Mortality and Voyage Length in the Middle Passage: New Evidence from the Nineteenth Century
利用19世纪奴隶贸易的新数据，检验了中间航程中奴隶死亡原因的各种假说，发现死亡率在19世纪高于早期，且在不同登船地区差异显著，主要解释可能是地方性疾病。
New data on mortality and voyage length in the nineteenth-century slave trade make possible further testing of hypotheses on why slaves died during the middle passage. Mortality rates (defined as death per slaves embarked/voyage length in days × 1000) were higher in the nineteenth century than in earlier centuries and varied markedly between regions of embarkation. In the high mortality regions, all ships in the sample appeared to have experienced a higher death rate, suggesting that epidemics were not of prime importance. Mortality rates do not appear to have fluctuated very much during the voyage nor does the slaves–per–ton variable have much explanatory power. The major explanation is probably endemic disease.