038840engo 2

308 Hugo Tolentino Dipp and Ruben Silii

Also to be consulted are : Expedientes de Negros y Desertores Franceses

Refugiados (Records Concerning Black People and Refugee French Escapees),

1776; Expediente Integro sobre la Reducción de los Negros de Maniel (Complete

Records Concerning the Black Settlement of Maniel), 1795. The latter refers to

a group of runaway slaves who spent the whole of the eighteenth century in

the Bahoruco Mountains.

We have little information on what the Archivo Histórico Nacional,

Madrid (Spain) contains with regard to the black people of Santo Domingo,

but we do know that quite a lot of information on other West Indian countries

is to be found there.

Function and influence of the slaves

From the economic aspect—contribution towards the development of the
host country (sugar industry, coffee industry, etc.).
From the cultural aspect—African contribution through the institution of
slavery to several countries in the western hemisphere.
From the political aspect—black participation in social and political move-
ments, in the wars of independence of the host countries and the building of
new nations.
The special interest shown by Unesco and by all those of us who are dedicated
to the study of African culture in Latin America can only produce positive
results on the basis of such documentary research.
It should be pointed out that in other Latin American countries where a
more lively awareness has been shown by the authorities than in our own,
documentary material has been compiled in various national and foreign
archives as is the case with Porto Rico and Venezuela: in Porto Rico—El
Proceso Abolicionista en Puerto Rico: Documentos para su Estudio (Abolition
Process in Porto Rico: Relevant Documents); Vol. 1, La Institución de la
Esclavitud y su Crisis: 1823-1873 (Crisis of Institution of Slavery). So far only
the first volume has been published and the remaining two volumes to complete
the collection are awaited. The work has been carried out by the Historical
Research Centre of the Faculty of Arts of the University of Porto Rico and
the Porto Rican Cultural Institute, San Juan, Porto Rico, 1974.
In Venezuela—Documentos para el Estudio de los Esclavos Negros en
Venezuela (Documents for the Study of Black Slaves in Venezuela), selection
and introductory study by Emilia Troconis de Veracoechea. Caracas, Biblio-
theca de la Academia Nacional de la Historia, 1969. (Colección de Fuentes
para la Historia Colonial de Venezuela).
In the case of Santo Domingo, as we have already proposed, Unesco
might possibly take the initiative in carrying out this work, trying to supply
at the same time the material together with an introductory study concerning it.