# America Needs a Slavery Museum **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 9, 2006, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/america-needs-a-slavery-museum/367996 "2006-08-09T12:46:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2006, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/america-needs-a-slavery-museum/367996/21 "2006-08-10T17:34:35Z")
> [@Askia](#): > > Um, cite for 500,000? [This site](http://www.freemaninstitute.com/nigeria.htm) claims that more than 550,000 Africans came through the slave port at Badary, Nigeria bound for America during the period of the American Revolution _alone._ That seems shockingly high, your cited number seems conservatively low. The 500,000 number has appeared pretty consistently in most of the sources I’ve read. I am more than willing to accept a better figure, but that is the one that most frequently appears. The use of “America” in the site to which you linked may be confusing. It is not clear that the word means what became the U.S. as opposed to all the land masses of the western Hemisphere. (I am not challenging the numbers, only pointing out the potential confusion.) There used to be a pretty good site that dealt with all African slavery at [middlepassage.org](http://middlepassage.org), but the domain name has lapsed and I have not yet been able to discover where the original site may have moved. From [http://www.american.edu/TED/slave.htm](http://www.american.edu/TED/slave.htm) I have the following: > [@](#): > > Hugh Thomas gives the total number of African slaves imported into the US (and British Colonial North America) as 500,000 persons.[sup]29[/sup] Although there is much dispute over the figures, they could be broken down as follows: > 1771-1790 55,750 > 1790-1800 79,041 > 1801-1810 114,090[sup]30[/sup] > 1807-1860 app… 50,000, with the majority of these entering before 1830.[sup]31[/sup] > > In addition, 300,000 Africans were transported as slaves to various global destinations in the holds of 1,500 American ships.[sup]32[/sup] > > US Cotton Exports (in pounds) > 1792 138,328 > 1794 1,601,000 > 1800 17,790,000 > 1820 35,000,000[sup]33[/sup] > > ``` > 29. Thomas, 804. > 30. Randall Miller and John D. Smith eds., The Dictionary of Afro-American Slavery (New York: Greenwood Press, 1988), 782. > 31. Thomas, 616. > 32. Thomas, 804. > 33. Thomas, 571. > > ``` ---
**Author:** ![Sal\_Ammoniac](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8dc957/32.png) [@Sal\_Ammoniac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sal_Ammoniac)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2006, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/america-needs-a-slavery-museum/367996/22 "2006-08-10T17:35:45Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > Was that a mistype on your part or did Leif Ericsson bring slaves over? Columbus didn’t arrive in the Americas until 1492. and I find 22 million slaves a high number for trans-Atlantic movement. Does the author show how he estimated this number? Slight mistype on Tom’s part. But the slave trade did precede the discovery of America. Portuguese ships exploring the African coast began bringing back slaves to Portugal pretty early in the game. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2006, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/america-needs-a-slavery-museum/367996/23 "2006-08-10T17:45:28Z")
> [@Sal Ammoniac](#): > > Slight mistype on Tom’s part. But the slave trade did precede the discovery of America. Portuguese ships exploring the African coast began bringing back slaves to Portugal pretty early in the game. Just trying to get my brain around the 22,000,000 number. The last post Tom made showed approx 300,000 to the US and another 300,000 via American ships. That would appear to be a more realistic number. Even if you double that assuming a 50% mortality rate it comes out to 1,200,000 slaves via the 100 day middle voyage. I doubt the mortality rate would be that high but even at that it is a fraction of the 22 million quoted. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2006, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/america-needs-a-slavery-museum/367996/24 "2006-08-10T19:49:11Z")
Digital History: [11 million to 16 million shipped to the Americas, 500,000 to the U.S.](http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/modules/slavery/index.cfm) Ethnic Influences in Cuba Resulting from the History of African Slave Trade to Cuba: [1.3 million slaves to Cuba](http://www.batadrums.com/background/ethnic.htm') The Mariner’s Museum on the Captive Passage: [Historians do not agree on the exact number of Africans who were forcibly transported across the Atlantic, although it is generally accepted that the number exceeds ten million.](http://www.mariner.org/captivepassage/introduction/index.html) Further: > [@](#): > > Slave traders actively encouraged wars in Africa, resulting in the death or enslavement of millions more Africans on that continent than ended up in the Americas. Scholars of African history believe the total number of Africans killed or abducted in Africa and the Americas could be between 50 and 100 million. Whatever the figure, the slave trade brought death and dislocation on an unimaginable scale. Its full impact will never be fully known. (This brings up a point not yet fully addressed. When Hugh and others discuss deaths above ten million, they may not actually be claiming that 1/2 of all the persons shipped actually died in transit. The numbers very likely include deaths between the point of capture and the coast, deaths in the holding pens on the coast (exacerbated by disease and periodic epidemics), deaths in the passage, and deaths among recent arrivals to the Americas among weakened slaves forced into hard labor or the breaking process with a strange diet (and, of course, more opportunity for disease). [About.com](http://africanhistory.about.com/library/weekly/aa080601a.htm) citing Transformations in Slavery by Paul E. Lovejoy, 2000: ```auto Trans-Atlantic exports by region 1650-1900 Region Number of slaves accounted for % Senegambia 479,900 4.7 Upper Guinea 411,200 4.0 Windward Coast 183,200 1.8 Gold Coast 1,035,600 10.1 Blight of Benin 2,016,200 19.7 Blight of Biafra 1,463,700 14.3 West Central 4,179,500 40.8 South East 470,900 4.6 Total 10,240,200 100.0 ``` [About.com](http://About.com) (same page) citing The Slave Trade by Hugh Thomas, 1997: ```auto Trans-Atlantic imports by region 1450-1900 Region Number of slaves accounted for % Brazil 4,000,000 35.4 Spanish Empire 2,500,000 22.1 British West Indies 2,000,000 17.7 French West Indies 1,600,00 14.1 British N.A. & and U.S. 500,000 4.4 Dutch West Indies 500,000 4.4 Danish West Indies 28,000 0.2 Europe (and Islands) 200,000 1.8 Total 11,328,000 100.0 ``` ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2006, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/america-needs-a-slavery-museum/367996/25 "2006-08-10T20:04:58Z")
