The Volume of the Early Atlantic Slave Trade,1450-1521

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Periodical article

Title:	The Volume of the Early Atlantic Slave Trade,1450-1521
Author:	Elbl, Ivana
Year:	1996
Periodical:	The Journal of African History
Volume:	38
Issue:	1
Pages:	31-76
Language:	English
Geographic terms:	West Africa Portugal
Subjects:	slave trade History and Exploration
External link:	https://www.jstor.org/stable/182945
Abstract:	This article establishes a comprehensive estimate of the volume of the Atlantic slave trade in its opening period, 1450-1521, when it was almost exclusively under the control of Portugal. The conclusions appreciably raise the figures hitherto suggested by most modern scholars. The first section decribes and evaluates the available sources, both narrative and quantitative, and outlines calculation methods applicable to them. The second section establishes the respective shares of the Portuguese Crown and of private traders in the Atlantic slave trade, as reflected in the surviving quantitative data. It shows that the private trade significantly exceeded that of the Crown. The third part reconciles contemporary volume estimates and quantitative data in order to assess the temporal and regional distribution of slave exports from Africa. The study concludes that Europeans exported approximately 156,000 slaves from Atlantic Africa between 1450 and 1521. Notes, ref., sum.