Disclaimers:
- These charts are NOT meant to be taken as an absolute or definitive display of ethnic origins for modernday populations!
- Ethnic labels given by Europeans do NOT per se reflect how the slaves would have self-identified themselves! (see this article for more discussion)
- Take note of the sample size, time period, region and any other details given to familiarize yourself with the CONTEXT of the chart!
- Even if limited in scope, valuable information can still be obtained if you look for the patterns!
- Sorry for all the exclamation marks 😉 It’s just that i’ve seen these kind of charts being misinterpreted so many times, not only online but also by trained historians. Which is a shame really because misleading conclusions can easily be avoided if you just take these charts for what they are: a randomized subset of slaves who might provide us with extra clues about the ethnic composition of other slaves during a given time period and for a given place/region. All depending on how representative the samples might have been.
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General
Slave trade carried out by the French to Haiti (St. Domingue), Martinique, Guadeloupe and Guyane.
***(click to enlarge)
Source: Geggus, David. 2001. The French Slave Trade: An Overview. The William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series, Vol. 58, No. 1, pp. 119-138.
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Africanisms in French lexicon Creoles
***(click to enlarge)
Source: “Out of Africa: African Influences in Atlantic Creoles” (Parkvall, 2000)
Haiti
Ethnic identities documented in Haiti 1721-1797
***(click to enlarge)
Source: Geggus, David. 2001. The French Slave Trade: An Overview. The William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series, Vol. 58, No. 1, pp. 119-138.
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Tracing African Roots 