In 2007, during the commemoration of the two hundredth anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade following the campaign led by Tory MP William Wilberforce, a curious statistic was quietly and casually repeated.  This statistic comprised the claim that until the abolition of the trade by the United Kingdom in 1807, British slave traders had transported as many as fifty million Africans into slavery.  Complete, definitive records as to how many individuals were kidnapped and sold into slavery no longer exist (if they ever did) thus the “fifty million” figure does not have any basis in fact and it is hard to resist the conclusion that it was simply plucked from the air.

It is interesting to note that according to the fifth census conducted in the United States in 1830, twenty-three years after the abolition of the British slave trade, the total black population amounted to 2,328,626 individuals, of whom 2,009,050 were described as slaves and 319,576 as being free.  The census recorded that the total population of the United States was 12,858,670.  The population of the United States had grown rapidly, given that in 1800 records indicate a total population of 5,308,483 of whom 893,602 were slaves.  In 1790 the figures were 3,929,326 and 697,681, respectively.

It is a fair assumption that by 1807 a significant proportion of the population of African descent had been born in the United States and had not been transported.  For instance without the trade, the slave population nearly doubled between 1810 and 1830 (1,191,362 individuals increasing to 2,009,050).  Against this, it must be borne in mind that Africans were being abducted on a relatively large scale over the course of a century. Furthermore, though the main destination was the American colonies, many Africans were delivered to estates in the West Indies, albeit on a much smaller scale. Also, many prisoners perished during the journey to their new “home” or very shortly thereafter.

Taking all factors into account, fifty million is still an implausibly high figure which can only have been an extrapolation from various other estimates and loose guesswork of the likely numbers of individuals transported at the very height of the slave trade.  It is immaterial whether the figure for abductions was five million or even five hundred thousand.  It was an ugly trade, but funny figures do not make it uglier.