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Mortality and voyages of

liberated Africans to the
West Indies, 1841–1867
a
Ralph Shlomowitz
a
Reader in Economic History , The
Flinders University of S. Australia ,
Bedford Park, 5042, S. Australia
Published online: 13 Jun 2008.

To cite this article: Ralph Shlomowitz (1990) Mortality and voyages

of liberated Africans to the West Indies, 1841–1867, Slavery &
Abolition: A Journal of Slave and Post-Slave Studies, 11:1, 30-41, DOI:
10.1080/01440399008574998

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 Mortality and Voyages of Liberated
Africans to the West Indies, 1841-1867

Ralph Shlomowitz*

During the past two decades there has been a concerted effort by scholars
to quantify systematically the mortality associated with ocean voyages
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during the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. The initial

focus of this research effort, prompted by the seminal contributions of
Philip D. Curtin, was the mortality associated with the transatlantic
slave trade.1 More recently, however, the focus has shifted to a wide
variety of non-slave voyages, such as the voyages of convicts, indentured
labourers, and free immigrants.2
In the initial studies, the mortality statistic used to summarise the
mortality associated with ocean voyages was the 'voyage-loss rate'
- the number of voyage deaths as a percentage of the number of
persons embarked. This mortality statistic however, is inappropriate for
comparative analysis, as the length of the voyage - and, thus, the length
of time shipborne populations were at risk of death - usually differed
among sailing voyages on different routes, and also among sailing
voyages on the same route. For comparative purposes, therefore, it is
necessary to use a mortality statistic which is calculated over a constant
period of time. The death rate per annum is not thought appropriate for
this purpose as it may be taken to imply that the high level of mortality
suffered by shipborne populations was sustained for 12 months when
most voyages were completed in only a few weeks or months. Rather,
recent studies have used the '30-day' month as the constant period of
time over which shipborne death rates are presented.
The mortality statistic used then in recent studies is the death rate
per 1,000 per month. It is calculated by dividing the number of voyage
deaths by the shipborne population at risk, and the resulting quotient is
divided by the average voyage length denoted in '30-day' months, and
then expressed as a rate per 1,000. The size of the shipborne population
at risk is approximated by the number of passengers who embarked plus
half the number of births on the voyage, minus half the number of deaths
on the voyage. This procedure is based on the assumption that births and
deaths occurred evenly over the voyage so that those who were born on
the voyage and those who died on the voyage would have been exposed
*Reader in Economic History, the Flinders University of S. Australia, Bedford
Park, S. Australia 5042.
 MORTALITY AND VOYAGES OF LIBERATED AFRICANS 31

to risk of death, on average, for half the length of the voyage.

As children - particularly infants - were at much greater risk of
death than young adults, comparing crude death rates of shipborne
populations which have very different age distributions can be most
misleading. Accordingly, in comparative analysis it is important to
use either age-specific death rates or at least separate death rates for
three age classes: infants (defined as in their first year of life), children
(from their first birthday to usually between ten and 14), and adults.
For non-slave voyages, data are usually available to calculate separate
death rates for these three age classes. For slave voyages it is usually
only possible to calculate crude death rates, but for some voyages it is
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possible to calculate separate death rates for two age classes: children
(inclusive of infants) and adults.
The results of two decades of research on the extent of mortality
associated with ocean voyages are gathered together in Tables 1 and
2. Four main conclusions can be drawn: First, the death rates on slave
voyages (and on convict voyages to North America during the early
eighteenth century) were much higher than on other ocean voyages.
Second, whereas the death rate on non-slave voyages declined markedly
during the nineteenth century, the death rate on slave voyages did not
decline. Third, infants and children were at much greater risk of death
than adults both on land and at sea.3 Fourth, people were at much
greater risk of death at sea than on land. The first shipborne population
for which death rates were roughly the same at sea as on land was
government-assisted European migrants to Australia - but then only
for adults, and only from the mid-1850s. Infant and child death rates
for this population persisted at much higher rates at sea than on land for
the remainder of the nineteenth century.
Shipborne populations were at such great risk because if an infectious
disease was brought aboard at the time of embarkation, it could quickly
sweep through the passengers and crew as it would have been difficult to
isolate sick persons, especially steerage class passengers, in the narrow
confines of the vessel. Until the late nineteenth century, moreover, the
germ theory of disease was not widely or strongly held, so that the
isolation of sick passengers was seldom practised.
The decline in death rates on non-slave voyages during the nineteenth
century was due to improved administrative procedures relating to the
screening out of sick passengers and preventing their embarkation,
inoculating or vaccinating passengers against smallpox, providing a
nutritious diet, taking greater care that contaminated food and water
were not brought aboard the vessel at the time of embarkation or at
ports of call en route, and effecting an improved sanitation regime
on the voyage. These improvements in organization were the result
of a learning process, whereby governments used their experience in
 32 SLAVERY AND ABOLITION
TABLE 1
COMPARATIVE DEATH RATES ON OCEAN VOYAGES, 1680-1917

