated north of the Niger River. The town is the capital of the Tombouctou Region, one of the eight administrativ ...
for many years, sending expedition after expedition to conquer the remote city. Despite this, no reliable Western witness had returned from Timbuktu to share his experience, and the last update Europeans had received was from Leo Africanus
Joannes Leo Africanus (born al-Hasan Muhammad al-Wazzan, ar, الحسن محمد الوزان ; c. 1494 – c. 1554) was an Andalusian diplomat and author who is best known for his 1526 book '' Cosmographia et geographia de Affrica'', later ...
in the sixteenth century. Leo Africanus was a Christianized Moor
Moor or Moors may refer to:
Nature and ecology
* Moorland, a habitat characterized by low-growing vegetation and acidic soils.
Ethnic and religious groups
* Moors, Muslim inhabitants of the Maghreb, Iberian Peninsula, Sicily, and Malta during ...
from southern Spain, and not a "true" Westerner himself.[ By the early nineteenth century when Robert Adams dictated his ''Narrative'', Timbuktu had become an elusive dream for Europeans, an unattainable goal. It was the African ]El Dorado
El Dorado (, ; Spanish for "the golden"), originally ''El Hombre Dorado'' ("The Golden Man") or ''El Rey Dorado'' ("The Golden King"), was the term used by the Spanish in the 16th century to describe a mythical tribal chief (''zipa'') or king o ...
. Yet foreigners who dared set foot within the city or the surrounding region were forced to choose between adopting the local faith or suffering decapitation.
Many failed expeditions to the remote city of Timbuktu were attempted by the following explorers: the American John Ledyard
John Ledyard (November 1751 – 10 January 1789) was an American explorer and adventurer.
Early life
Ledyard was born in Groton, Connecticut, in November 1751. He was the first child of Abigail Youngs Ledyard and Capt. John Ledyard Jr, son o ...
, the Englishman Simon Lucas, the Irishman Major Daniel Houghton, the Scotsman Mungo Park, the German Frederick Hornemann, an Englishman named Nicholls, and the Swiss explorer Johann Ludwig Burckhardt
Johann Ludwig (also known as John Lewis, Jean Louis) Burckhardt (24 November 1784 – 15 October 1817) was a Swiss traveller, geographer and Orientalist. Burckhardt assumed the alias ''Sheikh Ibrahim Ibn Abdallah'' during his travels in Arabia ...
. They all failed in one way or another, mostly by either disappearing in the middle of the expedition or by dying before reaching the city. Most did not return home.
Robert Adams' tale of his visit to Timbuktu was highly significant for two reasons:
#being a tale of Westerner finally managing to arrive at the famed city, long coveted for its supposed wealth and extensive reserves of gold, and
#because he was said to have arrived there by accident, and not through an organized exploration.[
Despite the controversy regarding the veracity of Adams' story, the publication of his ''Narrative'' was deemed a triumph for British science and exploration. Though Adams was said to have been an American, his tale was told in England, and it was there that the ''Narrative'' was published, granting an international victory to England.][
In contemporary times, Adams' tales is often cited as an example as ]white slavery
White slavery (also white slave trade or white slave trafficking) refers to the slavery of Europeans, whether by non-Europeans (such as West Asians and North Africa, North Africans), or by other Europeans (for example naval galley slaves or th ...
; however given he was stated as being mulatto in his tale, due there is no record accounting for him or his family on either side of the Atlantic, and due to numerous other discrepancies in his tale, his story is accepted as having been fabricated.
Narration
Early life
Robert Adams was an American of mixed black and white ancestry.[ It was written that he was "born up the river of New York, where his father lived when he quitted America;" and that his mother was a ]Mulatto
(, ) is a racial classification to refer to people of mixed African and European ancestry. Its use is considered outdated and offensive in several languages, including English and Dutch, whereas in languages such as Spanish and Portuguese is ...
