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Measuring the French Slave Trade, 1713–1792/3

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

Robert Stein
Robert Stein
Affiliation:
University of Toronto, Ontario
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Extract

The recent Curtin–Inikori debate has revealed a basic shortcoming in the historiography of the eighteenth-century French slave trade. In computing the size of the French trade, historians have too long relied either on questionable estimates published by eighteenth-century authors or on published material about one port, Nantes. Enough material exists in various French archives to produce a more accurate appraisal of at least one aspect of the trade. An analysis of captains' reports and other documents shows that French exports from Africa were somewhat greater than Curtin believed, and that Curtin's errors resulted from limitations imposed by the published data. At the same time, it is almost impossible to know how many slaves were imported into the French West Indies during the eighteenth century, as an illegal British trade accounted for a significant percentage of the slaves delivered to the French colonies.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 19 , Issue 4 , October 1978 , pp. 515 - 521
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1978

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References

1 (Madison, Wisconsin, 1969).

2 For a summary of these, see Curtin, Philip D., ‘Measuring the Atlantic Slave Trade Once Again’, J. Afr. Hist., xvii (1976), 595.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 Inikori, J. E., ‘Measuring the Atlantic Slave Trade’, J. Afr. Hist, xvii (1976), 197–223.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 J. Afr. Hist. xvii (1976), 595–627.Google Scholar

5 Ibid. 597, 617–18.

6 Curtin, , Census, pp. 211 and 216Google Scholar. Inikori's higher French import and British export figures only reconfirm this.

7 Archives Départementales de la Loire-Atlantique, B4577–96.

8 Archives Départementales de l'Ille-et-Vilaine, 9B481–514.

9 Rinchon, Dieudonné, Pierre-Ignace-Liévin van Alstein, capitaine négrier (Dakar, 1965), 172–3Google Scholar, discusses the records kept by slaving captains.

10 Archives Départementales de la Seine-Maritime, 6P6 1–20.

11 Archives de la Chambre de Commerce de La Rochelle, Carton xvii.

12 Archives du Port de Lorient, 1P256B.

13 Rinchon, Dieudonné, Le Trafic Négrier (Brussels, 1938), 279–301Google Scholar. Richon's data were used by Meyer, Jean, ‘Le Commerce négrier nantais (1774–1792)’, Annales: Economies, Sociétés, Civilisations, xv (1960), 120–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and in the same author's L'Armement nantais dans la deuxiéme moitié du XVIIIe siécle (Paris, 1966). The standard history of the Nantes slave trade, Martin, Gaston, Nantes au XVIIIe siécle, l'ère des négriers (Paris, 1931)Google Scholar, does not go beyond 1774.

14 Archives Départementales de la Gironde, 6B89–115. This was used by Malvezin, Théophile, Histoire du commerce de Bordeaux, iii (Bordeaux, 1892)Google Scholar, but with little direct interest in the slave trade. More recently, Butel, Paul, La Croissance commercial bordelaise (Paris, 1973)Google Scholar, has made use of these lists, but again without a particular interest in the slave trade.

15 Archives Deépartementales de la Charente-Maritime, B247–59bis. See also Robert, Henri, Les Trafics coloniaux du port de la Rochelle au XVIIIe siécle (Poitiers, 1960).Google Scholar

16 Archives du Port de Lorient, IP2.

17 For Nantes: Archives Départementales de la Loire-Atlantique, B4480–4507; for Saint Malo, Archives Départementales de l'Ille-et-Vilaine, IF1934–35.

18 For example, Archives de la Chambre de Commerce de La Rochelle, Carton xix.

19 This is the usual date for the beginning of the eighteenth-century French slave trade. A few ships did leave before then (e.g., twenty-five from Nantes, from 1700 to 1712).

20 Curtin, , Census, 173–8.Google Scholar

21 Ibid. p. 211.

22 Ibid. p. 177.

23 Pp. 248–302.

24 There is some detailed information on the French posts at Ouidah and Gorée. See Delcourt, André, La France et les établissements français du Sénégal entre 1713 et 1763 (Paris, 1952)Google Scholar; and Berbain, Simone, Le Comptoir français de Juda au XVIIIe siécle (Paris, 1942).Google Scholar

25 For recent information on mortality rates, see Herbert S. Klein and Engerman, Stanley L., ‘Facteurs de mortalité dans le trafic français d'esclaves au XVIIIe si`cle’, Annales: Economies, Sociétés Civilisations, xxxi (1976).Google Scholar

26 Even the special issue of the Revue française d'histoire d'outre-mer, lxvii (1975)Google Scholar, had but one article on the eighteenth-century French slave trade: Jean Mettas, ‘Pour une histoire de la traite des Noirs française: sources et problèmes’, 19–46.