Early modern European-language sources on African slavery: the historian at work

Early modern European-language accounts are one of the traditional sources for the historian of Africa. Inevitably these accounts are external, partial and sketchy. Yet they are invaluable as sources of information about slavery and the slave trade. They provide an unprecedented picture of social relations, trade and ritual b ehen ehavior in Africa in the period well before colonization. Like other sources, they have their silences. At times, the authors simply don't see; at other times, the Writers engagé in self-censorship. Yet they are critical for providing some of the earliest accounts of slavery in Africa when the transatlantic slave trade was just beginning to reach its peak