Hostname: page-component-5cf477f64f-54txb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-05T22:51:42.003Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The African Slave Supply Response

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 May 2014

E. Phillip LeVeen
E. Phillip LeVeen*
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In this paper a simple model is proposed by which the relationship between slave prices in Africa and the number of slaves exported in the eighteenth and nineteenth century Atlantic slave trade is investigated. Statistical evidence indicating a high degree of correlation between fluctuations in prices and in slave exports shall be presented which, in conjunction with a priori theoretical expectations as well as collateral historical evidence, supports the hypothesis that economic motives were one of the major determinants of the African slave supply process.

The statistical analysis also permits an estimation of the “elasticity” of the African slave traders' response to changes in coastal slave prices; such an estimate answers the question, “How much must the economic incentives (in terms of price changes) be increased to bring about a given increase in the numbers of slaves brought to the coast for exports?” Since the price responsiveness of African traders was itself influenced by the conditions they faced in the enslavement, transportation, bulking, and other components of the African supply process, the elasticity analysis permits an investigation into more than the simple issue of whether or not African traders were profit motivated. The analysis provides an indirect view of a wide variety of phenomena occurring within African societies. Some of the possible uses to which the elasticity estimate may be put are examined in the final section of the paper.

Type
Research Article
Information
African Studies Review , Volume 18 , Issue 1 , April 1975 , pp. 9 - 28
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1975

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Ajayi, J.F.A. and Smith, R.. (1964) Yoruba Warfare in the Nineteenth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Anstey, R. (1974) “The volume and profitability of the slave trade,” pp. 3–31 in Engerman, S. and Genovese, E. (eds.) Race and Slavery in the Western Hemisphere:Quantitive Studies. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Bean, R. (1971) “The British trans-Atlantic slave trade, 1650-1775.” Unpublished Ph.D. diss. University of Washington.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bean, R. and Thomas, R.P.. (1973) “The fishers of men—the profits of the slave trade.” Seattle: Department of Economics, University of Washington.Google Scholar
Behrman, J.R. (1968) Supply Response in Underdeveloped Agriculture. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: North Holland Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Curtin, P.D. (1969) The Atlantic Slave Trade: A Census. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Curtin, P.D. (1972) “The Atlantic slave trade, 1600-1800,” pp. 240–68 in Ajayi, J.F.A. and Crowder, M. (eds.) History of West Africa. Volume 1. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Curtin, P.D.(1968) “Epidemiology and the slave trade.” Political Science Quarterly, 83 (June): 190–216.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Curtin, P.D. (1971) “The slave trade and the Atlantic Basin: inter-continental perspectives,” pp. 74–93 in Huggins, N., Kelson, M., and Fox, D. (eds.) Key Issues in the Afro-American Experience. New York: Harcourt Brace Javanovich.Google Scholar
Davidson, B. (1961) Black Mother. Boston: Little, Brown and Company.Google Scholar
Dike, K.O. (1956) Trade and Politics in the Niger Delta. London: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Engerman, S. (1972) “The slave trade and British capital formation in the eighteenth century: a comment on the Williams thesis.” The Business History Review, 46 (Winter): 430–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Engerman, S. and Genovese, E. (eds.). (1974) Race and Slavery in the Western Hemisphere: Quantitative Studies. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Fage, J.D. (1969a) History of West Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Fage, J.D. (1969b) “Slavery and the slave trades in the context of West African history.” Journal of African History, 10 (No. 3): 393–404.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fisher, A., and Fisher, H.. (1971) Slavery and Muslim Society in Africa. New York: Doubleday and Company.Google Scholar
Gemery, H.A., and Hogendom, J.S.. (1973) “The Atlantic slave trade: a tentative economic model.” Unpublished paper presented at the African Studies Association Annual Meeting, Syracuse, New York (November); also, Waterville, Maine: Department of Economics, Colby College.Google Scholar
Great Britain. (1847–1848) Parliamentary Papers, 1847-48. Volume XXII.Google Scholar
Great Britain. (1850) Parliamentary Papers, 1850. Volume IX.Google Scholar
Great Britain. (1852–1853) Parliamentary Papers, 1852-53. Volume XXXIX.Google Scholar
Hill, P. (1970) Rural Capitalism in West Africa. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Johnson, M. (1966) “The ounce in eighteenth-century West African trade.” Journal of African History, 7 (No. 2): 197–214.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Karasch, M. (1967) “The Brazilian slavers and the illegal slave trade, 1836-1851.” Unpublished Master's thesis. University of Wisconsin.Google Scholar
Klein, N. (1969) “West African unfree labor before and after the rise of the Atlantic slave trade,” pp. 87–95 in Foner, L. and Genovese, E. (eds.) Slavery in the New World. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
LeVeen, E.P. (1971) “British slave trade suppression policies, 1821-1865: impact and implications.” Unpublished Ph.D. diss. University of Chicago.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mauny, R. (1961) Tableau Géographique de l'ouest Africain au moyen age. Dakar: IFAN.Google Scholar
Polanyi, C. (1966) Dahomey and the Slave Trade. Seattle: University of Washington Press.Google Scholar
Postma, J. (1970) “The Dutch participation in the African slave trade: slaving on the Guinea Coast, 1675-1795.” Unpublished Ph.D. diss. Michigan State University.Google Scholar
Rattray, R.S. (1969) Ashanti Law and Constitution. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Rodney, W. (1966) “African slavery and other forms of social oppression on the upper Guinea Coast in the context of the Atlantic slave trade.” Journal of African History, 7 (No. 3): 431–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ross, D. (1965) “The career of Domingo Martinez in the Bight of Benin, 1833-64.” Journal of African History, 6 (No. 1): 79–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rottenberg, S. (1967) “The business of slave trading.” South Atlantic Quarterly, 66 (Summer): 409–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sundstrom, L. (1965) The Trade of Guinea. Uppsala: Almquist and Wiksell.Google Scholar
Tax, S. (1963) Penny Capitalism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Thomas, R.P. (1968) “The sugar colonies of the old Empire: profit or loss for Great Britain.” Economic History Review.Google Scholar
Tumbull, D. (1840) Travels in the West: Cuba. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Vansina, J. (1962) “Long-distance trade routes in Central Africa.” Journal of African History, 3 (No. 3): 375–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, E. (1944) Capitalism and Slavery. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar