Amazing Grace

Voyages: The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database is the result of the African Origins Project, a scholar-public collaborative endeavor to trace the geographic origins of Africans transported in the transatlantic slave trade. Many have contributed to this international research project, which is based at Emory University. The database provides information on almost 35,000 slaving voyages that forcibly embarked over 10 million Africans for transport to the Americas between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries.

It's very interesting to look at the maps, read the charts, and begin to think about the statistics. I wandered around trying to figure out how I might use this information. I looked at how many voyages were done by various countries, Spain and Portugal had 18,000+ voyages while Great Britain had 12,000+. Over 4 million Africans were brought to the Caribbean. That struck me as a lot of people for the islands. Just over 300,000 were brought to North America. I wonder if those numbers are based on the first landing?

Still thinking about how to use the information, Amazing Grace began to resonate in my brain. The author of the hymn was a slave trader who gave up slave trading and preached the Christian Gospel. A search in Credo Reference gave me his name, John Newton.

When did he cross the Atlantic? I selected Basic Variables, Captain and crew, Captain's name. I typed Newton as the Captain's name. 25 men named Newton were Captains. John Newton is listed for three voyages in 1751, 1753, and lastly in 1754. His middle voyage had an insurrection. Forty slaves died during the 1753 voyage. The 1754 voyage had no deaths of slaves.

Fascinating to look at the statistics and tie the facts to a person.

-kss