91 MARVELLOUS DISPARITY OF RESULTS. been the respective destiny of each? How are they now represented? The answer involves results so extraordinary, at first sight so incredible,—and, in effect, even when thoroughly examined, so difficult of satisfactory explanation,-that I have devoted much time and labor to the critical revision of the materials whence my conclusions are drawn, before venturing to place them on record. This is the answer. THE HALF-MILLION SHIPPED FOR NORTH AMERICA HAVE INCREASED NEARLY NINEFOLD,— being represented in 1860 by a population exceeding four millions four hundred thousand; while THE FIFTEEN MILLIONS SENT TO THE WEST INDIAN COLONIES AND TO SOUTHERN AMERICA HAVE DIMINISHED, FROM AGE TO AGE, until they are represented now by LESS THAN HALF THEIR ORIGINAL NUMBER!* How marvellous, beyond all human preconception, are these results! Had the fifteen millions whose lot was cast in the southern portion of our hemisphere increased in the same proportion as the half-million who *Those who may be tempted to object to this latter calculation, as based in part on approximating estimates, would do well to bear in mind that it is fully borne out by another calculation, already given (pages 63, 64, ante), and which is based upon official tables alone,—a calculation covering a period of seventy-four years in the last century, and extending to the entire negro population of the largest English West Indian colony, Jamaica, throughout these seventy-four years: the results, in condensed view, being as follows:- Negroes in Jamaica in 1702.......... 41,596 Negroes imported from 1702 to 1775................ 497,736 Leaving in the island imported slaves....... 360,722 Total in 1775, if population had been stationary............ 402,318 192,787 Showing a reduction, in three-quarters of a century, in the negro popu lation of Jamaica, of more than one-half. AN UNNATURAL ELEMENT INTRODUCED. 95 were carried to its northern continent, their descendants, instead of dwindling to half, would have been today a multitude numbering more than a hundred and thirty millions of men! CHAPTER IX. TOUCHING THE CAUSES OF CERTAIN MARVELLOUS RESULTS. WHAT is the explanation of this startling marvel? Is it to be found solely in the greater humanity with which the negroes of the United States have been treated, as compared with those of other slave coun tries? A little research will show us that there were other causes in operation to produce these strange results,causes chiefly due to the fact that the slave-trade to the United States was brief in its duration and unimportant in its operations, compared to the slave-trade to the West Indies and South America. But wherever the operations of the slave-trade. are of great magnitude, the effect is to check the natural increase of the slave population on plantations. In the first place, it introduces an unnatural element into that population, which it is proper here to set forth. And to this element a portion of the decrease in the negro population of the countries to which these estimates extend is indisputably to be ascribed. The abnormality referred to is the uniform practice of dealers, in selecting cargoes of negroes on the African coast, to purchase a considerably larger proportion of males than females. All the witnesses agree in the fact, though they differ as to the motive. Some testify 96 AN AVERAGE OF FIVE MALE SLAVES that it was more difficult to procure salable women than men; ascribing this to various causes,—as, to the prevalence of polygamy in Africa, to the fact that there were fewer female criminals than male criminals, also that as to the chief offence for which criminals were sold to slavery, namely, adultery, "it was sometimes pardoned in the women, but never in the men."* Other witnesses, however, affirm that there was no difficulty in procuring as many female slaves as males. Mr. Eldrid, captain of a slaver from Rhode Island, testifies, "Female slaves can be procured on the coast with more facility than male slaves." The true motive is probably given by a slave-surgeon, Mr. Falconbridge, who deposes, "On the coast of Africa the captains of slave-ships never wish to purchase more than one-third females. The planters in the West Indies, in many cases, prefer males, because they lose the labor of a female in the latter end of pregnancy and for a little time afterwards." Most of the witnesses state the usual proportion between the two to be three males for one female. The Rev. Mr. Newton says, "The number of male slaves purchased usually exceeded that of the females in the proportion of four to three, and sometimes of two to three."S The exact average proportion appears to have been between these two rates. In the Report of the Jamaica House of Assembly, already quoted from, in which this * Testimony of Mr. Miles, Lords' Report, Part I. Sheet O. Mr. Weaver (same page) says, "Few women are sold for any other crime than adultery, and that is very often forgiven them." † Lords' Report, Part I. Sheet N, 6. Ibid. Mr. Falconbridge made five voyages as surgeon. ? Ibid. | Page 57, ante. TO THREE FEMALE SLAVES IMPORTED. 97 disparity in the numbers of the sexes is adduced as a chief cause of the decrease in their slave population, tables are given showing the exact proportion in the case of forty-nine thousand one hundred and thirty-five negroes imported by the chief negro-factors into Kingston from 1764 to 1788. Of these, thirty thousand six hundred and thirty-six were male and eighteen thousand five hundred and thirty-nine were female; the relative proportion being, as nearly as may be, five males to three females. Of each one thousand negroes imported, then, there were, on the average, six hundred and twenty-five men and three hundred and seventy-five women. Each thousand, therefore, was only equal, so far as power of reproduction was concerned, to a population of three hundred and seventy-five men and three hundred and seventy-five women; in other words, to a normally constituted population of seven hundred and fifty. It follows that as to any given West Indian or other slave population, kept up by constant supplies through the slave-trade, we must deduct twenty-five per cent., or, in other words, take three-fourths only of its nominal amount, on which to estimate its power of natural increase.* To this extent, then, the decrease of population in the West Indies and South America is not to be wholly ascribed to the more cruel treatment or more oppress *The Committee of the Jamaica House of Assembly from whose Report the above is extracted, fall into a remarkable error. They deduct from the whole number imported two-fifths, "to bring the sexes to an equality;" that would be forty per cent.,-reducing each thousand to six hundred. But, as each thousand contained three hundred and seventy-five women, it was evidently equal in power of reproduction to a population of three hundred and seventy-five men and three hundred and seventy-five women; in other words, to an ordinary population of seven hundred and fifty. 98 EFFECTS OF DISTURBANCE OF NATURAL LAW. ive labor to which the slaves were subjected by the planters, but to the policy pursued by the African slavetraders in selecting their human cargoes. That such a disturbance of a great natural law must have produced immoral results, in an aggravated form, cannot be doubted. As little doubtful is it that this immorality was carried to an excess which still further diminished the rate of natural increase. As, however, it must be supposed that the slavetraders brought to the market precisely the assortment of cargo which they found the most salable, the above abuse is chargeable indirectly to the planters themselves. Had they desired on their plantations an equal number of each sex, the slave-dealer would doubtless have found means to supply it.* The slave-trade had another, still more sinister, influence. It is beyond a doubt that wherever that trade prevailed it tended directly to aggravate the condition and to shorten the lives of the plantation slaves. This happened because it increased the temptation to cruelty and overwork. An author who resided twenty years in Brazil, and who has dealt tenderly with slavery, confesses :— "Until 1850, when the slave-trade was effectually put down, it was considered cheaper on the country plantations to use up a slave in five or seven years and "Many of the largest and best sugar-estates on the island of Cuba belong to the different ecclesiastical orders. Under the mask of discouraging a vicious intercourse of the sexes, some of them religiously resolved to purchase only male negroes,-a devout austerity which would appear to have originated in the idea that men can do more work than women. Deprived of connections resulting from one of the chief laws of nature, and driven to desperation, the unhappy negroes, not unlike the first Romans, have been known to fly to the neighboring estates, seize on the women and carry them off to the mountains."-History of the Maroons, by R. C. Dallas, London, 1803, vol. ii. p. 60. |