Cadamosto Explores Gambia and Senegal

1455

The Venetian navigator Alvise Cadamosto, sailing under Portuguese flag and financing, explored the Gambia and Senegal rivers, trading with Wolof and Mandinka peoples along the banks. His detailed written accounts described West African markets, Islamic customs, local kingship, and the astonishment of African villagers at European ships with their alien rigging. His journals are among the earliest European ethnographic observations of sub-Saharan Africa and its complex societies.