038840engo 2

228 Summary report of the meeting of experts
on the African slave trade

are capable of examining, with complete lucidity and objectivity, issues that are
extremely controversial because they have a connotation that is in some cases ideolo-
gical as well as affective, and of arriving at recommendations that are satisfactory from
the scientific point of view...

Recommendations

The meeting drew the attention of the Director-General of Unesco to the
following points, and asked him to make their importance known to all the
governments concerned in Africa, the Caribbean, Europe and Asia.

Archives concerning the slave trade

All the archives concerning the slave trade must be made accessible to scholars,
without any restrictions. Unless matters were improved, much archival material
might be lost, and hence international opinion should be alerted.
It is matter of urgency that a scientific classification be undertaken of
public and private archives in Africa, the Americas and Europe relating to the
slave trade.
It would be desirable that Unesco provide rapid assistance in the prepara-
tion of a guide to sources relating to the slave trade to be found in collections
of archives in the Caribbean area.

Oral traditions relating to the slave trade

There exist, particularly in Brazil, in the Caribbean area, but also in various
parts of the Indian Ocean region and in North America, persons who possess
traditions concerning the slave trade, as well as surprising vestiges of trans-
planted African languages. Rapid and vigorous efforts should be made to
record this living evidence of survivals of African influences outside Africa.
Traces of African languages on a large scale (Haiti, Bahia, etc.) or in
more fragmented form must be preserved and recorded, and then studied by
competent experts, pending the establishment, which was also recommended,
of linguistic institutes for the study of the African languages in the countries
of the black diaspora, particularly in North and South America, the Caribbean
and the Indian Ocean region.

Missions by African experts to the Caribbean

Participants in the meeting strongly recommended that African specialists
should be sent to inventory and study the vestiges of African cultures in the
Caribbean.