Estimating Central Sudan (Hausa) Imports in Saint Domingue

Patrick Manning's estimates for slave exports from the Bight of Benin by ethnic origins (Slavery, Colonialism and Economic Growth in Dahomey, 1640-1960).

In order to compare our own crude estimates for Hausa and "Central Sudan" populations imported into Saint Domingue during the 18th century, we found it useful to check the work of scholars for estimates and context on the total volume of slave exports for the 18th century. In addition, some scholars have written plausible historical analyses of the scale of the slave trade, the ethnicities exported from the Slave Coast during the century, and the conditions that led to captives from areas to the north being fed into the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. 

The most useful scholar here is Patrick Manning, whose Slavery, Colonialism, and Economic Growth in. Dahomey, 1640-1960 includes a number of useful tables. While the estimates for the 18th century may not be accurate for the total Central Sudan share of captives exported, the numbers are actually plausible and would fit our own estimates. According to Manning, about 10,500 "Hausa" were exported from the Bight of Benin during the 18th century. The vast majority appear to have been exported in the second half of the 1700s, too. This would include multiple decades when the share of captives purchased by French slavers were significant, particularly in the period from 1760-1790. While Manning's data indicates the French, over the entire 18th century, purchased 259,300 captives from the Bight of Benin, David Geggus's work shows that a total of about 157,748 captives were brought to Saint Domingue on French ships. Specifically, for the period covering the years 1750-1800, a total of around 123,540 Africans from the Bight of Benin were brought to the Caribbean on French ships. According to Geggus, Saint Domingue absorbed over half of the total number of imported slaves from the Bight of Benin, 265,800 (note that Geggus's calculation differs from that of Manning). It stands to reason that the majority of the Central Sudan captives exported from the Bight of Benin by French ships in the 18th century ended up in Saint Domingue. 

To be more precise would require calculating with more precision the share of the Bight of Benin captives brought to Saint Domingue versus other French colonies in the Antilles from 1750-1790. Furthermore, one must determine, somehow, the proportion of Hausa captives who were purchased by the French instead of English, Brazilian or other traders during this period. However, overall, Saint-Domingue seems to have absorbed about 59%. of the total French slave imports of the 18th century. This would suggest that perhaps up to 59% of the estimated 10,500 Hausa captives purchased by the French from the Bight of Benin, such as ports like Porto-Novo, ended up in Saint-Domingue. Checking the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database for slave ships from the Bight of Benin who brought captives to Saint Domingue between 1750 and 1800, however, gives a figure of 105,900. If true, which may be an understatement due to the French including parts of the Slave Coast in the "Gold Coast," this would represent the vast majority of the 123,540 Africans from the Bight of Benin imported in the Antilles during the period 1750-1800 by French ships. Thus, it is very likely that, however many Central Sudan captives were sold from the Bight of Benin in the 18th century, the dominant share of those carried by French slave ships were brought to Haiti (for the French Caribbean.

Using the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database at slavevoyages.org made it quick and easy to get estimates for the total numbers of slaves imported from the Bight of Benin in the period 1750-1794.

However, using the Trans-Atlantic Database to see the total number of slave exports from the Bight of Benin from 1750-1800, one can arrive at different numbers. According to the database, 444,855 captives were disembarked from the Bight of Benin during this period, carried by ships of all nations. If the Saint-Domingue share during this period was only 105,900, then it is somewhat plausible that the French share of the estimated Hausa captives was possibly at least 2,500, though likely somewhat higher. Of course, one would have to fact check this with some better estimates for the decades with the most Hausa captives. According to Manning's estimates, the most Hausa captives were imported in the years 1781-1800, of which Haiti's imports would have ceased in the early 1790s. Nonetheless, the French share during those two decades was substantial, purchasing a little under half of the slaves sold from the Bight of Benin in the 1780s. The French share in the 1790s, naturally, was smaller, but still purchasing a little under 10,000 captives. If broadly accurate, then the French slave traders likely acquired more than 2500 Hausa, perhaps significantly more.

