Dr Eltis’s research interests are the early modern Atlantic World, slavery, and migration – both coerced and free. He is the author of Economic Growth and The Ending of the Transatlantic Slave Trade (New York, Oxford Univ. Press, 1987) which won the British Trevor Reese Memorial Prize, and The Rise of African Slavery in the Americas(Cambridge, 2000), awarded the Frederick Douglass Prize, the John Ben Snow Prize, and the Wesley-Logan Prize. He is also winner of the John T. Hubbell Prize for best article in the journal Civil War History, in 2008. Currently co-editor of the Transatlantic Slave Trade database at www.slavevoyages.org, he is also the principal investigator of a two year NEH funded collaborative project on the origins of Africans pulled into the transatlantic slave trade. This project draws on the records of 67,000 names (taken down pre-orthographically) and descriptions of Africans liberated from slave vessels in the first half of the nineteenth century. The information was extracted from the registers of international courts that were established to adjudicate vessels detained as they engaged in the transatlantic slave trade.

Research Interests

• early modern Atlantic World
• slavery
• migration

Books

K. Bradley; P. Cartledge; D. Eltis; S.L. Engerman; C.Histories 201; . The Cambridge World History of Slavery, AD 1420-AD 1804. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011.

D. Eltis; F. Lewis; K.L. Sokoloff; . Human capital and institutions: a long run view. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009.

D. Eltis. Extending the Frontiers: Essays on the New Transatlantic Slave Trade Database. : Yale University Press, 2008.

D. Eltis; F.D. Lewis; K.L. Sokoloff; . Slavery in the development of the Americas. New York; Cambridge, U.K: Cambridge University Press, 2004.

D. Eltis; eBon EBSCOhost. Coerced and Free Migration: Global Perspectives. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2002.

D. Eltis. The rise of African slavery in the Americas : David Eltis. Cambridge, U.K: Cambridge University Press, 2000.

D. Eltis; E.Academic C. Collection. Economic growth and the ending of the transatlantic slave trade. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.

Articles/Book Chapters

A. Borucki, Eltis, D., and Wheat, D., “Atlantic History and the Slave Trade to Spanish America”, AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW, vol. 120, pp. 433-461, 2015.

D. D. da Silva, Eltis, D., Misevich, P., and Ojo, O., “THE DIASPORA OF AFRICANS LIBERATED FROM SLAVE SHIPS IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY”, JOURNAL OF AFRICAN HISTORY, vol. 55, pp. 347-369, 2014.

D. Eltis, “Freedom’s Debt: The Royal African Company and the Politics of the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1672–1752.By William A. Pettigrew (Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 2013) 264 pp. $45.00”, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, vol. 45, pp. 424-426, 2014.

R. Anderson, Borucki, A., da Silva, D. Domingues, Eltis, D., Lachance, P., Misevich, P., and Ojo, O., “Using African Names to Identify the Origins of Captives in the Transatlantic Slave Trade: Crowd-Sourcing and the Registers of Liberated Africans, 1808–1862”, History in Africa, vol. 40, pp. 165-191, 2013.

J. Hooper and Eltis, D., “The Indian Ocean in Transatlantic Slavery”, Slavery & Abolition, pp. 1-1, 2013.

D. Eltis, “Some Implications from the Transatlantic Slave Trade for Maritime Databases”, International Journal of Maritime History, vol. 24, p. 257, 2012.

D. Eltis, “O significado da investigação sobre os africanos escapados de navios negreiros no século XIX”, História Questões & Debates, vol. 52, 2011.

D. Eltis, Morgan, P., and Richardson, D., “Black, Brown, or White? Color-Coding American Commercial Rice Cultivation with Slave Labor”, The American Historical Review, vol. 115, pp. 164-171, 2010.

D. Eltis, Lewis, F. D., and McIntyre, K., “Accounting for the Traffic in Africans: Transport Costs on Slaving Voyages”, The Journal of Economic History, vol. 70, pp. 940-963, 2010.

