Guinea
Guinea names 3 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below.
Guinea the name formerly given a large section of the W
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
the name formerly given a large section of the W. coast of Senegal, in about 14° Africa, from the N. lat., to Cape Negro, in 16° S. lat. It was divided into two parts, Upper and Lower Guinea, the dividing line being taken variously as the equator, the Gaboon, and the Ogoway. The states and political territories comprised within this long stretch of coast-line, commencing from the N., were as follows: the English French colony of Senegal, the settlements on the Gambia, the Portuguese territory of Bissao or Bissajos, the coastal fringe before Futa-Jallon, Sierra Leone, the free negro republic of Liberia, the Ivory and Gold Coasts, the Slave Coast, the Niger delta, and the Kameruns in Upper Guinea; and in Lower Guinea, the Spanish settlements on Corisco Bay, Gaboon, the Kongo Free State, and the Portuguese territories of Ambriz, Angola, and Benguela. The coastline is throughout tolerably uniform, and numerous shallow everywhere flat, with lagoons separated from the ocean by narrow spits of sand, lying parallel to the coast. Proceeding inland, the country rises to the central plateau of the continent by a series of broad terracelike steps, down which the longer rivers are generally precipitated in cataracts and rapids. The Genoese claim to have been the first European navigators to reach, in. 1291, the coasts of Guinea. They were, however, first regularly visited by merchant adventurers from Rouen and Dieppe from 1364 onward, but not colonized till the end of the 15th century, when the Portuguese, under the enterprising Prince Henry the Navigator, sent out, in 1481, the first colonies to this part of the world.
Guinea an English gold coin
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
an English gold coin. Its name arises from the fact that it was coined first from gold obtained in Guinea. It is equivalent to twenty-one shillings, and corresponds closely to our five dollar gold piece. It was first coined in 1663, in the reign of Charles II, whose profile appeared on one face of it. Directly beneath the head of the king is a miniature figure of an elephant. The coinage was discontinued in 1817, but the guinea is still used in accounts. The term is rather poetic. Burns says: The rank is but the guinea's stamp A man's a man for a' that. Tennyson also uses the term: But the jingling of the guinea helps the hurt that Honour feels. See Coin
Guinea gin'e, a region of West Africa bordering on the Gulf of Guinea
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
gin'e, a region of West Africa bordering on the Gulf of Guinea. It extends along the coast for 3,500 miles. It is divided into a number of regions, as the Ivory Coast, the Slave Coast, and the Gold Coast. It is now held by several European nations. The Niger is the chief river. The heat is intense. Rainfall is abundant. Vegetation is rank. Wild animals attain their full size and number. A large number of the slaves of the United States were stolen from this region. See Niger
What Has Changed in the Last Century
When Collier's listed the Guinea coast in 1921 it was a catalogue of European possessions — the Kongo Free State, the Kameruns, Portuguese Angola and Benguela, the Gold and Slave Coasts. Every one of those territories is now an independent state, most of them between 1957 (the Gold Coast, which became Ghana) and 1975 (Angola); the name Guinea itself survives in three separate countries, the Republic of Guinea (independent from France in 1958), Guinea-Bissau (from Portugal in 1974) and Equatorial Guinea (from Spain in 1968), the last being Aiton's "Spanish settlements on Corisco Bay". Aiton's note in 1910 that the guinea coin "is still used in accounts" held true far longer than its 1817 minting date suggests: prices were quoted in guineas until Britain decimalised in 1971, and thoroughbred horse and livestock auctions still bid in guineas of £1.05 today. Aiton's blunt sentence that "a large number of the slaves of the United States were stolen from this region" is one point the old text gets right, and modern genetic and shipping-record research has traced those origins in far more detail.
Written for this edition, 2026.