Apparently of all the millions of slaves, only a smaller number (400k out of 12m or thereabouts?) went to North America. I don't mean to relativize suffering or anything, but how come the NA slave narratives and history seem so much more known, prevalent and common?

Is it 'just' because of US influence in general - much like, say, the portrayal of US and WW2 in popular culture and history?

Or was NA slavery somehow worse than further down in Central/South America?

Or perhaps better yet, what are the distinctive, major differences or traits - if any - of slavery in NA in comparison to SA?

Was there human trafficking between the colonies of different European nations in the Americas (English, French, Spanish, maybe even Dutch and Portuguese)? As these nations made war and peace with each other over time, did this change the nature of human trafficking between their colonies?

Thanks in advance for your answer!

Thanks for doing this AMA!

Are there reliable estimates on the number of slaves both taken from Africa against how many were born in America? How much do such estimates vary, and why? I've heard it also said that the number of slaves that reached North America could be a bad estimate, as many slaves who arrived in the Caribbean were subsequently shipped to South America, whilst being reported as going to N.A. As a continuation of this, could the Atlantic Slave Trade be classified as an event similar to the Holocaust?

Hi, Professor O'Malley, thank you for presenting this AMA!

I've heard various arguments as to the motives behind the British move to disrupt the Atlantic slave trade through the Royal Navy - chief of which was that the slave trade was highly profitable for the French, with whom the British were at war. That being said, I'm not at all familiar with the topic, and have little idea of why the British became involved in actively interrupting the slave trade and the means by which they did so. Is there any chance you'd be able to clarify the British motives for ending the Atlantic slave trade and the means by which they did so?

Many thanks!

Thank you for doing this AMA, Professor! Unfortunately my knowledge of American history could fit in a thimble, so I have...a lot of questions.

1. According to this Amazon reviewer, most of the trade activity you studied was: transatlantic ships arrived in the Caribbean, sold off mainly the healthy men to plantation owners there--and then intercolonial traders purchased the remainder, to sell down to French and Spanish America (along with commodities). Did this gender/health/age imbalance affect plantation development in the different areas at all? (I'd love to know how it affected slaves' experience, but it sounds like that's outside the scope of your study.)

2. Again according to that review, you argue that the interim traders used slaves basically as an excuse to trade raw goods like sugar and rum, and this helped promote the rise of Britain in world trade. Did you see any kinds of coordinated 'national' effort, like laws in the Caribbean restricting interim trafficking to ships of British origin? Or was this just individual profit-seekers who happened to be British? Was this trade taxed at all, and by whom?

3. Were conditions on the intercolonial ships as bad as the Middle Passage?

Thank you sir for this!

How large an effect did Caribbean piracy have on the slave trade? Were there any pirates who targeted slavers in particular?

How much of a role did Bacon's Rebellion play in creating racism? I've heard that since black slaves and white indentured servants made common cause in the rebellion, afterwards the powers-that-be in Virginia put a divide between the two groups by, for example, passing laws that discriminated by race. The intent, or at least the result, was that white indentured servants started to see themselves as superior to the African slaves. How important of a factor was this in creating racism?

Was there a 'direction of the flow' of the intercolonial slave trade - were slaves sold from one region and bought by another? If so, what was it? Did this change over time?

Holy cow. This is a lot of questions. I'm getting tired, but I'm trying to get to all of them!!!

Thanks for doing the AMA Im European and so the slave trade is probably not as strongly discussed in our society as it is in the USA (even though its teached in school)

How is it to do research about a subject that people have very emotional feelings and opinions about? Do you sometime have to change certain sentences or words to not offend anyone?

Hello! Thank you for doing this AMA about a troubling subject most of us know too little about! I have added your book to my reading list!

Most textbooks on U.S. history focus on slavery just before the Civil War but I have a few questions about slavery and attitudes toward people of African descent in the 18th century.

1. One thing I often read in more casual writings on history, is that Europe was far "less racist" because slavery was extremely rare, and thus black people never really came to be viewed as underclass. But paintings from this era in England, France, Spain, and Italy, often portray page boys or servant women of African descent in what definitely seems to be a servile, inferior position. Could you tell us a bit more about this, were such people indeed slaves or more often servants?

2. For certain individuals, who might be descended from slaves, but born free and/or benefited from some exceptional social advantages, what was life like? Famous examples that come to mind include the Chevalier de Saint-Georges or Dido Elizabeth Belle, subject of a recent (slightly romanticized) film. What degree of success might they hope to attain, and how respected would they be by their white contemporaries?

3. Just how active were former slaves in early abolitionist movements? I understand some would testify before abolitionist societies concerning their inhumane treatment, and that some wrote "slave narratives" that were published with the help of abolitionists. But it seems like members were still usually wealthy and white. What about freedmen and women who might not have a such harrowing tales to tell, but still wanted to contribute to the anti-slavery movement?