BTW, 1440 is not my typo; it is the title of the book. ---
**Author:** ![Sal\_Ammoniac](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8dc957/32.png) [@Sal\_Ammoniac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sal_Ammoniac)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2006, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/america-needs-a-slavery-museum/367996/26 "2006-08-10T22:02:41Z")
However, [About.com](http://About.com) made a disconcerting typo in your latest cite: “Blight of Benin/Biafra” for “Bight of Benin/Biafra.” ---
**Author:** ![Askia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@Askia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askia)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2006, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/america-needs-a-slavery-museum/367996/27 "2006-08-10T22:21:38Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > The 500,000 number has appeared pretty consistently in most of the sources I’ve read. I am more than willing to accept a better figure, but that is the one that most frequently appears. The use of “America” in the site to which you linked may be confusing. It is not clear that the word means what became the U.S. as opposed to all the land masses of the western Hemisphere. (I am not challenging the numbers, only pointing out the potential confusion.) What you said about “America” occurred to me, too, except that it appears in the same sentence as when they talk about the American Revolutionary War. That seems to pretty strongly imply it was the proto-United States alone. Like I said, the assertion that 500,000 slaves came from 1) one port 2) bound for the U.S. alone 3) during the period of the Revolutionary War seems incredibly high… and credulously high, too. (If they \*meant \* “starting from 1776” – that seems more likely) I would like to track down Hugh Thomas’ book to see if his estimates include instances of deaths outside the oceanic voyage in his total. You seem to think he may well be including deaths from occurances like the mortality rate at West African slave ports, I tend to doubt it, as I said when I touched on this topic in my previous post. We know that the importation of African slaves to America was officially first recorded in 1619 near Jamestown, VA. But Hugh Thomas’ estimates don’t start until 1771. That’s 150+plus years where the numbers of imported slaves to the United States aren’t recorded by Thomas. How many blacks were imported from West Africa in that period? An additional 25,000 or so does not seem impossible. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2006, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/america-needs-a-slavery-museum/367996/28 "2006-08-11T02:13:00Z")
> [@Askia](#): > > You seem to think he may well be including deaths from occurances like the mortality rate at West African slave ports, I tend to doubt it, as I said when I touched on this topic in my previous post. The numbers I have seen quoted for in-transit deaths run between 10% and 15% with 13% being the most frequently quoted. You don’t get 11,000,000 deaths and 11,000,000 successful importations with a 13% mortality figure. Again, I have no personal belief in any number; I am merely passing along the numbers I have seen most frequently. If you look over the sources I quoted, every one of them places the total successful transportations between 10,000,000 and 12,000,000 with the 500,000 number to the U.S. being pretty consistent. (The one “300,000” figure only began in the late eighteenth century.) The number of deaths are all over the place, ranging from 10,000,000 to 100,000,000, so each source would need to be evaluated both on the reliability of their number and on the points at which they began and ended counting. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2006, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/america-needs-a-slavery-museum/367996/29 "2006-08-11T02:23:24Z")
> [@](#): > > But Hugh Thomas’ estimates don’t start until 1771. No. If you count the numbers he presented that begin in 1771, you only come to 298,881 ( **Magiver** ’s 300,000), with the remaining 201,119 apparently arriving between 1619 and 1770. (Importations to Florida and Louisiana might also not show up in the “shipped direct to the U.S.” numbers while later being added to the U.S. total through the addition of Florida and Louisiana in the 1790s and 1803.) ---
**Author:** ![Askia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@Askia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askia)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2006, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/america-needs-a-slavery-museum/367996/30 "2006-08-12T15:13:57Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > No. If you count the numbers he presented that begin in 1771, you only come to 298,881 ( **Magiver** ’s 300,000), with the remaining 201,119 apparently arriving between 1619 and 1770. (Importations to Florida and Louisiana might also not show up in the “shipped direct to the U.S.” numbers while later being added to the U.S. total through the addition of Florida and Louisiana in the 1790s and 1803.) Thanks for clearing that THAT up. Man, I hate being offline! ---
**Author:** ![Sternvogel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bc79bd/32.png) [@Sternvogel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sternvogel)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2006, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/america-needs-a-slavery-museum/367996/31 "2006-08-13T03:45:35Z")
> [@Malodorous](#): > > Surely there’s a Civil Rights Museum, or at least a Civil Rights Collection somewhere The [National Civil Rights Museum](http://www.civilrightsmuseum.org/about/about.asp) is housed in the former Lorraine Motel, the Memphis building where Martin Luther King was assassinated as he spoke from the balcony of his room. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/america-needs-a-slavery-museum/367996.md?page=1)