M&D Deep Duck: Slave Trade - numbers

[Monte Davis]

The handiest compilation I've seen online for the trans-Atlantic slave
trade is the interactive tables at

http://www.slavevoyages.org/tast/assessment/estimates.faces

In broadest strokes, for the whole tabulated span 1501-1866:

12.5 million slaves embarked, 10.7 million disembarked. So ~14% died on the
voyage (inherent vice, y'know)

Ranked destinations:

Brazil: 4.8 million
Caribbean/West Indies: 3.9 million
Spanish Americas: 1.3 million
North America: 390,000

(That last surprises many people: it wasn't all or even mostly about us,
not that that's anything to preen about)

Slaves to Brazil peaked in 1800-1850, to Caribbean and North America in
1750-1800. Spanish America had an early peak in 1600-1650 and another in
1800-1850

As I've noted here before, other sources concur that in total, there were
roughly two slaves for every European settler. Obviously the ratio varied
wildly from place to place -- but viewed from Mars, the story is less

"Europeans settle New World, don't miss the tragic appendix about slavery"

than

"Europeans, using twice their own number of expendable prisoners, spend
~300 years getting a firm enough beachhead that other Europeans can really
start pouring in in the early 19th century."

Becky, re your "American slavery was probably the most vicious and inhumane
form of slavery the world has ever known":

Not so at the brute quantitative level of "how many died?" and "how well
did the slave population reproduce itself and grow?" In the Caribbean death
rates were much higher: disease, climate, sugar cultivation even tougher
than cotton, tobacco or indigo) Slave population growth was lower or
negative, rebellions and brutal repression much more common. And Brazil was
no picnic, although ISTR it was there that the largest proportion of any
New World slave population was able to slip into the forest as maroons,
and/or blend with indigenes.

But at the more refined level of "How hard was it for a slave to become
free?"... or "How many knots did the law twist itself into to make slaves
pure chattel rather than Nth-class citizens?"... or "How wide was the gap
between public rhetoric about freedom and the actual slave society?"...or
"How much pseudo-science was ginned up to justify slavery?" ...the US
version was certainly right up (down) there.
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