The Atlantic Slave Trade

April 25-26, 1998

This two-day Workshop was devoted to analysis and interpretation of the Atlantic slave trade, focused on the new database of 27,224 slave voyages, 1562-1867, compiled under the sponsorship of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute at Harvard University. This compilation, now in machine-readable form to be published on CD-ROM by the Cambridge University Press, is the product of a team of scholars—David Eltis of Queens University, Canada, David Richardson of Hull University, England, Herbert Klein of Columbia University, and Stephen Behrendt, now at the University of Victoria, New Zealand. The Introduction to the CD-ROM, now scheduled for publication in mid-1999, has been made available online by Cambridge University Press in an Acrobat format. The data set, representing voyages by all the major transatlantic carriers, covers approximately two-thirds of all voyages in the history of the trade and includes characteristics of the vessels, numbers of slaves, ports of departure and arrival, crew size, and other significant variables.

Saturday, April 25

Session I

Opening Remarks

     Professor Bernard Bailyn, Harvard University

The Du Bois Institute Database:

What Is It? What's in It? How Can It Be Used? Explanations and Illustrations

     David Eltis, Queen's University, Canada

     David Richardson, Hull University, England

     Stephen Behrendt, Charles Warren Center, Harvard University

     Herbert Klein, Columbia University

Session II

The Database: Exploration, Illustration, Discussion

     Professors Eltis, Richardson, Behrendt, and Klein

Sunday, April 26

Session III

Interpretations

     Joseph A. Miller, University of Virginia

     Philip D. Morgan, College of William & Mary

Responses and Discussion