¹ Klein, Herbert S., The Middle Passage: Comparative Studies in the Atlantic Slave Trade (Princeton, 1978);CrossRefGoogle Scholar Eds., Gemery, Henry A. and Hogendom, Jan S., The Uncommon Market (New York, 1979);Google ScholarMiller, Joseph C., “Mortality in the Atlantic Slave Trade: Statistical Evidence on Causality,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 11 (Winter 1981), 385–423;Google ScholarCohn, Raymond L. and Jensen, Richard A., “Discussion,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 12 (Autumn 1982), 321–29.Google Scholar

² Klein, The Middle Passage;Google ScholarRiley, James C., “Mortality on Long–Distance Voyages in the Eighteenth Century,” this Journal, 41 (09. 1981), 651–56;Google ScholarPubMedCohn, Raymond L., “Comparative Mortality Experiences on Sailing Voyages,” unpublished manuscript.Google Scholar

³ See the discussions of immigrant mortality in the following standard works on immigration: Wittke, Carl, We Who Built America, revised ed. (Cleveland, 1967), pp. 110–16;Google ScholarHansen, Marcus L., The Atlantic Migration, 1607–1860 (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1940), p. 256;CrossRefGoogle ScholarDavie, Maurice R., World Immigration (New York, 1936), pp. 92–96;Google ScholarWabeke, Bertus H., Dutch Emigration to North America, 1624–1860 (Freeport, New York, 1970), pp. 108–09;Google ScholarWoodham–Smith, Cecil, The Great Hunger: Ireland, 1845–1849 (New York, 1962), pp. 213–17, 239–60.Google Scholar

⁴ Larger mortality on the voyage will also reduce the expected value of the gain from the movement to the immigrant. Thus, larger mortality, ceteris paribus, would reduce the amount of immigration. This analysis would not necessarily hold for the slave trade.Google Scholar

⁵ An additional matter of minor concern is that the published figures on the amount of U.S. immigration in this period may include those who died on the voyage. See U.S. Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States (Washington, D.C., 1976), p. 97. More accurate measures of mortality may therefore lead to more accurate measures of the amount of immigration.Google Scholar

⁶ U.S. Congress, Senate, Report of the Select Committee on the Sickness and Mortality on Board Emigrant Ships, 33rd Congress, 1st Session, Senate Reports (No. 386), 1854.Google Scholar

⁷ Wittke, We Who Built America, p. 111. Woodham-Smith, The Great Hunger, p. 254. Wabeke, Dutch Emigration, pp. 108–09. Davie, World Immigration, pp. 92–94.Google Scholar

⁸ See the sources listed in Footnote 7, plus U.S. Congress, Report of the Select Committee and the New York Tribune, November 19, 22, 26, and December 3, 1853. Immigrant mortality on ships to Canada in 1847 has been estimated at 6–9 percent.Google Scholar

⁹ Unfortunately, the records do not contain information on voyage length, so an analysis of the trend of mortality over the course of the voyage cannot be done. This type of analysis has provided some interesting results for the slave trade. See Miller, “Mortality” and Cohn and Jensen, “Discussion.”Google Scholar

¹⁰ Erickson, Charlotte, “Emigration from the British Isles to the U.S.A. in 1831,” Population Studies, 35 (1981), 175–97.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMedMokyr, Joel and Gráda, Cormac Ó, “Emigration and Poverty in Prefamine Ireland,” Explorations in Economic History, 19 (10 1982), 360–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹¹ The sample contains 9.2 percent of all immigrants arriving from Europe during this period as listed in Historical Statistics, Series C90, p. 106. The sample would contain an even higher percentage of immigrants landing at New York.Google Scholar

¹² Information is available in Historical Statistics, Series C90–C95, C138–139, pp. 106, 113, that allow a comparison of the sample to the entire population. The sample is approximately 73.8 percent from Great Britain, 25.7 percent from the Continent, and 0.5 percent from Scandinavia. The population is 63.0 percent from Great Britain, 36.2 percent from the Continent, and 0.8 percent from Scandinavia. The sample is about 59 percent male; the population was 60 percent male. No known biases are introduced as a result of these differences.Google Scholar

¹³ This procedure may impart an upward bias to the mortality figures found in this paper. As a result of the deaths column being used for numerous purposes other than listing deaths, however, it seems best to restrict the sample only to those ships where the mortality situation was clearly stated. As an additional check, the sampling procedure was used for 1854 and 1855 to determine mortality. The sampling procedure gave a percent loss of 1.39 percent for 1854 and 0.75 percent for 1855. The published figures for these years (given in the text in the introduction) are 0.63 percent for 1854 and 0.21 percent for 1855. The sample figures are higher, but it should be remembered that the published figures include a number of ships where the captains listed no information concerning the number of deaths.Google Scholar

