Tuesday, December 30, 2014

How Many Slaves Were Brought To America?

Monday's topic started me thinking about that question.   I thought the number would be in the millions.  We were taught that in high school, I believe.  Millions of slaves were brought to the United States from Africa in wooden ships.  Some of those millions died on the journey, but still, millions arrived here.  Yes, that was the history lesson.  Millions of Africans were brought to America as slaves.

Finding good information posed a challenge.  Finally I thought Henry Louis Gates, Jr. would be a good authority.  Here are his credentials.  Henry Louis Gates Jr. is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and founding director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University.

That works for me.  his research should be scholarly, and peer reviewed.  Here's what Henry Louis Gates, Jr. writes in a blog called The Root.:
The most comprehensive analysis of shipping records over the course of the slave trade is the Trans-Atlantic Salve Trade Database, edited by professors David Eltis and David Richardson. (While the editors are careful to say that all of their figures are estimates, I believe that they are the best estimates that we have, the proverbial "gold standard" in the field of the study of the slave trade.)
Between 1525 and 1866, in the entire history of the slave trade to the New World, according to the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database, 12.5 million Africans were shipped to the New World. 10.7 million survived the dreaded Middle Passage, disembarking in North America, the Caribbean and South America.
And how many of these 10.7 million Africans were shipped directly to North America? Only about 388,000. That's right: a tiny percentage.
In fact, the overwhelming percentage of the African slaves were shipped directly to the Caribbean and South America; Brazil received 4.86 million Africans alone! Some scholars estimate that another 60,000 to 70,000 Africans ended up in the United States after touching down in the Caribbean first, so that would bring the total to approximately 450,000 Africans who arrived in the United States over the course of the slave trade.
There's a solid number.  "Only" 450,000 Africans arrived in the United States over the course of the slave trade, not tens of millions of slaves as some of us may have been taught.

I emphasized the word only above because I want to be clear, one slave was one slave too many. Slavery was horrible then, and is horrible where it is practiced today.  I am not trying to minimize the evil of slavery.

In the comments section of Monday's topic someone mentioned Irish slaves.  That was also a horrible thing, although its history seems to have been given a back seat to African slavery.

From the book White Cargo: The Forgotten History of Britain's White Slaves in America:
They came as slaves; vast human cargo transported on tall British ships bound for the Americas. They were shipped by the hundreds of thousands and included men, women, and even the youngest of children.
Whenever they rebelled or even disobeyed an order, they were punished in the harshest ways. Slave owners would hang their human property by their hands and set their hands or feet on fire as one form of punishment. They were burned alive and had their heads placed on pikes in the marketplace as a warning to other captives.
And from The Centre for Research on Globalization comes this:
The Irish slave trade began when James II sold 30,000 Irish prisoners as slaves to the New World. His Proclamation of 1625 required Irish political prisoners be sent overseas and sold to English settlers in the West Indies. By the mid 1600s, the Irish were the main slaves sold to Antigua and Montserrat. At that time, 70% of the total population of Montserrat were Irish slaves.
Ireland quickly became the biggest source of human livestock for English merchants. The majority of the early slaves to the New World were actually white.
From 1641 to 1652, over 500,000 Irish were killed by the English and another 300,000 were sold as slaves. Ireland’s population fell from about 1,500,000 to 600,000 in one single decade. Families were ripped apart as the British did not allow Irish dads to take their wives and children with them across the Atlantic. This led to a helpless population of homeless women and children. Britain’s solution was to auction them off as well.
During the 1650s, over 100,000 Irish children between the ages of 10 and 14 were taken from their parents and sold as slaves in the West Indies, Virginia and New England. In this decade, 52,000 Irish (mostly women and children) were sold to Barbados and Virginia. Another 30,000 Irish men and women were also transported and sold to the highest bidder. In 1656, Cromwell ordered that 2000 Irish children be taken to Jamaica and sold as slaves to English settlers.
Many people today will avoid calling the Irish slaves what they truly were: Slaves. They’ll come up with terms like “Indentured Servants” to describe what occurred to the Irish. However, in most cases from the 17th and 18th centuries, Irish slaves were nothing more than human cattle.
As an example, the African slave trade was just beginning during this same period. It is well recorded that African slaves, not tainted with the stain of the hated Catholic theology and more expensive to purchase, were often treated far better than their Irish counterparts.
African slaves were very expensive during the late 1600s (50 Sterling). Irish slaves came cheap (no more than 5 Sterling). If a planter whipped or branded or beat an Irish slave to death, it was never a crime. A death was a monetary setback, but far cheaper than killing a more expensive African. The English masters quickly began breeding the Irish women for both their own personal pleasure and for greater profit. Children of slaves were themselves slaves, which increased the size of the master’s free workforce. Even if an Irish woman somehow obtained her freedom, her kids would remain slaves of her master. Thus, Irish moms, even with this new found emancipation, would seldom abandon their kids and would remain in servitude.
In time, the English thought of a better way to use these women (in many cases, girls as young as 12) to increase their market share: The settlers began to breed Irish women and girls with African men to produce slaves with a distinct complexion. These new “mulatto” slaves brought a higher price than Irish livestock and, likewise, enabled the settlers to save money rather than purchase new African slaves. This practice of interbreeding Irish females with African men went on for several decades and was so widespread that, in 1681, legislation was passed “forbidding the practice of mating Irish slave women to African slave men for the purpose of producing slaves for sale.” In short, it was stopped only because it interfered with the profits of a large slave transport company.
England continued to ship tens of thousands of Irish slaves for more than a century. Records state that, after the 1798 Irish Rebellion, thousands of Irish slaves were sold to both America and Australia. There were horrible abuses of both African and Irish captives. One British ship even dumped 1,302 slaves into the Atlantic Ocean so that the crew would have plenty of food to eat.
There is little question that the Irish experienced the horrors of slavery as much (if not more in the 17th Century) as the Africans did. There is, also, very little question that those brown, tanned faces you witness in your travels to the West Indies are very likely a combination of African and Irish ancestry. In 1839, Britain finally decided on it’s own to end it’s participation in Satan’s highway to hell and stopped transporting slaves. While their decision did not stop pirates from doing what they desired, the new law slowly concluded THIS chapter of nightmarish Irish misery.
But, if anyone, black or white, believes that slavery was only an African experience, then they’ve got it completely wrong.
None of the Irish victims ever made it back to their homeland to describe their ordeal. These are the lost slaves; the ones that time and biased history books conveniently forgot.
While not in the same numbers as slaves brought to the United States from Africa, Irish slaves still were  a significant number in the US.

