Primary Source: George Best, A True Discourse of the Late Voyages of Discoverie (1578)

European Exploration, Perception of the Other, and the Columbian Exchange

How did Europeans perceive the new people they encountered and how were they in turn perceived?

George Best was an English ship captain who sailed with explorer Martin Frobisher’s expeditions in search of the Northwest Passage in 1577 and 1578. His written accounts and maps of the travels were compiled and published upon his return. His work also introduced the idea that the sun was stronger in the tropics because its rays were less dispersed.

Others againe imagine the middle Zone to be extreme hot, because the people of Africa, especially the Ethiopians, are so cole blacke, and their haire like wooll curled short, which blacknesse and curled haire they suppose to come onely by the parching heat of the Sunne, which how it should be possible I cannot see: for even under the Equinoctiall in America, and in the East Indies, and in the Islands of Moluccae the people are not blacke, but tauney and white, with long haire uncurled as wee have, so that if the Ethiopians blacknesse came by the heat of the Sunne, why should not those Americans and Indians also be as blacke as they, seeing the Sunne is equally distant from them both, they abiding in one Parallel. . . . And the most probable cause to my judgement is, that this blacknesse proceedeth of some natural infection of the first inhabitants of that Countrey, and so all the whole progenie of them descended, are still polluted with the same blot of infection. Therefore, it shall not bee farre from our purpose, to examine the first originall of these blacke men, and howe by a lineall discent they have hitherto continued thus blacke. It manifestly and plainly appeareth by holy Scripture, that after the generall inundation and overflowing of the earth, there remained no moe men alive but Noah and his three sonnes, Sem, Cham, and Japhet, who onely were left to possesse and inhabite the whole face of the earth: therefore all the sundry discents that until this present day have inhabited the whole earth, must needes come of the off-spring either of Sem, Cham, or Japhet, as the onely sonnes of Noah, who all three being white, and their wives also, by course of nature should have begotten and brought foorth white children. But the envie of our great and continuall enemie the wicked Spirite is such, that as hee coulde not suffer our olde father Adam to live in the felicitie and Angelike state wherein hee was first created, but tempting him, sought and procured his ruine and fall: so againe, finding at this floode none but a father and three sonnes living, hee so caused one of them to transgresse and disobey his fathers commaundement, that after him all his posteritie should bee accursed. . . as an example for contempt of Almightie God, and disobedience of parents, God would a sonne should bee borne whose name was Chus, who would not onely it selfe, but all his posteritie after him should bee so blacke and lothsome, that it might remaine a spectacle of disobedience to all the worlde. And of this blacke and cursed Chus came all these blacke Moores which are in Africa.

Quiz Content

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. How does George Best explain the skin color of the people of Africa?

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. What does he determine based on his comparison of Africans to other peoples?

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. What Biblical account explains the existence of black Africans according to Best?

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