## Introduction  
In 2003, the Brazilian Government responded positively to the country's educational institutions' clamour for teaching material on the history of Africa by collaborating with UNESCO. It financed the translation into, and publication in, Brazilian Portuguese of the eight volumes of the General History of Africa (GHA) and allowed free Internet access for both reading and downloading the GHA. In addition to this translation, educational guides for schools were produced. In 2013, taking a further step, Brazil decided to finance the new General History of Africa project, which comprises the history of Africa and its diasporas. This initiative should not surprise us, since over 3 million people from different parts of Africa were shipped across the Atlantic to Brazilian ports (see www.slavevoyages), and as a result, 56 per cent of today's Brazilian population of around 200 million define themselves as Afrodescendants. In the 1850s, after the transatlantic slave trade had been abolished for a second time, slave ships continued to unload on the Brazilian coast people illegally brought from Africa. In 1888, Brazil became the last nation in the Americas to abolish slavery.  
The partnership between the Brazilian Education Ministry and UNESCO is strongly associated with the approval of Law 10.639/2003, which institutionalized the teaching of African and Afro-Brazilian history and culture in schools. This