The demographic structure of the Caribbean slave Societies in the eighteenth and nineteenth Centuries

Engerman, Stanley L.; Higman, B. W.

doi:10.1007/978-1-349-73770-3_3

Cited by 13 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…14 Although direct information on the productivity or incomes of individuals during the colonial period is fragmentary, the overall weight of the evidence supports the notion that the northern colonies on the North American continent had not distinguished themselves among New World societies in terms of economic performance (or prospects for European migrants) by the late eighteenth century. The estimates of wealth 1750, 1830, and 1880, see Engerman and Higman (1997). 14.…”

Section: Factor Endowments and The Colonial Economiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Factor Endowments, Inequality, and Paths of Development among New World Economies

Engerman¹,

Sokoloff²

2002

Economía

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We would like to express deep appreciation for the help of our research assistants Elisa Mariscal, Patricia Juarez, and Leah Brooks. We have also benefited from discussions with Stephen Haber, Daron Acemoglu, George Alter, Sam Bowles, Roberto Cortés Conde, Lance Davis, Gerardo della Paolera, David Dollar, William Easterly, David Eltis, Jeff Frieden, the late Robert Gallman, Claudia Goldin, Aurora Gomez, Avner Greif, Karla Hoff, Lawrence Katz, Daniel Kaufmann, Zorina Khan, Naomi Lamoreaux, Margaret Levenstein, Ross Levine, Frank Lewis, Peter Lindert, Nora Lustig, Douglass North, James Robinson, Jean-Laurent Rosenthal, Elyce Rotella, Jon Skinner, Joel Slemrod, Federico Sturzenegger, William Summerhill, Alan Taylor, Peter Temin, Mariano Tommasi, Dan Treisman, Miguel Urquiola, John Wallis, Jeffrey Williamson, Gavin Wright, and participants in presentations at Harvard, McGill, Stanford, Yale, Michigan, Indiana, Dartmouth, UC Davis, UC Berkeley, Washington University, the Santa Fe Institute, the NEUDC, and the meeting of the Economia panel held in Cambridge, May 2002. We gratefully acknowledge the financial support we have received from the National Science Foundation, as well as from the Academic Senate and International Studies and Overseas Programs at the University of California, Los Angeles. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the National Bureau of Economic Research.© 2002 by Stanley L. Engerman and Kenneth L. Sokoloff. All rights reserved. Short sections of text, not to exceed two paragraphs, may be quoted without explicit permission provided that full credit, including © notice, is given to the source. ABSTRACTWhereas traditional explanations of differences in long-run paths of development across the Americas generally point to the significance of differences in national heritage or religion, we highlight the relevance of stark contrasts in the degree of inequality in wealth, human capital, and political power in accounting for how fundamental economic institutions evolved over time.We argue, moreover, that the roots of these disparities in the extent of inequality lay in differences in the initial factor endowments (dating back to the era of European colonization).We document --through comparative studies of suffrage, public land, and schooling policies --systematic patterns by which societies in the Americas that began with more extreme inequality or heterogeneity in the population were more likely to develop institutional structures that greatly advantaged members of elite classes (and disadvantaging the bulk of the population) by providing them with more political influence and access to economic opportunities. The clear implication is that institutions should not be presumed to be exogenous; economists need to learn more about where they come from to understand their relation to economic development. Our findings not only contribute to our knowledge of why extreme differences in the extent of inequality across New World economies have persisted for centuries, ...

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Section: Factor Endowments and The Colonial Economiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Factor Endowments, Inequality, and Paths of Development among New World Economies

Engerman¹,

Sokoloff²

2002

Economía

Self Cite

321

301

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“…Only on Trinidad and Demerara, frontier colonies that had only recently begun sugar production, was there a skewed sex ratio in favour of men. 121 Even with women present, the formation of European-style families was not necessarily a priority. Although Catholic sensibilities and Iberian law favoured the creation of slave families, the low cost of slaves gave planters no incentive to promote marriage.…”

Section: Sexuality and The Familymentioning

confidence: 99%

Restoring Miranda: gender and the limits of European patriarchy in the early modern Atlantic world

