Jacmel and the Slave Trade

Checking the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database at slavevoyages.org only reveals a total of 2528 captives disembarked at Jacmel over the course of the colonial period (and over half from Central Africa). Of course, there were undoubtedly some undocumented voyages. Consulting  But it is interesting to note that Jacmel was not a major port of call for slave ships coming to Saint-Domingue from Africa. One wonders or assumes that most captives carried on French Slave ships must have arrived in Jacmel from Les Cayes or, perhaps, the ports of Leogane, Petit-Goave and Port-au-Prince via an overland route. Checking Mettas's Répertoire des expéditions négrières françaises au XVIIIe siècle reveals a few more slave ships that traveled to Jacmel. For instance, in 1786, Le Jason stopped at Jacmel and Leogane, coming from Angola with perhaps 450 slaves, which we could not confirm in the Saint Domingue press. In the same year, Les Bons Amis stopped at the port of Les Cayes and Jacmel with a human cargo of 287 from the Gold Coast (which presumably meant the broader French definition). Another ship, Les Deux Cousins, arrived in Jacmel with 190 people from Angola or Louangue, in 1788. 

More research is necessary, but it seems like the Jacmel Quarter's slave population may have had demographics that present a mix of both Les Cayes (the Sud) and the West (Leogane, Port-au-Prince). This could be seen in the relatively high proportion of Ibos among Jacmel's slave population (a characteristic shared with the Sud). On the other hand, the more frequent slave ships bringing captives to Leogane, Petit Goave and Port-au-Prince likely supplied a large share of the African bonded labor that arrived in Jacmel. Smuggling and inter-colonial trade with the Dutch and English also supplied captives, though it is difficult to quantify. According to the Intra-American Slave Trade Database, a number of vessels brought captives to Jacmel from Kingston, Jamaica (a total of 331 captives disembarked). Of course, the trade was going on earlier, if the appearance of slaves from Curacao and the English West Indies is any reliable indication. Thus, to an unknown extent, the Jacmel area was also supplied by captives from English, Dutch and possibly Spanish colonies. But the Intra-American Slave Trade Database mainly shows ships bringing captives from Jamaica or the British colonies to the ports of Saint-Domingue's South.

Anyway, checking the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database's data visualization feature for the total number of captives disembarked at Les Cayes reveals a disproportionate Bight of Biafra share, which likely corresponds with the elevated Ibo presence in the South of Haiti (Sud). Yet the Bight of Biafra share for captives imported at Cul-de-Sac, Leogane, Port-au-Prince and Petit Goave was tiny, only 1158. But compared to Les Cayes, the ports of the West imported far greater numbers of captives from the Senegambia (13,414 versus 3686 for Les Cayes). One wonders if the consistent numbers of "Bambara" in parts of the Jacmel quarter in the second half of the 18th century is likely due to "Bambara" captives brought from Leogane and Port-au-Prince, since very few Senegambians were imported at Les Cayes after 1750. Thus, we suspect Jacmel, Bainet, and Cayes-Jacmel's African population to represent a mix of the characteristics of both the "West" and the "South" in the colony, possibly resembling the "West" but having a greater share of Bight of Biafra captives.