thinkingthroughsources

Source 14.6: Data: Patterns of the Slave Trade

Numbers, or quantitative data, may not convey the same immediacy or emotional impact that images or first-person accounts often carry. But they have a role in historians’ efforts to understand the slave trade. Here are two tables and an aggregate statistic that provide information on various aspects of the slave trade. They are derived from the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database (slavevoyages.org), a huge collection of searchable information culled from almost 35,000 individual slave voyages.

Questions to consider as you examine the sources:

What kind of understandings can be obtained from data such as this that are not available from the other sources in this feature? What are the limitations of this information?
In what ways did the slave trade change over time, according to this data? How might you account for these changes?
What might you find surprising in this data?

Source 14.6A

Voyages and Slave Rebellion: An Aggregate Statistic

Overall percentage of voyages (1501–1866) that experienced a major slave rebellion:

10 percent

Source 14.6B

Changing Patterns of the Slave Trade

Century	Total Taken from Africa	Total Landed at Destination	% Died During Middle Passage	Avg. Days in Middle Passage	Avg. % Slaves = Children	Avg. % Slaves = Male
1501–1600	227,506	199,285	12.0	—	0	58
1601–1700	1,875,631	1,522,677	23.3	76.1	11.6	58.4
1701–1800	6,494,619	5,609,869	11.9	70	18.4	64.2
1801–1866	3,873,580	3,370,825	10.3	45.9	29.4	67.6
Total or Average	12,521,336 (Total)	10,702,656 (Total)	11.9 (Avg.)	60 (Avg.)	20.9 (Avg.)	64.7 (Avg.)

Source: Voyages Database. 2009. Voyages: The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database. http://www.slavevoyages.org (accessed June 8, 2015).

Source 14.6C

Percentage of Slave Arrivals by Destination

Century	Europe	North America	Caribbean	Spanish American Mainland	Brazil	Africa	Other
1501–1600	1.1	—	8	66.7	1.9	0.3	22
1601–1700	0.6	1.5	56.4	22.7	17	0.1	1.6
1701–1800	0.1	5.2	64.4	1.2	29	0.1	0.1
1801–1866	—	2.0	31.9	0.9	60	4.8	0
Average of Total	0.1	3.8	51.9	3.3	38.9	1.8	0.3

Source: Voyages Database. 2009. Voyages: The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database. http://www.slavevoyages.org (accessed June 8, 2015).