Are you still with me?  Or has this topic droned on far too long and you've gone into skimming mode.  I'm not sure what to do here, because I've got another really good read on the subject of Irish slavery.

What to do, what to do?  I need to go think about this.

Time passes.

I'm back.  A shot of Jameson has cleared me mind.   I'm going to post a brief excerpt from the article, which is from the Daily Kos, of all places, and is very interesting, and then I'll post a link to the entire thing and you can read (or not read) it as you wish.
“...the African slave trade was just beginning during this same period,” writes Martin. “It is well recorded that African slaves, not tainted with the stain of the hated Catholic theology and more expensive to purchase, were often treated far better than their Irish counterparts.”
Colonel William Brayne wrote to English authorities in 1656 urging the importation of Negro slaves on the grounds that, "as the planters would have to pay much more for them, they would have an interest in preserving their lives, which was wanting in the case of (Irish)...." many of whom, he charged, were killed by overwork and cruel treatment. African Negroes cost generally about 20 to 50 pounds Sterling, compared to 900 pounds of cotton (about 5 pounds Sterling) for an Irish. They were also more durable in the hot climate, and caused fewer problems. The biggest bonus with the Africans though, was they were NOT Catholic, and any heathen pagan was better than an Irish Papist.
You can read the entire article here.

Random thought - I don't think anyone ever wrote a musical about Irish slavery.

34 comments:

Michael Haz said...

The topic is too long. I apologize for doing that.

Lydia said...

What the Irish endured was indentured servitude or forced labor, not chattel slavery, which is what Africans suffered. Chattel slavery was perpetual and hereditary, the former servitude not so. Conflating the two blurs the fact that Africans were considered nothing more than property.

Mitch H. said...

For one thing, whites (slave, indentured, overseer or owner) on the island colonies died like flies, and thus few of the Irish slaves survived to produce "white" offspring, aside from the noted mulattoes, who usually possessed some of the genetic quantities which helped preserve the African slave populations to a certain extent. Everybody died horribly in the fever seasons, but the black slaves had a certain minor evolutionary advantage which explains the complexion of the modern-day inhabitants of most of the Antilles.

This terrible disease toll was a big part of why absentee European landlords ended up owning most of the sugar islands, and ran them with disposable overseers, who if they lived, made their fortunes and got out. Why did anyone go to these pestilential isles of death and misery? Because sugar was the mercantile lifeblood of empire. At the end of the Seven Years' War, France gave up all their holdings on the continent and India, in exchange for the return of their Caribbean sugar colonies. Canada was a drain on the French royal fisc - Martinique and Guadeloupe, and St. Lucia made money for the crown hand over fist.

