Lovejoy IMpactSlaveTrade 1989

The Impact of the Atlantic Slave Trade on Africa: A Review of the Literature
Author(s): Paul E. Lovejoy

Source: The Journal of African History, Vol. 30, No. 3 (1989), pp. 365-394
Published by: Cambridge University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/182914
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J7ournal of African History, 30 (I989), pp. 365-394 365

Printed in Great Britain
THE IMPACT OF THE ATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE ON
AFRICA: A REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE'

BY PAUL E. LOVEJOY
African History and the Atlantic Slave Trade
THE significance ofthe Atlantic slave trade for African history has been the
subject of considerable discussion among historians and merits attempts from
time to time to review the literature. The present such attempt addresses
several, but not all, the key issues that have emerged in recent years. These are,
in order of discussion here: What was the volume of the Atlantic slave trade?
More specifically, what were the demographic trends of the trade with respect
to regional origins, ethnicity, gender and age? Finally, what was the impact of
the slave trade on Africa? In brief, what is the state of the debate over the slave
trade ?
My own position in the debate is clear: the European slave trade across the
Atlantic marked a radical break in the history of Africa, most especially

because it was a major influence in transforming African society.
The history of slavery involved the interaction between enslavement, the slave
trade, and the domestic use of slaves within Africa. An examination of this
interaction demonstrates the emergence of a system of slavery that was basic to the
political economy of many parts of the continent. This system expanded until the
last decades of the nineteenth century. The process of enslavement increased; the
trade grew in response to new and larger markets, and the use of slaves in Africa
became more common. Related to the articulation of this system, with its structural
links to other parts of the world, was the consolidation within Africa of a political
and social structure that relied extensively on slavery.2
The transformation thesis identifies slavery as a central feature of African

history over the past millennium. The Atlantic trade was only one, although a
major, influence on the transformation of society. The Muslim slave trade was
also important, and other internal African developments strongly influenced

social change as well. According to this interpretation, the task of the historian
is to weigh the relative importance of the various factors that incorporated
Africa into an 'international system of slavery' that included Africa, the
Americas, western Europe and the Islamic world.3
David Eltis has challenged this interpretation. On the basis of his study of
the nineteenth-century Atlantic trade and an analysis of the value of the
Atlantic trade between the i68os and i86os, Eltis has concluded that neither
the scale nor the value of the Atlantic trade was sufficiently large to have had
1 I would like to thank Patrick Manning, J. S. Hogendorn, Joseph C. Miller, Jo

Curto, Charles Becker, Allen Isaacman, and Stuart Schwartz for their comments on this
article.
2 Paul E. Lovejoy, Transformations in Slavery. A History of Slavery in Africa

(Cambridge, I983), 22.
3 Ibid. 275.
14
AFH
30
366
PAUL
E.
LOVEJOY
more than a marginal influence on the course of African history. According to

Eltis,
the slave trade for most regions and most periods was not a critically important
influence over the course of African history. At the very least, those who would
place the slave trade as central to West African and west-central African history
should be able to point to stronger common threads, if not themes, across African
regions than have so far come to light.4
With respect to slavery, he claims that 'whatever the origins or nature of

structural changes in African slavery, it is unlikely that external influences
could have been very great'.5

The contribution which Eltis makes is two-fold, it seems to me. First, he
brings more precision to an analysis of the volume and direction of the Atlantic
trade in the nineteenth century. His study of nutritional trends, age and
gender, and mortality are particularly significant.6 Secondly, he has articulated

a model of economic development for the pre-colonial era that must be taken
seriously, although I disagree with his conclusions. Did exports determine the
extent of economic change, as measured by standard economic indicators? He
concludes that an export-led model of economic development has little to offer

in interpreting African history. Climate and human genius, according to Eltis,
were far more important than the export sector.
Eltis bases his startling conclusions on an analysis of the relative importance

of the Atlantic trade on Africa, as determined on a per capita basis. In a study
undertaken jointly with Lawrence C. Jennings, it is claimed that the annual

average per capita trade of those parts of Africa involved in the Atlantic slave
trade was significantly less than in other parts of the Atlantic basin and that the
African share in world trade declined in relative terms from the i68os to the
i86os.8 They conclude that neither the absolute nor the relative value of
Atlantic trade was very great; in general, foreign trade had only a weak
influence on African economies. According to Eltis,
... on the assumption that the improbably low figure of I5 million people lived in
West Africa [in the 178os] at subsistence levels, then imports from Atlantic trade
may be taken at about 9 per cent of West African incomes in the 178os. With
assumptions that are more in accord with reality (i.e. a population of 25 million or
more and domestic production in excess of subsistence), then imports decline in
importance to well below 5 per cent. For other decades in the century when both
slave prices and exports were lower, imports would have been much less
significant. For west-central Africa, population densities were much lower but
import/income ratios could not have been much greater.9
4 David Eltis, Economic Growth and the Ending of the Transatlantic Slave Trade (New
York, I987), 77.
5 Ibid. 225.
6 Also see his 'Fluctuations in the age and sex ratios of slaves in the nineteenth-century
transatlantic slave traffic', Slavery and Abolition, vii, 3 (I986), 257-72; and 'Nutritional
trends in Africa and the Ameficas: heights of Africans, I8I9-I839', Journal of Interdisciplinary History, xii (I982).
7 According to Eltis (Economic Growth, I5), 'There can ... be no doubt that the slave
trade was of critical economic importance to the nineteenth-century Atlantic basin as long
as it lasted. The only part of the basin where this was not the case was Africa...'.
8 David Eltis and Lawrence C. Jennings, 'Trade between Western Africa and the
Atlantic world in the pre-Colonial era', American Hist. Review, XLIII, 4 (I988), 936-59.
9 Eltis, Economic Growth, 72.
THE
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TRADE
367
Indeed, 'The majority of Africans ... would have been about as well off, and
would have been performing the same tasks in the same socioeconomic
environment, if there had been no trading contact' with Europe.'0 Eltis even
advances the astonishing conclusion for Asante that '... the ratio of the level of
exports, either before or after i 807, to any plausible population estimates of
Asante suggests that the slave trade can never have been important'.11
The rise of commodity exports in the nineteenth century had virtually no
impact on Africa either. According to Eltis,
... the slave and commodity trades together formed such a small percentage of total
African economic activity that either could expand without there being any impact
on the growth path of the other.... [I]n the mid-nineteenth century neither the
slave nor the commodity traders were large enough to have to face the problem
of inelastic supplies of the factors of production.'2
In short, neither the Atlantic slave trade nor its suppression had much
influence on African history.
The following review of the recent literature on the Atlantic slave trade
provides a context in which to assess the revisionist interpretation of Eltis (and
Jennings). I begin with the new studies on the volume of the slave trade, in
which a consensus seems to have emerged. I then consider the analytical
refinements in the regional and ethnic origins of the exported slave population.
The demographic data allow a closer examination of the gender and age profile
of the trade, which is the subject of the next section of this article. Finally, I
return to an assessment of the arguments of Eltis, particularly with regard to

the demographic impact of the trade on Africa. A number of important themes
are not considered, including the economic significance of slavery in Africa and
the importance of imported commodities on African society and economy.
Nonetheless, I believe that I can demonstrate that Eltis' provocative con-
clusions are seriously flawed.
The Volume of the Atlantic Slave Trade
Twenty years ago, Philip Curtin insisted that a scientific scrutiny of slavery
required the statistical study of the Atlantic slave trade. Through an analysis
of published material, he estimated that European slavers imported 9,566,I00
Africans into the Americas, Europe and the Atlantic islands for the entire
period of European involvement in the slave trade.'3 He allowed a considerable

margin of error because many of his sources were not based on archival
research. As any good historian should, he restrained his analysis within limits.
His initial discovery was startling enough. Earlier figures - i5 million, 50

million and more - were nothing but guesses. A proper application of statistical
theory could establish the probable range of demographic change.
For those interested in African history, Curtin's research has led to con-
siderable controversy. His effort at quantification has been challenged,'4 and

0 Eltis and Jennings, 'Western Africa and the Atlantic world', 958.
" Eltis, Economic Growth, 74.
12 Ibid. I 83.
13 Philip D. Curtin, The Atlantic Slave Trade: A Census (Madison, Wisconsin, I969),
268.
14 For a summary of the debate, see Paul E. Lovejoy, 'The volume of the Atlantic slave
trade: a synthesis', . Afr. Hist., XXIII, 4 (1982), 473-50I; and Transformations in Slavery.
14-2
368
PAUL
E.
LOVEJOY
indeed the attempt to derive a global estimate for the trade has been
criticized.15 Some of those who have believed that the slave trade had a
devastating effect on African societies have not welcomed the hard look at facts
and statistical probability. A reduction of the figure for slave exports might
indicate that the trade had only a marginal impact on Africa. According to this
interpretation, which was never articulated in such bold terms before the
revisionist conclusions of Eltis and Jennings, fewer slaves might mean less
oppression.
Any assessment of the impact of the slave trade on Africa has to estimate the
scale of exports over time and for specific exporting regions, and hence has to
deal with the projections based on existing knowledge, always allowing for
gaps in the data. Many studies of this type have been completed, and more are
likely to be done.'6 Analysis depends upon a continuing reassessment of the

volume and direction of the export trade as new material becomes available.
The most important new material pertains to the French trade, assembled
in Jean Mettas, Repertoire des expeditions ne'gri'eresfranfaises au XVIIIe siecle.

Mettas's data are analyzed by Charles Becker and David Richardson.'8
Richardson has also compiled new material on the British trade in the
eighteenth century and has reinterpreted the available data on the North
American trade."9 Finally, Jose Curto has uncovered new material on the
Portuguese trade.20
The revisions of Richardson, Becker and Curto tend to confirm the broad
parameters of Curtin's I969 study, which are revised upward but within
acceptable limits. The known scale of the slave trade was on the order of
II,863,000 slaves shipped across the Atlantic, with a death rate during the
Middle Passage reducing this total by I 0-20 per cent, which means that
9-6-IO-8 million slaves were imported into the Americas. Curtin expected such
refinement. The cautious historian expects that upward revision is more

probable than downward.
15 David Henige, 'Measuring the immeasurable: the Atlantic slave trade, West Africa
population and the Pyrrhonian critic', Y. Afr. Hist., XXVII, 2 (I986), 295-3I3.
16 Curtin undertook one such regional analysis; see his Economic Change in Precolon
Africa: Senegambia in the Era of the Slave Trade (Madison, Wisconsin, I975). His
interpretation has been challenged; see especially Charles Becker, 'La Senegambie a
l'epoque de la traite des esclaves. A propos d'un ouvrage recent de Philip D. Curtin',
Revue franfaise d'histoire d'outre-mer, LXIV (1977), 203-44. For a general survey of the
regional studies, see Lovejoy, Transformations in Slavery.
17 Vol. I, Nantes (Paris, I978, S. Daget, ed.); Vol. ii, Ports autres que Nantes (Paris, I984,
S. and M. Daget, eds.). Serge Daget has also completed an inventory of the illegal trade
of the nineteenth century; see Repertoire des Expeditions ne'grieres franfaises a la traite
illegale (18I4-I850) (Nantes, I988), but I have not attempted to analyse the data therein.
Instead, I am relying on Eltis's research, which is based on different data.
18 David Richardson, 'Slave exports from west and west-central Africa, I700-I8I0:
new estimates of volume and distribution', Y. Afr. Hist., xxx, i (I989), I-22; Charles
Becker, 'Note sur les chiffres de la traite atlantique francaise au XVIIIe siecle', Cahiers
d'e'tudes africaines, xxvi (I986), 633-79.

