the documents available, which are very limited for some regions and periods. These numbers are therefore estimates and not exact calculations.  
Lastly, a point that is central to this publication: when talking about diasporic currents, we are also referring to movements of people with unique personal trajectories that have long been invisible in conventional narratives (Davies, 2003), which are based on documents that have identified said people as, and relegated them to the category of, 'slaves' or the 'undocumented' (Azoulay, 2020).