Unknown said...

Continue please. Very interesting stuff.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

What the Irish endured was indentured servitude or forced labor, not chattel slavery,

Indentured servitude that never ended except with the death of the slave.

Trying to split hairs are we? A distinction without meaning.

Did you even READ the article that Haz posts?

. Britain’s solution was to auction them off as well. During the 1650s, over 100,000 Irish children between the ages of 10 and 14 were taken from their parents and sold as slaves in the West Indies, Virginia and New England. In this decade, 52,000 Irish (mostly women and children) were sold to Barbados and Virginia. Another 30,000 Irish men and women were also transported and sold to the highest bidder. In 1656, Cromwell ordered that 2000 Irish children be taken to Jamaica and sold as slaves to English settlers. Many people today will avoid calling the Irish slaves what they truly were: Slaves. They’ll come up with terms like “Indentured Servants” to describe what occurred to the Irish.

Amartel said...

Actual facts: Fascinating! And refreshing after lifetime of learning exaggerations. Reality is sufficiently horrifying and shameful without piling on for dramatic effect while scrambling to bogart the moral high ground. Agree with Lydia's comment that the Irish servitude was not slavery.

Aridog said...

Comparison

ricpic said...

Homo Lupus Homini

Other than that I don't know what conclusion can be drawn from this piece of history.

The error is drawing the conclusion that only Whites or the English (or Hutus if you're a Tutsi) can be Lupus.

ricpic said...

Oops, I got it wrong.

Should be: Homo Homini Lupus

See what happens when you try to be deep?

AllenS said...

One too many.

Amartel said...

If you want an example of white slavery look to the Barbary pirates' slave trade or the Ottoman slave trade from the Black Sea region.

The majority of slaves traded across the Mediterranean region were predominantly of European origin from the 7th to 15th centuries. The Barbary pirates continued to capture slaves from Europe (1-1.25 million) from the 16th to 18th centuries

Paddy O said...

Long topic but important one.

I think this emphasizes how the key issue really isn't slavery. If it were just slavery, there are all sorts of examples.

People are horrible to each other.

The present conversations that emphasize slavery are really about Jim Crow laws, which debilitated a recovery in the way the Irish experienced.

In a lot of ways, the Jim Crow laws were like the Spazi of East Germany, who specialized in crushing people through indirect means and dispirited them.

The Irish fought back and gained ground, meanwhile skin color continued, up to the 1960s, to be an institutionalized evil.

Stuff like this pushes back against the "white privilege" idea that gets floated about, as if being white was somehow a guarantee of privilege, something European history just doesn't at all allow. So, holding onto that requires a very narrow perspective of history and experiences.

Unknown said...

ot: Listening to NBC nightly news while I bake pumpkin muffins.

They continue to ramble on about climate change. Before that, the segment about police shootings lacked any mention of DeBlasio
then the folks at NBC clearly stated that the protests were NOT to blame for police shootings and that is was because of "anti-government" sentiment.

back to the topic at hand.

chickelit said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
chickelit said...

I'm old even to remember the Jim Crough laws which pigeon-holed the Irish, sequestering the men and women in their own ethnic pubs, encouraged them to drink their own swarthy stouts and their children to eat Lucky Charms. They were fed myths about leprechauns and pots of gold and mostly voted democratic.

WASPs are the historical evildoers in American history; the genus has been reduced by some: WASP women and WASP gays have been exempted; nowadays people only demonize WASPSM (White Anglo Saxon Protestant Straight Males). Catholics were never in the most hated and despised club thank you very much.

chickelit said...

In a lot of ways, the Jim Crow laws were like the Spazi of East Germany,

Surely you meant Stasi?

chickelit said...

Spätzle is German comfort food.

chickelit said...

I note for example that after hundreds of years of oppressive jurisprudence, White Anglo Saxon Protestant Straight Males have been booted from SCOTUS. Surely that's a reason for our present national unity and harmony.

Trooper York said...

Does this mean I can get reparations?

chickelit said...

Trooper York said...
Does this mean I can get reparations?

Yes, but you'll have to kiss Sharton's ring first and wait your turn.

XRay said...

Good post Haz.

Well, I have known several of the black/irish type, which has nothing to do with this conversation, just saying.

Those Brits could be bastards, that's for sure.

edutcher said...

A couple of interesting points here.

