DEBATS ET CONTROVERSES David Richardson Stephen Behrendt* Inikor Odyssey Measuring the British Slave Trade 1655-1807** Heureux qui comme Ulysse fait un beau voyage Ou comme cestuy là qui conquit la Toison Et puis est retourné plein usage et raison Vivre entre ses parents le reste de son aage Joachim du Bellay1 In récent article in this journal Joseph Inikori 1992 presented new estimates of the volume of the British slave trade from Africa from 1655 to 1807 His estimates included the first assessment so far published of slaving voyages from the British Caribbean to Africa and also the first published assessment of British slave shipments in the late seventeenth century since work 1957 on the Royal African Company appeared almost forty years ago In computing the volume of the British-based slave trade after the ending of the Royal African monopoly in 1698 Inikori challenged estimates of the eighteenth- century British slave trade that Richardson published in 1989 1989a 1989b and argued that contrary to his estimate of about 3.1 million slaves the British shipped at least 3.36 million slaves from Africa to America in 1698-1807 We do not propose to comment on estimates of the slave trade from British Caribbean ports which seems to have been fairly small.2 Nor do we intend to examine his estimates of the British slave trade from 1655 to 1698 forthcoming article by David Eitis fthcg will in any case shed additional light on the volume of the British slave trade in this period and the reliability of Ini estimate of the trade before 1698 The principal purpose of the present article is to re-examine new estimates of the volume of the British trade

Cahiers tudes africaines 138-139 XXXV-2-3 1995 pp 599-615