Islamic Slave Trade From 1769
ND – MPE: 4.5
On his website “Necrometrics” White cites Ronald Segal’s numbers on the Arab Slave Trade from his book “Islam’s Black Slaves”. Segal discusses estimates by Ralph Austen, whose calculations suggest that 1.3 million slaves were transported in the Arab Slave Trade during the 18th century. So around 400,000 must have been transported between 1769 and 1800. Austen estimates that 2 million slaves were transported in the 19th century. Segal also discusses numbers by Raymond Mauvy, who estimates that roughly 2 millions were enslaved in the 18th and 19th centuries and 0.3 million in the 20th century. But Segal also quotes scholars who believe that these numbers are too high.
White believes that mortality rates were roughly similar to the Atlantic Slave Trade – around three slaves died for every two slaves who were successfully transported and sold. Segal considers one estimate of a 9 percent death rate to be plausible, but low. He also quotes observers who witnessed much higher death rates on some slave trade routes.
Plausible estimates for the number of slaves who were killed in the Arab Slave Trade by nondemocracies since 1769 range from 1.5 to 7.7 million. 4.5 million is the most plausible estimate.