The Experience of Former Slaves and Free-Born
Blacks in Liberia
Paul Schrimpf
February 3, 2006
Abstract
This paper analyzes differences between the experiences of former slaves and
freeborn blacks as colonists in Liberia. Mortality was extraordinarily high among
Liberian colonists, and former slaves are found to have faced a significantly higher
risk of mortality than freeborn colonists. Former slaves also had a significantly
lower level of human capital. There are no observable differences in the probability
of marraige or being a parent. The generalizability of the findings to the general
U.S. population is discussed with careful consideration of the implications of the
exceptional nature of emigrants to Liberia.
1
Introduction
Economic historians have given considerable attention to studying the well-being of slaves
in the United States. A seemingly loosely related historical debate concerns the motives
of the American Colonization Society. The American Colonization Society’s goal was to
establish a colony for free blacks in Africa. The society’s supporters contended that colonization was a philanthropic enterprise (Mehlinger 1916). Allen (1982) argues that many,
if not most, colonizing slaveowners sent their slave to Liberia because of moral qualms
about slavery and humanitarian feelings toward their slaves. Critics viewed colonization
as a way of perpetuating slavery and further denigrating blacks. Forbes (1990) argues
that “the American Colonization Society was not interested in abolishing slavery, but in
preserving it.” A relevant question in this debate is what type of slaves did owners emancipate for colonization? If colonization supporting slaveowners were selfishly motivated
by economic or racist considerations, one would expect them to be more likely to free
infirm or otherwise unproductive slaves for colonization. If the slaveowners were more
benevolently motivated, this would not necessarily be the case.
1
This paper contributes to both of the above debates by comparing the experience
of former slaves and free blacks in the Liberia. Data is taken from a complete roll of
emigrants to Liberia from 1820-1843, and a census of emigrants still living in Liberia in
1843. Former slaves are found to have significantly higher mortality rates, lower literacy
rates, and are less likely to work in a skilled occupation. Former slaves and free blacks are
indistinguishable in terms of marraige, parenthood, and health at the time of the census.
2
Historical Background
At the start of the nineteenth century, many people viewed the coexistence of blacks and
whites in America as a formidable social problem. Some people, who were not fond of
slavery, nonetheless opposed emanicipation because they could not fathom the comingling
of free blacks and whites. In his Notes on the State of Virginia, Thomas Jefferson wrote,
This unfortunate difference of colour, and perhaps of faculty, is a powerful
obstacle to the emancipation of these people. Many of their advocates, while
they wish to vindicate the liberty of human nature, are anxious also to preserve
its dignity and beauty. Some of these, embarrassed by the question ‘What
further is to be done with them?’ join themselves in opposition with those
who are actuated by sordid avarice only (Jefferson 1781 and 1993).
Other people philosophically opposed slavery, but held that emanicipated blacks would be
even worse off because of prejudice and discrimination (Allen 1982). In the words of Foster
(1953), “Many liberal citizens had voted for the African’s liberty but nobody wanted his
company.” These citizens viewed the colonization of freed blacks as an acceptable solution
to the problem.
Seifman (1967) traces the practice of deporting emanicipated slaves to the seventeenth century. Quakers and Southerners began proposing plans for colonization during
the 1770’s. In 1787, Britain established Sierra Leone as a colony for blacks in an attempt
to clean up London’s slums (Staudenraus 1961). In 1816, Reverend Robert Finley established the American Colonization Society (ACS) for the purpose of colonizing free blacks
in Africa (Seifman 1967). In 1820, the ACS sent its first ship of 80 emigrants to Liberia.
The Society sent a total of 15,386 blacks to Liberia before it dissolved in 1908 (Forbes
1990). This paper focuses on the period from 1820 to 1843 for which data is readily
available.
The Colonization Society was controversial from its inception. Religious leaders supported colonization as a means of spreading Christianity. Regarding the ACS’s appeal
to Ohio Protestants, Matijasic (1985) writes that besides providing “them with a way
2
to combat the evils of slavery without the risk of offending traditional prejudices ...
the Liberian project was seen as part of a larger movement to spread Christianity to
‘unenlightened’ portions of the world.” It was hoped that the colonists would spread
Christianity to native Africans.
In addition to being supported by opponents of slavery who did not want free blacks
and whites living in proximity, many unapolegetic slaveholders supported colonization.
