Talk:Seasoning (slavery)

Meaning of the term

Having studying colonial empires I have only ever seen this term used in a manner completely contrary to this article. I no longer own the various books I had on the subject, so cannot provide published-based evidence, but the general consensus in everything I read stated that "seasoning" was the term used to describe Europeans and Africans who had survived (overcoming disease etc) a year or so in the Americans and that it was not just a general term for the torture and breaking of slaves. The article contains no sourced information on the subject, other than where slaves were destined for, their price, and the average mortality rate. The following google search supports this point: [[1]]

I am not familiar with the books in use in the article, so do not know if they support the definition supplied. However, they appear to only be used to provide information on where slaves were destined, their price, and the average mortality rate. It appears this article may need some additional work.EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 03:16, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

History

The practice conditioned the African captives for their new lot in life; newly arrived African captives would have to be trained into the daily rigors that awaited them in the Americas. This training was carried out on plantations in the Caribbean, such as Jamaica.

Estimated mortality rates for this process vary from 7% to 50% with duration between one and four years.

Most slaves destined for island or South American plantations were likely to be put through this ordeal, though slaves shipped directly to North America bypassed this process. Jamaica held one of the most notorious of these camps.

The process of seasoning had a strong profit motive. For example, the average price of adult male slaves in Jamaica (1770s) was approximately 52% higher than "New Negroes" (Africans who came to a New World).

Possible new layout:

References

Slaves

Death Rates

Price differential and reference

Hey all, quick thing about the price differential between "new" and "seasoned" slaves was about fifteen percent. I went to the reference, which does state (word-for-word) the same thing, and it's a scholarly source. The problem is that the information meant to be conveyed by the statement, its scholarly origins notwithstanding, is not clear. For example, a price of $85 is 15% cheaper than $100, but $100 is not 15% more expensive than $85. Instead, $97.75 is 15% more expensive than $85 (but again bear in mind $85 is not 15% cheaper than $97.75). With the trivial exception of $0, there are no two prices where one is 15% more than the other and the other is simultaneously 15% cheaper than the first.

The difference isn't huge and even though the text in question is, strictly, meaningless, I left it in because it's probably still useful for giving readers a ballpark idea. The financial factors that drove the horrendous practices of slavery are important to learn about, so again on balance it seemed better to keep the ambiguous info available.

In the cited reference, if you follow the author's own citation for the 15% figure, you'll see that the author does not clarify the ambiguous remark, but does refer to a data table. I wasn't able to check the data table, but, if someone does have access to the table, you could presumably find out whether Schwartz was referring to a 15% markup or a 15% discount. This would allow clarifying the text of the article and clearing the clarification needed tag. 2601:741:1:65E0:A470:7781:F630:8AAC (talk) 17:14, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

James Grainger MD An essay on west indian diseases

A useful source document, one not quoted in the main article, is James Grainger MD's 'An essay on west indian diseases...'. It can be found on the Internet. His advice on Seasoning was highly influential - and contrary to modern opinion he advocates a surprisingly humane approach to the process. 92.0.21.222 (talk) 14:13, 14 December 2023 (UTC)