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date: 06 November 2024

Teaching Slavery and the Slave Trade in Senegallocked

Teaching Slavery and the Slave Trade in Senegallocked

  • Ibrahima SeckIbrahima SeckProfessor of History, University Cheikh Anta Diop of Dakar (UCAD), Senegal; Director of Research of the Whitney Plantation Museum of Slavery, Louisiana

Summary

How the history of slavery and the slave trade in French-speaking Africa, in particular Senegal, is taught has played a part in shaping a collective memory that focuses on the coastal sites of the slave trade. The inland dynamics are overlooked, especially the involvement of local players, states, and African tradespeople in the trade of captives and the centuries-old existence of domestic slavery. The approach, largely based on textbooks, does not provide all the information necessary to understand a painful chapter of the past that keeps resurfacing in the daily lives of Africans, often tragically. The primary sources for studying slavery in French-speaking Africa can be found in the French Overseas Archives (Archives d’Outre-Mer) in Aix-en-Provence and in port cities such as Lorient, the port of the French West India Company (Compagnie des Indes Occidentales). Travel accounts also offer information on slavery and the slave trade in Africa. In terms of domestic slavery, the sources are mainly oral. In addition, there was a major survey on captivity in French West Africa (Afrique Occidentale Française [AOF]) in 1905, which led to the second abolition of slavery in AOF, after the one of 1848. A significant amount of documents relating to freedom papers and the guardianship of persons freed from slavery can be found in the National Archives of Senegal (Archives Nationales du Sénégal). These official documents do not shed much light on cultural phenomena, and there is scant consideration of the African diasporas, whose tales and legends still carry the memory of the tragedies of the past. The same is true of Africa. Whether in America, in the so-called Islamic lands, or beyond, Africans and their descendants always fought cultural alienation with a resilience that was deeply rooted in religion. The history of slavery needs to be taught as a history of civilizations.

Subjects

  • Slavery and Slave Trade

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