19 David Richardson, 'The eighteenth-century British slave trade: new estimates of its
volume and distribution', Research in Economic History, xii (I988); and Richardson,
'Slave exports'.
20 Jose C. Curto, 'Recounting the numbers: the legal Angolan slave trade, I7I0-I830',
unpublished. I wish to thank Jose Curto for showing me his unpublished work.
THE
ATLANTIC
SLAVE
TRADE
369
Richardson has undertaken the most complete attempt at a new synthesis,
but only for the eighteenth century. He concentrates on the period I700-I8 IO,
although he neither used Becker's work nor had access to Curto's research.
Since Richardson made the same calculations as Becker and Curto's different
data base confirms what is already known, it might be expected that some level
of confirmation is possible. It is rewarding to those of us who synthesize that

Richardson concludes: 'Lovejoy's re-estimate of the overall volume of the
trade in this period is perhaps reasonably accurate but ... his assessment of both
the temporal and coastal distributions of the trade needs to be modified in
several important ways'.21 One expects adjustments; one is repeatedly surprised at the equilibrium that seems to form around proper statistical analysis.
Curtin understood statistics in I969. Others have had to learn slowly. Errors
seem to cancel themselves, but the acceptable figures for the volume of the
trade seem to inch upwards nonetheless.
In order to understand the state of the debate, it is necessary to look at the
different sectors of the trade in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries
and adjust for the various modifications that seem to be required. I begin with
the French trade, and then consider the British, North American and
Portuguese sectors in turn. Finally I end with a reconsideration of the
nineteenth-century trade. While it can be expected that modifications in the

estimated volume before I 700 are also in order, the level of the trade was much
lower then, and consequently revisions are likely to have little impact on our
assessment of the total trade.22
The new analysis of the French sector rests on Mettas' compilation of
shipping data that include the names of ships, often including the number of
slaves on board, that operated from Africa between I707 and I793. The
material on Nantes was published in I978, but only with the publication of
information on the other French ports in I984 has it been possible to substitute
the Mettas material for earlier analyses of French sources.23 Becker first
completed the substitution. His tabulation of the Mettas data totals
I,OI 7,0I0,24 which includes I2,845 slaves delivered to the Mascarene Islands
in the Indian Ocean. Becker's total for the Americas is I,004,I65, but that
figure does not always include slaves who died in the Middle Passage.
Furthermore, Becker provides examples of other gaps in the Mettas data and
suggests that the real level of French exports from Africa approached I.5
million. In recalculating Becker's figures, I reach a preferred estimate of
I,I50,000.25
21 'Slave exports', 2.
22 See, for example, Ivana C. Elbl, 'The Portuguese trade with West Africa
I52I '(Ph.D. thesis, University of Toronto, I986). According to Elbl's interpretation,

some upward revision is called for.
23 This is why I did not use the Nantes volume in my I982 synthesis.
24 'La traite atlantique francaise', 633-79, and personal communication.
25 The gaps include at least 3,848 slaves on twenty-two ships not reported in the Mett
inventory, and another twenty-six ships whose cargoes are unknown. For Senegambia
alone, Becker has information on other vessels that are also not included in the Mettas
data. In addition, Becker refers to documents that conflict with the Mettas materials for
certain periods. In a registry of slaves introduced into the Americas between I728 and
1740, for example, 203,522 slaves arrived on 723 ships. The Mettas material records only
I32,85 I slaves on 4I8 vessels. These discrepancies alone account for an additional 82,ooo
370
PAUL
E.
LOVEJOY
Richardson also tabulated the Mettas data. His total for I7I0-93 iS
I,OI7,700, and he estimates the French trade from I700-I809 at I,052,000.26
Unlike Becker, Richardson makes no allowance for gaps in the Mettas data,
other than for the period before I707 and after I793. My I982 estimate is
virtually the same as Richardson's figure. Based primarily on Robert Stein's
calculations of Admiralty records, I concluded that the French trade totalled
I,I80,300, but I erroneously included French imports into the Mascarene
islands in the eighteenth century, which probably totalled i6o,ooo slaves.27
The British trade, according to Richardson's new data, involved the export
of 3,I20,000 slaves between I700 and i8io, which is some 342,700, or I2-3 per
cent, more than my estimate (following Anstey, Inikori, Curtin, Drescher, et
al.).28 My synthesis appears to have under-estimated the portion of the British
trade in the first three-quarters of the century and hereby stands corrected.29
Richardson has used previously unknown shipping data for the period before
I750 and has reanalysed the available data on shipping for the period after
slaves. Other documents reveal similar discrepancies. All figures are lower than the
Mettas data; see Becker, 'Traite atlantique francaise', 665-8. A figure of I,082,000 is
certainly the lower limit for the period of the Mettas data (I707-93). When estimates for
the period before I707 and after I793 are included, an adjusted estimate for Becker's
figure would be at least I,I26,000 and easily I,I50,ooo. Becker's projection of I-5 million
for the French trade as a whole, including i6o,ooo slaves shipped to the Mascarene
islands, represents a further increase of I5 per cent. Whether or not he is correct in this
projection remains to be proven.
26 Richardson, 'Slave exports', io, I4. The similarity between Richardson's and
Becker's calculations of the Mettas data cannot be explained. Becker included the
Mascarene trade; Richardson states that he did not. Nonetheless, both reached virtually
identical totals based on the same number of ships. A more thorough comparison of their
methodologies might resolve the difference.
27 Richardson ('Slave exports') correctly observes that my earlier estimate of the
French trade to the Americas wrongly included the Mascarene trade. I relied on Robert
Stein, The French Slave Trade in the Eighteenth Century: An Old Regime Business
(Madison, Wisconsin, I979); and Stein, 'Measuring the French slave trade, I7I3-
I792/3',Y. Afr. Hist., XIX,4 (I978), 5 I5-2I. Richardson incorrectly assesse
I25,000, not i6o,ooo; see J.-M. Filliot, La Traite des esclaves vers les Mascareignes au
XVIIIe siecle (Paris, I 974), 45-5 I .

28 Richardson, 'Slave exports', 3-4. For the earlier research, see Lovejoy, 'Volume of
the Atlantic slave trade', 473-50i and the citations therein, especially Roger Anstey, The
Atlantic Slave Trade and British Abolition, 1760-I8I0 (London, I975); Anstey, 'The
volume and profitability of the British slave trade, I76I-I807', in Stanley Engerman and
Eugene Genovese (eds.), Race and Slavery in the Western Hemisphere: Quantitative
Studies (Princeton, I975); J. E. Inikori, 'Measuring the Atlantic slave trade: an assessment of Curtin and Anstey', J. Afr. Hist., XVII, 2 (1976), I97-223; Philip D. Curtin,
'Measuring the Atlantic slave trade once again', J. Afr. Hist., XVII, 4 (1976), 595-605;
Anstey, 'The British slave trade I75I-I807; a comment', J. Afr. Hist., XVII, 4 (1976),
606-7; and Seymour Drescher, Econocide: British Slavery in the Era of Abolition
(Pittsburgh, I977), 205-I3.
29 Richardson criticizes my synthesis for failing 'to examine critically the basic sources
of information used by the various protagonists in the debate over the volume of the
British slave trade' ('British slave trade'). Richardson is correct, but after reviewing the
various calculations, I accepted the arguments of Anstey and Drescher; Lovejoy, 'Volume
of the Atlantic slave trade', 486-7.
THE
ATLANTIC
SLAVE
TRADE
371
1750.30 He calculated the average number of slaves per ship for each of
Britain's main ports (Liverpool, Bristol and London), and then adjusted for
ship-board mortality, again based on decadal averages.31 Meticulous research
enabled him to construct annual figures for slave shipments.

One serious problem with Richardson's calculations limits their reliability,
however meticulous the research. Richardson did not properly adjust the
clearance records for those British ships bound for Africa that did not carry
slaves to the Americas. Various estimates put the level of non-slave shipping
and foreign ships bound for Africa at 5 per cent of the total, while the
proportion of ships lost at sea, seized or otherwise failing to complete their
voyages represented another 5 per cent (this figure occasionally rising much
higher during war years).32 Richardson eliminated any obvious examples from
his analysis but otherwise decided not to make allowances. By his own
admission, his estimates 'represent probably the maximum levels of the British
slave trade'." If a raw figure of 5 per cent were used to account for non-
delivery of slaves, then Richardson's estimate is reduced by I56,ooo slaves,

thereby suggesting a total figure of 2,964,000. This allowance for non-slave
deliveries would suggest that Richardson's calculations indicate an upward
revision of I86,700 or 6-7 per cent (not 342,700 or I2-3 per cent, as he argues).
Estimates of the North American trade are still problematic, but Richardson
has reinterpreted the work of other scholars, most notably Jay Coughtry and
Herbert Klein.34 Richardson uses Coughtry's study for Rhode Island but
incorporates data from Klein on North American trade to Cuba. He supplements his analysis with scattered data from elsewhere. As a result, Richardson
estimates that the North American trade totalled some 208,000 slaves,
considerably less than Anstey's estimate of 294,000, a figure that I adopted.
According to Richardson, North Americans traded 145,000 slaves for the
whole of the eighteenth century, a figure much lower than Anstey's estimate
(194,200) for I763-I799.35 Richardson reckoned that North American shippers

bought 34,000 slaves before 1760, a period not covered in Anstey's estimate
30 Richardson, 'British slave trade'. It should be noted that Richardson has locate
new data on the annual volume of shipping, the number of slaves delivered per vessel in
the Americas, and the mortality of slaves in the Atlantic crossing, but no new data on the
average number of slaves loaded on British ships in Africa.
31 Richardson's estimates for the British trade vary. In 'British slave trade', he
estimates the trade from 1700 to I807 at 3,039,050 (I have subtracted his estimate for I699
from his total, with an allowance for mortality of 20 per cent). In 'Slave exports', he
rounds his figures to the nearest thousand and adds in additional figures for slaves shipped
via Madeira, which affect his estimates for the period 17I0-29, an upward revision of
8 i,ooo.
32 The few foreign ships that somehow crept into British statistics and those ships that
did not carry slaves affect Richardson's estimate and should be eliminated from the
analysis, while most ships that failed to complete their voyages still carried slaves and
hence should be included in an assessment of volume.
3 Richardson, 'British slave trade'.
3 Richardson, 'Slave exports', 7-9, and full citations therein, but see Jay Coughtry,
The Notorious Triangle: Rhode Island and the African Slave Trade (Philadelphia, I98I)
and Herbert S. Klein, 'The Cuban slave trade in a period of transition, I790-I843',
Revue franfaise d'histoire d'outre-mer, LXII (1975), 72-5.
3 Roger Anstey, 'The volume of the North American slave-carrying trade from
Africa, I76I-I8I0', Revue fran,aise d'histoire d'outre-mer, LXII (I975), 65.
372
PAUL
E.
LOVEJOY
because Anstey (and I) assumed North American imports were included in

general British figures.36 Richardson also estimated that the North American
trade was 63,000 in the first decade of the nineteenth century, thereby reaching
his total of 2o8,ooo. His logic seems clear, and until further analysis proves
otherwise, the downward revision that he proposes seems acceptable.
Curto's revisions of the Portuguese trade are interesting for what they do not
show. Despite laborious work in the archives, Curto uncovered little that was
new. His research suggests some modest revisions in the export figures for
Luanda and Benguela for the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but these
revisions hardly affect the total or the regional and temporal distributions.37
Curto's new shipping data confirm existing figures, although a few annual
returns are higher. He argues quite plausibly that the higher figures are more
acceptable. He concludes that a more accurate total is approximately seven per

cent more than previous estimates. For the period of this study (I7I0-I830),
he has accounted for an additional 12,736 slaves, 2,349 exported from Luanda
and I0,393 from Benguela.38 This is a modest upward revision indeed. As

noted, Richardson apparently did not know of Curto's work, but it hardly
affects his analysis.
Richardson concludes that the level of slave exports grew substantially over
the eighteenth century, rising from 36,ooo per year in 1700-09 to a peak of
almost 8o,ooo per year in the 1780s. Such a view suggests that historians have
tended to under-estimate the level of slave exports for the first three-quarters
of the century and to over-estimate the level for the last quarter. Growth was
more evenly distributed than previously thought.
For the nineteenth century, David Eltis has provided yet a further revision
of the volume of the slave trade. According to his latest reckoning, the
nineteenth-century trade was 3 per cent higher than my I982 calculations,
which were based on his data. His new total for i8i i-6o exceeds his old one
by 8i,ooo slaves.39 Eltis does not explain the discrepancy between his earlier
calculations and his latest revisions.
Having reviewed the recent contributions, it is now possible to attempt a

new synthesis. The combination of the various studies is as follows: Richardson
has claimed to have revised my estimate of the British trade upward by
342,700; but if allowance is made for non-slave deliveries at 5 per cent, a

figure of I86,700 is suggested. Curto has identified an additional 12,736 slaves
in the Portuguese Angola trade. Eltis is now claiming that an additional 8I,000
slaves were exported between i8iI and I867. These substitutions (rounded to
the nearest thousand) represent increases of 28i,000.40 An estimate for the
French trade, based primarily on a conservative assessment of Becker's
analysis, is 30,000 less than my earlier estimate (which incorrectly included the
Mascarene trade), while Richardson's downward revision for the North
American trade is 86,ooo. The net increase is I65,000 slaves. The new total is
11,863,000, which is higher than Curtin's I969 estimate but still within an
accepmable margin of error.4"

