Traders, planters, and slaves: market behaviour in early English America.

Abstract

The second half of the 18th century was a time when the international trade in Africa became one of the world's largest industries, and slaves constituted the majority of the population of the English West Indies. The detailed accounts of 74 000 slaves, taken from the records of the Royal African Company, the largest English company engaged in the slave trade, provide the basis for economic analysis and quantitative investigation of slave mortality, the conduct of slave auctions, trends over time in slave prices in the American colonies, the demographic composition of the transatlantic slave trade, and the migration of plantation owners away from the West Indies. The emergence of such a highly competitive and efficient transatlantic market had important implications for the development of large-scale competitive markets generally, and the efficiency of resource allocation in early English America.-J.Sheail