Ages of Passengers and Number of Average Death Rate

Nature of Voyage Period Voyages Voyage per 1,000
Length (days) per Month •
All Ages Combined:
Slaves to Americasa-b 1680-1807 728 66.5 50.9
1811-1863 741 n/a 65.3
Indians to West Indies,
Natal, Mauritius, and Fijic 1850-1873 382 88 19.9
1873-1917 876 65 7.1
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Adults
Dutch to Bataviad 1620-1780 3,914 218 14.5
Convicts to North Americae-f 1719-1736 38 c.60 56.5
1768-1775 12 c.60 12.5
Convicts to Australia^ 1788-1814 68 174 11.3
1815-1868 693 122 2.4
Immigrants to Philadelphia11 1727-1805 14 c.68 15.0
Immigrants to New York' 1836-1853 118 c.45 4.5
Immigrants to Australia' 1838-1853 364 109 2.4
1854-1892 1,036 92 1.0
Indians to Fijik 1879-1916 87 53 4.0
Pacific Islanders to Fiji1 1882-1911 112 117 3.6
Pacific Islanders to Queensland1 1873-1894 558 111 3.0
Children
Immigrants to New York' 1836-1853 118 c.45 13.7
Immigrants to Australia' 1838-1853 89 109 18.2
1854-1892 628 92 7.9
Indians to Fijik 1879-1916 87 53 17.8
Infants
Immigrants to New York' 1836-1853 118 c.45 97.7
Immigrants to Australia' 1838-1853 89 109 66.1
k
1854-1892 627 92 40.1
Indians to Fiji 1879-1916 87 53 54.7

Sources: ' Cohn, 'Deaths of Slaves', 689.

b
Eltis, 'Mortality and Voyage Length', 303.
c
Shlomowitz and McDonald, 'Mortality of Indian Labour'.
d
Bruijn, Gaastra, and Schoffer, Dutch-Asiatic Shipping, derived from
data on pp.67,72,163.
e
Ekirch, Bound for America, 104-5.
f
Morgan, "The Organization of the Convict Trade', 213.
8 McDonald and Shlomowitz, 'Mortality on Convict Voyages'.
Grubb, 'Morbidity and Mortality'.
Cohn, "The Determinants of Individual Immigrant Mortality', 376.
McDonald and Shlomowitz, 'Mortality on Immigrant Voyages'.
Shlomowitz, 'Infant Mortality', 298.
Shlomowitz, 'Mortality and the Pacific Labour Trade', 41-2, 47, 49.
Note: The Dutch voyages were inclusive of a few children. For European immigrant
voyages to New York and to Australia, infants were defined as under one year,
and children from their first birthday; for Indian voyages, infants were defined as
under two years, and children from their second birthday.
 MORTALITY AND VOYAGES OF LIBERATED AFRICANS 33

TABLE 2
ADULT AND CHILD MORTALITY ON SLAVE VOYAGES TO
JAMAICA, 1791-1798

Demographic Information Adults Children All Ages

Number Embarked 46,399 3,485 49,884

Death Rate per 1,000 per Month 28 91 32
Average Voyage Length: 61 days

Source: Klein, The Middle Passage, derived from data from 149 ships on the numbers
of men, women, boys, and girls embarked (p.149), data from 187 ships on the
average voyage length (p.157), and data on average voyage-loss rates for men,
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women, boys, and girls (pp.161-2).