. However, there is no record of a man under either of his known aliases, or fitting his general description, in Hudson during this period.[ ]Joseph Dupuis
Joseph Dupuis (1789–1874) was appointed as Consul and Vice-Consul for the British Government between 1811 and 1842, with various postings to Africa during that period, including one as Vice-Consul in Mogador. He was married to Evelina Danby, who ...
, the British Consul in Mogador who eventually ransomed Adams, wrote of Adams' appearance:
Dupuis wrote that Adams left America to avoid being prosecuted for refusing to legitimize his relationship with a young woman.[ However, nothing else is known of his early life until 1810 when, under the name "Benjamin Rose," he signed onto the ship ''Charles'' as a ]merchant
A merchant is a person who trades in commodities produced by other people, especially one who trades with foreign countries. Historically, a merchant is anyone who is involved in business or trade. Merchants have operated for as long as indust ...
seaman.[ While he used the name "Benjamin Rose" leading up to his time on the ''Charles,'' he exclusively went by name, "Robert Adams," after his release from slavery. It is not known which, if either of these names was his real one, though at the time it was not uncommon for sailors, especially "distressed seamen", to change their names.][
]
Shipwreck
As Adams recounts in his ''Narrative'', the ship sailed from New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
on June 17, 1810 (or May 7, 1810, as he recounted in Cadiz) led by captain, John Horton.[ The ship, carrying flour, rice, and salted provisions, was bound to Gibraltar.
Along with Adams, the crew included Stephen Dolbie (mate), Thomas Williams, Martin Clarke, Unis Newsham, Nichofas (a Swede), John Stephens, John Matthews, and James Davison.][
Adams stated that, after 26 days, the ship arrived at Gibraltar, where the cargo was discharged. There, the crew added another crewman, Unis Nelson. According to Adams, the ship sat in Gibraltar for about a month, and proceeded after Captain Horton decided to go to the ]Isle of May
The Isle of May is located in the north of the outer Firth of Forth, approximately off the coast of mainland Scotland. It is about long and wide. The island is owned and managed by NatureScot as a national nature reserve. There are now no ...
for salt. However, it soon became clear that the captain was, rather, going on a trading voyage down the coast.[
After three weeks at sea, Adam said he overheard two of the older crew members – Newsham and Matthews – who were old and had been on the coast before, state that the Captain was lost. For eight or nine days, after that, the ships fought heavy winds until, on October 11, around 3:00am, the ship struck some reef in Cape Blanco...about four hundred miles north of Senegal. Despite two members of the crew being unable to swim, there were no deaths.][
]
Life as a slave
As day broke, Adams claims the entire crew was surrounded by a group of about 35 Moors, who imprisoned them. Luckily, the Moors also had an imprisoned Frenchmen who was able to communicate with Captain Horton, who also spoke French.[ The crew, according to Adams, was stripped naked and forced to dig holes in the sand in order to sleep, so they could keep cool.
Adams claimed that Captain Horton fell ill, and was killed with a sword by the Moors, who were frustrated that they could not communicate with him, despite having the Frenchman as a translator.][
Robert Adams said that, across three years of being enslaved in northern Africa, he passed through the hands of at least five different owners.
His first owners were the Moors, who captured the shipwrecked sailors of the ''Charles.'' After about 12 days, after the shipwreck, Adams said that the Moors divided the prisoners among themselves, with Adams and Newsham being assigned to about twenty Moors who traveled on foot, with four camels.][ He said they traveled southwest, crossing the desert at an estimated rate of 15–20 miles a day, under great hardship, with scarcity of both food and water. He claimed they were often forced to drink a mix of water and ]camel urine
Camel urine is a liquid by-product of metabolism in a camel's anatomy. Urine from Arabian camels has been used in the Arabian Peninsula as prophetic medicine for centuries, being a part of ancient Bedouin practices. After the spread of MERS-CoV ...
