First Direct Slave Import to Georgia

Background. The transatlantic slave trade involved the transportation of enslaved African people to the Americas by slave traders operating ships from both Europe and the New World. Some voyages used the triangular trade route and its Middle Passage, particularly in the early phases of the trade.

Context of the Trade. The trade was physically carried out according to two systems of wind and ocean currents in the North and South Atlantic Ocean, as the historian David Eltis emphasises. In the eighteenth century many slave voyages took at least two and a half months, and mortality rates decreased over the history of the trade, primarily because the length of time necessary for the voyage was declining.

Evidentiary Status of the Arrival. The arrival of a sloop named Mary Brow at Savannah with 78 captives from Saint-Louis, Senegal, described as the first direct slave import into the colony of Georgia, rests entirely on a legacy discovery row rather than on any supplied passage. The corpus treats the Atlantic slave trade broadly and does not mention this voyage, so the arrival's details cannot be independently corroborated here.