re: Just overheard a guy say "slavery wasn't racist"

quote:

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but it was quoted at 50 million

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Ludicrous - more inflated than Bama's Championship* count. And, similarly unnecessary when the truth is bad enough.

At the height of the middle passage, when we have reasonably good numbers, the 18th Century saw about 6 million transported - this 50 million number would be almost 10 deaths (overall, again 400 years), for every successful transport during the most successful 100 years.



Now - what is credible is a total number of deaths due to the African slave trade of about 60 million from all sources, going back to about 650 A.D. - that's a high number, but in the ballpark - considering how many were shipped across the Sahara, the Indian Ocean, as well as the Middle Passage through about 1900. That may be how the 60 million creeps into the Middle Passage conversation. I would say the low estimate is 2 million for that, the high would be about 6 million with 4 million being a solid, credible "middle" number - and that counts deaths on the way to the coast and probably some estimates of those killed instead of captured in slaving raids in Africa and not strictly ON the Middle Passage, but part of that whole process.