Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Art and Artifacts Division

Johann Moritz Rugendas, artist. Pierre-Roch Vigneron, lithographer. Published in Voyage pittoresque dans le Brésil (Paris, ca. 1835)

Despite heavy loss of life during the Middle Passage, until 1840 Africans constituted the great majority of people migrating to the New World. Close to seven million had entered the Americas by that date, compared with three million émigrés from Europe. But a very high mortality rate due to the appalling conditions imposed by slavery, especially in the Caribbean, resulted in a slightly larger white population. By the 1820s, more than eleven million people of African origin lived in the New World, compared with more than twelve million of European descent.