transporting troops, convicts, and immigrants to minimize the mortality

of shipborne populations. Although the disease environment on board
these vessels was substantially altered by these reforms, the presence
of undetected infectious disease at embarkation remained the most
important underlying cause of mortality at sea, particularly if the depots
at the ports of embarkation were beset with disease.
The explanation for the extraordinarily high mortality on slave voyages
is less well understood. Two main hypotheses have been put forward. The
first hypothesis places emphasis on the harsh treatment and poor material
conditions of life of slaves from the time of their enslavement. They
also succumbed, it is argued, to the debilitating effects of the process
of enslavement, of the overland journey to the coast, of their stay in
crowded and unsanitary barracoons while awaiting trans-shipment, and
of the voyage to the Americas in similarly crowded and unsanitary
conditions. Moreover, slaves were transferred in highly abnormal and
unfamiliar environmental circumstances: they were crowded together in
an unfamiliar way (so that, for example, the hygienic practices associated
with ordinary rural living conditions were no longer appropriate), and
they were often given unfamiliar food. These unfamiliar circumstances
contributed to their impaired nutritional status, stress, and low morale
which made them particularly susceptible to a host of diseases.
The second hypothesis, in contrast, places emphasis on the slaves' lack
of immunity to many diseases due to relative isolation. Slaves moved
to new epidemiological environments, at first within Africa itself, and
then on the voyage to the Americas, and the congregating together of
slaves from a variety of disease environments meant that there was a
continual mixing of susceptibles with the infected. The implication of
this immunological hypothesis is that even if slaves were treated much
more humanely, they would have still died in large numbers due to their
exposure to new diseases to which they lacked immunity, and to the ease
with which these diseases could spread due to the aggregation of slaves
at points of trans-shipment and on voyages to the Americas.4
 34 SLAVERY AND ABOLITION

Many types of evidence have lent support to this immunological

hypoth esis. Although at first sight these types of evidence appear
compelling, it is the burden of this article to show that they are not
conclusive. One type of evidence is the marked variability of average
voyage death rates from different African ports of departure. This
variability in death rates cannot be explained by a variability in how
slaves were treated; rather, it is argued that some African regions were
more epidemiologically hostile than others.5 Yet as the average slave
voyage death rate from each African port of departure was much higher
than the average death rate on-non slave voyages, it is not possible to
discriminate between the 'treatment' and 'immunological' hypotheses in
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explaining the still substantial differential between the lowest average

slave voyage death rate from an African port of departure and the
average death rate on non-slave voyages.
A second type of evidence relies on the results of statistical tests
of association, using regression techniques, relating death rates on
individual voyages to a measure of crowding: the slave-per-ton ratio.
These statistical tests have failed to yield a systematic relationship
between mortality and crowding, suggesting that mortality may not
have been related to how the slaves were treated - at least, in regard to
this aspect of their treatment.6 It has been acknowledged, however, that
because the slave-per-ton ratio on the incredibly crowded slave vessels
was usually a figure over two while the ratio on non-slave vessels was
invariably under a half, it is not possible to extrapolate the statistical
relation found for slave vessels to all passenger vessels. It follows that it is
not possible to discriminate between the 'treatment' and 'immunological'
hypotheses using this statistical test.
A third type of evidence compares the death rates suffered by Africans
in the transatlantic slave trade with the death rate suffered by similar sea-
borne groups who were subject to less severe mistreatment. European
crews on slave vessels is one such group that has commanded attention,
and it has been found that their death rates were comparable to those
suffered in the transatlantic slave trade.7 The high death rates suffered by
European crews on slave vessels can be explained by the immunological
hypothesis: the main killers were malaria and yellow fever, diseases
to which Europeans had not acquired immunity. The main killer of
Africans in the slave trade, however, was dysentery, and so there
appears to have been little interaction between slave and crew health.
Accordingly, it is not possible use information on European crew deaths
to discriminate between the 'treatment' and 'immunological' hypotheses
in explaining slave deaths.8
The mortality suffered by the so-called 'liberated Africans' has also
commanded attention in this attempt to discriminate between the
treatment and immunological hypotheses. Liberated Africans were
 MORTALITY AND VOYAGES OF LIBERATED AFRICANS 35

ex-slaves who had been captured by the Royal Navy as part of Britain's
anti-slavery campaign, and escorted to Sierra Leone, St Helena, Rio de
Janeiro, Cape of Good Hope, and other places where British Admiralty
and International Mixed Commission courts met. After spending some
weeks or months in reception depots in order to recover from their
ordeal, some 36,000 liberated Africans were trans-shipped between 1841
and 1867 to the West Indies as indentured servants, while others were
resettled in Africa.9
Johnson Asiegbu and Monica Schuler have pioneered the quantitative
study of the mortality associated with the voyages of liberated Africans
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to the West Indies by assembling data relating to important sub-sets of

