Regarding the numbers of slaves dead on slave ships, my source was the book I mentioned earlier by Randall Robinson (Harvard Law; founder and president of TransAmerica; he played significant role in abolishing apartheid in South Africa - for whatever this is worth) called The Debt. I have done several Google searches myself, and have found many varying numbers. I don't know ... maybe we'll never know. In any case, the "gestalt" of what I wrote stands - whether 2 million slaves died en route, or 10 million, of more. Below are a couple of sites I found that hint at the "millions" dead on slave ships - I am more interested in as close as we can get to the objective truth, in any case (and I feel this way about everything). The quotes below are taken from their respective links. I'm done with this subject, folks (I know I've said this before, but now I promise you - "Yay! Yay! Yay!" ~ Peanut Gallery). I thank you for your input. Olga
"... It is extremely difficult to estimate the number of African that died during the Middle Passage. Most historians do believe that nearly as many Africans died en route as made it to the Americas. In the 1969 study, The Atlantic Slave Trade: A Census, Philip Curtin estimated the number of Africans transported across the ocean to have been 8 million. Most studies since then, however, have increased this number. In 1997, Hugh Thomas's The Slave Trade: The History of the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1440-1870 placed the number of Africans that arrived in the Americas at 11 million. Other recent studies using documented evidence have placed their estimates from 10-15 million. If it is to be assumed that just as many Africans perished during the journey to the Americas as made it, then the total number of victims of the Middle Passage climbs to between 20 and 30 million."
http://www.people.virginia.edu/~lrg4x/THEMIDDLEPASSAGE.html
"...The practice of slavery led to the deaths of at least 30 million people who died during transit in terrible conditions on the slave ships. Many British businesses and towns, such as Bristol, Liverpool and London, prospered because of their involvement in the slave trade."
http://www.s-light.demon.co.uk/presspack/gh4.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Oct 12 2001 - 14:39:59 MDT