36 As indeed may have been the case. 3 'Angolan slave trade'.
38 In a personal communication, Curto has indicated that his data may warrant a
revision that might be a few thousand higher still.
3 Eltis, Economic Growth, 241-54.
40 Richardson's analysis suggests an upward revision of 437,000.
41 If Richardson's estimates are used, then the new total would be in the order of
I 1,91 I,000.
THE
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373
In order to compare the new estimate with Curtin's original one, it is
necessary to convert Curtin's figure for imports into the Americas (9,566,I00)
into an export figure from Africa. The difference includes the number of slaves
who died during the Middle Passage, which suggests that anywhere from
10-20 per cent more slaves actually left Africa than reached the Americas.
Curtin's estimate of imports would have required an additional 1-2-2-4 million
exports. In addition, Curtin recognized a considerable margin of error. Any
figure as high as I I million slaves imported into the Americas would be readily
acceptable within Curtin's framework. An estimate of I I,863,000 slaves
exported from Africa, allowing for losses at sea of 10-20 per cent, would mean
that 9-6-Io-8 million slaves would have been imported into the Americas,
which is well within Curtin's limits.42
The major problem in calculating the scale of the Atlantic trade, a problem
that is unlikely to be solved, is an evaluation of the extent of missing data. The
figure of I I,863,000 is the best estimate of slave exports to the Americas on the
basis of current information, but there is no question that some slaves went
unrecorded and that the available data contain errors that are difficult, if not
impossible, to detect. How much allowance should be made for these factors
is difficult to assess.43
Regional and Ethnic Origins of Slaves
If the new data only modestly affect an assessment of the total volume of the
Atlantic slave trade, the same cannot be said about our understanding of the
regional origins of slaves, particularly in the eighteenth century. Richardson's
analysis represents a major revision of my I982 synthesis.44 His principal

conclusions can be summarized as follows: First, the Bight of Biafra was more
important and its involvement began earlier than previously thought. Secondly, the French and British were more active on the Loango coast than
earlier statistical analysis revealed. Thirdly, Richardson's analysis of the
destinations of North American ships fills an important gap in our understanding of regional origins. The implication of the first two points is that the
southward shift in search of slaves started earlier and was more pronounced
than I allowed for. The implication of the third helps one to re-assess the
regional distribution of the West African market.
Perhaps Richardson's most important discovery concerns the trade of the

Bight of Biafra, which he shows to have been substantial from at least the
beginning of the eighteenth century.45 This discovery arises from new

information on British shipping. It confirms references to trade in the Niger
42 Compare with Lovejoy, 'Volume of the Atlantic slave trade', 496.

4 Joseph Miller's analysis of the export trade from west-central Africa suggests that
there may be less missing data than some scholars might like to think, at least for the
crucial eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Portuguese records are particularly rich; the
other countries were involved in an 'illegal' trade from the Portuguese perspective, but
their shipments show up in their national records, especially as reflected in import series
and shipping records. The regional distribution of slave exports within west-central
Africa requires adjustment, but not the overall level of exports; see 'The origins and
destinations of slaves in the eighteenth-century Angolan slave trade' (unpublished). I
wish to thank Miller for letting me read this important contribution.
44 Richardson, 'Slave exports'.
4 Richardson, 'British slave trade'; 'Slave exports', Tables 6 and 7.
374
PAUL
E.
LOVEJOY
Delta, which Curtin's (and hence my) analysis did not account for, and it
makes sense in terms of backward projections of political history in Igbo

country.46 Until now, it seemed that the Bight of Biafra did not begin to export
slaves in large numbers until the I730s; thereafter the trade appeared to have
expanded rapidly. Richardson's data show a more gradual but nonetheless
significant expansion that began before 1700.
Richardson's other major revision concerns the trade of west-central Africa.

The British and the French (according to Mettas) were heavily involved in
buying slaves there from at least the 1740s, particularly in the region north of
the Zaire River.47 The British obtained 20 per cent of their slaves from the
Loango coast in the eighteenth century. The French, particularly from the
1740s, developed their trade on the Loango coast to a level that came to rival
that of the Bight of Benin. The implication of the French and British presence
is that west-central Africa was even more prominent in the trade than my
regional projections of I982 indicated, and those projections were startling
enough. I concluded that west-central Africa exported more slaves than any
other region, was prominent early in the trade, and continued as a major
exporter to the very end of the trade. Not only does Richardson confirm these
observations; it is possible to conclude that perhaps as many as 40 per cent of
all slaves came from the interior of Angola and the Zaire River basin.
Mettas' data, as analysed by Richardson, confirm that the French took most
of their slaves from the Bight of Benin, with west-central Africa becoming a
secondary region of concentration from the 1740S. The French purchased
relatively few slaves in the Bight of Biafra. By contrast, North American
shippers obtained many of their slaves in Sierra Leone, with secondary
concentrations in Senegambia and the Gold Coast. While the North American
share of the trade was relatively small, the implications of Richardson's
analysis on the study of slavery in the United States are readily apparent.
Slaves imported on North American ships tended to come from the Upper
Guinea Coast.
The relative importance of various regions can now be reassessed. It is clear

that I over-estimated the suddenness, although not the intensity, of the
southward shift of the trade in the eighteenth century; there was a shift, but
it was more gradual. The proportion of slaves from the Bight of Biafra also
appears to have been greater than I allowed for, with most of the increase
destined for British colonies. By comparison, the Bight of Benin - the Slave
Coast - retreats in significance slightly. Previously, it was thought that the
Bight of Benin exported 50 per cent more slaves than the Bight of Biafra.
Richardson estimates that both areas contributed about the same number of
slaves.48 This analysis accepts Manning's assignment of those Dutch slaves
46 See David Northrup, Trade Without Rulers: Pre-Colonial Economic Development in
South-Eastern Nigeria (Oxford, 1978); F. I. Ekejiuba, 'The Aro trade system in the
nineteenth century', Ikenga, i, I (I 972), I I-26; and Lovejoy, Transformations in Slavery,
82-3, 99-I00.
47 Richardson, 'Slave exports'. Joseph C. Miller demonstrates that slaves from westcentral Africa, whether exported from Loango, Luanda or Benguela, came from interior
regions that overlapped considerably (Way of Death: Merchant Capitalism and the
Angolan Slave Trade, 1730-I830 (Madison, Wisconsin, I988), I40-244); see also Miller,
'Origins and destinations of slaves'. 48 Richardson, 'Slave exports', I7-I8.
THE
ATLANTIC
SLAVE
TRADE
375
Table i. Regional origins of the French slave trade (eighteenth century)

Plantation
Total trade inventories
Region
No.
No.
%0
Senegambia 83,860 8-o I,380 Io03

Sierra Leone 48,730 4-7 206 I-5
Windward
Coast
253
I-9
Gold Coast 65,I50 6-2 633 4-7

Bight of Benin 35I,240 33 5 4,552 341I
Bight of Biafra 57,230 55 I,245 93
West-Central 44I,4Io 42-I 4,928 37-0
Africa
South-East
I37
I0
Africa
Total I,047,620 IOOO I3,334 998

Source: Richardson, 'Slave exports'; Geggus, 'French shipping and plantation
records'.
designated as 'Mina' to the Bight of Benin.49 Sierra Leone also appears to have
been more important than previously thought, primarily because of the
inclusion of the North American trade.
Estimates of the regional origins of slave exports have obvious implications
for our understanding of the ethnic backgrounds of slaves. More than 40 per
cent (perhaps close to 50 per cent) of all slaves shipped to the Americas came
from Bantu-speaking peoples, and most came from matrilineal societies. The
overwhelming majority of slaves from the Bight of Biafra were Igbo, with a
secondary concentration of Ibibio. Those from the Bight of Benin were more
diverse in ethnic origin, but most were Gbe-speaking (Ewe-Fon) or Yoruba,
with a heavy sprinkling of several interior populations, especially the Gurma
cluster. There were also recognizable numbers of Hausa and Nupe by the
early nineteenth century. Akan, from the Gold Coast, were in strong evidence,
while exports from the stretch of coast from Sierra Leone to Senegambia
display a more complicated pattern, with slaves divided between those who
came from close to the coast and those who came from the interior (particularly
Bambara).
A number of scholars have examined the ethnic backgrounds of slaves in the
4 Patrick Manning, 'The slave trade in the Bight of Benin, I640-I890', in H. A.

Gemery and J. S. Hogendorn (eds.), The Uncommon Market: Essays in the Economic
History of the Atlantic Slave Trade (New York, I979), I4I; Johannes Postma did not
break down the Dutch figures sufficiently to resolve this question; see 'The origin of
African slaves: the Dutch activities on the Guinea Coast, I675-I795', in Engerman and
Genovese, Race and Slavery, 49; and 'The Dutch slave trade: a quantitative assessment',
Revue franfaise d'histoire d'outre-mer, LXII (I975), 237. Manning believes that the Dutch
tended to buy gold at their forts on the Gold Coast and slaves further east.
376
PAUL
E.
LOVEJOY
Americas. Following in the path of Gabriel Debien and his associates,50 David
Geggus has used plantation inventories to examine the origins of slaves on
French plantations.5" B. W. Higman has conducted similar research in the

British Caribbean on the basis of census material, and Mary Karasch has
studied burial records, the Court of Mixed Commission's papers on captured
slave ships, and custom house registries for nineteenth-century Rio de

Janeiro.52 Together with the data collected by S. W. Koelle on freed slaves in
Sierra Leone in the nineteenth century, there is now a considerable amount of

information on slave ethnicity.53
Geggus compiled a sample of 13,334 slaves for whom ethnic origins are
provided in French plantation inventories. The regional origins of these slaves
is roughly compatible with the regional origins for the French trade as a whole,
as analysed by Richardson from Mettas' data (see Table I). The plantation
inventories appear to over-represent slaves from Senegambia and the Bight of
Biafra and under-represent those from the Sierra Leone, Windward and Gold
Coasts and also from west-central Africa. Geggus's Windward Coast can be
combined with Sierra Leone for purposes of analysis here. If the coast from
Senegambia to the Windward Coast is treated as a unit, the plantation
inventories reveal that 13-7 per cent of all slaves came from this area, while the
shipping records reveal that 12-7 per cent had their origins there. Since there
was considerable overlap in the Sierra Leone and Senegambia areas, the
difference between the various percentages is probably not significant.