4. What were the attitudes of the "typical" white person in American society shortly before and after the revolution? Those who might not own slaves (or deal in business dependent on slavery), but were not members of abolitionist societies.

Is your book a good introductory work for someone that knows only the basics of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, or do I require some deeper knowledge before going for the book?

Why Brasil was the place where most of the slaves were sent?And after the prohibition of the slave trade in Brazil, how impactful was for the market?

It's slightly off subject, but I'm interested in the effect of the slave trade on Africa.

What was the effect of so much manpower being drained away?

Were there economic shocks when slavery was outlawed?

Were there particular sets of skilled laborers from Africa who were prized and sought out by slavers for transport to the Americas for their particular craft?

It's a bit outside the scope of your work mentioned here, but how unequal was the trade between Europeans and local Africans? Were Europeans coercing Africans into giving up slaves, or was the trade relatively bilateral?

The general impression is that colonial era slaves are black, indentured servants were white, but there is little mention and small evidence that indigenous people from the Caribbean or South America were enslaved and brought to the North American Colonies.

Is that an accurate overview?

What accounts for the lack of SA Indigenous people with a slave history in the US?

Thanks

How accurate is Thomas Sowell's "Black Rednecks and White Liberals"?

Specifically interested in the Scottish immigrant culture and how it had passed through to what we now know as modern 'Black culture' before, during, and after slaves arrived in the American South.

Also very interested in your thoughts on Sowell's downplaying the American decision to emancipate-- that it was probably the 'right' decision at the time.

Thanks!

What were the profit margins of a single voyage? Or of a transatlantic slave businessman over time?

I'm really curious about Islam in the New World. Obviously some of the slaves that were brought to the New World were Muslim, and I know they were treated in different ways (particularly with the Spanish trying to ensure their conversion). How did slave owners in different areas view Muslim slaves as opposed to those that practiced traditional African faiths? Did the Dutch, for instance, treat these slaves differently from the Americans, British, or Portuguese?

Hi, I'm not sure if I'm too late but it's great to see examination into this subject matter when some school boards are trying to minimize it in textbooks.

Was there a typical origin by tribe or present-day African nation for slaves which were sold for the Atlantic passage? Did it change over time due to regional or tribal wars at all?

Were there ever large communities of escaped slaves in the hinterlands of the British Empire? Why or why not? And if there were, what happened to them?

Do you know about any differences in the slave trade in Northern colonies versus the southern ones?

This is a bit after your time period and area focus, maybe, but you probably know enough about the state of the field. My question is whether the War of 1812 and the Indian wars of the early 19th century opened up the Southwest frontier to intensive settlement and cotton cultivation, giving slavery a shot in the arm in the American deep south. Do you know of any current scholarship that backs this up? On a related note, is it true that the large sugar and cotton plantations of the lower Mississippi were net "consumers" of slave labor, because of the harsh conditions and prevalence of disease? I've always thought the term "sold down the river" came from the domestic American slave trade, where slaves from states like Kentucky or Tennessee were always under the threat of being sold down the Mississippi to much worse situations.

Were escaped slave communities in Spanish America ever well enough organized to pose a fundamental threat the very survival of large Spanish towns/cities? What did the Spaniards do about the large escaped/free black populations?

Have you considered exploring European slave trading in the Indian Ocean during the early modern period? Historians like Phil Stern argue that patterns of Atlantic slaveholding were important in the development of forms of forced labour at East India Company settlements such as St Helena and Bombay.

Thanks for the AMA!

One thing I've been wondering is how Dutch plantations (which relied on enslaved labor) in Suriname and the Antilles continued to be supplied with enslaved people after the (legal) abolition of the slave trade in 1814. Is there any evidence of heavy dependence on an intercolonial slave trade?

Was there a notable difference in the way different countries/companies conducted slave trade in respect to how they treated the enslaved between capture and sale?

Were there for example different ideas about how to treat them either because of pure moral reasons, or because of business reasons ('keeping slaves healthier and safer will be good for business'). And if so, how did these countries/companies try to differentiate themselves?

Or was treatment of Africans mostly the same across the board?

Was the city of Bordeaux, France a part of the slave trade? If so, are there records of the captains of ships that sailed from those ports? I'm looking for info on a Captain Jarreau.

One reason I've heard about why recently enslaved Africans didn't try to escape once they reached America was because the Middle Passage was so horrible that it psychologically broke their will. Is there any validity to this theory? If so, was it intentional on the part of the slave traders?

Hello, professor, and thank you for conducting this AMA! To what extent does the anti-Semitic belief that Jews were disproportionately represented among trans-Atlantic slave traders or American colonial slave auctioneers hold any weight?