Amussen¹,

Poska²

2012

Journal of Global History

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Atlantic history has become fashionable as a way of linking the histories of Europe and the Americas. However, much work in Atlantic history does little to challenge the national biases of traditional colonial and imperial history. This article argues that gender provides an important conceptual tool for a trans-imperial and comparative exploration, just as it provided important conceptual structures for all the peoples of the Atlantic world. An examination of the research on two gendered issues – work, and family and sexuality – demonstrates that while Europeans attempted to impose their ideas on the various societies that they encountered in Africa and the Americas, such attempts were rarely successful. Gender not only provides the basis for a trans-imperial analysis of the Atlantic world but also enables us to reorient our scholarly perspective in the Atlantic, highlighting the agency of non-European peoples and exposing the limits of European patriarchy.

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“… Sources: Population data from McCusker and Menard, Economy of British America , pp. 103, 136, 153, 172, 203, 600, 712; except for St. Eustatius, which is from Engerman and Higman, ‘Demographic Structure’, p. 49. Export estimates from Eltis, ‘Slave economies’, pp.…”

Section: Exports and Populations Of Export Producing Areas Of Selectementioning

confidence: 99%

“…48–50, with the addition of Stein, French sugar business , p. 12 for St. Domingue, Green‐Pedersen, ‘Slave demography’, p. 248 for the Danish West Indies, and Schnakenbourg, ‘Statistiques’, pp. 41, 46 for the French Lesser Antilles; for 1750, Engerman and Higman, ‘Demographic structure’, pp. 48–50.…”

Section: IImentioning

confidence: 99%

Slave prices, the African slave trade, and productivity in the Caribbean, 1674–1807¹

Eltis

Lewis

Richardson

2005

The Economic History Review

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he study of the development of the Americas has been dominated by paradigms that focus on the emergence of the prosperous temperate regions, re-peopled, until recently, mainly by whites. 2 In the half-century after 1492, the most prosperous and powerful parts of Europe (Spain backed by Northern Italian finance) conquered the most powerful and prosperous parts of the Americas (the Aztec and Inca Empires). The subtropical empire that the Spanish acquired generated gold and silver exports, and incomes that were likely higher than in the rest of Europe. 3 Yet within less than three centuries, the centre of economic gravity both in Europe and in the Americas had shifted north, and the income gap between the temperate and sub-tropical regions had moved decisively in favour of the former. South of the equator, a parallel, if less-pronounced, shift occurred as coffee production and, later still, industrial activities in the southeast generated higher incomes than in the older sugar sectors of northeast Brazil.Any explanation of these shifts in the pattern of economic activity in the Americas cannot ignore the rise and decline of transatlantic African slavery. Of the 11 million or more enslaved Africans forced to cross the Atlantic after 1500, no fewer than 95 per cent disembarked in tropical and subtropical regions; and as long as slavery was allowed to endure, those regions were usually growing faster than their temperate counterparts. Indeed, at least in the case of Cuba and much of the Caribbean, slave-based plantation economies grew at rates comparable to industrializing Britain and the USA, even though the structures of these economies were quite different.

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The demographic structure of the Caribbean slave Societies in the eighteenth and nineteenth Centuries

Cited by 13 publications

References 18 publications

Factor Endowments, Inequality, and Paths of Development among New World Economies

Factor Endowments, Inequality, and Paths of Development among New World Economies

Restoring Miranda: gender and the limits of European patriarchy in the early modern Atlantic world

Slave prices, the African slave trade, and productivity in the Caribbean, 1674–1807¹

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The demographic structure of the Caribbean slave Societies in the eighteenth and nineteenth Centuries

Cited by 13 publications

References 18 publications

Factor Endowments, Inequality, and Paths of Development among New World Economies

Factor Endowments, Inequality, and Paths of Development among New World Economies

Restoring Miranda: gender and the limits of European patriarchy in the early modern Atlantic world

Slave prices, the African slave trade, and productivity in the Caribbean, 1674–18071

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About

Slave prices, the African slave trade, and productivity in the Caribbean, 1674–1807¹