R. Benjamin, Drescher, S., Emmer, P., Eltis, D., and Pétré-Grenouilleau, O., “The Slave Trade and Slavery, a Round Table Discussion”, European Review, vol. 17, pp. 569-591, 2009.

D. Eltis, “Was Abolition of the U.S. and British Slave Trade Significant in the Broader Atlantic Context?”, The William and Mary Quarterly, vol. 66, pp. 715-736, 2009.

D. Richardson and Eltis, D., “A New Assessment of the Transatlantic Slave Trade”, Yale University Press, 2008.

D. B. D. da Silva and Eltis, D., “The Slave Trade to Pernambuco, 1561–1851”, Yale University Press, 2008.

J. Vos, Richardson, D., and Eltis, D., “The Dutch in the Atlantic World: New Perspectives from the Slave Trade with Particular Reference to the African Origins of the Traffic”, Yale University Press, 2008.

D. Richardson, Pritchard, J., and Eltis, D., “The Significance of the French Slave Trade to the Evolution of the French Atlantic World before 1716”, Yale University Press, 2008.

P. Lachance and Eltis, D., “The Demographic Decline of Caribbean Slave Populations: New Evidence from the Transatlantic and Intra-American Slave Trades”, Yale University Press, 2008.

D. Eltis, “The U.S. Transatlantic Slave Trade, 1644–1867: An Assessment”, Civil War History, vol. 54, pp. 347-378, 2008.

D. Eltis, Morgan, P., and Richardson, D., “Agency and Diaspora in Atlantic History: Reassessing the African Contribution to Rice Cultivation in the Americas”, The American Historical Review, vol. 112, pp. 1329-1358, 2007.

D. Eltis, Lewis, F. D., and Richardson, D., “Slave Prices, the African Slave Trade, and Productivity in Eighteenth-Century South Carolina: A Reassessment”, The Journal of Economic History, vol. 66, p. 1054, 2006.

D. Eltis, “The Final Victims: Foreign Slave Trade to North America, 1783-1810. By James A. McMillin (Columbia, South Carolina: University of South Carolina Press, 2004. 207 pp. + 1 CD-ROM, $39.95)”, Journal of Social History, vol. 40, pp. 237-239, 2006.

D. Eltis, Lewis, F. D., and Richardson, D., “Slave prices, the African slave trade, and productivity in the Caribbean, 1674-1807”, The Economic History Review [H.W.Wilson – SSA], vol. 58, p. 673, 2005.

D. Eltis, Lewis, F. D., and Richardson, D., “Slave prices, the African slave trade, and productivity in the Caribbean, 1674u1807”, The Economic History Review, vol. 58, p. 673, 2005.

D. Eltis, “The Chattel Principle: Internal Slave Trades in the Americas. Edited by Walter Johnson. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004. x + 389 pp. Index, notes, maps. Paper, $35.00. ISBN: 0-300-10355-7”, Business History Review, vol. 79, pp. 863-866, 2005.

D. Eltis, “Free and coerced migrations: the Atlantic in global perspective”, European Review, vol. 12, pp. 313-328, 2004.

D. Eltis, “Joseph C. Dorsey. Slave Traffic in the Age of Abolition: Puerto Rico, West Africa, and the Non-Hispanic Caribbean, 1815-1859. Gainesville: University Press of Florida. 2003. Pp. xvii, 311. $59.95”, The American Historical Review, vol. 109, pp. 146-146, 2004.

D. Eltis, “Joseph C. Dorsey. Slave Traffic in the Age of Abolition: Puerto Rico, West Africa, and the Non-Hispanic Caribbean, 1815-1859:Slave Traffic in the Age of Abolition: Puerto Rico, West Africa, and the Non-Hispanic Caribbean, 1815-1859 Joseph C. Dorsey”, The American Historical Review, vol. 109, pp. 146-146, 2004.

U. G. O. G. NWOKEJI and Eltis, D., “CHARACTERISTICS OF CAPTIVES LEAVING THE CAMEROONS FOR THE AMERICAS, 1822-37”, The Journal of African History, vol. 43, pp. 191-210, 2002.