I've heard that real escape from slavery in the Caribbean, since they were islands, was impossible, whereas American slaves could walk over the border. Was there considerably lower incidence of runaways from the Caribbean?

Professor, you often hear about how the treatment of slaves in Africa differed from the treatment of slaves in the colonies. My question is what were those differences? Did the colonies always practice chattel slavery? And was slavery in sub-Saharan Africa really more like serfdom than chattel slavery?

Are there current estimates of percentages of slaves who had white (male of course) parentage up until the end of the civil war?

Is it possible to roughly determine how many total "slave-years" there were? For instance, a man dying at 50 who was born into slavery contributes 50 slave-years to the total. I'm trying to get that figure to compare it to the number of prison-years since, seeing as how we have about 2 million in jail at a time every year. Is it calculable?

What is the best method for an African-American to pinpoint their ancestry within Africa geographically?

Hopefully I'm not too late, but - immediately after emancipation, what happened to slaves that had been owned by very wealthy / upper class families and had a better quality of life than most slaves, having learned to read and write etc?

was it easy for them to find employment as clerks etc? where there any professions they particularly gravitated towards because it was easier for them to get them or where they forced to take jobs that didn't allow them to use their skills because that's what they could get?

I'm wondering because you see portraits, in the national gallery (UK), of well-dressed child clerks or something similar, and I know from reading that they were almost ornamental and it was very trendy to have a african child slave at the time. So what would have happened to these educated 'house slaves' once they were freed?

So how widely reviled was salary by the end of Napoleonic War? How did various navies dealt with the salve trade once the slavery and slave trade was declared as illegal by their countries?

Hello Professor,

I've read that, when Spain took over control of Louisiana in the 1760s, the laws governing slaves changed. In particular, the government enforced laws already in use in colonies like Cuba, including the concept of coartación, where slaves were given the right to buy their own freedom.

What accounts for the difference in philosophies towards slavery between the Spanish and the British or French, whose colonies apparently did not afford slaves similar rights?

Thanks very much for this AMA.

Do you know what percentage of white inhabitants here in Barbados would have been slaveowners throughout the history of the colony until 1834? I'm under the impression that it would be the majority.

Also, did the Barbados Slave Code of 1661 make things better, or worse, for the enslaved, and how much did it influence the practice in the rest of the Americas?

I have heard it said that the majority of slave traders were Jewish and that the majority of slaves ended up in south America. Is there any truth to either of those claims?

If it's true that most were Jewish why would that have been?

Do you have any recommendations for the illicit American slave trade (ie. post-1807)? I'm aware of some of the more famous illegal slave traders, who did quite well for themselves, but I'm not aware of a more comprehensive study. Then again, it was illicit, so I imagine there was relatively little paperwork involved.

Also, does your work cover slave trading between the US and Cuba during any period?

Thanks for doing this AMA!

What were the major differences between slavery in the ancient world and the Atlantic slave trade? What specifically caused these changes?

We're slaves of different African ethnicities valued differently?

I have heard it said that Industrial and agricultural Slavery essentially dissipated as a world industry sometime around when Rome fell.

However, when the Portuguese discovered sugar, the Vatican, the pope, the king of England and many other wealthy countries started the slave trade on a global scale just to farm sugar. This is where the industries of Privateers and Pirates come in, with their obsession with Run, made from all the surplus sugar in the America's, the Caribbean sea and surrounding countries such as Cuba.

Essentially Sugar bought back worldwide slavery, is this true? This is from Terrence Mckenna's book Food of the Gods.

The Emancipation Proclamation was a theoretical end to slavery in the US, but for many decades afterwards Black Americans were caught in networks of forced labor. Relying heavily on corrupt rings of local officials who perverted justice and conducted phony trials, many thousands of black state convicts were sold to corporations, businesses, plantations, and farms where for all intents and purposes they were slaves.

To what extent does the public or common understanding of the 'end of slavery' in the US diverge from the academic understanding? And if there is a divergence, what are the implications for how American society views itself?

How did systems of southern, post-emancipation forced labor, impact labor movements and attempts for free white workers to organize and strike?

Thank you for your time and for conducting this AMA.

We hear all kinds of stories of brutality towards slaves, fight clubs, force feeding, hotboxes etc. How widespread were these practices? It seems like a poor way to treat a heavy labour workforce, wouldn't it be impractical to be constantly beating and damaging your slave?

I am a day late to this, and so I hope you will get a chance to see this question.

Can you talk about whether populations of slaves maintained African cultural identities in the New World?

As a follow-up, have you had a chance to read Gwendolyn Midlo Hall's Slavery and African Ethnicities in the Americas? If so, what do you think of her arguments about the persistence of African ethnicities in the Americas?