Proponents of slavery viewed free blacks as potentially disruptive and dangerous. The
ACS used fear of free blacks to garner support. Streiford (1979) writes, “the ACS struck
hard at the manifest fears of the white population. The fear of slave insurrections and
race war served as one such strong appeal.” Appeals for support based on fear typically incorporated rascist rhetoric. For example, Henry Clay, one of the leaders of the
ACS, proclaimed, “Of all classes of our population, the most vicious is that of the free
coloured ... they extend their vices to all around them, to the slaves and to the whites”
(Streiford 1979). With the ACS making statements such as these, it is no surprise that
many free blacks opposed the colonization movement. Forbes (1990) gives an overview
of black opposition to colonization. Opposition was concentrated in Northern cities, such
as Philadelphia and Boston. Many influential black leaders, such as Frederick Douglass
and David Walker, were vocal opponents of colonization.
3
Data
Data for this paper comes from a roll of all emigrants who were sent to Liberia by the
American Colonization Society between 1820 and 1843 and a census of migrants and
their children still living in Liberia in 1843. The roll and census were read into the
Congressional record in 1844. Tom W. Shick1 transcribed the records. For nearly all
emigrants, the roll contains information on their name, their state of origin, whether
they were free born or emanicipated, age, date of arrival in the colony, place of arrival,
and which ship they sailed on. For emigrants who left the colony before 1843, the roll
records when they left and where they subsequently went. For the many emigrants who
died before 1843, the date and cause of death are recorded. For some emigrants, the roll
also contains information on literacy and occupation at the time of arrival in Liberia.
However, this information is missing for 80% of the sample, so it is not used. The 1843
Liberian census covers the entire population of the colony. It records eachs person’s name,
age, date of arrival, whether born in the colony, occupation, education, health, location,
and family connections.
1
Shick (1973 and 1996b) and Shick (1973 and 1996a)
3
3.1
Linking the Roll of Emigrants with the Census
The roll of emigrants and the 1843 census cover the same population. Therefore, for
people who did not die or leave the colony, it should be possible to link their record in
the roll of emigrants to their record in the census. A total of 4,417 emigrants are recorded
in the roll. Of these, 2,144 died and 507 left the colony before 1843. That leaves 1,766
colonists at the time of the census. The census contains 2,389 observations. 652 of these
are listed as having been born in the colony, and 1,737 are recorded as immigrants. Thus,
the roll of emigrants and the census are roughly consistent in terms of the population of
immigrants in the colony in 1843.
Records from the roll of emigrants and census are linked based on name and year of
arrival. For individuals with unique first and last names, the two records are linked based
solely on name. When there are duplicate names, year of arrival and age in 1843 are also
used to make matches. In this way 548 records from the roll of emigrants can be linked
with the census. First names were not always properly recorded. They may have been
misspelled and sometimes only the first initial was noted. Therefore, additional matches
are made using first initial, last name, year of arrival, and age. This gives an additional
88 matches. These matches are mostly made between records containing slight variations
in the spelling of first names. Examples include Rose with Rosetta Baxter, and Counsel
with Council Davis. Similarly, misspellings of lastnames are not uncommon. Therefore,
individuals that can be uniquely identified using their first name, last initial, and year
of arrival are matching using just these fields. This yields an additional 169 matches,
linking names such as Primus Bartow with Primus Barton and Alfred Thomson with
Alfred Thompson.
In the above way, 830 of 1,735, or 48% of census records can be linked with records
from the roll of emigrants. This low match rate is partly due to women’s names changing
after marraige. The match rate among females is 41%, while among males it is 55%.
The low match rate is also caused by inaccuracies in the records. Although the linking
procedure is somewhat robust to misspellings, it cannot match people where initials were
misrecorded. Records with duplicate names, ages, and years of arrival also cannot be
matched. Furthermore, even if a record can be uniquely identified by name, age, and
year of arrival, if one of the fields was recorded incorrectly in one of the documents, then
a match will fail to be made.
In analyzing results that rely on linked roll and census records, it will be important to
keep in mind that this is unlikely to be a representative sample of the colony. Whether
a woman got married while in Liberia affects the chance of linking her records. Furthermore, matches are most often made for accurately written records. The accuracy of
records likely depends on individual literacy, as well as a ship’s (for the roll of emigrants)
4
and settlement’s (for the census) organization and other characteristics. These features
probably also affect some of the outcomes of interest in the analysis. Therefore, all conclusions drawn from the linked records must take into account the selected nature of the
sample.
