Slaves and Shipping in Eighteenth-Century Virginia

Abstract

Slaves and Shipping in Eighteenth-Century Virginia As the outlines of the Atlantic slave trade are becoming better known, the rather special nature of the North American sector is becoming more clearly defined. The most obvious fact about this trade is that it was relatively minor compared with the West Indian and Brazilian trades in the same period. Also, unlike the Brazilian and Cuban trades, the British North American trade was mostly an eighteenth-century phenomenon which involved direct African importation only for part of that century. The three most important North American zones of importation throughout most of the eighteenth century were Virginia, South Carolina, and Georgia. Although Virginia was the largest of the continental slave societies, it ranked second in importance to South Carolina as an importer of slaves. Nevertheless, the abundance and quality of the available data make this colony the best with which to begin a comprehensive study of the dynamics of the slave trade to the region which would form the United States. The sources for this study are the materials gathered almost forty years ago by Elizabeth Donnan in her famous documentary collection on the Atlantic slave trade. Although scholars have had access to her study for some time, there has been no comprehensive analysis undertaken of the records that she has reprinted.' The aim of this study is to analyze these records both to determine the internal dynamics of the slave trade to Virginia in terms of routes and shipping, and to place that trade with its sources, volume, ship's slave-carrying capacity, frequency of voyage, and tonnage patterns within the context of the general structure of the entire Atlantic slave trade in the eighteenth century.