102 Oruno D. Laraimproved at the end of the eighteenth century.^2 Colonial historians do not
merely give statistics of slaves living in huts and domestic servants. They
attempt to extrapolate and construct mathematical models. With some authors
it becomes a matter of quantities and series; with others, 'new economic
history', in which an attempt is made to measure with mathematical formulae
the profits to be gained from slaves and slavery. This serves two purposes:
the social and historical role of the Negroes is minimized and the advantages
of colonization are set forth in a strictly scientific fashion with the help of
mathematics and political economy. The use of mathematical formulae in
economics and economic history has already been strongly criticized by Pro-
fessor Tinbergen and Professor P. Vilar. Such procedures, even if used only
for statistical purposes, lead to disastrous results when applied to the history
of the slave trade.^3
From the scientific standpoint, three processes are involved : (a) stating
the problem in such a way as to place the emphasis on the form of slave exploi-
tation and relating it to a particular geographical area; in this geo-historical
totality^4 the productive forces and the social relationships of production are
studied; (b) listing the sources, subjecting them to critical scrutiny, then using
them by considering them from the same angle; (c) adopting a set of methods
based on scientific criteria in keeping with the geo-historical totality.
Few authors have so far approached the rational study of the slave trade
from this scientific standpoint. Limited by the traditional framework of colo-
nial history, whether they realized it or not, research workers have found it
difficult to tackle the subject impartially, that is, to centre the discussion on the
dynamics of the form of slave exploitation. Two complementary research
procedures can be envisaged.
One procedure consists in studying this form of slave exploitation as
seen from inside, that is, by the Negroes. This view of the bases of slave society
implies a radical reversal of the colonial outlook. The history of the West
Indies, for instance, of the slave system on the West Indian plantations, should
be based on a specifically West Indian approach to the problem, on West
Indian archives preserved in Denmark, France, the Netherlands, Portugal,
Spain, the United Kingdom, the United States of America, etc. This specificity
should not be interpreted too narrowly; it is a question of structural specificity.
For instance, in studying the slave trade and slavery in the West Indies, research
already effected or under way on colonial Brazil must be taken into account;
for Brazil and the West Indies have histories which are structurally inseparable
owing to the Dutch hegemony in the seventeenth century.
The other procedure consists in recognizing the Negro as a person who
never accepted slavery, contrary to what is implied by a number of authors
writing history from the colonial standpoint.^5 The Negroes always refused to
submit to the slave system, as is stated by Alejo Carpentier, who is very famil-