G. U. Nwokeji and Eltis, D., “The Roots of the African Diaspora: Methodological Considerations in the Analysis of Names in the Liberated African Registers of Sierra Leone and Havana”, History in Africa, vol. 29, pp. 365-379, 2002.

D. Eltis, Klein, H. S., Behrendt, S. D., Richardson, D., and Elbl, I. (., “The trans-Atlantic slave trade: a database on CD-ROM: 1”, International Journal of Maritime History, vol. 13, p. 267, 2001.

S. D. Behrendt, Eltis, D., and Richardson, D., “The Costs of Coercion: African Agency in the Pre-Modern Atlantic World”, The Economic History Review, vol. 54, pp. 454-476, 2001.

D. Eltis and Morgan, P. D., “Acknowledgments”, The William and Mary Quarterly, vol. 58, pp. 6-6, 2001.

D. Eltis, “The Volume and Structure of the Transatlantic Slave Trade: A Reassessment”, The William and Mary Quarterly, vol. 58, pp. 17-46, 2001.

D. Eltis, “Beyond Slavery: Explorations of Race, Labor, and Citizenship in Postemancipation Societies. By Frederick Cooper , Thomas C. Holt , and Rebecca J. Scott ( Chapel Hill , University of North Carolina Press , 2000 ) 198 pp. $34.95 cloth $15.95 paper”, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, vol. 32, pp. 341-342, 2001.

D. Eltis, Behrendt, S. D., and Richardson, D., “A participação dos paises da Europa e das Américas no tráfico transatlântico de escravos: novas evidências”, Afro-Ásia, pp. 9-50, 2000.

D. Eltis and Engerman, S. L., “The Importance of Slavery and the Slave Trade to Industrializing Britain”, The Journal of Economic History, vol. 60, pp. 123-144, 2000.
D. Eltis, “Senegambia and the African Slave Trade”, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, vol. 30, pp. 558-559, 2000.

D. Eltis, “Eli Faber. Jews, Slaves, and the Slave Trade: Setting the Record Straight. Reappraisals in Jewish Social and Intellectual History.) New York: New York University Press. 1998. Pp. xvii, 366. $27.95”, The American Historical Review, vol. 105, pp. 886-887, 2000.

D. Eltis, “Senegambia and the Atlantic Slave Trade (review)”, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, vol. 30, pp. 558-559, 1999.

D. Eltis, “Senegambia and the African Slave Trade . By Boubacar Barry ( New York , Cambridge University Press , 1998 ) 358 pp. $59.95 cloth $18.95 paper”, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, vol. 30, pp. 558-559, 1999.

D. Richardson and Eltis, D., “The ‘numbers game’ and routes to slavery”, Slavery & Abolition, vol. 18, pp. 1-15, 1997.

D. Richardson and Eltis, D., “West Africa and the transatlantic slave trade: New evidence of long-run trends”, Slavery & Abolition, vol. 18, pp. 16-35, 1997.

D. Eltis, “The Caribbean West Indies Accounts: Essays on the History of the British Caribbean and the Atlantic Economy in Honour of Richard Sheridan. Edited by Roderick A. McDonald. Kingston, Jamaica: The Press-University of the West Indies, 1996. Pp. xvi, 388. $20.”, The Journal of Economic History, vol. 57, pp. 766-767, 1997.

D. Eltis, “The Volume and African Origins of the British Slave Trade before 1714”, Cahiers d’Etudes Africaines, vol. 35, pp. 617-627, 1995.

D. Elitis, “The Total Product of Barbados, 1664–1701”, The Journal of Economic History, vol. 55, pp. 321-338, 1995.

D. Richardson, Behrendt, S. D., and Eltis, D., “Inikori’s Odyssey: Measuring the British Slave Trade, 1655-1807”, Cahiers d’Etudes Africaines, vol. 35, pp. 599-615, 1995.

