The legacies of slavery in and out of Africa

The slave trades out of Africa represent one of the most significant forced migration experiences in history. In this paper I illustrate their long-term consequences. I first consider the influence of the slave trade on the “sending” countries in Africa, with attention to their economic, institutional, demographic, and social implications. Next I evaluate the consequences of the slave trade on the “receiving” countries in the Americas. Here I distinguish between the case of Latin America and that of the United States. For the latter, I further discuss the subsequent migration experiences of the Second Middle Passage, when African slaves were transported, again forcibly, from the coastal regions to the inland, and of the Great Migration, when as free people they chose to leave the deep South for the Northern cities. University of Modena and Reggio Emilia and IZA. Address: Dipartimento di Economia Marco Biagi, Viale Berengario, 51, I-41121 Modena, Italy. Phone: +39(0)59 2056856. E-mail: [email protected]. Web: http://www.economia.unimore.it/bertocchi_graziella. This paper has been prepared for presentation as the Julian Simon Lecture at the 12th IZA Annual Migration Meeting in Dakar in April 2015. I would like to thank Arcangelo Dimico, my co-author for most of the papers of mine that are cited in this lecture.