Summary report of the meeting of experts
on the African slave trade213bordering on the Indian ocean and the islands of that ocean. The examples
given show that each degree of increased intensity in the production of the
colonies was reflected in different degrees of intensification of the slave trade.
Similarly, the introduction of the steam engine and of the cotton-gin
were important factors in speeding up the demand for black labour.
In most cases it was necessary for such labour to be renewed very fre-
quently. The life-span of slaves was short and the birth rate very low, thus the
maintenance or increase of the labour force required was possible only by
increased slave imports to keep pace with the development of economic com-
petition among European countries.^1
More empirically, the other deductive method would be the further
preparation of serious monographs before attempting to generalize and draw
together numerical results or make classified assessments.
Those in favour of this method, less concerned with overall explanations,
stressed the urgency of certain improvements in the technical methods of
research, such improvements were felt to be needed also in the case of the other
approach.
The meeting stressed that archives should receive special attention. In
certain cases, they had been removed or concealed where they related to the
slave trade;^2 in other cases they had not been classified;^3 or insufficient use
had been made of them where they were abundant.
In general, the meeting advocated the preparation as proposed by the
Director-General in his opening address, of a Guide to Sources relating to the
History of the Slave Trade in the Archives of the Caribbean Area.
The meeting also considered that a careful re-reading of known sources
could provide much new quantitative material (for example concerning deaths
at sea) and also linguistic information. While the records were mostly drawn
up by and for slave-owners, they could yield much hitherto scarcely used
information. A thorough scrutiny of the various kinds of sources would make
it possible to classify in the order of its real importance the information
published by each of those sources.
Finally, it was considered desirable to carry out a systematic search
in certain countries (e.g. Turkey, Egypt, the Maghreb countries, Iran, Arabia,
India and Europe) among sources hitherto inaccessible or not sufficiently avail-
able to the public and which could provide information on the various aspects
of the slave trade. It was thought that private archives and those of European
trading companies could also yield important details if their owners agreed to
co-operate in the collective search.
Oral tradition was thought to be no less deserving of attention. In Africa
itself it could, in particular cases, still provide valuable material. In Brazil,
the Caribbean area, the United States, the islands of the Indian Ocean, and among
the African communities which had returned from India to Kenya, in Gujarat