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

Abstract

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 Répertoire des expéditions négrières 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.