3.2
Constructing Gender
Unfortunately, both the roll of emigrants and the census did not record gender. For
the census, gender is constructed by first examining a person’s faminly connections. If
they are listed as being a daughter, wife, or other female relative of someone, then their
gender is set to female. Similarly, if someone is listed as being a male relative, then their
gender is recorded as male. For many people, including all those on the roll of emigrants,
no family connection is recorded, so gender cannot be determined in this way. For these
people, gender is assigned based on first name. For common first names, the usual gender
is assigned. For obscure names of biblical or classical origin, the gender of the original
namesake is assigned. McDaniel (1992) assigned gender to the roll of emigrants based
on first and middle names using a name dictionary that listed the frequency of names
among male and female slaves during the nineteenth century. Table 1 shows the tally of
males and females in the roll of emigrants that comes from the above construction and
as reported by McDaniel (1992). The tallies of the two methods are roughly comparable.
McDaniel (1992) reports considerably more male names and fewer indeterminate names.
However, McDaniel (1992) also reports 55 more observations than are present in the
data from Shick (1973 and 1996b) used in this paper. Thus, the discrepancy in table
1 is a combination of differences in the construction of gender and differences in the
transcription of the original records. In any case, there is some error in either method
and this must be kept in mind whenever gender is used in the analysis. However, since
gender is not a focus of the analysis, this is not a large problem.
Table 1: Gender in the Roll of Emigrants
Male Female Indeterminant
This Paper
2185
1980
252
McDaniel (1992) 2318
1973
181
5
4
Comparing Freeborn and Emanicipated Emigrants
Before quantitatively analyzing the experience of freeborn and emancipated emigrants,
it will be useful to consider the reasons that freeborn and emancipated blacks emigrated.
The ACS had an official policy against forced emigration. Some slaveowners freed their
slaves and allowed them to choose whether or not to emigrate (Allen 1982). However, the
majority of former slaves who emigrated to Liberia were freed only on the condition that
they agreed to emigrate (Allen 1982). In Virginia, manumission was illegal unless the
freed slaves were promptly removed (Staudenraus 1961). Thus, the majority of former
slaves in Liberia did not emigrate completely voluntarily. In some cases, such as in the
aftermath of Nat Turner’s revolt, slaves had no choice whatsoever; emigration was forced
(Allen 1982).
Despite prominent free blacks’ vocal opposition to colonization, just under half of all
Liberian emigrants from 1820-1843 were free blacks, as shown by table 2. Free blacks
were usually motivated to emigrate by a desire for greater liberty. For example, in 1818,
Abraham Camp wrote to the ACS:
I am a free man of colour, have a family and a large connection of free people of
colour residing on the Wabash, who are all willing to leave America whenever
the way shall be opened. We love this country and its liberties, if we could
share an equal right in them; but our freedom is partial, and we have no hope
that it ever will be otherwise here; therefore we had rather be gone, though
we should suffer hunger and nakedness for years (Camp, Russworm, Jones,
Drew and Mann 1925).
It seems reasonable to characterize free blacks as voluntary emigrants, who attached extra
importance to liberty and perhaps were exceptionally adventurous.
Table 2: Emancipated and Freeborn Emigrants
Unknown
Freeborn
Emanicipated
Total
Number Per cent
488
11
1,832
41
2,097
47
4,417
100
Table 3 shows the averages of a handful of variables conditional on wether an emigrant
was freeborn or emancipated. As shown, former slaves and free blacks were on average
about the same age upon arriving in Liberia. The majority of emigrants came from slave
6
states, but about 20% of freeborn emigrants were from the North. Free blacks died and
left the colony more frequently. However, free blacks arrived in the colony earlier, so they
had a greater window in which to die or leave before 1843.
Table 3: Means Conditional on Status
Status
Freeborn
Emancipated
Unknown
Total
4.1
Year Arrived
1829
1834
1833
1832
Age at Arrival Died
20.51
0.50
20.36
0.45
20.83
0.58
20.46
0.49
Left From South
0.14
0.80
0.10
0.93
0.09
0.52
0.11
0.83
Male
0.50
0.55
0.52
0.53
Mortality
A couple of authors have noted the exceptionally high mortality among Liberian emigrants. Shick (1971) made the first attempt to quantitatively analyze mortality in Liberia.
