50 Michèle Ducket
of man's exploitation of man have become extinct; sporadically they reappear;
there are still 'anti-slavery' societies, and there is still some traffic, though on
what scale or through what channels it operates we do not know. We have
gauged how long it takes for a positive 'awareness' to develop, and again the
distance to be travelled before that awareness is translated into 'humanitarian'
action, and we have seen that the evils wrought by man can be undone by
man, if only he is prepared to denounce their true causes and realize that there
are a thousand ways of exploiting human beings. But who can forecast the
day when no men will be slaves, when no men will do trade in their fellow men,
when nowhere will men be reduced to the ignominious status of marketable
commodities?
Notes- Certain original English texts being unobtainable, a free English translation has been
given. - La Revolution Française et l'Abolition de l'Esclavage, Textes et Documents, Vol. VIII,
Part 2, Paris, EDHIS, 1968. See Clarkson's Essai sur l'Esclavage et le Commerce
de l'Espèce Humaine, Falconbridge's Tableau de la Traite, etc. - Data taken from P. D. Curtin, The Atlantic Slave Trade, 1969; See also H. Deschamps,
Histoire de la Traite des Noirs et l'Antiquité à nos Jours, Paris, Fayard, 1971. - See Celso Furtado, La Formation Économique du Brésil, de l'Époque Coloniale aux
Temps Modernes, The Hague, Mouton, 1972. The Dutch were also to seize the
monopoly of the slave trade in the Spanish territories. - These practices are described in the ships' logs, and in some accounts by travellers.
- Pierre Kalck, Histoire de la République Centrafricaine des Origines Préhistoriques à
nos Jours, Vol. I, p. 140, note 276. - According to some historians, it was because of the reconversion of the Atlantic slave
trade that the Saharan trade grew to unprecedented proportions. See J. Suret-
Canale, L'Afrique Noire, Vol. I, p. 162 (Ed. Sociales). - P. Kalck, op. cit., p. 139-40.
- Histoire Philosophique et Politique des Établissements des Européens dans les Deux
Indes, IV, 20, Abbé Raynal, Éd. de Neuchatel, 1783. - Quoted in P. Larroque, De l'Esclavage chez les Nations Chrétiennes, p. 31-2, Paris,
- Francisco de Vittoria, Francisco Suarez; but these sixteenth-century documents, like
those of Paul III or Pius V, relate to the Indians. - Serafim Leite, Historia da Companhia de Jesus, II, p. 347 et seq.
- G. Scelle, La Traite Négrière.. ., I, p. 708-11.
- Bartolomé de Albornoz, Tomas Sanchez; see David Brion Davis, The Problem of
Slavery in Western Culture, p. 189-90, Cornell University Press, 1966. - Summa de Tratos, y Contratos.. ., Chap. 20, Seville, 1587.
- David Brion Davis, op. cit., p. 198. My analysis is very close to that of D. B. Davis
in his remarkable work. - Quoted in Davis, op. cit., p. 204. Baxter was an English Protestant who had been sent
out to Barbados. Appalled by the evils he saw in the colonies, he wrote a ' Summ
of Practical Theology and Cases of Conscience'. - Davis, op. cit., p. 294.