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Reflections on Libraries and Archives II

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 April 2022

Holger Bernt Hansen
Holger Bernt Hansen*
Affiliation:
Centre of African Studies, University of Copenhagen
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Extract

If I start with my national origin the colonial legacy is very limited. Regarding Africa Denmark had a kind of colony on the Guinea Coast in West Africa, called the Gold Coast. It was sold to Britain in 1850, at a time when there was still some money to extract. It was in the precolonial days when royal companies were running the show. The possession was very much geared to the slave trade, and when it could not pay anymore the Danes withdrew, like the Dutch by the way.

But it raises a special problem which I will point out from the outset for consideration on this occasion. For European countries with a limited colonial legacy and thereby also outside the major languages there is a language problem regarding archives and other kinds of contemporary source material.

Type
Research Article
Information
African Research and Documentation , Volume 105 , 2007 , pp. 9 - 15
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 2007

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