The three volumes, of which Butler’s Bitter Years is the first, contain exact transcriptions from original manuscripts, stored at the Rijksarchief at The Hague in The Netherlands, from the Dutch WestIndische Compagnie WIC on the Gold Coast of tropical WestAfrica, nowadays Ghana, where the Dutch had settled from 1612 until 1872, with about twenty fortresses and strongholds along the coast. The castle Sao Jorge Da Mina Elmina, where these manuscripts were written by Butler and to where the Heeren Thienen in Amsterdam addressed their replies with instructions, was the headquarters and residence of the Dutch directorsgeneral. The manuscrips were written during the period from about 1700 to 1725. In three volumes under the collective subtitle De WestIndische Compagnie op de Goudkust in WestAfrika: a factual story of the failures and successes of Dutch adventurers, working under harsh and unhealthy tropical conditions with a staggeringly high rate of mortality,

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