Portuguese research on the
slave trade
Antonio Carreira
BibliographyMost of the literature on the subject is listed in the short essays recently pub-
lished under the title Notas sobre o Tráfico Portugués de Escravos na Costa
Occidental Africana. The only authoritative work is Edmundo Correia Lopes'
Escravatura—Subsidios para a Sua Historia, Lisbon, 1944.
Current researchVarious occasional research projects of a purely bibliographical nature have
been undertaken recently by students of the Faculadade de Letras de Lisboa.
To the best of our knowledge, there are no other Portuguese research projects
in progress specifically on the slave trade. For reasons which are irrelevant
here, the limited number of Portuguese studies on slavery have generally formed
part of broader-based works in which they have been included with a view to
corroborating and clarifying (or complementing) other material (V. Magalhäes
Godinho, Texeira da Mota, Oliveira Marques and a few others). In concrete
terms, the only studies on the slave trade known to us are limited to the activi-
ties of the Companhias Pombalinas (first dealt with by Cunha Saraiva in 1938
and 1940), the studies by Dias Nunes (Brazilian) in 1965, and our own works
in 1968, 1969 and 1972. A number of these works relied (for the most part)
on the wealth of documentation available in Lisbon : accounts and records
of the Companhia do Grao Para e Maranhäo and the Companhia de Pernam-
buco e Paraiba. However, these sources have not yet been explored in relation
to the main economic aspects of the slave trade. We embarked upon such a
project, but were forced to abandon it owing to a lack of funds and other forms
of support.
We have, however, accumulated a considerable amount of material from
the archives in Lisbon and Cape Verde, with a view to studying the subject in
greater depth (and more extensively). Other activities have prevented us from
pursuing our research and analysis as rapidly as we would wish.