Geggus demonstrates that almost four-fifths (78-5 per cent) of the slaves
whose ethnic origins were reported can be identified with one of six ethnic
categories - Congo, Gbe (Ewe-Fon), Yoruba, Igbo, Bambara, and Akan

(Table 2). 'Congo' indicates little more than a variety of Bantu-speaking
peoples in west-central Africa, and 'Ewe-Fon' may well include people from
further inland but who had become identified with coastal society, either
because they were slave imports from elsewhere or because they reached the
coastal ports through Ewe-Fon hands. The same can be said of Yoruba and
Akan.54
50 See, especially, Gabriel Debien, Les Esclaves aux Antilles franfaises (XViie-XVIIIe
siecles) (Basse-Terre and Fort-de-France, 1974).
51 David Geggus, 'Sex ratio, age and ethnicity in the Atlantic slave trade: data from
French shipping and plantation records', J. Afr. Hist., xxx, I (I989), 23-44.
52 B. W. Higman, Slave Populations of the British Caribbean, 1807-I834 (Baltimore,
I984), 126-133, 442-458; and Mary C. Karasch, Slave Life in Rio deyaneiro, I808-I850
(Princeton, I987), 8-28, 37I-83.
;3 Philip D. Curtin and Jan Vansina, 'Sources of the nineteenth century Atlantic slave
trade', J. Afr. Hist., v, 2 (I964), I85-208; E. M. Chilver, P. M. Kaberry and R.
Cornevin, 'Sources of the nineteenth century slave trade: two comments', Y. Afr. Hist.,
VI, 2 (I965), 117-120; Curtin, Atlantic Slave Trade, 244-57; 289-98; Northrup, Trade
Without Rulers, 6o-i; 23I-3. Also see S. W. Koelle, Polyglotta Africa (London, I854;
reprinted with new introduction by P. E. H. Hair, Graz, Austria, I963).
"' Geggus' sample can be compared with the smaller sample collected by Arlette
Gautier, who has tabulated the ethnic origins of I,8I2 slaves in southern St Domingue
between 172I and 1770. Her data are from the Archives de Nippes, which Geggus
appears not to have used. Gautier also confirms the six principal ethnic categories, which
comprised 78-3 per cent of her sample; see Arlette Gautier, 'Les origines ethniques des
esclaves de Saint-Domingue d'apres les sources notariales', Canadian J. Afr. Studies,
xxiii, i (I989). If Gautier's and Geggus' samples are combined, some of my conclusions
would require adjustment, but the relative importance of the various ethnic categories
THE
ATLANTIC
SLAVE
TRADE
377
Table 2. Principal ethnic identifications on French plantations

Number of
Ethnic category slaves Percentage
Congo 4,56i 34 2
Gbe (Ewe-Fon) I,962 I4.7
Yoruba I,58o i I-8
Igbo 1,129 8-5
Bambara
Akan
Other
Total
7I8
520
2,864
54
3-9
21*5
I3,334
I00-0
Source: Geggus, 'French shipping and plantation records'. I have designated

'Mina' and 'Caramenty' as Akan. It should be noted that the distinction between
'Mandingue' and 'Bambara' may be artificial. For 'Ewe-Fon' I have included
'Arada', 'Adia', 'Foeda' ('Hweda'), and 'Fond'.
The relatively small number of ethnic groupings on French plantations is
even more striking if the Gurma cluster ('Chamba'),55 Hausa, Mondonga,
Malinke, Kotokoli, Nupe and Susu are included. Together, these groupings
comprised an additional 11-4 per cent of the sample (1,514 out of 13,334). The
thirteen largest ethnic categories comprised almost go per cent of the total
sample. The data seem to indicate that masters perceived relatively homogeneous groupings of slaves.
would not change. The data compiled for Guadeloupe would alter these percentages
further; see Nicole Frisch, 'Les esclaves de la Guadeloupe a la fin de l'ancien regime
d'apres les sources notariales (I779-I789)', Bulletin de la Sociite d'histoire de la

Guadeloupe, iLxIII/IXIv (I985).
Ethnic origins of slaves in southern St Domingue, I72I-70
Adjusted
Ethnicity Per cent* percentaget
Ewe-Fon
Congo
Igbo
i
I
I9-0
8-8
152
5-2
24
Yoruba g9o I -5
Akan
Bambara
84
7
44
5
Sub-total 78 3 78-5
Other
Total
217
100-0
21*5
100-0
* Based on Gautier's analysis.

t Combination of Gautier's sample of I,812 and Geggus' sample of I3,334.
5 In many of the sources that identify the ethnicity of exported slaves, there is a
category 'Chamba', 'Thiamba', etc. The correct identification is with the related Gurma
languages, not with Chamba, an important ethnic group in the Benue River Valley.
378
PAUL
E.
LOVEJOY
Table 3. Ethnic identifications of slaves from the Bight of Benin, 1721-97

Ethnicity Number Percentage
Gbe (Ewe-Fon) 1,962 43.2
Yoruba 1,580 34.8
Gurma ('Chamba') 297 6-5

Hausa
287
6.3
Kotokoli i66 3-7
Nupe
i6i
3-5
Bariba
84
I-9
Total
4,537
99.9
Source: Geggus, 'French shipping and plantation records'.
Mary Karasch's study of the ethnic origins of slaves in Rio de Janeiro reveals
a similar pattern.56 In nineteenth-century Rio, there were seven principal
ethnic groups, and several minor ones. The seven - Mina, Cabinda, Congo,
Angola (or Loanda), Cassange, Benguela and Mozambique - were associated
with an African region of origin. Mina came from the Bight of Benin and were
largely Muslim, which suggests that the slaves so identified came from the
interior. Mozambique combined the slaves from south-east Africa. The
'nations' from west-central Africa actually represented four ethnic clusters:
Kongo, Mbundu, Lunda-Cokwe, and Ovimbundu-Ngangela. The smaller
ethnic groups (Gabao, Anjico, Monjola, Moange, Rebola or Libolo, Cajenge,
Cabunda, Quilimane, Inhambane, Mucena and Mombaca) further confirm

this clustering, since most of these are of west-central or south-eastern African
origin.57 Karasch's data, which cover the period I820-52, demonstrate that a
degree of ethnic amalgamation was occurring under slavery in the Americas.
Other ethnic origins were subsumed. Ethnicity under slavery tended to be
identified with the commercial system through which slaves passed in Africa;
that is the region and/or port of export. What slaves perceived is another
matter, but it is likely that ethnic affiliations assumed new meanings under
slavery and that the 'common' ethnic labels reflected historical amalgamation.
The extent of such change should become the subject of research.58
56 Karasch, Slave Life in Rio, 8-28, 37I-83.
57 Ibidd., I 0-20.
58 The data on ethnicity in early nineteenth-century Bahia reveal a very different
pattern, which reflects the close ties between Bahia and the Bight of Benin. According to
Joao Jose Reis, a very large proportion of identifiable ethnic groups between I8I9 and
I836 were from West Africa. In one sample of i,i6i manumissions (I8I9-36), 76-2 per
cent of individuals came from the Bight of Benin, and among the urban slave population
of Salvador (sample: I,480 slaves) between I820 and I835, 64-6 per cent of slaves came
from the Bight of Benin. In contrast to Rio de Janeiro, far fewer slaves came from west-
central Africa (3-4 per cent in the first sample and 24-I per cent in the second sample).
'Mina' might refer to Akan and/or Ewe-Fon in this sample. It should be noted that the
number of Hausa, Borno and Nupe slaves was a significant proportion of the total (I 55
per cent in the first sample and I3-9 per cent of the second sample), which reflects the
importance of the Sokoto jihad as a supplier of slaves, especially since some Yoruba slaves
would also have been a product of the jihad. Reis provides an excellent analysis of revolts
THE
ATLANTIC
SLAVE
TRADE
379
Geggus's material makes possible a more detailed analysis of the ethnic

identifications for Senegambia and the Slave Coast, where it is clear that many
slaves came from the distant interior. Ethnic groups identified for Senegambia
include 7I8 Bambara in a sample of I,380 (52-0 per cent). Other categories
(Senegal, Malinke, Fulbe) could have come from the coastal region or the
interior, but probably were mostly of coastal origin or slaves who had come
from further inland but whose identification was coastal. These data confirm
what we know about the Senegambia trade.

The ethnic configuration for the Slave Coast is also revealing, although again
it is important to recognize that slaves who were identified as Gbe (Ewe-Fon),
Yoruba, or Hausa, in particular, might have had some other ethnic origin.
At least 2I 9 per cent of the slaves whose ethnicity was identified came from the
distant interior and were not otherwise identified as Yoruba or Gbe (Table 3).
It should be noted that these findings are significantly different from
Manning's analysis of the ethnic origins of slaves from the Bight of Benin.
According to Manning, 72 per cent of the slaves exported between I720 and
i 8oo (a comparable period to that analysed by Geggus) were Gbe, I 5 5 per cent
were Yoruba, and only I2-5 per cent came from the interior (the Gurma
in Bahia in this period, particularly with reference to Islam and Yoruba orisha; see Joao
Jose Reis, 'Slave rebellion in Brazil: the African Muslim uprising in Bahia, I835',
(Ph.D. thesis, University of Minnesota, I983).
Ethnicity among slaves in Bahia, I8I9-36

Urban slave
Manumissions population
Ethnicity
(I8I9-36)
Yoruba
Ewe
(I820-35)
23.7
24-8
28-6
6-2
West-Central Africa I34 24 I

'Mina
Hausa
Nupe
3-9
2-9
2-I
Ibibio
Other
Total
I14
I.3
9-2
100-I
Sample
6-o
9-5
'Borno
Igbo/
2-I
9-6
i,i6i
I*8
94
99-9
I,480
Source: Reis, 'Slave rebellion in Brazil', I98.
Stuart Schwartz has established that a similar pattern in ethnicity prevailed in Bahia
since at least the 178os. In an inventory from I803, two-thirds of imported slaves were
from the Bight of Benin and only one-third were from west-central Africa (sample: 6,992).
Yoruba, Nupe and Hausa together constituted about one-third of the slave population in
the early nineteenth century; see S. Schwartz, Sugar Plantations in the Formation of
Brazilian Society: Bahia, 1550-I835 (Cambridge, I985), 341, 437.
380
PAUL
E.
LOVEJOY
cluster, Nupe and Hausa).59 Manning's data appear to over-estimate Gbe and
under-estimate other ethnic groups.
Higman's data for the British Caribbean reveal a similar pattern of

identification of slaves with several, major ethnic groupings. The most
common were Congo, Malinke, Igbo, Akan and 'Moco,' with lesser concentrations of Gurma ('Chamba'), Bambara, Temne, Susu, Hausa and Fulbe.60
There is a strong overlap in the ethnic identifications of the British and French
samples. The most striking difference in regional origins for the two trades
relates to the Bights of Benin and Biafra. The British trade reveals relatively
few slaves from the Bight of Benin and a large percentage from the Bight of
Biafra. The French trade shows the reverse, which is to be expected. The
information on ethnic origins confirms that both the British and French were
also heavily involved in the trade of west-central Africa.