the voyages, from which voyage-loss rates can be calculated. Asiegbu has
provided quantitative evidence relating to 8,681 liberated Africans on 34
voyages to the West Indies from 1847 to 1849, while Schuler has provided
quantitative evidence relating to 6,820 liberated Africans on 37 voyages
to Jamaica from 1842 to 1867.10
This article extends the evidential base on the voyages of liberated
Africans, by using the quantitative evidence contained in the various
General Reports of the Colonial Land and Emigration Commissioners
(hereinafter, General Reports) published in British Parliamentary Papers
(BPP). This source provides quantitative evidence relating to 20,817
liberated Africans on 108 voyages to the West Indies from 1848 to 1865,
and separate quantitative evidence relating to 10,854 adult and 3,006
child liberated Africans on 61 voyages from 1848 to 1851. Furthermore,
this source provides information on the length of these voyages, so that
death rates per 1,000 per month can be calculated, which make for more
effective comparisons with other shipborne populations.11
The General Reports do not provide systematic evidence on the
voyages of liberated Africans to the West Indies between 1841 and
1847. There is only fragmentary evidence on the mortality associated
with these voyages, and information on their voyage length does not
appear to be available.
On the basis of this fragmentary evidence, it appears that voyage
mortality of liberated Africans was initially very low in comparison
with the mortality on slave voyages. On 14 transports departing from
Sierra Leone between 1843 and 1845, there were only 11 deaths on the
voyage or in quarantine relative to 1,519 passengers embarked, and on
eight voyages from St Helena in 1846 and 1847, there were only 20
voyage deaths relative to 1,399 passengers embarked: voyage-loss rates
of 0.7 per cent and 1.4 per cent, respectively.12 The mortality associated
with these voyages was not, however, typical of all the voyages in this
initial period, as in the three voyages of the government steamer, HMS
Growler, in 1847-8, there were 247 voyage deaths relative to 1,362
passengers embarked, a voyage-loss rate of 18.1 per cent.13
 36 SLAVERY AND ABOLITION

This fragmentary evidence, accordingly, does not make it possible to

generalise on the mortality suffered by liberated Africans on voyages to
the West Indies in this initial period from 1841 to 1847. The analysis
in this paper is therefore based on the period from 1848 to 1865 for
which systematic and comprehensive evidence is available on voyage
deaths, the number of passengers embarked, and the length of the
voyages.14 This information is used to calculate death rates per 1,000
per month which are presented in Tables 3 and 4.15 The following
findings are noteworthy.
First, the mortality suffered on the voyages of liberated Africans
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between 1848 and 1850 was about three-quarters of the level suffered
TABLE3
DEATHS OF LIBERATED AFRICANS ON VOYAGES TO
THE WEST INDIES, 1848-1865

Year and Place of Number Deaths Average Crude Death

Departure Embarked on Voyage Voyage Rate per
Length (days) 1,000 per Month
From St Helena and Rio
1848-1850 6,785 381 31.0 55.9
1851-1865 6,237 76 30.1 12.2
From Sierra Leone
1848-1850 5,894 210 27.7 39.3
1851-1863 1,901 21 26.7 12.5
All Voyages
1848-1850 12,679 591 29.4 48.7
1851-1865 8,138 97 29.3 12.3

Source: General Reports of the Colonial Land and Emigration Commissioners.

TABLE 4
ADULT AND CHILD DEATHS OF LIBERATED AFRICANS ON VOYAGES
TO
THE WEST INDIES, 1848-1851

From St From Sierra All

Helena Leone Voyages
Demographic Information and Rio
Number Embarked: adult 6,016 4,738 10,854
child 1,526 1,480 3,006
Deaths on Voyage: adult 267 105 372
child 131 114 245
Average Voyage Length (days) 31.6 28.5 30.2
Death Rate per 1,000 per Month:
adult 43.1 23.6 35.0
child 85.2 81.1 82.8

Source: General Reports of the Colonial Land and Emigration Commissioners.