just to stay alive in the parched conditions.[
At one point in the journey, Stevens says that his group of Moors was overtaken by a larger group of black Africans, who took the Moors and the slaves as prisoners, including Adams. They again traveled great distances, first to the Africans' village. According to Adams' account, he and a ]Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Portu ...
slave, 18-year-old John Stevens, were taken to Timbuktu in around July 1812. Adams never provides any parameters for Steven's captivity, but expresses that they were treated as honored guests of the king rather than as slaves, and were free to move about as they pleased within the city. They were considered an exotic oddity by the locals, and Adams later recounts that people used to come from far off lands to stare at them.[
Eventually, Adams' stay as a guest came to a close, and he was traded to a group of Moors who sold tobacco. Several days after making their trade, Adams set off farther east, and eventually north, with his third group of captors. Adams suffered his second great desert crossing, once again drinking camel urine to survive and avoid dehydration. Eventually the Moors reached a village of tents, where Adams was put to work for several months tending goats and sheep. At some point during this phase of his enslavement, Adams' master had promised to take him all the way to Mogador and trade him to the British consul, thus helping him attain freedom. However, his master later went back on his word and Adams rebelled as a result, refusing to care for the animals. This angered his master, who later sold him to someone else.][
Adams' stated that his fourth master was a man with two wives. Adams was given to one of the wives as her personal slave. Some time later, the second wife enlisted the assistance of Adams to care for her goats. In payment, she allowed Adams to “rest” in her tent. This relationship continued for months and, upon his master's knowledge of the affair, Adams was traded for blankets and dates.][
His fifth master took him farther north to a village settlement where he met other Westerners, including some of his former companions from the ''Charles.'' One of the white men had already renounced his Christian faith to attain freedom and, shortly after, two of his sailing companions from the ''Charles'' also renounced their faith. Not long after, the British consul, Joseph Dupuis, ransomed Adams, thus securing his freedom.][
]
Freedom
After trading for Adams, the British consul Dupuis took him first to Agadir, then to Mogador
Essaouira ( ; ar, الصويرة, aṣ-Ṣawīra; shi, ⵜⴰⵚⵚⵓⵔⵜ, Taṣṣort, formerly ''Amegdul''), known until the 1960s as Mogador, is a port city in the western Morocco, Moroccan region of Marrakesh-Safi, Marakesh-Safi, on the ...
, where Adams stayed for nearly seven months. It was here that he first appeared in the historical record, with the date October 6, 1813. From here, he was sent north to Tangier, to the American Consul-General, James Simpson.
After this, Adams sailed to Cadiz, Spain, where he hoped to connect with a ship headed for the United States. Unfortunately, he arrived two days late.[ There he recounted his story to the American Samuel A. Storrow, who eventually published this "Cadiz Narrative" in 1817.][
Subsequently, Adams went to ]Gibraltar
)
, anthem = " God Save the King"
, song = " Gibraltar Anthem"
, image_map = Gibraltar location in Europe.svg
, map_alt = Location of Gibraltar in Europe
, map_caption = United Kingdom shown in pale green
, mapsize =
, image_map2 = Gib ...
, where he was able to travel by ship to Holyhead
Holyhead (,; cy, Caergybi , "Cybi's fort") is the largest town and a community in the county of Isle of Anglesey, Wales, with a population of 13,659 at the 2011 census. Holyhead is on Holy Island, bounded by the Irish Sea to the north, and is ...
on the Isle of Anglesey
Anglesey (; cy, (Ynys) Môn ) is an island off the north-west coast of Wales. It forms a principal area known as the Isle of Anglesey, that includes Holy Island across the narrow Cymyran Strait and some islets and skerries. Anglesey island, ...
, Wales
Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...
