The Atlantic slave trade forcibly relocated approximately 12 million people from Africa to America between 1515 and 1866. Despite this unprecedented forced migration, slave revolts upon America-bound ships were relatively rare. According to the most reliable estimate, slave revolts only occurred on about 2 percent of voyages.
Why didn’t more enslaved Africans try to rise up and free themselves? Physical restraints were one obstacle. The slaves were shackled and chained. Though they often outnumbered the crew, they were unarmed. Another obstacle, however, was not physical, but psychological: the classic dilemma known as the problem of collective action.
New research published in Rationality & Society utilized rational choice theory to show that although all the slaves would benefit from a successful insurrection, the associated cost made it implausible in most cases that any one slave would start a revolt. A failed insurrection resulted in grisly torture and death.
“All of the slaves on a ship enjoy the benefits of overthrowing the crew and regaining their freedom,” Andrew Marcum of Duke University and David Skarbek of King’s College London wrote in their study. “However, accomplishing this task requires each individual to take risky actions that often result in torture and death. Each slave prefers to enjoy the benefits of freedom without bearing the substantial cost of helping to obtain it. As a result, each slave rationally chooses to free ride and no one is freed.”
The collective action problem and free riders are not specific to slavery. The problem occurs whenever a group works towards a goal that benefits everyone in the group, regardless of individual members participation.
By examining data on 5946 trans-Atlantic voyages from 1750 to 1775, the researchers found that slave revolts were actually more common on ships with a smaller number of slaves.
The finding is counterintuitive — a greater number of slaves would make it easier to overthrow the crew — but it accords with rational choice theory. In larger groups, a single slave has less to contribute, and can avoid the brutal punishments meted out if the revolt fails, but still reap the rewards if the revolt succeeds. He or she has little incentive to participate.
“Slave ships with fewer slaves and fewer male slaves were more likely to revolt because they could monitor against free riding and induce greater participation,” Marcum and Skarbek wrote. “Our finding suggests that explanations that rely entirely on ‘African-based’ causes for revolt, such as social, religious, and political conditions peculiar to certain regions, are less important for revolt than slaves’ ability to overcome the collective action problem.”
They also found that slave revolts were more common when the slaves shared the same language and culture.
“Relying on historical and archival materials, we also argue that a greater degree of homogeneity facilitated revolt,” Marcum and Skarbek noted. “Ship captains therefore actively sought to diversify their purchases with slaves from different regions so that collective action would be more difficult.”
