M&D Deep Duck: Slave Trade - numbers

[Becky Lindroos]

Very true about slavery where it was for mass industrial purposes only - crops, deforestation, mining, etc. Just bring those slaves in and work them to death - the death rate will certainly be higher - the living conditions more horrific. Slaves were being deliberately bred in the US - for market demand.  That’s part of what I was referring to.  That’s what Johanna (M&D) had in mind in her own little way.  

Becky 
> On Feb 3, 2015, at 1:13 PM, Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 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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