author
Pierre (Pierre Bertrand) Bouche
1835–1903
A 19th-century French missionary and explorer, he wrote vivid firsthand accounts of West Africa shaped by years spent in Porto-Novo and Dahomey. His best-known book blends travel narrative, observation, and history from a turbulent colonial era.
1 Audiobook
Sept ans en Afrique Occidentale : La Côte des Esclaves et le Dahomey
by Pierre (Pierre Bertrand) Bouche
About the author
Born in Bagnères-de-Luchon on May 25, 1835, Pierre Bertrand Bouche was a French priest, missionary, and explorer. He was ordained on July 10, 1865, and joined the Société des missions africaines, the Catholic missionary society founded in Lyon.
He arrived in West Africa in January 1866 and spent important years in Porto-Novo and Dahomey. Sources credit him with missionary work and with a notable journey along the Slave Coast between 1867 and 1869, during which he recorded ethnographic observations about the kingdoms of Porto-Novo and Abomey. Those experiences gave his writing much of its lasting interest.
For readers today, Bouche is best known as the author of Sept ans en Afrique Occidentale: La Côte des Esclaves et le Dahomey, originally published in 1885. His work is valuable not only as travel writing, but also as a historical window into 19th-century West Africa and the European missionary world that tried to describe it.