The Impact of the Atlantic Slave Trade on Africa: A Review of the Literature

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Periodical article

Title:	The Impact of the Atlantic Slave Trade on Africa: A Review of the Literature
Author:	Lovejoy, Paul E.
Year:	1989
Periodical:	The Journal of African History
Volume:	30
Issue:	3
Pages:	365-394
Language:	English
Geographic terms:	Subsaharan Africa Africa
Subjects:	slave trade History and Exploration Bibliography/Research
External link:	https://www.jstor.org/stable/182914
Abstract:	Review of the recent literature on the Atlantic slave trade, which provides the context in which to assess the revisionist interpretation of David Eltis, who has argued recently that the slave trade and its suppression were of minor importance in African history. The author begins with the new studies on the volume of the slave trade, in which a consensus seems to have emerged. He then considers the analytical refinements in the regional and ethnic origins of the exported slave population. The demographic data allow a closer examination of the gender and age profile of the trade, which is the subject of the next section of the article. Finally, the author turns to an assessment of the arguments of Eltis, particularly with regard to the demographic impact of the trade on Africa. He shows that Eltis' economic arguments, based on an assessment of per capita income and the value of the export trade, are flawed. The demography of the trade involved an absolute loss of population and a large increase in the enslaved population that was retained in Africa. Notes, ref., sum. (Comment by David Geggus on p. 395-397.)