First, Brazil took about half that came over because they worked just about all the slaves to death that were imported that year and they needed to replace the labor force every year. It was so bad, any wall in the planter's house that didn't have a window had a mirror, so the owners would have time to see the slaves coming for them.

Second, bonded indenture was how most people paid their passage. On the dock in America, they would seek out a landowner who was willing to go their debt to the ship's captain.

Michael Haz said...

The topic is too long. I apologize for doing that.

Never apologize, mister, it's a sign of weakness. Besides, everything you said was pertinent.

Lydia said...

What the Irish endured was indentured servitude or forced labor, not chattel slavery. Chattel slavery was perpetual and hereditary, the former servitude not so.

Read the old Sabatini novel, "Captain Blood".

And, if an indentured servant died, his family inherited the debt, so...

Dust Bunny Queen said...

What the Irish endured was indentured servitude or forced labor, not chattel slavery,

Indentured servitude that never ended except with the death of the slave.


No, but many of the owners discovered that a broken teacup that was purchased for a shilling in England was now worth 100 pounds in the Colonies and thus allowed them to extend the contract for a few years.

Most indentured servants did manage to eventually work off their debt, but it was a system made to be gamed.

Tank said...

@Haz

Not too long.

Good post.

Aridog said...

Chickelit said ...

Catholics were never in the most hated and despised club thank you very much.

You've apparently spent little time around Ku Klux Klan folk. My inadvertent exposure was because the state's Grand Wizard or whatever they are called lived directly across the country road from the pastures we kept our horses in...and he later changed it to "The Mountain Church" affiliated with the Aryan Brotherhood and sundry Nazi types. Many lovely weekend cross burnings and such.

chickelit said...

You've apparently spent little time around Ku Klux Klan folk.

This is true.

But what I really meant was that because they spent time in oppression, they don't really qualify (by the Left's current standards) as to whom to blame. And I did mean what I said about SCOTUS and I find it highly ironic.

Evi L. Bloggerlady said...

You should ask for reparations!

Evi L. Bloggerlady said...

At least they don't eat you.

Well except for that freaky dude in Australia.

ndspinelli said...

As I paged down I thought for sure this was a Chip Ahoy post.

Aridog said...

Chickelit...my comment was somewhat tongue in cheek. However, no doubt, Catholics are not qualified for redemption per the left...of course 90% of the left isn't either...because, wait for it....White Privilege!

William said...

Except for a few aristocrats and some of the higher clergy, life sucked for just about everyone in the 17th century. The Russian and German serfs of that era were also treated with great cruelty. The English poor (i.e. a just about everyone there) did better than others, but starvation was always a possibility for them......At what point can we say that the statute of limitations has run out on past crimes against humanity.

William said...

Slavery looks like one of those crimes like incest or cannibalism that looks like it should be held as a self evident evil, but the undeniable fact is that it took humanity quite a long time to catch onto the fact that it was a bad thing. There was a place for slaves in both Plato's Republic and Thomas More's Utopia. Thomas Aquinas felt that slaves could be taken in a just war. Maimonides and Mohammed both talked about the need to treat slaves mercifully, but they nowhere raised any objections to the institution of slavery........I recently read a biography of Jefferson. He, at times, found noble reasons to write against slavery, but, mostly, found economic reasons to keep it a going concern n his estates.......Washington presented what, in time, has come to be the most convincing argument against slavery. If you want to extract a day's work out of a laborer, involuntary servitude is not the way to go. Washington had found that his plantations were supporting the slave populations, rather than the other way around.....It wasn't religion or the enlightened thought that subverted slavery, but capitalism and, paradoxically, the wish to maximize the gain from human labor.

bagoh20 said...

"How Many Slaves Were Brought To America?"

How many were sold by Africans?

How many of their descendants returned when they had the chance?

How many of those descendants would prefer that slaves were never brought here if they would now be in Africa themselves as a result?

All horrible and racist points to even bring up for sure, but personally, I'm glad my ancestors were treated badly enough to leave where they were, because that's how I came to be an American. Their misfortunes gave me a wonderful, priceless gift. If they had been forced to come, and then treated badly, I would feel bad for them, but not myself. I would simply be grateful, and be sure not to waste the good fortune they paid for.

Aridog said...

William said ...

At what point can we say that the statute of limitations has run out on past crimes against humanity?

Right about now would be good.

ken in tx said...

I was once listening to a TV newscast in which the Jamaican PM was talking. He had an obvious Irish accent. I went to look at the screen, and he was black.

In the Air Force I met the only blue-eyed black I had ever met. He was from Jamaica.