Les Africains, la mer et les historiens.

J. Devisse—Africans, the Sea and Historians. Most historians have written that Africans turned away from the sea out of fear. Very few sources can help us draw up a serious long-term history of Africans and the sea. For several millennia, coastal activities involved actively gathering shell-fish and then fishing itself; but we cannot conclude that maritime activities were highly developed, since the inhabitants continued finding their resources on the continent. We can clearly observe maritime activities during the past two millennia, first in eastern and then in western Africa. In the western part of the Indian Ocean, Africans were much involved in exchanges and navigation between Madagascar and Aden; and in West Africa, recent research has shown that they had begun venturing out on the high sea before the arrivai of the Portuguese. A new methodology has to be drawn up if research on this topic is to advance.Devisse Jean. Les Africains, la mer et les historiens.. In: Cahiers d'études africaines, vol. 29, n°115-116, 1989. Rivages II. pp. 397-418