Measuring the Atlantic Slave Trade: An Assessment of Curtin and Anstey

Abstract

The main historical problem to which Professor Curtin addressed himself in the Census relates to the total number of slaves imported from Africa into all the slave-importing Atlantic regions during the entire period of the Atlantic slave trade. The estimates of the Census put the total number at 9,566,000. It is conceded that the actual number may be either somewhat lower or higher. But Professor Curtin concludes that ‘it is extremely unlikely that the ultimate total will turn out to be less than 8,000,000 or more than 10,500,00’. After examining Professor Curtin's methods of computation and the quality of the data employed, these confident limits were found to be unwarranted and misleading. The evidence relating to the size of the slave populations of the importing regions and to the demographic processes among the slaves suggests very strongly a substantial upward revision of the import estimates of the Census, especially those for Spanish, Portuguese and French America. An estimate of British slave exports from 1750 to 1807, on the basis of hitherto unused records, points to the fact that unless complete shipping data are employed in the slave export estimates the numbers computed will continue to be far below the actual numbers.

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