¹⁴ U.S. Congress, Report of the Select Committee, p. 25. Taylor is reluctant to accept American records as being accurate because “no account of younger children's deaths” had to be made. See Taylor, Philip, The Distant Magnet (New York, 1971), p. 140. I can find no such loophole in the law of the period. Furthermore, every ship in the age-specific sample lists children's deaths.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Hansen, The Atlantic Migration, p. 300. Woodham-Smith, The Great Hunger, pp. 239–40.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Klein, The Middle Passage, pp. 55, 84.Google ScholarCurtin, Philip D., The Atlantic Slave Trade: A Census (Madison, 1969), pp. 275–86.Google ScholarStein, Robert L., “Mortality in the Eighteenth-Century French Slave Trade”, Journal of African History, 21 (1980), 35–41.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMedGemery and Hogendorn, The Uncommon Market, pp. 239–60.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Wittke, We Who Built America, p. 115. Available estimates of voyage length are numerous. Taylor, The Distant Magnet, p. 139, gives a figure of 5 weeks, but implies that it was for the luckiest voyages. Wabeke, Dutch Emigration, p. 108, gives a figure of 6 to 8 weeks. Hansen, The Atlantic Migration, p. 194, says the voyage from Liverpool to New York took 35 to 40 days. Davie, World Immigration, p. 96, says 6 weeks. Wittke's figure was accepted because it apparently is an average for ships from all European ports, not just those from a particular country. In light of the other estimates, 44 days seems a reasonable figure.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Riley, “Mortality,” p. 655, gives a figure of 8.6 per thousand.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Cohn and Jensen, “Discussion.”Google Scholar

²⁰ Mitchell, B. R., European Historical Statistics (London, 1978), Table A.3, pp. 18–25.Google Scholar

²¹ For example, see Miller, “Mortality,” and Curtin, Philip D., “Epidemiology and the Slave Trade”, Political Science Quarterly, 83 (06 1968), 190–216. Notice, however, that Curtin's main interest is in comparing slaves before and after the forced immigration and that he has little to say about the connection between epidemiology and the actual voyage.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

²² These problems are discussed in Klein, The Middle Passage, pp. 195–96. Essentially, they deal with the idea that tonnage is a weight measure and not a volume measure.Google Scholar

²³ Gemery and Hogendorn, The Uncommon Market, pp. 249–50, 264–66. Klein, The Middle Passage, pp. 87, 194–96.Google Scholar

²⁴ Klein, The Middle Passage, pp. 147, 181.Google Scholar

²⁵ Note that the 1847 percent loss is not particularly high for New York compared with the estimates given for Canada in Footnote 8. Boston turned away immigrant ships with any sicknesss on board; apparently ships with sickness tended to stay away from all U.S. ports in 1847. See Woodham-Smith, The Great Hunger, p. 239.Google Scholar Also, note that little effect of the 1847 and 1848 Passenger Acts is apparent. These acts made more stringent the requirements concerning crowding and provisioning. For the text of the laws see Bromwell, William J., History of Immigration to the United States (New York, 1969), reprint of 1856 edition, pp. 209–15.Google Scholar

²⁶ For Ireland, see Woodham-Smith, The Great Hunger, p. 377. For the Continent, see Hansen, The Atlantic Migration, pp. 245–52,Google Scholar and Walker, Mack, Germany and the Emigration, 1816–1885 (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1964), pp. 71–73.Google Scholar

²⁷ Rosenberg, Charles E., The Cholera Years (Chicago, 1962), pp. 101–105. I thank discussants Michael Haines and David Weir for making me aware of this explanation and source.Google Scholar

²⁸ Hansen, The Atlantic Migration, p. 183, says that after 1832 nine tenths of all Liverpool emigrants were Irish. The results are essentially identical if Liverpool is deleted from the Irish ports. Walker, Germany, p. 88, claims that many German emigrants went from Hamburg to Hull or Liverpool and then to New York. The age-specific sample provides no support for this claim.Google Scholar

²⁹ The ten ports, with the number of ships from each in parentheses, are: Liverpool (512), Le Havre (136), Bremen (77), London (72), Hamburg (62), Antwerp (38), Rotterdam (27), Glasgow (26), Bristol (22), and Limerick (12).Google Scholar

³⁰ Wall, R., Mortality in Mid 19th Century Britain (London, 1974), pp. 121–29.Google Scholar

³¹ Walker, Germany, p. 88, and Wittke, We Who Built America, p. 115. Liverpool was also regulated. The percent losses from Liverpool and Bremen were about average for the sample. The results thus provide little support for Wittke's claim that “Conditions on Irish immigrant ships from Liverpool were especially bad.” Wittke, p. 112.Google Scholar

³² A paired difference test takes into account the fact that male and female mortality on each ship are not independent. See Mendenhall, William and Reinmuth, James E., Statistics for Management and Economics, Second Edition (North Scituate, Massachusetts, 1974), pp. 225–29.Google Scholar

³³ Gemery and Hogendorn, The Uncommon Market, pp. 257–58.Google Scholar

³⁴ Kennedy, Robert E. Jr, The Irish (Los Angeles, 1973), Table 11, p. 59.Google ScholarPubMed Ed., Flinn, Michael, Scottish Population History from the 17th Century to the 1930s (Cambridge, United Kingdom, 1977), Table 5.5.2, p. 378.Google ScholarGlass, D. V. and Eversley, D. E. C., eds., Population in History (Chicago, 1965), p. 497.Google ScholarWall, Mortality, p. 568.Google Scholar

³⁵ Woodham-Smith, The Great Hunger, pp. 213–14.Google Scholar

³⁶ Klein, The Middle Passage, p. 57.Google Scholar