This aforementioned number is plausible and not too far from our estimate. Ultimately, if Manning's figures for the Hausa captives sold during the 18th century is correct, then perhaps a minimum of around 2500 Hausa were landed in Haiti. Using these rough figures, we can calculate how many Hausa captives were imported at the principal ports of the colony during the years 1750-1794. If Le Cap received about 36,810 African captives from the Bight of Benin during this period, one might estimate that about 881 Hausa were imported, presuming the share of Hausa within the imported population was comparable to the share of the total slave imports from the Bight of Benin to Le Cap versus the entire colony. The other major ports received the following:

1. Les Cayes: 88

2. Leogane: 315

3. Petit Goave: 7

4. Port-au-Prince: 753

5. St. Marc: 412

6. Port de Paix: 15

7. Unspecified Saint Domingue ports: 49

Naturally, the above estimates are making a huge assumption and are probably very inaccurate for Port de Paix and Petit Goave. Nonetheless, it gives one an idea of the possible distribution of Hausa and Central Sudan captives in Saint Domingue's provinces. Obviously, the major areas to receive this influx of Central Sudan slaves were the north (Le Cap), the Artibonite region (St. Marc), and the West (Port-au-Prince, Leogane). Smaller numbers may have arrived in Les Cayes and some undoubtedly arrived via other ports. In addition, English smugglers and the contraband trade may have introduced more at ports which lack data for slave imports from the Bight of Benin. Nonetheless, it was clearly concentrated in the North, Artibonite and West provinces of the colony that one was most likely to encounter the Central Sudan population. 

Shining Path

BBC's Peru Country Profile

     Though the Shining Path movement claimed to fight for indigenous communities and the poor of Peruvian society, the Maoist organization ultimately furthered postcolonial legacies of paternalism and abuse of indigenous Peruvians. Despite offering openings to women not only as members but positions of leadership, and initially recruiting some indigenous groups, by the end of the Shining Path’s tenure as an active threat to the Peruvian state, indigenous and peasant communities in the highlands had organized rondas autonomously to remove Shining Path militants from their own villages and towns without military pressure.[1] Indeed, the Shining Path’s paternalistic and violent treatment of indigenous communities reflected postcolonial legacies of racism and a lack of comprehension of the dynamics of Indian society.

     Beginning with the establishment of the Aristocratic Republic, coastal whites created a state without indigenous suffrage and deliberately perpetuated colonial labor and racial relations, privileging the coastal regions at the expense of the mostly Indian highlands. Once firmly established, subsequent Peruvian governments retained the structure. The rise of indigenismo among progressive Peruvian intellectuals in the 1920s was an attempt to democratize the Peruvian political system by recognizing the importance of Indian culture as a source for national identity.[2] Unfortunately, the predominantly non-indigenous intellectuals spearheading the movement saw themselves as protectors of Indians, predicated on Indian inferiority, as they required assimilation into broader society, education, and handling under the leadership of radical intellectuals opposed to political centralization.[3] Similarly, the Alianza Popular Revolucionaria American, or APRA, which also emerged during the 1920s, focused on workers on the northern coast, thereby neglecting the much larger issue of land reform and Indians.[4] However, APRA began the university reform movement in Lima and Cuzco, centers of the future Shining Path, which claimed legacy of both José Carlos Mariátegui and APRA’s leftism.[5] Claiming the legacy of Mariategui, who believed Indians could lead the socialist revolution because of their tradition of “primitive communism,” Shining Path leadership saw indigenous communities they claimed to fight on behalf of as “masses” that would overflow the enemy on demand, not as equals.[6] Thus, the Shining Path insurgency carried on the contradictory legacies of the indigenist intellectual movement of the 1920s and the divisions within the Peruvian left that made land reform and improving the lives of indigenous peasants more difficult.

