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Summary report

Scale of the slave trade

Record and criticism of results so far achieved

Despite serious efforts in recent years to reach a comprehensive conclusion,
differences in the assessment of the global extent of the slave trade remain
acute, and they emerged during the discussion. According to some participants
who wished to take into considerations factors such as losses during capture
and land journeys across Africa, and deaths during the sea crossing, Africa's
losses during the four centuries of the Atlantic slave trade must be put at some
210 million human beings.
According to others the overall total of slaves transported between the
tenth and the nineteenth centuries from Black Africa to the various receiving
territories should be put at between 15 and 30 million persons.
In the case of particular receiving territories there is similar uncertainty.
For Brazil, for example, the highest estimated figures are four times as large
as the lowest.
The majority of the experts considered that, in any event, even now,
these figures are not sufficiently exact, since different data series which do not
permit of superposition or comparison have been assembled hitherto with no
coherent overall plan. Research should therefore be pursued in accordance
with the following guidelines.
Account should be taken, for example, of hitherto neglected data such as
deaths on capture, during land of sea journeys, and following insurrec-
tions. Interesting statistical information was provided concerning deaths
on board the slave-ships. Depending on the length of the crossing,
percentages varied greatly in the Indian Ocean at the end of the eigh-
teenth and beginning of the nineteenth century. These were approxi-
mately 25 per cent in the case of transportation from the west African
coast to the Mascarene Islands, 21 per cent when it was from the east
coast of Africa, and 12 per cent on ships out of Madagascar.
There should be more extensive research into the transportation of slaves over