He demonstrates that mortality among Liberian emigrants was similar to that faced by
Europeans in tropical environments. He concludes that contrary to nineteenth century
beliefs, the genetic heritage of African-Americans provided little protection from tropical
diseases. McDaniel (1992) constructs a life table for Liberian emigrants. He finds that the
colonists experienced the highest mortality in recorded history. Like Shick, McDaniel concludes that genetics provided colonists with little resistance to tropical diseases. Instead,
he stresses the importance of one’s childhood disease environment to lifelong immunity.
Neither Shick nor McDaniel differentiates between former slaves and free blacks in their
analysis of mortality. It is interesting to analyze the difference in mortality between former slaves and free blacks because it contributes to the large literature on the effects of
slavery on blacks’ well-being, and it sheds light on the motives of emigrants and the ACS.
In Time on the Cross, Fogel and Engerman (1974) argued that slaves were as materialy
well off as free industrial workers. Subsequent work demonstrated that slave children were
less healthy than free children. Steckel (1979) analyzes slave mortality using plantation
records. He finds that mortality was particular high among children. Steckel (1986a)
reinforces this view. Additionally, Steckel (1986b) demonstrates that slave children were
exceptionally short, likely due to malnutrition. However, these difference in height and
mortality mostly disappeared by adulthood because of the more generous diet fed working
slaves. Largely because of lack of data, there have been few studies comparing the
mortality of free blacks with that of slaves. The Liberian data provides an opportunity
to fill this void.
Table 3 shows that a greater portion of freeborn than emancipanted emigrants died
7
before 1843. However, freeborn emigrants also arrived earlier, giving them more time to
die. In fact, substantial numbers of slaves only began arriving in 1828. Furthermore,
poor planning and unpreparedness led to exceptionally high death rates among early
emigrants (Staudenraus 1961). Consequently, it is necessary to control for year of arrival
while analyzing mortality. Additionally, gender, age, and whether someone was from
the South, where the climate was more similar to Liberia, might be expected to affect
mortality. Table 4 shows the estimates from a probit of death on the aforementioned
variables. As expected, early colonists were significantly more likely to have died. Older
emigrants were more also more likely to die. More importantly, a former slave is about
4% more likely to have died before 1843 than a free black. This difference is significant
at the 10% level with a p-value of 5.7%.
Variable
Former Slave
From South
Male
Year Arrived
Age at Arrival
Intercept
Table 4: Death Probit
Coefficient (Std. Err.)
0.094†
(0.049)
0.106
(0.074)
0.048
(0.043)
-0.050∗∗
(0.005)
(0.001)
0.008∗∗
1.231∗∗
(0.164)
N
Log-likelihood
χ2(5)
∂P
∂x
0.038a
0.042a
0.019a
-0.020
0.003
3449
-2316.336
144.55
Marginal effect is for a discrete change of the variable from 0 to 1.
Significance levels : † : 10%
∗ : 5%
∗∗ : 1%
a
The probit in table 4 is not as informative about the well-being of emanicipated and
freeborn emigrants as it could be since it doesn’t fully take into account how long the
emigrants lived before dying. To address this concern, we estimate a proportional hazard
model. The reported results assume that mortality follows a Gompertz distribution.
Other distributional assumptions lead to similar results. The Gompertz survival function
is:
xβ
S(t) = exp(−
ee
(eγt − 1))
γ
where t is the number of years that a person has lived in the colony, and age is inclued
among the covariates in x. Alternatively, one could specify a survival function where age
is the time variable. This is the approach that McDaniel (1992) takes when he constructs
a life table. However, more than half of all deaths occurred less than a year after arrival in
the colony. The mortality of the colonists reflects their ability to survive the introduction
8
of a new disease environment, not their natural survival over their lifecycle. Therefore,
it seems more appropriate to model the colonists’ mortality as a function of time in the
colony than of age.
Table 5: Survival Function Estimates
Variable
Coefficient (Std. Err.)
Former Slave 0.138∗
(0.056)
From South
-0.049
(0.084)
Male
0.041
(0.049)
Year Arrived 0.004
(0.006)
∗∗
Age
0.008
(0.002)
Intercept
-2.327∗∗
(0.208)
γ
-0.147∗∗
(0.008)
Significance levels :
† : 10%
∗ : 5%
∗∗ : 1%
Table 5 shows the estimated parameters of the survival function. The negative estimate of γ indicates that mortality risk decreases the longer a person has spent in the
colony. Mortality increases with age. Furthermore, former slaves face a considerably
higher mortality risk than free blacks. A former slave’s mortality hazard is fifteen percent (e0.138 − 1) higher than a freeborn colonist’s. Although not shown here, this result
is robust to changes in the assumed mortality distribution or the use of age instead of
years in the colony as the primary time variable. Thus, the data robustly supports the
conclusion that former slaves faced a greater mortality risk than freeborn colonists in
Liberia.
