Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-cfpbc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T03:52:18.863Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A Peculiar Sample: The Selection of Slaves for the New Orleans Market

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

Jonathan B. Pritchett  and
Herman Freudenberger
Jonathan B. Pritchett
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA 70118
Herman Freudenberger
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA 70118
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Domestic slave traders selected taller slaves for shipment to the New Orleans market in order to increase their profits. Because traded slaves made up a large share of the slaves shipped coastwise, age/height profiles constructed from the shipping manifests are biased upwards. The extent of the bias appears to be small for adult slaves but not for children; those listed on the manifests were taller than the general population of a comparable age.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 52 , Issue 1 , March 1992 , pp. 109 - 127
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1992

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Alchian, Armen A., and Allen, William R., Exchange and Production: Theory in Use (Belmont, CA, 1969).Google Scholar
Borcherding, Thomas E., and Silberberg, Eugene, ‘Shipping the Good Apple Out: The Alchian and Allen Theorem Reconsidered,’ Journal of Political Economy, 86 (02 1978), pp. 131–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Calderhead, William, “The Role of the Professional Slave Trader in a Slave Economy: Austin Woolfolk, A Case Study,” Civil War History, 23 (09 1977), pp. 195–211.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Conover, W. J., Practical Nonparametric Statistics (New York, 1980).Google Scholar
Engerman, Stanley L., “The Height of Slaves in the United States,” Local Population Studies, 16 (1976), pp. 45–9.Google ScholarPubMed
Evans, Robert Jr., “Some Economic Aspects of the Domestic Slave Trade, 1830–1860,” Southern Economic Journal, 27 (04 1961), pp. 329–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fogel, Robert W., “Nutrition and the Decline in Mortality since 1700: Some Preliminary Findings,” in Engerman, Stanley L. and Gallman, Robert E., eds., Long-Term Factors in American Economic Growth (Chicago, 1986), pp. 439–555.Google Scholar
Fogel, Robert W., Without Consent or Contract: The Rise and Fall of American Slavery (New York, 1989).Google Scholar
Fogel, Robert W., and Engerman, Stanley L., Time on the Cross: Evidence and Methods (Boston, 1974).Google Scholar
Fogel, Robert W., and Engerman, Stanley L., “Recent Findings in the Study of Slave Demography and Family Structure,” Sociology and Social Research, 63 (04 1979), pp. 566–89.Google Scholar
Freudenberger, Herman, and Pritchett, Jonathan B., “The Domestic United States Slave Trade: New Evidence,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 21 (Winter 1991), pp. 447–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Galenson, David W., Traders, Planters, and Slaves: Market Behavior in Early English America (Cambridge, 1986).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greenwald, Bruce C., and Glasspiegel, Robert R., “Adverse Selection in the Market for Slaves: New Orleans, 1830–1860,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, 98 (08 1983), pp. 479–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnson, Michael P., “Upward in Slavery,” The New York Review (12 21, 1989), pp. 51–5.Google Scholar
Komlos, John, “Toward an Anthropometric History of African Americans: The Case of the Manumitted Slaves of Antebellum Maryland,” presented at the Social Science History Conference (Minneapolis, 1990), pp. 1–35.Google Scholar
Kotlikoff, Laurence J., “The Structure of Slave Prices in New Orleans, 1804 to 1862,” Economic Inquiry, 17 (10 1979), pp. 496–517.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Margo, Robert A., and Steckel, Richard H., “The Heights of American Slaves: New Evidence on Slave Nutrition and Health,” Social Science History, 6 (Fall 1982), pp. 515–38.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pritchett, Jonathan B., and Chamberlain, Richard M., “Selection in the Market for Slaves: New Orleans, 1830–1860,” Quarterly Journal of Economics (forthcoming).Google Scholar
Steckel, Richard H., “Slave Height Profiles from Coastwise Manifests,” Explorations in Economic History, 16 (10 1979), pp. 363–80.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Steckel, Richard H., “Birth Weights and Infant Mortality among American Slaves,” Explorations in Economic History, 23 (04 1986), pp. 173–98.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Steckel, Richard H., “A Peculiar Population: The Nutrition, Health and Mortality of American Slaves from Childhood to Maturity,” this Journal, 46 (09 1986), pp. 721–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Steckel, Richard H., “Growth Depression and Recovery: The Remarkable Case of American Slaves,” Annals of Human Biology, 14 (03/04 1987), pp. 111–32.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tadman, Michael, “Speculators and Slaves in the Old South: A study of the American Domestic Slave Trade, 1820–1860” (Ph.D. diss., Univ. of Hull, 1977).Google Scholar
Tadman, Michael, Speculators and Slaves: Masters, Traders, and Slaves in the Old South (Madison, 1989).Google Scholar
Tadman, Michael, “The Peculiarities of Sugar: Louisiana Slave Importations and the Debate on Natural Increase in the Americas,” presented at the Social Science History Conference (Minneapolis, 1990), pp. 1–66.Google Scholar
Tanner, J. M., A History of the Study of Human Growth (Cambridge, 1981).Google Scholar
Trussell, James, and Steckel, Richard H., “The Age of Slaves at Menarche and Their First Birth,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 8 (Winter 1978), pp. 477–505.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wesley, Charles H., “Manifests of Slave Shipments Along the Waterways, 1808–1864,” Journal of Negro History, 27 (04 1942), pp. 155–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
White, Halbert, “A Heteroskedasticity-Consistent Covariance Matrix Estimator and a Direct Test for Heteroskedasticity,” Econometrica, 48 (05 1978), pp. 817–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar