Explaining the mortality decline in the eighteenth-century British slave trade

The authors' quantitative analysis of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute database of slave voyages confirms the mortality decline in the British slave trade during the eighteenth century. They scrutinize competing hypotheses for th is decline, and explore the development and diffusion of empirical knowledg e about disease prevention. Emphasis is placed on the implementation of lif e-saving regimes by maritime surgeons and the ramifications of increasing s tate intervention for non-slave voyages and civilian populations on land. S eeking context, the authors review the parallel mortality decline in Englan d during the eighteenth century, and its arrest for about 50 years from 182 0.