APPENDIX 1 HOW MANY SLAVES?

How many slaves were there in the West African territories? This is a question we can never answer with precision. There are, however, enough data for us to venture a rough estimate. There are two major sources about the numbers of slaves in French West Africa. These are the responses to the slave questionnaires of 1894 in the Sudan and 1904 for all of French West Africa. In addition, there are local studies and censuses. There are major problems in using colonial data. Administrators were often ill informed about the societies they ruled and lacked the personnel to do a really efficient job of data collection. Furthermore, slavery was a touchy question. African slave-owners had good reason not to report fully their slave holdings because they feared French intentions. Similarly, many administrators were nervous about potential unrest and were hostile to any action against slavery. Many administrators in both 1894 and 1904 refused to estimate the slave population; others simply “eyeballed” it. Fortunately, we have more rigorous studies made by social scientists in the second half of the century which suggest that almost all early administrators underestimated the number of slaves.

Nevertheless, these are the data we have. Furthermore, there are some patterns and ways of checking them. In producing global estimates, I have used the following method. I start with the 1904 estimates. First, where I have absolute numbers, but no percentages, I use 1904 or 1905 population data to produce percentages. Second, where I have only percentages, I use the reverse process to estimate the number of slaves.