These data can be compared with other materials on the ethnic origins of
slaves. Koelle's data, as analyzed by Curtin,61 show a much greater number of

ethnic groups, although it should be recognized that Koelle deliberately tried
to enlarge his sample to incorporate as many languages as possible. His data
were obtained from free slaves in Sierra Leone, in contrast to the data used by
Geggus (and Debien previously), which derive from plantation records in the
Americas. Koelle was conducting research on the origins of slaves in order to
collect linguistic materials, while those who compiled plantation records were
gathering incidental information that they felt would be useful in controlling

the slave population. The purpose of enquiry corresponds to the sophistication
of data collection. Koelle's material is biased towards ethnic diversity;
plantation records are biased towards ethnic homogeneity. Higman's material
on the ethnic origins of slaves in the British Caribbean, which is derived from
census data, falls midway between the diversity of the Koelle inventory and the
relative ethnic concentration of the Geggus analysis.62

There are several ways to explain the discrepancy in the extent of ethnic
diversity other than the relative sophistication of techniques in data collection.
First, the patterns for the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries may have been
different, with a greater concentration of ethnic groups in the eighteenth
century than in the nineteenth century, but this seems unlikely. Secondly, data
based on plantation inventories and census records may reveal a degree of

ethnic amalgamation on plantations that was not as pronounced on the African
coast, where ethnic distinctions were more clearly recognized. Only future
research and analysis will determine which of these factors is most important
and whether or not there are other factors. The time has probably come for
such analysis. The material on ethnicity, including that analyzed by Curtin,
Debien, Higman and Geggus, is sufficiently large that a full study is called for.
5 Patrick Manning, Slavery, Colonialism and Economic Growth in Dahomey, 1640-1960
(Cambridge, I982), 335-9. According to Manning, total slave exports from 1720 to i8oo
were 799,300 slaves, of which 576,ooo were Gbe (Aja), 124,300 Yoruba, 8I,6oo Voltaic,
7,900 Nupe, and I0,5oo Hausa. These estimates were based on a combination of several
New World slave inventories, including some from Brazil, which may explain the
differences in the percentages.
60 Higman, Slave Populations, I29, I3I-3.

61 Curtin, Atlantic Slave Trade, 244-57, 289-98. Also see Northrup, Trade with
Rulers, 60-2, 231.
62 Higman, Slave Populations, 126-33; 442-57.
THE
ATLANTIC
SLAVE
TRADE
38I
Age and Gender Profile of the Exported Slave Population
Recent publications have contributed a great deal to our knowledge about the
age and gender profile of the exported slave population. Geggus has compiled
the available data on the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and also
includes some material from the nineteenth century.63 Eltis has performed a
similar task for the nineteenth-century trade, while Joseph Miller has
undertaken a useful analysis of age and gender for west-central Africa in the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.64
In a series of tables, Geggus compares the Mettas data with earlier studies.65
His analysis includes the age and gender profile of 721,949 slaves, approximately 6 per cent of the whole trade, who were shipped to the Americas
between I636 and I867. The various samples cover most national carriers and
cover most of the important American colonies, although North American
ships are not included, and the Portuguese are under-represented. While data
are relatively sparse before the last quarter of the seventeenth century, there is
considerable information on the period after I675.
Based on Geggus' study, I calculate that the ratio of males to females was
about I8i: ioo for the trade as a whole from the seventeenth century until the
end of the trade in the nineteenth century; that is, 64-4 per cent of the slaves
were male and 35-6 per cent were female. The eighteenth-century French trade
displayed an overall sex ratio of 179 males per ioo females (64-2 per cent male),
virtually the same as the overall pattern. Geggus concludes that 'the slavetraders' oft-stated target of two males for every female appears to have been
only rarely attained'.66 Technically, Geggus is correct for the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries and is entirely wrong for the nineteenth century. The
figures that he uses indicate that the slave traders took 63-0 per cent males
before i8oo (170: ioo) and 68-5 per cent males after i8oo (217: I00).
Eltis' analysis confirms the high ratio of males in the nineteenth-century
trade. On average slavers were able to purchase more than two males for every
female, although it should be noted that it was more likely a result of African
supply patterns than European demand.67 Indeed, ratios of males to females

rose to 70-8 per cent on the coast north of the Zaire River between I8I I and
I867 and as high as 8o per cent in south-eastern Africa in the same period.68
A more accurate assessment would be as follows: the slave traders seldom
achieved the desired goal of two males for every female in the seventeenth
century; they continued to have difficulties in West Africa, but not in westcentral Africa, in the eighteenth century; and they easily attained that mark in
west-central Africa, and often in West Africa as well, in the nineteenth century.
Whether or not they did depended upon the section of the coast and the period.
63 Geggus, 'French shipping and plantation records'.
64 David Eltis, 'Fluctuations in the age and sex ratios of slaves in the nineteenth-
century transatlantic slave traffic', Slavery and Abolition, vii, 3 (i986), 257-72; Eltis,
Economic Growth, 69-70, 255-9; Miller, Way of Death, 346-9, 387-8.
65 Geggus, 'French shipping and plantation records', 24, Table I, but strangely
including Eltis, 'Age and sex ratios'.
66 Geggus, 'French shipping and plantation records', 26.

67 Eltis, 'Age and sex ratios', 267-9.
68 Ibid., 259. It should be noted that Geggus ('French shipping and plantation
records', 26) overstates his case in claiming that 'in no trade from Africa did the known
proportion of males exceed, or even equal, 70 per cent'.
382
PAUL
E.
LOVEJOY
The lowest reported male/female ratios were in the seventeenth century. In

two samples (2,o64 and 2,269 slaves), the ratios were nearly equal (105 and Io8
males for every ioo females or 5I*2 per cent and 5I*9 per cent male,
respectively), while in a third sample (3,o86) the ratio was I38: IOO or 58-o per
cent male. These samples are small but suggestive. There seems to have been
no particular preference for males or females on the African coast at the time,
in contrast to later periods. African demand for women appears not yet to have
developed enough to influence the ratio of males to females in the export trade.
Such an influence appears to have increased during the course of the trade,
although regional variations were usually strong. While it is known that the
volume of the trade increased substantially in the seventeenth century, it has
not hitherto been known when volume began to affect local politics and society.
The available data may provide a clue to timing, at least for those portions of
the coast that were first drawn into the trade in a serious way.
The proportions of males to females in the eighteenth-century trade reveal
clear developments. First, the proportion of males appears to have increased
substantially, assuming that the few samples from the seventeenth century are
an accurate indication of sex ratios in that period. Secondly, the increase was
fairly gradual for West Africa, with male/female ratios still well below the
desired ratio of two males for every female. Thirdly, the increase in the
percentage of males from west-central Africa appears to have been dramatic,

even reaching the preferred level of European slavers.69
For West Africa as a whole, the sex ratio for French shipping was I58: ioo,
or 6I-2 per cent male. Sierra Leone was low (57.3 per cent male), and even the
Bight of Benin, which supplied the majority of slaves shipped by the French
from West Africa, had a male/female ratio not much above the levels of the
seventeenth century (6I-7 per cent male). Ratios were lowest in the Bight of
Biafra (53-9 per cent male). Data based on British and Dutch shipping for the
Bight of Biafra also reveal very low proportions of males in the seventeenth
century which continued through the eighteenth century. When French,
British and Dutch shipping are taken together, the proportion of males to
females purchased in the Bight of Biafra was only 129: IOO, or 56-4 per cent
male (sample: 20,492).7?
In west-central and south-eastern Africa, by contrast, the French obtained

a ratio of two males for every female (67-9 per cent male) in the eighteenth
century.7' A remarkable shift occurred, probably in the I740s, when the
French began to concentrate on the Loango coast. The ability to buy males
may explain why west-central Africa became a major destination of slavers
from the Netherlands and Britain as well. The goal of purchasing twice as
many males as females appears to have been first realized there. Attempts to
replicate this experience in West Africa seem to have failed in the eighteenth
century.
The Dutch stand out as an anomaly in the trade because of their success in
obtaining male slaves, and it may be that they were a factor in the growing
69 Geggus, 'French shipping and plantation records'. These conclusions are based on
Geggus' analysis of French shipping records for all regions and French, British and
Dutch records for the Bight of Biafra.
70 Ibid. Geggus includes British, Dutch and French samples for his calculation. The
French sample alone was even lower: 53-9 per cent male.
71 Ibid.
THE
ATLANTIC
SLAVE
TRADE
383
demand for males. Between i675 and 1740, the Dutch maintained a ratio of
228: ioo (sample: 36,12I), or 69-5 per cent males, which is very high for any
period and extremely high for the late seventeenth and early eighteenth
centuries.72 The Dutch were the dynamic force in the export trade at the time,
which may indicate a connection between expanded demand for slaves and a
shift in sex ratios towards more males. Furthermore, the regional origins of the
Dutch sample are unclear and may indicate a move in Dutch slaving from West
Africa to west-central Africa, where males seem to have been easier to buy.
An analogy with St Domingue is suggestive. In the eighteenth century, St
Domingue was the richest and fastest-growing plantation colony and conse-
quently was able to buy 'better' (i.e. male) slaves than its competitors. The
Dutch may have been able to out-bid the British, French and Portuguese in the
search for males.73 The shift towards higher ratios of males to females that
appears to have begun with the Dutch may have been a result of an effort to
establish and/or maintain a competitive advantage.
High male ratios characterized the nineteenth-century trade, when the trade
was under pressure from abolitionists. Buyers may have wanted strong
workers in order to maximize returns on their investment, precisely when
African sellers wanted to retain women. Eltis' data, based on a sample of
I I4,225 slaves between i 8 i I and I867, reveal that 68 4 per cent were males.74
The Cuban trade, for example, consisted of 69-6 per cent males (229: Ioo)
between i8ii and i867 (sample: 51,577).75
The male/female ratio tended to rise for all regions. The Bight of Biafra,
which exported almost as many females as males from the late seventeenth
century and continuing through the eighteenth century, experienced a con-
siderable shift. In the nineteenth century, the Bight still had the lowest
male/female ratio of any major exporting region, but the proportion of males
rose from 53-9 per cent in the eighteenth century to 66 i per cent in the
nineteenth century.76
A reconsideration of Geggus' calculations of male/female ratios for French

slave merchants reveals that African middlemen were selling two males for
every female during most of the eighteenth century in west-central and southeastern Africa but not in the Bights or elsewhere in West Africa. According to
Mettas' data, as summarized by Geggus, 67q9 per cent of slaves purchased in

72 Johannes Postma, 'Mortality in the Dutch slave trade, I675-I795', in Gemery and
Hogendorn, Uncommon Market, 257. Earlier statistics on the Dutch trade reveal only a
slight difference in sex ratios between West Africa and west-central Africa. In Dutch
shipments between I637 and I645, West Africa exported I,79I males in a total trade of
3,o86, or 58-o per cent male, while west-central Africa exported I,286 males in a total
trade of 2,o64, or 63-3 per cent. It is worth noting, moreover, that the West African ratio
was lower than the pattern for the eighteenth century, when the ratio was 6I-2 per cent,
at least in the French trade. The west-central Africa ratio may have been on the rise and
was already above the eighteenth-century ratio for West Africa. Statistics from the
Portuguese trade, if available, should clarify the situation. For the I637-45 period, see
Ernst van den Boogaart and Pieter C. Emmer, 'The Dutch participation in the Atlantic
slave trade, I596-I650', in Gemery and Hogendorn, Uncommon Market, 366.
7' Eltis, 'Age and sex ratios', 257, 259.
76 In the nineteenth century, the ratio was I95: I00, based on a sample of 24,502; see
Geggus, 'French shipping and plantation records'. Eltis ('Age and sex ratios', 259)
reports a similar ratio for the period i8i I-67: 65-7 per cent.
384
PAUL
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west-central Africa were males. Considering that the sample was large (46-I
per cent of 137,400 slaves for whom gender and regional origin were identified),
this fact is particularly significant and runs counter to the conclusion that
Geggus reached. For west-central and south-eastern Africa combined, 67-9 per
cent of the exported slave population was male (32-I per cent female), a ratio
of 2I2: IOO. Whether or not the same pattern prevailed for British and
Portuguese shipping remains to be discovered, but in the nineteenth century
the proportion of males rose even further in west-central Africa, reaching
levels close to 70 per cent.77

The age profile of the exported population indicates that children were
under-represented early in the trade but that they became significantly more
numerous as time passed. Regional variation also marked the trade in children.
Admittedly there are difficulties in determining which slaves were 'children,'
but there is no question that the trade increasingly concentrated on ever

younger populations, even as there was a shift towards more males. Patrick
Manning has estimated that children aged I4 or younger probably constituted
34 per cent of a stable population in Africa during the slave trade era, given
what is known about patterns of fertility and mortality.78 Before the nineteenth
century, only I 9-5 per cent of exported slaves were 'children', however
defined.79 According to Geggus, the French trade had a higher percentage of
children (26-5 per cent) than the non-French trade (i6-2 per cent), but slavers
in general appear not to have purchased a proportionate number of children.
It is not known whether this was a result of African or European preferences.
Considering the fact that children, especially males, would come to dominate
the trade in the nineteenth century, the fact that they were under-represented
in the eighteenth century is worth noting. Geggus correctly observes that the
French bought more children than their competitors before i 8oo, but he
inadvertently distorts the picture. Slave merchants, apparently without regard
to nationality, bought fewer children before i8oo than after.

