Final passages: The British inter-colonial slave trade, 1619--1807

"Final Passages" examines the further distribution of forced African migrants who reached British America in the transatlantic slave trade. Extant studies of the slave trade reveal much about the infamous Middle Passage, but little is known about the next stage in the journey of Africans to New World slavery. The dissertation examines how colonial slaveholding societies distributed Africans from the major ports of importation from Africa to all of the varied destinations where colonists employed slave labor.; Four major types of sources underpin the study. From colonial port records the author has compiled a database of over 6,500 intra-American slave trading voyages; this database helps identify and quantify the primary routes of slave distribution. The correspondence of colonial officials describes the contours of the trade where port records are lacking. The account books and correspondence of merchants and companies engaged in the trade reveal the economics of the trade and offer the rationale for trading activities. Finally, the rare surviving firsthand accounts of the slave trade by Africans provide a glimpse of the lived experience of the trade.; The dissertation argues that Africans typically arrived in British America at one of a few large centers of transatlantic importation where many were purchased by merchants, not planters. Over 300,000 of the Africans arriving in British America in the slave trade, approximately 15 percent, subsequently boarded other ships for further distribution. Colonial merchants exploited timely information from their connections in other American ports to find opportunities for profitable distribution of slave cargoes. These traders also used the lure of slaves for sale as leverage to open markets that were otherwise closed to them. Both traders and policymakers tended to view Africans as commodities, rather than as potential laborers. From the African perspective, the intra-American portion of the slave trade added to the hardship of the experience. It increased the likelihood of separation from other captives who shared bonds of kinship, origin, or linguistic or cultural affinities. The intra-American trade also added significantly to the risk of mortality that slaves endured in the journey to American slavery.