     Of course peasants in the highlands had resisted their economic exploitation autonomously since the colonial period. During the 20^th century, peasants invaded lands of elites, petitioned governments for land reform, and sought employment in the Lima and other cities.[7] Class differentiation also developed during this period, with many indigenous men finding work in mining and other industries, opening the door for some to eventually accumulate land and “the proletarianizing” of village populations in the 1930s for others.[8] This led to conflicts within village communities as the working poor and agrarian families “called on traditional reciprocity and subsistence ideology as their only weapons in a changing class struggle” and “the emerging entrepreneurial sector, wishing to take advantage of new production and market opportunities, attempted to push forward the commodification of all property and village relationships.”[9]  An agrarian bourgeoisie eventually developed as a result of the privatization of communal land, the commodification of private and communal labor that occurred because of migrant labor and class differentiation, and growing integration of peasant society into the national economy and political system, which illustrates the historical agency and dynamism of Indian populations. The Shining Path’s perception of indigenous communities as untouched by societal change and overlooking class differentiation and other great changes that had come to the highlands by 1980 ignored the historical agency and complexities of life in the highlands. Like the indigenist intellectuals, Shining Path claimed to fight for the destitute peasants, but revealed them to be outside agitators with no appreciation for the nuances of Indian reality.

     Moreover, Peruvian military-imposed agrarian reform and social revolution also failed for its undemocratic and paternalistic relationship to indigenous communities. Under Juan Velasco Aldvorado, between 1968 and 1975, the dictatorship endeavored to stop land invasions by redistributing land through government-controlled programs such as the Sociedades Agrarias de Interes Social and the Estatuo de Comunidades, which promoted communal agrarian production cooperatives.[10] Due to military-enforced agrarian reforms assumptions of a static indigenous population, and attempts to force reform without letting peasants decide for themselves, agrarian reform only succeeded in redistributing 7.4% of total arable land.[11] Once the military began the process for democratization and legalizing leftist parties, the Shining Path acted against the political system, due to Abimael Guzman’s belief that “True reform lay in toppling the system and extirpating its remains.”[12] In order to ensure that the electoral system would fail the Peruvian left, Shining Path declared armed struggle against the state on the day of the 1980 election, the first with universal suffrage, by burning ballot boxes in Ayacucho successfully weakening the chances for leftist coalitions to win at the national level.[13] The Shining Path’s adoption of violent means against indigenous communities mirrored that of the military, and the colonial legacy of violence used to subordinate indigenous peoples as well.

     Shining Path’s relationships with Indian communities and towns during the zenith of their struggle also demonstrate an outright violent or paternalist approach to indigenous peasants. Initially supported in central Ayacucho, the extreme military repression and indiscriminate killings of civilians, in addition to the Shining Path’s brutal murders of suspected peasant traitors, led to their loss of popular support by the middle of the 1980s.[14] While the Shining Path’s practice of dividing indigenous communities by aiming at the younger generation succeeded because of youth discontent, the people’s trials against local elites alongside contradictory violence against the communities they claimed to fight for led to self-organized rondas within the community to force the Shining Path out.[15] Indeed, peasant resistance to Shining Path militants was natural, especially since Shining Path rule led to authoritarian living conditions, akin to concentration camps where the peasants who resisted were subjected to extreme violence and murder, leading to an ethnic discourse in which peasants were believed to be too ignorant to understand Shining Path’s revolutionary project.[16] Soon Shining Path were forced into Peru’s Amazon region, where the group worked with drug cartels and forced Ashaninka indigenous peoples into joining the Movement, effectively ruling the area like a concentration camp.[17] Before driven away to the jungle, Shining Path endeavored to force children into the war, conscripted entire families, and led to multiple massacres of civilians.[18] Under Shining Path repressive Peoples’ Committees, peasant children were reared by the state for brainwashing, family structures and communal organizations were replaced by revolutionary organizational structures, and religious practices were banned. Furthermore, Shining Path leadership deliberately misinformed the masses about the progress of the movement and murdered infirm and sick living in their regions.[19]