The regional variations in the age structure of the eighteenth-century trade
were considerable. More children were purchased in Sierra Leone (350 per
cent), the Bight of Biafra (309 per cent) and the region of west-central Africa
(30-4 per cent) than in the other exporting regions, although again it should be
noted that, except from Sierra Leone, the proportion of children was still lower
than the number of children in the African societies from which the children
came. In British, French, and Dutch samples for the Bight of Biafra in the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, children comprised 28-2 per cent of the
trade (sample: I6,427), which is remarkably low in a society in which much of

the enslaved population had been kidnapped and probably tended to be
young. 80
The percentage of children taken from Africa rose dramatically. Again, west-
central Africa led the way, and the shift was most dramatic there. Already by
7 Eltis, 'Age and sex ratios', 259.
78 Patrick Manning, 'The impact of slave trade exports on the population of the
western coast of Africa, I700-I850', in S. Daget (ed.), Actes du colloque sur la traite des
noirs (Paris/Nantes, I988). See also Manning, Slavery and African Life (Cambridge,
forthcoming). I wish to thank Manning for showing me this important study.
7 Geggus, 'French shipping and plantation records'. I have not included the Cuban
sample, I790-I829, in this calculation.
80 Ibid.
THE
ATLANTIC
SLAVE
TRADE
385
I784-95, 'the majority of slaves... were children, mostly boys'.81 In samples

derived from the Portuguese and Spanish trade to Brazil and Cuba between
I790 and I867, 4I-7 per cent of all slaves were children (sample: i80,586).82
Eltis has calculated an average of 4I -4 per cent for all regions of Africa between
i8i and i867.83 In some regions the increase was very large. The area
immediately north of the Zaire River exported 52-5 per cent children; the
proportion of children from Angola was 59-0 per cent, and cargoes from southeastern Africa contained an alarming 6I-o per cent children. The Bight of
Benin exported the lowest proportion of children of any region in the
nineteenth century, 33-2 per cent, approximately the same ratio as in society as
a whole.84 The proportion of children from the Bight of Biafra rose to 38-9 per
cent, just slightly more than the upper Guinea coast (38-2 per cent).85 The
Atlantic trade had become a trade in children, and the skewing of the export
population followed the pattern with respect to males - the matrilineal areas of
west-central and south-eastern Africa dispensed with males and children in
disproportionate numbers. West Africa followed suit, but more slowly and to
a lesser extent.
More sophisticated analysis may be able to discern when, where and how
quickly the shift toward more males and younger people occurred. The
difficulty in identifying children may exaggerate the pattern, and hence the
present analysis should be accepted as a challenge rather than as a definitive
answer to the question: Were children as important in the trade as the recent
literature seems to suggest ? Until that question is addressed, it is difficult to
suggest correlations between change in age and gender profiles and internal
African developments.
There appears to have been a relationship between a high proportion of

males and distance from the coast. Manning initially suggested that internal
African demand, disease and other factors lowered the number of women and
children from the far interior who were available for export. Manning appears
to be correct with respect to males but his observations on children need to be
qualified, if the nineteenth-century trade is an indication of the willingness to

move children great distances.86 In the Bight of Biafra, where the sex ratio of
the exported population was relatively balanced and slaves came from near the
coast, the number of children was high in proportion to their numbers in

society. For west-central Africa, however, many slaves came from the distant
interior, particularly in the nineteenth century.87 There were more males, and
" According to Miller (Way of Death, I59, 346-8, 387-9), one of the reasons westcentral Africa led the way in the shift toward more children related to attempts at 'tight
packing' as a result of Portuguese regulations on shipping slaves. Also see Eltis, 'Sex and
age ratios', 262, for a graphic portrayal of the nineteenth-century trend.
82 Geggus, 'French shipping and plantation records', Table i.
83 Eltis, 'Age and sex ratios', 259. 84 Ibid. 259.

85 Ibid. 259. Geggus, 'French shipping and plantation records', has virtually the same
ratio for the Bight of Biafra as Eltis.
86 Manning argues that 'Children had no special premium price in the interior, but
they tended to be kept there because a long march to the coast would cost more in
mortality and maintenance than what the child would bring on arrival'; see 'Impact of
slave trade exports'. His argument appears to be correct for small children but not for
older boys; see Miller, Way of Death, I59, 347-8, 387-9.

87 Miller (Way of Death, I 48, I 49, I 53-4, I 59-64, 387-9) emphasizes distance from the
coast as a factor that influenced the ratio of males to females in the export trade and notes
that there was a tendency to bring increasing numbers of boys from the interior.
386
PAUL
E.
LOVEJOY
they tended to be ever younger. Clearly there was an age below which boys
could not be moved without great losses, and young children and babies (boys
and girls) usually travelled with their mothers, but not at any distance with
ease. The age and sex profile reveals that boys of an age when they could
withstand forced marches tended to be a valuable commodity.88 That age
depended upon individual boys, but was probably around ten and above.
The greatest proportion of males came from south-eastern Africa, which is
an ironic gloss on Manning's rule that there was a correlation between distance
that slaves travelled and gender. Mozambique was the furthest distance from
the Americas, and proportionately more males came from there than any other
exporting region. It is not clear why.
Variations based on different regions and different periods require careful

scrutiny by historians to see whether or not they can be correlated with
historical changes in the exporting regions. No attempt is made here to revise
my earlier analysis,89 although Manning is in the process of doing so.90

Impact of the Atlantic Slave Trade on Africa
The discussion of the volume of the trade, the regional and ethnic origins of
the exported population, and the sex and age profiles of slaves should indicate
that much of Eltis' revisionist interpretation cannot be accepted. Otherwise,
these factors would not matter to African history, although they are crucial to
the history of slavery in the Americas. While the slight modifications in the
volume and direction of the Atlantic slave trade do not affect the argument of
Eltis (and Jennings), the issues remain: did the slave trade have a dramatic
impact on exporting regions? Did the suppression of the Atlantic trade in the
nineteenth century have a significant effect on the course of slavery? My
informed opinion is that both the trade and its suppression were major factors
in African history, and to show this I will examine, in order, the following
issues: (i) the economic impact of the trade; (2) its demographic implications;
and (3) the incidence of slavery in Africa. There are certainly other issues, but
these will have to suffice.
One of the principal conclusions of Eltis and Jennings seems likely but only
modifies my analysis: Africa's share of world trade from the late seventeenth
until the mid-nineteenth century was relatively small in comparison with other
parts of the Atlantic world, and Africa's share of that trade declined in relative
terms during the period of the slave trade.9' Eltis and Jennings use an estimate
of Co?8-Ci-i for per capita incomes in western Africa for the I780s. They
calculate that the export trade amounted to &o per person each year.92 The
88 Patrick Manning, 'Contours of slavery and social change in Africa', American Hist.
Review, LXXXVIII, 4 (I983), 847; Manning, 'Impact of slave trade exports'; Geggus,
'French shipping and plantation records'; Miller, Way of Death, I59-69.
89 See Transformations in Slavery.

90 See his forthcoming monograph, Slavery and African Life.
91 Eltis and Jennings, 'Western Africa and the Atlantic world', 957. Eltis and Jen
define 'western Africa' as the region that supplied slaves to the Atlantic trade, including
West Africa and west-central Africa.
92 Eltis relies on Henry A. Gemery and Jan S. Hogendorn, 'The economic costs of
West African participation in the Atlantic slave trade: a preliminary sampling for the
eighteenth century', in Gemery and Hogendorn, Uncommon Market, I 53, for the estimate
THE
ATLANTIC
SLAVE
TRADE
387
proportion of exports to total income certainly appears to be very low by

comparison with other parts of the Atlantic basin, although the room for error
in measuring per capita income and the value of the export trade are enormous.
This observation on the value of the export trade can be accepted, but the
implications that Eltis and Jennings draw from it cannot. The ratio of the value
of the external trade to per capita income is not an accurate indicator of the
impact of the slave trade on Africa. Per capita income in western Africa was
certainly very low by the standards of other parts of the Atlantic basin. Africa
was very poor. Almost any incremental increase over subsistence would have
had a disproportionate impact on the economy. Eltis and Jennings quantify the
relative poverty of Africa, but they are wrong to conclude that the lack of
prosperity was an accurate gauge of the degree of isolation from the impact of
the slave trade.
The simulation model developed by Patrick Manning provides one way to

establish that the slave trade had a significant, indeed devastating, impact on
Africa.93 Manning's model is a statistical means of measuring demographic
change under conditions of enslavement, slave trade and slave exports. His
analysis is based on the demography of the Atlantic slave trade and certain
broad assumptions about demographic change that establish the parameters of
the historical possibilities. Manning estimates that the population of those
areas of West and west-central Africa that provided slaves for export was in the
order of 22-25 million in the early eighteenth century. He projects a growth
rate for that population during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries of
0-5 per cent, which he considers the maximum possibility. His simulation
model 'suggests that no growth rate of less than one per cent could have
counterbalanced the loss of slaves in the late eighteenth-century'.94 He uses a
counterfactual argument to make the same point: 'With a growth rate of 0-5 %
the I700 populations ... [of] 22 to 25 million would have led to I850 populations
of from 46 million to 53 million, more than double the actual I850 pOpulation'.95 Manning concludes that 'the simulation of demographic impact of
the Atlantic slave trade provides support for the hypothesis of African
population decline through the agency of the slave trade'.96
Furthermore, the simulation model suggests that the incidence of slavery
increased in Africa. According to Manning, 'As an accompaniment to the
estimated nine million slaves landed in the New World [between I700 and
I850]..-, some twenty-one million persons were captured in Africa, seven
million of whom were brought into domestic slavery, and five million of whom
suffered death within a year of capture'.97 As the discussion of the sex profile
of the export trade makes clear, more women were retained in Africa than men.
Not only did the slave population increase, therefore, but the incidence of
polygyny increased as well. Indeed, the two phenomena were closely related.
By I770 the Atlantic trade resulted in a slave population in the Americas of
approximately 2,340,000.98 Manning's simulation suggests that the slave
on per capita income, although he inexplicably lowers Gemery's and Hogendorn's upp
limit; see Eltis, Economic Growth, 72. For the estimated value of the export trade, see El
and Jennings, 'Western Africa and the Atlantic world', 956.
9 Manning, 'Impact of slave trade exports'; and Slavery and African Life.
" Manning, 'Impact of slave trade exports'.
95
98
Ibid.
Robin
96
Ibid.
97
Blackburn,
Ibid.
The
Overt
388
PAUL
E.
LOVEJOY
population in West and west-central Africa could not have been much
different. It is safe to say that the slave population was at least io per cent of
the total population of 22-25 million and that the proportion of slaves was
rising. Manning concludes that there were 3 million slaves in those parts of
Africa that serviced the Atlantic trade at the turn of the nineteenth century,
virtually the same number as in the Americas.99
The dramatic growth in the African slave population is the transformation
that I highlighted initially in 1979 and more fully in I983.100 The transformation was the result of a dialectical relationship between slavery in the
Americas and the enslavement, trade and use of slaves in Africa. The
production of slaves for.the Americas also produced slaves for Africa. It is

