Transatlantic Slave Trade

AD – MPE: 2.7

ND – MPE: 6.1

According to the website “Slave Voyages – Transatlantic Slave Trade Estimates” about 5,882,000 slaves were shipped across the Atlantic from 1769 to the end of the slave trade. How many of these slaves were shipped by democratic pioneers?

Portugal was an advanced democracy from 1836 and 1840. According to the website Portugal shipped about 335,000 slaves during this period. Britain shipped 1,033,000 slaves since 1769. The US shipped 180,000 slaves since 1769. France shipped 73,000 slaves when it was an advanced democracy from 1791 to 1799. So advanced democracies shipped around 1,621,000 slaves across the Atlantic since 1769. Nondemocracies transported 4,261,000 slaves during this time period.

White discusses estimates for the mortality rates of slaves in the Atlantic Slave Trade. It is clear that many slaves died before, during and after transportation. White explains his view that for every two slaves which were successfully transported and sold around three slaves died. The Wikipedia-article “Atlantic Slave Trade” writes: “The number of lives lost in the procurement of slaves remains a mystery but may equal or exceed the number who survived to be enslaved.” Of course many more slaves died at work.

The numbers of slaves shipped across the Atlantic can be a misleading indicator for the degree of involvement in slavery by a specific nation. The prosperous nations profited the most from cheap raw materials like cotton and consumer products like sugar and coffee from slave labor. Slave labor was of great importance for the Industrial Revolution in Britain, Western Europe and the United States. The United States used slave labor for many decades after the end of the slave trade. In fact, it possessed by far the largest slave population in the Americas. Stanley L. Engerman, Richard Sutch and Gavin Wright write in an article from 2003 called “Slavery – Historical Statistics of the United States Millennial Edition” for the University of California Project on the Historical Statistics of the United States: “Over the entire history of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, no more than 8 percent of the coerced African migrants came to mainland North America. The much larger U.S. share in the hemispheric slave population of 1860 (approximately 50 percent) is attributable to the very different demographic experience of slaves in North America than elsewhere in the New World”. For these reasons I blame the United States and Britain for a slightly higher percentage of the deaths from slavery than their involvement in the shipping suggests.

Plausible estimates for the number of slaves, which were killed in the Atlantic Slave Trade by advanced democracies since 1769, range from 1 to 5 million. 2.7 million is the most plausible estimate. Plausible estimates for the number of slaves who were killed in the Atlantic Slave Trade by nondemocracies since 1769 range from 2 to 10 million. 6.1 million is the most plausible estimate.