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Ship Crowding and Slave Mortality: Missing Observations or Incorrect Measurement?

Year: 2017

Type: article

Abstract: Inconsistent measurement of ship tonnage, the denominator in the usual measures of crowded conditions on slave vessels, may confound estimated associations between crowding and slave mortality on the Middle Passage. The tonnages reported inLloyd's Registersare shown to be consistent over time and are used to demonstrate that both the unstandardized and standardized tonnages in the Transatlantic Slave Trade Database are deeply flawed. Using corrected tonnages, we find that crowding increased mortality only on British slave ships and only before the passage of Dolben's Act in 1788.

Source: The Journal of Economic History

DOI: 10.1017/s0022050717001073

Authors: Peter M. Solar, Nicolas J. Duquette

Institutions: UCLouvain Saint-Louis Brussels, University of Southern California

Language: English

Topic: Colonialism, slavery, and trade

Subfield: Anthropology

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

Open Access status: bronze

Funders: Economic History Association, University of Michigan

OpenAlex ID: W2769722975