Christian George Andreas Oldendorp (…….); Samuel Ödmann [transl.]

Tillförlåtlig underrättelse om Negrerne på Gvinea Kusten, : sam t de derifrån hämtade slafvars närvarande belågenhet, medfart, seder och sinnelag. Under deras träldom på de Christnas nybyggen i Vestindien. Jämte Bihang om Caraibiske nationen, sockerberedningen, m.m. Urdragen ur Herr Oldendorps Missions Historia.

Upsala, tryckt hos Direct. Johan Edman, på egen bekostnad, 1784.

16°. 187, [5] pp. With woodcut head- and tailpieces.

[With:]

Samuel Engel [ed.].

Samling af reseäfwentyr utgifwen af Engel.

Strengnäs, Carl Erik Ekmarck, 1823.

8°. [4], 251, [1] pp. With 1 engraved plate.

[And with:]

J. E. Palmgren

Underrättelser om Constantinopel med dess förstäder och kringliggande nejder, de däruti befintlige märkvärdigheter, invånarnes seder och lefnadssätt, allmänna bruk och inrättningar, regeringssätt, lagar, arméens organisation m.m. Från franskan af J. E. Palmgren.

Stockholm, tryckte hos Olof Grahn, 1821.

8°. VI, 222 pp.

Contemporary green boards with gilt title label on spine, green sprinkled edges (ca. 13,5 x 8,5 cm.).

A collection of three travel narratives, including C.G.A. Oldendorp’s important report on slavery in the Danish colonies of the West Indies.

Christian Georg Andreas Oldendorp was a German Moravian missionary who travelled between 1767 and 1769 to the Danish colonies in the Caribbean – St. Thomas, St. Croix, and St. John – where he documented the lives of African enslaved people, their origins on the Gold Coast, and their conditions under forced labour on sugar plantations. He returned to Europe and later served as a pastor in Marienborn, Neuwied, and Ebersdorf before passing away in 1787.

His most significant work, Geschichte der Mission der evangelischen Brüder auf den Caraibischen Inseln S. Thomas, S. Croix, u. S. Jan (Barby, 1777), is considered one of the most comprehensive accounts of Moravian missionary activities in the Danish West Indies and the socio-economic and ethnographic conditions of the islands. The present rare Swedish edition (1784), translated by the prolific Samuel Ödmann, provides a detailed account of the lives of enslaved people and includes an appendix on the Caribs (pp. 155-187), the indigenous people of the Caribbean from whom the region takes its name.

Oldendorp was critical of the brutal treatment of enslaved people, although he did not oppose slavery as an institution. His accounts offer an early ethnographic insight into the African peoples transported to the Caribbean and how their culture and traditions were transformed through contact with European colonial powers.

This work is bound together with two other intriguing travel narratives: Engel’s collection of adventure travels and Palmgren’s rare description of Constantinople.

Condition: Binding rubbed at the edges and slightly stained. Exlibris C. Gustaf Strokirk to front paste-down. Pages trimmed without loss of text. Olderndorp’s work in very good condition. The other two works have some ink stains to a couple pages.