 MORTALITY AND VOYAGES OF LIBERATED AFRICANS 37

in the transatlantic slave trade: the crude death rates per month being
48.7 per 1,000 and 65.3 per 1,000, respectively (see Tables 1 and 3).
Second, the mortality suffered on the voyages of liberated Africans
declined markedly after 1850, and between 1851 and 1865 it reached a
level comparable to that suffered by European immigrants to New York
between 1836 and 1853: the crude death rates being 12.3 per 1,000 and
about ten per 1,000, respectively (see Table I). 16
Third, children were much more at risk than were adults on the
voyages of both liberated Africans and slaves: the ratio of the death
rate of children as compared to the death rate of adults was 2.37 for
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liberated Africans on voyages between 1848 and 1851, and 3.25 for
slaves on voyages between 1791 and 1798 (see Tables 2 and 4).
David Eltis has drawn upon the mortality suffered by liberated
Africans to throw light on the underlying causes of slave mortality.
He has shown that the death rates of the liberated Africans on the
voyages of the captured vessels to the venues of the British Admiralty
and International Mixed Commission courts, during their stay in depots
awaiting resettlement or trans-shipment, and on their voyages to the
West Indies during the late 1840s were comparable to that suffered
on the transatlantic slave trade.17 The high death rates suffered by
liberated Africans are clearly evidence in support of the immunological
explanation of the high death rates suffered by slaves. But they are
also consistent with a hypothesis put forward by contemporary health
officials, namely that the high death rates were due to the poor health
of the liberated Africans at the time of recapture, their weakened and
diseased condition being the result of their hardships endured as slaves.
Although this testimony was no doubt self-serving, it is plausible, and
the historians of the liberated Africans have concurred.18
The decline in the death rate on the voyages of liberated Africans
after 1850 probably reflects the cumulative impact of a series of
administrative reforms.19 In particular, whereas previously ship surgeons
were appointed by the ship-owner on private voyages, they were now to
be recruited from the Royal Navy, and appointed by the government.
Surgeons were given responsibility for the care of the passengers in
the same manner as on post-1814 convict and government-assisted
immigrant voyages to Australia, and they had, most importantly, the
authority to refuse passage to diseased and malnourished passengers
at embarkation.20
The marked post-1850 decline in the death rate on the voyages of
liberated Africans cannot be explained in terms of the immunological
hypothesis. The decline in the death rate, however, provides substantive
evidence in support of the treatment hypothesis. Further evidence
that nineteenth century health officials, although informed by an
incorrect theory of disease, had the means to reduce significantly
 38 SLAVERY AND ABOLITION

seaboard mortality is provided by a consideration of the mortality

suffered by Indian indentured workers on voyages to the West Indies,
Natal, Mauritius, and Fiji (see Table 1). Despite India being as
epidemiologically hostile and nutritionally insecure as Africa, seaboard
death rates of Indian indentured workers were relatively low and
declining. A similar reduction in the African slave trade probably
was not possible given that slavers and European government officials
did not have the necessary political authority in Africa to set up the
kinds of controls that were effective on Indian voyages. Yet slavers and
European government officials did have control over measures relating
to screening out sick and unfit slaves, crowding, isolating the sick, the
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provision of adequate water and food, and sanitation.21 The blame for
high slave mortality, accordingly, should in large measure be restored to
the actions of slavers and European government officials.22
In summary, this article attempts to open up the debate on whether
governments and slavers had any control over the mortality suffered
by slaves. It argues that the types of evidence used to support the
'immunological' explanation of slave mortality, while suggestive, are
not conclusive, and presents comparative perspectives relating to the
effectiveness of administrative reforms. These reforms had been respons-
ible for the reduction in mortality not only on convict and government-
assisted immigrant voyages to Australia, and Indian indentured labour
voyages to the West Indies, Natal, Mauritius, and Fiji, but also on the
voyages of liberated Africans to the West Indies after 1850.

NOTES
The author wishes to thank Raymond L. Cohn, David Eltis, Stanley L. Engerman, Robin
Haines, Joseph C. Miller, and Jonathan J. Pincus for comments.

