blog




  • Essay / A study of the mortality rate during the transatlantic voyages of slaves under the flags of Brazil and Portugal between the years 1800 and 1866

    In the textbook Freedom on My Mind, the authors mentioned that the mortality rate of slaves and female slave children are generally inferior to 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 men compared to women and children. According to Barbot, women were victims of sexual assault, but they were given much more freedom to move around the ship than male slaves. This is likely due to the prototypical European view of African women as weak and dirty, but promiscuous nonetheless. They were not considered threats and therefore enjoyed more freedoms. Their ability to roam the ship and not spend the entire journey in captivity at short intervals has led to their higher survival rate. Say no to plagiarism. Get a custom essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get the original essayTo examine the differences in mortality rates, I chose to examine Brazilian/Portuguese transports because they were the largest number of slaves exported. Their export rate was at its peak between the 1800s and 1866, so I decided to use it to get a good general idea of ​​slave mortality. I knew that the number of deaths would definitely be higher among men simply because the number of men on the trips was generally greater than the number of women, but I wondered which population had a higher mortality rate. When I read about the conditions the men faced and how they were crowded into dark, cramped spaces and piled on top of each other, I knew that these conditions were a central factor in deaths aboard the ships. I assumed that poor conditions and the spread of disease would lead to a higher mortality rate among men than among women who have some freedom and can spend time on deck getting fresh air and space . After researching this topic, I realized that this part of the database only allowed me to access data on the number of men and women, but did not allow me to specify s They were adults or children. Since children, whether male or female, also received preferential treatment, I would have preferred to be able to see statistics only for adult men and women. However, because of this, I had to consider genders as a whole and ignore age in my research. From 1800 until 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 were transported. they survived the journey and arrived at their intended destination. This means that during the journey, 198,872 slaves, or 9.83% of the slaves, died. These voyages were comprised of 66.5 percent male slaves and 33.5 percent female slaves. The database showed that the mortality rate for men on board these ships during this period was 11.5% while that for women was 7.25%. Even though the data includes male children, this data shows that the conditions in which men were held and the freedom that women were given made a fairly significant difference in the number of deaths that occurred during the journeys. . This also shows that if conditions had.