ABSTRACT Records of the slave trade are almost exclusively those of the slave-traders: the silence of the victims is deafening. There is a dearth of contributions from the slaves themselves in documents relating to the slave trade, most of which dealt with administrative or business issues and all of which were produced by the perpetrators rather than by the victims of slavery. Any testimonials from the slave perspective are very precious. One of these is a long unpublished manuscript, the critical edition of which was first published most recently: the ‘Memoirs’ of Claude-Vincent Polony (1756–1828), a French officer who took part in three slave trading expeditions between the African Coast and Santo-Domingo. The document recounts several tragic events, including the tale of an African princess reduced to slavery. So impressed was Polony by her majesty and dignity that he was keen to know more about her life and capture. He recorded her story, enabling the victim’s tale to reach our times. Taking into account the issues raised by stories coming from the mouths of slaves, and the reliability and credibility of such texts, this article discusses how this kind of precious documents may be used to reconstitute the ‘missing pages’ of history.

中文翻译：

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重建“沉默档案”：如何“重建”奴隶制和奴隶贸易档案

摘要 奴隶贸易的记录几乎完全是奴隶贩子的记录：受害者的沉默令人震耳欲聋。在与奴隶贸易有关的文件中，奴隶本身的贡献很少，其中大部分涉及行政或商业问题，所有这些都是由肇事者而不是奴隶制受害者制作的。从奴隶的角度来看，任何推荐都是非常宝贵的。其中之一是一份长期未发表的手稿，其批评版最近首次出版：克劳德-文森特·波洛尼（1756-1828 年）的“回忆录”，他是一名法国军官，他参加了三次非洲海岸之间的奴隶贸易远征和圣多明各。该文件叙述了几起悲惨事件，包括一位非洲公主沦为奴隶的故事。波洛尼对她的威严和尊严印象深刻，他渴望更多地了解她的生活和捕获。他记录了她的故事，使受害者的故事能够传播到我们这个时代。考虑到来自奴隶口的故事所引发的问题，以及此类文本的可靠性和可信度，本文讨论了如何利用这种珍贵的文献来重建历史“缺失的一页”。