D. Eltis and Richardson, D., “Productivity in the transatlantic slave trade”, Explorations in Economic History [H.W.Wilson – SSA], vol. 32, p. 465, 1995.

D. Eltis, “New Estimates of Exports from Barbados and Jamaica, 1665-1701”, The William and Mary Quarterly, vol. 52, pp. 631-648, 1995.

D. Eltis, “The Volume and African Origins of the British Slave Trade before 1714 (Importance et origine des Africains au sein de la traite britannique des esclaves au XVIIIe siècle: une évaluation comparative)”, Cahiers d’Études Africaines, vol. 35, pp. 617-627, 1995.

D. Eltis, “The total product of Barbados, 1664-1701”, The Journal of Economic History [H.W.Wilson – SSA], vol. 55, p. 321, 1995.

D. Eltis, “New estimates of exports from Barbados amd Jamaica, 1665-1701”, The William and Mary Quarterly, vol. 52, p. 631, 1995.

D. Eltis, “The Relative Importance of Slaves and Commodities in the Atlantic Trade of Seventeenth-Century Africa”, The Journal of African History, vol. 35, pp. 237-249, 1994.

D. Eltis, “IV The Relative Importance of Slaves and Commodities in the Atlantic Trade of Seventeenth-Century Africa”, Journal of African History, vol. 35, pp. 237-250, 1994.

D. Eltis, “Seventeenth-century west African trade: The relative importance of slaves and commodities in the Atlantic trade of seventeenth-century Africa”, Journal of African History, vol. 35, p. 237, 1994.

D. Eltis and Engerman, S. L., “Fluctuations in Sex and Age Ratios in the Transatlantic Slave Trade, 1663-1864”, The Economic History Review, vol. 46, p. 308, 1993.

D. Eltis, “Fluctuations in sex and age ratios in the transatlantic slave trade: 1663 – 1864”, The economic history review, vol. 46, pp. 308-323, 1993.

D. Eltis, “Europeans and the rise and fall of African slavery in the Americas: An interpretation”, The American Historical Review, vol. 98, p. 1399, 1993.

D. Eltis, “SHORTER NOTICES”, The English Historical Review, vol. CVIII, pp. 709-710, 1993.

D. Eltis and Engerman, S. L., “Was the Slave Trade Dominated by Men?”, The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, vol. 23, p. 237, 1992.

D. Eltis, “The Dutch in the Atlantic Slave Trade 1600–1815. By Johannes Menne Postma. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990. Pp. xiv, 428. $54.95”, The Journal of Economic History, vol. 51, pp. 484-485, 1991.

D. Eltis, “Articles on American Slavery. Vol. 2: Slave Trade and Migration: Domestic and Foreign. Edited by Paul Finkelman. New York: Garland Publishing Inc., 1989. Pp. xx, 463. $70.00”, The Journal of Economic History, vol. 51, pp. 511-511, 1991.

D. Eltis, “THe Volume, Age/Sex Ratios, and African Impact of the Slave Trade: Some Refinements of Paul Lovejoy’s Review of the Literature”, The Journal of African History, vol. 31, pp. 485-492, 1990.

D. Eltis, “Welfare Trends Among the Yoruba in the Early Nineteenth Century: The Anthropometric Evidence”, The Journal of Economic History, vol. 50, p. 521, 1990.

D. Eltis, “Fluctuations in mortality in the last half century of the transatlantic slave trade”, Social science history, vol. 13, pp. 315-339, 1989.

D. Eltis, “Towns and Defence in Later Medieval Germany”, Nottingham Medieval Studies, vol. 33, pp. 91-103, 1989.

D. Eltis and Jennings, L. C., “Trade between Western Africa and the Atlantic World in the Pre-Colonial Era”, The American Historical Review, vol. 93, p. 936, 1988.

D. Eltis, “Latin America Slave Life in Rio de Janeiro, 1808-1850. By Mary C. Karasch. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987. Pp. xxv, 422. $85.00”, The Journal of Economic History, vol. 48, pp. 488-489, 1988.

