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Charles Geshekter wrote "If we cannot measure the actual development of slave trading, how can we measure its impact over time?" The answer is very simple: admit the fact that there was slave trade across the Sahara and the Atlantic and Indian oceans. The presence of Africans in the diaspora explains more about the volume and extent of transactions in slaves between Africa and the other parts of the world. How do we use mathematics to accurately measure the volume of the trade is a matter of great concern over the decades. As historians and scholars of Africa, we believe that the basic primary requirements of research are essential: facts must be available at our disposal in order to make use of them. Without facts there is no history. These facts therefore exist in both written and unwritten forms for which the latter mostly exist in the societies and transactions of the trans-saharan slave trade. There are frustratingly few written documents about the volume of trans-saharan trade therefore historians of this discipline cannot for the sake of statistics claim that there would be no research to be carried out. Historians of Africa have attempted using various methods and sources to quantify the trans-saharan trade but there is still no definite record about its volume. I use definite in the sense that if other disciplines have used entirely mathematical formula to establish credibility to their research, the trans-saharan slave trade defies such methodolology. On African side, owing to the influence of non- written record in many historical development, Hampate Ba once said "Writing is a photography of knowledge. But it is not knowledge." I think historians and scholars of Africa should concentrate in understanding the relevance of periodisation in history. Facts must be found to write history without them there would be no history. Statistical data might good for certain analysis but its absence does not mean there would no historical research. I suggest Charles Geshekter should begin with reading Ralph Austen's work "The Trans- Saharan Slave Trade: A Tentative Census". Ibrahim Hamza York University Toronto-Canada.
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