Under company and state, reconstructing government-owned enslaved families on Bonaire 1758-1863

In contrast to most of the Caribbean, the enslaved population on the Dutch-Caribbean island of Bonaire was predominantly owned by the government and not by private enslavers (until 1792 by the Dutch West India Company, after this by the Dutch state). The government-owned enslaved people were forced to produce salt in a harsh and barren landscape. In this study we use a novel database of linked lives based on cross-sectional slave censuses that were taken at irregular intervals between 1758 and 1863 to reconstruct enslaved family life. As the sources often mention not only a mother’s name but also that of the (great) grandmother, we are able to reconstruct family trees and kinship networks through the mother’s line. We show that the enslaved population of Bonaire grew modestly in the eighteenth century through a relatively high number of children per woman resulting in 82% of enslaved being born on Bonaire. This was supplemented by victims from the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, predominantly men, which shifted the sex ratio from a female surplus to a male surplus. We are able to study individual fertility trajectories for the eighteenth century. We uncovered that African-born enslaved women remained childless more often and had longer birth intervals, presumably as a result of the endured conditions during the Trans-Atlantic voyage.