Africa underwent 300 years of slavery. Before the discovery of the Americas, the Portuguese were the first Europeans to import slaves to offset the missing agricultural workforce. These slaves came from the commercial counters and the forts set up on the African Coast. The coastal exploration of Africa and the invasion of the Americas by Europeans in the 15th Century led to the development of the slave trade phenomenon.
Slave trade activities produced a fair number of archival documents (written or graphic) which often are preserved under unfavourable conditions in the countries having undergone slave trade or in those having practised this form of human exploitation.
In the European countries from which the slave trade was organized, information about slavery is recorded in the state archives, particularly those of the navy and customs administrations, as well as the colonial and commercial administrative bodies. These slave trade documents date from the time trading posts and colonies were established along the African coasts, when the trade was first organized in France and England at the end of the seventeenth century.
In the African countries that were victims of the trade, archives are normally preserved in those which, at the time, had a colonial or commercial administration. In West African countries, administrative archives particularly were set up at the time when the slave trade was abolished, when a territorial administration was installed in France and when a local population was established in the British colonies.
The extent to which these collections are spread throughout the world illustrates the large scope of the task. Whereas archives have already been more or less identified in European countries, those in developing countries (or nations ravaged by war such as Guinea-Bissau, Liberia and Sierra Leone) still do not have search facilities in place.
In the European countries from which the slave trade was organized, information about slavery is recorded in the state archives, particularly those of the navy and customs administrations, as well as the colonial and commercial administrative bodies. These slave trade documents date from the time trading posts and colonies were established along the African coasts, when the trade was first organized in France and England at the end of the seventeenth century.
In the African countries that were victims of the trade, archives are normally preserved in those which, at the time, had a colonial or commercial administration. In West African countries, administrative archives particularly were set up at the time when the slave trade was abolished, when a territorial administration was installed in France and when a local population was established in the British colonies.
The extent to which these collections are spread throughout the world illustrates the large scope of the task. Whereas archives have already been more or less identified in European countries, those in developing countries (or nations ravaged by war such as Guinea-Bissau, Liberia and Sierra Leone) still do not have search facilities in place.
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