From: rath@binah.cc.brandeis.edu
Subject: Re: Plantation Population
Reply-To: rath@binah.cc.brandeis.edu
Organization: Brandeis University
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1992 15:06:06 GMT

In article <181mfcINNg5q@moe.ksu.ksu.edu>, jsanders@phys.ksu.edu (Justin M. Sanders) writes:
>Rich Rath writes:
>
>>jsanders@phys.ksu.edu (Justin M. Sanders) writes:
>>
If you are interested in this
area, which from your undertaking of primary research on the
question I assume to be true, you need to look over the rest of the 
literature before drawing some of the (qualified) conclusions you have drawn.
Texas is not a geographically representative slave region, nor are 1850
and 1860 particularly representative years.  Your pooints re Texas are well
made, but need to be put in context before making generalizations the size of
those you made.


Here are some sources for some of my previous arguments:
Richard Steckel, _Social Science History_ 10:4 Winter '86, pp194-234, 
	"A Dreadful Childhood: The Excess mortality of American
Slaves"--discusses getting at infant mortality rates from census and
plantation record data--
including methods, formulas and conclusions from their applications.  
Also goes into health and dietr from ship manifests in South from after 1807, 
when laws required all slaves being shipped to have age, wieght and 
height recorded.  One finding is that "Comparative heights suggest that
children from the slums of Lagos Nigeria and from urban areas of Bangladesh
had an environment for growth superior to thast of American slave 
childrenm(198)."
Ken Kiple "A survey of Recent Lit. on the Biological Past of the Black" in a
collection of essays, which I unfortunately don't have the title to...
I am finding my copies of the artivcles--but I did not put the full citations
 on them and don't have time to dig them up.--another article in this
category is Todd Savitt's "Slave Health and Southern Distinctivenesas, "
wh is cp 6 of whatever book it is a part of, on pp121-49.

A colleague of mine has been working for the past year
on race-specific mortality rates in American cities from 1730-1900.
There is lots of variation by time of year which could produce
opposite results if taken out of context, but on the whole, 
there is no doubt that southern blacks died proportionately
more often  (as an aggregate--one death per person--no seconds ;>)
than did southern whites.  I also mention,ed Jay Mandle's work, 
which is more recent--he just put a book out wh. addresses some of these issues,
but I have not read it yet.
	Sorry I don't have more specific citations, but the Steckel article
is mostly where I've drawn my interpretation from and is a good starting poiunt.

	As for the "ranch" analogy, maybe a visit to a chicken ranch or to a 
place where calves are raised for veal would straighten up that--but that is
another subject.  Those animals are very well taken care of in the eyes of 
the rancher, who has production and yield in mind.
Best, 
Rich Rath


\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\original thread below/////////////////////
>>>Another interesting table in Campbell's book compares the age distribution
>>>of the slave and the white populations.  The distributions are almost
>>>identical, which indicates that the slaves had a life expectancy that was
>>>just a little less than that of the white population.
>
>[financial importance of slaves to slaveholders deleted]
>
>>Whites, who kept the
>>records from which Campell's reconstruction were done, were only concerned, 
>>in most cases, at least as far as record keeping goes, with value
>>in the case of slaves.
>
>Campbell's tables are taken from the census of living individuals, so
>they don't rely on the slaveholders' records of mortality, but rather
>rely on the slaveholders' knowledge of the approximate age of the
>slaves (passing that info to the census taker).
>
>>A slave child was of little value.  The child could do no work until 
>>several years old, and only a partial load then.  The child also reduced 
>>the work which could be extracted from the mother for a while, thus reducing
>>the value of the mother as well.  Slaveowners provisioned children on a level
>>among the lowest in recorded history.
>
>If one makes an analogy between the slaveholder and a rancher, it 
>would seem that the slaveholder would take some reasonable care of the
>children, as a rancher cares for his calves.  However, I really don't 
>know about this point and would abandon this position if I were to be
>shown reasonable data to refute it.
>
>>  Infant and youth mortality
>>was among the highest in the world.
>
>Here is the table that started this.  It is from R.B. Campbell, "An 
>Empire for Slavery", Table 13.
>[percentage of population in various age groups (Texas)]
>1850          slaves            whites
>  0-9           32.8              32.6
> 10-14          14.1              12.9
> 15-49          48.3              50.0
> 50-65           3.6               4.3
>   65+           1.2               1.3
>
>1860
>  0-9           32.7              33.0
> 10-14          13.6              12.8
> 15-49          48.8              48.1
> 50-65           3.6               4.7
>   65+           1.2               1.4
>  
>One would think that if the mortality rates of the slaves and the free 
>whites differed greatly, then the age distributions would not be 
>essentially identical as they are.  For a comparison with infant 
>mortality rates, I got the following age distributions and infant
>mortality rates from "Phillips Geographical Digest 1992-93"
>
>            0-4   5-14   15-59   60+    infant mort(*)
>Belgium       6    12      62    21         8
>U.S.          7    14      62    17         8
>Bangledesh   17    27      52     5       108
>Ethopia      19    27      50     5       122
>Kenya        20    30      45     4        64
>Texas 1860 (**)
>      slave  18    28      52     2   
> free white  18    29      52     2
>
>(*) deaths less than 1 yr. old per 1000 (1990 U.N. est.)
>(**) my computation from the "Population of the United States in 1860"
>     (Washington:Govt. Printing Office, 1864)
>
>Note the considerable similarity of the age distributions for
>Bangledesh and Ethopia to those for the 1860 Texas free white and
>slave populations.  As a caution, however, note also that while
>Kenya's distribution is also similar, the infant mortality rate is
>half that of Ethopia (Kenya's is 8 times that of the U.S. or Belgium
>and the age distributions are quite different).  From this admittedly 
>limited sample, it would appear that there is *some* correlation
>between the age distribution and the infant mortality rate.  And this
>correlation seems to support the contention that similar age
>distributions have similar infant mortality rates (within a factor of
>two).
>
>I therefore must conclude that the data we've seen thus far indicates 
>that the slave infant mortality rate (in Texas, at least) was not
>radically different from that of free whites.
>
>Rich concludes:
>>A slave who survived the most hellish upbringing on earth, in the midst of 
>>prosperity all around, could expect to live almost as long as a
>>white child's birthright.  Sound about even to you?
>
>My intention in pursuing this point is not to minimize the repugnance
>of slavery but rather to attempt to understand the institution as
>accurately as possible from a vantage point more than 100 years
>removed.
>--
>Justin M. Sanders    "They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance"
>Dept. of Physics        --last words of Gen. John Sedgwick
>Kansas State Univ.
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