THE SLAVE ROUTE

The slave trade represents a dramatic encounter of history and geography. This four century long
tragedy has been one of the greatest dehumanizing enterprises in human history. It constitutes one of
the first forms of globalization. The resultant slavery system, an economic and commercial type
of venture organization, linked different regions and continents: Europe, Africa, the Indian Ocean, the
Caribbean and the Americas. It was based on an ideology: a conceptual structure founded on
contempt for the black man and set up in order to justify the sale of human beings (black Africans
in this case) as a mobile asset: For this is how they were regarded in the "black codes", which
constituted the legal framework of slavery.


The history of this dissimulated tragedy, its deeper causes, its modalities and consequences
have yet to be written: This is the basic objective that the UNESCO's member states set for the
"Slave Route" Project. The issues at stake are: historical truth, human rights, and development.
The idea of "route" signifies, first and foremost, the identification of "itineraries of humanity", i.e.
circuits followed by triangular trade. In this sense, geography sheds light on history. In fact, the
triangular trade map not only lends substance to this early form of globalization, but also, by
showing the courses it took, illuminates the motivations and goals of the slave system.

These slave trade maps are only a "first draft". Based on currently available historical data
about the triangular trade and slavery, they should be completed to the extent that the theme networks
of researchers, set up by UNESCO, continue to bring to light the deeper layers of the iceberg by
exploiting archives and oral traditions. It will then be possible to understand that the black slave
trade forms the invisible stuff of relations between Africa, Europe, the Indian Ocean, the Americas and
the Caribbean.

Doudou Diene
Director of the Division of Intercultural Dialogue