1. P.D. Curtin, 'Epidemiology and the Slave Trade', Political Science Quarterly, 83
(1968), 190-216; Curtin, The Atlantic Slave Trade: A Census (Madison, 1969), 275-86;
H.S. Klein and S.L. Engerman, 'Slave Mortality on British Ships, 1791-1797', in R.T.
Anstey and P.E.H. Hair (eds.), Liverpool, the African Slave Trade and Abolition
(Liverpool, 1976), 113-25; Klein and Engerman, 'Shipping Patterns and Mortality in
the African Slave Trade to Rio de Janeiro, 1825-1830', Cahiers D'Etudes Africaines,
15 (1975), 381-98; Klein, The Middle Passage: Comparative Studies in the Atlantic
Slave Trade (Princeton, 1978); J. Postma, 'Mortality in the Dutch Slave Trade,
1675-1795', and Klein and Engerman, 'A Note on Mortality in the French Slave
Trade in the Eighteenth Century', in H.A. Gemery and J.S. Hogendorn (eds.),
The Uncommon Market: Essays in the Economic History of the Atlantic Slave
Trade (New York, 1979), 239-72; R. Stein, 'Mortality in the Eighteenth-Century
French Slave Trade', Journal of African History, 21 (1980), 35-41; R.L. Cohn,
'Discussion: Mortality in the French Slave Trade', Journal of African History, 23
(1982), 225-6; J.C. Miller, 'Mortality in the Atlantic Slave Trade: Statistical Evidence
on Causality', Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 11 (1981), 385-423; Cohn and R. A.
Jensen, 'Comment and Controversy: Mortality in the Atlantic Slave Trade', Journal
 MORTALITY AND VOYAGES OF LIBERATED AFRICANS 39

of Interdisciplinary History, 12 (1982), 317-29; Cohn and Jensen, 'The Determinants

of Slave Mortality Rates in the Middle Passage', Explorations in Economic History,
19 (1982), 269-82; Cohn, 'Deaths of Slaves in the Middle Passage', Journal of
Economic History, 45 (1985), 685-92; D. Eltis, 'Free and Coerced Transatlantic
Migrations: Some Comparisons', American Historical Review, 88 (1983), 251-80;
Eltis, 'Mortality and Voyage Length in the Middle Passage: New Evidence from
the Nineteenth Century', Journal of Economic History, 44 (1984), 301-8; R.H.
Steckel and R. A. Jensen, 'New Evidence on the Causes of Slave and Crew Mortality
in the Atlantic Slave Trade', Journal of Economic History, 46 (1986), 57-77;
D.W. Galenson, Traders, Planters, and Slaves: Market Behavior in Early English
America (Cambridge, 1986), 29-52; Eltis, Economic Growth and the Ending of the
Transatlantic Slave Trade (New York, 1987), 136-8, 265-8; Miller, Way of Death:
Merchant Capitalism and the Angolan Slave Trade 1730-1830 (Madison, Wisconsin,
1988), 379-442; Miller, 'Overcrowded and Undernourished: The Techniques and
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Consequences of Tight Packing in the Portuguese Southern Atlantic Slave Trade',

