We wanted to continue our method by applying it specifically to the "infinitely rare" Borno captives in Saint Domingue. The only detailed source on the Bornoan presence among Saint Domingue's African population comes from the French naturalist Descourtilz, who described those of the Rossignol Desdunes plantation in the Artibonite region. We are only told "plusiers" of this nation were present in the area. Checking the runaway slave ads posted in Saint-Domingue's newspaper only revealed 2 Borno captives, one of whom actually ran away in a group with 3 Hausa males. However, with very rough estimates based on the share of reported Borno maroons, we can perhaps get a clearer picture of their total numbers in the colony.
First, as only 2 out of 12,857 individuals reported in the press as runaways, we know Bornoans only represented about 0.015% of the maroons. If that proportion was similar to their share in the total population, we can estimate a total Bornoan population of about 78 to 124. Since their presence is only attested rather late in the colonial period, we prefer to base the estimate on the slave population in 1789-1791. Using an estimate of about 500,000 for the slave population in 1790 (although Geggus has suggested perhaps as many as 510,000) would mean that perhaps 78 were of the Borno nation. Of this estimate, it is probable that several died during the "seasoning" period of their adjustment to colonial slavery in the Caribbean. However, a total estimate of about 78 (possibly far less due to the paucity of documented Borno maroons) is at least somewhat plausible. After all, if a total of 153,057 slaves in the colony were imported on French ships from the Bight of Benin, 78 would represent less than 1% of that total. It is at least historically plausible that, in the second half of the 18th century, that 0.05% or so of the African captives from the Bight of Benin may have ultimately come from Borno.
The figure of 78, again, is only a very rough estimate. But it might be consistent with perhaps a handful of large continents of Bornoans being sold to Europeans on the coast. Alternatively, the number could also be the result of small numbers of Borno captives being sold to traders at Porto Novo or Ouidah or Badagry over a long period of time. Once one takes into account the high mortality rate among African slaves, this general estimate of 78 could be significantly reduced to possibly as low as 39 or even fewer Bornoans, split among slaveholders in the Artibonite region and other parts of the colony.