Francis Moore (geographer)

Moore was one of the first Englishmen to travel into the interior of Africa, serving in and visiting numerous towns and trading posts along the Gambia River from its mouth to the Guinea Highlands, hundreds of miles inland.

The short account describes in rich detail the physical and cultural geography of the region before the intensification of the Atlantic slave trade and the resulting depopulation and economic disintegration.

[3] Excerpts from Travels Into the Inland Parts of Africa were published in several subsequent volumes on exploration and the slave trade, including Samuel Johnson et al., The World Displayed (1740); Thomas Astley’s A New General Collection of Voyages and Travels (1745); and Elizabeth Donnan’s Documents Illustrative of the Slave Trade to America (1931).

[4] Moore related the saga of Job ben Solomon, also known as Ayuba Suleiman Diallo, in Travels Into the Inland Parts of Africa.

Moore’s account of Georgia is silent on Oglethorpe’s emerging anti-slavery position; however, it seems likely that the two men discussed Africa and the slave trade at length, and this may have informed the latter’s views.