When Your Slave Trade Math Don’t Math
You Might Try Starting With the Right Numbers
Stephanie Donegan is a Republican candidate for the District 21 State Senate seat in a suburb North of Atlanta, GA. Donegan is running in a crowded special election against six other Republicans and a single Democrat. She recently shared a post on social media disavowing the Transatlantic Slave Trade. That post, as of August 19, 2025, has received over 82,000 likes and almost 14,000 comments.
Donegan believes that 12.5 million slaves couldn't have been transported across the Atlantic in the timeframe of the slave trade. Her impressive math says that over 350 years, slavers would have had to average 37,500 enslaved people annually, she stated the average load was between 250 to 350 captives each trip. She estimated it would take one slave ship leaving Africa every three days without fail, for the whole 350 years.
Donegan calculated the number of boats required, captains, and crew, and considered factors such as disease, pirates, rebellion…
