In a book published in 1668, Dutch geographer Olfert Dapper described an invasion near Cape Mount that touched many groups, including some Bassa.
According to Dapper’s account, the Quabbe was one of several groups said to be living along the Cestos River. This was possibly the Kuwaa (Belle), who would be pushed west when the Kpelle and Ma entered from the north. He mentioned another group called Quea. This was undoubtedly the Kwea, a Bassa group in present-day Liberia.
Footnote: John D. Fage, A Guide to Original Sources in Precolonial Western Africa Published in European Languages, for the Most Part in Book Form (Madison: African Studies Program, University of Wisconsin-Madison,1994), pp. xi; Hallett, 1965, p. 67; P. E.H. Hair, “Barbot, Dapper, Davity: A Critique of Sources of Sierra Leone and Cape Mount,” History of Africa. 1 (1974): 25-54, especially pp. 33-39; P. E. H. Hair, “An early seventeenth-century vocabulary of Vai,” African Studies, 23, 3-4 (1964): 129-139; Oglivy, 1670, pp. 402-405.
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