     The internal weaknesses and failure of Shining Path to maintain popular support in Ayacucho during its long armed struggle stems from a postcolonial legacy of violence, paternalism, and racism. The movement’s leadership perception of indigenous communities as savage chutos ensured it would not last, since the indigenous communities were dynamic communities with class differentiation, Protestantism, and increasingly integrated into the national political and economic system. Like the intellectuals who espoused indigenismo and the military, Shining Path did not allow those living under their yoke freedom of religion and directly challenged their family, social, and political institutions, which had already changed dramatically as a result of a decades-long process of social change wrought by migrant labor and peasant mobilization in land invasions on estates. Shining Path’s refusal to recognize and support indigenous resistance on and according to indigenous terms, instead of imposing Maoist ideology and using violence and fear to control them, ensured peasant resistance to Shining Path would spread and the organization’s loss of local support in the countryside doomed their plan for revolution.          

---

[1]  Robin Kirk, The Monkey’s Paw: New Chronicles from Peru (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1997), 182.

[2] Florencia E. Mallon, Lecture 10/18/2011.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Robin Kirk, The Monkey’s Paw: New Chronicles from Peru (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1997), 174.

[7] Florencia E. Mallon, Lecture 10/20/2011.

[8] Florencia E. Mallon, Defense of Community in Peru’s Central Highlands: Peasant Struggle and Capitalist Transition, 1880-1930 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983), 267.

[9] Ibid., 305.

[10] Florencia E. Mallon, Lecture 10/25/2011.

[11] Ibid.

[12] Robin Kirk, The Monkey’s Paw: New Chronicles from Peru (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1997), 174.

[13] Florencia E. Mallon, Lecture 10/27/2011.

[14] Florencia E. Mallon, Lecture 11/1/2011.

[15] Ibid.

[16] Ponciano del Pino H., “Family, Culture and ‘Revolution:’ Everyday Life with Sendero Luminoso,” in Stern, Shining and Other Paths, 160, 162.

[17] Florencia E. Mallon, Lecture  11/1/2011.

[18] Ponciano del Pino H., “Family, Culture and ‘Revolution:’ Everyday Life with Sendero Luminoso,” in Stern, Shining and Other Paths, 171.

[19] Ibid., 186-187.

Gilles Bambara in 1787??

Although we require far more evidence to confirm this, our perusal of Saint Domingue's newspaper, Affiches américaines, led to some interesting findings. For instance, the above runaway ad, from 1787, mentions a "Gilli" arrested in Petit-Goave. The runaway slave's name may have actually been Gille, but perhaps a misprint or error led to the paper writing it as "Gilli." Anyway, we need to confirm that the Gilles Bambara who later became an important leader during the Haitian Revolution was once the chattel of a Lami to know for sure. But if it is indeed the same person, it is interesting to see that he was already engaging in marronage years before the outbreak of the Haitian Revolution.

Estimating Saint Domingue's "Indien" Population

The Natchez were one of the Amerindian groups present in Saint-Domingue.

One thing we have been toying with is the possibly of using the number of reported runaways of small "nations" to reach estimates of their total numbers in the colony of Saint Domingue. Thanks to the excellent data collected in Le marronage dans le monde atlantique project, one can more easily sift through the reported runaway slaves in Saint-Domingue's press. In this particular case, we focused on "Indiens" reported as runaways in the period 1766-1790. Checking for possible repeated offenders, we found approximately 42 "Indiens" (of Amerindian, Asian Indian, or mixed "Indian") origin. If, following the work of Eddins, we assume a total number of reported "maroons" was 12,857, then we can play with the numbers for very rough estimates of the total "Indien" population in the colony. In this case, if 42 out of 12857 maroons were "Indien" in the aforementioned years, then about 0.33% of the maroons were classified as such. Applying that figure to the total slave population in 1790, which we will just use the "safe" estimate of 500,000, gives a figure of about 1633 "Indiens." Using a larger figure based on the total estimated slave imports of approximately 800,000, about 2613 slaves imported into the colony during the period of French rule were "Indien." These figures, though still very small, are likely overestimates. Since many of the "Indien" slaves in Saint-Domingue seem to have been domestics and others lived in towns or cities, their share of the reported marronage cases may be somewhat inflated. In that case, we should use lower figures and keep in mind the diverse sources of "Indien" slaves in the colony (Louisiana, Lesser Antilles, Spanish colonies, India, Mascarenes) are not always documented. Nonetheless, using the lower estimate of about 1633, based on the period from 1766-1790, is still plausible for an Amerindian & East Indian presence of less than 1% of the total slave population. It is rather easy to see how this population was quickly absorbed or disappeared in Saint-Domingue and independent Haiti. 

