Slave Trade - Bonny Question

Slave Trade - Bonny

Question 1) Find the NY total numbers from Africa and which locations if indicated, including mean average numbers.

This question is somewhat ambiguous and, therefore, has multiple answers. The phase "from Africa" could be interpreted a couple of ways: is the ship directly from Africa or did the ship stop in Africa during its' journey? Another factor in answering this question is the quality of the data. It was collected over a fifty-year period and most probably collected by different people. Was the question asked in the same manner for all of the ships that arrived in NY? "From where did you start your trip?" Or "Where are you coming from?" could produce different answers. One would also have to differentiate between ships that made a stop in another port vs. ships that originated from a Caribbean port with the purpose of transferring slaves, which landed there to other locations.

A second consideration is how one defines "total numbers": the total of what? Are we being asked for the total number of ships, the total number of slaves and/or something else? A third unclear part of the question is "which locations." Again, this could refer to the location the ship came directly from or its' last port of call. The ambiguity of these three phases makes the difficult to answer the question unless a set of assumptions accompanies the answer. The table below gives four possible answers:

# of ships

# of slaves

Avg # of slaves/ship

Recorded as from Africa

18

55

Recorded from Africa +other ports

7

Another question to consider is the purpose of the ship's visit to NY. Was the ship there to deliver slaves for sale, was it to acquire additional goods for trade on their way back to Britain or was it for repairs? Also were the ships coming from Britain or were they returning to Britain?

The information provided by Stephen Behrendt in Market, Transaction Cycles and profits: Merchant Decision Making in the British Slave Trade, provides enough history of the slave trade to give validity to the above questions. Behrendt described the passage of a slave trade vessel to be a triangle: the trip from Britain to Africa, Africa to British Americas and then from their stop(s) in British America returning back to Britain. Additionally, the article also described the purchase of goods at stops in British America to use as goods for trade for funding future slave trade trips.

Question 2) Find the total number of shipments to VA from Bonny including mean average numbers.

Bonny is a port located in the most eastern part of the Gulf of Guinea. It was considered to be a favorable place for transacting slave purchases. It attractiveness included:

The ability to purchase yams for feeding the slaves on the middle passage,

The predictability of slave availability based on the agricultural calendar

The organized slave trade with slaves brought to market from non-coastal areas after harvest

And, the stability of the government, which allow the trades to provide trade goods to the slave merchants prior to receiving the slaves without pawnship as collateral.

Between 1727-1769 X ships arrived in Virginia. Of these, seven ships came from Bonny, carrying 1,453 slaves for a mean average of 208 per ship. Like question one, there are some ambiguities to question two: shipments of what and what are the geographical boundaries of Bonny. Bonny can be referring to either the port of Bonny or the Bight of Bonny. If the second definition is used, ships from Callabar must be included in the analysis. In the same time period as mentioned above five ships arrived from Callabar with a total of 1,157 slaves, an average of 231 slaves per ship.