difficult to prove that the Atlantic slave trade caused the transformation of
slavery in Africa, but it is likely. The simulation model, as well as the thesis
that I advanced in Transformations in Slavery, consider that enslavement,
trade and the use of slaves were interrelated, across the Atlantic and across the
Sahara. African, European, and Muslim merchants wanted slaves, and African,
European and Muslim slave-owners used slaves. The low value of exports and
imports apparently confused Eltis and Jennings so that they did not perceive
the importance of this interrelationship, but an examination of any part of
Africa that was a supplier of the export trade reveals the dialectic.
Miller's study of Angola provides the most dramatic example of impact of

the slave trade on a region in Africa. As the export data make clear,
approximately 40 per cent of all slaves in the Americas came from west-central
Africa, and Miller estimates that deaths in Africa related to capture and
enslavement roughly equalled the number of slaves exported, that is 50,000-
6o,ooo per year in the last half of the eighteenth century. In addition, 'fully as
many more people [were] seized as slaves but left to reside in other parts of
western central Africa'. Total population displacement would have been in
the order of I00,000-120,000 per year. Admittedly, Miller paints this as a
worst-possible scenario, but even if demographic change was less severe it

must have been dramatic. No one has argued as much, but it may be that
matrilineality and the export trade were interrelated. They certainly reinforced
each other.
Miller's analysis confirms the gender and age structure of the trade. In
pursuing a discovery made earlier by John Thornton, Miller shows that the sex
ratio of the population in those areas most heavily involved in the export trade
was strongly skewed towards women and girls.102 Polygyny was a central
institution of wealth and political power, and slaves (females) were most
99 Manning, Slavery and African Life, ch 4.
100 'Indigenous African slavery', in Michael Craton (ed.), Roots and Branches: Current
Directions in Slave Studies (Toronto, I979), I9-6I; and Transformations in Slavery. As I

have acknowledged, Walter Rodney, Philip Curtin, John Fage and other scholars
provided-the inspiration for this insight.
101 Miller, Way of Death, I53. Miller is able to postulate which areas were most
severely hit and when (see map, I48).
102 Miller, Way of Death, I60-5; see also John Thornton, 'The slave trade in
eighteenth-century Angola: effects on demographic structures', Canadian J. Afr.
Studies, XIV, 3 (I980), 4I7-27; Thornton, 'An eighteenth century baptismal register and
the demographic history of Manguenzo', in African Historical Demography (Edinburgh,
I977), I, 405-I5; Thornton, 'The demographic effect of the slave trade on Western
Africa, 1500-i850', in African Historical Demography (Edinburgh, 198I), II, 691-720.
THE
ATLANTIC
SLAVE
TRADE
389
heavily concentrated around the principal courts of the region.103 Miller refers
to the centralization that was associated with the slave trade as the 'great
transformation', which is solace to the theorist.'04 On the basis of Miller's

analysis, it is impossible to conclude that the slave trade had a marginal impact
on west-central Africa.'05
Eltis is on shaky ground in suggesting that the suppression of the slave trade
was not a decisive event for Africa. According to his interpretation, the
increased incidence of slavery in the nineteenth century was unconnected with
the collapse of the Atlantic trade. Instead, increased demand for slaves arose
from 'rejuvenated Islam' and late in the century from European demand for
primary products from Africa.'06 Indeed there was a dramatic increase in

slavery as a result of the jihads and Muslim commerical expansion in East
Africa.'07 Although Eltis does not explicitly argue the point, his proposed
revision is one of timing and concentration, not of substance, and he presents
no new data. I remain unconvinced. Certainly there was an expansion in
production, based on slave labour, late in the nineteenth century, but that
development is also part of the transformation thesis.

Eltis disputes the thesis that the slaving frontier continued to move inland
during the early nineteenth century and that the number of slaves in Africa
increased dramatically in these decades. He bases this conclusion on an
analysis of slave prices:
... because the price of all slaves declined, it seems clear that although domestic
[African] demand increased, it did not increase sufficiently to offset the decline in
trans-atlantic demand. As a consequence, the number of slaves traded as well as the
price of those slaves declined during the century ...; accordingly, suppression must
have meant some reduction in the enslavement of Africans.'08

Eltis is correct that the price of slaves dropped between the I790S and the
I820s and continued at a depressed level for most of the continent for the rest
of the century. Slaves were cheap, and in real terms prices may have continued
to fall in many of the major slave markets, but this does not mean that
enslavement decreased in intensity.'09 The cheapness of slaves reflects two

factors, the generally low prices of basic commodities in Africa and the glut of
the slave market.
Before the suppression of the trans-Atlantic trade, according to Eltis, the
demand for slaves was divided into two sectors: one within Africa and the
second in the Americas. (In fact, there was a third sector - the external Muslim
market.) The collapse of American demand inevitably depressed prices in
103 Miller, Way of Death, 135. 104 Ibid. 135-9.
105 Curiously, Miller concludes that the slave trade had a marginal impa
of population west-central Africa, despite his convincing and overwhelming array of
data to the contrary; see Way of Death, I65-9. It should be noted that Miller attempts to
distinguish between sheer demographic impact and all other kinds of influence, mostly
institutional, and his demographic analysis tries to identify population relocations, shifts
in sex and age ratios, among other factors.

106 Eltis, Economic Growth, 226.
107 Ibid. 225. Eltis claims that this interpretation is a modification of my 'transformation
thesis', but in fact an appreciation of the Islamic factor, virtually unrelated to the trans-
Atlantic trade, is an integral part of my argument; see Transformations in Slavery,

I 84-2 I 9. 108 Eltis, Economic Growth, 227.
109 Ibid. 41, 260-4; see also Manning, Slavery and A
390
PAUL
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LOVEJOY
Africa. He concludes that the African market did not increase sufficiently to
offset the loss of American sales; according to Eltis demand and supply
declined, although he only provides slave prices as evidence. Prices did not
rebound after the decline of the I 790-I 820 period, it is true, but the reason was
a combination of factors. Indeed Eltis shows that American demand did not
decline, in the aggregate, in this period but regained its former heights.
Decline only began in the I850s, well after the period that is crucial to his
argument.
Demand is an expression of price, so if prices were generally low, then
demand might appear to have been depressed. In fact, the contrary could have
been true, if more were known about the price structure of African economies.
African demand for slaves was determined by the value of what slaves could
produce, and this marginal revenue product was primarily a function of the
value of food consumption, housing costs, social requirements, taxation and
similar expenditures that were not much affected by international markets.

Any qualitative assessment of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries would
judge Africa to have been comparatively poor, as the ratio of exports to per
capita income reveals. Prices in general were low, and the price structure
would have influenced the cost of slaves accordingly.
Eltis and Jennings, in concentrating on export-led economic development,
have raised an important consideration: more needs to be known about internal

African price structures. Until such information is available, however, it is
hard to justify their conclusions, and there is sufficient evidence available to

argue the contrary.
Eltis' conclusion that enslavement declined in the early nineteenth century

contradicts the research of most Africanist historians who have written on the
period. In almost every part of Africa for most of the century, enslavement was
rampant. Slaves were generated on a scale previously unknown, as can be
attested by the following examples: the wars of the mfecane in southern and
central Africa, the activities of Arabs, Swahili, Yao, Nyamwezi, Chikunda and
others in eastern and south-eastern Africa, and the raiding of Muslim slavers
in the southern Sudan and north-central Africa. None of these cases have
much, if anything, to do with the suppression of the Atlantic slave trade, and
hence could be dismissed by those who favour the Eltis thesis. But what about
the phenomenal levels of enslavement during the jihads, often in areas that
once did or could have fed the Atlantic trade? How are the collapse of the
Lunda states and the havoc of enslavement instigated by the Cokwe to be
explained ? Can the insecurity of Igbo country in the nineteenth century and
the enslavement resulting during the Yoruba wars be easily dismissed? The
combined impact of these phenomena was to maintain a glutted market and
hence a depressed price for slaves almost everywhere. The 'transformation
thesis' holds that the external slave trade, particularly the trans-Atlantic sector
but also the Islamic market, shaped slavery and society in Africa, and that
internal factors intensified slavery as the external trade contracted.
The enslavement of people and the growth of the slave population in Africa
continued apace for the whole of the nineteenth century, despite local
variations. As yet there are few estimates of the scale of the African slave
population, but some insights can be gained by a comparison of certain parts
of West Africa in c. I900 with the Americas on the eve of emancipation there.110
110 It could be argued that a more accurate comparison would include slaves and the
descendants of slaves. The purpose of the present comparison is intended to suggest the
THE
ATLANTIC
SLAVE
TRADE
39I
Table 4. Estimated slave populations in the Americas (late eighteenth century)

Region/country Slave population
French West Indies 575,000

British West Indies 467,000
Spanish West Indies 8o,ooo
(Caribbean 1,122,000)
Brazil 1,000,000
U.S.A.
575,000
Mainland Spanish America 27 I,000
Total
2,968,ooo
Source: Herbert Klein, African Slavery in Latin America and the Caribbean
(New York, I986), 295.
The slave population of the Americas rose from 2,340,000 in c. 1770 and
peaked at 2,968,ooo by the end of the century (Table 4).1ll The revolt of St
Domingue reduced this total considerably; St Domingue had a slave population of 480,ooo in I79 I."2 The independence of mainland Spanish America
after c. I820, with its slave population of a couple hundred thousand, and the
emancipation of 674,ooo British slaves in i834 reduced the total further, but
the number of slaves continued to expand in the Spanish Caribbean, the
U.S.A. and Brazil, reaching a peak just before the emancipation of U.S.A.
slaves in the early i86os. In i86o, there were almost 4 million slaves in the
U.S.A. and another I-5-I-8 million slaves in Brazil and the Spanish Caribbean,
for an estimated total of 5-5-5-8 million slaves.113 With the freeing of slaves in
the U.S.A., the slave population declined considerably to a level well below
two million. Puerto Rico had 47,000 slaves in I867; Cuba 288,ooo slaves in
I87I, and Brazil I,5 I I,000 slaves in I872. With the final emancipation of slaves
in Cuba in i88o and Brazil in i888, slavery came to an end in the Americas.
We may compare the American figures with those of the Western Sudan that
have been assembled by Martin Klein (Table 5).114 Various estimates between
I905 and II3 put the slave population of Haut-Senegal-Niger at about
702,000, or i8 per cent of the total population of 3,942,ooo. The slave
population of French Guinea was 490,000, or 34-6 per cent of the total
magnitude of the issue, not its complexity. To include the freed black population of the
Americas in the analysis would require an inclusion of the descendants of slaves in Africa,
which would greatly complicate the discussion, particularly since it would mean that the
scale of 'slavery' in Africa would increase correspondingly. The usual argument is that
slaves and their descendants tended to be 'assimilated', and hence the numbers of people
affected by the 'slavery' legacy was geometrically greater in Africa than the Americas.
... Blackburn, Overthrow of Colonial Slavery, 5; Herbert Klein, African Slavery in

Latin America and the Caribbean (New York, I986), 295.
112 Curtin, Atlantic Slave Trade, 78.

