A Dreadful Childhood: The Excess Mortality of American Slaves

Abstract

Mortality rates in early childhood are widely regarded as a sensitive index of the health and living standards of a population (United Nations, 1973: 138-139; Williamson, 1981; Haines, 1985). The debate over the health and treatment of American slaves has led scholars to investigate various data and methods to construct these measures. Early work based on plantation records placed the infant mortality rate (the proportion of live births that die within one year of birth) at 152.6 per thousand (Postell, 1951: 158). Using census data and indirect techniques, estimates of the infant mortality rate climbed from 182.7 per thousand by Evans (1962: 212) to 274 to 302 per thousand by Farley (1970: 33) and 246 to 275 per thousand by Eblen (1972; 1974). Recent work based on height data and indirect techniques places the infant mortality rate in the neighborhood of 350 per thousand and total losses before the end of the first year (stillbirths plus infant deaths) at nearly 50% (Steckel, 1986a). Thus, measurements over the past four decades have gravitated toward the judgment of southern planter Thomas Afflick (1851: 435) who wrote, “Of those born, one half die under one year.”