Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-mlc7c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-02T18:33:32.608Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Numbers, Origins, and Destinations of Slaves in the Eighteenth-Century Angolan Slave Trade

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2016

Extract

The “numbers game” (Curtin, 1969: ch. 1; Darity, 1985) remains a favorite event in academic jousting over the Atlantic slave trade, not only because unexpectedly detailed quantitative records continue to turn up in archival repositories but also, more recently, because of the suppleness with which scholars have applied data discovered by the first generation of researchers to new, and increasingly more sophisticated, historical problems. Old, relatively formal, analytical categories—decades; large, internally diverse stretches of the African coast; colonial/national aggregates on the American side of the Atlantic—although comparable among themselves, now seem more revealing of the data than of the history of the trade and are very salutarily giving way to questions and issues arising more directly from the experience itself: the causes of slave mortality, the economic strategies of slavers, age and sex distinctions among the slaves, the meaning of slaving for specific regions in Africa, and the trade’s contributions to events in Europe and the Americas. Use of quantitative data now presupposes the discovery of historically relevant categories of analysis and at the same time informs the meaning of the categories employed.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Social Science History Association 1989 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Austen, R. A. (1979a) “The trans-Saharan slave trade: A tentative census,” in Gemery, H. A. and Hogendorn, J. S. (eds.) The Uncommon Market: Essays in the Economic History of the Atlantic Slave Trade. New York: Academic Press: 2376.Google Scholar
Austen, R. A. (1979b) “The Islamic Red Sea slave trade: An effort at quantification,” in Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Ethiopian Studies. Chicago: 443467.Google Scholar
Austen, R. A. (1987) “The Islamic slave trade out of Africa: An intermediate cen sus report.” Paper presented at the Congrès International de Démographie Historique, Paris.Google Scholar
Austen, R. A. (1988a) “The nineteenth century Islamic slave trade from East Africa (Swahili and Red Sea coasts): A tentative census.” Slavery and Abolition 9: 2144.Google Scholar
Austen, R. A. (1988b) “The Mediterranean Islamic slave trade out of Africa: Towards a census.” Paper presented at the Workshop on the Long-Distance Trade in Slaves across the Sahara and the Black Sea in the Nineteenth Century, Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Study and Conference Center, Villa Serbelloni, Italy.Google Scholar
Becker, C. (1986) “Note sur les chiffres de la traite atlantique française au dix-huitième siècle.” Cahiers d’études africaines 26: 633679.Google Scholar
Becker, C. (1987) “La place de la Sénégambie dans la traite atlantique française du dix-huitième siècle.” Paper presented at the Congrès International de Démographie Historique, Paris.Google Scholar
Bethell, L. (1970) The Abolition of the Brazilian Slave Trade: Britain, Brazil, and the Slave Trade Question, 1807-1869. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Birmingham, D. B. (1966) Trade and Conflict in Angola: The Mbundu and Their Neighbours under the Influence of the Portuguese 1483-1790. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Carreira, A. (1967-69) “As companhias pombalinas de navegaçâo, comércio, e tráfico de escravos entre a costa africana e o nordeste brasileiro.Boletim cultural da Guiné portuguesa 22: 588; 23: 301-454; 24: 59-188, 284-474.Google Scholar
Clarence-Smith, G. (1984) “The Portuguese contribution to the Cuban slave and coolie trades in the nineteenth century.Slavery and Abolition 5: 2533.Google Scholar
Clarence-Smith, G. (1988) “La traite portugaise et espagnole en Afrique au dix-neuvième siècle,” in Daget, S. (ed.) Actes du Colloque International sur la Traite des Noirs (Nantes, 1985), vol. 2. Paris and Nantes: Société Française d’Histoire d’Outre-mer and Centre de Recherche sur l’Histoire du Monde Atlantique: 425434.Google Scholar
Couto, C. (1979) “Para a história arquivística em Angola—o primeiro inventário documental angolano (3.12.1754).” Studia 41-42: 227271.Google Scholar
Curtin, P. D. (1969) The Atlantic Slave Trade: A Census. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Curto, J. C. (1987) “The Angolan manuscript collection of the Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino, Lisbon: Toward a working guide.” History in Africa 15: 163189.Google Scholar
Curto, J. C. (1988) “Recounting the numbers: The legal Angolan slave trade, 1710-1830.” Unpublished manuscript.Google Scholar
Darity, W. Jr., (1985) “The numbers game and the profitability of the British trade in slaves.Journal of Economic History 45: 693703.Google Scholar
Eltis, D. (1979) “The export of slaves from Africa: 1820-43,” in Gemery, H. A. and Hogendorn, J. S. (eds.) The Uncommon Market: Essays in the Economic History of the Atlantic Slave Trade. New York: Academic Press: 273301.Google Scholar