D. Eltis, “The Economic Impact of the Ending of the African Slave Trade to the Americas”, Social and Economic Studies, vol. 37, pp. 143-172, 1988.

D. Eltis, “The Nineteenth-Century Transatlantic Slave Trade: An Annual Time Series of Imports into the Americas Broken down by Region”, The Hispanic American Historical Review, vol. 67, pp. 109-138, 1987.

D. Eltis, “World of Sorrow: The African Slave Trade to Brazil. By Robert Edgar Conrad. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1986. Pp. xv, 215. $25.00”, The Journal of Economic History, vol. 47, pp. 542-543, 1987.

D. Eltis, “Slave departures from Africa, 1811 – 1867: an annual time series”, African economic history, vol. 15, pp. 143-171, 1986.

D. Eltis, “Mortality and Voyage Length in the Middle Passage: New Evidence from the Nineteenth Century”, The Journal of Economic History, vol. 44, pp. 301-308, 1984.

D. Eltis, “Mortality and voyage length in the middle passage: new evidence from the 19. century”, The journal of economic history, vol. 44, pp. 300-308, 1984.

D. Eltis, “Free and Coerced Transatlantic Migrations: Some Comparisons”, The American Historical Review, vol. 88, pp. 251-280, 1983.

D. Eltis, “Nutritional Trends in Africa and the Americas: Heights of Africans, 1819-1839”, The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, vol. 12, pp. 453-475, 1982.

D. Eltis, “The French Slave Trade in the Eighteenth Century: An Old Regime Business. By Robert Louis Stein. Madison, Wis. and London: University of Wisconsin Press, 1980. Pp. xvii, 250. $20.00”, The Journal of Economic History, vol. 40, pp. 876-877, 1980.

D. Eltis, “British Slave Trade Suppression Policies, 1821–1865. By E. Phillip LeVeen. Dissertations in European Economic History. New York: Arno Press, 1977. Pp. x, 186. $18.00”, The Journal of Economic History, vol. 39, pp. 574-575, 1979.

D. Eltis, “Liverpool, the African Slave Trade, and Abolition: Essays to Illustrate Current Knowledge and Research. Edited by Roger Anstey and P. E. H. Hair. Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire Occasional Series, vol. 2. Bristol: Western Printing Services Ltd”, The Journal of Economic History, vol. 37, pp. 1040-1041, 1977.

D. Eltis, “The Export of Slaves from Africa, 1821–1843”, The Journal of Economic History, vol. 37, pp. 409-433, 1977.

D. Eltis, “The export of slaves from Africa, 1821-1843”, The journal of economic history, vol. 37, pp. 409-433, 1977.

Additional

D. Eltis, “The Final Victims: Foreign Slave Trade to North America, 1783-1810”, Journal of Social History, vol. 40. pp. 237-239, 2006.

D. Eltis, “Beyond Slavery: Explorations of Race, Labor, and Citizenship in Postemancipation Societies”, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, vol. 32. pp. 341-342, 2001.

D. Eltis, “Jews, Slaves, and the Slave Trade: Setting the Record Straight”, The American Historical Review, vol. 105. pp. 886-887, 2000.

D. Eltis, “Jews, Slaves, and the Slave Trade: Setting the Record Straight”, The American Historical Review, vol. 105. pp. 886-887, 2000.

D. Eltis, “Height, Health and History: Nutritional Status in the United Kingdom, 1750-1980”, Labour / Le Travail, vol. 28. pp. 374-376, 1991.

D. Eltis, “Way of Death: Merchant Capitalism and the Angolan Slave Trade, 1730-1830”, The American Historical Review, vol. 95. pp. 1262-1263, 1990.

D. Eltis, “Searching for the Invisible Man: Slaves and Plantation Life in Jamaica”, The Economic History Review, vol. 32. pp. 447-448, 1979.

D. Eltis, “Econocide: British Slavery in the Era of Abolition”, The Business History Review, vol. 52. pp. 402-403, 1978.