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Introduction

To facilitate the discussions, Unesco drew up an annotated agenda highlighting
the main lines of debate, and invited several experts to prepare working docu-
ments on specific topics.

Main lines of debate

Scale of the slave trade

The task here was to use the most recent work in order to establish statistics
about the population uprooted from Africa by the traffic in slaves, in particular
with a view to providing receiving countries with statistical data about the
origin and numerical strength of the people of African extraction.
The figures given and the methods adopted to arrive at these estimates
vary from one school of thought to another. The meeting was required to
compare the various procedures followed, to make a critical appraisal of them
and to suggest a method likely to produce better results. It would undoubtedly
be desirable to attempt to take stock of the methods used to evaluate the human
losses sustained by Africa as a result of the slave trade (particularly losses
suffered at the time of man-hunts on the African continent and deaths in the
ports of embarkation and on the slave ships).

Effects of the slave trade

The experts were requested to examine the repercussions of the slave trade
both in Africa and in the receiving countries, and also in those countries which
organized the slave trade. The aim was to assess not only the numerical impor-
tance of the population forcibly removed from Africa, but also the impact of
this deportation on the demographic development of the African continent.
The impact of the slave trade on political and social structures, on cul-
tural life and on economic development in Africa, which has not been studied
in any depth, was to be discussed thoroughly in order that conclusions could
be reached which sum up the question and suggest fresh lines of research.