New World Slave Population

FAIN: FA-11644-76

Stanley Engerman
University of Rochester (Rochester, NY 14627-0001)

To study and compare patterns of fertility and mortality in the slave populations of the New World, to explain the contrast in the patterns of population change between the continental North American colonies and those elsewhere in Latin America. The growth of the black population in the United States was about as rapid as that of the white. In the West Indies there was an excess of deaths over births, and imports were continuously needed to maintain the slave population. This differential pattern is important for the understanding of the slave's adjustment to a new environment and the development of cultural and psychological patterns which persisted into the post-emancipation environment.