113 Blackburn estimates the total in I86o at six million; see Overthrow of Colon
Slavery, 544.
114 Martin A. Klein, 'The demography of slavery in Western Soudan: the late
nineteenth century', in Dennis D. Cordell and Joel W. Gregory (eds.), African Population
and Capitalism: Historical Perspectives (Boulder, Colorado, I987), 52, 54.
392
PAUL
E.
LOVEJOY
Table 5. Estimated slave populations, Africa and the Americas

(nineteenth century)
Region/country Date Slave population
Americas
British West Indies I817 753,000

British West Indies I832 674,000
Cuba
I817
199,000
Puerto
Rico
I820
22,000
Spanish West Indies i86o-i 412,000
U.
S.A.
Puerto
i86o
Rico
3,954,000
I867
Cuba
I871
Brazil
I872
47,000
288,000
1,511,000
Africa
Haut-Senegal-Niger 1905-13 702,000

French Guinea I905-I3 490,000
(French Western Sudan) 1905-13 1,192,000
Sokoto Caliphate C. I900 2,500,000
Source: Eltis, Economic Growth, 297 fn; H. Klein, African Slavery, 297;
Franklin Knight, Slave Society in Cuba during the Nineteenth Century (Madison,
Wisconsin, 1970), 22, 63; M. Klein, 'Demography of Slavery', 52, 54; Hogendorn
and Lovejoy, Legal Status Abolition.
population (I,4I8,000). For the French Sudan as a whole, there were approximately I,I92,000 slaves in a total population of 5,I34,000, but these estimates
were made after the slave exodus that occurred during and immediately after
the French conquest. That exodus reached a climax in I905-06, by which time
hundreds of thousands of slaves had fled. Before the exodus, the slave
population was probably in the order of Iv5-2 million.
The extent of slavery in the Sokoto Caliphate was comparable. J. S.

Hogendorn and I have calculated that the number of slaves in the Caliphate
probably represented one-quarter of the total population of io million in
igoo."' Both the percentage of slaves and the scale of the population are
intended as conservative estimates. While there is a slight overlap between
Klein's figures and our own, these are not significant. Eight of the thirty
emirates in the Caliphate came under French rule, but only two are included
in Klein's sample, and they were both small emirates. Whether Hogendorn's
and my figures are accepted or not, there can be little doubt that the Sokoto
Caliphate may well have been the second or third largest slave society in
modern history. Only the United States in I 86o (and maybe Brazil as well) had
more slaves than the Caliphate did in I900.
About a decade after the final emancipation of slaves in the Americas, there
were at least twice as many slaves in Islamic West Africa as there had been in
Brazil and Cuba in I870 and at least as many as in the U.S.A. at the start of
its Civil War. These comparisons are striking evidence that slavery in Africa
115 J. S. Hogendorn and Paul E. Lovejoy, Legal Slavery Abolition. The Decline of
Slavery in Northern Nigeria (Cambridge, forthcoming).
THE
ATLANTIC
SLAVE
TRADE
393
has to be taken seriously by historians of both Africa and the Americas."16 As

should be obvious, no attempt is made here to estimate the slave populations
of other parts of Africa, particularly areas that fed the Atlantic slave trade, but
it is known that the percentage of slaves in Asante, the Yoruba states, the Igbo
country and elsewhere was high.
Conclusion
The economic costs of the slave trade in African economies and societies were
severe, despite Eltis' interpretation to the contrary. First, the low per capita
income from the trade indicates that the economic advantages of exporting
slaves were nowhere near large enough to offset the social and political costs of
participation. Secondly, the size of the trade, including enslavement, related
deaths, social dislocation and exports, was sufficient to have had a disastrous
demographic impact. Thirdly, because the rise of produce exports started at

such a low base and at a time when slave exports were becoming less important,
western Africa suffered a relative decline in its position in world trade.
There were other heavy costs which Eltis has failed to appreciate. It is
possible to calculate the gross barter terms of trade and per capita income from
the slave trade and compare western Africa with other parts of the world. But
it is difficult to assess the full costs of 'producing' slaves because of the nature
of enslavement. In an economic sense, as Robert Paul Thomas and Richard
Bean have demonstrated, slaves were a 'free good', like fish, as far as those
doing the enslaving were concerned.117 There were costs associated with
'production', but the real cost in human terms included the loss of life from
enslavement, subsequent famines and disease. Furthermore, the destruction of
property during wars and raids also represented a loss. Manning's simulation
model has attempted to account for some of these costs, although it will never
be possible to do the kind of analysis that is possible in measuring the volume
and direction of the trans-Atlantic trade itself. Miller has come closest to
demonstrating the effects of this impact on a particular region, but his analysis,
too, is based on a considerable degree of conjecture.
When the indirect costs of enslavement and trading are taken into consideration, the insights of Eltis and Jennings take on a new meaning. Rather
than demonstrating that the Atlantic slave trade had virtually no impact on
western Africa, it can be concluded that the impact was in fact strongly
negative, although profound.
116 Unfortunately, all too few Americanist historians take this point seriously. Blackburn, for example, analyses the end of 'colonial slavery' only in the colonies of the
Americas (Overthrow of Colonial Slavery). For an example of an historian who does make
the attempt to consider slavery in a trans-Atlantic framework; see Klein, African Slavery.
Both Eltis and Miller try to bridge the Atlantic gap as well by examining change
throughout the Atlantic basin, including the interior of Africa. They reach remarkably
different conclusions, nonetheless. In my opinion, Miller's approach is truly global and
represents a dramatic break with past scholarship. He has succeeded in following slavery
from deep within west-central Africa to Brazil and Portugal. He has set an example that
will be difficult to follow. Eltis has made a similar attempt, but less successfully from an
African perspective.
117 Robert Paul Thomas and Richard Bean, 'The fishers of men: the profits of the slave
trade', 7. Econ. Hist., XXXIV, 4 (I974), 885-914.
394
PAUL
E.
LOVEJOY
SUMMARY
Recent revisions of estimates for the volume of the trans-Atlantic slave trade
suggest that approximately i I,863,000 slaves were exported from Africa during the
whole period of the Atlantic slave trade, which is a small upward revision of my
I982 synthesis and still well within the range projected by Curtin in 1969. More
accurate studies of the French and British sectors indicate that some revision in the
temporal and regional distribution of slave exports is required, especially for the
eighteenth century. First, the Bight of Biafra was more important and its
involvement in the trade began several decades earlier than previously thought.
Secondly, the French and British were more active on the Loango coast than
earlier statistics revealed. The southward shift of the trade now appears to have
been more gradual and to have begun earlier than I argued in i982. The greater
precision in the regional breakdown of slave shipments is confirmed by new data
on the ethnic origins of slaves. The analysis also allows a new assessment of the
gender and age profile of the exported population. There was a trend toward
greater proportions of males and children. In the seventeenth century, slavers
purchased relatively balanced proportions of males and females, and children were
under-represented. By the eighteenth century, west-central Africa was exporting
twice as many males as females, while West Africa was far from attaining such
ratios. In the nineteenth century, by contrast, slavers could achieve those ratios
almost anywhere slaves were available for export, and in parts of west-central and
south-eastern Africa the percentage of males reached unprecedented levels of 70 per
cent or more. Furthermore, increasing numbers of slaves were children, and again
west-central Africa led the way in this shift while West Africa lagged behind
considerably.
This review of the literature on the demography of the slave trade provides a
context to assess the revisionist interpretation of David Eltis, who has argued
recently that the slave trade and its suppression were of minor importance in
African history. It is shown that Eltis' economic arguments, based on an

assessment of per capita income and the value of the export trade, are flawed. The
demography of the trade involved an absolute loss of population and a large
increase in the enslaved population that was retained in Africa. A rough comparison
of slave populations in West Africa and the Americas indicates that the scale of
slavery in Africa was extremely large.

Lovejoy IMpactSlaveTrade 1989

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The Impact of the Atlantic Slave Trade on Africa: A Review of the Literature

Author(s): Paul E. Lovejoy

J7ournal of African History, 30 (I989), pp. 365-394 365

THE IMPACT OF THE ATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE ON

AFRICA: A REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE'

African History and the Atlantic Slave Trade

subject of considerable discussion among historians and merits attempts from

Atlantic marked a radical break in the history of Africa, most especially

The transformation thesis identifies slavery as a central feature of African

also important, and other internal African developments strongly influenced

Africa into an 'international system of slavery' that included Africa, the

Americas, western Europe and the Islamic world.3

1 I would like to thank Patrick Manning, J. S. Hogendorn, Joseph C. Miller, Jo

2 Paul E. Lovejoy, Transformations in Slavery. A History of Slavery in Africa

more than a marginal influence on the course of African history. According to

With respect to slavery, he claims that 'whatever the origins or nature of

could have been very great'.5

gender, and mortality are particularly significant.6 Secondly, he has articulated

concludes that an export-led model of economic development has little to offer

Eltis bases his startling conclusions on an analysis of the relative importance

undertaken jointly with Lawrence C. Jennings, it is claimed that the annual

return to an assessment of the arguments of Eltis, particularly with regard to

clusions are seriously flawed.

The Volume of the Atlantic Slave Trade

period of European involvement in the slave trade.'3 He allowed a considerable

His initial discovery was startling enough. Earlier figures - i5 million, 50

siderable controversy. His effort at quantification has been challenged,'4 and

likely to be done.'6 Analysis depends upon a continuing reassessment of the

in Jean Mettas, Repertoire des expeditions ne'gri'eresfranfaises au XVIIIe siecle.

refinement. The cautious historian expects that upward revision is more

d'e'tudes africaines, xxvi (I986), 633-79.

Richardson has undertaken the most complete attempt at a new synthesis,

of confirmation is possible. It is rewarding to those of us who synthesize that

In order to understand the state of the debate, it is necessary to look at the

nineteenth-century trade. While it can be expected that modifications in the

The new analysis of the French sector rests on Mettas' compilation of

I52I '(Ph.D. thesis, University of Toronto, I986). According to Elbl's interpretation,

I792/3',Y. Afr. Hist., XIX,4 (I978), 5 I5-2I. Richardson incorrectly assesse

XVIIIe siecle (Paris, I 974), 45-5 I .

enabled him to construct annual figures for slave shipments.

delivery of slaves, then Richardson's estimate is reduced by I56,ooo slaves,

(194,200) for I763-I799.35 Richardson reckoned that North American shippers

Revue franfaise d'histoire d'outre-mer, LXII (1975), 72-5.

Africa, I76I-I8I0', Revue fran,aise d'histoire d'outre-mer, LXII (I975), 65.

because Anstey (and I) assumed North American imports were included in

acceptable. He concludes that a more accurate total is approximately seven per

and I0,393 from Benguela.38 This is a modest upward revision indeed. As

Having reviewed the recent contributions, it is now possible to attempt a

has claimed to have revised my estimate of the British trade upward by

342,700; but if allowance is made for non-slave deliveries at 5 per cent, a

accepmable margin of error.4"

40 Richardson's analysis suggests an upward revision of 437,000.

In order to compare the new estimate with Curtin's original one, it is

Regional and Ethnic Origins of Slaves

analysis represents a major revision of my I982 synthesis.44 His principal

Perhaps Richardson's most important discovery concerns the trade of the

beginning of the eighteenth century.45 This discovery arises from new

42 Compare with Lovejoy, 'Volume of the Atlantic slave trade', 496.

4 Richardson, 'British slave trade'; 'Slave exports', Tables 6 and 7.

makes sense in terms of backward projections of political history in Igbo

Richardson's other major revision concerns the trade of west-central Africa.

The relative importance of various regions can now be reassessed. It is clear

Table i. Regional origins of the French slave trade (eighteenth century)

Senegambia 83,860 8-o I,380 Io03