Mémoire sur la Colonie Française du Sénégal, avec quelques considérations historiques et politiques sur la traite des Nègres, sur leur caractère, et les moyens de faire servir la suppression de cette traite à l'accroissement et à la prospérité de cette colonie by [AFRICA - SLAVE TRADE / SENEGAL] PELLETAN, [Jean Gabriel] - An IX [1800]

Paris: Ve. Panckoucke, An IX [1800]. First Edition. Octavo (20cm.); recent salmon paper-covered boards, red gilt morocco spine label; [4],xvi,118pp.; folding map bound in rear, "Carte de la Côte Occidentale D'Afrique entre le Cap Blanc et le Cap Tagrin." New endpapers, though half title and rear free endpaper retained. A Fine, exceedingly fresh copy. Pelletan served as the director of the Compagnie de Sénégal, the administrative company for the colony, in 1787 and 1788, though the present work was composed from memory while Pelletan was imprisoned in 1793 at the height of La Terreur. The "Mémoire" provides geographical descriptions of the western coast of the African continent as well as an account of imports and exports, the latter chiefly rubber and slaves (Pelletan mentions 1000 to 1200, perhaps for the years under his administration, prior to the suppression of the slave trade). The second half of the work deals primarily in describing the ravages of the slave trade on the country and it people: "It is without a doubt that the abolition of the slave trade will completely change the face of the region, devastated for centuries by ceaseless warfare, crippled by the enslavement of portions of its peoples, and depopulated by this horrific commerce conducted by degraded persons and greedy European merchants+ who can only satisfy their avarice at the price of the blood and freedom of these miserable Africans" (our translation; pp. 48-9). Pelletan also dedicates brief sections to the moral and physical attributes of the Senegalese inhabitants, as well as a description of their homes and pottery, before proposing a detailed outline for a new,m post-slave trade colonial government for the region. (See George E. Brooks, "Western Africa and Cabo Verde, 1790s-1830s" (2010), p. 13; and Paul Masson, "Marseille et la Colonisation Française" (1906), pp. 231-2.).