David Geggus

Sex Ratio, Age and Ethnicity in the Atlantic Slave Trade: data from French shipping and plantation records

This article examines the age and sex composition of the Atlantic slave trade in the belief it was of considerable significance in shaping black society in both Africa and the Americas. Focusing on the French slave trade, two main samples are analysed. One is composed of 177,000 slaves transported in French ships during the years 1714–92, which is taken from the Repertoire des expeditions negrieres of Jean Mettas and Serge Daget. The other, derived from nearly 400 estate inventories, consists of more than 13,300 Africans who lived on Saint Domingue plantations in the period 1721–97. The results are compared with existing knowledge of the demo-graphic composition of the Atlantic slave trade to show the range of variation that existed through time between different importing and exporting regions, and to shed light on the forces of supply and demand that determined the proportions of men, women and children who were sold as slaves across the ocean. Significant and consistent contrasts are found between different ethnic groups in Africa and different slaveholding societies in the New World, many of them thus far unnoticed in the scholarly literature.

British Opinion and the Emergence of Haiti, 1791–1805

The British public by the autumn of 1791 was well-familiar with the topic of West Indian slavery, perhaps even growing tired of it, when on 26 October rumours raced around London that there had been a huge and gory catastrophe in the Caribbean. The campaign to abolish the slave trade was already four years old and was reaching a new climax, after being set back in the spring by news of a brief rebellion on the island of Dominica.1 Now reports began to arrive from the French colony of St Domingue of a slave revolt far greater than anything the New World had ever known. The great northern plain of St Domingue, the West Indies’ wealthiest colony and Europe’s main source of both sugar and coffee, had been devastated. Over 100,000 slaves were in revolt, and with firebrands and machetes had taken a terrible revenge on their masters. Hundreds of plantations lay in ashes. Hundreds of whites had been slaughtered, sometimes in the most grisly of circumstances. As lurid tales were told and retold in the coffee shops and counting houses of the City, the price of sugar shot sky high and stocks fell immediately by 1 per cent.2

The naming of Haiti

When St. Domingue declared its independence it was renamed Haiti, an Amerindian name. Author explores what the founding fathers of Haitian independence might have known about the Amerindian past in the Caribbean and in South America. He also raises questions about ethnicity and identity in 19th-c. Haiti.

Sex Ratio and Ethnicity: a Reply to Paul E. Lovejoy

I feel I should make clear that the ethnicity data in my article were intended only to shed light on the question of sex ratio. They do not provide an accurate reflection of the ethnic make-up of the eighteenth-century French slave trade, nor even of the trade to Saint Domingue. For this reason, I would hesitate to compare them, as Professor Lovejoy does, to Patrick Mannings projections based on decennial samples of plantation papers. The relatively high proportion of Hausa, Nupe and Voltaic slaves that Lovejoy remarks on was caused by the preponderance of post-1780 sources in my sample.

Slave Rebellion During the Age of Revolution

Violent rebellion punctuated the history of African American slavery from its beginnings, but it was apparently never more prevalent than during the Age of Revolution. The Age of Revolution ended with two clear-cut cases, in Martinique and St. Croix, where slave rebellions made a definite contribution to the emancipation process. The rebellions were not, strictly speaking, causal factors since the decision to abolish slavery already had been taken and was the cause of the insurrections, but they did determine its timing. The mass invasion of the town of St. Pierre in May 1848 and the fighting it gave rise to in northern Martinique caused the governor to immediately declare slavery abolished. However, the Curacao rebellions cannot be included in the small group that hastened the end of slavery, for which any surviving participants had to wait more than 60 years. Keywords: African American slavery; Age of Revolution; Curacao rebellions; Martinique; slave rebellion; St. Croix

Book Reviews: Medical revolutionaries: the enslaved healers of eighteenth-century Saint Domingue.

The French colony of Saint Domingue and the slave revolution that transformed it into Haiti have attracted an upsurge of scholarly attention in recent years. Historians increasingly recognize Saint Domingue’s salience in the Atlantic world and claim for the Haitian revolution a role in the making of modernity. Karol Weaver’s compact and concisely written study takes an unusual approach to the topic by focusing on the colony’s medical practitioners. It includes brief chapters on colonial life, European medicine in Saint Domingue, sorcery, the impact of mesmerism, and three chapters on slaves as healers, herbalists, and veterinarians.