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Transoceanic Mortality: The Slave Trade in Comparative Perspective
Herbert S. Klein, Stanley L. Engerman, Robin Haines, and Ralph Shlomowitz
| DEATH in the Middle
Passage has long been at the center of the moral attack on slavery,
and during the past two centuries estimates of the death rate and
explanations of its magnitude have been repeatedly discussed and
debated. For comparative purposes we draw on studies of mortality
in other aspects of the movement of slaves from Africa to the Americas,
as well as the experiences of passengers on other long-distance
oceanic voyages.1
These comparisons will provide new interpretations as well as raise
significant problems for the study of African, European, and American
history. |
1 |
| The
transatlantic slave trade represented a major international movement
of persons, and, although only one part of the movement of slaves
from the point of enslavement in Africa to their place of forced
labor in the Americas, shipboard mortality was its most conspicuous
and frequently discussed aspect. Of the more than 27,000 voyages
included in the Du Bois Institute dataset, more than 5,000 have
information on shipboard mortality. Information is provided on African
ports of embarkation; American ports of disembarkation; nationality
of carrying vessels; numbers of slaves leaving Africa, arriving
in the Americas, and dying in transit; ship size; numbers of crew
and their mortality; and length of time at sea. The dataset also
permits, with subsequent collecting, the linking of this information
to government and private documents containing data on sailing times
from Europe to Africa and time on the coast while purchasing slaves.
Not all pieces of data are provided for all voyages, but enough
are given to allow examination of traditional issues in greater
detail. With more detailed analysis, still other problems are generated,
and the answers to older questions can be seen more clearly. |
2 |
| A
key element in projecting the costs of the slave trade is connecting
estimates of deaths in the Middle Passage to the overall deaths
due to the trade. The first systematic discussion of the distinctions
between deaths in the Middle Passage and deaths to be attributed
to the slave trade as a whole can be found in Thomas Fowell Buxton's
The African Slave Trade and Its Remedy, first published in
1839. Buxton distinguished mortality resulting from the following:
the original seizure of slaves, the march to the coast, and detention
before sailing (whether owned by African or European traders); the
sufferings after capture (at the hands of the British Antislavery
Patrol) or after landing at Sierra Leone or other ports; the Middle
Passage; and initiation into New World slavery or " 'seasoning'
as it is termed by the planters."2
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