¹ Curtin, Philip C., The Atlantic Slave Trade: A Census (Madison, Wisc., 1969), pp. 276–77.Google Scholar

² Klein, Herbert S., The Middle Passage: Comparative Studies in the Atlantic Slave Trade (Princeton, 1969), p. 174.Google Scholar

³ Stein, Robert L., The French Slave Trade in the Eighteenth Century: An Old Regime Business (Madison, Wisc., 1979), p. 99.Google ScholarEltis, David, “The Direction and Fluctuation of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, 1821–1843: A Revision of the 1845 Parliamentary Paper,” in Gemery, H. A. and Hogendorn, J. S., eds., The Uncommon Market (New York, 1979), pp. 294–95.Google ScholarRawley, James A., The Transatlantic Slave Trade (New York, 1981), p. 288.Google Scholar

⁴ Riley, James C., “Mortality on Long-Distance Voyages in the Eighteenth Century,” this JOURNAL, 41 (09 1981), p. 653.Google ScholarPubMed

⁵ Postma, Johannes, “Mortality in the Dutch Slave Trade, 1675–1795” in The Uncommon Market, p. 253.Google Scholar

⁶ Klein, The Middle Passage, pp. 90–91.Google Scholar

⁷ Fogel, Robert W., Engerman, Stanley L. et al. , “The Economics of Mortality in North America, 1659–1910: A Description of a Research Project,” Historical Methods, 11 (Spring 1978), p. 77.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

⁸ Cited in Curtin, Atlantic Slave Trade, p. 277.Google Scholar

⁹ p. 77.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Anstey, Roger, The Atlantic Slave Trade and British Abolition, 1760–1810 (Atlantic Highlands, N.J., 1975), p. 415.CrossRefGoogle ScholarKlein, The Middle Passage, p. 162.Google Scholar

¹¹ Curtin, Atlantic Slave Trade, p. 277.Google Scholar

¹² Stein, Robert L., “Mortality in the Eighteenth-Century French Slave Trade,” Journal of African History, 21 (1980), pp. 35–41.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMedKlein, Herbert S. and Engerman, Stanley L., “A Note on Mortality in the French Slave Trade in the Eighteenth Century,” in The Uncommon Market, pp. 261–72.Google Scholar

¹³ Postma, “Mortality”, Table 9.8, p. 255.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Coughtry, Jay, The Notorious Triangle: Rhode Island and the African Slave Trade, 1700–1807, (Philadelphia, 1981).Google Scholar

¹⁵ Klein, The Middle Passage, pp.55, 84. Curtin, Atlantic Slave Trade, p. 280. Eltis, “Direction and Fluctuation,” p. 292.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Eltis, “Direction and Fluctuation”, pp. 291–96. Eltis at least partially discounts the importance of this downward bias.Google Scholar

¹⁷ See Klein, The Middle Passage. The data set Curtin developed from the Parliamentary Papers stretches to 1843 but most of the ships for which mortality information is available arrived before 1831.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Eltis, David, “Mortality in the Nineteenth-Century Slave Trade”, this JOURNAL, 44 (06 1984), pp. 301–8.Google Scholar

¹⁹ The equation is not as simple and direct as it seems. The mortality rate obtained by dividing loss in transit by length of voyage is not exactly the mortality rate that would be preferred. A great deal of confusion exists in exactly how to calculate mortality rates from ship-specific or sample-specific data. See Raymond L. Cohn, “Methods of Calculating Slave Mortality and Loss-in-Transit Rates” (unpublished manuscript) for a discussion of the various problems involved in calculating these rates. Alternatively, voyage length could be given in days rather than months. The use of days for voyage length would, however, lead to mortality rates being given in deaths per day. Since daily mortality rates are fairly small, it is difficult to appreciate differences in size; hence, monthly rates are presented in the paper. No loss of accuracy occurs, of course, from the use of monthly rather than daily mortality rates.Google Scholar

²⁰ Curtin, Atlantic Slave Trade, p. 283.Google Scholar

²¹ Eltis, “Direction and Fluctuation,” pp. 293–94.Google Scholar

²² Klein, The Middle Passage, p. 174. Rawley, Transatlantic Slave Trade, p. 256, also mentions copper sheathing.Google Scholar

²³ Klein, The Middle Passage, pp. 86, 198;Google ScholarCohn, Raymond L. and Jensen, Richard A., “Comment and Controversy: Mortality in the Atlantic Slave Trade: Statistical Evidence on Causality,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 43 (Autumn 1982), pp. 317–29,Google Scholar and “The Determinants of Slave Mortality Rates on the Middle Passage,” Explorations in Economic History, 19 (07 1982), pp. 269–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Eltis, “Mortality,” has found no significant relationship between mortality rates and voyage length for particular routes. The effect of famines, epidemics, and other disasters is assessed in a number of these studies, especially in Eltis.

²⁴ It should be noted that even these “low” rates were still substantially above those experienced in Western Europe or on the Europe-to-America immigrant trade. See Cohn, Raymond L., “Mortality on Immigrant Ships to New York, 1836–1853,” this JOURNAL, 44 (06 1984), pp. 289–300.Google Scholar

²⁵ Anstey, Atlantic Slave Trade, pp. 28–31.Google Scholar

²⁶ Klein, The Middle Passage, pp. 147, 181.Google Scholar

²⁷ The Portuguese trade in the nineteenth century was also subject to some limitations on the number of slaves that could be carried. However, these limits were imposed by the British and apparently were not enforced very strongly. See Eltis, “Direction and Fluctuation,” pp. 291–96.Google Scholar

²⁸ Postma, “Mortality”, Table 9.8, p. 255.Google Scholar

²⁹ Rawley, Transatlantic Slave Trade, pp. 23–29.Google Scholar

³⁰ The next two paragraphs are based on Harris, J. R., “Copper and Shipping in the Eighteenth Century,” Economic History Review, 19 (12 1966), pp. 550–68;CrossRefGoogle ScholarRees, Gareth, “Copper Sheathing: An Example of Technological Diffusion in the English Merchant Fleet”, Journal of Transport History, I (09 1971), pp. 85–94;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Harris, J. R., The Copper King (Liverpool, 1964), pp. 45–50.Google Scholar

³¹ Harris, The Copper King, p. 50.Google Scholar

³² The rest of this paragraph is based on Rawley, Transatlantic Slave Trade, pp. 290–94; and Coughtry, Notorious Triangle, pp. 145–50.Google Scholar

³³ Stein, French Slave Trade, pp. 145–50.Google Scholar

³⁴ Klein, Middle Passage, p. 202.Google Scholar

³⁵ Coughtry, Notorious Triangle, p. 149.Google Scholar

³⁶ Rawley, Transatlantic Slave Trade, p. 292. (Emphasis is added.)Google Scholar