Actes du Colloque International sur la Traite des Noires (Paris and Nantes, 1989),
1-33; Eltis, 'Fluctuations in Mortality in the Last Half Century of the Transatlantic
Slave Trade', Social Science History, 13 (1989).
2. J.C. Riley, 'Mortality on Long-Distance Voyages in the Eighteenth Century', Journal
of Economic History, 41 (1981), 651-6; Cohn, 'Mortality on Immigrant Voyages to
New York, 1836-1853', Journal of Economic History, 44 (1984) 289-300; Cohn,
"The Determinants of Individual Immigrant Mortality on Sailing Ships, 1836-1853',
Explorations in Economic History, 24 (1987), 371-91; Cohn, 'Corrigendum: The
Determinants of Individual Immigrant Mortality on Sailing Ships, 1836-1853',
Explorations in Economic History, 25 (1988), 337-8; R. Shlomowitz, 'Infant Mortality
and Fiji's Indian Migrants, 1879-1919', The Indian Economic and Social History
Review, 23 (1986), 289-302; Shlomowitz, 'Mortality and the Pacific Labour Trade',
Journal of Pacific History, 20 (1987) 34-55; Shlomowitz 'Epidemiology and the Pacific
Labor Trade', Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 19 (1989), 585-610; J. McDonald
and Shlomowitz, 'Mortality on Convict Voyages to Australia, 1788-1868', Social
Science History, 13 (1989); McDonald and Shlomowitz, 'Mortality on Immigrant
Voyages to Australia in the Nineteenth Century', Explorations in Economic History
(forthcoming); J.R. Bruijn, F.S. Gaastra, and I. Schoffer, Dutch-Asiatic Shipping
in the 17th and 18th Centuries, vol. 1, (The Hague, 1987), 161-71; F. Grubb,
'Morbidity and Mortality on the North Atlantic Passage: Eighteenth-Century German
Immigration', Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 17 (1987), 565-85; Shlomowitz and
McDonald, 'Mortality of Indian Labour on Ocean Voyages, 1843-1917', Studies in
History (forthcoming).
3. In the Portuguese slave trade to Rio de Janeiro from 1795 to 1811, the voyage-loss
rate for adults was greater than for children: 9.5 per cent as compared to 6.2 per
cent. The estimate of the child voyage-loss rate, however, may be biased due to an
underreporting of children as the 170,651 African slaves registered at Rio de Janeiro
included only 923 children. See Klein, "The Portuguese Slave Trade from Angola
in the Eighteenth Century', Journal of Economic History, 32 (1972), 905; Klein,
The Middle Passage, 37. Miller has also shown that the reporting of the number of
children in the Portuguese slave trade was subject to manipulation as 'children' were
a tax category; Miller, 'Overcrowded and Undernourished', 20-25. In the Dutch slave
trade from 1680 to 1735 the voyage-loss rates of 'adults' and 'youth' were similar,
probably because the category 'youth' excluded infants and toddlers under the age
of two, who would have been most at risk. See Postma, 'Mortality in the Dutch
Slave Trade', 258.
4. The hypothesis associating slave mortality with the movement to new epidemiological
environments has been most clearly elucidated in Curtin, 'Epidemiology'; and Eltis,
'Free and Coerced Transatlantic Migrations'. This immunological hypothesis has also
been used to explain the increased mortality of African troops in the West Indies,
and of Afro-American troops in Africa. See Curtin, 'African Health at Home and
Abroad', Social Science History, 10 (1986), 369-98. On smallpox in the Portuguese
slave trade, see D. Alden and J.C. Miller, 'Out of Africa: The Slave Trade and
 40 SLAVERY AND ABOLITION

