GUNS-F -S.pdf

GUNS-FOR-SLAVES : T TH HE 18 CENTURY BRITISH SLAVE TRADE IN AFRICA* WARREN C. WHATLEY DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS AND CENTER FOR AFROAMERICAN AND AFRICAN STUDIES UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN 48103 WWHATLET@UMICH .EDU V.2 AUGUST 15, 2008 ABSTRACT The transatlantic slave trade was a triangular trade that touched Europe, Africa and the Americas. The elasticity of supply of enslaved Africans is at the center of our understanding of each of these episodes. It helps explain the structure and scale of early Atlantic trade; it is at the center of explanations of the transition from indenture servitude to slavery in the Americas; and it helps estimate the depth of the social upheaval in Africa. In this paper I th estimate the first enslaved African export supply functions. Data come from the 18 century British Triangular Trade. Econometric specifications are informed by three conceptions of the supply process: indigenous warfare, economic incentives and guns-for-slaves. Two- stage least squares and instrumental variables estimation produce strong support for the guns-for-slaves conception. Rather than being a stable price-elastic supply function, as assumed by scholars working on both sides of the Atlantic, guns and gunpowder shifted out the supply function in a systematic way, producing what appeared to American planters as an unlimited supply of African slaves, and what in Africa became underdevelopment. * I want to thank Ram Abramitzsky, David Eltis, Stanley Engerman, Avner Greif, Philip Hoffman, Joseph Inikori, David Jacks, Nathan Nunn, Roger Ransom, Paul Rhode, Jean- Laurent Rosenthal, Peter Temin, Gavin Wright, seminar participants at the University of Mi