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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - II. Race - 5. Race and Ancestry - 2. African Ancestry
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ii8 An American Dilemma
No ofEcial registration records were kept of the number of slaves
imported, but compilations have been made on the basis of ship captains’
reports and port records. The compilation which has been most extensively
quoted has been that of Henry C. Carey, as modified by the United States
Bureau of the Census. Carey estimated that a total of about 333,000 Negroes
had been imported into the United States up to i8o8, when federal law
prohibited the slave trade.® Of this figure the Census Bureau said, “It is
claimed, however, that this total is too small, and that a closer estimate
would bring the number to 370,000 or even 400,000.”* These slaves were
brought from Africa and from the West Indies.**
TABLE I
Carey’s Estimates of the Number or Slaves Imported
INTO the United States at Various Time Periods
Time Period
Number of
Slaves
Imported
Avrage
Import
Pe Year
Prior to 1715 30,000
171 5-1750 90,000 2,500
1751-1760 35,000 3,500
1761-1770 74,500 7,400
1771-1790 34,000 1,700
1791-1808 70,000 3,900
Total 333,500
Source: Henry C. Carey, The Slave Trade (1853), p. 18.
Some 50,000 more slaves were brought within the boundaries of the
United States between 1790 and i860 by annexations of territory
principally of Louisiana, Florida and Texas.^® There are not even private
records to guide us in estimating how many slaves were smuggled into the
country between 1808 and i860. Herskovits mentions the fantastically high
figure of two and a half millions.^^ Dublin, after examining the data on
smuggling and on births and deaths, concluded: “The unlawful trade in
Negroes can at most account for the increase of less than one-half of i per
* U. S. Bureau of the Census, J Century of Pofulation Growth in the United States \
tygo-igoo (1909), p. 36. A figure of slightly below 400,000 slaves imported before 180S
seems reasonable in the light of the fact that the total Negro population was only 757,000
in 1790 and that this estimate allows for an import of 330,000 up to 1790.
* It is impossible to estimate how many came from Africa and how many from the West
Indies, not only because no adequate records were kept, but also because there was the
custom of bringing slaves intended for the United States first to the West Indies for a few
years where they were made accustomed to their new life by the older West Indian slaves.
It seems to be the consensus of opinion, however, that the proportion of West Indian
slaves brought to the United States did not become significant until the nineteenth century.
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