. Adams later ended up in London, where he survived as a beggar.[
In November 1815, Adams was sought out by Simon Cock of the Company of Merchants Trading to Africa, who had been led to him by a traveler who recognized Adams from Cadiz. Intrigued by the prospect of speaking to someone who had been to Timbuktu, Cock brought Adams to the Company's office. There, Adams agreed to recount his story in exchange for finances and security to travel home to New York. Cock and company questioned Adams and assembled a narrative of this account; it was published as ''The Narrative of Robert Adams'' in 1816.][
]
Controversy
Adams' ''Narrative'' was widely dismissed by European society as a lie, with only Dupuis corroborating most of the story. While his description of Timbuktu proved problematic, given it did not match what is now known of Timbuktu, it is regarded as a probable fabrication.[
This skepticism primarily stemmed from several discrepancies:
No trace has ever been found of either Adams or his family.][ In fact, no family, of his name, was known in the Hudson, nor had Adams ever been heard of in the area.][ In addition, the collector of New York, which certified ship, verified that no vessel resembling Adams' description of the ''Charles'' had ever left his stated port.][
Lending to doubts in Adams' story was also the fact that he had no firm national, racial, personal, language, or name identity, allowing him to pass through his own story, unnoticed e.g. he is both "Robert Adams" and "Benjamin Rose," he speaks English, Arabic and "Negro".][ There are also various noted holes in Adams' story. For example, there is no reason given for why he was allowed to roam Timbuktu freely for six months.][ It is also noted that Adams was induced, by Simon Cock, to answer questions about the region that had stumped Europeans for generations. He had an answer to every question he was asked by the Europeans.][
Raising more doubt is the manner in which Cock "found" Adams, a then destitute beggar, wandering the streets of London in 1815, and how an illiterate person, who learned nothing from books, knew the exact number of days of his journeys, the precise number of miles he traveled each day, and the precise directions of all his travels on foot.][ It is notable that it was a well-established fact that no wrecks occurred south of Cape Bajado at that time.][ In addition, Adams' illiteracy is at odds with the fact that sailors were substantially literate during this period.]
Also, lending to doubt of Adams' story, is the "artlessness", considered necessary for poor storytellers, which often give them the feel of truth. Michel de Certeau
Michel de Certeau (; 17 May 1925 – 9 January 1986) was a French Jesuit priest and scholar whose work combined history, psychoanalysis, philosophy, and the social sciences as well as hermeneutics, semiotics, ethnology, and religion. He was kn ...
wrote of such narratives when he linked the history of writing history to the legitimization of political power, a practice found in "Western" cultures which used the act of writing as a tool of colonialism; writing their own histories while minimizing or eradicating the traditions of native peoples. For example, Dick said of Adams:
Adams, is painted by critics as a "found narrator", who is not only unable to narrate a "continuous and straight-forward story", but who also could only answer questions put to him, first by Dupuis in 1810 in Africa, and then in 1815–16 in London, meaning the editors constructed his "story" from fragments. This, argues critics, was done to the point in which Cock brought in a group of "scientific and respectable gentleman" to interview Adams, in order to verify details and geographical descriptions of Africa.[
Adams' story was deemed to be obviously fabricated, to the point in which it was denounced in the North American Review, in 1817, which delivered its critique only after assessing both narratives. The critique stated:
Despite its discrepancies, it is surmised that Adam's story found an audience due to "sympathy and curiosity of Africa" at the time.][
]
See also
*Captivity narrative
Captivity narratives are usually stories of people captured by enemies whom they consider uncivilized, or whose beliefs and customs they oppose. The best-known captivity narratives in North America are those concerning Europeans and Americans ta ...
* James Riley
Further reading
*
*. A novel.
References
External links
Full text of
"The narrative of Robert Adams: an American sailor who was wrecked on the western coast of Africa, in the year 1810, was detained three years in slavery by the Arabs of the Great Desert, and resided several months in the City of Tombuctoo"
{{DEFAULTSORT:Narrative of Robert Adams, The
Travel autobiographies
American autobiographies
American travel books
Timbuktu in popular culture
1816 books
Writers of captivity narratives