the Transmission of Smallpox to Brazil, 1560-1830', Journal of Interdisciplinary

History, 18 (1987), 195-224; Alden and Miller, 'Unwanted Cargoes: The Origins and
Dissemination of Smallpox via the Slave Trade from Africa to Brazil, c. 1560-1830', in
Kenneth F. Kiple (ed.), The African Exchange: Toward a Biological History of Black
People (Durham, North Carolina, and London, 1987), 35-109.
5. Klein and Engerman, 'Slave Mortality on British Ships', 117-18; Klein and Engerman,
'Shipping Patterns', 392; Klein, The Middle Passage, 235; Eltis, 'Free and Coerced
Transatlantic Migrations', 276; Eltis, 'Mortality and Voyage Length', 303; Eltis,
Economic Growth, 137; Steckel and Jensen, 'New Evidence', 68-9.
6. Klein and Engerman, 'A Note on Mortality in the French Slave Trade', 263-7; Klein,
The Middle Passage, 194-6; Postma, 'Mortality in the Dutch Slave Trade', 249-50;
Eltis 'Mortality and Voyage Length', 307; Steckel and Jensen, 'New Evidence', 69.
Steckel and Jensen, however, do find a statistically significant relationship between
mortality and crowding during the loading stage; see their 'New Evidence', 66.
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7. Curtin, The Atlantic Slave Trade, 282-3; Klein and Engerman, 'A Note on Mortality in
the French Slave Trade', 266-8; Klein, The Middle Passage, 197-8; Postma, 'Mortality
in the Dutch Slave Trade', 260; Stein, 'Mortality in the Eighteenth Century French
Slave Trade', 35-41; Steckel and Jensen, 'New Evidence', 62.
8. That dysentery was the main killer of slaves, see Eltis, 'Free and Coerced Transatlantic
Migrations', 276; 'Copies or Extracts of Correspondence Relative to the Emigration
of Labourers from Sierra Leone and St Helena to the West Indies', BPP, 1850, vol.
40, 271-697 (in particular, see pp.362, 382). It is not known if this was amoebic
or bacillary dysentery, or if this disease was epidemic or endemic in Africa. That
there was little interaction between slave and crew health, see Steckel and Jensen,
'New Evidence', 73.
9. G.W. Roberts, 'Immigration of Africans into the British Caribbean', Population
Studies, 7 (1954), 259.
10. J.U.J. Asiegbu, Slavery and the Politics of Liberation, 1787-1861: A Study of
Liberated African Emigration and British Anti-Slavery Policy (London, 1969), 132-3;
M. Schuler, 'Alas, Alas, Kongo', A Social History of Indentured African Immigration
into Jamaica, 1841-1865 (Baltimore, 1980), 115-17.
11. Ninth General Report, BPP, 1849 (1082), vol. 22,67-8; Tenth General Report, BPP,
1850 (1204), vol. 23, 82-3; Eleventh General Report, BPP, 1851 (1383), vol. 22, 69;
Twelfth General Report, BPP, 1852 (1499), vol. 18, 97; Thirteenth General Report,
BPP, 1852-3 (1647), vol. 40, 94; Twentieth General Report, BPP, 1860 (2696), vol.
29, 117; Twenty-First General Report, BPP, 1861 (2842), vol.22, 92-4; Twenty-
Second General Report, BPP, 1862 (3010), vol. 22, 99-100; Twenty-Third General
Report, BPP, 1863 (3199), vol. 15, 99; Twenty-Fourth General Report, BPP, 1864
(3341), vol. 16, 105-6; Twenty-Fifth General Report, BPP, 1865 (3526), vol. 18, 92;
Twenty-Sixth General Report, BPP, 1866 (3679), vol. 17, 94; Twenty-Eighth General
Report, BPP, 1867-8 (4024), vol. 17, 70.
12. Fifth General Report, 17; Seventh General Report, 28.
13. Asiegbu, Slavery and the Politics of Liberation, 132
14. The body of evidence does not include the voyage of HMS Growler in 1848, and
the voyage of the Ganges that arrived in 1867, as information on the lengths of
these voyages does not appear to be available. There were a variety of modes by
which liberated Africans were transported to the West Indies. Most vessels were
chartered to carry liberated Africans either from Sierra Leone or from St Helena
to the West Indies, though some vessels obtained complements of liberated Africans
at both Sierra Leone and St Helena, or at both Rio de Janeiro and St Helena. Some
liberated Africans were also transported from St Helena by ships which were plying
the route from Calcutta to the West Indies with Indian labour. On occasion, the
vessels departing from Sierra Leone also carried small numbers of free settlers.
15. The average voyage length is calculated as a weighted average of individual voyage
lengths, where the weights are the numbers embarked. Seven voyage births were
included in the totals for the numbers embarked.
16. On the basis of an analysis of 1,077 ships sailing to New York with European
immigrants between 1836 and 1853, Cohn reports a crude death rate per month of
 MORTALITY AND VOYAGES OF LIBERATED AFRICANS 41

about ten per 1,000. See his 'Mortality on Immigrant Voyages', 289, 294.
17. Eltis, 'Free and Coerced Transatlantic Migrations', 273, 275-6. See also D. Northrup,
'African Mortality and the Suppression of the Slave Trade: The Case of the Bight of
Biafra', Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 9 (1978), 51.
18. Asiegbu, Slavery and the Politics of Liberation, 115-16; Schuler, 'Alas, Alas, Kongo',
115-17; Schuler, 'The Recruitment of African Indentured Labourers for European
Colonies in the Nineteenth Century', in P.C. Emmer (ed.), Colonialism and
Migration: Indentured Labour Before and After Slavery (Dordrecht, 1986), 136;
M.E. Thomas, Jamaica and Voluntary Laborers from Africa, 1840-1965 (Gainesville,
Honda, 1974), 133-5; Eighth General Report, BPP, 1847-8 (961), vol. 26, 22.
19. The post-1850 decline in the crude death rate was probably also due, in part, to the
relative decline in the intake of children: the percentage of children declined from
22.9 per cent in the period 1848-1850 to 13.8 per cent in the period 1851-1865. In a
simple demographic accounting exercise, the change in the age distribution accounted
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for about 13 per cent of the decline in the crude death rate.
20. Ninth General Report, 21. It should be noted that the reform relating to more
effective screening may not have resulted in an overall reduction in mortality, but
merely a shift in the place of death.
21. Miller argues that the 1813 administrative reform in the Portuguese slave trade,
relating, in particular, to the increased provision of water and food, may have been
associated with a reduction in mortality; Miller, 'Overcrowded and Undernourished',
31-3.
22. I am indebted to David Eltis for the clarification of some of the ideas presented in this
paragraph.