An Overview of Adult Slave "Nations" in the Jacmel Quarter, 1740s

We continued our readings of the notarized records from Jacmel for the 1740s, featuring the same notary from the 1730s, Delorme-de-Boissy. Alas, some years are not represented well and we found fewer detailed records or inventories involving at least 10 adult slaves to draw our data from. Several documents were much harder to read, too, either for being too faded or the ambiguous or uncertain writing of African "nations" of enslaved persons. Nonetheless, we found enough records to draw a sample of about 178 adult slaves, and thought it worthwhile to focus on the total number for the various "nations" in the area during this period. 

One can see immediately a major Ibo component persisted in the 1740s. From our sample, they were the largest single "nation" in the region. While some habitations and slaveholders held majorities of Mine or other "nations" as property, this Ibo preponderance seems to match other patterns for the South of Saint Domingue. Next, the Congo, were a mainstay among the "nations" of slaves. We assume part of their high numbers was related to the expansion of coffee, a sector in which planters are said to have favored "Congo" slaves. What surprised us, although it probably should not have, was the large Mine, or Mina, numbers. 

Overall, the majority of captives came from the Slave Coast, Bight of Biafra and West Central Africa. Or, in other words, the Lower Guinea and Central African numerical dominance was clear. The "Upper Guinea" captives, represented by the Bambara, Poulard, Senegalois, were rather diminished compared to the Igbo, Arada, and Congo, who together comprised more than half of our sample drawn from different slaveholders in the Jacmel quarter. This majority increases even more when other Central African and Lower Guinea groups are added to the totals. In addition, some of our large number of "Unknown" or illegible nations probably fell into the Lower Guinea cluster, pointing more towards the Slave Coast, Bight of Biafra and West Central Africa as the major supplier of captives. Again, several of the Creoles may have had parents from other regions, and the population of enslaved children born in the colony (which would have boosted the Creole total) may have had parents from Upper Guinea.