Although it is tempting to attribute the difference in mortality between freeborn
and emanicipated colonists to the conditions of slavery, it is necessary to also consider
other explanations. As mentioned earlier, the consesus in the literature is that although
slavery had an adverse impact on childhood health and mortality, it did not appreciably
reduce adults’ health. Therefore, it is likely that part of the difference in mortality
observed in the Liberian data is due to the selection of the sample. Freeborn colonists
migrated voluntarily. Normally former slaves could only choose between migrating and
remaining in bondage. A voluntary migrant is likely to be in better than average health
with an exceptional amount of adventurousness and willingness to face challenges. These
characteristics likely contribute to the lower mortality observed among freeborn colonists.
On the other hand, it would be premature to dismiss the possibility of a direct effect
of slavery. Just as freeborn migrants are unlikely to be representative of the general population of free blacks in the U.S., slaves emancipated for emigration are not necessarily
representative of the American slave population. Allen (1982) documents the humanitarian feelings that many colonizing slaveowners felt toward their slaves. It is highly
9
plausible that slaveowners, who freed their slaves for colonization, treated their slaves
exceptionally well. Therefore, it is likely that former slaves in Liberia had left America in
better than health than the average slave. Thus, both freeborn and emancipated colonists
were likely in better health than their counterparts who remained in the United States.
Before drawing further conclusions, we will analyze how various outcomes in the 1843
census differed between former slaves and freeborn colonists.
4.2
Health
This section, as well as the next two, utilizes only the data that could be matched between
the roll of emigrants and the census. As mentioned previously, this is likely a selected
sample of Liberians. However, it is difficult to come up with a compelling reason to
suspect that relationship among being a former slave and the outcomes analyzed below
would systemically differ in the matched sample from the relationship in the entire colony.
Consequently, we discuss these results as though they are representative of the entire
colony.
The census classified each colonists’ health into one of nine categories: good, feeble,
bad, invalid, decline, infirm, idiot, ague and fever, or unknown. Health is unknown for
only person in the matched sample. That person is discarded. The remaining people
are categorized as being in good health if health was recorded as good. Otherwise,
they are categorized as being in bad health. About ten percent of the 829 people in the
matched sample were in bad health. Table 6 shows estimates from a probit of bad health.
Unsurprisingly, older people are more likely to be in bad health. Consistent with the fact
that mortality decreases with time in the colony, the people were arrived later were more
likely to be in bad health at the time of the census. Somewhat surprisingly, the coefficient
on former slave is negative. However, it is statistically indistinguishable from zero.
Table 6: Bad Health Probit
Variable
Coefficient (Std. Err.)
Former Slave
-0.163
(0.160)
From South
0.048
(0.215)
Age
0.034
(0.005)
Year Arrived
0.027
(0.015)
Male
-0.041
(0.141)
Intercept
-2.967
(0.624)
Coefficients of settlement dummies omitted
10
4.3
Family
The census asked Liberians about their connections in the colony. This question was
always answered with information about a relative. Only information about one relative was recorded. Typically, the person’s relationship to the head of household and
head’s name were listed. Using this information, we can construct family identifiers, and
determine each person’s marital status and number of children. Unfortunately, the “connections” field was often left black on the census. In the matched sample of 830 people,
it is impossible to identifier any family members for 285 people. It is assumed that these
people were single without any kids, although it could simply be that their census information was incompletely recorded. We estimate probits for the probability of being
married and the probability of being a parent. Table 7 shows the estimated coefficients
on the former slave indicator. The same regressors as in table 6 were also included. As
shown, whether or not a colonist was a slave has no significant effect on her probability
of being married or being a parent.
Table 7: Family Composition
Dep. Var. Coef. of ‘Former Slave’ (Std. Err.)
Married
-0.052
(0.128)
Parent
-0.049
(0.133)
4.4
Human Capital
Unlike the roll of emigrants, literacy was recorded for the majoriy of people in the census.
