038840engo 2

304 Y. Talib

Mauritius

'En 1820 il n'y avait pas moins de 16,000 esclaves malgaches à l'île Maurice.' Hilsenberg,

Noue. Ann. Vay. Vol. XI, 1829, p. 160.

List of specialists on the slave trade

Ann Pescatello, 8 William Street, Paw Catuck Conn, Los Angeles. (Has made partial

study of the Historical Archives of Goa—relating to the place of the African in the Portu-

guese colonial structure.)

Moses D. E. Nwulia, Howard University, United States. (Especially interested in the

Church's role in the abolition of the slave trade—worked on archival sources of CMS.)

Work in progress

I am at present conducting research on the theme 'Africans in South-West Arabia, the

Yemen and the Hadramaut. A Critical Survey'.

New lines of research

List of archival sources relating to African slavery, awaiting publication
Arabic manuscripts having references to Africans and slavery.
Archives of the Estado da India (Goa) touched upon by Dr Ann Pescatello needs
a fuller study. Several important guides on this collection have already been published,
namely: BOXER, C. R. A Glimpse of the Goa Archives. Bulletin of the School of Oriental
and African Studies, Vol. XIV, June 1952; PISSURLENCAR, P. S. S. Roteiro dos Arquivos da
India Portuguesa (Bastora Goa) 1958.
The India Office Records, studied partially by J. B. Kelly in preparing his monumental
work, Britain in the Persian Gulf, should be thoroughly searched for items relating to
Africa and slavery.
Information on the 'African diaspora' obtained through oral tradition is extremely
valuable as in the case of Arabia, where slavery was a continuing institution until very
recent times. Information thus collected would supplement valuable data collected on the
attitude of the local inhabitants vis-à-vis Africans not to be found in published texts or
in archives.
I would like here to make a special plea for the study of the slave trade and slavery
as an institution in the Island of Madagascar. These aspects were overlooked during the
meeting of experts in Haiti : French, British, Danish, Dutch and Arab slavers with the
collaboration of local rulers exported slaves from Madagascar to Cape Town, islands in
the Indian Ocean (Réunion, Mauritius, Seychelles, etc.) and even as far away as Batavia—
the former Dutch colonial capital in the island of Java.
H. and G. Grandidier in their monumental Histoire Physique, Naturelle et Politique
de Madagascar, Vol. 4, Ethnographie de Madagascar, Vol. 1, Parts 1 and 2, Vol. 4, Paris,
1908, 1914, made valuable allusions to these aspects of slavery, using both archival and
published sources.