Rough Estimates for the "Nations" of Jacmel Slaves (c.1782)

Another crude method of calculating somewhat plausible numbers for the "nations" of the Jacmel Quartier's enslaved population is to use the numbers from the 1782 Census. While probably an undercount or plagued by inaccuracies, it does provide a total number of the slave population, which means one can use the numbers from Roseline Siguret's study of the quartier's indigo and coffee estates from 1757-1791 to crudely approximate the possible distribution of "nations" in the popular of the region. While very imperfect, doing so gives the numbers above for the "nations" in Siguret's table. 

First, the Creole preponderance is undeniable, although it may have been even higher if slave imports at the port of Jacmel were low, as was the case in 1786. Slaveholders would have had to rely on smuggling or the intra-colony slave trade to provide new captives, probably a mix of both. The next striking feature is how, assuming our crude estimate is somewhat close to the reality, the huge Congo and Central African presence was. The "Congos" and Mondongues plus smaller numbers of other groups who appear to be from Central Africa (Maiemba, for instance) were about 24% of the total slave population. That said, one is shocked by our estimate for the still reasonably high numbers of Senegalais, Mandingues, Bambaras, and other Upper Guinea "nations" in the region. Furthermore, the Ibos, in our estimate, were over 9% of the total slave population. 

Overall, the trends from our estimate reveal a plurality of Creoles with a substantial "Congo" presence and Ibo presence. The persistence of African nations from the Bight of Benin as well as Upper Guinea (perhaps around 8%) illustrates a great diversity of slave imports continued well into the late 18th century. The huge Creole population, too, very likely descended, perhaps to a greater degree, from Africans purchased from the Slave Coast and Upper Guinea, too. Of course, these estimates are likely to be very inaccurate for the smaller nations, such as several whose numbers in Siguret's survey were only 1 or 2. In addition, some of the slave population's "national" identity may have switched over time, as some became another "nation" or later captives from that same background were "reconceived" as belonging to a new or different "nation" instead. Thus, the above table is meant only as a very "rough" idea of what the ethnicities of slaves in Jacmel, Bainet and Cayes de Jacmel may have been like in c.1782.

A Brief History of Peru

Stunning photograph of an Afro-Peruvian included in Hunefeldt's book.

Since the history of the indigenous peoples of Peru obviously did not end with the Spanish conquest, we recently read a general history of Peru to refresh and expand our familiarity with colonial and postcolonial Peru. Christine Hunefeldt's A Brief History of Peru is a good place to start for this. Relatively short, containing ample photographs, charts, and tables, and providing a synthesized overview of Peruvian history that endeavors to encompass social, economic and political history, she largely succeeds in capturing the depth, contradictions and contours in the storied annals of Peru. Sadly, like so many general histories of this nature, more than half of the book covers the 19th and 20th centuries, ending with the presidency of Toledo. 

