The Slave Ship

[Wild Bill]

While not arguing with the description of slaves picked aboard ships, and avoiding abolitionist propaganda, the death rate in slaves transported across the Atlantic (the so-called Middle Passage) was much less than 50%. according to Philip D. Curtin, The Atlantic Slave Trade: A Census (Wisconsin, 1969), 275ff., generally considered a good voice on the problem of slave mortality, death rate from all causes including disease averaged about 22% for the longest sailing distance of over 60 days and under 20% for lesser routes.

A rate of 50% was considered exceptional under special circumstances. The rate of survival was really deadly after the slaves were landed in the new world, and very much on a par with whites from Europe, whether they came free or indentured. The survival rate depended on length of journey, condition upon capture and sale, disease present in the slaves' village environment, and chance of epidemic during the voyage to the new world (which could prove catastrophic for any single ship).

Of course conditions improved over the years and the worst catastrophe for a slaver was to be overhauled by a warship. The whole cargo could be hooked onto cannon balls and dropped overboard in that eventuality. The History Channel has a show that runs every once in a while on the USS Constellation, the US's contribution to stopping the Atlantic slave trade before the Civil War. But no one was hanged for slave transport on the high seas in the US until 1862. I believe he was Cpt Nathan Gordon.

Remember that the trade was a business for profit, cruel as it was. The goal was for the slave cargo to survive in as great a number as possible, not to kill them.