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The New African Historiography

French West Indies is also not entirely satisfactory. To what extent were the dealings of the Chaurands, as revealed by five of their ships discussed (pp. 142-3), representative of the typical mode of remitting proceeds from the sale of slaves in the French West Indies ? Were the bills of exchange received by the French traders in payment for their slaves drawn on the planters in the West Indies, or on established houses in France who sold colonial produce in France on behalf of the planters on commission basis? Did most slave ships return to France in ballast, or were they regularly involved in shipping colonial produce to France? These issues, which have featured prominently in the literature on the British slave trade, are scarcely treated by the author. On the African side, the influence of the trade on the development of African societies receives only one paragraph, extending from the bottom of page 83 to the top of page 84, containing a total of twenty-four lines. The age and sex distribution of the slaves exported is not analysed. The author would do Africanists a service by publishing a translation of French documents relating to African history in the slave trade era. On the whole, while the specialist reader would find much that is unsatisfactory, the book is a useful contribution to the study of the Atlantic slave trade. Those unable to read works written in French will find it a useful source of information on the French slave trade.