More specifically, the census classified each person’s extent of education as: “reads”,
“writes”, “spells”, “liberal”, “illiterate”, “reads and writes”, “at school”, “reads prints”,
or “unknown.” In the linked sample education is unknown for only sixteen people. For
the purpose of analysis, all people whose education is not listed as “illiterate” are simply
classified a literate. Table 8 shows estimates for a probit of literacy. Former slaves were
significantly less likely than freeborn colonists to be literate in 1843.
Like the roll of emigrants, the census sometimes recorded colonists’ occupations. Unfortunately, occupation normally was not listed. Occupation is known for only 266 of
the matched observations. We classify the two most comment occupations, “farmer” and
“laborer,” as unskilled. The remianing 76 occupations are considered skilled. See the documentation accompanying Shick (1973 and 1996a) for a complete list of the occupations.
Table 9 shows probit estimates of the probability of being skilled. The coefficient on “former slave” is negative with a p-value of 14.8%, providing further evidence that former
slaves possessed less human capital at the time of the census than freeborn colonists.
11
Table 8: Literacy Probit
Variable
Coefficient (Std. Err.)
Former Slave -0.318∗∗
(0.119)
∗∗
From South
-0.461
(0.170)
Age
-0.027∗∗
(0.004)
∗∗
Year Arrived
-0.034
(0.012)
∗∗
Male
0.339
(0.111)
Intercept
1.769∗∗
(0.511)
Coefficients of settlement dummies omitted
N
Log-likelihood
χ2(13)
Significance levels :
668
-370.529
104.151
† : 10%
∗ : 5%
∗∗ : 1%
Table 9: Skill Probit
Variable
Coefficient (Std. Err.)
Former Slave -0.365
(0.253)
From South
-0.896†
(0.496)
Age
-0.007
(0.008)
Year Arrived
-0.046†
(0.025)
Male
-1.194∗∗
(0.309)
∗∗
Intercept
4.626
(1.187)
Coefficients of settlement dummies omitted
N
Log-likelihood
χ2(13)
Significance levels :
240
-102.264
108.649
† : 10%
12
∗ : 5%
∗∗ : 1%
Using data from the 1880 U.S. census, Sacerdote (2005) shows that former slaves
were substantially less likely to be literate than freeborn blacks. Therefore, it appears
reasonable to attribute the greater human capital of freeborn colonists to the detrimental effects of slavery. However, there is also reason to believe that freeborn emigrants
were exceptionally literate. Much of the recruiting efforts of the ACS took the form of
printed propaganda (Staudenraus 1961). Moreover, the ACS made a concerted effort to
attract more educated colonists. Literate colonists were needed to fill administrative and
missionary roles. The ACS even attempted to establish a school for educating future
colonists (Franklin 1974). Thus, freeborn colonists were likely more educated than the
free black population of the United States. On the other hand, Allen (1982) gives one
example of a slaveowner selecting a slave for emanicipation specifically because of her
literacy. Furthermore, as argued earlier slaves who migrated likely had especially kind
owners. Kind owners may have been more likely to educate their slaves. Thus as with
health, both former former slaves and freeborn blacks who migrated to Liberia were likely
to have higher than average human capital. In light of this, it is difficult to say the extent
to which human capital difference among Liberians reflect differences in the general U.S.
population.
5
Conclusions
Liberian colonists who were former slaves faced a substantially higher risk of mortality
than freeborn colonists. Former slaves were also less likely to be literate or have a skilled
occupation in 1843. There were no discernable differences between former slaves and
freeborn blacks in terms of marriage, parenthood, or reported health in 1843. As discussed
above, before attributing the observed difference between former slaves and freeborn
colonists to the effects of slavery, it is necessary to consider the selected nature of the
sample. There is reason to believe that both freeborn black migrants and former slave
migrants were in better health and better educated than their counterparts in the United
States. Consequently, it is very likely that at least part of the observed difference between
former slaves and freeborn blacks reflects the direct effect of slavery. The lower literacy of
slaves compared to free blacks has been observed in other contexts and is well established.
Other studies have also found that slavery had a negative impact on health. However,
it is generally believed that the detrimental health effects of slavery were concentrated
in childhood. This paper provides evidence that slavery adversely affected a person’s
health throughout their life. The biological mechanism underlying this finding could be
an interesting area of future research. Perhaps childhood nutrition has a lifelong effect
on a person’s imunity. The diet of slave children may not have been bad enough for its
13
effect to appear in the adult mortality of slaves in the United States, but in the more
severe disease environment of Liberia the longrun effect of childhood nutrition may have
been magnified.
14
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