Document-based question

Annals of the Cakchiquels, a history of the Kaqchikel Maya people written in the Kaqchikel language by a noble of the Xahil family who had lived through the Spanish conquest, Guatemala, mid-1500s. The passage covers the years from about 1530, when the Kaqchikel kings submitted to Spanish rule, to 1536. Tunatiuh ("the Sun") was the name used for Pedro de Alvarado, the Spanish conqueror and governor of Guatemala; Belehe Qat was a Kaqchikel king; Mantunalo was Alonso de Maldonado, a royal judge sent by the Spanish crown.

During this year frightful imposts were levied; they paid gold and silver before the face of Tunatiuh, and there were demanded as tribute five hundred men and five hundred women to go to the gold washings; all the people were busy seeking gold. Five hundred men and five hundred women were also demanded by Tunatiuh to aid in building Pangan for his princely residence. All that, yes, all that, we ourselves witnessed, O my children. . . . Forty days were lacking to complete three years from the date of the submission of the kings when Belehe Qat died. He died on the 7th Queh, when employed in washing for gold and silver. . . . The prince Mantunalo arrived to relieve the nation from its sufferings; the washing for gold and silver promptly ceased, and the tribute of young men and women ceased; the burnings alive and the hangings ceased, and, indeed, all the various acts of violence of the Castilians and the imposts which they had forcibly laid upon us.

José de Acosta, Spanish Jesuit missionary who worked in Peru in the 1570s and 1580s, The Natural and Moral History of the Indies, 1590. The passage concerns the silver mines of Potosí in the Andes. "Eleven millions" refers to pesos of silver; "the King" is the king of Spain.

In that fleet where I came in the year one thousand five hundred eighty seven, there were eleven millions transported in the two fleets of Peru and Mexico, whereof two thirds were in that of Peru, and almost the one half for the King. . . . Pliny says, that in Italy there are many mines, but the Ancients would not suffer their people to work in them, only to preserve the people. They brought these metals from Spain, and made the Spaniards labour in the mines as tributaries. The like doth Spain now with the Indies, for there remaining many mines of metal yet in Spain, they will not seek them, nor suffer any to work in them, by reason of the inconveniences which happen daily, but they bring them from the Indies, where they dig it with much labour and peril. . . . They labour in these mines in continual darkness and obscurity, without knowledge of day or night. . . . so great is the desire of silver, that for the gain thereof men endure any pains.

George Downing, young Englishman raised in Massachusetts who had recently visited the English colonies in the Caribbean as a ship's chaplain, letter to his cousin John Winthrop Jr. in New England, 1645.

If you go to Barbados, you shall see a flourishing Island, many able men. I believe they have bought this year no less than a thousand [enslaved Africans], and the more they buy, the better able they are to buy, for in a year and half they will earn (with God's blessing) as much as they cost. . . . A man that will settle there must look to procure servants, which if you could get out of England, for 6, or 8, or 9 years time, only paying their passages, or at the most but some small above, it would do very well, for so thereby you shall be able to do something upon a plantation, and in short time be able, with good husbandry, to procure [enslaved Africans] (the life of this place) out of the increase of your own plantation.

Charter of the Royal African Company, issued by King Charles II of England, 1672.

And, therefore, for the setting forward and furtherance of Trade intended, in the parts aforesaid, and the encouragement of the undertakers in the discovering the Golden Mines and settling of Plantations, being an enterprise so laudable and conducing to so worthy an end as the increase of Traffic and Merchandize wherein this nation hath been famous . . . . We do hereby, for us, our heirs and Successors, charge and command, prohibit and forbid, all the subjects of us, our heirs and Successors, of what degree or quality soever they be, that none of them directly or indirectly, presume to visit, frequent, trade or adventure to traffic into or from the said Regions . . . or to import any Red Wood, Elephant's Teeth, [enslaved Africans], Hides, Wax, Gums, Grains or any other the Commodities of the said Countries . . . other than the said Company . . . upon pain of our indignation and imprisonment of their bodies . . . and the forfeiture and loss of both their ships and goods . . . .

Josiah Child, London merchant and former governor of the East India Company, A New Discourse of Trade, 1693.

That all Colonies or Plantations do endamage their Mother-Kingdoms, whereof the Trades of such Plantations are not confined by severe Laws, and good Executions of those Laws, to the Mother-Kingdom. . . . The People that evacuate from us to Barbados, and the other West-India Plantations . . . do commonly work one English-man to ten or eight Blacks; and if we keep the Trade of our said Plantations entirely to England, England would have no less Inhabitants, but rather an increase of People by such evacuation, because that one English-man, with the ten Blacks that work with him, accounting what they eat, use and wear, would make employment for four Men in England . . . whereas peradventure of ten Men that issue from us to New-England and Ireland, what we send to, or receive from them, doth not employ one Man in England.

Thomas Bluett, Englishman who met Job in 1731 while attending the courts on Delaware Bay in the English colonies, Some Memoirs of the Life of Job, the Son of Solomon, the High Priest of Boonda in Africa, published in London, 1734. Job, known today as Ayuba Suleiman Diallo, was a Muslim Fulbe merchant from the Senegambia region of West Africa who later told his story to Bluett.

In February, 1730. Job's Father hearing of an English Ship at Gambia River, sent him, with two Servants to attend him, to sell two [enslaved people], and to buy Paper, and some other Necessaries . . . . It happened that a Company of the Mandingoes, who live upon Plunder, passing by at that Time, and observing him unarmed, rush'd in, to the Number of seven or eight at once, at a back Door, and pinioned Job . . . . On the 27th of February, 1730. they carried them to Captain Pike at Gambia, who purchased them . . . . Job was brought with the rest of the Slaves to Annapolis in Maryland, and delivered to Mr. Vachell Denton, Factor to Mr. Hunt, before mentioned. . . . Mr. Vachell Denton sold Job to one Mr. Tolsey in Kent Island in Maryland, who put him to work in making Tobacco; but he was soon convinced that Job had never been used to such Labour.

Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database (SlaveVoyages), estimated number of enslaved Africans who survived the Atlantic crossing and landed in the Americas, by region of arrival, 1501–1750. Figures rounded to the nearest thousand; all figures are estimates. Smaller numbers landed in the Danish West Indies, Europe, and Africa are not shown.

Period | Brazil | Spanish Americas | British Caribbean | French Caribbean | Dutch Americas | Mainland North America
1501–1550 | 0 | 44,000 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0
1551–1600 | 29,000 | 125,000 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0
1601–1650 | 320,000 | 179,000 | 27,000 | under 1,000 | 0 | under 1,000
1651–1700 | 464,000 | 46,000 | 283,000 | 38,000 | 124,000 | 15,000
1701–1750 | 892,000 | 55,000 | 638,000 | 294,000 | 126,000 | 146,000