Description

PUBLICATION DETAILS: Lower right: F. Sansom sculp^t.  Removed from Volume 2 of Bryan Edwards, The History, Civil and Commercial, of the British Colonies in the West Indies. 7 ½” w x 9” h plate size on sheet 8 ½” w x 10 ½” h. Engraved by Franciscus Sansom (1780-1810). British; specialized in botanicals.
 
BREAD FRUIT: Bread Fruit has a potato-like flavor, similar to freshly baked bread. It grows throughout Southeast Asia, South India and most Pacific Ocean islands. It is also grown in the Leeward Islands and Windward Islands of the Caribbean and in Africa. It was brought to the West Indies as an answer to feeding slave populations. The famous “Mutiny on the Bounty” against its captain William Bligh concerned the loss of his cargo of 1,015 potted breadfruit plants in 1787. He subsequently delivered 2,126 plants to Jamaica in 1793.
 
OTAHEITE: Otaheite was the English name for an island in the South Pacific now called Tahiti. Captain Samuel Wallis was the first to visit the island (landed on 17 June 1767) during his journey to discover Terra Australis Incognita, a mythical landmass below the equator thought necessary to balance the northern hemisphere. Wallis named the island “King George III Island” and claimed it for England.
 
ETYMOLOGY: In July 1768, Captain James Cook was commissioned to observe the transit of Venus across the sun, a phenomenon that would be visible from Tahiti on 3 June 1769. He arrived in Tahiti on board HMS Endeavour in April 1769 and remained on the island until August enabling them to undertake real ethnographic and scientific observations of the island.  Johann Forster and Georg Forster on Captain Cook’s second voyage to the island in 1773 were accomplished comparative linguists and realized the “O” in Otaheite was an article in the Tahitian language and not properly part of the name. Beginning in the 19th century, the name “Tahiti” became normal usage in French and English.

CONDITION: Edges of margins toned. Light damp stain in lower right margin. Otherwise, very good condition.