Curto, J. C. (1986a) “Fluctuations in the age and sex ratios of slaves in the nineteenth- century transatlantic slave traffic.” Slavery and Abolition 7: 257272.Google Scholar
Curto, J. C. (1986b) “Slave departures from Africa, 1811-1867: An annual time series.” African Economic History 15: 143171.Google Scholar
Curto, J. C. (1987a) Economic Growth and the Ending of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Curto, J. C. (1987b) “The nineteenth-century transatlantic slave trade: An annual time series of imports into the Americas broken down by region.” Hispanic American Historical Review 67: 109138.Google Scholar
Curto, J. C., and Jennings, L. C. (1988) “Trade between sub-Saharan Africa and the Atlantic world in the pre-colonial era.American Historical Review 93: 936959.Google Scholar
Florentino, M. G. (1988) “Notas sobre os negocios negreiros no porto do Rio de Janeiro 1790-1830.” Unpublished manuscript.Google Scholar
Geggus, D. (1988) “The demographic composition of the French slave trade.” Paper presented at the Escravidāo—Congresso Internacional, Sāo Paulo.Google Scholar
Heintze, B. (1985, 1988) Fontes para a história de Angola do século 17. 2 vols., Wiesbaden: Franz-Steiner-Verlag.Google Scholar
Henige, D. (1986) “Measuring the immeasurable: The Atlantic slave trade, West African population and the Pyrrhonian critic.” Journal of African History 27: 295313.Google Scholar
Klein, H. S. (1969) “The trade in slaves to Rio de Janeiro, 1795–1811.” Journal of African History 10: 533549.Google Scholar
Klein, H. S. (1972) “The Portuguese slave trade from Angola in the eighteenth century.Journal of Economic History 32: 894918.Google Scholar
Klein, H. S. (1973) “O tráfico de escravos para o porto de Rio de Janeiro, 1825-1830.” Anais de história 5: 85101.Google Scholar
Klein, H. S. (1978) The Middle Passage: Comparative Studies in the Atlantic Slave Trade. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Klein, H. S. (1987) “A demografia do tráfico atlàntico de escravos para o Brasil.Estudos económicos 17: 129149.Google Scholar
Klein, H. S., and Engerman, S. L. (1975) “Shipping patterns and mortality in the African slave trade to Rio de Janeiro, 1825-1830.Cahiers d’études africaines 15: 381398.Google Scholar
Lovejoy, P. E. (1982) “The volume of the Atlantic slave trade: A synthesis.” Journal of African History 23: 473502.Google Scholar
Lovejoy, P. E. (1989) “The impact of the slave trade on Africa in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.Journal of African History 30.Google Scholar
Mann, K. (1987) “Trade, credit, and the commodification of land in colonial Lagos.” Paper presented at the conference “Refraining the Colonial Experience,” University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.Google Scholar
Miller, J. C. (1974) “The archives of Luanda, Angola.” International Journal of African Historical Studies 7: 551590.Google Scholar
Miller, J. C. (1975) “Legal Portuguese slaving from Angola—Some preliminary in dications of volume and direction, 1760-1830.Revue française d’histoire d’outre-mer 62: 135176.Google Scholar
Miller, J. C. (1976) “Sources and knowledge of the slave trade in the southern Atlantic.” Paper presented at a meeting of the Western Branch of the American Historical Association, La Jolla, California.Google Scholar
Miller, J. C. (1982) “The significance of drought, disease, and famine in the agriculturally marginal zones of west-central Africa.Journal of African History 23: 1761.Google Scholar
Miller, J. C. (1984) “Capitalism and slaving: The financial and commercial organization of the Angolan slave trade, according to the accounts of Antonio Coelho Guerreiro (1684-1692).International Journal of African Historical Studies 17: 156.Google Scholar
Miller, J. C. (1986) “Imports at Luanda, Angola: 1785-1823,” in Liesegang, G., Pasch, H., and Jones, A. (eds.) Figuring African Trade: Proceedings of the Symposium on the Quantification and Structure of the Import and Export and Long Distance Trade of Africa in the Nineteenth Century (c. 1800-1913) (St. Augustin 3-6 January 1983). Kölner Beiträge zur Afrikanistik, No. 11. Berlin: Dietrich-Reimer-Verlag: 165246.Google Scholar
Miller, J. C. (1988a) Way of Death: Merchant Capitalism and the Angolan Slave Trade, 1730-1830. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Miller, J. C. (1988b) “Overcrowded and undernourished: Techniques and conse quences of tight-packing in the Portuguese southern Atlantic slave trade,” in Daget, S. (ed.) Actes du Colloque International sur la Traite des Noirs (Nantes, 1985), vol. 2. Paris and Nantes: Société Française d’Histoire d’Outre-mer and Centre de Recherche sur l’Histoire du Monde Atlantique: 395424.Google Scholar
Rau, V. (1956) O “Livro de Razão” de António Coelho Guerreiro. Lisbon: DIAMANG.Google Scholar
Richardson, D. (1989) “Slave exports from West and West-Central Africa, 1700-1810: New estimates of volume and distribution.” Journal of African History 30: 122.Google Scholar
Tavares, L. H. D. (1988a) Comércio proibido de escravos. Sāo Paulo: Editora Ática.Google Scholar
Tavares, L. H. D. (1988b) “O capitalismo no comércio proibido de escravos.” Revista do Instituto de Estudos Brasileiros 28: 3752.Google Scholar
Wallerstein, I. (1987) “The incorporation of the Indian subcontinent into the capitalist world-economy,” in Chandra, S. (ed.) The Indian Ocean: Explorations in History, Commerce and Politics. New Delhi: Sage: 222253.Google Scholar