XIVᵉ siècle – XIXᵉ siècle
Atlantic Africa and the Americas
Traduction non disponible · Original (anglais) · français indisponible
The Atlantic slave trade removed millions of Africans to the Americas and generated additional mortality through capture, forced marches, and maritime transport. Its demographic effects were uneven: the main coastal source regions, particularly between Cabinda and Luanda, experienced severe population losses, while Africa as a whole sustained a smaller relative deficit. The extract also emphasizes uncertainty in the estimates and the importance of sex ratios, marriage systems, food production, and natural population growth in determining the long-term consequences.
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Estimates presented here place the number of enslaved Africans reaching the New World at just over 9.5 million. The distribution was highly uneven across time: approximately 34,000 arrived in the fifteenth century, 241,000 in the sixteenth, 1,341,000 in the seventeenth, 5,652,000 in the eighteenth, and 2,298,000 in the nineteenth. The extract stresses that these figures were disputed, with a later expert meeting considering totals between 15 and 30 million more plausible.
The demographic burden extended beyond those who survived the crossing. People died during capture, confinement, and marches to the coast, while mortality on the Atlantic voyage may have declined from roughly one-fifth in the earlier centuries to about one-tenth in the nineteenth century. The source therefore treats landed captives as only one component of the population loss generated by the trade.
The principal source zones lay along the Atlantic coast from Senegal to Angola, and most captives originated within roughly 500 kilometres of the shore. The most severe population decline is located between Cabinda and Luanda and in the adjacent interior during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. This area, including parts of present-day Angola, Zaire, and Zambia, may have contained no more than four million inhabitants while supplying more than one million enslaved people in the nineteenth century alone.
The wider demographic deficit depended on assumptions about food supplies, natural increase, and the sex composition of slave shipments. The removal of women was considered especially consequential because it reduced the number of potential mothers and future descendants. At the same time, widespread female marriage and polygyny limited the reproductive effects of the removal of men in many African societies.
XIVᵉ siècle – XIXᵉ siècle
Atlantic Africa and the Americas
Traduction non disponible · Original (anglais) · français indisponible
The Atlantic slave trade removed millions of Africans to the Americas and generated additional mortality through capture, forced marches, and maritime transport. Its demographic effects were uneven: the main coastal source regions, particularly between Cabinda and Luanda, experienced severe population losses, while Africa as a whole sustained a smaller relative deficit. The extract also emphasizes uncertainty in the estimates and the importance of sex ratios, marriage systems, food production, and natural population growth in determining the long-term consequences.
Poursuivre l’exploration
Le récit
Estimates presented here place the number of enslaved Africans reaching the New World at just over 9.5 million. The distribution was highly uneven across time: approximately 34,000 arrived in the fifteenth century, 241,000 in the sixteenth, 1,341,000 in the seventeenth, 5,652,000 in the eighteenth, and 2,298,000 in the nineteenth. The extract stresses that these figures were disputed, with a later expert meeting considering totals between 15 and 30 million more plausible.
The demographic burden extended beyond those who survived the crossing. People died during capture, confinement, and marches to the coast, while mortality on the Atlantic voyage may have declined from roughly one-fifth in the earlier centuries to about one-tenth in the nineteenth century. The source therefore treats landed captives as only one component of the population loss generated by the trade.
The principal source zones lay along the Atlantic coast from Senegal to Angola, and most captives originated within roughly 500 kilometres of the shore. The most severe population decline is located between Cabinda and Luanda and in the adjacent interior during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. This area, including parts of present-day Angola, Zaire, and Zambia, may have contained no more than four million inhabitants while supplying more than one million enslaved people in the nineteenth century alone.
The wider demographic deficit depended on assumptions about food supplies, natural increase, and the sex composition of slave shipments. The removal of women was considered especially consequential because it reduced the number of potential mothers and future descendants. At the same time, widespread female marriage and polygyny limited the reproductive effects of the removal of men in many African societies.