Good luck in your pursuit of answers, but remember that it is always a good thing to have a few really good unanswerable questions in your mind. It makes you think, wonder, reflect, connect, and refine your knowledge base until you come up with something that is plausible. And then if it still intrigues you, you think, wonder, reflect, connect, and refine some more until you come up with something better. Oh, learning is so much fun!

slave trade resulted in a vast and as yet still unknown loss of life for African captives both in and outside of America. Approximately 8 million Africans were killed during their storage, shipment and initial landing in the New World.[33] The amount of life lost in the actual procurement of slaves remains a mystery but may equal or exceed the amount actually enslaved.[34] These figures would indicate the total number of deaths at around 16 million.

I hope that is a good enough answer.