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The Export of Slaves from Africa, 1821–1843

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 May 2010

David Eltis
David Eltis
Affiliation:
Algonquin College, Ottawa, and The University of Rochester
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Abstract

This article presents annual slave export figures for western Guinea, Bight of Benin, Bight of Biafra, Congo North, Angola, and southeast Africa. The sum of exports from these regions yields exports from Africa as a whole. The series are derived from imports into the Americas and thus include estimates of the African origin of slave imports into Cuba, Brazil, and the French Caribbean, estimates of slave mortality on the transatlantic crossing, and slaves captured by the British navy. Exports from some individual African points of embarkation are also included.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 37 , Issue 2 , June 1977 , pp. 409 - 433
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1977

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References

1 Curtin, Philip D., The Atlantic Slave Trade: A Census (Madison, Wis., 1969)Google Scholar.

2 Miller, Joseph C., “Legal Portuguese Slaving from Angola: Some Preliminary Indications of Volume and Direction, 1760–1830,” Revue francaise d'histoire d'outre-mer, 62 (1975), 135–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Manning, Patrick, “The Slave Trade in Southern Dahomey, 1640–1890,” in Gemery, Henry A. and Hogendorn, Jan S., eds., Economic Issues in the Transatlantic Slave Trade (Princeton University Press, forthcoming)Google Scholar.

4 The bulk of this correspondence is contained in the Public Record Office in the Foreign Office records, Slave Trade series (cited henceforth as FO 84), and in the Admiralty records, in letters, secretary's department (cited henceforth as Adm I).

5 Herbert S. Klein kindly made available to the author the data he used with Stanley L. Engerman in “Shipping Patterns and Mortality in the African Slave Trade to Rio de Janeiro, 1825–1830,” Cahiers d'études africaines (forthcoming).

6 Serge Daget, “La répression britannique sur les négriers français du trafic illegal: Quelques conditions générales ou spécifiques,” in Gemery and Hogendorn, eds., Transatlantic Slave Trade. In private correspondence with the author Prof. Daget generously supplied an annual breakdown of this total together with some information on destinations. Much of this will appear in a forthcoming publication.

7 David Eltis, “The Direction and Fluctuation of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, 1821–43: A Revision of the 1845 Parliamentary Paper,” in ibid.

8 For the operation of the Courts of Mixed Commission, see Bethell, Leslie M., “The Mixed Commission for the Suppression of the Transatlantic Slave Trade in the Nineteenth Century,” Journal of African History, 7 (1966, 79–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 A table of average cargoes used here, African region of embarkation by American region of importation, is available to interested scholars from the author.

10 Verger, Pierre, Flux et réflux de la traite des nègres entre le golfe de Benin et Bahia de Todos os Santos duW et 17e siècles (The Hague, 1968)Google Scholar.

11 Weiss to Aberdeen, Feb. 6, 1830; see also John Parkinson to Aberdeen, Oct. 13, 1830, FO 84/112.

12 Admiralty to Palmerston, May 22, 1838 (enc. Rear Admiral Patrick Campbell, Apr. 24, 1838), FO 84/262; Commander Booth to Admiralty, Dec. 3, 1834 (enc), Adm 1/603.

13 Admiralty to Palmerston, Dec. 12, 1831 (sub enc. Commander J. Harrison to Commodore Hayes, Sept. 23, 1831), FO 84/126. In this period almost all slave ships importing to Cuba sailed under the Spanish flag.

14 Macleay and Mackenzie to Palmerston, Jan. 1, 1834, FO 84/150.

15 Admiralty to Palmerston, Jan. 29, 1836 (sub enc. Lt. Commander Mercer, Sept. 6, 1835) FO 84/208.

16 Jackson, Grigg to Palmerston, July 14, 1838 (enc. anon., n.d.), FO 84/242.

17 At least one Spanish brig attempted the journey from Mombasa to Havana with 500 slaves in 1837 before the Imam of Muscat closed the port to the transatlantic trade.

18 Kennedy to Palmerston, July 17, 1838, FO 84/240.

19 Klein, Herbert S., “The Portuguese Slave Trade from Angola in the Eighteenth Century,” this Journal, 32 (1972), 911–12Google Scholar.

