A Study of The Rate of Mortality in The Trans-atlantic Slave Journeys Under The Flags of Brazil and Portugal Between 1800s and 1866

In the textbook, Freedom on My Mind, the writers mentioned that the mortality rate for female slaves and child slaves is typically lower than that of male slaves. The primary source document, “General Observations on the Management of Slaves, 1700” by James Barbot Jr. describes the difference in conditions faced by males as opposed to women and children. According to Barbot, the females were victims of sexual assault, but they were given much more freedom to roam around the vessel than male slaves were. This is probably because of the Europeans prototypical view of African women as weak and dirty, yet promiscuous. They were not seen as threats and thus were allowed more freedoms. Their allowance to roam the ship and not spend the whole voyage in tight spaced captivity led to their higher rate of survival.

To examine the differences in mortality rate, I chose to examine Brazilian/Portuguese transports because it made up the largest number of slaves being exported. They were at their peak rate of exportation between the years 1800 and 1866 so I decided to use that to get a good general idea of slave mortality. I knew that the number of deaths would definitely be higher for males just because the number of men on the voyages was typically larger than women but I wondered which population had a higher mortality rate. When I read about the conditions that the men had to face and how they were stuffed in dark, tight spaces and basically piled on top of each other I knew that those conditions were a central factor in deaths aboard ships. I assumed that the poor conditions and the spread of disease would make for a higher mortality rate for the men than the women who do have some freedom and get to spend some time on the deck getting fresh air and space.

Upon researching this topic, I realized this part of the database only allowed me to access data on the number of males and females, but did not let me specify whether they were adults or children. Since children, whether male or female, were also given preferential treatment I would have preferred to be able to see the statistics for male and female adults only. However, because of this I had to look at the genders as a whole and ignore age in my research.

From 1800 to the end of slave voyages under the Brazilian/Portuguese Flag in 1866, 2,024,129 slaves were transported, but only 1.825,257 of them survived the voyage and arrived at the intended destination. This means during the voyage 198,872 slaves or 9.83% of the slaves died. These voyages were made up of 66.5 percent male slaves and 33.5 percent female slaves. The database showed that the mortality rate for men on these ships during this time frame was 11.5% while the rate for women was 7.25%.

Even though the data includes male children this data shows that the conditions that the men were kept in and the freedom that women were allotted made a pretty significant difference in the sheer number of deaths that occurred the voyages. This also shows that if the conditions were made slightly better that many more slaves would have been able to survive voyages. By just making more voyages and filling each ship more sparingly, even though it would cost more time and money, many more slaves would have survived the trips.

I was not completely able to answer my question but the data I found convinced me that what I assumed and what the text mentioned about the female experience aboard the ships is true. If I could dive further into research I would be interested in looking into what diseases led to most of the mortalities and what effect any Sexually Transmitted Infections caused deaths and illness for female slaves who were sexually abused during the voyages. I would be very interested in learning more about this topic because slaves have been mostly depicted as male in my experience and the female slave experience is not really taught and discussed