Two short chapters suffice to cover ancient Peru and the Inca, and then 4 subsequent chapters cover the colonial period. This is to be expected, particularly in the case of authors who specialize on colonial and modern Peru, which obviously benefits from ample documentation. As one would expect of a survey history such as this, several recurring themes of social/racial division, colonial legacies, the exploitation of Indian or indigenous labor, and the coast/Lima versus the highlands are major dynamics that reverberate throughout Peru's history. Indigenous people perceived as exploited labor through tribute, the hacienda system, and the ongoing question of how to develop Peru with its rich natural and mineral resources. From Potosi to later mining operations, or the relation of the colonial and postcolonial state to indigenous groups in the highlands or Amazon, these questions are never truly resolved adequately justly. Peru's economic history, nonetheless, presents a fascinating case of lost opportunities and passing moments of wealth, at least compared with much of Latin America. Yet throughout the narrative, much of this wealth was lost through an export-oriented economy that was insufficiently liked to the internal markets, squandered by government waste or inefficiency, used for external debts, or too dependent on raw materials with price fluctuations on the global market. 

Of course, as a brief survey cannot cover all topics fully, we will have to continue reading other books on specific periods or eras of Peruvian. Topics such as colonial Peru's mining economy or the history of slavery and textile mills, for instance, are fascinating topics. The years of the guano boom or the agrarian reform of Velasco in the 20th century are additional topics or periods we would like to explore. Naturally, our interests are still mainly in the precolonial and colonial era, and we need to thoroughly familiarize ourselves with the historiography on that period. Last, it may be interesting to explore the relations between Peru's highlands and coast with the Amazonian region across the precolonial, colonial and postcolonial eras.

West Africans in Colonial Haiti

One amazing feature of perusing the posted runaway notices in Saint-Domingue's press is the occasionally very detailed "nations" assigned to Africans in the colony, particularly "new" Africans. While some of the "nations" used for Africans in the colony were very broad or ambiguous, a few appear with very specific names linked to a region or ethnic group that is still identifiable. Take the above case, for example, of a newly arrived "Mandingue" or "Souraca" from the year 1776. While "Mandingue" could be very broad or ambiguous in Saint-Domingue, possibly being used to encompass Mandinka as well as other Mande groups, "Souraca" is rather specific. To a speaker of Bamana or Mandinka languages in Mali, suraka referred to "Arabs" or people from the north. Thus, it is possible that this anonymous "Mandingue" hailed from an area of Mali or Mauritania in the Sahel. Was he native to that region or was he formerly enslaved by Arabs or Tuaregs?

Another possible example of quite specific African "national" classification is the case of a runaway named Hector, from the year 1772. Of the Mende nation, it is quite certain that he was from the Mende peoples of Sierra Leone. 

Even very specific Mande-affiliated peoples like the Dioula, or Juula, were also in the colony of Saint-Domingue. In the above case from 1768, a female runaway named Marie was specified as Dioula. This is rather amazing to see the distinguishing of various "Mandingue" and Mande-associated peoples in the colony. Was she from the area of today's northern Ivory Coast or Ghana?

Also in Saint-Domingue were small numbers of people from the "Edo" group, associated with areas such as the Kingdom of Benin in today's Nigeria. The above example, of a woman who ran away in 1784, attests to the presence of Edo peoples in colonial Haiti. 

Even the Gurma peoples could be found in Saint-Domingue. In the above case, from 1786, a "Gourmand" African ran away. In this case, "Gourmand" is probably a reference to the Gurma people, who are mostly to be found in present-day Burkina Faso.

Also present were the Bobo peoples, likewise found in Burkina Faso. The case of Richard, from the 1770s, serves as proof of their presence among the captive West Africans in the colony. 

The Oyo Yoruba may be found under their specific name. The 1777 incident involving 2 runaway women of the "Ayo" nation may very likely refer to Oyo. We suspect, however, that more Oyo peoples than one realizes were in Saint-Domingue, but probably generically referred to as Nago. 

Last but certainly not least, the Susu peoples of Guinea and Sierra Leone were similarly caught in the hellscape that was Saint Domingue. Usually referred to as Soso or Sosso in the Caribbean, they were more numerous than several of the other "nations" mentioned here.