A Troublesome Statistic: Traders and Coastal Shipments in the Westward Movement of Slaves

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: University System of Ohio; Ohio State University; University of Iowa
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC HISTORY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-0507
• DOI: 10.1017/S0022050713000612
• 发表日期: 2013
• 页码: 792-809
• 关键词: market

摘要

We analyze all slave manifests housed at the National Archives-some 24,400 documents involving approximately 135,000 slaves who were transported in the coastwise trade from 1810 to 1861. The manifests list the name of the owner or shipper, which allows us to match names with traders found in other sources. We also utilize demographic characteristics of the manifests to estimate the probability that a trader organized the shipment. Commercial transactions increased over the antebellum period, and on average were responsible for approximately 55 percent of slaves who migrated from Atlantic to Gulf coast ports.