240 Appendixes
the slave trade, both in Africa and the receiving countries, particularly in the
slave trade, both in Africa and the receiving countries, particularly in the Americas.
Next it is proposed that the meeting study movements of thought and ideolo-
gies, both those used to justify the slave trade and the abolitionist movements, together
with the interpretation of different contemporary schools of thought and research.
More particular attention will be focused on the factors which led to the abolition of
the slave trade.
Finally, turning to action and the organization of future studies, you are asked
to make proposals for the practical follow-up of this meeting. On its side, Unesco
pledges itself to contribute its full co-operation.
While it is true that other peoples, for example the Amerindians, have suffered
at one time or another in history from violent oppression which forced them into a
situation of slavery, it is essentially the Africans who, in modern times, were reduced
to slavery and transported in large numbers to other continents by means of an orga-
nized movement. The slave trade, of which it has been said that it was an endless
bloodletting, drained the African continent of a large part of its vital resources, for
it was generally of their youngest and strongest members that their peoples were
bereft.
The slave trade therefore had far-reaching consequences for the economic,
social, cultural and even political life of Africa, although it is not yet possible to quan-
tify them precisely. A great deal has been said and written about the slave trade but,
in fact, there is still no satisfactory answer to a number or questions, starting with
the far-off origins of the traffic in African slaves, which probably go back as far as
the beginning of Mediterranean history. Similarly, still too little is known about the
traffic through the Sahara or that via the east coast of Africa across the Indian Ocean
in the direction of India, Indonesia and as far as China. There is indeed evidence that
black slaves were presented to the Emperor of China in the seventh century, while
African slave labourers are reported in Canton in the twelfth century.
It would seem that in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, after the conquest of
the north of India by the Muslims, power was in the hands of an 'African slave
dynasty'.
The African slave presence in Asia was reinforced in the fifteenth century,
particularly in Bengal where social, economic and political life is said to have been
enlivened by the activities of some 8,000 black slaves.
The traffic grew between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when
Portuguese and Dutch traders selected Antongil Bay in Madagascar as the bridgehead
in the direction of Sumatra. Little has been written about this period and we must
wait until various archives give up their secrets. These include the Portuguese and
Arab records, documents which may exist in countries lying between Mozambique
and the Red Sea, archives in the Seychelles which served as a staging-post between
Africa and the other Mascarene Islands, plus archives in India and the Indonesian
archipelago.
However, the real slave trade which was to have far-reaching repercussions may
be taken as that which developed across the Atlantic. Quantitatively large, it was also
important by virtue of its organized character and no doubt also because of the extent
of its manifold consequences.