20 R. Hesketh to Palmerston, Aug. 3, 1831 (enc. “Report of the State of the Slave Trade in the Northern Provinces of Brazil”), FO 84/122.

21 These last steps may result in Bahian imports from Congo North and Angola being underrepresented, but any bias here is offset by those Rio imports which prior to 1831 embarked in the Bights, but reported as having cleared from points south of the line.

22 Commodore Mends to Admiralty, Oct. 14, 1822 (enc. “A Report on the State of the Slave Trade on the West Coast of Africa,” June 26, 1822), Adm 1/2188; Commodore Bullen to Admiralty, Apr. 6, 1826 (enc. “An Account of Vessels under the French Flag Boarded by the Squadron…”), Adm 1/1573; Captain Gordon to Admiralty, July 14, 1830 (enc.), Adm 1/1867.

23 Eltis, in Gemery and Hogendorn, eds., Transatlantic Slave Trade.

24 Ibid.

25 Miller, “Legal Portuguese Slaving,” pp. 156–60.

26 Klein, Herbert S., “The Trade in African Slaves to Rio de Janeiro, 1795–1811: Estimates of Mortality and Patterns of Voyages,” Journal of African History, 10 (1969), 538CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

27 Rinchon, Dieudonné, he trafic négrier d'après les livres de commerce du capitaine gantois Pierre-lgnace Lièvin von Alstein, vol. 1 (Paris, 1938), pp. 248–302Google Scholar, as cited in Curtin, A Census, pp. 276–79. Rinchon's rates are not strictly comparable because they include all slaves who died before the sale of the cargo in the Americas, whereas all other rates cited in this study are for deaths in transit only. No allowance for these differences is made in the text.

28 Ibid.

29 Eltis, in Gemery and Hogendorn, eds., Transatlantic Slave Trade.

30 Ibid. Prof. David Northrup in a forthcoming paper points out the very high slave mortality rate (17.9 percent) on ships sailing from the Bight of Biafra to Sierra Leone, 1821–39. The 12 percent figure used here is an average figure for both Bights and does in fact disguise two extreme rates. I am indebted to Prof. Northrup for this point.

31 Commodore Mends to the Admiralty, Aug. 8, 1823, Adm 1/2190; Gregory and Hamilton to Canning, May 15, 1824, FO 84/28.

32 Hamilton to Canning, March 10, 1826 (enc. “Annual Report on the Slave Trade”), FO 84/48.

33 Admiralty to Aberdeen, Nov. 23, 1841 (sub enc. Lt. Jackson, Aug. 21, 1841), FO 84/385.

34 Stephen to the Admiralty, Apr. 4, 1836 (enc. extracts of merchants' letters, unsigned, n.d.), Adm 1/4262.

35 Admiralty to Aberdeen (sub enc. Captain Mundy, Jan. 18, 1843), FO 84/501.

36 Admiralty to Palmerston, Dec. 1, 1837 (sub enc. Lt. Leveret, Sept. 29, 1837), FO 84/229A; Admiralty to Palmerston, May 22, 1838 (enc. Rear Admiral Campbell, Apr. 28, 1838), FO 84/262.

37 Admiralty to Palmerston, May 8, 1841 (enc. Rear Admiral Sir E. King, Feb. 24, 1841), FO 84/384.

38 Miller, “Legal Portuguese Slaving,” p. 147.

39 “Return of all vessels boarded by the Amelia, 14 December, 1811 to April 10, 1812,” loose document, Adm 1/1996.

40 Commander G. R. Collier to Admiralty, March 19, 1819, Adm 1/1673.

41 The earliest cases brought before the Courts of Mixed Commission in Sierra Leone involved ships that had traded for slaves at one place only; see Gregory to Castlereagh, Nov. 6, 1820, and other reports in FO 84/4.

42 Figures showing the annual breakdown of ships intending to embark slaves at eight major embarkation points are available to interested scholars from the author.

43 Curtin, Philip D., “Measuring the Atlantic Slave Trade,” in Engerman, Stanley L. and Genovese, Eugene D., eds., Race and Slavery in the Western Hemisphere (Princeton, 1975), p. 114Google Scholar.